incensed the Pope against him Thu. l. 94. For the Pope had agreed with Guise in secret to marry his Niece to the Prince of Jonvil Guise his son and heir and to depose the King thrust him into a Monastery and compel him by the Popes authority to renounce his right to the Kingdom and to set up Guise the father King in his place But how zealous and jealous he was for the Dignity and Authority of the Holy See is worth our further notice in an instance related by a good Catholick the learned Civil Lawyer William Barclay in his book De Potestate Papae dedicated to Pope Clement VIII None of all the writers of the Popes part saith he hath either more dilig ntly collected or more ingeniously proposed or more smartly and subtilely concluded their reasons and arguments for the Popes Authority than the Eminent Divine Bellarmine who although he attributed as much as with honesty he could and indeed more than he ought to have done to the Authority of the Pope in Temporals yet could he not satisfie the Ambition of that most Imperious man Sixtus v. who affirmed that he held a Supreme Power over All Kings and Princes of the whole Earth and all People and Nations delivered to him not by humane but Divine Institution In so much that he was very near by his Papal Censure to have abolished to the great detriment of the Church all the works of that Doctor which at this day oppose heresie with very great success as the Fathers of that Order of which Bellarmine was have seriously told me cap. 13. But enough of Sixtus By whom for example we may guess by these fruits what likelyhood there is that he and such as he whereof there hath been no small number Popes since the tenth Age especially that Seculum Infelix when with a great Eclipse of Learning the Popes of Rome as even Bellarmine noteth degenerated from the Piety of the Ancients were partakers of and directed by that Holy Spirit which God giveth to them that obey him to conduct them in all truth or rather the Spirit of the world the Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience whose works they have done 35. The three next succeeding Popes Vrban 7. Gregory 14. and Innocent 9. did not all of them live out half three years from the death of this and therefore we cannot expect to hear of any attempts or design of theirs against this Kingdom But after Clement VIII who was elected Pope 3. Feb. 1591 2. was settled in his seat the like practises soon began again wherein those agents whom we have mentioned before Hesket Lopez and Complices his Cullen York and Williams who confessed some others and Squire were imployed to raise rebellion poison or assassinate the Queen Lopez by the King of Spain's Ministers of State not without the privity and consent of himself all the rest incited and encouraged by the Jesuites who for the like practises at the same time against the most Christian King though then become Catholick too Thu. l. 111. were exterminated out of all France and a Pyramid erected for their perpetual Infamy But from all these God still preserved her the Emissaries being discovered taken and Executed Nor did he only preserve her from their attempts but shortly after blessed her with happy successes in an Expedition against the Spaniards then preparing again to Invade England Bacon Observ wherein the King of Spains Navy of 50. tall Ships besides twenty Gallies to attend them were beaten and put to flight and in the end all but two which were taken by the English burned only the twenty Gallies by the benefit of the Shallows escaping the town of Cadiz manned with 4000. foot and 400. horse taken sack'd and burnt but great Clemency used toward the inhabitants Camd. an 1596 and at last the English returning home with honour and great spoils besides the two Gallions and about 100. great brass Guns and great store of ammunition and provisions of war taken in the town and with very small loss and but of one person of quality the Spaniards having lost in all first and last 13. of their best men of war and 44. other Ships of great burden and in Ships great guns and military provisions by the estimate of the most knowing persons above 3000000 ducates And when the King of Spain not long after that he might repair this loss in a heat had from all parts gathered together all the Ships he could and manned even the strangers Ships which were in the Ports of Spain and set out this Navy to Land upon the Coasts either of England or Ireland the Heavens fought for her and so favoured her that by a horrid tempest which arose most of those Ships were either sunk by the waves or broken against the rocks in so much that she sooner heard of the destruction of her enemies than of their setting out to Sea to assault her The year ensuing great preparations were made on both sides but the Heavens not favoring any further proceedings of this kind both the Fleets were so dispersed by storms that neither came within sight of the other And now the King of Spain became well inclined to a peace with England which though proposed by the French he lived not to see brought to effect for he died the 13. of Sept. after 36. But the death of the King of Spain did not dissolve the Combination no more than the deaths of so many several Popes before had done For it still survived in his son Phil. 111. with Clement VIII Only so many former attempts having proved altogether unsuccessful against England there was now with the persons some change also of their Counsels and all their Consultations against England were afterward so directed as to depend for their execution upon the death of the Queen Yet in Ireland there seemed some hopes that something might be effected at present by assisting the Robels there and therefore for their encouragement and assistance the King of Spain by his Agent Don Martin de la Cerda sends them money and Ammunition and the Pope by Mathew de Oviedo whom he designed Archbishop of Dublin Promises of Indulgence with a Phoenix plume to Tir-Oen their General and the year after he sends them his Indulgence it self to this effect That whereas of long time being led on by the Exhortations of his Predecessors and himself and of the Apostolick See for the recovery and defence of their Liberty against the Hereticks they had with Vnited minds and Forces given aid and assistance first to James Fitz-Girald and lastly to Hugh Onel Earl of Tyron Captain General of the Catholick Army in Ireland who with their Souldiers had in process of time performed many brave atchievements fighting manfully against the enemy and for the future are ready to perform the like that they may all the more cheerfully do it and assist against the said Hereticks being willing after the
c. What then would he have said and what must we think of this so far transcendent Inhumane and Antichristian Powder Plot But he goes on Certain it is that even about this present time there have been suborned and sent into this Realm divers persons some English some Irish corrupted by Money and Promises and Resolved and Conjured by Priests in Confession to have executed that most wretched and horrible Fact Of which number certain have been taken and some have suffered as Patrick Cullen an Irish Fencer and afterward Ri. Williams and Edmond York for whose encouragement and reward an Assignation of forty thousand Crowns under the hand of Stephano Ibarra the Kings Secretary at Bruxels was deposited with Holt a Jesuit who kissing the Consecrated Host swore that the money should be paid as soon as the murther was committed and engaged them two by Oath upon the Holy Sacrament to perform it Camd. Anno 1594 1595. And some are spared because they have with great sorrow confessed these attempts and detected their suborners there were also designed at the same time for this purpose as the others confessed Foulis l. 7. c. 7. one Tipping Edmund Garret an Ensign with a Wallon and a Burgundian and one Young and perhaps some of them might be taken and spared But says Sir Francis Among the number of these execrable undertakers there was none so much built and relyed upon by the Great Ones of the other side as was the Physician Lopez And then he proceeds in the particular relation how one Manuel Andrada who had revolted from his own King of Portugal Don Antonio to the King of Spain having before won Doctor Lopez sworn Physician of her Majesties Household to the King of Spains service coming freshly out of Spain treated with Lopez touching the empoysoning of the Queen which he undertook for fifty thousand Crowns but staying the execution till by Letters from Spain he should have Assurance of the payment of the Money those Letters the one from the Count de Fuentes and the other from the Secretary Juara which were delivered to the messenger by the Count 's own hand being happily intercepted the Practise was discovered and the Great Service whereof should arise a Vniversal Benefit to the whole world as the Letters expressed it very opportunely disappointed and Lopez with Em. Louys and Ferrera de Gama whereof the one managed the business abroad and the other resided here to give correspondence were apprehended and arraigned who upon these Letters and their own confession being found guilty were condemned and about three months after executed at Tiburne as Camden tells us The like practise we find again some few years after repeated in Spain whence by Walpole the Jesuit some time Rector or at least of great authority at Villadolit where as I take it the Spanish Court was at that time kept Edw. Squire was sent over to poyson the Queen under pretense of redeeming Spanish Captives being by that Jesuit encouraged upon the score of merit with promises of Eternal Salvation and his blessing Camb. Ann. 1598. out the same Providence still preserved her 23. And to these pitiful and base unworthy Arts did the Grave Spanish Counsels and high vaunts at last descend and this was a fair Introduction to the Contrivance of this Master-piece and last refuge of the Powder-plot which from what hath been said before we have great reason to believe did shortly after succeed Now if these things be confidered and therewith the State and Condition of England and Spain at that time which we may find well compared to our hand by Sir Francis Bacon in his considerations touching a war with Spain it must needs be a very weak and childish thing for any man to imagine that Spain should have been so inconsiderate as to have had any thought of Invading England at that time notwithstanding any combination of whatsoever party ready to receive him here of Papists and discontented persons whereof he had made greater preparations against the Northern Rebellion and 88. did he not build upon some such mystery of the Powder Plot. And indeed if we well examine the Preparations then made or designed both abroad and at home we shall find them rather proportionable to second some such feat as this when the King and the Nobility and a great part of the Gentry were destroyed and the whole Kingdom under so great a consternation and confusion as must there upon unavoidably have ensued than otherwise to have atchieved any conquest of this Nation And if this was so that all did depend upon some such secret machination it was very agreeable to the Counsels and Practises of the Spaniards who as Sir Fr. Bacon observes are great Waiters upon Time and ground their Plots deep 1. By these means to * As they had before done in order to the Invasion of 88 by rumours and Printed Books hold up the minds of the Papists and keep them in continual readiness till the Queens death at which time all the Popish Consultations for sundry years before aimed as hath been sufficiently manifested and then after her death to enter into and go on with a Treaty of Peace as they did in 88. till the noise of the Cannon gave notice of the Invasion and as Don Jo. of Austria had before done and by that means provide for themselves in case the other project failed and in the mean time underhand to infinuate that contrivance to them who were apt enough of themselves to put it in execution but yet in appearance so to desert them as if it should be discovered they might not appear to have been in the least privy to it In the month of Sept. †Thn. l. 129. came the Spanish Embassador and in the same moneth was * Proceed R. 2. Percy by Catesby acquainted with the Plot. It was rumour'd as our historians tell us that the King of Spain was a fomenâ—er of the Plot but for his Ministers they could not be unacquainted with our Author Del Rio a famous Jesuite who had once been in * In Supremum Brabantiae Senatum cooptatus est Sed probitate doctrina suffragantibus altius evectus Palatinis militibus jus dicere mox etiam Brabantiae pro Cancellario esse Regiumque Fiscum curare jussus est Alegamb Lipsius Anno 1578 inscribes an Epistle to him at Lovain Mart. Ant. Delrio Consiliario Regio Honourable Civil employments under that King a member of the Supreme Senate of Brabant Judge of the Marshals Court Advocate of the Kings Exchequer Chancellor of Brabant and Counsellor of State and afterwards entred into the Society at Pinira in Spain and if they were otherwise ignorant of it might from him have learn't the contrivance who himself might possibly have seen a little experiment or Emblem of it in Stiria whither he went about the year 1600. when the Protestant Ministers were cast out by the Decree of the Archduke through the instigation
of the window Felinius his son-in-law with other persons of quality and all the rest that had relation to him This done Monsieur d'O Colonel of the King's Guards calls out the principal Protestants that were in the Louvre one by one who being come into the Court were all killed by the Souldiers that stood in two long ranks with their arms ready for that purpose there died divers Noblemen and persons of great quality and others to the number of 200. At the same time the bell gave the sign and those who were prepared for the deed having received order what to do fell a killing the Protestants throughout all the lodgings and houses where they were dispersed and made an infinite slaughter of them without any distinction of age sex or condition and of many of the Papists among the rest And those who fled were pursued by the Duke of Guise with a great many horse and foot and being overtaken some without shooes some without saddles some without bridles but all more or less unprovided were scattered and cut off There were killed in the City that day and the next above 10000 whereof above 500 were Barons Knights and Gentlemen who had held the chiefest employments in the War and were now purposely met together from all parts to honor the King of Navar 's Marriage Thu. l. 52. A sad time it was what through the noise and clatter of those who every where ran to killing and carrying away of their prey and the doleful groans and sad cryes of those who were slain and murthered without mercy young and old rich and poor men and women women great with child and others with their little children sucking at their breasts and in the dead time of the night plucked out of their beds and houses what with the horrid spectacle of dead bodies thrown out of the windows and trod about the streets and the channels running down with streams of bloud into the River And yet so little moved were the Court Ladies with all this that without either fear or shame in an impudent manner they beheld and stood gazing upon the naked bodies of the Noblemen and Gentlemen which lay on heaps before the Court The day after the Admirals death Da. 375. the Duke of Anjou with the Regiment of the Guards went through all the City and Suburbs causing those houses to be broken open that made any resistance but all the Protestants were either already dead or else being terrified had put white crosses in their hats the general mark of the Papists endeavouring by that means and by hiding themselves to save their lives but being pointed at in the streets by any one or discovered any other way they were without mercy torn in pieces by the people and cast into the River The day before this terrible execution the King dispatched Posts into divers parts of the Kingdom commanding the Governors of Cities and Provinces to do the like And the same night at Meaux and the days ensuing at Orleans Rouen Bourges Angiers Tholouze and many other places but above all at Lyons there was a most bloudy slaughter of the Protestants without any respect of age sex or quality of persons Most sad and lamentable stories says Davila might be here related for this cruelty was prosecuted in so many several places with such variety of accidents against people of all conditions as it was credibly reported that there were slain above forty thousand Protestants in few days The King himself as In vita Greg. 13. Cicarela relates told the Pope's Nuncio that seventy thousand and more were slain Some days after the King dispatched his Grand Provost with all diligence to seize upon Colinius his Wife and Children but his eldest Son with the widow-Lady his Mother-in-law and others being already fled secretly to Geneva the younger children both male and female were condemned to death in their tender years About two days after the Massacre was finished at Paris a Jubilee was there appointed and a publick Thanksgiving kept by the King the whole Court and a great confluence of the people for the business so happily managed according to their wish and desire Thu. l. 52.53 In memory whereof St. Bartholomew's day was by a decree of the Parliament of Paris appointed to be observed as an Anniversary Thanksgiving-day 46. Thu. l. 51.53 This horrible act of most barbarous and inhumane cruelty is highly extolled by the Italian Writers as a good and laudable deed and the politick contrivance of it as most worthy the subtil wit of a magnanimous Prince And certain it is that the news of its being effected was received at Rome with triumphant joy by the new Pope and his Cardinals but how far his predecessors were concerned in the contrivance and promotion of it in regard of the great secrecy wherewith all was managed would be very difficult fully to discover as to all the particulars and circumstances yet that they had a great hand in it Thu. l. 36. Da. p. 189. is evident enough in many passages of the story For when after the first Civil War the King instructed by the Queen-Mother had dismissed the Ambassadors sent in the joynt names of the King of Spain the Pope and the Duke of Savoy with thanks to their Masters for their wholsom counsel and proffers of Forces and Aid to expel and extirpate Heresy out of his Dominions assuring them that he would live according to the rites of the Church of Rome and take care that all his people do the like and that he had concluded the peace to that end to expel his enemies out of his Kingdom and promising by Ministers of his own to acquaint the Pope and other Princes particularly with his resolutions they resolved under pretence of a Progress among other things Da p. 190. to come to a Parly with the Duke of Savoy in Dolphine with the Pope's Ministers at Avignon and with the King of Spain or the Queen his Wife upon the Confines of Guienna that so they might communicate their Counsels to them without the hazard of trusting French-men who either through dependence or kindred might be moved to reveal them to the Protestants And having sufficiently informed and fully satisfied Savoy with their intentions and way Da. p. 194. designed to free themselves without noise or danger from the trouble of the Protestants at Avignon they confer with Ludovico Antinori one of the Pope's trusty Ministers and a Florentine being according to the Queens desire come thither and give that Answer to the Pope's Embassy which they would not trust to the Ambassadors concerning their purpose to extirpate Calvinism by secret stratagems without the danger or tumult of new wars And here no doubt was some matters of no small moment transacted Thu. 36. for the King having gone by Arles and Aix as far as Marseilles returned again to Avignon immediately under the Pope's Jurisdiction But what-ever they were in
suffer his own throat to be cut by the arms of his Rebel-subjects and that those who had * Charles V. anno 1527. sacked Rome and kept the Pope himself prisoner had never been excommunicated to which the King of Navar who was present answered but they were victorious Sir Let your Majesty endeavour to conquer and be assured the censures shall be revoked but if we be overcome we shall all die condemned hereticks Whereunto the King assented and all the by standers did the like and upon that hope order was given that the Army should march and the Kings affairs began to proceed very prosperously against the Leaguers For having first by supplies coming in from the King of Navar put a stop to the D. of Mayenne's progress at Tours and about the same time given a great defeat to the D. of Aumale by the assistance of La Noue one of the chief Commanders of the Protestants taken Gergeau Thu. l. 96. Piviers Chartres Estampes Poissy Montereau Pontoise and all such places and passages of the Rivers which were fit to strengthen the City of Paris or furnish it with victuals he forthwith with an Army of 42000 fighting men laies close siege to the City it self himself on the one side and the King of Navar on the other whereby the Parisians were so straitned and dejected Da. p. 814. though the Preachers used all their arts in their Pulpits to animate them and the Priests and Friers themselves took up arms putting themselves generally upon Military Duty that there was no man but thought that within a few days the King would be Master of it But in the midst of this success and height of his hopes a zealous young Frier †Da p. 816 819. Thu. l. 96. Jaques Clement stirred up by the Sermons which he heard daily against Henry Valois the Tyrant and Persecutor of the Faith resolved in conscience as hath been mentioned before exhorted thereunto by the Prior one of the chief Counsellors of the League and other Fathers of his Convent in all likelihood It being unlikely that the chief men of the Union and particularly the Prior a trusty Counsellor of the Grand-Council of it should not have confered about the fact with the Princes and with their privity exhorted and with effectual motives spurred on the simplicity of the Frier Da. p. 819. v. Thu. l. 96. Serres p. 879. not without the privity of the Catholick Princes affirming to him that if he lived he should be made a Cardinal and if he died for freeing the City and killing the Persecutor of the Faith he should without doubt be Canonized for Saint by an expected stab put an end to his hopes and his life together within * Duobus post mentibus al quot diebus quam Pontifex hanc Sententiam excommunicationis tulerat Cicarel p. 446. few days after the aforesaid term of 60 days prefixed by the Pope who had foretold his unfortunate end was expired to the great joy of the Leaguers and the Pope as hath been related before Sect. 34. this account of the French Story not being then intended The †Da. p. 857. Thu. l. 98. Prior of the Convent was Father Edmond Bourgoin who being afterward taken at Paris and convicted by witness to have publickly in the Pulpit for several days together praised this murder in studied speeches and to have counselled and instigated the murderer comparing him also in his Sermons after the fact to Judith and the dead King to Holofernes and the City delivered to Bethulia he was by judgment of the Parliament of Tours sentenced to be drawn in pieces by four horses his quarters burned and his ashes scattered in the wind which sentence was afterward severely executed Not long after at Vendosme was taken Da. p. 861. Thu. l. 97. and likewise condemned to death Father Robert Chesse a Cordelier or Franciscan Frier who had there publickly praised the King's murderer and with his Sermons stirred up the common people 54. This end had Henry 3. when he had scarce lived out half his days and in him thus dying without issue after 14 years Marriage many visits to Saints and the use of hallowed shirts and smocks for obtaining of issue the whole life of Valois his Bastard brother also the Duke of Angolesme not escaping a violent death some years before by a stab Thu. l. 85. In this King besides the hereditary guilt of his Ancestors descended upon him there are two things especially observable in his own actions whereby he involved himself in the participation of the common guilt of his Family and aggravated the load of it upon his own head the one during the Reign of his Brother in the Massacre wherein he was both a Counsellor and an Actor the other after he came to the Crown himself in his breach of publick Faith with the Protestants Of both which we may observe a very correspondent and exemplary judgment and punishment His sickness of a * Da. p. 777. Thu. l. 94. Bloudy-flux for some time before he was stabbed his death without issue and ere he had lived out half his days may perhaps have respect to his Grand-fathers and Fathers sins seeking by bloudy courses to extirpate the Protestants because these were not peculiar to himself but common to him with his other Brothers But when we see that very City of Paris where the Protestants with the concurrence of his †Eorumque Lotaringorum in gratiam pracipuus author suasor Parisiensis lanienae suisse creditur de qua gloriarisapius auditus est Thu. l. 96. counsel and assistance had been so furiously destroyed now no less furious against him that City which to others had given example of cruelty against the Protestants now gives them example of rebellion against him and him on the other side no less enraged against it saying but the day before that fatal stroke that he hoped within a few days there should be neither walls nor houses but only the very foot-steps of Paris when we see almost all those who had been the executors of that Massacre and were not cut off at the Siege of Rochel as most of them were of the common sort especially now engaged in Arms against him and those who had joyned with him to destroy the Protestants now conspiring his destruction when we see him excommunicated by the Pope whose pretended authority is the principal part of that Religion which with so much cruelty and perfidiousness was sought to be established by that Massacre Lastly when we see after all imaginable injuries and indignities offered him his murder not only plotted and counselled by the chief of the Grand Council at Paris but also executed by an Emissary sent from thence by a religious Zealot of that Religion for which himself had been so barbarously cruel and in that * Thu. l. 51. Serres p. 789. very place at St. Cloud where some time the Council of
the Massacre had been held This we may not without reason look upon as the just judgment of God upon him for his wicked dealings in that barbarous Massacre Again when we see his Popish Subjects every where break faith with him and all bonds and oaths of Obedience and Fidelity to him and teach and hold it to be their duty so to do when we see them through whose importunity he had violated the publick faith given to the Protestants to rage and storm and furiously exclaim upon his breach of faith with themselves when we see him brought to need and desire the assistance of the King of Navar and his Protestants with whom he had broken faith against those for whom to comply with their perfidious and rebellious humours he did it and by them notwithstanding thus brought to his end and murthered with whom he had so basely complied in that perfidious dealing this we may likewise with great reason look upon as a just judgment of God upon him for that his perfidious dealing with the Protestants And certainly if all the circumstances of the History from that barbarous Massacre of the Protestants at Merindol and Cabriers under Francis 2. to the death of this his Grand-son Henr. 3. the last of his race for almost 50 years be duly considered it will be hard to find in any History a more eminent example of Divine Vengeance prosecuting a Family to the utter extirpation of it than this an example wherein the judgment of God is more conspicuous and remarkable or the causes of that judgment more manifest and apparent wherein the sin and the punishment do more exactly agree or of a more remarkable distinguishing providence if with this the hapy reign and actions of their neighbour Prince Queen Elizabeth be impartially compared This was a judgment not upon one person alone nor upon a Family so as to involve all in one sudden destruction as is sometimes seen but a continued prosecution of vengeance against a whole Family for three generations without intermission V. Sect. 39. the Grand-father Fran. 1. not long enjoying himself or his life after he had authorized that fatal persecution His Son Henr. 2. having time to repent and reform and admonished so to do by his dying Father but persevering in his Fathers sin cut off by a violent death in the height and heat of his persecutions against the Protestants and upon his consummation of an agreement for a War against them His four Sons all living to be men but not to half the age of men three of them coming successively to the Crown but so as rather only to wear the Crown than by a just and peaceable exercise of their authority to sway the Scepter being at first over-ruled by the deceitful and pernicious counsels of their Mother and her Italians and the violent courses of the Guisian Faction to destroy their subjects and at last necessitated by the bold attempts of the Guisians and fury of the Leaguers to fight for Crown Liberty and Life against them whereby they and their Kingdom were continually embroiled in Civil Wars and miserable confusions each of them succeeding other as in their access to the Crown so in their unhappy reign if they might be said to reign while so obnoxious to the wills of others and continually imbroiled in such confusions and exit and catastophre of it the first Francis 2. cut off by a death remarkable though not for the kind yet for the time and season of it both in respect of his years and of those who were preserved by it V. Sect. 40. p. 63 64. the next Charles 9. living some years longer and thereby more capable by his own personal management of the affairs of the Kingdom to derive the guilt of his Ancestors miscarriages upon himself and increase it by his own which accordingly he did in no mean degree being likewise cut off by a death every way remarkable in respect both of the time and all other circumstances and lastly the third Brother Hen. 3. coming likewise to that unhappy end which hath been but now related all of them with their Brother Alancon dying without issue to succeed them Nor did this fate attend only the succession but light also upon those who were incapable to succeed in the Government their bastard Brother Angolesme who had been a forward actor in the Massacre being also as hath been said cut off by a violent death and of their Sisters Elizabeth the eldest * V. Sect. 39. p. 60. married to Phil. 2. of Spain a Marriage concluded with an agreement between him and her Father of a War against the Protestants but solemnized with the otherwise untimely death of her Father and by Philip her Husband first employed in the * V. Sect. 42. p. 74. Consultation at Bayonne and at last brought to that †V. Sect. 44. unhappy end when great with child and in the 23 th year of her age which hath been mentioned before and is more fully related in the late French History of Dom Carlos and Margaret the youngest first forced by her Mother and Brother Charles to a Marriage with the King of Navar that unhappy Marriage which was made the introduction to the Massacre afterwards for her * V. Busbeq ep Aug. 27. 1583. Da. p. 599. Thu. l. 80. lewdness and incontinency reproachfully turned from the Court by her next Brother Henr. 3. and at last divorced from her Husband when King of France without issue by him unless she had any by any other which was kept secret as her Brother objected to her If their other Sister Claud married to Charles Duke of Lorain was less unhappy in this respect she seems less to have merited the like misfortune for we meet with no mention of her in all the story of these confusions in France Thus were five Kings in a continued succession cut off besides three others of the same line the youngest son of Francis 1. in few months after the beginning of those persecutions at his age of 23. and the second and youngest of Hen. 2. who never came to the Crown and their whole line and posterity extirpated in France while they sought the extirpation of the Protestants there whereby the Crown at last notwithstanding all opposition and endeavours to hinder it descended to a Protestant Prince and all this by a constant course of Divine Vengeance upon that Family for about 44 years for so long it was from the execution of the Decree of the Parliament of Province Apr. 1545. and the death of the King 's youngest son Sept. 8. following to the murder of Henr. 3. Aug. 1589. the very same space of time which Queen Elizabeth happily and prosperously reigned in England and most of it contemporary Wherein it is very plain and observable a triple difference between her and them viz. a different cause or end and aim of their actions a different manner of proceeding and a different success As