true In Barnewell neare to Cambridge one at the signe of the Plough a lusty young man with two of his neighbours and one woman in their company agreed to drinke a barrell of strong beere they drunke up the vessell three of them died within foure and twenty houres the fourth hardly escaped after great sicknesse This I have under a Justice of Peace his hand neare dwelling besides the common fame A Butcher in Haslingfield hearing the Minister inveigh against drunkennesse being at his cups in an Ale-house fell a scoffing at the Minister and his Sermons As he was drinking the drinke or something in the cup quackned him and stuck so in his throat that he could neither get it up not downe but strangled him presently At Tillingham in Dengy hundred in Essex three young men meeting to drinke strong waters fell by degrees to halfe pintes one fell downe dead in the roome and the other prevented by company comming in escaped not without much sicknesse At Bungey in Norfolke three comming out of an Ale-house in a very darke evening swore they thought it was not darker in hell it selfe one of them fell off the bridge into the water and was drowned the second fell off his horse the third sleeping on the ground by the river side was frozen to death This have I often heard but have no certaine ground for the truth of it A Bay life of Hedly upon the Lords day being drunke at Melford would needs get upon his mare to ride through the street affirming as the report goes that his mare would carry him to the Devill his mare casts him off and broke his necke Instantly reported by sundry sufficient witnesses Company drinking in an Ale-house at Harwich in the night over against one Master Russels and by him once or twice willed to depart at length he came downe and tooke one of them and made as he would carry him to prison who drawing his knife fled from him and was three dayes after taken out of the sea with the knife in his hand Related to me by Master Russel himselfe Maior of the town At Tenby in Pembroke-shire a drunkard being exceeding drunke broke himselfe all to pieces from an high and steep rock in a most fearefull manner and yet the occasion and circumstances of his fall so ridiculous as I thinke not fit to relate least in so serious a judgement I should move laughter to the Reader A Glasier in Chancery lane in London noted formerly for profession fell to a common course of drinking whereof being oft by his wife and many Christian friends admonished yet presuming much of Gods mercy to himselfe continued therein till upon a time having surcharged his stomacke with drinke he fell a vomiting broke a veine lay two dayes in extreame paine of body and distresse of minde till in the end recovering a little comfort died Both these examples were related to me by a Gentleman of worth upon his owne knowledge Foure sundry instances of drunkennesse wallowing and tumbling in their drinke slaine by carts I forbeare to mention because such examples are so common and ordinary A Yeomans sonne in Northampton-shire being drunke at Wellingbrough on a market day would needs ride his horse in a brayery over the ploughed lands fell from his horse and brake his necke Reported to me by a kinsman of his owne A Knight notoriously given to drinke carrying sometime payles of drinke into the open field to make people drunke withall being upon a time drinking with company a woman comes in delivering him a ring with this poesie Drinke and die saying to him This is for you which he tooke and wore and within a week after came to his end by drinking Reported by sundry and justified by a Minister dwelling within a mile of the place One of Aylesham in Norfolke a notorious drunkard was drowned in a shallow brooke of water with his horse by him Two examples have I knowne of children that murdered their owne mothers in drinke and one notorious drunkard that attempted to kill his father of which being hindered he fired his barne and was afterward executed one of these formerly in print At a Taverne in Bread-street in London certaine Gentlemen drinking healths to their Lords on whom they had dependance one desperate wretch steps to the tables end layes hold on a pottle pot full of Canarie Sacke sweares a deepe oath What will none here drinke a health to my noble Lord and Master and so setting the pottle pot to his mouth drinks it off to the bottome but was not able to rise up or to speake when he had done but fell into a deepe snoaring sleepe and being removed laid aside and covered by one of the servants in the house attending the time of his waking was within the space of two houres irrecoverably dead Witnessed at the time of the printing hereof by the same servant that stood by him in the act and helpe to remove him In Dengy hundred neare Mauldon about the beginning of his Majesties reigne there fell out an extraordinary judgement upon five or six that plotted a solemne drinking at one of their houses laid in Beere for the purpose drunke healths in a strange manner and died thereof within a few weekes some sooner and some later Witnessed to me by some that was with one of them on his death-bed to demand a debt and oftentimes spoken of by Master Heydâ—n late Preacher of Mauldon in the hearing of many the particular circumstances were exceeding remarkable but having not sufficient proofe for the particulars I will not report them A man in Suffolke overtaken with wine though never in all his life before as he himselfe said a little before his fall seeming to bewaile his present condition and others that knew him so say of him yet going downe a paire of staires against the perswasion of a woman sitting by him in his chamber fell and was so dangerously hurt as he died soone after not being able to speake from the time of his fall to his death The names of the parties thus punished I for beare for the kindreds sake yet living These examples before going are taken out of the report of that worthy Preacher of Gods word in Ipswich Master Samuel Ward in his Sermon called A woe to Drunkards to the which I will adde one more of mine owne knowledge lately executed A young Gentleman of good fame credit and behaviour being in July last overtaken by drinke and riding homeward void of wit and feare was throwne by his horse and his braines knocked out with the pummell of his sword An example more remarkable for two causes first because he was not formerly given to that vice and secondly in that a friend of his meeting him by the way intreated him that he would ride softly and he would conduct him home but he desperately spurring his horse over rough wayes was thus overthrowne and perished but I hope God had mercy on his soule Saint Augustine in
that siâ—ted Peter and buffered Paul But to leave the Holy Scripture Philip Melancthon reporteth That he heard of two men credible and faith-faith-worthy that a certain Bottonian young woman two yeares after her death returned againe to humane shape and went up and downe in the house and sate at meate with them but eate little This young seeming woman being at a time amongst other virgines a certaine Magitian came in skilfull in diabolicall Arts who said to the beholders This woman is but a dead carkasse carried about by the Devill and presently he tooke from under her right arme-hole the charme which hee had no sooner done but she fell downe a dead filthie carkasse Martin Luther reporteth the like of a woman at Erford in Germany who being animated by the Devill accompanied a young student that was in love with her and went up and downe divers yeares but at last the Devill being cast out by the prayers of the Church she returned to a dead and filthie carkasse The same Luther in his Colloquies telleth us how Sathan oftentimes stealeth away young children of women lying in child-bed and supposteth others of their owne begetting in their stead in the shapes of Incubus and Sucoâ—bus one such childe Luther reporteth of his owne knowledge at Halbersted which being carried by the parents to the Temple of the Virgine Mary to be cured the Devill asked the childe being in a basket upon the river whither it was going the young infant answered That hee was going to the Virgin Mary whereupon the father threw the basket and the childe into the river The like hee reporteth of another at Pessovia which representing in all lineaments a humane shape it was nothing else but a meere elusion of the Devill this childe saith he delighted in nothing but in stuffing it selfe with food and egesting the same in a filthy manner but was discovered and disrobed and cast out by the Prayers of the Church At Babylon in the Temple of Apollo a souldier breaking open a golden Chest there flew out such a pestilent spirit that infected the whole world with the plague thus Aventine lib. 2. cap. 17. Bruno the Bishop of Herbipolis accompanying the Emperour through an arme of the Sea heard this voyce sounding in his eares Ho Ho thou Bishop I am thy Malus Genius and whithersoever thou goest thou art mine at this time I have no power to hurt thee but thou shalt see me shortly againe and so it came to passe For not long after being in a roome with divers others part of the roofe fell downe and flew this wicked Bishop alone all the rest remaining safe and sound Vrbanus Regius in a Sermon at Wittenberge Anno 1538 concerning good and bad Angels relateth a storie of a certaine young maide possessed by the Devill for whom when prayers were made in the Church he seemed to be quiet for the time as if he were departed out of her watching an opportunity to do her further mischiefe as he did indeed for when as lesse care was taken of her supposing her to be found shee going to wash her hands at the brinke of a river running by the Devill tumbled her headlong in and drowned her in a fearefull manner Platina Nauclerus and other Historiographers write of Pope Bennet the ninth who died in the yeare 1405 that hee appeared or the Devill for him in a prodigious and bestiall forme like a Beare in his body and in his head and tayle like an Asse and when he was asked by some Why he shewed himselfe in so ougly a shape answered That this shape was imposed upon him for his wicked and bestiall behaviour when he was alive In the hill countries of Bohemia there used to appeare an evill Spirit in the habit and shape of a Monk whom the countrie people called Rubezall This devillish Monke used to joyne himselfe unto travellers over those hils and to bid them be of good courage for hee would lead them the right way thorow the woods but when as he had purposely led them out of the way so that they could not tell which way to turne themselves he would leapâ— into a tree and laugh at them with such a loud noyse that the whole wood would ring of him This was a morrie Devill such as our Robin-Goodfellow is said to be but yet in his mirth hee alwayes affected mischiefe Theat Hist. pag. 120. Chunibert King of Lumbardie consulted with one of his trusty counsellours about putting to death his two brothers Aldo and Grauso Whilest they were thus consulting in a by-window there sate a great flie by them one of the feet whereof the King with his knife which he had in his hand cut off in the meane while Aldo and Grauso entering into the Pallace met with a man with one of his feet cut off who told them the King was purposed to slay them if they passed on whereupon they returned and hid themselves in the Temple of Romanus the Martyr The King hearing thereof was much troubled how his Counsell might be revealed and charged his Privie Counsellours with infidelity But the Counsellour answered That hee had not departed from his presence since the matter was contrived but there sate a flie whose foot they cut off which no question was the Devill as it was had revealed this secret in the shape of a man Hereupon the King was reconciled to his brethren and embraced them with love ever after Thus the Devill sometimes doth good but it is with an intent of greater mischiefe Et sinon aliquâ nocuisset mortuus esset Cronica Hedion While certaine Mariners were sayling in the Sea a Monster was taken by them in every thing like unto a woman which being detained in the ship a good while one of the Mariners fell in love with her tooke her to his wife and begot one childe of her after three yeares they returning to the same place againe where the same Monster was taken this woman-Devill leaped into the Sea with her childe in her armes the childe was drowned but shee vanished away Thus it is easie for the Devill to take upon him the shape of a man or a woman Ex Colloquiis Lutheri A certaine Nobleman invited Martin Luther and other learned men to his house the Nobleman after dinner went out a hunting where a Hare of great bignesse and a Fox of great swiftnesse offered themselves unto his hounds The Nobleman riding upon a good horse followed them amaine but his horse falling downe under him dyed and the Hare vanished into the aire This was certainly a diabolicall delusion Luther The same Luther writeth That certaine Noblemen riding a race they cryed out let the last bee the Devils one of the Noblemen having a spare horse hasted forward with the rest of his company but his horse that was leâ—t free came softly behinde and was carried up by the Devill into the aire The Devill is not to be invited for he is ready to come uncalled Philip
committed all these outrages he was repulsed with dishonour from the city of Elymais in Persia which he went about to spoile and rob and forced to fly to Babylon where after tidings of the overthrow of his two armies in Iudea with griefe and despight he ended his dayes Antiochus the sonne of this wretched father succeeding him as in his kingdome so in wickednesse perjury and disloyalty when to the end to consult about his owne affaires he concluded a peace with the Iewes and by solemne oath as well of himselfe as his princes confirmed the free exercise of their Religion behold suddenly he falsied his plighted and sworne faith and undid all that ever he had done but it was not long ere hee also was overtaken by the army of Demetrius and together with Lysias his Governour put to death A while after reigned Alexander his brother who whilest he was encombred with the troubles of Cilicla that revolted from him the King of Aegypt his father in law came traiterously to forestall him of his kingdome tooke his wife and gave her to hiâ— deadliest enemy and afterward gave him battell discomfited his forces and drove him to fly into Arabia for safety where in stead of helpe he found an hatchet to chop off his head which was sent for a Present to gratifie the King of Aegypt withall Not long after Antiochus his sonne recovered the Scepter of his Father but alas his raigne endured but a small space for being yet but a young childe hee was slaine by Tryphon in the way as he led him to warre against the Iewes And thus perished the cursed race of Antiochus which felt Gods wrath upon it even in the third generation Antiochus the sonne of Demetrius of whom mention was made but a little before after hee had chased Tryphon from the kingdome of Asia which he usurped and broken the league which he had made with the Iewes gave himselfe wholly to worke them mischiefe Therefore comming against Ierusalem he tooke it by force commanding his souldiers to put all to death that were within the same so that within three days there was such a massacre of young and old men women and children that the number of the slaine arose to foure score thousand carkasses After this having executed many more villanies against this people in so much as to make them renounce the law of God putting them cruelly to death that did not obey his commandement it came to passe that this cruell tyrant was first of all put to flight by the inhabitants of Persepolis a city of Persia for going aboue to rob their temple of their treasures next endamaged by an overthrow of his army in Iudaea which hee no sooner understood but he tooke counsell in his fury how to be revenged of Ierusalem and belched forth bitter threats against it But in the meane time the Lord stroke him with a sudden and incurable plague and surprised him with a horrible torment of his entrails Howbeit for all this he ceased not his malicious enterprise but hasted forward his journey towards the Iewes with such cagernesse that in the way he fell out of his chariot and bruised so his body that it became putrified and so full of corruption that very vermine scrawled out thereof and the rotten flesh dropping piecemeale away no man no not himselfe being able to endure the stinch thereof Then was he constrained in the midst of his torments to confesse that it was meet that he should submit himself unto God that he which is mortall ought not to exalt himselfe so high as to compare with the immortall God and in this estate this reprobate ended his wicked dayes by a strange and most miserable kind of death CHAP. IX Of those that persecuted the Sonne of God and his Church IF they who in the law injured and persecuted the Church of God were punished according to their deserts as we have already heard is it any marvell then if the enemies and persecuters of our Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which labour by all means to discountenance and frustrate his Religion and to oppresse his Church doe feele the heavy and fearefull vengeance of God upon them for their very wickednesse and unbelieâ—e No verily for he that honoureth not the Sonne honoureth not the Father which sent him and is guilty therefore before God of impiety and prophanenesse From this hainous crime King Herod in no wise can be exempted that caused all the Infants of Bethlehem of two yeares old and under to be cruelly murthered in hope thereby to put the true Messias and Saviour of the world to death For which deed accompained with many other strange cruelties as by killing the ordinary Iudges of the house of David and his owne wife and children this Caitise was tormented with sundry intolerable griefes and at last devoured by an horrible and most fearefull death For as Iosephus reporteth his body was boyled and his bowels gnawne in two by a soft and slow fire fretting inwardly without any outward appearance of heate besides the ravenous and insatiable desire of eating which so possessed him that without chewing his meat in whole lumps descended into his body devouring it so fast as it could be throwne into his mouth and never ceasing to farse his greedy throat with continuall sustenance moreover his feet were so swolne and pust up with such a flegme that a man might see through them his privy parts so rotten and full of vermine and his breath so stinking that few or none durst approach neer unto him yea his owne servants for sooke him Now lying in this wretched plight when this wicked man saw no remedy could be found to asswage his griefe hee went about to kill himselfe and being not able to performe it he was constrained to endure all the pangs of a most horrible lingring and languishing death and at last mad and miserable bestraught of sense and reason to end his dayes As for Herod the Tetrarch sirnamed Antipas who to please Herodias had caused Iohn Baptist to be beheaded when hee had likewise prepared snares for our Saviours feet and being sent to him by Pilate to quit himself and gratifie him withall had jeasted and mocked at him his belly full behold his reproaches and mockes was he never so subtle turned into his owne bosome for first after that his army had been discomfited by the souldiers of King Aretas whose daughter in regard of Herodias his brother Philips wife he had repudiated a further shame and dishonour befell him even to be deprived of his Royall dignity and not only to be brought into a low and base estate but also being robbed of his goods to be banished into a farre countrey and there to make an end of the rest of his life As touching Pilate the governour of Iudea he did so excell in wickednesse and injustice that notwithstanding the restraint of his owne conscience the law of civill equity
the Bishop of Eureux his house which was accordingly executed This happened in the yeare 1453. In the raigne of the same King 1457 there was a certaine Curate of a village neere to Soissons who to revenge himselfe of a Farmer that retained from him the tenths which were appointed to the Knights of the Rhodes went to a Witch of whom he received in gift a fat toad in an earthen pot which she had a long while fed and brought up which she commanded him to baptise as he also did and called it by the name of Iohn albeit I tremble to recite so monstrous and vile a fact yet that every man might see how deadly besotted those sort of people are that give themselves over to Satan and with what power of errour he overwhelmeth them and beside how full of malice this uncleane spirit is that as it were in despight of God would prophane the holy Sacrament of Baptisme This good holy Curate after he had consecrated the holy host gave it also to the toade to eat and afterward restored it to the Witch again who killing the toade and cutting it in pieces with other such like sorceries caused a young wench to carry it secretly into the Farmers house and to put it under the table as they were at dinner whereupon immediately the Farmer and his children that were at the table fell suddenly sicke and three dayes after died the Witch her selfe being detected was burned but the Curate suffered onely a little imprisonment in the Bishop of Paris house and that not long for what with friendship and money he was soone delivered Froissard who was Treasurer and Canon of Chymay reporteth of another Curate in the countrey of Beare under Charles the seventh that had a familiar spirit which hee called Orthon whose helpe hee used to the disturbance of the Lord of Corosse by causing a terrible noise to bee heard every night by him and his servants in his castle because the said Lord withheld his tythes from him and converted them to his owne use In the yiare 1530 at Nuremburg a certaine Priest studied Art Magick and being very covetous of gold and silver the Devill whom hee served shed him through a Chrystall certaine treasures hidden in the city he by and by greedy of this rich prey went to that part of the city where hee supposed it to have lien buried and being arrived at the place with a companion whom he brought to this pretty pastime fell a searching and digging up a hollow pit untill he perceived a coffer that lay in the bottome of the hole with a great blacke dog lying by it whither he was no sooner entred but the earth fell downe and filled up the hole and smothered and crushed him to death So this poore Priest was entrapped and rewarded by his master no otherwise than he deserved but otherwise than he expected or looked for Howbeit they are not onely simple Priests and Friers that deale with these cursed Arts but even Popes themselves Silvester the second as Platina and others report was first a conjuring Frier and gave himselfe to the Devill upon condition he might be Pope as he was indeed and having obtained his purpose as it seemed he began earnestly to desire to know the day wherein he should die which also his Schoolmaster the Devill revealed unto him but under such doubtfull tearmes that he dreamed in his foolish conceit of immortality and that he should never die It chanced on a time as he was singing Masse at Rome in a Temple called Ierusalem which was the place assigned him to die in and not Ierusalem in Palestina as he made himselfe falsly to beleeve he heard a great noise of Devils that came to fetch him away note that this was done in Masse while whereat he being terrified and tormented and seeing himselfe not able any way to escape hee desired his people to rend his body in pieces after his death and lay it upon a charriot and let horses draw it whither they would which was accordingly performed for as soone as he was dead the pieces of his carkasse were carried out of the Church of Laterane by the wicked spirit who as he ruled him in life so he was the chiefe in his death and funerals By like means came Benedict the ninth to the Popedome for he was a detestable Magitian and in the ten yeares wherein he was Pope having committed infinite villanies and mischiefs was at last by his familiar friend the Devill strangled to death in a forrest whither he went to apply himselfe the more quieter to his conjurings Gregory the sixth scholler to Silvester as great a conjurer as his master wrought much misery in his time but was at last banished Rome and ended his life in misery in Germany Iohn the two and twentieth being of no better disposition than these we have spoken of but following judiciall astrology sed himselfe with a vain hope of long life whereof he vaunted himselfe among his familiars one day above the rest at Viterbum in a chamber which he had lately builded saying that he should live a great while he was assured of it presently the floore brake suddenly in pieces and he was found seven daies after crushed to pieces under the ruines thereof All this notwithstanding yet other Popes ceased not to suffer themselves to be infected with this execrable poison as Hildebrand who was called Gregory the seventh and Alexander the sixth of which kinde we shall see a whole legend in the next booke Doe but marke these holy Fathers how abhominable they were to be in such sort given over to Satan Cornelius Agrippa a great Student in this cursed Art and a man famous both by his owne works and others report for his Necromancy went alwaies accompanied with an evill spirit in the similitude of a blacke dogge but when his time of death drew neer and he was urged to repentance hee tooke off the inchanted collar from the dogs neck and sent him away with these termes Get thee hence thou cursed beast which hast utterly destroyed mee Neither was the dog ever after seen some say he lept into Araris and never came out againe Agrippa himselfe died at Lyons in a base and beggarly Inne Zeroastres King of Bactria is notified to have bin the inventer of Astrology and Magicke But the Devill whose ministry he used when he was too importunate with him burned him to death Charles the seventh of France put Egedius de Raxaâ— Marshall of his Kingdome to a cruell and filthy death because he practised this Art and in the same had murthered an hundred and twenty teeming women and yong infants he caused him to be hanged upon a forke by a hot fire and roasted to death Bladud the sonne of Lud King of Britaine now called England in the yeare of the World 3100 hee that builded the city of Bath as our late Histories witnesse and also
conquered by the Normans comming with a forreine King being none of their naturall countrey In the yeare of our Lord sixe hundred threescore and eighteene Childerich King of France caused a Nobleman of his Realme called Bolyde to bee bound to a stake and there beaten to death without the pretence of any just crime or accusation against him For which cruelty his Lords and Commons being grievously offended conspired together and slew him and his wife as they were hunting In the raigne of Edward the second and Edward the third Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much humane bloud but he was also justly recompenced in the end first he murdered King Edward the second lying in Barkeley Castle to the end he might as it was supposed enjoy Isabel his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity Secondly he caused Edward the third to conclude a dishonorable peace with the Scots by restoring them all their ancient writings charters and patents whereby the Kings of Scotland had bound themselves to be feudaries to the Kings of England Thirdly he accused Edmund Earle of Kent uncle to King Edward of treason and caused him unjustly to bee put to death And lastly he conspi redagainst the King to worke his destruction for which and divers other things that were laid to his charge he was worthily and justly beheaded In the reigne of Henry the sixt Humfrey the good duke of Gloucester and faithfull protectour of the King by the meanes of certaine malicious persons to wit the Queene the Cardinall of Winchester and especially the Marquesse of Suffolke as it was supposed was arrested cast into hold and strangled to death in the Abbey of Bure For which cause the Lords hand of judgement was upon them all for the Marquesse was not onely banished the land for the space of five yeares but also banished out of his life for ever for as hee sailed towards France hee was met withall by a Ship of Warre and there presently beheaded and the dead corps cast up at Dover that England wherein he had committed the crime might be a witnesse of his punishment The Queene that thought by this meanes to preserve her husband in honour and her selfe in estate thereby both lost her husband and her state her husband lost his realme and the Realme lost Anjou Normandy with all other places beyond the sea Calice onely excepted As for the Cardinall who was the principall artificer of all this mischiefe he lived not long after and being on his death bed murmured and grudged against God asking wherefore hee should die having so much wealth and riches and saying That if the whole Realme would save his life he was able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it but death would not be bribed for all his aboundant treasure he died miserably more like a Heathen than a Christian without any shew of repentence And thus was the good Dukes death revenged upon the princiall procurers thereof As the murder of a gentleman in Kent called master Arden of Feversham was most execrable so the wonderfull discovery thereof was exceeding rare This Arden being somewhat aged had to wife a young woman no lesse faire than dishonest who being in love with one Mosbie more than her husband did not onely abuse his bed but also conspired his death with this her companion for together they hired a notorious Ruffin one Blacke Will to strangle him to death with a towell as he was playing a game at tables which though secretly done yet by her owne guilty conscience and some tokens of bloud which appeared in his house was soone discovered and confessed Wherefore she her selfe was burnt at Canterbury Michael master Ardens man was hanged in chaines at Feversham Mosbie and his sister were hanged in Smithfield Greene another partner in this bloudy action was hanged in chaines in the high way against Feversham And Blacke Will the Ruffian after his first escape was apprehended and burnt on a seaffold at Flushing in Zeeland And thus all the murderers had their deserved dues in this life and what they endured in the life to come except they obtained mercy by true repentance is easie to judge CHA. XI Of the admirable discovery of Murders AS the Lord hath shewed himselfe a most just Judge in punishing most severely this horrible sinne of shedding mans bloud so hath he alwaies declared his detestation thereof and his will to have it punished by those who are in his stead upon the earth and have the sword of vengeance committed unto them by his miraculous and superhaturall detecting of such murderers from time to time who have carried their villanies so closely as the eye of man could not espy them plainely shewing thereby that the bloud of the slaine crieth to the Lord for vengeance from the earth as Abels did upon Cain and that God will have that law stand true and firme which he made almost before all other lawes He that sheddeth mans bloud by man shall his bloud be shed If I should commit to writing all the examples of this kinde which either are recorded in Authors or which dayly experience doth offer unto us it would require rather a full Booke than a short Chapter for that subject And therefore I will be content with some few and those for truth most credible and yet for strangenesse most incredible And to begin with our owne countrey About the yeare of our Lord 867 a certaine Nobleman of the Danes of the kings stock called Lothebrocus father to Inguar and Hubba entring upon a certaine time with his hawke into a cockboat alone by chance through tempest was driven with his hawke to the coast of Northfolke in England named Rodham where being found and detained he was presented to king Edmund that raigned over the East-Angles in Northfolke and Suffolke at that time The King as hee was a just and good man understanding his parentage and seeing his cause entertained him in his Court accordingly and every day more and more perceiving his activity and great dexterity in hunting and hawking bare speciall favour unto him insomuch that the Kings Faulconer bearing privy malice against him for this cause secretly as they were hunting together in a wood did murther him and threw him in a bush Lothebroke being thus murthered and shortly missed in the Kings house no tydings could be heard of him untill it pleased God to reveale the murther by his dog which continuing in the wood with the corps of his Master at sundry times came to the Court and fauned on the King so that the King suspecting some such matter at length followed the trace of the hound and was brought to the place where Lothebroke lay Whereupon inquisition being made at length by some circumstances of words and other suspitions it was knowne that he was murdered by Berikâ— the Kings Faulconer who for his punishment he was set into the same boat of Lothebroke
and stones echoed France into his eares And on this manner was his flight to Sicilie King Charles in the meane while having by force and bloodshed to terrifie the rest taken two passages that were before him the whole Realme without any great resistance yeelded it selfe unto his mercy albeit that the young King had done what he could to withstand him But at length seeing the Neapolitanes ready to rebell and himselfe in danger to be taken prisoner he fled from the Castle of Naples and with a small company got certaine Brigandines wherein he sayled to the Island Ischia thirty miles from Naples saying at his departure this verse out of the Psalmes How vaine are the watchmen and gards of that City which is not garded and watched by the Lord which he often repeated and so long as Naples was in his view And thus was cruelty punished both in Ferdinand the father and Alphonso the sonne Artaxerxes Ochus the eight King of the Persians began his raigne with thus many murders he slew two of his owne brethren first secondly Euagoras King of Cyprus his partner and associate in the kingdome thirdly he tooke Gidon traiterously and was the cause of forty thousand mens deaths that were slaine and burned therein beside many other private murders and outrages which he committed for which cause the Lord in his justice rained downe vengeance upon his head for Bagoas one of his Princes ministred such a fatall cup to his stomacke that it mortified his senses and deprived him of his unmercifull soule and life and not onely upon his head but upon his Kingdome and his sonne Arsame also for he was also poysoned by the same Bagoas and his Kingdome was translated to Darius Prince of Armenia whom when the same Bagoas went about to make taste of the same cup which his predecessors did he was taken in his owne snare for Darius understanding his pretence made him drinke up his owne poyson which he provided for him and thus murder was revenged with murder and poyson with poyson according to the Decree of the Almighty who saith Eye for eye tooth for tooth c. In the yeare of the World 3659. Morindus a most cruell and bloody minded Prince raigned here in England who for his cruelties sake came to an unhappy and bloody end for out of the Irish seas came forth a Monster which destroyed much people whereof he hearing would of his valiant courage needs fight with it and was devoured of it so that it may truly here be said that one Monster devoured another There was as Aelianus reporteth a cruell and pernicious Tyran who to the end to prevent all practises of conspiracy and treason as Tyrans are ever naturally and upon desert timerous that might be devised against him enacted this Law among his subjects That no man should conferre with another either privately or publikely upon paine of death and so indeed he abrogated all civill society For speech as it was the beginning and birth of fellowship so it is the very joynt and glue thereof but what cared he for society that respected nothing but his owne safety hee was so farre from regarding the common good that when his subjects not daring to speake signified their mindes by signes he prohibited that also and that which is yet more when not daring to speake or yet make signes they fell to weeping and lamenting their misery he came with a band of men even to restraine their teares too but the multitudes rage being justly incensed they gave him such a desperat welcome that neither he nor his followers returned one of them alive And thus his abominable cruelty came to an end together with his life and that by those meanes which is to be observed by which he thought to preserve and maintaine them both Childericus who in the yeare 697 succeeded in the Kingdome of France Theodoricke that for his negligence and sluggish government was deposed and made of a King a Frier exercised barbarous and inhumane cruelty upon his subjects for he spared neither noble or ignoble but mixtly sent them to their graves without respect of cause or justice One of the noble sort he caused to be fastened to a stake and beaten with clubbes not to death but to chastisement which monstrous cruelty so incensed the peoples mind against him that there wanted no hands to take part with this club-beaten man against the Tyran his enemie Wherefore they layed wait for him as he came one day from hunting and murdered him together with his wife great with childe no man either willing or daring to defend him Tymocrates the King or rather Tyran of the Cyrenians will give place to none in this commendation of cruelty For he afflicted his subjects with many and monstrous calamities insomuch that he spared not the priests of his gods which commonly were in reverent regard among the Heathen As the bloody death of Menalippus Apollo's priest did witnesse whom to the end to marry his faire and beautifull wife Aretaphila he cruelly put to death how beit it prospered not with him as he desired for the good woman not contented with this sacrilegious contract sought rather meanes to revenge her first husbands death than to please this new letchers humour Wherefore she assayed by poyson to effect her wish and when that prevailed not she gave a yong daughter she had to Leander the Tyrans brother to wife who loved her exceedingly but with this condition that he should by some practise or other worke the death and destruction of his brother which indeed he performed for he so bribed one of the groomes of the Tyrans chamber that by his helpe he soone rid wicked Tymocrates out of the way by a speedy and deserved death But to abridge these long discourses let us looke into all times and ages and to the histories of all Countries and Nations and we shall finde that Tyrans have ever come to one destruction or other Diomedes the Thracian King fed his horses with mans flesh as with provender but was made at last provender for his owne horses himselfe by Hercules Calippus the Athenian that slew Dion his familiar friend and deposed Dionisius the Tyran and committed many other murders amongst the people was first banished Rheginum and then living in extreame necessity slaine by Leptines and Polysperchon Clephes the second King of the Lumbards for his savage cruelty towards his subjects was slaughtered by one of his friends Damasippus that massacred so many Citizens of Rome was cut off by Scylla Ecelinus that played the Tyran at Taurisium guelding Boyes deflowring Maydes mayming Matrons of their Dugs cutting children out of their mothers bellies and killing 1200 Patavians at once that were his friends was cut short in a battell In a Word if we read and consult Histories of all Countries and times we shall find seldome or never any notorious Tyran and oppressor of his subjects that came to
prisoners to Affrica amongst the which was Eudoxia the Empresse with her two daughters Eudocia and Placidia who was the cause of all this calamity but her trechery saved not her self nor them from thraldome And thus was Rome sacked and destroyed more than ever it was before insomuch that the Romane Empire could never after recover it selfe but decayed every day and grew worse and worse These were the calamities which the adultery of Valeutinian brought upon himselfe and many others to his owne destruction and the utter ruine of the whole Empire Childericke King of France son to Merouce for laying siege to the chastity of many great Ladies of his Realme the Princes and Barons conspired against him and drove him to flie for his life Eleonor the wife to King Lewis of France he that first cut through the sea surrowes towards Jerusalem against the Turkes and Saracens would needs couragiously follow her husband in that long and dangerous voyage but how Marrie whilest he travailed night and day in perill of his life she lay at Antioch bathing her selfe in all delights and that more licentiously than the reputation or duty of a married woman required wherefore being had in suspition and evill reported of for her lewd behaviour it was thought meet that she should be divorced from the King under pretence of consanguinity to the end she should not altogether be defamed The faire daughters of Philip the faire King of France escaped not at so good a rate for the King as soone as he smelt out the haunt of their unchastity caused them to be apprehended and imprisoned presently howbeit one of them namely the Countesse of Poictiers her innocency being knowne was set at liberty and the other two to wit the Queen of Navarre and the wife of Iohn de le March being found guilty by proofe were adjudged to perpetuall imprisonment and the Adulterers two brethren of the countrey of Anjou with whom these Ladies had often lyen were first cruelly flaine and after hanged Charles son of the aforesaid Philip the faire had to wife the daughter of the Earle of Artois that also offended in the like case and in recompence received this dishonour and ignominie to be divorced and put in prison and to see him married to another before her face In the reigne of Charles the sixth there befell a notable and memorable accident which was this one Iaques le Gris of the Countrey of Alanson being enamoured with a Lady no lesse faire than honourable the wife of the Lord of Carouge came upon a day when he knew her husband to bee from home to her house and faining as if he had some secret message to unfold unto her on her husbands behalfe for their familiarity was so great entred with her all alone into a most secret chamber where as soone as he had gotten her he locked the doore and throwing himselfe upon her forced her unto his lust and afterward saved himselfe by speedy flight Her husband at his returne understanding the injury and wrong which was done him by this vile miscreant sought first to revenge himselfe by justice and therefore put his cause to be heard by the Parliament of Paris where being debated it could not well be decided because he wanted witnesses to convince the crime except his owne wives words which could not be accepted so that the Court to the end that there might some end be made of their quarrell ordained a combate betwixt them which was forthwith performed for the two duellists entering the lists fell presently to strokes and that so eagerly that in short space the quarrell was decided the Lord of Carouge husband of the wronged Lady remained conquerour after he had slaine his enemy that had wronged him so wickedly and disloyally the vanquished was forthwith delivered to the hangman of Paris who dragged him to mount Falcon and there hanged him Now albeit this forme and custome of deciding controversies hath no ground nor warrant either from humane or divine Law God having ordained only an Oath to end doubts where proofes and witnesses faile yet doubtlesse the Lord used this as an instrument to bring the treacherous and cruell Adulterer to the deserved punishment and shame which by deniall he thought to escape A certaine Seneschall of Normandy perceiving the vicious and suspitious behaviour of his wife with the Steward of his house watched them so narrowly that he tooke them in bed together he slew the Adulterer first and after his wife for not all her pittifull cryings for mercy with innumerable teares for this one fault and holding up in her armes the children which she had borne unto him no nor her house and parentage being sister to Lewis the eleventh then King could not withhold him from killing her with her companion Howbeit King Lewis never made shew of anger or offence for her death Mâ—sselâ—na the wife of Claudius the Emperour was a woman of so notable incontinency that the would contend with the common harlots in filthy pleasure at last she fell in love with a faire young Gentleman called Silius and to obtaine more commodiously her desire she caused his wife Sillana to be divorced and notwithstanding she was wife to the Emperour then living yet she openly married him for which cause after great complaint made to the Emperour by the Nobles she was worthily put to death Abusahed King of Fez was with six of his children murdered at once by his Secretary for his wives sake whom he had abused And it is not long sithence the two Cities Dalmendine and Delmedine were taken from the King of Fez and brought uâ—der the Portugals dominion only for the ravishment of a woman whom the Governour violently took from her husband to abuse and was slain for his labour CHAP. XXIX Other examples like unto the former MArie of Arragon wife to Otho the third was so unchast and lascious a woman and withall barren for they commonly goe together that she could never satisfie her unsatiable lust she carried about with her continually a young lecher in womans clothes to attend upon her person with whom she daily committed filthinesse who being suspected was in the presence of many untyred and found to be a man for which villany hee was burnt to death Howbeit the Empresse though pardoned for her fault returned to her old vomit and continued her wanton traffique with more than either desired or loved her company at last she fell in love with the County of Mutina a gallant man in personage and too honest to be allured with her stale though he was often solicited by her wherefore like a Tvgre she accused him to the Emperour for extreame love converts to extreame hatred if it be crossed of offering to ravish her against her will for which cause the Emperour Otho caused him to lose his head but his wife being privy to the innocency of her husband traversed his cause
and conspired his destruction Therefore while hee remained in this wretched state Gods Angell punished him in the person of his eldest sonne which died suddenly in one night together with all the first borne of Aegypt wherewithall both hee and all his people being greatly moved and grieved at length gave the Israelites not onely leave but also hasted them to depart but anon as he saw them going like a man bestraught he ranne after them againe and pursued them with a mighty army untill God in the meane while opening a passage for his children overthwart the deep Red sea attended him in the mid way where hee surprised and ensnared him overthrew and violently overturned the wheeles of his chariots and put his whole army to a burly burly and that he might utterly destroy him caused the sea from each side to returne to his channell which drowned and devoured him and all his army And this is one of the noblest and fearfullest judgements of God that can be mentioned and therefore is very often recounted in many places of the Scripture as a thing most memorable above others Neither ought wee to marvell if so notable a History as this is not set downe among the writings of prophane authors for that besides their Histories doe not ordinarily stretch so farre as to record such antient acts there is also no doubt but the successors of that Tyrant and all the Aegyptians sought all means possible to cancell and blot out the memory of their so great and horrible ruine And if by chance any Historiographer make mention of the departure of the Israelites out of Aegypt it is done in such sort that the truth is not onely disguised but wholly perverted by them and in place thereof nothing but lies and falshood foisted in Like as Pharaoh by his unjust and outragious persecuting of the children of God made himselfe so guilty of Gods wrath that he deserved to be utterly destroyed with the greatest part of his people so also after their miraculous deliverance whosoever laboured either to hurt hinder or resist them did no lesse incurre Gods displeasure and fierce wrath against them wherewith they were consumed whereof the overthrow and discomfiture of Amalech is a plaine example who admit all the great wonders which God had done for the Israelites in Aegypt and in the red sea whereof the brute being blowne into all corners of the earth hee could not be ignorant yet was he so malitious and foolish hardy as to take up armour against them and to meet them to bid them battell but he and his wicked complices were by Ioshuah and his poore people though unwarliking and unacquainted with such actions lately crept out of bondage wherein they had been only exercised to make mortar and bricke and not to handle weapons discomfited and overthrowne for the Lord of Hosts who is the divider of victories to whom he pleaseth at the servent prayers of his servant Moses fought for them to the confusion of Amalech and all his traine and therefore he commanded Moses to put this deed of his in writing as a thing worthy to be remembred who also erected an Altar in the same place for a perpetuall monument of so noble a victory As Amalech and for the like sinne were Arad a King of the Canaanites Sehon King of Amorites and Og King of Basan with their people and cities destroyed and rased downe so the Madianites enterprising to withstand the foresaid Israelites by the wicked and pernicious counsell of Balaam were subdued and put to the sword even five Kings of them together not one escaping save the young Virgins which had never committed fornication with man After that the Children of Israel had continued a season peaceably in the Land of Canaan which the Lord had bestowed upon them then did Eglon King of Moab rise up and subdued them by warre and tyrannized over them eighteene yeares And although it was Gods will that they should be thus chastised because of their corruption and iniquity neverthelesse this Moabite his Rod hee caused in regard of his love to his people to be slaine by Ahud an Israelite as hee was taking his case in his chamber In like manner was his wrath stirred up against Iabin King of Asor who had oppressed Israel twenty yeares whose army though it was great and well appointed was notwithstanding by Baraks handfull of men under the conduct and rule of Deborah the Prophetesse wondrously discomfited in such sort that of all the multitude there remained not one that felt not the edge of the sword except Sisera their Captaine who escaping from the battell by betaking him to his heeles turned in by chance into the house of a woman called Iahel who hating him as he slept with a hammer fastened a naile into his temples and thus escaping from those whom he feared he was murthered by her whom he trusted And so this valiant warriour as he was overcome in battell by the conduct of a woman so was he put to death by the hand of a woman That which happened to the Madianites in the time of Gideon is admirable and very strange who being furnished with a mighty army of souldiers with the Amalekites and other their Allyes to destroy Israel were so scarred and scattered at the sound of the trumpets and brightnesse of torches of three hundred men at the most that were with Gideon that through the marvellous astonishment they were in they turned their blades into their owne bosomes and murthered one another till the greatest part of them were destroyed and the residue being put to flight and pursued by the men of Ephraim two of their Kings Oreb and Zeb were taken and slaine A while after it came to passe that the Princes of the Philistims who had oppressed the people of God by the space of forty yeares being assembled together with all their people in the Temple of Dagon their god even then when after their sacrifices they thought to make themselves most sport and pastime with poore Sampson whose eyes in mockery contempt they had put out were altogether massacred by the fall of the house which Sampson by his strength pulled upon their heads which was the greatest overthrow that before times by his means they had received In the raigne of Saul King of Israel Agag King of Amalech the posterity of those that laid wait for Israel in the desart as they came out of Aegypt were by Saul following the commandement of the Lord set upon who running upon him and his people made a great slaughter and butchery of them not sparing man woman nor childe but the King onely whom he tooke to mercy and led captive which he ought not to have done This Captaine being thus spared by one that was but little better than himself could not so escape for the Prophet Samuel became the executioner of Gods vengeance upon him since Saul refused it and with his own
not respecting or beleeving there was either a God or a Devill or a hell or a Heaven and therefore he was damned there was no remedy And in this miserable case without any signe of repentance he dyed But let us come to our homebred English stories and consider the judgments of God upon the persecutors of Christs Gospell in our own countrey And first to begin with one Doctor Whittington under the raigne of King Henry the seventh who by vertue of his office being Chancellour to the Bishop had condemned most cruelly to death a certaine godly woman in a town called Chipping sadberry for the profession of the truth which the Papists then called Heresie This woman being adjudged to death by the wretched Chancellor and the time come when she should be brought to the place of her martyrdome a great concourse of people both out of towne and country was gathered to behold her end Amongst whom was also the foresaid Doctor there present to see the execution performed The godly woman and manly Martyr with great constancy gave over her life to the fire and refused no paines or torments to keep her conscience cleere and unreproveable against the day of the Lord. Now the Sacrifice being ended as the people began to returne homeward they were encountred by a mighty furious Bull which had escaped from a Butcher that was about to kill him for at the same time as they were slaying this silly Lamb at the townes end a Butcher was as busie within the towne in slaying of this Bull. But belike not so skilfull in his art of killing of beasts as the Papists be in murthering Christians the Bull broke loose as I said and ranne violently through the throng of the people without hurting either man or childe till he came to the place where the Chancellour was against whom as pricked forward with some supernaturall instinct hee ranne full butt thrusting him at the first blow through the paunch and after goaring him through and through and so killed him immediately trayling his guts with his hornes all the street over to the great admiration and wonder of all that saw it Behold here a plaine demonstration of Gods mighty power and judgement against a wretched persecutor of one of his poore flocke wherein albeit the carnall sence of man doth often impute to blinde chance that which properly pertaineth to the only power and providence of God yet none can be so dull and ignorant but must needs confesse a plaine miracle of Gods almighty power and a worke of his own finger Stephen Gardiner also was one of the grand butchers in this land what a miserable end came hee unto Even the same day that Bishop Ridley and Master Latimer were burned at Oxford he hearing newes thereof rejoyced greatly and being at dinner ate his meat merrily but ere he had eaten many bits the sudden stroke of Gods terrible hand fell upon him in such sort that immediately he was taken from the board and brought to his bed where he continued 15 dayes in intolerable anguish by reason he could not expell his urine so that his body being miserably inflamed within who had inflamed so many Godly Martyrs was brought to a wretched end with his tongue all blacke and swolne hanging out of his mouth most horribly a spectacle worthy to be beholden of all such bloudy burning persecutors Bonner Bishop of London another arch butcher though he lived long after this man and dyed also in his bed yet was it so provided of God that as he had been a persecutor of the light and a child of darknesse so his carkasse was tumbled into the earth in obscure darkenes at midnight contrary to the order of all other Christians and as he had been a most cruell murtherer so was he buried amongst theeves and murtherers a place by Gods judgement rightly appointed for him Morgan Bishop of S. Davids sitting upon the condemnation of the blessed Martyr Bishop Farrar whose roome he unjustly usurped was not long after stricken by Gods hand after such a strange sort that his meat would not go downe but rise and picke up againe sometime at his mouth sometime blowne out of his nose most horrible to behold and so continued unto his death Where note moreover that when Master Leyson being then Sheriffe at Bishop Farrars burning had fetcht away the cattell of the said Bishop from his servants house into his owne custody divers of them would never eate meat but lay bellowing and roaring and so dyed Adde unto this Bishop Morgan Iustice Morgan a Judge that sate upon the death of the Lady Iane this Iustice not long after the execution of the said Lady fell mad and being thus bereft of his wits dyed having ever in his mouth Lady Iane Lady Iane. Bishop Thornton Suffragan of Dover another grand persecutor comming upon a Saturday from the Chapter-house at Canterbury and there upon the Sunday following looking upon his men playing at bowles fell suddenly into a palsey and dyed shortly after And being exhorted to remember God in his extremity of sicknesse So I do saith he and my Lord Cardinall too c. After him succeeded another Suffragan ordained by the foresaid Cardinall and equall to his Predecessor in cruell persecuting of the Church who injoying his place but a short time fell downe a paire of staires in the Cardinals chamber at Greenwich and broke his necke and that presently let it be noted after he received the Cardinals blessing The like sudden death hapned to Doctor Dunning the bloudy and wretched Chancellour of Norwich who after he had most rigorously condemned and murthered a number of simple and faithfull servants of God was suddenly stricken with death even as he was sitting in his chaire The like also fell upon Berry Commissary of Norfolke another bloudy persecutor who foure dayes after Queene Maries death having made a great Feast whereat was present one of his concubines as he was comming home from the Church where he had ministred the Sacrament of Baptisme fell downe suddenly to the ground with a heavy groane and never stirred after thus ending his miserable life without any shew of repentance So Doctor Geffrey Chancellor of Salisbury another of the same stampe was suddenly stricken with the mighty hand of God in the midst of his buildings where he was constrained to yeeld up his life which had so little pitty of other mens lives before and it is to be noted that the day before he was thus stricken he had appointed to call before him ninety poore Christians to examine them by inquisition but the goodnesse of God and his tender providence prevented him Doctor Foxford Chancellor to Bishop Stockesley dyed also suddenly So did Iustice Lelond the persecutor of one Ieffery Hurst Alexander the Keeper of Newgate a cruell enemy to those that lay in that prison for Religion dyed very miserably being so swollen that he was more like a monster than a man and
information of one Richard Master Parson of Aldington and Edward Bocking Doctor of Divinity a Monke of Canterbury and divers others counterfeited such manner of trances and distortions in her body with the uttering of divers counterfeit vertues and holy words tending to the rebuke of sinne and reproving such new opinions as there began to spread that shee woon great credit amongst the people and drew after her a multitude of favourites besides she would prophecy of things to come as that shee should be helped of her disease by none but the Image of our Lady in Aldington whither being brought she appeared to the people to be suddenly relieved from her sicknesse by meanes of which hypocriticall dissimulation she was brought into marvellous estimation not only with the common people but with divers great men also insomuch that a book was put in print touching her fained miracles and revelations Howbeit not content to delude the people she began also to meddle with the King himself Henry the eight saying That if he proceeded to be divorced from his wife Queene Katherine he should not remaine King one month after and in the reputation of God not one day for which and many other tricks practised by her she with her complices was arraigned of high treason and after confession of all her knavery drawn from the Tower to Tyburne and there hanged the holy maidens head being set upon London bridge and the other on certaine gates of the City The other named la Pucella de Dieu marvellously deluded with her counterfeit hypocrisie Charles the seventh King of France and all the whole French Nation in such sort that so much credit was attributed unto her that she was honoured as a Saint and thought to be sent of God to the aide of the French King By her meanes Orleance was woon from the English and many other exploits atchieved which to be short I will referre the Reader unto the French Chronicles where they shall finde her admirable knavery at large discovered But touching her end it was on this sort as she marched on horsebake to the towne of Champaigne to remove the siedge wherewith it was guirt by the Duke of Burgoine and other of the English Captaines Sir Iohn Leupembrough a Burgonian Knight tooke her alive and conveyed her to the City of Roan where she faigning her selfe with child when the contrary was knowne was condemned and burnt And thus these two holy women that in a diverse kind mocked the people of England and France by their hypocrisie by the justice of God came to deserved destructions CHAP. XXI Of Conjurers and Enchanters IF God by his first Commandement hath enjoyned every one of us to love serve and to cleave unto him alone in the conjuction and unity of a true faith and hope unremovable there is no doubt but he forbiddeth on the other side that which is contrary to this foresaid duty and herein especially that accursed familiarity which divers miserable wretches have with that lying Spirit the Father of errour by whose delusions and subtilty they busie themselves in the study of sorceries and enchantments whereupon it is forbidden the Israelites in the nineteenth of Leviticus to turne after familiar spirits or to seeke to Soothsayers to be defiled by them and the more to withdraw them from this damnable crime in the Chapter following there is a threat set downe against it in manner of a Commandement That if either man or woman have a spirit of divination or soothsaying in them they should dye the death they should stone them to death their bloud should be upon them so in the two and twentieth of Exodus the Law of God saith Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live and Moses following the same steps giveth an expresse charge in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy against this sinne saying Let nonebe found among thee that useth witchcraft nor that regardeth the Clouds or times nor a Sorcerer or a Charmer or that counselleth with a Spirit or a teller of Fortunes or that asketh counsell of the dead for all that doe such things are abhomination unto the Lord. And therefore this sinne 1 Sam. ver 15. is reputed amongst the most hainous and enormous sinnes that can be When they shall say unto you saith the Prophet Enquire at them that have a Spirit of Divination and at the Soothsayer which whispers and murmures answer Should not a people enquire at their God from the living to the dead To the Law and to the Testimony Wherefore it was a commendable thing and worthy imitation when they that had received the Faith by Pauls preaching having used curious Arts as Magicke and such like being touched with the feare of God brought their bookes and burned them before all men although the price thereof amounted to fifty thousand pieces of silver which by Budeus his supputation ariseth to five thousand French Crownes The Councels as that of Carthage and that other of Constantinople kept the second time in the suburbs utterly condemned the practices of all Conjurers and Enchanters The twelve Tables in Rome adjudged to punishments those that bewitched the standing corne And for the Civill Law this kind is condemned both by the Law Iulia and Cornelia In like manner the wisest Emperours those I mean that attained to the honour of Christianity ordained divers Edicts and Prohibitions under very sharp and grievous punishments against all such villany as Constantine in the ninth book of the Cod. tit 18. enacted That whosoever should attempt any action by Art Magicke against the safety of any person or should bring in or stir up any man to make him fall into any mischiefe or riotous demeanour should suffer a grievous punishment in the fifth Law he forbiddeth every man to aske counsell at Witches or to use the helpe of Charmers and Sorcerers under the paine of death Let them saith he in the sixth Law be throwne to wild beasts to be devoured that by conjuring or the helpe of familiar spirits go about to kill either their enemies or any other Moreover in the seventh Law he willeth that not so much as his owne courtiers and servants if they were found faulty in this crime should be spared but severely punished yet neverthelesse many of this age gave themselves over to this filthy sinne without either feare of God or respect of Law some through a foolish and dangerous curiosity others through the overruling of their owne vile and wicked affections and a third sort troubled with the terrours of an evill conscience desire to know what shall besall and happen unto them in the end Thus Saul the first King of Israel being troubled in himselfe and terrified with the army of the Philistims that came against him would needs foreknow his owne fortune and the issue of this doubtfull warre Now whereas before whilest he performed the duty of a good King and obeyed the commandement of God hee had cleansed his Realme
fled to a Church of purer Religion and there was entertained into the Church by baptisme Socrates in his Ecclesiasticall History reporteth the like accident to have happened to a Iew who had beene oftentimes baptised and came to Paulus a Novatian Bishop to receive the Sacrament againe but the water as before vanished and his villany being detected he was banished the Church Vrbanus Formensis and Foelix Iducensis two Donatists by profession rushing into Thipasa a city of Mauritania commanded the Eucharist to be throwne among the dogs but the dogs growing mad thereby set upon their owne Masters and rent them with their teeth as being guilty of despising the body of Christ. Certainly a notable judgement to condemne the wicked behaviour of those miscreants who were so prophane as not only to refuse the Sacrament themselves but also to cast it to their dogs as if it were the vilest and contemptiblest thing in the world Theopompus a Phylosopher being about to insert certaine things out of the writings of Moses into his prophane works and so to abuse the sacred Word of God was stricken with a frenzy and being warned of the cause thereof in a dreame by prayers made unto God recovered his sences againe This story is recorded by Iosephus As also another of Theodectes a Poet that mingled his Tragedies with the holy Scripture and was therfore stricken with blindnesse untill he had recanted his impiety In a towne of Germany called Itzsith there dwelt a certaine husbandman that was a monstrous despiser and prophaner of the Word of God and his Sacraments he upon a time amidst his cups railed with most bitter termes upon a Minister of Gods Word after which going presently into the fields to overlooke his sheepe he never returned alive but was found there dead with his body all scortched and burnt as blacke as a cole the Lord having given him over into the hands of the Divell to be thus used for his vile prophanenesse and abusing his holy things This D. Iustus Ionus in Luthers Conferences reporteth to be most true In the yeare of our Lord 1553 a certain Coblers servant being brought up among the professors of the reformed Religion and having received the Sacrament in both kinds after living under Popery received it after their fashion in one kinde but when he returned to his old Master and was admonished by him to go againe to the Communion as he was wont then his sleepy conscience awaked and he fell into most horrible dispaire crying that he was the Divels bondslave and therewithall threw himselfe headlong out of the window so that with the fall his bowels gushed out of his mouth and he died most miserably When the great persecution of the Christians was in Persia under king Sapor in the yeare of our Lord 347 there was one Miles an holy Bishop and constant Martyr who preaching exhorting and suffering all manner of torments for the truth of the Gospel could not convert one soule of the whole city whereof he was Bishop to the faith wherefore in hatred and detestation of it he forewent it cleane but after his departure the Lord made them worthily â—ue their contempt of his Word for he sent the spirit of division betwixt King Sapor and them so that he came with an army of men and three hundred Elephants against it and quickly subverted it that the very apparance and memoriall of a city was quile defaced and rooted out For certainly this is a sure position where Gods word is generally despised and not regarded nor profited by there some notable destruction approcheth In a certaine place there was acted a tragedy of the death and passion of Christ in shew but in deed of themselves for he that played Christs part hanging upon the Crosse was wounded to death by him that should have thrust his sword into a bladder full of bloud tyed to his side who with his fall slew another that played one of the womens part that lamented under the Crosse his brother that was first slaine seeing this slew the murtherer and was himselfe by order of justice hanged therefore so that this tragedy was concluded with foure true not counterfeit deaths and that by the divine providence of God who can endure nothing lesse than such prophane and rediculous handling of so serious and heavenly matters In the Vniversity of Oxford the history of Christ was also played and cruelly punished and that not many yeares since for he that bore the person of Christ the Lord struck him with such a giddinesse of spirit and brain that he became mad forthwith crying when he was in his best humour That God had laid this judgment upon him for playing Christ. Three other Actors in the same play were hanged for robbing as by credible report is affirmed Most lamentable was the judgement of God upon Iohn Apowel sometimes a Serving-man for mocking and jeasting at the Word of God This Iohn Apowel hearing one William Malden reading certaine English prayers mocked him after every word with contrary gaudes and flouting termes insomuch that at last hee was terribly afraid so that his haire stood upright on his head and the next day was found besides his wits crying night and day without ceasing The Divell the Divell O the Divell of Hell now the Devill of hell there he goeth for it seemed to him as the other read Lord have mercy upon us at the end of the prayer that the Devill appeared unto him and by the permission of God depilved him of his understanding This is a terrible example for all those that be mockers at the Word of God to warne them if they doe not repent lest the vengeance of God fall upon them in like manner Thus we see how severely the Lord punisheth all despisers and prophaâ—â—rs of his holy things and thereby ought to learne to carry a most dutifull regard and reverence to them as also to note them for none of Gods flocke whosoever they be that deride or contemne any part of Religion or the Ministers of the same CHAP. XXXV Of those that prophane the Sabbath day IN the fourth and last Commandement of the first Table it is said Remember to keepe holy the Sabbath day By which words it is ordained and enjoyned us to separate one day of seven from all bodily and servile labour not to idlenesse and loosenesse but to the worship of God which is spirituall and wholesome Which holy ordinance when one of the children of Israel in contempt broke as they were in the wildernes by gathering sticks upon the Sabbath he was brought before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation by them put in prison untill such time as they knew the Lords determination concerning him knowing well That he was guilty of a most grievous crime And at length by the Lords owne sentence to his servant Moses condemned to be stoned to death without the host as was
speedily executed Wherein the Lord made knowne unto them both how unpleasant and odious the prophanation of his Sabbath was in his sight and how seriously and carefully every one ought to observe and keepe the same Now albeit that this strict observation of the Sabbath was partly ceremoniall under the Law and that in Christ Iesus we have an accomplishment as of all other so also of this ceremony He being the true Sabbath and assured repose of our soules yet seeing we still stand in need of some time for the instruction and exercise of our Faith it is necessary that we should have at least one day in a weeke to occupy our selves in and about those holy and godly exercises which are required at our hands and what day fitter for that purpose than Sunday which was also ordained in the Apostles time for the same end and called by them Dies Dominicus that is the day of our Lord because upon that day he rose from the dead to wiâ— the morrow after the Iewes Sabbath being the first day of the weeke to which Sabbath it by common consent of the Church succeeded to the end that a difference might be put betwixt Christians and Iewes Therefore it ought now religiously to be observed as it is also commanded in the civill law with expresse prohibition not to abuse this day of holy rest in unholy sports and pastimes of evill example Neverthelesse in stead hereof we use the evill imployance abuse and disorder of it for the most part for beside the false worship and plentifull superstitions which reigne in so many places all manner of disorder and dissolutenesse is in request and beareth sway in these dayes this is the day for tipling houses and tavernes to be fullest fraught with ruffians and ribalds and for villanous and dishonest speech with lecherous and baudy songs to be most riâ—e this is the day when dicing dauncing whoring and such noysome and dishonest demeanors muster their bands and keep ranke together from whence foame out envies hatreds displeasures quarrels debates bloud sheddings and murthers as daily experience testifieth All which things are evident signes of Gods heavy displeasure upon the people where these abuses are permitted and no difference made of that day wherein God would be served but is contrarily mostdishonored by the overflow of wicked examples And that it is a thing odious and condemned of God these examples following will declare Gregory Turonensis reporteth That a husbandman who upon the Lords day went to plough his field as he cleansed his plow-share with an yron the yron stucke so fast into his hand that for two yeares hee could not be delivered from it but carried it about continually to his exceeding great paine and shame Another prophane fellow without any regard of God or his service made no conscience to convey his corne out of the field on the Lords day in Sermon time but hee was well rewarded for his godlesse covetousnesse for the same corne which with so much care he gathered together was consumed with fire from heaven with the barne and all the graine that was in it A certaine Nobleman used every Lords day to goe a hunting in the Sermon while which impiety the Lord punished with this judgement he caused his wife to bring forth a childe with a head like a dog that seeing he preferred his dogs before the service of God hee might have one of his owne getting to make much of At Kimstaâ— a towne in France there lived in the yere of our Lord 1559 a certain covetous woman who was so eager upon the world and greedy of gaine that she would neither frequent the Church to heare the word of God her selfe nor suffer any of her family to doe it but continually abode labouring and toyling about drying and pilling flax and doing other domesticall businesses neither would she be reclaimed by her neighbours who admonished and dehorted her from such untimely works One Sabbath day as they were thus busily occupied fire seemed to issue among the flax without doing any hurt the next Sabbath day it tooke fire indeed but was quickly extinct for all this she continued obstinate in her prophanenesse even the third Sabbath when the flax againe taking fire could not be quenched till it had burnt her and two of her children to death for though they were recovered out of the fire alive yet the next day they all three died And that which was most to be wondred at a young infant in the cradle was taken out of the midst of the flame without any hurt Thus God useth to exercise his judgements upon the contemners of his commandements The Centuriators of Magdeburge intreating of the manners of Christians made report out of another history that a certaine husbandman in Parochia Gemilacensi grinding corne upon the Lords day the meale began to burne Anno Dom. 1126 which though it might seeme to be a thing meere casuall yet they set it downe as a judgement of God upon him for breaking the Sabbath As also of that which they speake in the same place of one of the Kings of Denmarke who when as hee contrary to the admonition of the Priests who desired him to deferre it would needs upon the day of Pentecost make warre with his enemy died in the battell But that may be better knowne to us all which is written in the second booke of Macchabees of Nicanor the Iewes enemy who would needs set upon them on the Sabbath from which when other the Iewes that were compelled to be with him could no way disswade him he was slaine in the battell and most miserably but deservedly handled even the parts of his body shamefully dismembred as in that History you may read more at large Therefore in the Councell at Paris every one labouring to perswade unto a more religious keeping of the Sabbath day when they had justly complained that as many other things so also the observation of the Sabbath was greatly decayed through the abuse of Christian liberty in that men too much followed the delights of the world and their owne worldly pleasures both wicked and dangerous They further adde Multi nánque nostrum visu multi etiam quorundam relatu dedicimus c. For many of us have been eye-witnesses many have intelligence of it by the relation of others that some men upon this day being about their husbandry have been strucken with thunder some have been maimed and made lame some have had their bodies even bones and all burnt in a moment with visible fire and have consumed to ashes and many other judgements of God have been and are daily Whereby it is declared that God is offended with the dishonour of so high a day And our time hath not wanted examples in this kind whosoever hath observed them when sometimes in the faires upon this day the Wares have swumme in the streetes sometimes the scaffolds at Playes have falne downe
King of England sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet and Maud the Empresse after he had raigned twenty yeares was content to admit his young sonne Henry married to Margaret the French Kings daughter into participation of his Crowne but he like an unnaturall son to requite his fathers love sought to dispossesse him of the whole for by inciting the King of France and certaine other Nobles hee tooke armes and raised warre against his owne naturall father betwixt whom divers strong battels being fought as well in England by the Deputies and friends of both parties as also in Normandy Poytou Guian and Britain the victory alwayes inclined to the father so that the rebellious son with his allies were constrained to bend to his fathers will and to desire peace which he gently granted and forgave his offence Howbeit the Lord for his disobedience did not so lightly pardon him but because his hasty mind could not tarry for the Crowne till his fathers death therefore the Lord cut him short of it altogether causing him to die six yeares before his father being yet but young and like to live long Lothair King of Soissons in France committed the rule of the province of Guian to his eldest son Cramiris who when contrary to the mind of his father he oppressed the people with exactions and was reclaimed home he like an ungratious and impious son fled to his uncle Childebert and provoked him towarre upon his owne father wherein he himselfe was by the just vengeance of God taken and burned with his wife and children to death Furthermore it is not doubtlesse but to a very good end enacted in the law of God That he which curseth his father or mother should die the death and that rebellious children and such as be incorrigible should at the instance and pursuit of their owne parents by order of law be stoned to death As children by all these examples ought not onely to learne to feare to displease and revile their parents but also to feare and reverence them lest that by disobedience they kindle the fire of Gods wrath against them so likewise on the other side parents are here advertised to have great care in bringing up and instructing their children in the feare of God and obedience to his will lest for want of instruction and correction on their part they themselves incurre a punishment of their carelesse negligence in the person of their children And this is proved by experience of the men of Bethel of whose children two and forty were torne in pieces by Beares for that they had been so evill taught as to mocke the holy Prophet Elizeus in calling him bald-pate Heli likewise the high priest was culpable of this fault for having two wicked and perverse sonnes whom no feare of God could restraine being discontent with that honourable portion of the sacrifices allotted them by God like famished and unsatiable wretches fell to share out more than was their due and by force to raven all that which by faire meanes they could not get and that which is worse to pollute the holy Tabernacle of God with their filthy whoredomes in such sort that the Religion of God grew in disgrace through their prophane dealings And albeit it may seem that their father did his duty in some sort when he admonished and reproved them yet it is manifest by the reprehension of the man of God that he did no part of that at all or if he did yet it was in so carelesse loose and cold manner using more lenity than hee ought or lesse severity than was necessary that God turned their destructions when they were slaine at the overthrow of Israel by the Philistins to be his punishment for understanding the dolefull newes of his sonnes death and the Arkes taking at once he fell backewards from his stoole and burst his necke being old and heavy even fourescore and eighteene yeares of age not able either to help or stay himselfe David also was not free from this offence for hee so much cockered some of his children that they proved the greatest plagues and scourges unto him especially Absolon and Adonijah for the one openly rebelled against him and almost drove him out of his kingdome the other usurped the title and honour of the kingdome before his fathers death of this it is recorded That David so cockered and pampered him that he would never displease him from his youth But see how he was punished in them for this too great lenity both of them came to an untimely death and proved not onely the workers of their owne destruction but also great crosses to their father Ludovicus Vives saith That in his time a certain woman in Flanders did so much pamper and cocker up two of her sonnes even against her husbands will that she would not suffer them to want money or any thing which might furnish their roiotous life both in drinking banquetting and dicing yea she would stoale from her husband to minister unto them but as soone as her husband was dead she was justly plagued in them both for they fell from royoting to robbing which two vices are commonly linked together and for the same one of them was executed by the sword and the other by the halter she her selfe looking on as a witnesse of their destructions whereof her conscience told her that her indulgence was the chiefest cause Hither may we referre that common and vulgar story and I suppose very true which is almost in every childes mouth of him that going to the gallowes desired to speake with his mother in her care ere he dyed and when she came unto him in stead of speaking bit off her care with his teeth exclaiming upon her as the causer of his death because she did not chastise him in his youth for his faults but by her flatteries established him in vice which brought him to this wofull end and herein she was doubly punished both in her sonnes destruction and her owne infamy whereof she carried about her a continuall maâ—ke This ought to be a warning to all parents to looke better to the education of their children and to root out of them in time all evill and corrupt manners lest of small sprigs they grow to branches and of qualities to habits and so either be hardly done off or at least deprave the whole body and bring it to destruction but above all to keep them from idlenesse and vaine pleasures the discommodity and mischiefe whereof this present example will declare At a towne called Hannuel in Saxony the Devill transforming himselfe into the shape of a man exercised many jugling trickes and pretty pastime to delight young men and maids withall and indeed to draw after him daily great companies one day they followed him out of the city gates unto a hill adjoyning where he played a jugling tricke indeed with them for he carried them all away with him so that they were never
Treasurer of England and Sir Thomas Gray were beheaded for treason No lesse was the perfidious and ungratefull treachery of Humphry Banister an Englishman towards the Duke of Buckingham his Lord and master whom the said Duke had tenderly brought up and exalted to great promotion For when as the Duke being driven into extremity by reason of the separation of his army which he had mustered together against King Richard the usurper fled to the same Banister as his trustiest friend to be kept in secret untill he could find opportunity to escape this false traitor upon hope of a thousand pounds which was promised to him that could bring forth the Duke betraied him into the hands of Iohn Mitton Shirife of Shropshire who conveied him to the city of Salisbury where King Richard kept his houshold where he was soone after put to death But as for ungratefull Banister the vengeance of God pursued him to his utter ignominy for presently after his eldest sonne became mad and died in a bores stiâ— his eldest daughter was suddenly stricken with a foule lepry his second sonne marvellously deformed of his lims and lame his youngest sonne drowned in a puddle and he himselfe in his old age arraigned and found guilty of a murther and by his Clergy saved And as for his thousand pounds King Richard gave him not a farthing saying That he which would be nutrue to so good a master must needs be false to all other To passe over the time of the residue of the Kings where in many examples of treasons and punishments upon them are extant and to come neerer unto our owne age let us consider the wonderfull providence of God in discovering the notorious treasons which have been so oftenpretended and so many against our late Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth and protecting her so fatherly from the dint of them all First therefore to begin with the chiefest the Earles of Northumberland and Westmerland in the eleventh yeare of her raigne began a rebellion in the North pretending their purpose to be sometimes to defend the Queenes person and government from the invasion of strangers and sometimes for conscience sake to seeke reformation of Religion under colour whereof they got together an army of men to the number of six thousand souldiers against whom marched the Earle of Suffex Lieutenant of the North and the Earle of Warwicke sent by the Queene to his ayde Whose approch strucke such a terrour into their hearts that the two Earles with divers of the arch Rebels fled by night into Scotland leaving the rest of their company a prey unto their enemies whereof threescore and six or thereabout were hanged at Durham As for the Earles one of them to wit of Northumberland was after taken in Scotland and beheaded at York Westmerland fled into another Countrey and left his house and family destroyed and undone by his folly A while after this what befell to Iohn Throgmorton Thomas Brooke George Redman and divers other Gentlemen at Norwich who pretended a rebellion under the color of suppressing strangers were they not discovered by one of their owne conspiracy Thomas Ket and executed at Norwich for their paines The same end came Francis Throgmorton to whose trecheries as they were abhominable and touching the Queens owne person so they were disclosed not without the especiall providence of God But above all that vile and ungratefull traitor William Parry upon whom the Queene had powred plentifully her liberality deserveth to be had in everlasting remembrance to his shame whose treasons being discovered he payed the tribute of his life in recompence thereof What shall I say of the Earle of Arundell and a second Earle of Northumberland Did not the justice of God appeare in both their ends when being attainted for treason the one slew himselfe in prison and the other died by course of nature in prison also Notorious was the conspiracy of those arch traitours Ballard Babington Savadge and Tylney c. yet the Lord brought them downe and made them spectacles to the World of his justice Even so that notorious villaine Doctor Lopez the Queenes Physitian who a long time had not onely beene an intelligencer to the Pope and King of Spaine of our English Counsells but also had poisoned many Noblemen and went about also to poyson the Queene her selfe was he not surprised in his treachery and brought to sudden destruction In summe the Lord preserved her Majesty not only from these but many other secret and privy foes and that most miraculously and contrary to all reason and spread his wings over her evermore to defend her from all her enemies and in despight of them all brought her being full of yeares in peace to her grave All these treasons had their breeding and beginning from that filthy sinke of Romish superstition from whence the poison was conveied into the hearts of these traiterous wretches by the means of those common firebrands of the Christian World the wicked Iesuites whose chiefest art is Treason and whose profession is equivocation and practise to stir up rebellion and therefore as long as they breath in the world let us looke for no better fruits from such trees And hath the reigne of our now Soveraigne King Iames beene free from these Sinons He hath as yet swayed the Scepter of this Kingdome not fully nine yeres and how many treasons have beene complotted and practised against his Majesty and the State and how miraculously hath the Lord preserved him evermore even as the apple of his eye and the signet on his right hand To omit the treason of Raleigh and Cobham and that also of Watson and Clerke that late and last divellish and damnable practise of blowing up the Parliament house with gunpowder together with the King Prince and all the Nobles and chiefe Pillars of the Land is never to be omitted nor forgotten but to be remembred as long as the Sunne and Moone endureth to the shame of their religion and the professours thereof never Nation so barbarous that ever practised the like never any religion so odious that maintained the like but such are the fruits of their so much advanced religion such the clusters of their grapes How be it the Lord prevented their malice and turned it upon their owne pates not only by a Divine and miraculous discovery of their treason the very night before it should have beene effected but also by bringing the chiefe plotters thereof unto confusion some by the ordinary proceeding of justice and some by slaughter in resistance and that which is not to bee overpast some of the principall of them being together in a chamber were so scorched by their owne powder which was in drying that they were driven to confesse the heavy judgement of God to be upon them I pray God such may ever bee the end of all traitours and that the religion which bringeth forth such horrible fruits may not onely be suspected but abhorred of all Moreover there is yet another
King of Macedonia had a minion called Cratenas whom hee loved most entirely but he againe requited him not with love but with hatred and stretched all his wits to install himselfe in his kingdome by deposing and murthering him which though he accomplished yet his deserts were cut short by the vengeance of God for he continued not many dayes in his royalty but he was served with the same sauce that he had made Archelaus before him to taste of even betraied and murthered as he well deserved Lodovicus Sfortia to the end to invest himselfe with the Dukedome of Millain spared not to shed the innocent bloud of his two Nephewes the sonnes of Galenchus together with their tutors and one Francis Calaber a worthy and excellent man but the Lord so disposed of his purposes that he in stead of obtaining the kingdome was taken prisoner by the King of France so that neither he nor any of his off spring injoyed that which he so much affected When Numerianus was to succeed â—arus his father in the Empire Arrius Axer his father in law to the end to translate the Empire unto himselfe entered a conspiracy and slew his sonne in law that nothing mistrusted his disloyalty but the Pretorian army understanding the matter discharged Arrius and elected Dioclesian in his roome who laying hold upon his competitour laied an action of treason to his charge and put him to death in the sight of the multitude Theodoricke and Fredericke conspired against their owne brother Thurismund King of the Visigothes to the intent to succeed him in his Kingdome And albeit that nature reclaymed them from the act yet they slew him without all compassion But after thirteene yeres reigne the same Theodericke was requited by his other brethren with the same measure that he before meted to his brother Thurismund And so though vengeance slept a while yet at length it wakened Aelias Antonius Gordianus Emperour of Rome though so excellent a young Prince that he deserved to be called the Love and Iewell of the World yet was he slaine by one promoted by himselfe to high honour called Philip Arabs when he was but two and twenty yeres old after whose decease this Philip got himselfe elected Emperour by the Band and confirmed by the Senate All which notwithstanding after five yeres Decius rebelled and his owne souldiers conspired against him so that both he at Verona and his sonne at Rome were slaine by them about one time After the death of Constantine the Great his three sonnes dividing the Empire betwixt them succeeded their father Constantine the eldest had for his share Spaine France the Alpes and England Constance the second held Italy Africa Graecia and Illyricum Constantine the younger was King and Emperour of the East But ambition suffered them not to enjoy quietly these their possessions for when the eldest being more proud and seditious than the other not content with his alotted portion made warre upon his brother Constance his Provinces and strove to enter Italy he was slaine in a battell by Aquileia when he was but five and twenty yeares old by which meanes all the provinces which were his fell to Constance and therewithall such a drowsinesse and Epicurisme for want of a stirrer up after his brothers death that he fell into the gout and neglected the governement of the Empire Wherefore in Aâ—sourge and in Rhetia they created a new Emperour one Magnentius whose life before time Constance had saved from the souldiers and therefore his treachery was the greater This Magnentius deprived and slew Constance but was overcome by Constantine the third brother in Illyricum yet in such sort that the conqueror could not greatly brag for he lost an infinit company of his men and yet missed of his chiefe purpose the taking of Magnentius for he escaped to Lyons and there massacring all that he mistrusted at last growing I suppose in suspition with his owne heart slew himselfe also and so his traiterous ingratefull and ambitious murther was revenged with his owne hands Victericus betrayed Lnyba king of Spaine and succeeded in his place seven yeares after another traitour slew him and succeeded also in his place Mauritius the Emperor was murthered by Phocas together with his wife and five of his children he seating himselfe Emperour in his roome Howbeit traitors and murtherers can never come to happy ends for as he had slaine Mauritius so Priscus Heraclianus and Phorius three of his chiefest captaines conspiring against him with three severall armies gave him such an alarme at once at his owne doores that they soone quailed his courage and after much mangling of his body cut him shorter by the head and the kingdome at one blow In the time of Edward the second and Edward the third in England one Sir Roger Mortimer committed many villanous outrages in shedding much bloud and at last King Edward himselfe lying at Barkley castle to the end that he might as it was supposed enjoy Isabel his wife with whom he had very suspitious familiarity After this he unjustly accused Edmund Earle of Kent of treason and caused him to bee put to death therefore and lastly he conspired against King Edward the third as it was suspected for which cause he was worthily and deservedly beheaded Among this ranke of murtherers of Kings we may fitly place also Richard the third usurper of the Crowne of England and divers others which he used as instruments to bring his detestable purpose to effect as namely Sir Iames Tirrèl Knight a man for natures gifts worthy to have served a much better Prince than this Richard if he had well served God and beene endued with as much truth and honesty as he had strength and wit also Miles Forest and Iohn Dighton two villaines fleshed in murthers But to come to the fact it was on this sort When Richard the usurper had enjoyned Robert Brackenbury to this piece of service of murthering the young King Edward the fifth his Nephew in the Tower with his brother the Duke of Yorke and saw it refused by him he committed the charge of the murther to Sir Iames Tirrel who hasting to the Tower by the Kings Commission received the keyes into his owne hands and by the helpe of those two butchers Dighton and Forest smothered the two Princes in their bed and buried them at the staires feet which being done Sir Iames rode back to king Richard who gave him great thankes and as some say made him knight for his labour All which things on every part well pondered it appeareth that God never gave the world a notabler example both of the unconstancy of worldly wâ—ale and also of the wretched end which ensueth such despightfull cruelty for first to begin with the ministers Miles Forest rotted away peecemeale at Saint Martins Sir Iames Tirrel died at the Tower hill beheaded for treason King Kichard himselfe as it is declared elsewhere was slaine
by the hands of the Priests to demand pardon for that cruell murther that the guilt of innocent bloud might not be imputed unto them And if by oversight or negligence without any malice hatred or pretence one killed another yet was he not exempted from all punishment but suffered to fly to the city of refuge to be kept and as it were inclosed untill his innocency were made manifest or at the least untill the death of the high Priest From this it may seeme arose the custome of Painims in the like case which was that if a man had unwillingly committed murther he did presently avoid the countrey and goe unto some man of power and authority of a strange nation and present himselfe at his gate sitting with his face covered humbly intreating pardon and reconciliation for his murther and for one whole yeare he might not returne into his countrey On this manner was the sonne of a certaine King of Phrygia entertained in King Craesus court who unadvisedly had slaine his owne brother Whereby it is manifest how odious and execrable in all ages and all places and all people this murther hath been insomuch that men did shun their very meeting and company and abandon them out of their temples and publicke assemblies as people excommunicate and prophane And yet for all this mankinde for the most part like savage beasts hath by the instigation of that wicked spirit who was a murtherer from the beginning been too too addicted to this kind of cruelty not being afraid to offer violence to nature and shed innocent bloud Such was the franticke and perverse cruelty of the second man Cain when without any occasion but onely through envy he slew his brother Abel and that traiterously which deed albeit it was done in secret and without the view of men yet it could not shun the piercing eye of God who reproved him for it saying That the bloud of Abel cried for vengeance from the earth And although this cursed and wicked murtherer received not immediately a condigne punishment answerable to his crime God to the end to spare mans bloud using undeserved favour towards him yet escaped hee not scot free for he was pursued with a continuall torment and sting of confcience together with such an incessant feare that he became a vagabond and a runnagate upon the earth and seeing himselfe brought into so miserable an estate he fell to complaining that the punishment was greater than he was able to beare Thus God permitted this wretch to draw out his life in such anguish that for a greater punishment he might pine away the rest of his daies without comfort A man may find in this world many such brother murthering Cains who for no occasion sticke not to cut their throats whom for the bond of common nature wherein all men are linked together as branches to one root they ought to acknowledge for their brethren and friends upon whom the heavy hand of God hath not beene more slacke to punish either by one meanes or other than it was upon their eldest brother Cain But seeing the number of them is so great and it is not so convenient to heape up here so huge a multitude together it shall suffice onely to recount the most famous and notablest of them as of those that have beene men of note and reputation of the world or that through an ambitious desire of raigning have by armes sought to atchieve their purposes for these for the most part are the greatest murtherers and butchers of all that through their wicked affections worldly pompe or desire of revenge have no remorse of making the bloud of men run like rivers upon the earth making no more account of the life of a man than of a flie or a worme Such an one was Abimelech one of the sonnes of Gedeon who to the end to usurpe the regiment of the people which his father before him refused got together a rout of rascal and vile fellowes by whose aid comming to his fathers house he slew seventy of his brethren even all except Ioathan the yongest that stole away and hid himselfe After which massacre he raigned in jolity three yeares and at the end thereof was cut short by God together with the Sichemites his provokers and maintainers who were also guilty of all the innocent bloud which he had shed for God sent the spirit of division betwixt them so that the Sichemites began to despise him and rebell against him but they had the worst end of the staffe and were overcome by him who pursuing the victory tooke their city by force and put them all to the edge of the sword And after he had thus destroied their city put fire also to the castle wherein he consumed neere about a thousand persons of men and women that were retired thither to save their lives And thus God brought upon them the mischiefe which they had consented and put their hands unto for as they had lent him aid and furtherance to the shedding of his brethrens bloud so was their owne bloud with their wives and childrens shed by him yet this tyran not content therewith made war also with the inhabitants of Tebez and tooke their city and would have forced the tower also wherein the citisens had inclosed themselves but as he approched to the wall a woman threw downe a piece of a milstone upon his head wherewith finding himselfe hurt to death he commanded one of his soldiers to kill him outright And thus this wicked murtherer that had shed the bloud of many men yea of his owne brethren had his braines knockt out by a woman and died a most desperate death The bloudy treachery of Baana and Rechab chiefe captaines of Ishbosheth Sauls son in conspiring against and murthering their master whilest he slept abode not long unpunished for having cut off his head they presented it for a present to king David hoping to gratifie the king and to receive some recompence for their paines But David being of an upright and true kingly heart could not endure such vile treachery though against the person of his enemy but entertained them as most vile traitors and master-murtherers commanding first their hands and feet to be cut off which they had especially imployed as instruments about that villany and afterwards caused them to bee slaine and then hanged for an example to all others that should attempt the like For the like cause was Ioab Generall of king Davids host for killing Abner traiterously who forsaking Ishbosheth had yeelded himselfe to the King cursed of David with all his house with a most grievous and terrible curse And yet notwithstanding a while after he came againe to that passe as to murder Amasa one of Davids chiefe captains making shew to salute and embrace him For which cruell deed albeit that in Davids time he received no punishment yet it overtooke him at last and the same kinde of cruelty
him of his gard from that he arose to be a Tribune and at last to bee Emperor which place he was no sooner in possession of but immoderate cruelty all this while buried began to shew it selfe for he made havocke of all the Nobilitie and put to death those that he suspected to be acquainted with his estate insomuch as some called him Cyclops some Bâ—siris others Aâ—teus for his cruelty Wherefore the Senate of Rome seeing his indignity proclaimed him an enemy to their commonwealth and made it lawfull for any man to procure his death Which being knowne his souldiers lying at the siege of Aquileia moved with hatred entred his tent at noone day and flew him and his sonne together Iustinian the yonger no lesse hatefull to his subjects for his cruelty than Maximinus was deposed from the empire by conspiracy and having his nosthrils slit exiled to Chersona Leontius succeeding in his place Howbeit ere long he recovered his Crowne and Scepter and returned to Constantinople exercising more cruelty at his returne than ever he had done before for he had not only put to death Leontius and Tiberius but also all that any way favored their parts It is said of him that he never blew his mangled nose but he caused one of them to be executed to death At last he was slaine by Philippicus to verifie the word of the Lord That he which striketh with the sword shall perish with the sword Albonius king of Lunbardy drinking upon a time to his wife Rosimund in a cup made of her fathers skull whom he in battell had slaine so displeased her therewith that attributing more to naturall affection than unity of marriage decreed with her selfe to hazard life and kingdome to be revenged upon this grievous injurie wherefore she thus practised A knight called Hemichild was enamoured with one of her maids him shee brought into a secret darke place by policie in shew to injoy his love but indeed to be at her command for she supplyed his loves place and then discovering her selfe put it to his choise either to kill her husband or to be accused by her of this villanie Hemichild chose the former and indeed murdered his Lord in his bed and after the deed done fled with her to Ravenna But marke how the Lord required this murder even most strangely for they both which were linkt together in the fact were linkt together also in the punishment and as they had beene joynt instruments of anothers destruction so he made them mutuall instruments of their owne for Rosimund thinking to poyson him too made him drinke halfe her medicine but hee feeling the poyson in his veines staied in the mid way and made her sup up the other halfe for her part so they died both together The Electors of the Empire disagreeing in suffrages Adolphus Duke of Nassavia and Albertus Duke of Austria tooke upon them the regiment and managing of the State whereupon grew grievous wars in all Germanie and dissention between the two State-men so that Adolphus was slaine by the Duke of Austria in battell by the citie of Spire whose death was thus notably revenged All that tooke part against him or that were accessary to the murder perished most strangely Albert Earle of Hagerloch was slaine Otto of Ochsensteme was hanged the Bishop of Mentz died suddenly of an apoplexie in his cellar the Bishop of Strasbrough was butchered by a Butcher the Earle of Leimingen died of a frensie the Duke of Austria himselfe was slaine by his nephew Iohn from whom hee had taken the government of Suevia because of his unthriftinesse generally they all came to destruction so grievous is the crie of innocent bloud against those that are guilty thereof After the death of Woldimirus King of Rhythenia his sonne Berisus succeeded in the kingdome who though hee was a vertuous and religious Prince yet could not his vertue or religion priviledge him from the malice of his brother Suadopolcus who gaping and itching for the Crowne slew his brother this good Prince as hee was sleeping in his Chamber together with his Esquire that attended upon him and not content herewith but adding murder to murder hee assaulted another of his brethren by the same impietie and brought him to the same end Whereupon the last brother Iorislaus to bee revenged on this villanie set upon him with an armie of men and killing his complices drove him to fly to Crachus king of Polonia for succour who furnishing him with a new armie sent him backe against his brother in which battell his successe being equall to the former hee lost his men and himselfe escaping the sword dyed in his flight to Polonia and was buried in a base and ignoble sepulchre fit enough for so base and ignoble a wretch And that we may see how hatefull and ungodly a thing it is to be either a protector or a saver of any murderer marke the judgement of God that fell upon this king of Polonia though not in his own person yet in his posterity for hee being dead his eldest sonne and heire Crachus was murdered by his younger brother Lechus as they were hunting so disguised and torn that every man imputed his death not to Lechus whose eyes dropt crocodiles teares but to some savage and cruell beast howbeit ere long his trechery being discovered and disseised of his kingdome hee died with extreame griefe and horrour of conscience And thus we see that Crachus his kingdome came to desolation for maintaining a murderer Iohn the high Priest of Jerusalem sonne and successor to Iudas had a brother termed Iesus to whom Bagoses the lieutenant of Artaxerxes army promised the Priesthood meaning indeed to depose Iohn and install him in his roome upon which occasion this Iesus growing insolent spared not to revile his brother and that in the temple with immodest and opprobrious speeches so that his anger being provoked he slew him in his rage a most impious part for the high Priest to pollute the holy temple with bloud and that of his owne brother and so impious that the Lord in justice could not chuse but punish the whole nation for it most severely For this cause Bagoses imposed a tribute upon them even a most grievous tribute that for every lambe they offered upon the altar they should pay fiftie groats to the king of Persia besides the prophanation of their temple with the uncircumcised Persians who entred into it at their pleasures and so polluted the Sanctuary and holy things of God this punishment continued upon them seven yeares and all for this one murder Gerhardus Earle of Holsatia after he had conquered the Danes in many and sundry battells was traiterously slaine in the citie Kanderhusen by one Nicolaus Iacobus a rich Baron so that whom the open enemy feared in the field him the privie subtile foe murdered in his chamber But the traitor and murderer albeit hee fled to the castle Schaldenburg and
of money and sets up a shop at Roane Now this Merchant being expected at Luca a whole yeare together whither he had sent word he would shortly repaire when he came not a messenger was dispatched to seeke him out and after much enquiry at London and Roan and elsewhere he learnt at last in an Inne that a Lucquois Merchant about sixe moneths before had lodged there and was gone to Paris where also not hearing any tydings of him he suspected that he was murthered made his complaint to the Court of Parliament at Roan Which imbracing this businesse being directed by Gods providence made enquiry up and downe the Towne Whether there were any that within seven or eight moneths had set up a new shop and finding one caused him to be arrested for a supposed and a pretended debt but in the end examined him upon this murther and laid it to his charge herewith the prisoner solicited partly bythe remorse of his conscience partly by hope of freeing himselfe by a bribe confessed the fact in private to the Justice but as soone as he perceived that he went about to call in witnesses to his confession hee denyed it againe in briefe the new Merchant is committed to prison and he sueth the Justice for forgerie and false imprisonment the Justice can by no meanes cleare himselfe but onely by the assurance that all men had of his honesty The matter hangs thus in suspence till at length the dead carkasse of the Lucquois was â—eard of and the blind man also came to light who heard the noyse of the murther to make short this blind man was brought to confront the prisoner and twenty men were caused to speake one after another and still the blinde man was demaunded whether hee knew their voices and said That that was the man that answered him on the mountaine This course being ofttimes re-iterated the blind man hit alwayes on the right and never missed Whereupon the Court condemned him to death and before he dyed he confessed the fact to the great glory of Gods Justice and the great amazement and strange astonishment of all men At Paris in the yeare of our Lord 1551 a certaine young woman was brained by a man with a hammer neere unto Saint Opportunes Church as she was going to midnight Masse and all her rings and jewels taken from her This hammer was stolne from a poore Smith there by the same evening who therefore being suspected of the murder was cruelly handled and put to extraordinary torture by reason of the vehement presumptions made against him in such sort that hee was quite lamed and deprived of the meanes to get his living whereby being reduced into extreame poverty he ended his life in great misery All this while the murderer remained unknowne almost for the space of twenty yeares and the memory of the murder seemed to be buried with the poore woman in her grave now marke the justice of God who hath promised that nothing shall be so hid but shall be brought to light It hapned that one Iohn Flaming Sergeant of the Subsidies at Paris being upon occasion of businesse at S. Leups a Village by Montmorency chanced among other talke at Supper to say how he had left his wife at home sicke and no body with her but a little boy there was an old man then present named Monstier and a sonne in law of his who immediatly upon this speech went away that night with each of them a basket of cherries and a greene goose and came about ten of the clock the next morning to Flamings house where they intended to murder both the woman and the boy and to possesse themselves of all the goods that they could conveniently carrie away but the Lord prevented them of their purpose for being let in at the dores by the boy pretending that they came from the husband with thâ—se remembrances to his wife they presently slew the boy thinking also to surprise the woman but she hearing the cry of the boy lockt fast her chamber dore and cried for helpe out at her window whereupon the neighbors running to the house tooke these two villaines one hidden in the funnell of the Chimney and the other in a Well in the Cellar with nothing but his nose above water Now these two wretches being thus apprehended arraigned and condemned being on the seaffold at the place of execution the old man desired to speake with the Smithes widow whose husband was suspected for the first murder of whom when she came hee asked forgivenesse saying that it was he which had killed the young woman by S. Opportunes Church Thus the Lord discovered both the innocency of the Smith and the guiltinesse of this vile murderer and that twenty yeeres after the fact was committed Not long since the like discovery of a murderer was made here in England in Leicestershire not farre from Lutterworth almost twenty yeeres after the fact committed The murder was committed by a Miller upon one in his Mill whom he buried in the ground hard by This Miller removed unto another countrey and there dwelt a long space untill at last guided by Gods Almighty providence to the manifestation of his justice he returned unto that place to visit some of his friends Now in the meane time whilest he was there the Miller that now possessed the former Mill had occasion to dig deepe into the ground where he found the carkasse of a dead man presently it was suspected that some had beene murdered and was there buried whereupon the Lord put it into their hearts to remember how about twenty yeares before a certaine neighbour of theirs was suddenly missed and could never be heard of insomuch that all supposed him to have beene dead in some strange countrey this carkasse they suspected to be his and bethinking themselves who was then Miller of that Mill behold he was there ready in the towne not having been there for many yeares before This man was suspected nd thereupon examined and without much adoe confessed the fact and received deserved punishment Who seeth not here manifest traces and footsteps of Gods providence First in reducing the murderer to that place at that time Secondly in stirring up the Miller to digge at the same time also thirdly in putting into the hearts of the people the missing of such a man whose memory was almost forgotten and lastly in causing the murderer to confesse his deed when as no proofe nor witnesse could be brought against him but here is the justice of God against all such Vengeance will not suffer the murderer to live Henry Ranzovius Lieutenant for the King of Denmarke in the Duchie of Holsace makes relation in a letter of his of an ordinary meanes of finding out Murderers practised in the kingdome of Denmark by King Christiernus the second and permitted over all his Kingdome the occasion whereof he saith was this Certaine Gentlemen being on an evening together in a
then is the murdering of Parents especially detestable when a man is so possessed with the Devill or transported with a hellish fury that he lifteth up his hand against his own father or mother to put them to death this is so monstrous and inormous an impiety that the greatest Barbarians ever have had it in detestation wherefore it is also expresly commanded in the Law of God That whosoever smiteth his father or mother in what sort so ever though not to death yet he shall die the death If the disobedience unreverence and contempt of children towards their Parents are by the just judgements of God most rigorously punished as hath beene declared before in the first commandement of the second Table how much more then when violence is offered and above all when murder is committed Thus the Aegyptians punished this sinne they put the committants upon a stacke of thornes and burnt them alive having beaten their bodies beforehand with sharpe reeds made of purpose Solon being demanded why he appointed no punishment in his Lawes for Paricides answered that there was no necessity thinking that the wide world could not afford so wicked a wretch It is said that Romulus for the same cause ordained no punishment in his Common wealth for that crime but called every murderer a Paricide the one being in his opinion a thing execrable and the other impossible And in truth there was not for 600 yeeres space according to Plutarchs report found in Rome any one that had committed this execrable fact The first Paricide that Rome saw was Lucius Ostius after the first Punicke warre although other Writers affirme that M. Malliolus was the first and Lucius the second how soever it was they both underwent the punishment of the Law Pompeia which enacted That such offenders should be thrust into a sacke of Leather and an Ape a Cocke a Viper and a Dog put in to accompany them and then to be throwne into the water to the end that these beasts being enraged and animated one against another might wreke their teene upon them and so deprive them of life after a strange fashion being debarred of the use of the aire water and earth as unworthy to participate the very Elements with their deaths much lesse with their lives which kinde of punishment was after practised and confirmed by the constitution of Constantine the Great And albeit the regard of the punishment seemed terrible and the offence it selfe much more monstrous yet since that time there have beene many so perverse and exceeding wicked as to throw themselves headlong into that desperate gulfe As Cleodoricke sonne of Sigebert King of Austria who being tickled with an unsatiable lust of raigne through the deceivable perswasions of Cleodovius King of France slew his father Sigebert as he lay asleepe in his Tent in a forrest at noone time of the day who being weary with walking laid himselfe downe there to take his rest but for all that the wicked wretch was so farre from attaining his purpose that it fell out cleane contrary to his expectation for after his fathers death as he was viewing his treasures and ransacking his coffers one of Cleodovius factors strooke him suddenly and murdered him and so Cleodovius seised both upon the Crowne and Treasures After the death of Hircanus Aristobulus succeeded in the government of Judea which whilest he strove to reduce into a kingdome and to weare a crown contrary to the custome of his predecessors his mother other brethren contending with him about the same he cast in prison took Antigonus his next brother to be his associate but ere long a good gratefull son he famished her to death with hunger that had fed him to life with her teares even his naturall mother And after perswaded with false accusations caused his late best beloved Antigonus to be slaine by an ambush that lay by Strato's tower because in the time of his sicknesse he entred the Temple with pompe But the Lord called for quittance for the two bloodsheds immediately after the execution of them for his brothers blood was scarce washed off the ground ere in the extreamity of his sicknesse he was carried into the same place and there vomiting up blood at his mouth and nosthrils to be mingled with his brothers he fell downe starke dead not without horrible tokens of trembling and despaire Nero that unnaturall Tyran surpassed all that lived as in all other vices so in this for he attempted thrice by poyson to make away his mother Agrippina and when that could not prevaile by reason of her usuall Antidotes and preservatives hee assayed divers other meanes as first a devise whereby she should be crushed to death as she slept a loosened beame that should fall upon her and secondly by shipwracke both which when she escaped the one by discovery and the other by swimming he sent Anicâ—tus the Centurion to slaughter her with the sword who with his companions breaking up the gate of the City where she lay rushed into her Chamber and there murdered her It is written of her that when she saw there was no remedy but death she presented her belly unto the murderer and desired him to kill her in that part which had most deserved it by bringing into the world so vile a monster and of him that he came to view the dead carkasse of his mother and handled the members thereof commending this and discommending that as his fancy led him and in the meane time being thirsty to call for drinke so farre was he from all humanity and touch of Nature but he that spared not to embrue his hands in her blood that bred him was constrained ere long to offer violence to his own life which was most deere unto him Henry the son of Nicolotus Duke of Herulia had two wicked cruell and unkind sonnes by the yonger of whom with the consent of the elder he was traiterously murdered because he had married a third wife for which cause Nicolotus their cousin-german pursued them both with a just revenge for he deprived them of their kingdome and drove them into exile where they soon after perished Selymus the tenth Emperour of Turkes was so unnaturall a childe that he feared not to dispossesse his father Bajazet of the crown by treason and next to bereave him of his life by poyson And not satisfied therewith even to murder his two brethren and to destroy the whole stock of his own blood But when hee had raigned eight yeares vengeance found him out and being at his backe so corrupted and putrified his reins that the contagion spread it selfe over all his body so that he dyed a beast-like and irksome death and that in the same place where he had before oppressed his father Bajazet with an army to wit at Chiurle a city of Thracia in the year of our Lord 1520. in the moneth of September Charles the younger by surname called Crassus
heathen that they that hated them were lords over them In the yeare of our Lord 1551 in a town of Hassia called Weidenhasten The twentieth day of November a cruell mother inspired with Satan shut up all her doores and began to murder her four children on this manner shee snatcht up ā sharpe axe and first set upon her eldest son being but eight yeares old searching him out with a candle behinde a hogs-head where he hid himselfe and presently notwithstanding his pitifull praiers and complaints clave his head in two pieces and chopped off both his armes Next shee killed her daughter of five yeares old after the same manner another little boy of three yeares of age seeing his mothers madnesse hid himselfe poore infant behinde the gate whom as soone as the Tygre espied shee drew out by the haire of the head into the floore and there cut off his head the yongest lay crying in the cradle but halfe a yeare old him she without all compassion pluckt out and murdered in like sort These murders being finished the Diuell incarnate for certaine no womanly nature was left in her to take punishment of her selfe for the same cut her owne throat and albeit she survived nine dayes and confessing her fault dyed with teares and repentance yet we see how it pleased God to arme her own hands against her selfe as the fittest executioners of vengeance The like tragicall accident we reade to have happened at Cutzenborff a City in Silesia in the yeare 1536 to a woman and her three children who having slain them all in her husbands absence killed her selfe in like manner also to make up the tragedy Concerning stepmothers it is a world to reade how many horrible murders they have usually practised upon their children in law to the end to bring the inheritance to their own brood or at least to revenge some injury supposed to be done unto them of which one or two examples I will subnect as a taste out of many hundred leaving the residue to the judgment and reading of the Learned Constantius the son of Heraclius having raigned Emperour but one yeere was poysoned by his stepmother Martina to the end to install her own son Heraclon in the Crown but for this cruell part becomming odious to the Senat they so much hated to have her or her son raigne over them that in stead thereof they cut off her tongue and his nose and so banished them the City Fausta the wife of Constantine the great fell in love with Constantine her sonne in Law begotten upon a Concubine whom when shee could not perswade unto her lust she accused unto the Emperour as a solicitor of her chastity for which cause he was condemned to die but after the truth knowne Constantine put her into a hot bath and suffered her not to come forth untill the heat had choaked her revenging upon her head her sonnes death and her owne unchastity CHAP. XIIII Of Subject Murtherers SEeing then they that take away their neighbours lives doe not escape unpunished as by the former examples it appeareth it must needs follow that if they to whom the sword of Justice is committed of God to represse wrongs and chastise vices do give over themselves to cruelties and to kill and slay those whom they ought in duty to protect and defend must receive a greater measure of punishment according to the measure and quality of their offence Such an one was Saul the first king of Israel who albeit he ought to have beene sufficiently instructed out of the law of God in his duty in this behalfe yet was hee so cruell and bloody-minded as contrary to all Justice to put to death Abimelech the high Priest with fourescore and five other Priests of the family of his father onely for receiving David into his house a small or rather no offence And yet not satisfied therewith he vomited out his rage also against the whole city of the Priests and put to the mercilesse sword both man woman and child without sparing any He slew many of the Gibeonites who though they were reliques of the Amorites that first inhabited that land yet because they were received into league of amity by a solemne oath and permitted of long continuance to dwell amongst them should not have beene awarded as enemies nor handled after so cruell a fashion Thus therefore hee tyrannizing and playing the Butcher amongst his own subjects for which cause his house was called the house of slaughter and practising many other foule enormities he was at the last overcome of the Philistims and sore wounded which when he saw fearing to fall alive into his enemies hands and not finding any of his owne men that would lay their hands upon him desperately slew himselfe The same day three of his sons and they that followed him of his owne houshould were all slaine The Philistims the next day finding his dead body dispoyled among the carkasses beheaded it and carried the head in triumph to the temple of their god and hung up the trunke in disgrace in one of their Cities to be seene lookt upon and pointed at And yet for all this was not the fire of Gods wrath quenched for in King Davids time there arose a famine that lasted three yeeres the cause thereof was declared by God to be the murder which Saul committed upon the Gibeonites wherefore David delivered Sauls seven sons into the Gibeonites hands that were left who put them to the most shamefull death that is even to hanging Amongst all the sins of King Achab and Iezabel which were many and great the murder of Naboth standeth in the fore front for though hee had committed no such crime as might any way deserve death yet by the subtill and wicked devise of Iezabel foolish and credulous consent of Achab and false accusation of the two suborned witnesses he was cruelly stoned to death but his innocent blood was punished first in Achab who not long after the Warre which he made with the King of Syria received so deadly a wound that he dyed thereof the dogs licking up his blood in the same place where Naboths blood was licked according to the foretelling of Elias the Prophet And secondly of Iezabel whom her own servants at the commandement of Iehu whom God had made executor of his wrath threw headlong out of an highwindow unto the ground so that the wals were dyed with her blood and the horses trampled her under their feet and dogs devoured her flesh till of all her dainty body there remained nothing saving onely her skull feet and palme of her hands Ioram sonne of Iehosaphat King of Judah being after his fathers death possessed of the Crowne and Scepter of Judah by and by exalted himselfe in tyranny and put to death sixe of his owne brethren all younger than himselfe with many Princes of the Realme for which cause God stirred up the Edomites to rebell the Philistines and
Arabians to make warre against him who forraged his countrey sacked and spoiled his cities and tooke prisoners his wives and children the youngest onely excepted who afterwards also was murdered when he had raigned King but a small space And lastly as in doing to death his own brethren he committed cruelty against his owne bowels so the Lord stroke him with such an incurable disease in his bowels and so perpetuall for it continued two yeares that his very entrails issued out with torment and so he dyed in horrible misery Albeit that in the former booke we have already touched the pride and arrogancy of King Alexander the Great yet we cannot pretermit to speake of him in this place his example serving to fit for the present subject for although as touching the rest of his life he was very well governed in his private actions as a Monarch of his reputation might be yet in his declining age I meane not in yeares but to deathward he grew exceeding cruell not onely towards strangers as the Cosseis whom he destroyed to the sucking babe but also to his houshold and familiar friends Insomuch that being become odious to most fewest loved him and divers wrought all meanes possible to make him away but one especially whose sonne in law and other neere friends he had put to death never ceased untill he both ministred a deadly draught unto himselfe whereby he deprived him of his wicked life and a fatall stroke to his wives and children after his death to the accomplishment of his full revenge Phalaris the Tyran of Agrigentum made himselfe famous to posterity by no other meanes than horrible cruelties exercised upon his subjects inventing every day new kinds of tortures to scourge and afflict the poore soules withall In his dominion there was one Perillus artificer of his craft one expert in his occupation who to flatter and curry favour with him devised a new torment a brasen bull of such a strange workmanship that the voyce of those that were roasted therein resembled rather the roaring of a Bull then the cry of men The Tyran was well pleased with the Invention but he would needs have the Inventor make first triall of his owne worke as he well deserved before any other should take taste thereof But what was the end of this Tyran The people not able any longer to endure his monstrous and unnaturall cruelties ran upon him with one consent with such violence that they soone brought him to destruction and as some say put him into the brasen Bull which hee provided to roast others to bee roasted therein himselfe deserving it as well for approoving the devise as Perillus did for devising it Edward the second of that name King of England at the request and desire of Hugh Spencer his darling made warre upon his subjects and put to death divers of the Peeres and Lords of the Realme without either right or form of the law insomuch that queen Isabel his wife fled to France with her yong son for fear of his unbrideled fury after a while finding opportunity and means to return again garded with certain small forces which she had in those countreyes gathered together she found the whole people discontented with the Kings demeanours and ready to assist her against him so she besieged him with their succour and tooke him prisoner and put him into the Tower of London to be kept till order might be taken for his deposition so that shortly after by the Estates being assembled together he was generally and joyntly reputed and pronounced unworthy to be King for his exceeding cruelties sake which he had committed upon many of his worthy Subjects and so deposing him they crowned his young sonne Edward the third of his name King in his roome he yet living and beholding the same Iohn Maria Duke of Millan may be put into this ranke of Murtherers for his custome was divers times when any Citizen offended thim yea and somtimes without offence too to throw them amongst cruell Mastives to be torne in pieces and devoured But as he continued and delighted in this unnaturall kinde of murther the people one day incensed and stirred up against him ranne upon him with such rage and violence that they quickly deprived him of life And he was so well beloved that no man ever would or durst bestow a Sepulchre upon his dead bones but suffered his body to lie in the open streets uncovered save that a certaine harlot threw a few Roses upon his wounds and so covered him Alphonsus the second King of Naples Ferdinands sonne was in tyranny towards his subjects nothing inferiour to his father for whether of them imprisoned and put to death more of the Nobility and Barons of the Realme it is hard to say but sure it is that both were too outragious in all manner of cruelty for which so soone as Charles the eight King of France departing from Rome made towards Naples the hatred which the people bore him secretly with the odious remembrance of his fathers cruelty began openly to shew it selfe by the fruits for they did not nor could not dissemble the great desire that every one had of the approach of the Frenchmen which when Alphonsus perceived and seeing his affaires and estate brought unto so narrow a pinch he also cowardly cast away all courage to resist and hope to recover so huge a tempest and he that for a long time had made warre his trade and profession and had yet all his forces and armies complete and in readinesse making himselfe banquerupt of all that honour and reputation which by long experience and deeds of armes he had gotten resolved to abandon his kingdome and to resigne the title and authority thereof to his sonne Ferdinand thinking by that meanes to asswage the heat of their hatred and that so young and innocent a King who in his owne person had never offended them might be accepted and beloved of them and so their affection toward the French rebated and cooled But this devise seemed to no more purpose than a salve applyed to a sore out of season when it was growne incureable or a prop set to a house that is already falne Therefore he tormented with the sting of his owne conscience and finding in his minde no repose by day nor rest by night but a continuall summons and advertisement by fearefull dreames that the Noblemen which hee had put to death cryed to the people for revenge against him was surprised with so terrible terrour that forthwith without making acquainted with his departure either his brother or his owne sonne he fled to Sicilie supposing in his journey that the Frenchmen were still at his backe and starting at every little noyse as if he feared all the Elements had conspired his destruction Philip Comineus that was an eye-witnesse of this journey reporteth That every night he would cry that he heard the Frenchmen and that the very trees
dreaming of nothing lesse whereat they being at the instant amazed quickly gathered their spirits together and putting themselves in defence fought it out with such courage and eagernesse that the traitors Army was wholly discomfited and he himselfe with one of his sonnes slain The Gothes having gotten this victory broke off their voyage to France and turned their course backe again to Italie with purpose to destroy and spoil and so they did for they laid waste all the Countrey of Piemont and Lumbardy and elsewhere and besieged Rome it selfe so that from that time Italie never ceased to be scourged and tormented with the Gothes for the space of eighteen yeers Moreover whosoever else have been found to follow the steps of these truce peace and promise-breakers void of truth and regard of reputation alwayes underwent worthy punishment for their unworthy acts and fell headlong into confusion and ignominy making themselves subjects worthy to be curst and detested of all men CHAP. XVI Of Queenes that were Murtherers IF these and such like cruelties as we have spoken before be strange and monstrous for men what shall we then say of wicked and bloudy women who contrary to the nature of their sex addict themselves to all violence and bloudshedding as cursed Iezabel Queen of Israel did of whom sufficient hath been spoken before Athaliah Ahabs daughter and wife to Ioram King of Judah was a bird of the same feather for she was possessed with such a spirit of fury and rage that after the death of her son Ochosias that died without issue she put to death all the bloud royall to wit the posterity of Nathan Solomons brother to whom by right of succession the inheritance of the Crown appertained to the end that she might install her selfe into the kingly diadem after this cruell butchery of all the royall male children except Ioas who by Gods providence was preserved alive she usurped the Crowne and Scepter of Juda full seven yeeres at the end of which date Ioas was exalted to the Crowne and she not onely deposed but slain by the hands of her Guard that attended upon her Semiramis the Queen of Assyria was a woman of an ambitious spirit who through her thirst of reigning counterfeited her sex and attired her selfe like a man to get more authority and reverence to her selfe She was the destruction of many thousand people by the unjust war which she stirred up besides that she was a notorious strumpet and withall a murderer of those that satisfied her lust for still as they came from her bed some lay privily in watch to kill them lest they should bewray her villany it is reported that she was so shamelesse that she solicited her owne son to commit incest with her who in detestation of her filthinesse and cruelty raised a power against her and conquering her in one great battell caused her most deservedly to be put to death Brunchild whom Histories call Brunhault a Queen of France by marriage but a Spaniard by birth was a woman that bred much mischiefe in her age and that wrought many horrible and death-deserving crimes for partly with her subtle devices and partly with her owne hands she murdered ten Kings of France one after another she caused her husband to slay his owne brother she procured the death of her nephew Meroveus whom against all equity and honesty she had secondly espoused for her husband for he being hated of his father for that vile incest and perceiving himselfe in danger of taking made one of servants thrust him through After she had committed these and many other foul facts she went aboutalso to defraud Clotairius the son of Chilpericke of the right of the Crowne which pertained unto him and to thrust in another in his room whereupon arose great war in the which as she dealt more boldly and manfully than the condition of her sexe would bear so she received the due wages of her brave and vertuous deeds for she was taken prisoner with three of her nephewes whose throats she saw cut before her face and after her selfe was set upon a Camell and led through the hoste three dayes together every man reviling mocking reproaching and despighting her and at last by the award and judgement of the Princes and Captaines of the Army she was adjudged to be tied by the hair of her head one arme and one foot to the tail of a wilde and unâ—â—med horse and so to be left to his mercy to be drawne miserably to her destruction which was no sooner executed but her miserable carkase the instrument of so many mischiefes was with mens feet spurned bruised trampled and wounded after a most strange fashion and this was the wofull end of miserable Brunchild Edilburga the daughter of Offa King of Mercia in England who was married to Brigthricus King of the West Saxons was a woman so passing all the bounds of humanity and so given to cruelty and other beastly conditions that she first poysoned divers of the Nobles of the Kingdom and then having practised this wickednesse upon them she at length poysoned also the King her husband for which cause flying over into France unto Charles the Great for fear of punishment among her owne people when by reason of her beautie it was offered unto her that she should marry either with the King himselfe or with his son because she chose the son before the father married neither the one nor yet the other but was thrust into a Monastery where she not forgetting her old trade playing the harlot with a Monke was expulsed from thence and ended her life in great penury and misery About the same time that this Edilburga was thus working her feats in England Irene another most idolatrous and cruell minded woman being Emperesse of the Greekes was as busie for her part at Constantinople This wicked woman through the meanes of Pope Adrian took up the body of Constantine Emperour of Constantinople her owne husbands father and when she had burned the same she caused the ashes to be cast into the sea because he disannulled images Afterward reigning with her son Constantine the sixth son to Leo the fourth and being at dissention with him for disallowing the worshipping of images caused him to be taken and laid in prison who afterward through power of friends being restored to his Empire again at last she caused the same her owne son to be cast in prison and his eyes to be put out so cruelly that within short space he died After this the said Emperesse as it were triumphing in her cruelty and idolatry caused a Councell to be held at Nice where it was decreed That images should again be restored to the Church but this Councell was after repealed by another Councell holden at Frankford by Charles the Great and at length this wicked woman was deposed by Nicephorus who reigned after and was expulsed the Empire and after the example of Edilburga
in many witnesseth they are intolerable in that kinde for which cause they have borâ—â— the markes of Gods Justice for their rigorous and barbarous handling of the poor West Indians whom they have brought to that extremity by putting them to such excessive travels in digging their mines of Gold as namely in the island Hispagnola that the most part by sighes and teares wish by death to end their miseries many first killing their children have desperately hung themselves on high trees some have throwne themselves headlong from steep mountaines and others cast themselves into the sea to be rid of their troubles but the Tyrans have never escaped scot-free but came alwayes to some miserable end or other for some of them were destroyed by the inhabitants others slew one another with their owne hands provoked by insatiable avarice some have been drowned in the sea and others starved in the Desart in fine few escaped unpunished Bombadilla one of the Governours of Hispagnola after he had swayed there a while and enriched himselfe by the sweat and charge of the inhabitants was called home again into Spain whitherward according to the commandment received as he imbarqued himselfe shipping with him so much treasure as in value mounted to more than an hundred and fifty thousand duckats beside many pieces and graines of Gold which he carried to the Spanish Queen for a Present whereof one weighed three thousand duckats there arose such a horrible and outragious tempest in the broad sea and beat so violently against his ships that four and twenty vessels were shivered in pieces and drowned at that blow there perished Bombadilla himselfe with most of his Captaines and more than five hundred Spaniards that thought to returne full rich into the Country and became with all their treasures a prey unto the fishes In the year of our Lord 1541. The eight day of September there chanced in the City Guatimala which lyeth in the way from Nicaragna Westward a strange and admirable judgement After the death of Alvarado who subdued this province and founded the City and was but a little before slain in fight it rained so strangely and vehemently all this whole day and night that of a sudden so huge a deluge and floud of waters overflowed the earth streaming from the bottom of the mountains into the lower grounds with such violence that stones of incredible bignesse were carried with it which tumbling strongly downewards bruised and burst in pieces whatsoever was in their way In the mean while there was heard in the air fearfull cries and voices and a blacke Cow was seen running up and downe in the midst of the water that did much hurt The first house that was Overthrowne by this tempest was dead Alvarado's wherein his widow a very proud woman that held the Government of the whole Province in her hand and had before despited God for her husbands death was slain with all her houshold and in a moment the Citie was either drowned or subverted there perished in this tempest of men and women sixscore persons but they that at the beginning of the floud â—ted saved their lives The morrow after the waters were surceased one might see the poor Spaniards lie along the fields some maimed in their bodies other with broken armes or legs or otherwise miserably wounded And thus did God revenge the monstrous Spanish cruelties exercised upon those poor people whom instead of inâ—icing by fair and gentle meanes to the knowledge of the true God and his Son Christ they terrified by extraordinary tyranny for such is the Spanish nature making them thinke that Christians were the cruellest and most wicked men of the earth In the year of our Lord 1514. happened the horrible sedition and butchery of the Croysadoes in Hungary the story is this There was a generall discontent amongst the people against the King and chiefest of the Realme because they went not about to conquer those places again from the Turke which he held in Hungary Thereupon the Popes Legate published Pardons for all those that would crosse themselves to go to war against the Turke Whereupon suddenly there gathered together a wonderfull company of thieves and robbers from every corner of Hungary who together with great multitudes of the common people that were oppressed by the insolency of the Nobility creating themselves a Generall committed a most horrible spoil almost over all Hungary murdering all the Gentlemen and Bishops they could meet withall the richest and those which were noblest descended they empailed alive This cruell rage continuing at last the King raised Forces against them and ere long they were defeated in a set battle by Iohn the son of Vayvod Stephen who having cut the most of them in pieces took their Leaders and put them to death by such strange torments as I have horrour to remember for the Generall of this seditious troop called George he caused to be stript naked and a Crowne of hot burning iron to be set upon his head then some of his veines to be opened and made Lucatius his brother to drinke the bloud which issued out of them After that the chiefest of the Peasants who had been kept three dayes without meat were brought forth and forced to fall up on the body of George yet breathing with their teeth and every one to tear away and eat a piece of it Thus he being torne in pieces his bowels were pulled out and cut into morsels whereof some being boyled and the rest roasted the Prisoners were constrained to feed on them which done all that remained were put to most horrible and languishing deaths An example of greater cruelty can hardly be found since the world was a world and therefore no marvell if the Lord hath punished the King and Realme of Hungary for such strange cruelties by suffering the cruell Turkes to make spoil of them Cruell chastisements are prepared for them that be cruell and inhumane During the Peasants war in Germany in the year 1525. a certain Gentleman not content to have massacred a great number even of those which had humbly craved pardon of him used in all company to glory of his exploits and to tell what murders and thefts he had committed But some moneths after he fell sicke and languished many dayes of an extreme pain in the reines of his back through the torment whereof he fell into despair and ceased not to curse and deny his Creatour who is blessed for ever untill that both speech and life failed him Neither did the severity of Gods justice here stay but shewed it selfe on his posterity also for his eldest son seeking to exalt the prowesse and valour of his father vaunted much of his fathers exploits in an open assembly at a banquet wherewithall a countriman being moved stabbed him to the heart with his dagger and some few dayes after the Plague fals among the residue of his Family and consumeth all that remaineth CHAP. XX. Of Adulteries IT
besieging him in his owne City took him at last prisoner and hanged him with his two sons Francis and William Diocles son of Pisistratus Tyran of Athens for ravishing a maid was slain by her brother whose death when Hippias his brother undertook to revenge and caused the maidens brother to be racked that he might discover the other conspiratours he named all the Tyrans friends which by commandment being put to death the Tyran asked whether there were any more None but onely thy selfe quoth he whom I would wish next to be hanged whereby it was perceived how abundantly he had revenged his sisters chastity by whose notable stomacke all the Athenians being put in remembrance of their liberty expelled their Tyran Hippias out of their City Mundus a young Gentleman of Rome ravished the chaste Matron Paulina in this fashion when he perceived her resolution not to yeeld unto his lust he perswaded the Priests of Isis to say that they were warned by an Oracle how that Anubius the god of Egypt desired the company of the said Paulina to whom the chaste Matron gave light credence both because she thought the Priests would not lie and also because it was accounted a great renowne to have to do with a god and thus by this meanes was Paulina abused by Mundus in the Temple of Isis under the name of Anubius Which thing being after disclosed by Mundus himselfe he was thus justly revenged the Priests were put to death the Temple beaten downe to the ground the Image of Isis throwne into Tiber and the young man banished A principall occasion of the Danes first arrivall here in England which after conquered the whole Land and exercised among the Inhabitants most horrible cruelties and outrages was a Rape committed by one Osbright a deputy King under the King of the West-Saxons in the North part This Osbright upon a time journeying by the way turned into the house of one of his Nobles called Bruer who having a wife of great beauty he being from home the King after dinner allured with her excellent beauty took her to a secret Chamber where he forcibly contrary to her will ravished her whereupon she being greatly dismayed and vexed made her mone to her husband at his returne of this violence and injury received The Nobleman forthwith studying revenge first went to the King and resigned to his hands all such services and possessions which he held of him and then took shipping and sailed into Denmarke where he had great friends and had his bringing up there making his mone to Codrinus the King desired his aid in revenging of the great villany of Osbright against him and his wife Codrinus glad to entertain any occasion of quarrell against this Land presently levied an Army and preparing all things for the same sendeth forth Inguar and Hubba two brethren with a mighty Army of Danes into England who first arriving at Holdernesse burnt up the Countrey and killed without mercy both men women and children then marching towards Yorke encountered with wicked Osbright himselfe where he with the most part of his Army was slain and discomfited a just reward for his villanous act as also one chief cause of the Conquest of the whole Land by the Danes In the year of our Lord 955. Edwine succeeding his uncle Eldred was King of England this man was so impudent that in the very day of his Coronation he suddenly withdrew himselfe from his Lords and in sight of certain persons ravished his owne kinswoman the wife of a Nobleman of his Realme and afterward slew her husband that he might have unlawfull use of her beauty for which act he became so odious to his Subjects and Nobles that they joyntly rose against him and deprived him of his Crowne when he had reigned four yeares CHAP. XXII Other examples of Gods Judgements upon Adulterers AMongst all other things this is especially to be noted how God for a greater punishment of the disordinate lust of men strucke them with a new yet filthy and stinking kinde of Disease called the French Pox though indeed the Spaniards were the first that were infected therewith by the heat which they caught among the women of the new-found lands and sowed the seeds thereof first in Spain and from thence sprinkled Italy therewith wherethe French men caught it when Charles the Eighth their King went against Naples From whence the contagion spread it selfe throughout divers places of Europe Barbary was so over-growne with it that in all their Cities the tenth part escaped not untouched nay almost not a Family but was infected From thence it ran to Aegypt Syria and the graund Cair and it may near hand truly be said that there was not a corner of the habitable world where this not onely new and strange for it was never heard of in antient ages but terrible and hideous scourge of Gods wrath stretched not it selfe They that were spotted with it and had it rooted in their bodies led a languishing life full of aches and torments and carried in their visages filthy markes of unclean behaviour as ulcers boyles and such like that greatly disfigured them And herein we see the words of Saint Paul verified That an Adulterer sinneth against his owne body Now for so much as the world is so brutishly carried into this sin as to none more the Lord therefore hath declared his anger against it in divers sorts so that divers times he hath punished it in the very act or not long after by a strange death Of which Alcibiades one of the great Captaines of Athens may stand for an example who being polluted with many great and odious vices and much given to his pleasures and subject to all uncleannesse ended his life in the midst thereof for as he was in company of a Phrygian strumpet having flowne thither to the King of Phrygia for shelter was notwithstanding set upon by certain Guards which the King induced by his enemies sent to stay him but they though in number many through the conceived opinion of his notable valour durst not apprehend him at hand but set fire to the house standing themselves in armes round about it to receive him if need were he seeing the fire leaped through the midst of it and so long defended himselfe amongst them all till strength failed in himselfe and blowes encreasing upon him constrained him to give up his life amongst them Pliny telleth of Cornelius Gallus and Q. Elerius two Roman Knights that died in the very action of filthinesse In the Irish History we finde recorded a notable judgement of God upon a notorious and cruell lecher one Turgesnis a Norwegian who having twice invaded Ireland reigned there as King for the space of thirty yeares This Tyran not onely cried havocke and spoil upon the whole Countrey abusing his victory very insolently but also spared not to abuse virgins and women at his pleasure to the satisfying
Countries to know the judgement of all the learned Divines concerning the matter in controversie who especially those that dwelt not far off seemed to allow and approve the divorce Thereupon he resolved rejecting his olde wife to take him to a new and to marrie as he did Anne of Bulloine one of the Queenes maides of honour a woman of most rare and excellent beauty Now as touching his first marriage with his brothers wife how unfortunate it was in it owne nature and how unjustly dispensed withall by the Pope we shall anon see by those heavy sorrowfull and troublesome events and issues which immediatly followed in the neck thereof And first and formest of the evill fare of the Cardinall of Yorke with whom the King being highly displeased for that at his instance and request the Pope had opposed himselfe to this marriage requited him and not undeservedly on this manner first he deposed him from the office of the Chancellorship secondly deprived him of two of his three bishoprickes which he held and lastly sent him packing to his owne bouse as one whom he never purposed more to see yet afterward being advertised of certaine insolent and threatning speeches which he used against him he sent againe for him but he not daring to refuse to come at his call dyed in the way with meere griefe and despight The Pope gave his definitive sentence against this act and favoured the cause of the divorced Ladie but what gained he by it save only that the King offended with him rejected him and all his trumpery retained his yearely tribute levied out of this Realm and converted it to another use and this was the recompence of his goodly dispensation with an incestuous marriage wherein although to speake truly and properly he lost nothing of his owne yet it was a deep check and no shallow losse to him and his successors to be deprived of so goodly a revenue and so great authority in this Realme as he then was CHAP. XXVII Of Adulterie SEeing that marriage is so holy an institution and ordinance of God as it hath been shewed to be it followeth by good right that the corruption thereof namely Adultery whereby the bond of marriage is dissolved should be forbidden for the woman that is polluted therewith despiseth her owne husband yea and for the most part hateth him and foisteth in strange seed even his enemies brats in stead of his owne not only to be fathered but also to be brought up and maintained by him and in time to be made inheritors of his possessions which thing being once knowne must needes stir up coales to set anger on fire and set abroach much mischiefe and albeit that the poore infants are innocent and guiltlesse of the crime yet doth the punishment and ignominie thereof redound to them because they cannot be reputed as legitimate but are even marked with the black coale of bastardy whilest they live so grievous is the guilt of this sin and uneasie to be removed For this cause the very Heathen not only reproved adultery evermore but also by authority of law prohibited it and allotted to death the offenders therein Abimelech King of the Philistims a man without circumcision and therefore without the covenant knowing by the light of nature for hee knew not the law of God how sacred and inviolable the knot of marriage ought to be expresly forbad all his people from doing any injury to Isaac in regard of his wife and from touching her dishonestly upon paine of death Out of the same fountaine sprang the words of queene Hecuba in Euripides speaking to Menelaus touching Helen when she admonished him to enact this law That every woman which should betray her husbands credit and her owne chastity to another man should die the death In olde time the Aegyptians used to punish adultery on this sort the man with a thousand jerkes with a reed and the woman with cutting off her nose but he that forced a free woman to his lust had his privy members cut off By the law of Iulia adulterers were without difference adjuged to death insomuch that Iulius Antonius a man of great parentage and reputation among the Romanes whose son was nephew to Augustus sister as Cornelius Tacitus reporteth was for this crime executed to death Aurelianus the Emperour did so hate and detest this vice that to the end to scare and terrifie his souldiers from the like offence he punished a souldier which had committed adultery with his hostesse in most severe manner even by causing him to be tyed by both his feet to two trees bent downe to the earth with force which being let goe returning to their course rent him cruelly in pieces the one halfe of his body hanging on the one tree and the other on the other Yea and at this day amongst the very Turkes and Tartarians this sin is sharply punished So that we ought not wonder that the Lord should ordaine death for the Adulterer If a man saith the law lie with another mans wife if I say he commit adultery with his neighbours wife the Adulterer and the Adulteresse shall die the death And in another place If a man be found lying with a woman married to a man they shall die both twaine to wit the man that lay with the wife and the wife that thou maiest put away evill from Israel Yea and before Moses time also it was a custome to burne the Adulterers with fire as it appeareth by the sentence of Iuda one of the twelve Patriarchs upon Thamar his daughter in law because he supposed her to have played the whore Beside all this to the end this sin might not be shuffled up and kept close there was a meanes given whereby if a man did but suspect his wife for this sin though she could by no witnesse or proofe be convinced her wickednesse notwithstanding most strangely and extraordinarily might be discovered And it was this The woman publikely at her husbands suit called in question before the Priest who was to give judgement of her after divers ceremonies and circumstances performed and bitter curses pronounced by him her belly would burst and her thigh would rot if she were guilty and she should be a curse amongst the people for her sin but if she was free no evill would come unto her Thus it pleased God to make knowne that the filthinesse of those that are polluted with this sin should not be hid This may more clearely appeare by the example of the Levites wife of whom it is spoken in the 19 20 and 21. Chapters of Iudges who having forsaken her husband to play the whore certaine moneths after he had againe received her to be his wife she was given over against her will to the villanous and monstrous lusts of the most wicked and perverse Gibeonites that so abused her for the space of a whole night together that in the morning she was found dead upon
the sonne and Tarquinius the father that they rebelled forthwith and when he should enter the City shut the gates against him neither would receive or acknowledge him ever after for their King Whereupon ensued war abroad and alteration of the state at homeâ— for after that time Rome endured no more King to beare rule over them but in their roome created two Consuls to be their governours which kinde of government continued to Iulius Caesars time Thus was Tarquinius the father shamefully deposed from his crowne for the adultery or rather rape of his son and Tarquinius the son slaine by the Sabians for the robberies and murders which by his fathers advice he committed against them and he himselfe not long after in the war which by the Tuscane succours he renued against Rome to recover his lost estate was discomfited with them and slaine in the middest of the rout In the Emperour Valentinianus time the first of that name many women of great account and parentage were for committing adultery put to death as testifieth Ammianus Marcellinus When Europe after the horrible wasting and great ruines which it suffered by the furious invasion of Attila began to take a little breath and finde some ease behold a new trouble more hurtfull and pernitious than the former came upon it by meanes of the filthy lechery and lust of the Emperour Valentinianus the third of that name who by reason of his evill bringing up and government under his mother Placidia being too much subject to his owne voluptuousnesse and tyed to his owne desires dishonoured the wife of Petronius Maximus a Senatour of Rome by forcing her to his pleasure an act indeed that cost him his life and many more beside and that drew after it the finall destruction of the Romane Empire and the horrible besacking and desolation of the City of Rome For the Emperour being thus taken and set on fire with the love of this woman through the excellent beauty wherewith she was endued endeavoured first to entice her to his lust by faire allurements and seeing that the bulwarke of her vertuous chastity would not by this meanes be shaken but that all his pursute was still in vaine he tryed a new course and attempted to get her by deceit and policie which to bring about one day setting himselfe to play with her husband Maximus he won of him his Ring which he no sooner had but secretly he sent it to his wife in her husbands name with this commandement That by that token she should come presently to the Court to doe her duty to the Empresse Eudoxia she seeing her husbands Ring doubted nothing but came forthwith as she was commanded where whilest she was entertained by certaine suborned women whom the Emperour had set on he himselfe commeth in place and discloseth unto her his whole love which he said he could no longer represse but must needes satisfie if not by faire meanes at least by force and compulsion and so he constrained her to his lust Her husband advertised hereof intended to revenge this injury upon the Emperour with his owne hand but seeing he could not execute his purpose whilest Actius the Captaine Generall of Valentinianus army lived a man greatly reverenced and feared for his mighty and famous exploits atchieved in the wars against the Burgundians Gothes and Attila he found meanes by suggesting a false accusation of treason against him which made him to be hated and suspected of the Emperour to worke his death After that Actius was thus traiterously and unworthily slaine the griefe of infinite numbers of people for him in regard of his great vertues and good service which he had done to the Commonwealth gave Maximusâ—it â—it occasion to practise the Emperours destruction and that by this meanes He set on two of Actius most faithfull followers partly by laying before them the unworthy death of their master and partly by presents and rewards to kill the Emperour which they performed as hee was sitting on his seat of judgement in the sight of the whole multitude among whom there was not one found that would oppose himselfe to Maximus in his defence save one of his Eunuchs who stepping betwixt to save his life lost his owne and the amazement of the whole City with this sudden accident was so great that Maximus having revenged himselfe thus upon the Emperour without much adoe not only seised upon the Empire but also upon the Empresse Eudoxia and that against her will to be his wife for his owne dyed but a little before Now the Empresse not able to endure so vile an indignity being above measure passionate with griefe and desire of revenge conspired his destruction on this manner She sent secretly into Africa to solicite and request most instantly Gensericus King of the Vandales by prayers mingled with presents to come to deliver her and the City of Rome from the cruell tyranny of Maximus and to revenge the thrice unjust murder of her husband Valentinian adding moreover that he was bound to doe no lesse in consideration of the league of friendship which by oath was confirmed betwixt them Gensericus well pleased with these newes laid hold upon the offered occasion which long time hee had more wished than hoped for and forthwith being already tickled with hope of a great and inestimable booty rigged his ships and made ready his armie by Sea lanching forth with three hundred thousand men Vandales and Moores and with this huge fleete made straight for Rome Maximus meane while mistrusting no such matter especially from those parts was sore affrighted at the sudden brute of their comming and not yet understanding the full effect of the matter perceiving the whole Citty to bee in dismay and that not only the common people but also the Nobilitie had for feare forsaken their houses and fled to the Mountaines or Forrests for safety hee I say destitute of succour tooke himselfe also to his heeles as his surest refuge but all could not serve to rid him from the just vengeance of God prepared for him for the murders which hee had beene cause of for certaine Senatours of Rome his private and secret foes finding him alone in the way of his flight and remembring their olde quarrels fell upon him suddenly and felled him downe with stones and after mangled him in pieces and threw his body into Tiber. Three dayes after arrived Gensericus with all his forces and entering Rome found it naked of all defence and left to his owne will and discretion where albeit he professed himselfe to be a Christian yet he shewed more pride and cruelty and lesse pitty than either Attila or Allaricus two heathen Kings For having given his souldiers the pillage of the City they not only spoiled all private houses but also the Temples and Monasteries in most cruell and riotous manner All the best and beautifullest things of the City they took away and carried a huge multitude of people
meet and from looking fell to lusting after her in such sort that in short space he got very privy and familiar acquaintance with her and oftentimes secret and suspitious meetings which being perceived by her husband he after watched so narrowly their haunts that once he spyed them together without being seen of them neverthelesse digesting and swallowing up this sorrow with silence and without giving forth any tokens thereof he consulted in himselfe to revenge the injury by the death and rasing out not only of the Adulterer but also of the whole race and fraternity Now when he had hampered this enterprise and layed forth the plot thereof in his head he dispatched presently a messenger to the three Gentlemen brethren to invite them against the next day to the hunting of the fairest wilde Bore that was this many a day seen in the forrests of Nocera Seignior Nicholas failed not to come at the time appointed accompanied with Duke Camerino who desired to be one of this jolly crue they supped in the towne but lodged in the castle where being at rest about midnight the Captaine rushed into his chamber with the greatest part of his guard and there handled Seignior Nicholas on this manner he first cut off his privy members as being principall in the offence then thrust him through on both sides with a speare next pluckt out his heart and lastly tore the rest of his body into a thousand pieces As for the Duke Camerino he shut him up in a deep and dark dungeon with all the strangers of his retinue At day breake another of the brethren called Caesar that lay that night in the town was sent for to come and speake with his brother and as soone as he was entered into the Court of the Castle seven or eight of the guard bound him and his followers and carried him into the chamber where his dead brother lay chopt as small as flesh to the pot and there murdered him also Conrade the third brother being by reason of a Marriage absent from this feast when he received the report of these pittifull news gathered together a band of men from all quarters and with them assisted with the friends and allies of the Duke Camerino then prisoner layed siege to the Castle they battered the walls made a breach and gave the assault of enterance and were manfully resisted five houres long till the defendants being but thirty or forty men at the most not able to stand any longer in defence were forced to retire and lay open way of enterance to the enemy then began a most horrible butchery of men for Conrade having woon the fort first hewed them in pieces that stood in resistance then finding the Captaines father slew him and cast him piece-meale to the dogs some he tyed to the tailes of wilde horses to be drawne over hedges ditches thornes and bryers others he pinched with hot Irons and so burnt them to death which when the Captaine from the top of the dungeon where he had saved himselfe beheld he tooke his wife whom he held there prisoner and binding her hand and foot threw her headlong from the top of the tower upon the pavement which the souldiers perceiving put fire to the tower so that he was constrained through heat and smoke himselfe his brother and his little child to sally downe the same way which he had taught his wife a little before to goe and so all three broke their necks their carkasses were cast out to bee meat for Wolves as unworthy of humane sepulture And this was the catastrophe of that wofull tragedy where by the occasion of one Adultery so heavy is the curse of God upon that sin a number of men came to their ends In the histories of our time we finde recorded a fearefull story of many murders springing from one Adultery together with the hand of God upon the Adulterers themselves the story is this an Advocate of Grasse in Provence called Tolonio that having the managing of the affaires of the Seignior of Chabrye and by that meanes familiar accesse to him and his Lady by this familiarity allured the Lady who was then forty yeares old and had foure children to his filthy lust and being plunged into this gulfe Satan did thrust them headlong into others for first they practised and performed the massacre of her husband walking in his Warren by two murderers suborned to that end and secondly when her eldest sonne seemed to dislike her wicked behaviour with the Advocate they also wrought his death by loosing certaine boords in a gallery where he used ordinarily to walk so that as soone as he set his foot on these disjoynted boords he fell downe headlong and had his braines beaten out And thirdly when her younger son shewed his discontent to their brutish conversation yet nothing misdoubted them to be guilty of the former parricides these wicked wretches resolved to prevent him also lest he should interrupt their resolved filthinesse Wherefore they hired a murderer to make him away who watching his opportunity thrust him headlong downe a steep rock so that he was at the bottome sooner slaine then he felt the murderer After all this these two miserable wretches finding that they were observed by all men and noted did practise to marry together but there was one betwixt them namely the Advocates wife wherefore they conspired her death to make up the messe and indeed the villanous lecher her husband lying one night by her strangled her with a napkin and then cryed out with a loud voice for help pretending that a catarre had suffocated her in her sleep But for all his cunning the father of his wife mistrusted her death to be violent and caused him to be strictly examined upon the same who presently by silence bewrayed his guilty conscience and after without torture confessed both his fact and all the murders before mentioned for which he was condemned to be quartered alive in the market place of Grasse where he dwelled and where his murders were committed As for that cruell Lady his associate because she could not be found being fled the countrey she was condemned by contempt and executed in picture But though she escaped the hand of justice among men yet the hand of God pursued her for flying to Genoa she was first robbed by a servant of all she had and after being constrained to serve an olde widdow and to teach her daughters being tormented with the sting of her owne conscience within short space dyed in great misery In the time of Pope Stephen the eighth there was a varlet Priest that was Chaplaine in the house of a Marquesse of Italie who although he was very mishapen and evill favoured yet was entertained of the Lady Marquesse his mistresse to her bed and made her paramour upon a night as he was going to lie with her according to his wont his Lord being from home behold a dog barked so fiercely leaping and biting at him
many more whose hearts are passionate with love are blindfolded after the same sort like as poeticall Cupid is fained to be that not knowing what they take in hand they fall headlong into destruction ere they be aware Let us then be here advertised to pray unto God that he would purifie our drossie hearts and divert our wandring eyes from beholding vanity to be seduced thereby CHAP. XXXVI Of unlawfull gestures Idlenesse Gluttony Drunkennesse Dancing and other such like dissolutenesse LIke as if we would carry our selves chastly and uprightly before God it behoveth us to avoid all filthinesse and adultery so we must abstain from uncivill and dishonest gestures which are as it were badges of concupiscence and coales to set lust on fire and instruments to injure others withall From hence it was that Pompey caused one of his souldiers eyes to be put out in Spaine for thrusting his hand under a womans garment that was a Spaniard and for the same or like offence did Sertorius command a footman of his band to be cut in pieces O that we had in these daies such minded captaines that would sharply represse the wrongs and ravishments which are so common and usuall amongst men of war at this day and so uncontrolled they would not then doubtlesse be so rise and common as in these daies they are Kissing is no lesse to be eschewed than the former if it be not betwixt those that are tyed together by some bond of kindred or affinity as it was by antient custome of the Medes and Persians and Romanes also according to the report of Plutarch and Seneca and that which is more Tiberius Caesar forbad the often and daily practise thereof in that kinde as a thing not to be freqented but rather utterly abhorred though it be amongst kinsfolkes themselves It was esteemed an indignity among the Graecians to kisse any maid that was not in blood or assinity allyed unto them as it manifestly appeareth by the earnest suit and request of the wife of Pisistratus the Tyran of Athens to put to death a young man for kissing her daughter in the streets as he met her although it was nothing but love that moved him thereto Saint Augustine also affirmeth That he which wantonly kisseth a woman that is not his wife deserveth the whip It is true that the holy Scripture often mentioneth kissing but either betwixt father and childe or brethren or kinsfolkes or at least in a manner of salutation betwixt one another of acquaintance according to the custome of the people of God and sometimes also it is mentioned as a token of honour and reverence which the subject performeth to his superiour in this action In the former ages Christians used to kisse also but so that it was ever betwixt parties of acquaintance and in such sort that by this manner of greeting they testified to each other their true and sincere charity peace and union of heart and soule in the Lord. Such chearings and loving embracings were pure and holy not lascivious and wanton like the kisses of prophane and leacherous wretches and strumpets whereof Solomon maketh mention Furthermore every man ought to shun all meanes and occasions which may induce or entice them to uncleanenesse and amongst the rest especially Idlenesse which cannot chuse but be as it were a wide doore and passage for many vices to enter by as by experience we see in those that occupy themselves about no good nor profitable exercises but mispend their time in trifling and doing nothing and their wits either upon vaine and foolish conceit to the hurt of others or upon lascivious and unchaste thoughts to their owne overthrow whereas on the contrary to them that are well employed either in body or minde no such thing betideth wherefore wee ought to be here advertised every one of us to apply our selves to some honest and seemly trade answerable to our divers and severall estates and conditions and not to suffer our selves to be overgrowne with Idlenesse lest thereby we fall into mischiefe for whom the adversary that malicious and wicked one findeth in that case he knowes well how to fit them to his purpose and to set them about filthy and pernitious services Next to idlenesse the too much pampering the body with dainty and much food is to be eschewed for like as a fat and well fed horse winceth and kicketh against his rider so the pampered flesh rebelleth against God and a mans owne selfe This fulnesse of bread and abundance of â—â—shly delights was the cause of the destruction of Sodome and Gomorrah and therefore our Saviour to good purpose warneth us to take heed to our selves that we be not oppressed with surfetting and drunkennesse and the Apostle to take no thought for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof but to walke honestly not being given to gluttony and drunkennesse chambering and wantonnesse and in another place not to be drunke with wine wherein is excesse for besides the losse of time and mispence of goods the grievous diseases and pangs of the body and dulling and besotting of the wit which spring from intemperance many other great evils depend and wait thereon as whoredomes adulteries uncleannesses quarrels debates murders with many other such like disorders and mischiefes Noah that holy Patriarch by drinking too much wine not only discovered his owne shame but also was the occasion of that cruell curse which the Lord sent upon the posterity of Cham which even to this day lyeth heavy upon them Lot though he hated the sin of Sodome and escaped the punishment of Sodome yet being overcome with the wine of the mountaines he committed incest with his owne daughters and made a new Sodome of his owne family Balthasar rioting and revelling amongst his pots had the end both of life and kingdome denounced against him by a bodilesse hand-writing upon the wall the Lords decree Whilest Holofernes besotted his sences with excesse of wine and good cheare Iudith found meanes to cut off his head The Emperours Septimius Severus and Iovinianus dyed with eating and drinking too much Likewise a certaine African called Donitius overcharged his stomacke with so much food at supper that he dyed therewith Gregory of Tours reporteth of Childericke a Saxon that glutted himselfe so full of meat and drink over night that in the morning he was found choked in his bed In our memory there was a Priest in Rovergne neare Milan that dining with a rich farmer for his yeares dinner cheared himselfe so well and filled his belly so full that it burst in two and he dyed suddenly Alexander the great having invited many of his favourites and captaines to supper propounded a crowne in reward to him that should drinke most now the greatest drinker swallowed up foure steanes of wine and woon the prize being in value worth six hundred crownes but lost his life a jewell of greater
meanes nay and some Masquers have been well chastised in their owne vices as it happened in the raigne of Charles the sixth to six that masqued it to a marriage at the hostle of S. Pauls in Paris being attired like wilde horses covered with loose flax dangling down like haire all bedaâ—bed with grease for the fitter hanging thereof and fast bound one to another and in this guise entered the hall dancing with torches before them but behold suddenly their play turned to a tragedy for a sparâ—â— of one of their torches fell into the greasie flax of his neighbour and set it immediatly on fire so that in the turning of an hand they were all on â—lame then gave they out a most horrible ouâ—â—ry one of them threw himself headlong into a tub of water provided to â—ince their drinking cups and goblets and upon that occasion standing not far off two were burnt to death without stirring once from the place The bastard Foix and the Earle of Jouy escaped indeed present death but being conveyed to their lodgings they survived not two daies the King himselfe being one of the sâ—â— was saved by the Dutchesse of Berry that covering him with her loose and tide garments 〈◊〉 the fire before it could seise upon his flesh Froyssard the reporter of this tragedy â—aith That the next morrow every man could say thaâ— this 〈◊〉 wonderfull signe and advertisement sent by God to the King to warne him to renounce all such fond and foolish devices which he delighted too much in and more then it became a King of France to doe and this was the event of that gallant Masque It resteth now that we speak somewhat of Playes and Comedies and such like toyes and May-games which have no other use in the world but to deprave and corrupt good manners and to open a doore to all uncleanenesse the eares of yong folke are there polluted with many filthy and dishonest speeches their eyes are there infected with lascivious and unchaste gestures and countenances and their wits are there stained and embrued with so pernitious liquor that except Gods good grace they will ever savour of it the holy and sacred Scripture ordained to a holy and sacred use is oftentimes by these filthy swine prophaned to please and to delight their audience in few words there is nothing else to be found among them but nourishment to our sences of foolish and vaine delights For this cause many of the sager Romanes as Nasica and divers other Censors hindred the building of the Theatres in Rome for an opinion they had that their sports and pastimes which were exercised therein served to no other purpose but to make the people idle effeminate and voluptuous and besides the masters guiders and actors of Playes were alwayes debarred as men infamous from bearing any publike Office or dignity in the Common-wealth Tiberius Caesar himselfe though of most corrupt and rotten manners and conversation yet in open Senate complained and found fault with the immodesty of Stage-players and banished them at that same time out of Italie When Domitian was Censor he put out of the Senate a Citizen of Rome because he was too much addicted to the imitation of the fashions of Players and Dancers And Plutarch saith that we ought to shun all such spectacles If then such pastimes were by the judgements of the Romanes noted with infamy shall we have their equals in follies in better account Basil calleth such sports and pastimes the work-house forge and common shop of all wickednesse and therefore Chrysostome prayeth and admonisheth the faithfull of his time to abstaine from frequenting such places S. Augustine also for biddeth to bestow our money upon tumblers juglers and players and such like Beside by the Constantinopolitan Councell under Iustinian it was inhibited to be once present at such sports under the paine of excommunication and that the ancient Christians did by common consent not only condemne but also utterly abstaine from such pastimes it may appeare by the testimony of Tertullian writing to the Gentiles to this effect We renounce and send back faith he sports and playes unto you as to the head and fountaine from whence they were first derived we make no reckoning of thâ—se things which we know were drawne from superstition we love not 〈◊〉 be hâ—ld the folly of turning with Chariots nor the unchastity of the Theatre nor the cruelty of sword playing nor the vanity of leaping â—râ—stling and dancing but take pleasure in exercises of better report and lesse hâ—râ— Moreover how odious and irksome in the sight of the Lord such spectacles are and what power and sway the devill beareth therein they 〈◊〉 of God upon a Christian woman reported by Tertullian may sufficiently instruct us There was a woman saith he that went to the 〈◊〉 to see a play and returned home possessed with an uncleane spirit who being rebuked in a conjuration for daring to assault one of the â—aith that professed Christ answered that he had done well because he found her upon his owne ground The same author reporteth another example as strange of a woman also that went to see a Tragedie acted to whom the night following appeared in a dreame the picture of a sheete a presage of death casting in her teeth that which she had done and five daies after death himselfe seised upon her As touching wanton songs and unchaste and ribald bookes that I may be briefe I will content my selfe only with that which is alleadged by Lodovicus Vives concerning that matter The Magistrate saith he ought to banish out of his dominion all unhonest Songs and Poems and not to suffer novelties to be published day by day in rimes and ballads as they are as if a man should heare in a City nothing but foolish and scurrilous Ditties such as would make even the â—onger sort that are well brought up to blash and stir up the indignation of men of honour and gravity this ought Magistrates to prevent and to discharge the people from reading Amadis Tristram Launcelot due Lake Melusine Poggius scurrillities and Boccace novelties with a thousand more such like toyes and thus much out of Vives CHAP. XXXVII Of Theeves and Robbers IT followes that we speake in the next place of such as by their greedy covetousnesse and unquenchable desire of lucre transgresse the fourth commandement of the second Table to wit Thou shalt not steale wherein not only simply theft but also Sacriledge is condemned and first of Sacriledge Into this sin fell wretched Aehan in the time of Ioshua when in the sack of Jericho he seeing a Babylonish garment with certaine gold and silver covered it and stole it away and hid it in his Tent contrary to the commandement of the Lord for which cause the Lord was offended with his whole people as if they all had been accessary to the crime and enâ—eebled them so before their enemies that they
were beaten downe at Hay and shamefully put to flight neither was his anger appeased untill that the offendant being divinely and miraculously descryed was stoned to death and burnt with his children and all his substance But to come unto prophane stories let us begin with Heliodorus Treasurer of Seleuchus King of Asia who by the Kings commandement and suggestion of one Simon Governour of the Temple came to take away the gold and silver which was kept in the Treasury of the Temple and to transport it unto the Kings Treasury whereat the whole City of Jerusalem put on sackeloth and poured out prayers unto the Lord so that when Heliodorus was present in the Temple with his soldiers ready to seise upon the treasure the Lord of all spirits and power shewed so great a vision that he fell suddenly into extreame feare and trembling for there appeared unto him an horse with a terrible man sitting upon him most richly barbed which came fiercely and smote at him with his forefeet moreover there appeared two yong men notable in strength excellent in beauty and comely in apparell which stood by him on either side and scourged him with many stripes so that Heliodorus that came in with so great a company of souldiers and attendants was strucken dumbe and carried out in a litter upon mens shoulders for his strength was so abated that he could not help himselfe but lay destitute of all hope of recovery so heavy was the hand of God upon him untill by the prayers of Onias the high Priest he was restored then loe he confessed that he which dwelt in heaven had his eye on that place and defended it from all those that came to hurt and spoile it Another of this crue was in Crassus the Romane who entering Jerusalem robbed the Temple of two thousand talents of silver and gold beside the rich ornaments which amounted in worth to eight thousand Talents and a beame of beaten gold containing three hundred pound in weight for which sacriledge the vengeance of God so pursued him that within a while after he was overcome by the Parthians and together with his son slain his evill gotten goods being dispersed and the skull of his head being made a ladle to melt gold in that it might be glutted with that being dead which alive it could be never satisfied with Herod following the steps of Hircanus his predecessor that tooke out of the sepulchre of King David three thousand talents of money thinking to finde the like treasure broke up the sepulchre in the night and found no money but rich ornaments of gold which he tooke away with him howbeit to his cost for two of his servants perished in the vault by a divine fire as it is reported and he himselfe had small successe in his worldly affaires ever after Iulian the Apostata robbed the Church of the revenues thereof and took away all benevolences and contributions to schooles of learning to the end the children might not be instructed in the liberall Arts nor in any other good literature He exaggerated also his sacriledge with scornfull jeasts saying That he did further their salvation by making them poore seeing it was written in their owne Bibles Blessed are the poore for theirs is the kingdome of heaven but how this sacrilegious theefe was punished is already declared in the former booke Leo Groponymus took out of the Temple of Constantinople an excellent crowne of gold beset with precious stones which Mauritius had dedicated to the Lord but as soon as he had set it on his head a cruell fever seised upon him that he dyed very shortly The punishment of the sacriledge of Queen Vrraca in Spaine was most wonderfull and speedy for when in her war against her son Alphonsus shee wanted money she robbed the Church dedicated to S. Isidore and tooke with her owne hands the treasures up which her souldiers refused to do but ere she departed out of the Church vengeance overtooke her and strooke her dead in the place Moreover the Lord so hateth this irreligious sin that he permitteth the devill to exercise his cruelty upon the spoilers of prophane and Idolatrous temples as he did upon Dyonisius the Tyran of Syracusa who after many robberies of holy things and spoiling the Churches dyed suddenly with extreame joy as authors report He spoiled the Temple of Proserpina at Locris and shaved off the golden beard of Aesculapius at Epidamnum saying It was an unseemly thing for Apollo to be beardlesse and his son bearded he deprived Iupiter Olympus of his golden raâ—ment and gave him a woollen coat instead thereof saying it was too heavy for him in the Summer and too cold in winter and this was more convenient for both seasons The pretext of all his sacriledge was this That seeing the gods were good why should not he be partaker of their goodnesse Such another was Cambyses King of Persia who sent fifty thousand men to rob and destroy the temple of Iupiter Ammon but in their journey so mighty a tempest arose that they were overwhelmed with the sand not one of them remaining to carry newes of their successe Brennus was constrained to slay himselfe for enterprising to rob the Temple of Apollo at Delphos Philomelus Onomarchus and Phayllus went about the same practise and indeed robbed the Temple of all the treasures therein but one of them was burned another drowned and the third broke his neck to conclude the Athenians put to death a yong childe for taking but a golden plate out of Diana's Temple but first they offered him other jewels and trinkets which when he despised in respect of the plate they rigorously punished him as guilty of sacriledge Cardinall Wolsey being determined to erect two new Colledges one at Oxford and the other at Ipswich obtained licence and authority of Pope Clement the seventh to suppresse about the number of forty monasteries to furnish and set forward the building of his said Colledge which irreligious sacriledge I call it sacriledge both because he was perswaded in conscience that those goods belonged to the Church and so to him it was sacriledge as also for that he did it in pride of his heart was furthered by five persons who were the chiefe instruments of the dissolution of Daintry Monastery because the Prior and Covent would not grant them certaine lands in farme at their owne price But what punishment ensued upon them at Gods hand the world was witnesse of for of these five persons two fell at discord amongst themselves and the one slew the other for the which the survivor was hanged the third drowned himselfe in a well the fourth being then worth two hundred pounds within three yeares became so poore that he begged untill his dying day and the fifth called Doctor Allen was cruelly maimed in Ireland The Cardinall himselfe falling into the Kings displeasure was deposed from his bishoprick and dyed miserably the Colledges which he
unmeasurable and unsupportable impositions As for that which the Prophet Samuel in the Name of God giveth notice to the Israelites of touching the right of a King wherein he seemeth to allow him the disposition of the goods and persons of his subjects I answer first That God being an immoveable Truth cannot contradict himselfe by commanding and forbidding the same thing and secondly that the word of the Text in the Originall signifieth nothing else but a custome or fashion as it appeareth by the 1 Sam. 11. 13. besides the speech that the Prophet useth importeth not a commandment but an advertisement of the subjection whereunto the people were about to thrust themselves by desiring a King after the manner of other Nations whose customes amongst them was to exercise authority and dominion as well over their goods as their persons for which cause God would have them forewarned that they might know how vile a yoak they put their owneneckes under and what grievous and troublesome servitude they undertook from the which they could no wayes be delivered no though they deâ—â—â—ed it with teares Furthermore that a King in Israel had no power in right and eqâ—ity to take away the possessions of any of his subjects and appropriate it to himselfe it appeareth by Naboaths refusall no King Achab to give him his vineyard though he requested it as it may seem upon very reasonable conditions either for his money or for exchange so that a man would thinke he ought not to have denied him howbeit his desire being thus crossed he could not mend himselfe by his authority but fell to vexe and grieve himselfe and to champe upon his owne bit untill by the wicked and detestable complot of Iezable poor Naboath was falsely accused unjustly condemned and cruelly murdered and then he put in possession of his vineyard which murder doubtlesse she would never have attempted nor yet Naboath ever have refused to yeeld his vineyard if by any pretence of Law they could have laid claim unto it but Naboath knowing that it was contrary to Gods Ordinance for him to part with his patrimony which he ought most carefully to preserve would not consent to sell over his vineyard neither for love nor money nor other recompence and herein he did but his duty approved by the holy Scripture Now how odious a thing before God the oppression of poor people is it is manifest by his owne words in the Prophesie of Ezechiel where he saith Let it suffice O Princes of Israel learn off cruelty and oppression and execute judgement and justice take away your exactions from my people and cease to thrust them from their goods and heritages Now concerning the law of man which all men agree unto because it is grounded upon reason and equity we finde no permission given to Kings to use the goods of other men at their pleasures for that was far from equity neither was there any such liberty bestowed upon them by those that first in the beginning exalted them to that degree of dignity but rather as divers worthy Authours avouch their owne vertues and good behaviour which woon them credit amongst the better sort installed them first unto that honour And truely there is nothing more rightfull and justin mans society than that every one should possesse and enjoy that which is his owne in peace and quietnesse without disturbance or violence in which respect also rules of justice are established called lawes which no good Kings will ever seek to stand against They are indeed Lords of the earth aâ— some say and truly but so that their Lordships stretch no further than right and passe not the rule of equity and notwithstanding the propriety of goods and possessions remaineth untouched To Kings saith Soâ—â—ca pertaineth the soveraignty over all things but to private men the propriety Tiberius Caesar being solicited by the Governours of the Provinces to lay heavier tributes and levy larger subsidies from his people made though a Painim this notable answer That a good shepherd ought to shear his sheep not to flea them Saint Lewis that good King amongst all his other wife and vertuous exhortations which he gave to his son before his death this was none of the least nor last That he should never crave any taxe or subsidie of his subjects but upon urgent necessity and very just cause and that if he did otherwise he should not be reputed for a King but for a tyran CHAP. XXXIX Of those that have used too much cruelty to wards their subjects in Taxes and Exactions IT is clear then by these foresaid assumptions that a King may not impose upon his Subjects unmeasurable taxes and subsidies least he make himselfe guilty of extortion the root and fountain many times of many great mischiefes and inconveniences and in very deed from whence oftner changes seditions and ruines of Common-wealths have proceeded than from any other cause beside What hapned to Roboam King of Israel for shewing himselfe too rigorous on this behalfe to his subjects but the defection of the greater part of his Kingdom from him for being come to the Crowne after the death of his father Solomon when the people came and made a supplication to him to be eased from his fathers burdens he despising the counsell of his sage and antient Counsellours and following the giddy advice of his young companions gave them a most sharpe and sowre reply saying That if his father had laid an heavy yoak upon them he would encrease it and if he had chastised them with rods he would correct them with scourges which when they of Israel heard they revolted from him all save the two Tribes of Iuda and Benjamin and stoned to death his Collectours and chose them another King to rule over them Thus Roboam was deprived often parts of his Kingdom thorow his owne unadvised tyranny and fled all amazed unto Jerusalem where he lived all his dayes without recovery of the same Achaeus King of Lydia was hanged up against a hill and his head throwne into a River running by because of the great subsidies which he exacted of his people Dionysius the first of that name a notorious and renowned Tyran not onely in regard of his exceeding cruelty but also of his unjust rackings and exactions was so violent in that practise of doing wrong that alboit he well knew the griefes and vexations of the people that ceased not to complain and lament their case continually yet he diminished not their burdens but multiplied them more and more and sucked and gnew out all that ever he could untill he left them naked empty and despoiled To conclude this grand theefe that durst not trust his wife nor owne daughters after he had been discomfited by the Carthaginians was slain by his servants Of the Roman Emperours that most vexed the Commonalty with tribures and taxes these three were chief Caligula Nero and Caracalla of whom this latter
bloud When the Cities of Greece saith Orosius would needs through too greedy a desire and ambition of reigne get every one the mastery and soveraignty of the rest they all together made shipwracke of their owne liberties by encroaching upon others as for instance the Lacedemonians how hurtfull and incommodious the desire of bringing their neighbour adjoyning Cities under their dominion was unto them the sundry discomfitures and distresses within the time of that war undertaken upon that onely cause befell them bear sufficient record Servius Tullus the son to a bondman addicted himselfe so much to the exploits of war that by prowesse he got so great credit and reputation among the Romans that he was thought â—it to be son in law of King Tarquinius by marrying one of his daughters after whose death he usurped the Crowne under colour of the Protectorship of the Kings â—oo young sonnes who when they came to age and bignesse married the daughters of their brother in law Tullus by whose exhortation and continuall provokement the elder of them which was called Tarquinius conspired against his father in law and practised to make himselfe King and to recover his rightfull inheritance and that by this meanes he watched his opportunity when the greatest part of the people were out of the City about gathering their fruit in the fields and then placing his companions in readinesse to serve his turne if need should be he marched to the palace in the royall robes garded with a company of his comederates and having called a Senate as he began to complain him of the treachery and impudency of Tullus behold Tullus himselfe came in and would have run violently upon him but Tarquinius catching him about the middle threw him headlong downe the staires and presently sent certaine of his guard to make an end of the murder which he had begun But herein the cruelty of Tullia was most monstrous that not onely first moved her husband to this bloudy practice but also made her coach to be driven over the body of her father which lay bleeding in the midst of the street scarce dead Manlius after hee had maintained the fortresse of Rome against the Gaules glorying in that action and envying the good hap and prosperity of Camillus went about to make himselfe King under pretence of restoring the people to their antient entire libertie but his practise being discovered hee was accused found guilty and by the consent of the multitude adjudged to be throwne headlong downe from the top of the same fortresse to the end that the same place which gave him great glorie might be a witnesse and a memoriall of his shame and last confusion for all his valiant deeds before done were not of so much force with the people to excuse his fault or save his life as this one crime was of weight to bring him to his death In former times there lived in Carthage one Hanno who because he had more riches than all the Common-wealth beside began to aspire to the domination of the Citie which the better to accomplish hee devised to make shew of marrying his onely daughter to the end that at the marriage feast hee might poison the chiefest men of credit and power of the City whom he knew could or would not any wayes withstand or countermand his purpose but when this devise tooke no effect by reason of the discovery thereof by certaine of his servants hee sought another meanes to effect his will Hee got together a huge number of bondslaves and servants which should at a sudden put him in possession of the city but being prevented herein also by the Citizens he seised upon a castle with a thousand men of base regard even servants for the most part whither thinking to draw the Africans and King of the Moores to his succour he was taken and first whipped next had his eyes thrust out and then his armes and legs broken in pieces and so was executed to death before all the people his carkasse being thus mangled with blowes was hanged upon a gallowes and all his kindred and children put to death that there might not one remaine of his straine either to enterprise the like deed or to revenge his death That great and fearefull warrior Iulius Caesar one of the most hardie and valiant pieces of flesh that ever was after hee had performed so many notable exploits overcome all his enemies and brought all high and haughtie purposes to their desired effect being prickt forward with the spurre of ambition and a high minde through the meanes and assistance of the mighty forces of the common-wealth which contrary to the constitution of the Senat were left in his hands hee set footing into the State and making himselfe master and Lord of the whole Romane Empire usurped a soveraigntie over them but as he attained to his dignitie by force and violence so he enjoyed it not long neither gained any great benefit by it except the losse of his life may be counted a benefit which shortly after in the open Senat was bereft him for the conspirers thereof as soone as hee was set downe in his seat compassing him about so vehemently overcharged him on all sides that notwithstanding all the resistance hee could make for his defence tossing amongst them and shifting himselfe up and downe he was overthrowne on the earth and abode for dead through the number of blowes that were given him even three and twenty wounds The Monarchie of Assyria was at one instant extinguished in Sardana palus and of Babylon in Balthasar Arbaces being the worker of the first and Darius King of Persia of the later both of them receiving the wages not of their wickednesse but also of their predecessors and great grandfathers cruelty and oppressions by whom many people and nations had been destroyed Moreover as the Babylonian Empire was overthrowne by Darius of Persia so was his Persian Kingdome in Darius the last King of that countrey his time this mans successor overturned by Alexander Again the great dominion of Alexander who survived not long after was not continued to any of his by inheritance but divided like a prey amongst his greatest captaines and from them the most part of it in short time descended to the Romanes who spreading their wings and stretching their greedie tallons farre and neere for a while ravened and preyed over all the world and enriched and bedecked themselves with the spoyles of many nations and therefore it was necessary that they also should be made a prey and that the farre fetcht Goths and Vandales should come upon them as upon the bodie of a great Whale that suffers shipwreck upon the sea shore since which time the Romane Empire went to decay and grew every day weaker than other yea and many Princes setting themselves against and above it have robbed it of the realmes and provinces which it robbed others of before And thus wee may see how all
things run as it were in a circle and how great the uncertainetie of this world is seeing that the mightiest are subject to so many and great changes for if there be any thing under the Sun that may carry any shew of stability or continuance surely it is a Monarchie or Common-wealth grounded upon the unitie and consent of all people maintained by the authoritie of the greatest and most mightie and underpropped with the shores of much strength and wealth as the Romane Empire was and yet for all that there was never any though never so well reared and furnished and deepe rooted which at the length hath not bin demolished ransacked and pulled up by some notable and strange calamitie And this is that which the spirit of God would give us to knowe by the vision of that great image represented to Nabuchadnezzar in a dreame according to Daniels interpretation thereof to wit that the foure great and puissant Monarchies of the world should at last be ruined and dispersed like the chaffe before the winde till they were consumed and brought to nothing albeit they were glorious and excellent as gold and silver or strong and mightie as brasse and iron How much more foolish and evill advised are they then that for a certaine apparant splendour and shew of worldly honour which is as fraile as any rose as variable as the winde as light and vaine as a shadow or smoke as unassured as a rotten planke have the eyes of their minde so dazeled and their wits so bewitched and all their affections so transported as to mingle heaven and earth together to dash the East against the West to stirre up discord and dissention betwixt man and man and to shed so many thousand mens bloud and all for a paltrie desire of reigne though to their owne finall ruine and destruction And thus it came to passe in the time of the emperor Otho to a Duke of Venice called Peter Caudian who not content with his Dukedome went about to usurpe a tyrannicall rule over the whole Seigniorie and that by pride and threats desiring rather to make himselfe terrible to the people by those bad meanes than amiable and beloved by any meanes whatsoever and thus daily hee grew as in age so in insolencie he placed a garrison of men about his palace and so fortifying himselfe presently he shewed himselfe in his colours namely a cruell Tyran which when the multitude perceived and remembred withall their libertie which they were like to lose they tooke up armes forthwith in purpose to beat downe his haughtie minde therefore they first set on fire his house and caused him to forsake his fortresse and to betake himselfe to his shifts but when by reason of the stopping of the passages he could not escape they tooke him and his young sonne also which was with him and put them to a most cruell and sudden death and cast their carkasses to be devoured of dogs In the Empire of Maximilian Lewis Sforce a Prince of an inconstant and turbulent spirit ambitious and one that made no account of his promises nor faith tooke upon him the governement of Milan after the death of his brother Galeaz Duke of Milan who was traiterously slaine in which action the first wrong which hee did was to his brothers widow whom hee deposed the second to his young nephew his brother Galeaz son whom he so brought up as if he never meant he should come to honour or goodnesse for he suffered him not to be trained up either in learning or armes but let him runne into all possible occasions that might corrupt and spoyle his tender age Thus hee enjoyed the principalitie thirteene yeares all the while under his nephewes reigne to whom when Alphonsus King of Naples had given in mariage one of his daughters and perceived what small reckoning his uncle made of restoring him his Dukedome after he had often and instantly intreated him without prevailing at length he fell to threaten him with warre he fearing to have the worse and to lose so great a dignitie wrought so by his owne shifts and devices together with the helping hand of Pope Alexander that hee put in the head of Charles the eighth of France to go and conquer Naples for the hatred which his heart possessed against Alphonsus supposing by this meanes the better to accomplish his affaires to his owne desire The King of France was no sooner entred Italie but Lewis Sforce ministred an Italian posset to his young nephew Iohn Galeaz that hee immediatly died upon it and then he proclamed himselfe Prince of the Duchie by the aid of the principall of the Councell whom he had woon to referre that honour unto him by deposing the young sonne of Iohn Galeaz beeing then but five yeares old but he declared presently his inconstant and perfidious nature in breaking promise with the King of France whome he had induced with so many faire speeches to undertake that voyage and entering a new league with the Venetians both against him and the Pope although ere long he served them with the same measure but Lewis the twelfth succeeding in the Crowne of France could not brooke this injurie done to his predecessor but pretending a title to the Duchie of Milan he dispatched an armie thitherward that bestirred it selfe so well that in short space they brought under their subjection all the Cities and Townes neere adjoyning which the citizens perceiving began to rebell against their Duke and killed his Treasurer whereupon he being not able to make his part good with the French abroad nor daring to put any confidence in his owne at home left his castle to the charge and custodie of a captaine and fled himselfe with his children to Almaine towards the Emperour Maximilians court hoping to finde succour at his hand as indeed he did for he returned to Milan with five hundred Burgundians and eight thousand Switzers and was received againe into the Citie Being thus refortified with these and other more troupes that came unto him he encamped before Navarre and by composition got the City into his hands from the Frenchmen The French King in the meane while sent a new supplie of men into the Duchie amongst whom were many Switzers who so dealt with their countrimen that were on the Dukes side that they brought them also to favour the King of France and to forsake the Duke which when he understood hee presently departed the citie and posting to the campe hardened his souldiers desiring them to play the men and not to shrinke for he meant to give battell without delay but the captains made answer that they might not fight against their owne nation without especiall leave from their Lords Now in the meane while whilest these things were in doing they tooke order that the Frenchmen should approach to Navarre and intercept all the passages that the Duke might not escape He therefore laid aside his horse and marched on foot in
Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre reporteth that in a great plague one carkasse was seene to devoure it selfe in a grave which the people being superstitious thought it was a presage of the continuance of the pestilence whereupon they sent unto Wittenberge to Luther and other godly Ministers for their advise and counsell he answered that it was a delusion of the Devill and if they gave credit thereunto the sicknesse would increase and therefore advised them that despising this delusion of the Devill they should joyne together in prayer in Gods holy Temple to represse the furie and malice of the old Serpent which by that meanes they obtained At Rotingburge an honest and worthy Citizen having a beautifull daughter to whom many Sutors frequented there came also one in gallant apparrell and two men attending upon him to be a Sutor unto that beautifull maide but her father being displeased at his importunitie invited the godly Minister of the Town and some other good men to supper where entring into conference of divine matters this gallant abhorring the same desired them to talke of some other merry matters which they refusing to doe he shewed himselfe what he was and with his companions disparished into the aire leaving a filthy stinke behinde him thus the Devill doth go about to delude both men and women Manlius in Col. A certaine man abounding with wealth invited to supper a company of his neighbours and friends who when they refused to come upon occasions hee wished that all the Devils in Hell would come which wishes were not in vaine for presently great troopes of Devils came unto his house which hee entertained at the first and afterward as my Authour saith perceiving by their fingers and feet to be infernall Spirits he with his wife trembling ranne out of the house leaving a young infant in a cradle and a foole rocking of it both which were preserved alive after the departure of the Devils Iob. Fincel The Devill also appeared unto a Souldier that was given to play swearing and drinking and having played with him all night and woon his money hee told him it was time to depart and carryed him away with him into the aire whither God knowes for hee never was seene after In the yeare of our Lord 1536 there was at Franckford a maide grievously tormented with a paine in her head and a kinde of frenzie at the last she came to that passe that it was manifest that she was possessed with the Devill for if she touched any thing of any mans either head garment or anything else she drew money out of it of the usuall coyne of that countrey and presently put it into her mouth and swallowed it but sometimes they caught her hand and wrung their money from her and shewed it up and downe as a great wonder Shee also in her fits spake the high Dutch tongue perfectly which she never learned not heard of with many other things of great admiration Luther being demanded What course was to be taken to dispossesse her of this evill Spirit advised that shee should duely be brought unto the Church to heare Sermons and to bee prayed for publiquely in the Congregation by which meanes shortly after shee was delivered from Sathan and restored to her former health this relation the wise Senatours of Frankeford caused to bee published in Print Anno 1538. Certaine learned men in the Counsell of Basil went into a wood for recreation sake friendly to conferre about the controversies of that time Whilest they were there walking they heard a bird like unto a nightingall singing most sweetly above any Nightingall in the World and also sâ—w a bird upon an arme of a tree not like unto any bird one of the companie more hearty than the other said thus unto her I abjure thee in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ to tell us what thou art to whom the bird answered That she was one of the damned soules and appointed to stay in that place untill the last day and then to endure everlasting punishments whereupon she flue from the tree and cried O perpetuall and infinite 〈◊〉 Mâ—lâ—ncthon judged this to bee an evill spirit and so the event prooved for all that were present at this abjuration fell presently very sicke and shortly after died Manl. Collecta A certaine panish Clerke as Câ—sariuâ— reporteth exâ—elled all men in sweetnesse of singing whom when at a time a godly and holy man heard he said This is the voice not of a man but of the Divell 〈…〉 he had abjured in the name of Christ the Divell departed out of the bodie of the Clerke and the bodie fell downe into a dead carkasse Discip. de tempore Paulus Diaconius in his sixteenth Booke witnesseth That in the reigne of Anastasius the Emperour there were in Alexandria many women and children possessed of the Divell which being taken with furie uttered no other voice but like the barking of a dog In the yeare of our Lord 1545 an evill spirit haunted the Citie Rotuill sometimes in the shape of an hare sometimes of a Weesell sometimes of a Gâ—ose and with a cleere voice threatened that he would fire the Citie which malice of his though God prevented yet it strooke great terror into the minds of the people Iob. Finc lib. 1. In the Dukedome of Luneberge a certaine woman possessed of the Divel used to speake in her fits most pure Latine and Greeke to the great admiration of all that heard her Man in Collect. At Fribuge in Misnia a certaine man of great pietie and holinesse lying sicke and neere unto death the Divell came unto him in the habite of a Bishop hee being alone and exhorted the man to confesse all his sinnes which hee had committed in his life time and that having peâ—ne and Inkehorne he would write them downe in order but the old man being importuned by him answered Seeing thou urgest this write downe first this sentence The seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head which the Divell-Bishop no sooner heard but he vanished away leaving a filthie savour behinde him and the man died in peace Manl. in Collect. Iob Fincelius in his third booke of miracles writeth a strange storie of a godly young maide infested long and possessed at length by the Divell who in her acted strange things to the admiration of all men but at length shee was freed from his malicious molestation by the earnest prayers of godly Ministers in the Church the Divell flying out of her in the forme of a swarme of flies out of a window This storie is at large related with many strange circumstances by Philippus Lonicerus in his Historicall Theatre Page a hundred twenty and six The same Author relateth a storie of a maide of excellent beauty whom the Priest of the towne so induced and inveigled by his perswasions saying that the Pope had pardoned him for all such offences that shee became his Concubine Now when hee had invited many of