at Rome That if hee did not speedily withdraw that citation hee would no longer acknowledge him for Pope At which bold Declaration the Pope and his Conclave being affrighted the prosecution of that businesse ceased by the very withdrawing of the Citation it self and by the Popes future silence All which open affronts the Popes in this fifteenth age after our bleffed Saviours incarnation endured from these Kings not because they were more deare to their Subjects then their Predecessors or the Popes lesse potent then in former times for their strength in Italy was more encreased in that age then in ten fore-going but indeed it was the light of the Gospel that began about these times to dawn every where that made way for dispelling those chains of darknesse with which both Prince and people had in those former ages been enfettered So as the Pope fearing lest all should fall from him as some Germane Princes Republiques and Cities had already done was fain to comply with the French King to submit to the Emperor and to Court the King of England by the intercession of foraine Princes for a reconcilement But to proceed from Henry the eighth of England the Father to Mary Queen of the same Realm his daughter of whom and her wisdome the Pontificians so much boast It is certain that she entred her raign with the breach of her publique faith For whereas the Crown was set on her head by the German and Commons of Suffolk although they knew her to be a Papist which shewes that the godly Protestant usually nicknamed by those that are prophane lustfull and Popishly affected is the best Subject any Soveraign can be happy in yet she in one of her first acts of Councell took order for their restraint long before the Masse and Latine Service were generally received in London it self and caused that Diocesse to taste the sharpest Inquisition and persecution that raged during her raign which was happily shortened by her husbands contemning her person and her enemies conquering her Dominions neither of which she ever had power to revenge or recover so as though the cause of her death proceeded from no outward violence yet was her end as inglorious and miserable as her raign had been turbulent and bloody She might have taken warning by the sudden and immature death of James the fifth King of Scotland her cousin Germane who raising persecution in Scotland against his loyall and innocent Protestant Subjects in the yeere 1539. burning some exiling and imprisoning others and forcing many to blaspheme in abjuring the known Truth by the advice and procurement of James Beton Archbishop of St Andrews and David Beton Abbot of Arbroth his brother never saw good day after two brave young Princes his sons were the yeer following cut off by abortive ends in their cradles Wars to his great losse and disadvantage were raised between himself and his Uncle Henry the eighth King of England and all things fell out so crosse to his haughty and vast minde as it hastened his death which fell out in the yeere 1542. SECT. XV WEre the Histories of Popish Prelates worthy to be joyned to those of Kings and Princes wee might fill up a large Tract with Gods judgements powred upon them For as most of them have been given up to lust and crapulositie so have many of them been bitter enemies of the truth and stingie persecutors We have seen the fall of the Cardinall of Guise and all ages have cause to admire the exemplary judgements of God powred out upon that bastard-slip Stephen Gardner Bishop of Winchester in the very instant of his plauditees and caresses for the vivicombury of reverend Latimer and learned Ridley But I shall content my selfe to have abstracted as a taste for the rest the notorious punishments inflicted by a higher hand upon two Arch-Prelates the one of England the other of Scotland Thomas Arundell Arch-bishop of Canterbury having been the successefull traytor by the help of his reverend fellow-Bishops to establish Henry the 4th in the Throne of R. the second his liege Lord and Cousin-German pressed the new King whose broken title needed his Prelates supportment to use his temporall sword for the destroying the disciples of John Wicklesse whose numbers were so increased at that time as they even filled the kingdome the King assents and having by their mercilesse instigation shed the bloud of Gods Saints he raigned neither long nor happily H. 5. a brave and martiall Prince his son succeeding him the Protestants began to meet more publikely and to professe the truth more openly then before the Archbishop thereupon renews his former suit to the son he had before pressed with successe upon the father and prevailed In particular he first aimed at the destruction of Sir John de Old Castle Knight commonly called the Lord Cobham who had most affronted him This noble Gentleman was extracted from an ancient Family of Wales where he had large possessions and much alliance by whose means he after lay long-hidden there notwithstanding all the search his bloudy enemies made after him he had issue by Katherine daughter of Richard ap Yevan his first wife John who died before himself and Henry de Old Castle who survived him and to whom King Henry the sixth in the 7th yeare of his raign restored divers Mannors and Lands which had been entailed upon him he married to his last wife Joan the sole daughter and heire of Sir John de la Pole Knight whom he had begotten upon the sole daughter and heire of the Lord Cobham of Kent which Joan had been first married to Sir Robert de Hemenhale a Suffolk Knight and was secondly the wife of Sir Reginald de Braybroke Knight by whom shee had onely issue that survived her the said Sir John de Old Castle her third husband in her right enjoyed the Castle of Couling in Kent and many other large and great possessions and by the marriage of her also he was neerly allied to the Duke of Suffolk the Earl of Devonshire and many other great Peers of the Realme at that time and did doubtlesse enjoy the stile and title of Baron Cobham as is infallibly proved by severall Writs of Summons sent unto him being all entred upon Record in the Close Rolls by which he was summoned to assist in the House of Peers in Parliament by that name in the time of H. 4. and H. 5. All which I have thought fit to transmit to posterity touching this noble martyr being no where to be found in any publike story not onely to shew how many supportments he had besides the favour of King Henry himself to have retarded the Clergie from questioning him but also how easily he was destroyed by the bloudy Prelates of those endarkened times when the Soveraign had but permitted them the use of his power to ancillate to their cruell resolutions of which impotent act of the Kings saith Archbishop Parker himselfe Rex virum clarum sibique familiarissimum
unreasonable French Papists being true limbs of the Romish Synagogue whose faith was then faction and whose Religion was then rebellion would embrace no conditions of peace no offers of pacification from their own undoubtedly lawfull and warlike King as long as he continued in the open profession of that truth in which he had been educated under Joan D'Albret hereditary Queen of Navarre his royall and godly mother who also upon her death-bed had expresly charged him never to recede from it This brave Prince seeing nothing but an utter ruine threatened to his kingdome of France either by cantonizing it into Provinces or setting a forainer on the Throne which Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine had out of some ambitious and self-respects of his own a while opposed and prevented in the yeer 1593. submitted himself to a publike recidivation which though it brought on an outward peace to that Realme yet was the King himself never freed from continuall Treasons and Conspiracies hatched against him in the dens and nests of the Jesuites till at the last he perished under one of them to the irreparable losse not only of France but likewise of all Christendome Neither did the Papists cease to vilifie his very act of reconciling himself to their Church saying as Monsieur de Thou himself confesseth that either his conversion was fained as it had been before in the yeer 1572. and that a false Catholike would do more hurt in their Church then a true Heretique or else that he loved the Crown of France better then he did the kingdome of Heaven that to gain that without any inward convincement would turn from one Religion to another SECT. XXV AFter this martiall Prince had deserted the Protestant Religion to the great astonishment and excessive griefe of all the Professors of the Gospel both at home and abroad What did his French Subjects of the Helvetick Confession instantly rebell against him and deny him due and lawfull obedience as his Popish Subjects had done before Nothing lesse but all the disobedience they shewed to him or expressed towards him consisted in humble supplications and Remonstrances that they might still enjoy the publique libertie of their Consciences and he as graciously yeelded to their just and Christian Petitions and all the time he raigned never forgat their cause or prayers or suffered any of his bloudy Prelates or Jesuited Counsellors to molest vex cite fine suspend deprive or imprison any of them and much lesse to butcher them or draw bloud from them because he knew every one of those acts are essentially true and down-right persecution as well as shedding their blouds onely there is a graduall difference in the Martyrdomes of the sufferers as well as in the cruelty of the destroyers As strange was the example of Henry the eight of England who led by the advice of some of his Sycophanticall Popish Prelates thought to have established the Romish Religion without admitting the influence of the Papacy whose unerring spirit is to that Synagogue like the soule to the body or the Sunne to the firmament But he soone saw his error and would doubtless had he lived have made that integrall and saving Reformation which his Royall Sonne so piously finished for he himselfe and his new Popery were more abhorred by the Bishop of Rome and his Vassalls as a monstrous and inconsistent Church then the Princes of Germanie themselves who had made a rationall and intire defection from that man of sonne For the Pope and his Conclave employed Cardinall Poole Henry the Eighths neare kinsman as their Ambassadour to Charles the fifth the Emperour to exhort and perswade him instantly to invade the King of Englands Dominion rather then to make warre against the Turke himselfe And the reason why the Pope was so vehement in his prosecution against that King doth palpably and fully appeare from the very words ensuing of the Decree of Pope Boniface the eighth in his Extravagants set forth by himselfe in the eighth yeare of his Papacy about the yeare 1300. Subesse Romano pontifici saith he omni humanae creaturae declaramus dicimus definimus pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salut is We declare define and pronounce that it is necessary for every one that is to be saved to be subject to the Pope of Rome The same doctrine doth the Bull of Pope Pius the fifth bearing date there in the yeare 1564. the Romish Catechisme set out a little after doth maintain and confirme in the tenth eleventh and twelfth Sections thereof in their exposition of the twentieth Article of their new Creed to which Creed their Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks are compelled to sweare that they hold it to be the true Catholick faith it being strongly disputed for also by Suarez in his first booke and twelfth Chapter against the Lutherans by Gregorie de Valentia in his Analysis lib. 6. cap. 1. and by Bellarmine in his third booke and fifth Chapter of the Church Militant That though any Prince Prelate Priest State or Church should receive all the other parts of the Romish faith Religion abolishing the doctrine and discipline of the Protestants and should onely deny the Popes Supremacy and subjection to him yet they should still remaine damnable and wicked hereticks So as the light of the Sunne is not more cleare then that the Pope in this one particular imitates God himselfe hating more a linsey-woolsey mungrell halting Popish Protestant then a true and zealous one Blessed therefore are those Monarchs Princes and States who preserve the Evangelick truth without the least intermixtures of false doctrine and Pontificall additions for to halt between light and darknesse and to intermix Idolatrous actions or Popish errors with saving truths will necessarily draw on the ruine of the godly and the hatred of the Papacy and bring downe Gods judgements as causally as an absolute entire and plenary defection and recidivation And then if the Popes headship be once admitted a volume would not suffice how not onely every proud Prelate but even every Popish Priest might trample on the Soveraignes Crowne and Dignitie murther their fellow-subjects and be guilty of a thousand other villanies without dreading or regarding the punishment of the Temporall sword SECT. XXVI MAtthew Paris the Monke of St Albanes a witnesse without exception doth truly relate a pithy Story to shew the ancient deplorable and base state and condition of the English Kings under the Papall tyranny That Pope Innocent the 4th in the year 1253. in the 37th yeare of Henry the third being set in his Conclave in the middle of his Cardinalls after mature deliberation and advisement upon a very small and trifling occasion brake out into this vehement Interrogation Nonne Rex Anglorum saith he noster est vafsallus ut plus dicam mancipium qui possumus eum nutu nostro incarcerare ignominiae mancipare That is Is not the King of England our vassall or to say more is he not our slave who have power as often as wee please either to mue him up in prison or to expose him to ignominy Justly therefore did Henry the eight of England free himselfe from this Papall Tyranny and if he had been possibly sensible of those bodily pangs or inward remorses and horrors upon his death-bed which the Papists mention yet could not these divine flagellations be imputed to his defection from Rome and error as they pretend but to his shedding of so much innocent bloud of Gods Saints by the instigation of his sanguinary Prelates For in France after that barbarous and cruell Massacre in the yeare 1572. upon the eighth day of November the same yeare there appeared a dreadfull Comet touching which some learned Protestant immediately published an elaborate and exquisite Poem presaging that it was Gods Herald or Messenger to denounce his judgement shortly to ensue upon that Kingdome for their newly perpetrated inhumane butcherie His verses were 〈◊〉 dispersed when there suddainly broke out in Poitou a new 〈◊〉 and before unknowne disease commonly called the Poitâ—vin Cholick which wasted that goodly Kingdome for above thirty yeares after It was accompanied with so many extreame paines and torments not onely in the outward parts of the body but in the inwards and vitals also as it drew on divers horrid convulsions and in many blindnes it self before they dyed The strange originall the hidden nature and those unparalleld torments it produced sometimes resembling the very stabs and gashes made with swords and poygnards gave all impartiall judgements just ground to conclude it to be the finger of God himself in punishing the mercilesse murthers of his dear Saints And a blessed warning it may be to all Christian Kingdoms and States that a seasonable remedie to stop the growing of the plague pestilence and other severall diseases and judgements may questionlesse be applyed by inhibiting and abolishing the power and malice of such Popish Prelates as count it their chiefest solace to waste and persecute the pious and godly Protestants that so the true Catholick Church might againe flourish as it did in the Primitive times under learned religious sober faithfull preaching Pastors and Ministers Which incomparable blessing the Divine Providence vouchsafed to the Scottish French and Helvetick Churches upon their first Reformation The Printer to the Reader I Am here courteous Reader instead of troubling thee with an Index of the Errata to give thee notice that so great care hath been used in this second Impression as it needs none neither was it my fault but my mis-fortune that the first had so many greater errours as well as lesser slips for I had the use of a very imperfect Copie transcribed from the Originall by two or three severall hands in some hast by which I was mis-led almost in every Section Those errours and such as escaped the Presse are now amended to thy hand FINIS * Lutherus paulò ante mortem ageâ— cum Philâ—ppo Melancthone fatetur in negotio Coenaeâ—n mium esse factum c. Dr Rainoldus prelectione 4a. in lib. Apocryphos p. 53. Col. 1. Et Orat. Isaac Bootii Vesalii de controversiis Sacramentariis Edit. Basilere Ao Dm. 1601. ad Calcem Polani Analys. in Hoâ—â—seam p. 405. * John Dudley Duke of Northumberland The late inhumane maâ— sacre and buâ—chery in Ireland hath since exceeâ—ed it
Episcoporum potestati carnificinae permisit who yet overlived that excarnificating Arch-Prelate two yeares at the least For the Archbishop having murthered divers godly martyrs in H. 4. time and been a great stickler in State-affaires when long before he procured himself to be made Lord Chancellor of England and lastly in a Synod held by himself at Rochester having forbad the reading of the Scriptures in English and limited Preachers under a heavie censure what they should treat upon in the Pulpit was soon cut short himself by the immediate hand of God after he had condemned that warlike Gentleman Sir John de Old Castle Lord Cobham before he could see him executed his tongue being so benummed and swoln that he could neither swallow nor speak as Thomas Gascon relates in his Theologicall Dictionary for a few dayes before his death it being faith another the just judgement of God upon him and may be a faire warning to all other wicked Popish Prelates that as he had muzled up the mouths of Preachers and kept the Scriptures from the knowledge of the people being their spirituall food so he should neither be able to speak nor to swallow from that very minute this judgement fell first upon him but died within a few dayes after in great torment and extremity by a languishing silence and famishment The last example is of later dayes and concernes the admirable punishment of David Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews in Scotland being also a member of the purpurated Conclave at Rome he had continued divers yeares an inveterate enemy of the Gospel in that Kingdome under James the fifth and after his death taking advantage of the infancy and pupillary age of the Princesse Mary the hereditary Queen of that Realme he thought it a work worthy of himself to double-die his Cardinall robes in the bloud of the Saints and therefore to make a sull and cleare way for that his sanguinary project he forged a Will of the deceased King establishing himself chief Regent there during the young Ladies incapability to govern from which upon the discovery of his false play he being removed and a while committed to safe custody he was no sooner delivered but he presently enterprised to raise a new and fatall war between England and Scotland and to root out the professors of the truth by a violent and bloudy persecution Amongst others cited and imprisoned or exiled in the yeare 1545. he seized on George Wischart a very eloquent and learned Preacher who by the Latine Writers of that age is surnamed Sophocardius and contrary to their own Popish Canons adjudged him to present death himself which is never done except in the merciless Inquisition of Spain by those bloudy Wolves themselves but by delivering the martyrs into the power of the lay-Magistrate and in the Court before his Castle of St. Andrews caused the same to be executed the said George being first strangled and his body afterwards burnt to ashes the Cardinall in the mean time had a chamber prepared for him with Carpets and Cushions on the windows out of which to be a triumphant spectator of this godly mans murther from which he departed not more delighted then as he himself thought secured beginning to fortifie his said Castle against all assaults But Gods judgement from eternity awarded against him for this latter as well as his former cruelties exercised upon his faithfull servants slept not for within a few weeks after the Cardinall having falsified his promise to the Lord Norman Lesle son of the Earle of Rothsey a devout Romanist he upon the thirteenth day of May the same yeare with some fourteen resolute Gentlemen in his company entred the same Castle of St. Andrewes where the Cardinall lay and having first assured himself of the command within and the gates without he executed that bloudy Prelate in his bed without law or justice who had but a little before most unjustly condemned and murthered the aforesaid George Wischart and willing to expose the dead carcasse of that purpurated persecutor as it were all weltered and besmeared with bloud to the view of the people who abhorred his cruelties and rejoyced at his fall they casually and contingently laid it along to be seen of all men upon that very window out of which a little before leaning at his ease upon rich Cushions he had proudly beheld the butchering of that godly martyr The Cardinals end 't is likely had neither been so sudden nor so shamefull had he followed the wholsome counsell and seasonable advice of John Viniram a learned Priest and moderate Papist who by his command preaching before him and divers others of the Romish Clergie then assembled together for the condemnation of that godly martyr George Wischart told them plainly That nothing did more encrease the number of Heretiques then their own stupid ignorance and wicked lives and that there was no other sword to be used for their extirpation then that of Gods Word by which they were to be tryed and convinced because every error which might properly and truly be called an Heresie was directly and flatly against the same written Word SECT. XVI IT may somewhat amaze the reason and judgement of any moderate man though an Atheist why the Pope himself or his Prelates and Clergie should so extreamely hate and violently persecute even more cruelly then they doe Jewes or Turks the Evangelicall partie and especially those of the French Scottish and Helvetick confession who doe commonly joyn eminency of piety and godlinesse with a most sound and absolute body of doctrine agreeable with that of the Primitive Church But if wee consider that the Pope himselfe all Popish or popishly affected Prelates and all the Romish rabble like the Scribes and Priests in our Saviours dayes ayme nothing at all at Gods glory or the salvation of mens soules but onely at the maintenance of their wealth pride and tyranny not intending to yeeld an inch or haires breadth to any the least reformation wee cannot but see that their self-love and wallowing in all sensualitie is the cause of the hatred of the godly who both by their lives and writings condemne and oppose their wickednesse and errors For as the persecutions of the Arrians against the Orthodox Fathers exceeded the cruelty of the Heathen Emperours so hath that of the Romish Babylon far surpassed and out-stript them both being joyned together they feare not the diminution of their Votaries by the perswasion of Jewes or Turks but onely by the sound reasonings of the Protestants whose Religion hath already gained from them not onely Cities Republickes and Provinces but whole Kingdomes also and therefore seeing the truth it selfe is against them they count it high time to fall from reasoning to policy and from institution to cruell persecution as a ready meanes to carry through their bad cause Incomparable Monsieur de Thou who is a glory to the Romish Synagogue it selfe and whose History the most exact and excellent that ever