a generall Councell were called and further order taken for the liberty of Religion This godly Prince though Cesâ—rs captive could never be drawn to subscribe to it and when those two subtile Perenots Nicholas Cardinall Granvellan the Father and Anthony the Bishop of Arras his son had used many arguments to perswade him What saith hee would you draw me to I am convinced the Religion I now live in to be the truth and should I outwardly make profession of any other I should but dissemble with God and the Emperor and so draw neer to that unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost with which answer Charles the fifth himself was so pleased as he more respected and honoured the Duke ever after What this pious Prince foresaw and avoided too many by lamentable experience have found true and repented who having abjured the truth for fear and felt but a while the horror of an afflicted and wounded conscience have hasted to those Popish Officers as divers in England did in Queen Maries time where their abjurations and recantations remained and having gotten sight of them have rent them into many pieces and joyfully imbraced not only their Irons but the stake it self as a far more easie suffering then what they before felt and indured Had Charles the 9th of France but followed the good counsell was openly given him in the Parliament at St. Germans the first yeer of his reign That the differences of Religion neither ought nor ever could be composed by blood and cruelty but by Gods Word and seasonable conferences he had never made his raign and memory so infamous to posterity as now it is nor drawn the divine vengeance upon himself by shedding so much innocent blood as afterwards he did For as divers were butcher'd by him in that barbarous massacre at Paris in the yeer 1572. so Henry de Clermont commonly sirnamed Bourbon Prince of Conde was some days after the generall slaughter of the Protestants committed there appointed by him to die but his pardon being obtained by Elizabeth a name it seems only proper to gracious and excellent soveraignesses his Queen one of the daughters of the good Emperor Maximilian although Conde knew it not hee comes to him and tels him of three things he must elect one either to heare Masse to die or to suffer perpetuall imprisonment the young Prince no whit abashed makes him this sudden and brave answer God forbid Sir that I should choose the first but of the two latter I am ready to submit to that which your Highnesse shall appoint There is as rare a story of the Lady Jane Gray eldest daughter of Henry Gray Duke of Suffolk not much inferiour in birth and extraction to Conde himself by her mothers side who was grandchilde and co-heire to Edward the 4th King of England related by a Gentleman and a Courtier as it seems for I finde not his name under Queen Mary in the yeer 1553. who dined at Mr. Partriges house within the Tower with her whilest she remained a prisoner there which narration well deserving to be transmitted to posterity doth here ensue out of a Manuscript History of a great part of that Queens time the very Autograph it self being in my Library written by the said Gentleman with his own hand some few words being added which were at first casually omitted by his haste or inadvertency in penning of it and some other words changed and written according to the manner of speech now used On Tuesday the 29th of August I dined at Partriges house with my Lady Jane c. After that we fell in discourse of matters of Religion and she asked what he was that preached at Pauls on Sunday before and so it was told her to be one I pray you quoth she had they Masse in London Yea forsooth quoth I in some places It may be so quoth she it is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late * Duke for who would have thought said shee hee would have so done It was answered her Perchance hee thereby hoped to have had his pardon Pardon quoth shee Wo worth him hee hath brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity and misery by his exceeding ambition but for the answering that hee hoped for life by his turning though other men be of that opinion I utterly am not for what man is there living I pray you although hee had been innocent that would hope for life in that case being in the field against the Queen in person as Generall and after his taking so hated and evill spoken of by the Commons and at his coming into prison so wondred at as the like was never heard by any mans time who can judge that hee should hope for pardon whose life was odious to all men But what will yee more like as his life was wicked and full of dissimulation so was his end thereafter I pray God I nor no friend of mine die so should I who am young and in the flower of my yeeres forsake my faith for the love of life Nay God forbid much more hee should not whose fatall course although hee had lived his just number of yeers could not have long continued But life was sweet it appeared so hee might have lived you will say hee did not care how indeed the reason is good for hee that would have lived in chains to have his life belike would leave no means unattempted but God be mercifull to us for hee saith Whoso denyeth him before men hee will not know him in his Fathers Kingdome How justly may the masculine constancie of this excellent Lady whose many vertues the pens of her very enemies have acknowledged rise up in judgement against all such poore spirits who for feare of death or other outward motives shall deny God and his truth and so crown the Trophees of the Antichristian or mongrill adversaries by their lamentable apostasie For what shee here spake Christianly shee within a few moneths after performed constantly her life being taken from her on the 12th day of February 1553. having lived first to see Mr. Harding her fathers Chaplain revolted to Antichrist to whom she wrote an effectuall Letter of admonition and reproof published by Mr. Fox in his Acts and monuments p. 1291. not unworthy the perusall of the ablest Christians and greatest Doctors SECT. IX AS it is against the dictamen of reason to make matter of Religion a capitall crime so it is against the rules of policy it self in respect that heresie and falshood which would in time die of themselves are thereby increased propagated and so the end for which force and violence are used is no wayes obtained thereby This was verified in the death of Prisciliian the heretique of old by which his followers were mightily encreased and having before but reverenced him as a holy man did afterwards adore him as a Martyr The present age verifies it in the death of Michael Servetus the Spaniard and
Great and Lewes the Good in France ordaine for such as were counted Sectaries in their times Neither did those three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the first Nicene Councell those six hundred and thirty in that of Chalcedon or those hundred and fifty in that of Constantinople use any other weapons against the same Arrians Nestorians and Macedonians then the Word of God nor stirred they up or permitted the Christian Magistrate in their dayes to punish them by death Paulus Aquiliensis and Cedrenus doe also both of them report that when the Emperour Justinus used clemency towards the very Arrian Heretiques Theodoricus the King of Italy being infected with the same poyson did notwithstanding led by that example suffer the Orthodox Christians to have the free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions Wee shall need no further examples to prove this truth when it is confessed by one of the most learned and best Romanists of our age that there is no approved example in all the Monuments of Antiquity of any execution done upon the Sectaries of those times but that the Church of God did alwayes abhorre the shedding of bloud in matters that meerly concern Religion Jac. Aug. Thuanus Prooem. in Histor. p. 5. SECT. VI IT is likewise contrary to the practice of the best Princes and the wisest States of this latter age of the world to make matter of heresie it selfe a capitall crime Francis the first of that name King of France having decreed a persecution against the poore Protestants of Merindoll and Cabrieres and being informed by William Bellay Lord Langay Governour of the Province that they were harmless men very laborious in their callings just in their dealings loyall to their Prince charitable to the poore and very frequent in their prayers to God their innocency being likewise cleared in a great measure by Cardinall Sadolet himselfe he caused them to be freed from further persecution till being falsly informed by one Minerius a turbulent fellow that there were fifteen thousand of them up in armes in rebellion he rashly gave them over to the fury of their enemies yet not as Heŕetiques which he alwayes accounted them but as Traytors as he was then mis-informed of them In Germany Ferdinand the first taught by the error of Charles the fifth his elder Brother found no such meanes to make his Government happy and his Empire flourishing as to decree the liberty of Religion Which course the good Emperour Maximilian his Sonne following dyed as happy as he lived victorious The Venetian State indure no Inquisitors in matters of Religion nor if any of their Subjects be accused of Heresie doe they suffer it to be questioned before any of the Clergy alone who are thirsty after bloud but before them joyntly together with their Civill Judges The first Monarch in England that made matter of Religion a capitall crime by a publick Act or Statute was the usurper Henry the fourth who having by the perswasion and assistance of Thomas Arundell that traytor Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow-Prelates deposed and murdered his lawfull Soveraigne Richard the second to curry favour with those bloudy Canniballs was forced to yeeld to the murdering of Gods Saints since whose time the bloud of the Martyrs in England have proved the seed of the Church although by the short raigne of that Kingdomes unfortunate Mary their number comes far short of those in France and the seventeene Provinces in which two Dominions within the space of little more then five yeares the curious searcher may finde by diligent inquisition that Gods truth was sealed under Charles the ninth of France and Philip the second of Spaine with the bloud of near upon two hundred thousand Martyrs amongst whom were slaughtered divers great and eminent personages of both sexes a cruelty that very Mahumetans doe abhorre as it appeared by that which the Ambassadours sent from Abas-Meriza the Persian Sultan to the Emperour Rodolph in the yeare 1604. did alledge to justifie the mercifull Government of that Empire to wit that all Christians had free liberty of Conscience in all their Soveraignes Dominions and therefore they exhorted his Imperiall Majesty to joyn in a firme league with him against their common enemy the Turke SECT. VII AS it is against the practice of the Primitive Church the course held by the Christian Emperours and the observation of the wisest Princes and States of the latter age though otherwise Pontifician to make matter of heresie a capitall crime to inforce the Conscience and to put to death for the cause of Religion meerly so it is against the Rules of charitie and reason First It is against the Rules of charity if we had no other light to guide us but the most wise answer of Englands last matchlesse Edward being then but a childe when he was pressed to yeeld his assent to the burning of an Heretique What said he shall I send him to hell By which he truly intimated that whereas in all other offences the Malefactors are punished with death because it may be hoped they have repented the sinne but to destroy an Heretick before conviction is to be the Devils Catour and to send him in provision even to Hell it selfe For the very pertinacious holding of an Heresie is agreed on by all sides to be a damnable sinne and then the cutting them off in that sinne is to be the immediate Instrument of their perdition This doth that virulent Romanist or monster of men Nicholas Harpsfeild in his Wiclevian History openly boast of Cap. 16. p. 717. That those blessed Champions of Christ whom he calls Heretiques did in the fires that consumed their bodies taste the first-fruits of the eternall fire they endured afterwards On the other side if they suffer not but for feare of death hope of preferment or other base ends turne from one Religion to another especially from the truth to errour and Idolatry without instruction or reasonable conviction they onely dissemble outwardly as the Moores of Gran ido did under that bloudy Philip the second of Spaine who being enforced to be present at the Masse in the morning practised their own Mahumetanisme in the evening or els their conscience being shipwracked by their Apostasie before conviction with Francis Spira they are swallowed up of despaire or with Peter Espinae Archbishop of Lions of the Henetick faction in Henry the fourths time of France with lust and Epicurisme who practised that emasculating sinne with his own sister The Jews in England from Willian the firsts time till the eighteenth yeare of Edward the first were the onely Usurers of the Realme and brought in large contributions and tallages to the Kings under whom they lived and enjoyed here the freedome of their consciences At their deaths their whole Estates escheated to the King which their next heires commonly redeem'd for one full third part of three But to incourage them to turne Christians it was appointed in the Assize by which they were
of Paris in the great slaughter committed on Gods Saints and Martyrs about twelve yeers before There now only remained Henry the third the French King alive of all the first contrivers and principall executioners of that inhumane massacre which no age no time no action of the most barbarous nations of the world could ever pattern neither believe I can any ancient or modern History parallel the following punishments of the chief actors therein in all respects who not only all of them perished by violent and bloody ends but proved also the murtherers one of another Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine was presently upon the death of his brother made Generall of the holy League Paris it self and in a manner all the Popish cities beyond the Loire giving up their names and forces to the Henotick faction supported by Pope Sixtus the fifth from Rome and Philip the second from Spain When the King saw that neither his acting the Monk with the Flagellators nor his playing the Persecutor against the Protestants would secure him from a speedy ruine by the violent hands of the rebels He sends to the victorious King of Naver his brother in Law and to the Euangelicall Army before whose known valour the Popish Forces hastened back from the Loire to the Seine Henry the third pursues them and pitched his royall Pavilion at St Clou not far from the gates of Paris But his old cruelties and persecutions of the godly were doubtlesse the Remora of his new expected victories and the divine providence so ordered it that in the very place where the last resolution was taken by himself his Mother his brethren and others for the speedy execution of the before-mentioned belluine Massacre about seventeen yeers before nay in the very same house of Hierome de Gondy and in the very same roome or chamber saith John de Serres was he murthered by James Clement a Jesuited Monk in the yeer 1589. and in the thirty and ninth yeer of his age The assassination was furthered by the authority of Pope Sixtus the fifth by the seditious preachings of the Jesuites Priests and Friers in Paris who had secretly drawn infinite numbers into open rebellion before by their auricular confession and by the perswasion of the Lady Katharine Mary Dutchesse of Mompensier sister of the deceased Duke of Guise whose horrible transport with malice against the Protestant party and desire of revenge against the King himself did so far excaecate and blind her nobler endowments as she prostituted her body to that Jesuited wretch as impartiall de Thou himself relates to incourage him the more in the accomplishment of the murther and so to stupefie and harden his soul by that fatall sin of lust that it might not startle at the commission of any other wickednesse whatsoever Yet as this King some moneths before his death altered his former bloody resolutions against Gods servants so did the Divine providence at his death afford him some hours of repentance and sorrow after the bloody knife had been sheathed in his belly In which he acknowledged his error and sin his error in having been so long mis-led by his ambitious and factious Vassalls his sin in having persecuted his Protestant Subjects and inforced the consciences of many to submit to Popery against the known truth by cruelty and threatning SECT. XIV IN this fifteenth age also within the compasse of which wee shall confine our discovery of Gods Judgements upon persecuting Princes the truth began to spread forth its beames in this other world of Great Britain in a more resplendent lustre then formerly not but that I dare undertake to prove by some select and perhaps fearce known monuments of Antiquity that the Gospel was planted here in the Primitive time that the Protestants Religion flourished here neer upon four hundred yeers before Austine the Monk the first Popish Archbishop of Canterbury poysoned the purity of Gods worship with his burthensome Trinkets and Ceremonies Finally that it was from the first plantation preserved amongst the Welsh and Scots to the dayes of John Wickleffe without any interruption and was secretly practised also in England from Henry the seconds time at the least to the begun Reformation of King Edward the sixth But this requiring a reasonable Volume of it self to be at large deduced I must passe over as improper for this place We may begin in England with Henry the eighth in whose raign no Papist can deny but that divers Protestants were not only hunted after fined imprisoned compelled to abjure and otherwise disciplined but were likewise consumed in the merciless flames as Heretiques And therefore when the Papall side take so much pains to recount either the ill successes of his own raign or the dying issulesse of all his posterity as the signes and characters of Gods indignation against him they do but furnish the Orthodox party with weapons against themselves For the truth is he did only abolish the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome not the Pontifician or Papall Church which to this day as also in the former ages in France hath been so hedged up and incircled under certain restrictions and limits as it is of small consequence to help the Prelates and of little power to hurt the King So that Cuffetellus the Dominican proved it at large in an elaborate Work published in the yeer 1609. and the Sorbonists determined it in the yeer 1611. that the Pope had no power or Jurisdiction in that Kingdome in matter of Temporalities Neither did Henry the eighth in England proceed any further in this particular of abolishing the Popes power then those his two coaetaneous Princes Francis the first and Charles the fifth did at sundry times in their severall Dominions upon lesse provocations So the same Charles the fifth writing to the Councell assembled at Bononie superscribed his Letters only Conventui Bononiae as did afterwards Henry the second of France writing to the Tridentine Conspirators fule it only the Convention of Trent who also in the former and better part of his raign fairly cut shorter a great-part of the Popes Ecclesiasticall authority in France And how little Philip the second himself of Spain the sworn enemy of the godly regarded the Pope further then he did ancillate to his ambitious ends appeares plainly in this one particular that when upon the unfortunate death of Sebastian King of Portugall there were divers competitors for that kingdome and that Don Antonio had already assumed the title thereof he would not admit the Popes intercession to have the matter composed by Treaty or referre the cause to his decision Nay that bloody Charles of France of whose fatall end we have but a while before discoursed when Pius the fourth in the yeer 1563. had cited Odetus de Coligny Cardinall of Chastillion John de Monluce Bishop of Valence and others of his Subjects to appeare at Rome before his Inquisitors he sent him a stout Message by Henry Clutinius his Ambassador then
thirty millions of money upon those fruitless designs and not gained a foot of ground in either of those Realmes he lost a great part of the Seventeen Provinces with whom having broken the Oath solemnly sworne to them upon his Inauguration they by assistance of England and France freed themselves from his unjust oppression and tyranny Neither did the divine Justice let him so escape but raised a fire in his own house so as the Jeast of Augustus touching Herod might well be verified in him That it had been better to have been his swine then his sonne For whereas he had issue by Mary his first wife the daughter of John the third of that name King of Portugall one onely sonne called Charles a Prince of admirable towardlinesse he during the life of Englands unhappy Mary his second wife treated a marriage for his said sonne with Elizabeth the eldest daughter of Henry the second of France During the treaty Mary his wife dying he marries the Princesse Elizabeth himselfe intended for his sonne they both often in private after never forgetting their old affection lament their unhappy losse each of other the sonne also distasts his Fathers cruelties and the butcheries of his Inquisitors This enraged his jealous Father who having in the yeare 1568. first imprisoned him within a few dayes after poysoned him in a dish of broath His Mother in Law followed him within a few moneths after sent out of the world by the same kind hand and meanes say the French Writers the violence of the poyson causing her to miscarry also by an abortion And then was Philip the Father put to seek out a fourth wife and having married Anne the daughter of Mary his own naturall sister he had issue by her Ferdinand and James both cut off by death in their Infancy and Philip who being the onely issue of this incestuous Match lived to inherit his Fathers Dominions though not the full measure of his cruelties having been perhaps forewarned by his sad and loathsome end to pursue a more milde and peaceable Government Rodolph the second of that name Emperour of Germany not following the steps of the wise Maximilian his Father but of the foresaid Philip his Brother in Law sought by all secret and hostile means to enervate and destroy Religion in the Empire What got he by it but to have the curse of the Scripture to fall upon him That the Elder Brother should serve the younger for Matthias the Arch-Duke of Austria raising an Army in the yeere 1608. and joyning his Forces with those of the oppressed Protestants in Bohemia hemmed up his brother Rodolph in Prague got the Kingdom of Hungary from him in possession the Empire in reversion and left him only the robes and complements of Majesty which notorious affront he did not long over-live nor ever had the means or power to revenge SECT. XI IF wee passe out of Spain and Germany from the House of Austria into France to consider the sad successes of the Princes of the Valesian line upon their hatred and persecution of Religion wee shall see so many instances of Gods just indignation against them as they may not only leave to all posterity a just ground of admiration but save us the labour also of searching any further back into the elder Histories of Gods judgements powred out on the persecuting Emperours in the Primitive times Henry the second of France was meanly married to Katherine de Medices the Niece of Pope Clement the seventh during the life of Francis the Dolphine his elder brother afterwards poysoned That prudent Prince Francis the first his Father deceasing hee succeeded him in his Throne and Purple and swayed the French Scepter divers yeers with much tranquillity and happinesse till loathing the coiture of his Queen unfit indeed for a Princes bed he grew highly enamoured on Pictavia of Valence a woman of exquisite beauty and good extraction with whom hee long after lived in continuall advowtrie and was by her enticed to the persecution and slaughter of the Protestants in the yeere 1553. that so by the confiscation of their lands and goods shee might enrich her self and her kindred This persecution set a period to all his former victories and was followed the next yeere with the losse of the City of Senis in Italy to the Spaniard the death of that gallant old Generall Leo Strozzi by a base hand and the overthrow of the French Army by James de Medices In the yeer 1556. the violence of persecution was again renewed against the Professors of the Truth and the very next yeer following as before God again gave up the French Army to the slaughter of the Spaniards and the Dutch at the fiege and battell of St. Quintins in which there were about 3000. slain upon the place and many of them signall men and the Town soone after taken in by assault Annas Duke of Memorancie himself the Constable of France Gasper de Colignie Earle of Caestilion Admirall of France the Marshall of St Andrew the Duke of Longevile and a number of other great Peers were taken prisoners In summe the losse and slaughter was so great and fatall to the French as it well-neer equalled that victory obtained by the Duke of Bourbon at the battell of Pavia in Italy against Francis the first his Father yet Henry the second still shuts his eyes against the cause of all these losses and having his heart already cauterized by lust he not only caused the godly to be committed to the flames but would needs view their torments himself as a pleasing spectacle and had conspired and combined with Philip the second of Spain his new Sonne in Law for the utter ruine and finall subversion of Geneva Nay but a few houres before his death in the yeer 1559. Lodowick Faber and Annas Burgus two Senators of Paris because they had spoken a little freely for the innocency and piety of the Protestants in the open Senate were imprisoned upon his expresse command in the Bastile in the same City by Gabriel Earle of Mongomery one of the Captains of his Guard and the persecution against all others of the same profession grew hot and furious when the King upon the 29th of June the same yeere running at Tilt with that very Earle of Mongomery and neer the very Baslile where the Senators remained prisoners was struck with a splinter of Mongomeries speare through his eye into his brain and never had the happinesse to speak any one word after though he survived the wound a few dayes or to acknowledge his former lust and cruelty Had the Papists but such an instance of Gods immediate providence in vindicating their cause we should soon heare of one true miracle amidst so many false and adulterate But if wee further looke to Gods hand that followed this Prince in his posterity it will yet seem the greater Miracle for of five sons hee had all except one died without lawfull issue to survive them
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
practices although they exactly imitate their old master Pelagius in one particular which Vossius himselfe confesseth of him teaching many of their desperate doctrines as he did privately which yet they conceale and suppresse in their published Tractates which have given so many fatall wounds to the true Church of God in this and the last preceding age for the proofe whereof wee shall need to produce no other witnesses then those two sincere and impartiall Historians John Sleidane and the same Monsieur de Thou from whom wee may learne that after Melchior Hofman had broached his wicked Tenets in Germany about the yeere 1520. and with his disciples Thomas Muncer Bernard Rotman and John Leyden had assumed to themselves the name of Anabaptists and drawn many of the baser sort after them whom they perswaded not to suffer any of Noble blood to remain and that there could be no other lawfull Magistrate but one of their Sect they easily drew them to take armes and possessing themselves of the city of Munster in Westphalia had like to have proved the utter ruine of it had it not been delivered by the armes of some of the Germane Princes after which followed the execution of divers of those rebels After these men succeeded as chiefe propagators of their errours John Cerdo hanged at Brussels Michael Servetus the Spaniard burnt at Geneva and Cornelius Apelman executed at Vtrecht in the yeare 1570. all three of them though guiltie of divers grosse heresies yet were condemned and put to death for blasphemie and other notorious crimes John Williams their successor finding their treasonable and Anarchicall positions to afford them no safety in any well governed Monarchie or Republique got him to Ruremund in the Dutchie of Guelders and there having drawn to his partie some three hundred varlets and mean fellowes hee told them no goods could rightly appertain to any man but of their own Sect and therefore assured them whatsoever they could get by pillaging and robbery was a lawfull gain by which means many horrible and grievous thefts and spoiles were committed in Guelderland and in the Dutchie of Cleve adjoyning The said Williams also being taken was for his many abominable offences and villanies burnt at Buslaken in the Dutchie of Juliers yet died so courageously like Servetus his fellow Anabaptist as that their Sect was exceedingly confirmed and increased thereby so as had not their other portentous crimes justly necessitated their capitall punishment it had been much better for the true Church of God their lives had been spared For whereas before ignorant men had for the most part presidented their Church and kingdom for their chief Prophets commonly governed all the rest after their own wills these mens sufferings drew on as may be easily gathered Theodore Bibliander and Sebastian Castellio to give up their names to the maintenance of the same blasphemies who cunningly defended only in their publique writing those points which Pelagius had formerly broached whom Arminius Vorstius and the other Anabaptists of the nether Germany have since followed but for those dangerous and unsafe doctrines of condemning Magistracy extirpating Nobility and permitting robberies howsoever they may still in private teach and adhere to them and would perhaps if they could once make the stronger partie in any State soon enough practise them yet they have most politickly omitted not onely the maintenance but the very mention of them also in the said published Works and Tractates Thus also the Papists themselves upon occasion being pressed with any of their seditious tenets will deny them as Peter Cotton the Jesuite did their allowing of the murther of Kings after Henry the fourth of France was stabbed by that wicked Jesuited varlet Ravaillac and Henry Garnet at his execution protested that he ever abhorred the Gunpowder-plot The Pelagians in the time of the ancient Britaines were the undoubted instruments of the ruine of England then called Britaine of murthering Constantine the father and Constans the son both successive Kings there and of setting the Royall Crown upon the head of Vortigern Duke of Cornwall a Pelagianized traytor against his Soveraign who in lieu thereof to gratifie them soon filled up as may be probably collected the Bishops Seas to which neither Baronies nor Sericality were then nor for five hundred yeares after annexed with hereticall and lazie droanes who had well-neere ruined the true Church of God in those dayes All the world may know what warning King James of England that learned Prince gave to the united States of the Netherlands by his published Works upon the death of the Anabaptist Arminius and succession of that blasphemous Vorstius in his roome and chaire at Layden that if they did not in time look to the suppression of those blasphemous Heretiques they would in the end prove the ruine of their Church and State God of his infinit mercy grant that they may never be able to bring desolation or subversion to them nor to any other Church Kingdome or State of Christendome where the Gospel and the truth are established by the increasing of their numbers and powers to an excessive and formidable proportion SECT. XXIII WE have seen the greatest and uttermost punishment that the Primitive Church thought fit to be inflicted on the Heretiques of those times was exilement in which case they had alwayes a competent time allowed to provide conveniences before they receded safe conduct for their departure and a full power given them either to retain their praediall and fixed estates they left and to receive by their deputed agents the yeerly revenues of them or else sell them And if wee do seriously peruse the Histories of later times we shall finde the cruellest Tygres and most Wolvish Prelates that ever miscarried the affaires of any Kingdome or State since the yeare 1500. never to have grown to that senslesse and belluine height of malice against the godly as neither to suffer them to enjoy their liberty and quiet of their consciences at home nor yet peaceably and innocently to leave their deare and native countrey and to plant themselves in such parts of the world as they may enjoy their inward peace without offence or scandall to any Philip the second of Spain who was one of the most prodigious offenders against God in his time having vitiated women of the noblest rank violated contracts of the deepest nature murthered his eldest son and third wife unjustly detained the Kingdome of Navarre broken his oath with Arragon Naples and the Netherlands and the most resolved and premeditated persecutor of Christendome being wholly actuated precipitated to it by Nicholas Perenot Cardinall of Granvellan and the bloody Inquisitors yet in the yeer 1575. he set out a publick Declaration touching all the Inhabitants of the Netherlands that it should be lawfull for any that would not embrace the Rom m Religion to depart from thence whither soever they would and to sell their estates or else to retain them and to receive the
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