King of England sonne of Geffrey Plantagenet and Maud the Empresse after he had raigned twenty yeares was content to admit his young sonne Henry married to Margaret the French Kings daughter into participation of his Crowne but he like an unnaturall son to requite his fathers love sought to dispossesse him of the whole for by inciting the King of France and certaine other Nobles hee tooke armes and raised warre against his owne naturall father betwixt whom divers strong battels being fought as well in England by the Deputies and friends of both parties as also in Normandy Poytou Guian and Britain the victory alwayes inclined to the father so that the rebellious son with his allies were constrained to bend to his fathers will and to desire peace which he gently granted and forgave his offence Howbeit the Lord for his disobedience did not so lightly pardon him but because his hasty mind could not tarry for the Crowne till his fathers death therefore the Lord cut him short of it altogether causing him to die six yeares before his father being yet but young and like to live long Lothair King of Soissons in France committed the rule of the province of Guian to his eldest son Cramiris who when contrary to the mind of his father he oppressed the people with exactions and was reclaimed home he like an ungratious and impious son fled to his uncle Childebert and provoked him towarre upon his owne father wherein he himselfe was by the just vengeance of God taken and burned with his wife and children to death Furthermore it is not doubtlesse but to a very good end enacted in the law of God That he which curseth his father or mother should die the death and that rebellious children and such as be incorrigible should at the instance and pursuit of their owne parents by order of law be stoned to death As children by all these examples ought not onely to learne to feare to displease and revile their parents but also to feare and reverence them lest that by disobedience they kindle the fire of Gods wrath against them so likewise on the other side parents are here advertised to have great care in bringing up and instructing their children in the feare of God and obedience to his will lest for want of instruction and correction on their part they themselves incurre a punishment of their carelesse negligence in the person of their children And this is proved by experience of the men of Bethel of whose children two and forty were torne in pieces by Beares for that they had been so evill taught as to mocke the holy Prophet Elizeus in calling him bald-pate Heli likewise the high priest was culpable of this fault for having two wicked and perverse sonnes whom no feare of God could restraine being discontent with that honourable portion of the sacrifices allotted them by God like famished and unsatiable wretches fell to share out more than was their due and by force to raven all that which by faire meanes they could not get and that which is worse to pollute the holy Tabernacle of God with their filthy whoredomes in such sort that the Religion of God grew in disgrace through their prophane dealings And albeit it may seem that their father did his duty in some sort when he admonished and reproved them yet it is manifest by the reprehension of the man of God that he did no part of that at all or if he did yet it was in so carelesse loose and cold manner using more lenity than hee ought or lesse severity than was necessary that God turned their destructions when they were slaine at the overthrow of Israel by the Philistins to be his punishment for understanding the dolefull newes of his sonnes death and the Arkes taking at once he fell backewards from his stoole and burst his necke being old and heavy even fourescore and eighteene yeares of age not able either to help or stay himselfe David also was not free from this offence for hee so much cockered some of his children that they proved the greatest plagues and scourges unto him especially Absolon and Adonijah for the one openly rebelled against him and almost drove him out of his kingdome the other usurped the title and honour of the kingdome before his fathers death of this it is recorded That David so cockered and pampered him that he would never displease him from his youth But see how he was punished in them for this too great lenity both of them came to an untimely death and proved not onely the workers of their owne destruction but also great crosses to their father Ludovicus Vives saith That in his time a certain woman in Flanders did so much pamper and cocker up two of her sonnes even against her husbands will that she would not suffer them to want money or any thing which might furnish their roiotous life both in drinking banquetting and dicing yea she would stoale from her husband to minister unto them but as soone as her husband was dead she was justly plagued in them both for they fell from royoting to robbing which two vices are commonly linked together and for the same one of them was executed by the sword and the other by the halter she her selfe looking on as a witnesse of their destructions whereof her conscience told her that her indulgence was the chiefest cause Hither may we referre that common and vulgar story and I suppose very true which is almost in every childes mouth of him that going to the gallowes desired to speake with his mother in her care ere he dyed and when she came unto him in stead of speaking bit off her care with his teeth exclaiming upon her as the causer of his death because she did not chastise him in his youth for his faults but by her flatteries established him in vice which brought him to this wofull end and herein she was doubly punished both in her sonnes destruction and her owne infamy whereof she carried about her a continuall maâ—ke This ought to be a warning to all parents to looke better to the education of their children and to root out of them in time all evill and corrupt manners lest of small sprigs they grow to branches and of qualities to habits and so either be hardly done off or at least deprave the whole body and bring it to destruction but above all to keep them from idlenesse and vaine pleasures the discommodity and mischiefe whereof this present example will declare At a towne called Hannuel in Saxony the Devill transforming himselfe into the shape of a man exercised many jugling trickes and pretty pastime to delight young men and maids withall and indeed to draw after him daily great companies one day they followed him out of the city gates unto a hill adjoyning where he played a jugling tricke indeed with them for he carried them all away with him so that they were never
were there overthrown killed and hanged by troups In the yeare of our Lord 1525 there were certain husbandmen of Souabe that began to stand in resistance against the Earle of Lupsfen by reason of certaine burthens which they complained themselves to be overlaid with by him their neighbors seeing this enterprised the like against their Lords And so upon this small beginning by a certaine contagion there grew up a most dangerous and fearefull commotion that spread it selfe almost over all Almaine the sedition thus increasing in all quarters and the swaines being now full forty thousand strong making their owne liberty and the Gospels a cloake to cover their treason and rebellion and a pretence of their undertaking armes to the wonderfull griefe of all that feared God did not onely fight with the Romane Catholickes but with all other without respect as well in Souabe as in Franconia they destroyed the greater part of the Nobility sacked and burnt many castles and fortresses to the number of two hundred and put to death the Earle of Helfest in making him passe through their pikes But at length their strength was broken they discomfited and torn in pieces with a most horrible massacre of more than eighteen thousand of them During this sedition there were slaine on each side fifty thousand men The captaine of the Souabian swaines called Geismer having betaken himselfe to flight got over the mountaines of Padua where by treason he was made away In the yeare of our Lord 1517 in the Marquesdome of the Vandales the like insurrection and rebellion was of the commonalty especially the baser sort against the Nobility Spirituall and Temporall by whom they were oppressed with intolerable exactions their army was numbred of ninety thousand men all clowns and husbandmen that conspired together to redresse and reforme their owne grievances without any respect of civill Magistrate or feare of Almighty God This rascality of swaines raged and tyranized every where burning and beating down the castles and houses of Noblemen and making their ruines even with the ground Nay they handled the Noblemen themselves as many as they could attaine unto not contumeliously only but rigorously and cruelly for they tormented them to death and carried their heads upon speares in token of victory Thus they swayed a while uncontrolled for the Emperour Maximilian winked at their riots as being acquainted with what in juries they had been overcharged but when he perceived that the rude multitude did not limit their fury within reason but let it runne too lavish to the damnifying as well the innocent as the guilty he made out a small troup of mercinary souldiers together with a band of horsemen to suppresse them who comming to a city were presently so environed with such a multitude of these swaines that like locusts overspread the earth that they thought it impossible to escape with their lives wherefore feare and extremity made them to rush out to battell with them But see how the Lord prospereth a good cause for all their weak number in comparison of their enemies yet such a feare possessed their enemies hearts that they fled like troups of sheep and were slaine like dogges before them insomuch that they that escaped the sword were either hanged by flocks on trees or rosted on spits by fires or otherwise tormented to death And this end befell that wicked rebellious rout which wrought such mischiefe in that country with their monstrous villanies that the traces and steppes thereof remaine at this day to bee seene In the yeare of our Lord 1381 Richard the second being King the Commons of England and especially of Kent and Essex by meanes of a taxe that was set upon them suddenly rebelled and assembled together on Blackheath to the number of 60000 or more which rebellious rout had none but base and ignoble fellowes for their captaines as Wat Tiler Iacke Straw Tom Miller but yet they caused much trouble and disquietnesse in the Realme and chiefly about the city of London where they committed much villany in destroying many goodly places as the Savoy and others and being in Smithfield used themselves very proudly and unreverently towards the King but by the manhood and wisedome of William Walworth Major of London who arrested their chiefe captain in the midst of them that rude company was discomfited and the ringleaders of them worthily punished In like manner in the raigne of Henry the seventh a great commotion was stirred up in England by the Commons of the North by reason of a certaine taxe which was levied of the tenth peny of all mens lands and goods within the land in the which the Earle of Northumberland was slain but their rash attempt was soon broken and Chamberlain their captain with divers other hanged at Yorke for the same Howbeit their example feared not the Cornishmen from rebelling upon the like occasion of a tax under the conduct of the Lord Audley untill by woefull experience they felt the same scourge for the King met them upon Blackheath and discomfiting their troups took their captaines and ring leaders and put them to most worthy and sharp death Thus we may see the unhappy issue of all such seditious revoltings and thereby gather how unpleasant they are in the sight of God Let all the people therefore learne by these experiences to submit themselves in the feare of God to the higher powers whether they be Lords Kings Princes or any other that are set over them CHAP. VI. Of Murtherers AS touching Murther which is by the second commandement of the second Table forbidden in these words Thou shalt not kill the Lord denounceth this judgment upon it That he which striketh a man that hee dieth shall die the death And this is correspondent to that Edict which he gave to Noah presently after the universall floud to suppresse that generall cruelty which had taken root from the beginning in Cain and his posterity being carefull for mans life saying That he will require the bloud of man at the hands of either man or beast that killeth him adding moreover That whosoever sheddeth mans bloud by man also his bloud shall be shed seeing that God created him after his owne Image which he would not have to be basely accounted of but deare and precious unto us If then the bruit and unreasonable creatures are not exempted from the sentence of death pronounced in the law if they chance to kill a man how much more punishable then is man endued with will and reason when malitiously and advisedly he taketh away the life of his neighbour But the hainousnesse and greatnesse of this sinne is most lively expressed by that ordinance of God set downe in the 21 of Deutronomy where it is enjoyned That if a man be found slain in the field and it be not knowne who it was that slew him then the Elders and Iudges of the next towne assembling together should offer up an expiatory sacrifice
be whereof all they are guilty that either make up such Marriages or give their good will or consent to them or do not hinder the cause and proceedings of them if any manner of way they can Now that this confusion and mixture of Religion in Marriages is unpleasant and noysom to God it manifestly appeareth Gen. 6. where it is said that because the sonnes of God to wit those whom God had separated for himselfe from the beginning of the world to be his peculiar ones were so evill advised as to be allured with the beauties of the daughters of men to wit of those which were not chosen of God to be his people and to marry with them corrupting themselves by this contagious acquaintance of prophane people with whom they should have had nothing to do that therefore God was incensed against them and resolved simply to revenge the wickednesse of each party without respect Beside the monstrous fruits of those prophane Marriages do sufficiently declare their odiousnesse in Gods sight for from them arose gyants of strength and stature exceeding the proportion of men who by their hugenesse did much wrong and violence in the world and gained fearfull and terrible names to themselves but God provoked by their oppressions drowned their tyrannies in the Floud and made an end of the world for their sakes In the time of the Judges in Israel the Israelites were chastised by the hand of God for this same fault for they tooke to wives the daughters of the uncircumcised and gave them their daughters also In like sort framed they themselves by this meanes to their corrupt manners and superstitions and to the service of their Idolatrous gods but the Lord of heaven raigned downe anger upon their heads and made them subject to a stranger the King of Mesopotamia whom they served the space of eight yeares Looke what hapned to King Solomon for giving his heart to strange women that were not of the houshold of Gods people he that before was replenished with such admirable wisdome that he was the wonder of the world was in his olde age deprived thereof and besotted with a kinde of dulnesse of understanding and led aside from the true knowledge of God to serve Idols and to build them Altars and Chappels for their worship and all this to please forsooth his wives humours whose acquaintance was the chiefe cause of his misery and Apostasie CHAP. XXIV Touching incestuous Marriages NOw as it is unlawfull to contract marriages with parties of contrary religion so it is as unlawfull to marry those that are neare unto us by any degree of kindred or affinity as it is inhibited not only by the law of God but also by civill and politique constitutions whereunto all nations have ever by the sole instinct of nature agreed and accorded except the Aegyptians and Persians whose abhominations were so great as to take their owne sisters and mothers to be their wives Cambyses King of Media and Persia married his owne sister but it was not long ere he put her to death a just proofe of an unjust and accursed marriage Many others there were in protract of time that in their insatiable lusts shewed themselves no lesse unstaied and unbriedled in their lawlesse affections then he One of which was Antigonus King of Judea son of Herodes sirnamed Great who blushed not to marry his sister the late wife of his deceased brother Alexander by whom she had borne two children but for this and divers other his good deeds he lost not only his goods which were confiscated but was himselfe also banished out of his countrey into a forraine place from Judea to Vienna in France Herod also the Tetrarch was so impudent and shamelesse that he tooke from his brother Philip his wife Herodias and espoused her unto himselfe which shamelesse and incestuous deed Iohn Baptist reproving in him told him plainly how unlawfull it was for him to possesse his brothers wise but the punishment which befell him for this and many other his sins we have heard in the former booke and need not here to be repeated Anton. Caracalla tooke to wife his mother in law allured thereunto by her faire enticements whose wretched and miserable end hath already been touched in the former booke The Emperour Heraclius after the decease of his first wife married his owne neece the daughter of his brother which turned mightily to his undoing for besides that that under his raigne and as it were by his occasion the Saracens entred the borders of Christendome and spoiled and destroyed his dominions under his nose to his foule and utter disgrace he was over and above smitten corporally with so grievous and irksome a disease of dropsie that he dyed thereof Thus many men run ryot by assuming to themselves too much liberty and breake the bounds of civill honesty required in all Contracts and too audaciously set themselves against the commandement of God which ought to be of such authority with all men that none be they never so great should dare to derogate one jot from them unlesse they meant wholly to oppose themselves as profest enemies to God himselfe and to turne all the good order of things into confusion All which notwithstanding some of the Romish Popes have presumed to encroach upon Gods right and to disanull by their foolish decrees the lawes of the Almighty As Alexander the sixth did who by his Bull approved the incestuous marriage of Ferdinand King of Naples with his owne Aunt his father Alphonsus sister by the fathers side which otherwise saith Cardinall Bembus had been against all law and equity and in no case to be tollerated and borne withall Henry the seventh King of England after the death of his eldest son Arthur caused by the speciall dispensation of Pope Iulius his next son named Henry to take to wife his brothers widdow called Katherine daughter to Ferdinando King of Spaine for the desire he had to have this Spanish affinity continued who succeeding his father in the Crowne after continuance of time began to advise himselfe and to consult whether this marriage with his brothers wife were lawfull or no and found it by conference both of holy and prophane lawes utterly unlawfull whereupon he sent certaine Bishops to the Queene to give her to know That the Popes dispensation was altogether unjust and of none effect to priviledge such an act to whom she answered That it was too late to call in question the Popes Bull which so long time they had allowed of The two Cardinals that were in Commission from the Pope to decide the controversie and to award judgement upon the matter were once upon point to conclude the decree which the King desired had not the Pope impeached their determination in regard of the Emperour Charles nephew to the said Queene whom he was loath to displease wherefore the King seeing himselfe frustrate of his purpose in this behalfe sent into divers
clattered downe aboundantly The host of the house being awaked with the noyse cryed out to know what the matter was and running into the chamber where this noyse was with a candle in his hand found the poore young man all alone betwixt dead and alive of whom recovered he learnt out the whole truth as hath been told but he after this terrible accident repented him of his wicked life and was touched with the sence of his grievous sinne so nearly that ever after he led a more circumspect and honest life Thus much we finde written in that Author Henry the fifth inspired with the furies of the Pope of Rome made warre upon his father Henry the fourth vexing him with cruell and often battels and not ceasing till he had spoiled him of his Empire and till the Bishop of Mentz had proudly and insolently taken from him his Imperiall ornaments even in his presence but the Lord in recompence of his unnaturall dealing made him and his army a prey unto his enemies the Saxons and to flie before them stirring up also the Pope of Rome to be as grievous a scourge unto him as he had beene before time to his father Now as the ambition of a Kingdome was the cause of this mans ingratitude so in the example following pride and disdaine ruled and therefore he is so much the more to be condemned by how much a Kingdome is a stronger cord to draw men to vice than a mans owne affection There was saith Manlius an old man crooked with age distressed with poverty and almost pined with hunger that had a sonne rich strong and fat of whom he intreated no gold or silver or possession but food and sustenance for his belly and clothes for his backe but could not obtaine it at his hands for his proud heart exalted with prosperity thought it a shame and discredit to his house to be borne of so poore and base parentage and therefore not onely denied him reliefe but also disclaimed him from being his father and chased him away with bitter and crabbed reproaches The poore old man thus cruelly handled let teares fall as witnesse of his griefe and departed comfortlesse from his Tygre minded sonne But the Lord that gathereth up the tears of the innocent looked down from heaven in justice and sent a fury into the sences and understanding of this monstrous son that as he was void of nature and compassion so he might bevoid of reason and discretion for ever after Another not so cruell and disdainfull as the former yet cruell and disdainfull enough to plucke downe vengeace upon his head would not see his father beg indeed nor yet abjure him as the other did but yet undertaking to keepe him used him more like a slave than a father for what should be too deare for him that gives us life yet every good thing was too deare for this poore father Vpon a time a dainty morsell of meat was upon the boord to be eaten which as soone as he came in he conveied away and foisted in courser victuals in the roome But marke what his dainties turned to when the servant went to fetch it againe he found in stead of meat snakes and of sauce serpents to the great terrour of his conscience but that which is more one of the serpents leaped in his face and catching hold by his lip hung there till his dying day so that hee could never feed himselfe but he must feed the serpent withall And this badge carried he about as a cognisance of an unkinde and ungratefull sonne Moreover this is another judgment of God that commonly as children deale with their parents so doe their children deale with them and this in the law of proportion is most just and in the order of punishing most usuall for the proofe whereof as experience daily teacheth so one example or two I will subjoyne It is reported how a certaine unkind and perverse sonne beat his aged father upon a time and drew him by the haire of his head to the threshold who when hee was old was likewise beaten of his sonne and drawne also by the haire of the head not to the threshold but out of doores into the durt and how hee should say he was rightly served if he had left him at the threshold as he left his father and not dragged him into the streets which hee did not to his Thus did his owne mouth beare record of his impiety and his owne conscience condemne him before God and men Another old man being persuaded by his son that had maried a yong wise with faire and sugred promises of kindnesses and contentments to surrender his goods and lands unto him yeelded to his request and found for a space all things to his desire but when his often coughing annoyd his yong and dainty wise he first removed his lodging from a faire high chamber to a base under roome and after shewed him many other unkinde and unchildly parts and lastly when the old man as ked for cloathes he bought foure elnes of cloath two wherof he bestowed upon him and reserved the other two for himselfe Now his young sonne marking this niggardise of his father towards his grandfather hid the two elles of cloath and being asked why hee hid them whether by ingeniousnesse or instinct of God he answered To the end to reserve them for his father against he was old to be a covering for him Which answer touched his father so neere that ever after hee shewed himselfe more loving and obsequious to his father than he did before Two great faults but soone and happily amended Would it might be an example to all children if not to mitigate them yet at least to learne them to feare how to deale roughly and crookedly with their parents seeing that God punisheth sinne with sinne and sinners in their owne kinde and measureth the same measure to every man which they have measured unto others The like we read of another that provided a trough for his old decrepit unmannerly father to eat his meat in who being demanded of his sonne also to what use that trough should serve answered for his grandfather What quoth the childe and must we have the like for you when you are old Which words so abashed him that he threw it away forthwith At Millan there was an abstinate and ungodly sonne that when he was admonished by his mother of some fault which he had committed made a wry mouth and pointed his fingers at her in scorne and derision Whereat his mother being angry wished that he might make such a mouth upon the gallowes Neither was it a vaine wish for within few daies he was taken with a theft and condemned by law to be hanged and being upon the ladder was perceived to wryth his mouth in griefe after the same fashion which he had done before to his mother in derision Henry the second of that name
the Duke that they had stolne into the Emperours tents by night and viewed his power which they found to exceed his by three parts and therefore counselled him not to try the hazard of the battell but to save his souldiers lives by flight which if they tarried they were sure to loose Wherewithall the Duke mistrusting no fraud sore affrighted tooke the next occasion of flight and returned home with dishonour Now when these three traitors came to the Emperour for their compacted rewards he caused them to bee payed in counterfeit money not equivaling the summe of their bargaine by the twentieth part which although at first they discerned not yet afterwards finding how they were cousened they returned to require their due and complaine of their wrong But the Emperor looking sternely upon them answered That counterfeit money was good enough for their counterfeit service and that if they tarried long they should have a due reward of their treason Ladislaus Lerezin Governour of Alba Iulia in Hungary under Maximilian the Emperour in the yeare 1566 the City being besieged and in some danger of losing albeit hee was advertised That within two dayes he should receive some reliefe yet yeelded the City traiterously into the hands of the Turkes upon composition The cruell Turks forgetting their faith and all humanity massacred all the souldiers within the City and sent Ladislaus the traitour bound hand and foot to Selym the great Turke where he was accused for his cruell slaying of some Turkish prisoners and delivered to his accusers to be used at their pleasure who a just reward of his former treason put him into a great Pipe stickt full of long nailes and then rolled him downe from a high mountaine so as the nailes ran through him and ended his life in horrible torment Besides his sonne that was also partaker of this treason died miserably without meanes and abandoned of all men in great poverty and extremity When as the City of Rhodes was besieged by the Turke there was in it a certaine traiterous Nobleman who upon promise to have one of Solymans daughters given him in marriage did many services to the Turke in secret to the prejudice of the City The Island and towne being woon he presented himselfe to Solyman expecting the performance of his promise but hee in recompence of his treason caused him to be flayed alive saying That it was not lawfull for a Christian to marry a Turkish wife except he put off his old skinne being thus flayed they layed him upon a bed all covered with salt and so poudered him that in short space he died in unspeakable tormenes CHAP. III. More examples of the same subject WHen Manuel the Emperour of Constantinople lay about Antioch with an army prepared against the Turke one of his chiefest officers namely his Chancellour put in practise this notable piece of treason against him he waged three desperate young men with an infinite summe of money to kill him on a day appointed and then with a band of souldiers determined to possesse himselfe of the Crowne and of the City and to slay all that any way crossed his purpose But the treason being discoured secretly to the Empresse she acquainted her Lord with it who tooke the three traitours and put them all to cruell deaths and as for the Chancellour he first bored out his eyes and plucking his tongue through his throat tormented him to death with a rigorous and most miserable punishment When the Turke besieged Alba Graeca certaine souldiers conspired to betray the City into his hands for he had promised them large rewards so to doe howbe it it succeeded not with them for they were detected and apprehended by Paulus Kynifius Governour of Hungary who constrained them to eat one anothers flesh seething every dayone to feed the other withall but he that was last was faine to devour his owne body Scribonianus a captaine of the Romans in Dalmatia rebelled against the Emperor Claudius and named himselfe emperor in the army but his rebellion was miraculously punished for though the whole army favored him very much yet they could not by any meanes spread their banners or remove their standers out of their places as long as he was called by the name of Emperor with which miracle being moved they turned their loves into hatred and their liking into loathing so that whom lately they saluted as Emperor him now they murthered as a traitor To rehearse all the English traitors that have conspired against their Kings from the Conquest unto this day it is a thing unnecessary and almost impossible Howbeit that their destructions may appeare more evidently and the curse of God upon traitors be made more manifest I will briefely reckon up a catalogue of the chiefest of them In the yere 1295 Lewline Prince of Wales rebelled against King Edward the first and after much adoe was taken by Sir Roger Mortimer and his head set upon the Tower of London In like sort was David Lewline's brother served Râ—â—s and Madok escaped no better measure in stirring the Welchmen up to rebellion No more did the Scots who having of their owne accord committed the government of their kingdome to king Edward after the death of Alexander who broke his neck by a fall from an horse and lest no issue male and sworne fealty unto him yet dispensed with their oath by the Popes commission and Frenchmens incitement and rebelled divers times against King Edward for he overcame them sundry times and made slaughter of their men slaying at one time 32000 and taking divers of their Nobles prisoners In like manner they rebelled against King Edward the third who made three voyages into that land in the space of foure yeares and at every time overcame and discomfited them insomuch that well neere all the nobility of Scotland with infinite number of the common people were slaine Thus they rebelled in Henry the sixths time and also Henry the eights and divers other kings reignes ever when our English forces were busied about forraine wars invading the land on the other side most traiterously In the reigne of King Henry the fourth there rebelled at one time against him Sir Iohn Holland D. of Excester with the Dukes of Aumarle Surrey Salisbury and Gloucester and at another time Sir Thomas Percy Earle of Worcester and Henry Percy son to the Earle of Northumberland at another Sir Richard Scroope Archbishop of Yorke and divers others of the house of the Lord Moubray at another time Sir Henry Percy the father Earle of Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph and lastly Ryce ap Dee and Owen Glendour two Welchmen all which were either slaine as Sir Henry Percy the younger or beheaded as the rest of these noble Rebels or starved to death as Owen Glendour was in the mountaines of Wales after he had devoured his owne flesh In the reigne of Henry the fifth Sir Richard Earle of Cambridge Sir Richard Scroope
Treasurer of England and Sir Thomas Gray were beheaded for treason No lesse was the perfidious and ungratefull treachery of Humphry Banister an Englishman towards the Duke of Buckingham his Lord and master whom the said Duke had tenderly brought up and exalted to great promotion For when as the Duke being driven into extremity by reason of the separation of his army which he had mustered together against King Richard the usurper fled to the same Banister as his trustiest friend to be kept in secret untill he could find opportunity to escape this false traitor upon hope of a thousand pounds which was promised to him that could bring forth the Duke betraied him into the hands of Iohn Mitton Shirife of Shropshire who conveied him to the city of Salisbury where King Richard kept his houshold where he was soone after put to death But as for ungratefull Banister the vengeance of God pursued him to his utter ignominy for presently after his eldest sonne became mad and died in a bores stiâ— his eldest daughter was suddenly stricken with a foule lepry his second sonne marvellously deformed of his lims and lame his youngest sonne drowned in a puddle and he himselfe in his old age arraigned and found guilty of a murther and by his Clergy saved And as for his thousand pounds King Richard gave him not a farthing saying That he which would be nutrue to so good a master must needs be false to all other To passe over the time of the residue of the Kings where in many examples of treasons and punishments upon them are extant and to come neerer unto our owne age let us consider the wonderfull providence of God in discovering the notorious treasons which have been so oftenpretended and so many against our late Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth and protecting her so fatherly from the dint of them all First therefore to begin with the chiefest the Earles of Northumberland and Westmerland in the eleventh yeare of her raigne began a rebellion in the North pretending their purpose to be sometimes to defend the Queenes person and government from the invasion of strangers and sometimes for conscience sake to seeke reformation of Religion under colour whereof they got together an army of men to the number of six thousand souldiers against whom marched the Earle of Suffex Lieutenant of the North and the Earle of Warwicke sent by the Queene to his ayde Whose approch strucke such a terrour into their hearts that the two Earles with divers of the arch Rebels fled by night into Scotland leaving the rest of their company a prey unto their enemies whereof threescore and six or thereabout were hanged at Durham As for the Earles one of them to wit of Northumberland was after taken in Scotland and beheaded at York Westmerland fled into another Countrey and left his house and family destroyed and undone by his folly A while after this what befell to Iohn Throgmorton Thomas Brooke George Redman and divers other Gentlemen at Norwich who pretended a rebellion under the color of suppressing strangers were they not discovered by one of their owne conspiracy Thomas Ket and executed at Norwich for their paines The same end came Francis Throgmorton to whose trecheries as they were abhominable and touching the Queens owne person so they were disclosed not without the especiall providence of God But above all that vile and ungratefull traitor William Parry upon whom the Queene had powred plentifully her liberality deserveth to be had in everlasting remembrance to his shame whose treasons being discovered he payed the tribute of his life in recompence thereof What shall I say of the Earle of Arundell and a second Earle of Northumberland Did not the justice of God appeare in both their ends when being attainted for treason the one slew himselfe in prison and the other died by course of nature in prison also Notorious was the conspiracy of those arch traitours Ballard Babington Savadge and Tylney c. yet the Lord brought them downe and made them spectacles to the World of his justice Even so that notorious villaine Doctor Lopez the Queenes Physitian who a long time had not onely beene an intelligencer to the Pope and King of Spaine of our English Counsells but also had poisoned many Noblemen and went about also to poyson the Queene her selfe was he not surprised in his treachery and brought to sudden destruction In summe the Lord preserved her Majesty not only from these but many other secret and privy foes and that most miraculously and contrary to all reason and spread his wings over her evermore to defend her from all her enemies and in despight of them all brought her being full of yeares in peace to her grave All these treasons had their breeding and beginning from that filthy sinke of Romish superstition from whence the poison was conveied into the hearts of these traiterous wretches by the means of those common firebrands of the Christian World the wicked Iesuites whose chiefest art is Treason and whose profession is equivocation and practise to stir up rebellion and therefore as long as they breath in the world let us looke for no better fruits from such trees And hath the reigne of our now Soveraigne King Iames beene free from these Sinons He hath as yet swayed the Scepter of this Kingdome not fully nine yeres and how many treasons have beene complotted and practised against his Majesty and the State and how miraculously hath the Lord preserved him evermore even as the apple of his eye and the signet on his right hand To omit the treason of Raleigh and Cobham and that also of Watson and Clerke that late and last divellish and damnable practise of blowing up the Parliament house with gunpowder together with the King Prince and all the Nobles and chiefe Pillars of the Land is never to be omitted nor forgotten but to be remembred as long as the Sunne and Moone endureth to the shame of their religion and the professours thereof never Nation so barbarous that ever practised the like never any religion so odious that maintained the like but such are the fruits of their so much advanced religion such the clusters of their grapes How be it the Lord prevented their malice and turned it upon their owne pates not only by a Divine and miraculous discovery of their treason the very night before it should have beene effected but also by bringing the chiefe plotters thereof unto confusion some by the ordinary proceeding of justice and some by slaughter in resistance and that which is not to bee overpast some of the principall of them being together in a chamber were so scorched by their owne powder which was in drying that they were driven to confesse the heavy judgement of God to be upon them I pray God such may ever bee the end of all traitours and that the religion which bringeth forth such horrible fruits may not onely be suspected but abhorred of all Moreover there is yet another