proved dangerous to the Holy See But he made them amends for it afterward though without any expense of his Treasure for he sent out his Excommunication against the King of France himself although a man of an irreconcilable hatred against the Protestants and who had been a promoter of the Parisian Massacre unless within ten days he should set at liberty the Cardinal Bourbon whom the Rebels desired to make head of their party This was published in May and the 1. of August after was the King murthered by James Clement a Jacobin who was thus resolved in the Case by the * F. Edm. Burgoin who was afterwards excuted for it drawn in pieces by four horses his quarters burned his ashes scattered in the wind Danita l. 10. p. 857. Prior of his Covent that if he undertook it not out of hatred or desire of private revenge but inflamed with the love of God for Religion and the good of his Country he might not only do it with a safe Conscience but should merit much before God and without doubt if he should die in the act his soul would ascend to the Quires of the Blessed and as some say he was likewise encouraged by F. Commelet and other Jesuites This fact of Clement was highly extolled in France both in Sermons and Printed books and the Leaguers had that opinion of his Martyrdom for he was presently killed in the place and afterward pulled to pieces and his body burned that they came to the place and scraped up the very dust and earth whereon any of his blood lighted as Sacred Relicks and put it into a Vessel in which they came intending to carry it to Paris and there erect a Monument of his Martyrdom ad adorationem but by a vehement wind which suddenly arose both vessel and passengers were all drowned not one escaping and the relicks cast away Nor was the fact less extolled at Rome even by the Pope himself in a Premeditated Speech in the Consistory wherein he not only preferred that wicked wretch before Eleazar and Judith but most impiously and blasphemously compared his fact for the greatness and admirableness of it to the Mystery of the Incarnation and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour The King had caused the Duke of Guise who was head of the Rebels to be slain and this was one main matter which 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 diligâ—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
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 Jesuites and among other Outrages a Church wherein were the Monuments of a Noble Protestant Familie the Hofmans and the dead carkases and bones blown up not casually but with Gun-powder for that purpose put under it As Thuanus reports Anno 1600. l. 124. 24. But to conclude this Subject If we look into the Beginning Progress and Succession of all those Tragical Attempts which upon the score or at least under the Pretense of Restoring the Catholick Religion in England have been made or promoted during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory against Her and Her Kingdoms we shall find in all from first to last such a Combination of Counsels and Mutual Assistances between the Bishops of Rome and the King of Spain with his Netherlands as will very much confirm what hath been said and may reasonably perswade us to believe that the same was also continued in this It would be too long to make a particular relation of all but yet it may not be amiss briefly to take notice of the principal of them not so much to confirm what hath been said which needs it not as to observe the true Principles from which all have proceeded and what use and benefit we may make of the whole discourse and in this respect it matters not much who were contrivers of that Powder Plot since it is out of question that it proceeded from the same principles with the rest 25. Paulus IV. who was Pope when Queen Elizabeth began her Reign not living out a year after did not at all molest her Nor did his Successor Pius IV. whether being diverted by other business of nearer concern at home in the Intrigues of the Councel of Trent or by the means of Ferdinand the Emperor then in hopes to marry his son to her but Pius v. who succeeded him was no sooner settled in that See but he began to practise to unsettle her from her Throne and to that end as we are informed by Catena who was Secretary to his Nephew Cardinal Alexandrino and wrote his life he imployed one Robert Bidolph Hier. Catena in vita Pii v. a Gentleman of Florence residing here under pretense of Merchandise to engage a party against the Queen which he so effectually did not only among the Papists but Protestants also that the Duke of Norfolk was drawn into the Conspiracy by promise of marriage with the Queen of Scots and in the mean time he perswaded the Spaniard to assist the Conspirators Thuanus l. 46. Sanders 7. de visib Monarch and at last to promote the business sent over Doctor Nic. Morton to certain of the principal English Papists to denounce the Queen an Heretick and therefore faln from all Power and Dominion and by them to be accounted as a Heathen and a Publican and they disobliged from her Laws and commands Hereupon Chapinus Vitellius being first come over under pretense of composing differences about Trade to observe the success of the ensuing Rebellion and to head the Spainards forces which were to be sent out of the Low-Countries the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland with 600. Horse and 4000. foot rise in actual Rebellion 3 De Schismate Angl. and Declare for the Restitution of the Roman Religion but the rest of the Catholicks says Sanders because Sentence of Excommunication by the Pope was not publickly Denounced against the Queen nor did they seem absolved from her Obedience not joyning with them they were easily by the Queens forces chased into Scotland where afterward Northumberland was taken and brought back into England and at York by a Glorious Martyrdom says he happily ended his days And in this Rebellion for the King of Spain besides Vitellius and La Mot the Governour of Dunkirk who came over in a common Sailers habit to found our Havens Bacon Observ the Duke of Alva his Lieutenant in the Low-Countries and Don Guerres d'Espees his Lieger Ambassadour here were discovered to be the Chief Instruments and Practisers Camd. Anno 1569. This Beginning was immediately seconded by Leonard Dacres but with like success 26. But the Duke of Norfolk and Bidolph and others being a little before the Insurrection secured upon some suspitions and so prevented from appearing in the Rebellion the bottom of the business was still undiscovered they not long after released and the Conspiracy still carried on And the Pope to prevent that failure for the future which had been committed the year before and to give more satisfaction and encouragement to all good Catholicks to joyn in Rebellion against the Queen in the entrance of the next
a fevor and therefore her body being dissected in open view but her head under colour of respect untouched it was divulged that by the testimony of skilful Physitians she died of a fevor as Davila relates the story The next to be made sure of in particular was that brave person Colinius a man who though through necessity ingaged in them yet detected out of an innate hatred of such broils the late Civil Wars even to his own ruine and destruction at last as Thuanus upon several occasions often notes and as real a well-wisher of his King and Countreys good as any Subject in France as appeared more fully in some instances discovered after his death But the King and Queen-mother by the arts of the Guisian Faction being prepossessed of a contrary opinion of him after all their fraudulent expressions of favour to him caused him to be shot by a retainer of the Guisian Family â—a p. 367. Thu. l. 52. to secure themselves from the imputation of so odious a fact but being thereby only maimed not killed out-right they presently according to their former dissimulations repair to his lodgings to visit him and with great shew of sorrow for the accident appoint him Physitians and Chirurgeons and a guard for his defence and order a strict search for the apprehension of the assasine This done upon the eve of St. Bartholomew being Sunday Da. p. 3â—1 372. the Duke of Guise by order from the King having about twilight given direction to the Provost des Marchand the chief head of the people of Paris to provide 2000 armed men with every one a white sleeve on their left arm and white crosses in their hats to be ready upon notice instantly to execute the Kings commands and that the Sheriffs of the several Wards should also be ready and cause lights upon the ringing of the bell of the Palace-clock to be set up in every window himself at the hour prefixed with the Duke of Aumale and Monsieur d'Angoulesme the King's bastard-Brother and other Commanders and Souldiers to the number of 300 went to the Admiral Colinius his house and having forcibly entred the Court-gate kept by a few of the King of Navar 's Halbardiers and the servants of the house who were all killed without mercy they likewise kill the Admiral himself and threw his body out 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. 3â—â— 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
people by stirring up their passions of fear and hatred they had another part to act which was to encourage them to action by moving their hopes and expectations and this was done by acquainting them with the victories and happy progress and prosperous success of their Armies and friends abroad amplifying the same as much as might be And what-ever news came whether good or bad the Preachers were generally the publishers of it if good to magnify and set it out to the best advantage if bad to represent it to the people as occasion served partly comforting and encouraging them under the misfortune and partly stirring them up to more forwardness and greater assistance to the War So that these matters were the general and ordinary subject of their Sermons And besides these good services which they performed severally the famous Colledge of Sorbon it self by a publick Decree order that the Kings name and the Prayers for him be put out of the Canon of the Mass and instead thereof other Prayers for the Catholick Princes be inserted and that those who shall say Mass otherwise than by this Decree is appointed shall be held for excommunicate c. And not to be wanting to the encouragement of his devoted Sons in so meritorious undertakings their good Father the Pope sends out his Monitory against the King whereby he is excommunicate unless within ten days he will do the Leaguers the kindness to set at liberty the Cardinal of Bourbon whom they having already agreed to the deposing of him may set up for their King and moreover make his submission within the term of 60 days from the publication of the Monitory which was posted up in Rome the 23 of May Da. p. 811. and within a few days after published at Meaux ten leagues from Paris These dealings of the Pope with the King seemed so hard and unreasonable to the Princes of Italy that they advised the King no longer to treat with him as a suppliant Thu. p. 430. but to deal with him according to his own rough nature and presently to seize upon Avignon and the County of Veniessine Da. p. 811. But the King was not a little grieved at it and said That he thought it very hard that he who had ever fought and laboured for Religion should be rashly excommunicated because he would nor 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. â—â— married to Phil. 2. of Spain a Marriage concluded with an agreement between him and her Father of a