Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
raise and enhaunce up their rents to tax his Subjects on occasion and to prohibite them such pleasures as they think fit to be reserved for themselves In Grettanl in Picardie I saw a post fastened in the ground like a race-post with us and thereon an inscription I made presently to it as hoping to have heard news of sōe memorable battel there fought but when I came at it I found it to be nothing but a declaration of the Prince of Condes pleasure that no man should hunt in those quarters Afterward I observed them to be very frequent But not to wander through all particulars I will in some few of them onely give instance of their power here The first is Droict de Balliage power to keep Assizes or to have under them a Baillie and an Imperial seat of justice for the definition of such causes as fall under the compass of ordinary jurisdiction In this Court there is notice taken of treason robberies murthers protections pardons fairs markets and other matters of priviledge Next they have a Court of ordinary jurisdiction and therein a Judge whom they call Le Guarde de Justice for the decision of smaller business as debts trespass breach of the Kings peace and the like In this the purse is onely emptied the other extendeth to the taking away of the life for which every one that hath Hante Justice annexed to his feife hath also his particular Gibbet Nay which is wonderful methodical by the Criticisme of the Gibbet you may judge at the quality of him that owneth it for the Gibbet of one of the Noblesse hath but two pillars that of the Chastellan three the Barons four the Earls six the Dukes eight and yet this difference is rather precise than general The last of their jura Regalia which I will here speak of is the Command they have upon the people to follow them unto the warrs a Command not so advantagious to the Lord as dangerous to the Kingdom Thus live the French Princes thus the Noblesse thus those Sheep which God and the Laws hath brought under them they do not shear but fleece them and which is worse than this having themselves taken away the wooll they give up the naked carcass to the King Tonderi oves meas volo non deglubi was accounted one of the golden sayings of Tiberius but it is not currant here in France Here the Lord and the King though otherwise at odds amongst themselves be sure to agree in this the undoing and oppressing of the Paisant Ephraim against Manasseh and Masnasseh against Ephraim but both against Juda saith the Scripture The reason why they thus desire the poverty of the Commons is as they pretend the safety of the State and their own particulars Were the people once warmed with the feeling of ease and their own riches they would be presently hearkening after the Warrs And if no employment were offered abroad they would make some at home Histories and experience hath taught us enough of this humour in this kind it being impossible for this hot-headed and hare-brain'd people not to be doing Si extraneus deest domi hostem quaerunt as Justin hath observed of the ancient Spaniards A pretty quality and for which they have often smarted CHAP. XIV The base and low estate of the French Paisant The misery of them under their Lords The bed of Procrustes The suppressing of the Subject prejudicial to a State The Wisdom of King Henry the seventh The French forces all in the Cavillery The cruel Impositions laid upon the people by the King No Demain in France Why the trial by twelve men can be used onely in England The gabel of Salt The Popes licence for wenching The gabel by whom refused and why the Gascoines impatient of taxes The Taille and Taylon The Pancarte or aids the vain resistance of those of Paris The Court of aids The manner of gathering the Kings moneys The Kings Revenue The corruption of the French Publicans King Lewis why called the Just The moneys currant in France The gold of Spain more Catholike than the King The happiness of English Subjects BY that which hath been spoken already of the Nobless we may partly guess at the low estate of the Paisant or Country man of whom we will not now speak as Subjects to their Lords and how farre they are under their commandment but how miserable and wretched they are in their apparel and their houses For their apparel it is well if they can allow themselves Canvas or an outside of that nature As for Cloath it is above their purse equally and their ambition if they can aspire unto Fustian they are as happy as their wishes and he that is so arrayed will not spare to aim at the best place in the Parish even unto that of Church-Warden When they go to Plow or to the Church they have shooes and stockings at other times they make bold with Nature and wear their skins Hats they will not want though their bellies pinch for it and that you may be sure they have them they will alwayes keep them on their heads The most impudent custom of a beggarly fortune that ever I met with and which already hath had my blessing As for the Women they know in what degree Nature hath created them and therefore dare not be so fine as their Husbands some of them never had above one pair of stockings in all their lives which they wear every day for indeed they are very durable the goodness of their faces tels us that they have no need of a band therefore they use none And as concerning petticoats so it is that all have such a garment but most of them so short that you would imagine them to be cut off at the placket When the parents have sufficiently worn these vestures and that commonly is till the rottenness of them will save the labour of undressing they are a new cut out and fittted to the Children Search into their houses and you shall find them very wretched and destitute as well of furniture as provision No butter salted up against Winter no poudering tub no pullein in the rick barten no flesh in the pot or at the spit and which is worse no money to buy them The description of the poor aged couple Philemon and Baucis in the eigth book of the Metamorphosis is a perfect character of the French Paisant in his house-keeping though I cannot affirm that if Jupiter and Mercury did come amongst them they should have so hearty an entertainment for thus Ovid marshelleth the dishes Ponitur hic bicolor sincerae bacca Minervae Intubaque radix lactis Massa coacti Ovaque non acri leviter versata favellâ Prunaque in patulis redolentia mala canistris Hic nux hic mixta est rugosis carica palmis Et de purpurers collectae vitibus uvae Omnia fictilibus nitede They on the Table set Minerva's fruit The double coulour'd Olive
the earth its Mother or that it purposed by making it self away into the ground to save the Plow-man his next years labour Thick it groweth and so perfectly void of weeds that no garden can be imagined to be kept cleaner by art than these fields are by nature Pasture ground it hath little and less meadow yet sufficient to nourish those few Cattel they have in it In all the way between Diepe and Pontois I saw but two flocks of Sheep and then not above forty in a flock Kine they have in some measure but not fat nor large without these there were no living for them The Noblest eat the flesh whiles the Farmer feeds on Butter and Cheese and that but sparingly But the miserable states of the Norman paissant we wiil deferre till another opportunity Swine also they have in pretty number and some Pullen in their backsides but of neither an excess The principal Rivers of it is Seine of which more hereafter and besides this I saw two rivulets Robee and Renelâ—e In matter of civil Government this Country is directed by the Court of Parliament established at Roven for matters Military it hath an Officer like the Lieutenants of our Shires in England the Governour they call him The present Governour Mounsieur Duc de Longueville to whom the charge of this province was committed by the present King Lewis the thirteenth Anno 1629. The Laws by which they are governed are the Civil or Imperial augmented by some customes of the French and others more particular which are the Norman One of the principallest is in matters of inheritance the French custom giving to all the Sons an equality in their estate which we in England call Gavel-kind The Norman dividing the estate into three parts and thereof allotting two unto the eldest brother and a third to be divided among the others A Law which the French account not just the younger brothers of England would think the contrary To conclude this general discourse of the Normans I dare say it is as happy a Country as most in Europe were it subject to the same Kings and governed by the same Laws which it gave unto England CHAP. II. Diepeâ— the Town strength and importance of it The policy of Henry the fourth not seconded by his Son The custom of the English Kings in placing Governours in their Forts The breaden God there and strength of their Religion Our passage from Diepe to Roven The Norman Inns Women and Manners The importunity of Servants in hosteries The saucy familiarity of the attendants Ad pileum vocare What it was amongst the Romans and jus pilearum in the Universities of England IVne the 30th at six of the clock in the morning we landed at Diepe one of the Haven Towns of Normandy seated on an arm of the Sea between two hils which imbrace it in the nature of a bag this secureth the Haven from the violence of the weather and is a great strength to the Town against the attempts of any forces which should assault it by Sea the Town lying within these Mountains a quarter of a mile up the channel The Town it self is not uncomely the streets large and well paved the houses of an indifferent height and built upright without any juttings out of one part over the other The Fortifications as they say for we were not permitted to see them are very good and modern without stones within earth On the top of the hill a Castle finely seated both to defend the Town and on occasions to command it The Garrison consisteth of sixty men in pay no more but when need requireth the Captain hath authority to arm the Inhabitants The present Governour is the Duke of Longueville who also is the Governour of the Province intrusted with both those charges by Lewis the thirteenth 1619. An action wherein he swarved somewhat from the ensample of his Father who never committed the military command of a Country which is the Office of a Governour and the custody of a Town of war or a Fortress unto one man The Duke of Biron might have as great a courtesie from that King as the most deserving of his subjects he had stuck close to him in all his adversities received many an honourable fear in his service and indeed was Fabius and Scipio both the sword and buckler of the French Empire In a word he might have said to this Henry what Silius in Tacitus did to Tiberius Suum militem in obsequio mansâ—sse cum alii ad sedetiones prolaberentur neque daraturum Tiberii imperium si iis quoque Legionibus cupido novandi fuisset yet when he became petitioner to the King for the Cittadel of Bourg seated on the confines of his Government of Burgogne the King denied it The reason was because Governours of Provinces which commanded in chief ought not to have the command of places and fortresses within their Government there was also another reason and more enforcing which was that the petitioner was suspected to hold intelligence with the Duke of Savoy whose Town it was The same Henry though he loved the Duke Espernon even to the envy of the Court yet even to him also used he the same caution Therefore when he had made him Governour of Xanictoigne and Angoulmois he put also into his hands the Towns of Mets and Boullogne places so remote from his seat of Government and so distant one from the other that they did rather distract his power than encrease it The Kings of England have been well and for a long time versed in this Maxime of State Let Kent be one of our ensamples and Hampshire the other In Kent at this time the Lieutenant or as the French would call him the Governour is the Earl of Montgomery yet is Dover Castle in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham and yet Quinborough in the custody of Sir Edward Hobby Of which the one commandeth the Sea and the other the Thames and the Medway In Hampshire the Lieutenant is the Earl of Southampton but the Government of the Town and Garrison of Portsmouth is intrusted to the Earl of Pembroke Neither is there any of the best Sconces or Block-houses on the shore side of the Country which is commanded by the Lieutenant But King Lewis now raigning in France minded not his Fathers actions when at the same time also he made his Confident M. Luines Governour of Picardy and of the Town and Cittadel of Amiens The time ensuing gave him an insight of that state-breach for when the Dukes of Espernon Vendosme Longueville Magenne and Nemours the Count of Soisons and others sided with the Queen Mother against the King the Duke of Longueville strengthened this Dieppe and had not peace suddenly followed would have made good maugre the Kings forces A town it is of great importance King Henry the fourth using it as his Asylum or City of Refuge when that League was hottest against him For had he been further distressed from hence might he have made an escape into England and
French by that door making their entry into this Province out of which at last they thrust the English Anno 1450. So desperate a thing is a frighted Coward This Country had once before been in possession of the English and that by a firmer title than the Sword William the Conqueror had conveyed it once over the Seas into England it continued an appendix of that Crown from the year 1067. unto that of 1204. At that time John called Sáns terre third Son unto King Henry the second having usurped the States of England and the English possessions in France upon Arthur heir of Britain and Son unto Geofrey his elder brother was warred on by Phillip Augustus King of France who sided with the said Arthur In the end Arthur was taken and not long after found dead in the ditches of the Castle of Roven Whether this violent death happened unto him by the practises of his Uncle as the French say or that the young Prince came to that unfortunate end in an attempt to escape as the English report is not yet determined For my part considering the other carriages and virulencies of that King I dare be of that opinion that the death of Arthur was not without his contrivement Certainly he that rebelled against his Father and practised the eternal imprisonment and ruine of his Brother would not much stick this being so speedy a way to settle his affairs at the murther of a Nephew Upon the first bruit of this murther Constance Mother to the young Prince complained unto the King and Parliament of France not the Court which now is in force consisting of men only of the long Robe but the Court of Pairrie or twelve Peers whereof himself was one as Duke of Normandy I see not how in justice Philip could do less than summon him an Homager being â—lain and an Homager accused To this summons John refused to yeild himself A counsel rather magnanimous than wise and such as had more in it of an English King than a French Subject Edward the third a prince of a finer mettal than this John obeyed the like warrant and performed a personal homage to Philip of Valoys and it is not reckoned among his disparagements He committed yet a further error or solaecisme in State not so much as sending any of his people to supply his place or plead his cause Upon this none appearance the Peers proceed to sentence Il fur par Arrest la dire Cour saith Du' Chesne condemne pour attaint et convainuc du crime de parricide de felonnie Parricide for the killing of his own Nephew and felony for committing an act so execrable on the person of a French vassal and in France Jhon de Sienes addeth a third cause which was contempt in disobeying the Kings commandement Upon this verdict the Court awarded Que toutes les terres qu' il avoit par deca de mourerient acquises confisques a la corronne c. A proceeding so fair and orderly that I should sooner accuse King John of indiscretion than the French of injustice when my estate or life is in danger I wish it may have no more sinister a trial The English thus outed of Normandy by the weakness of John recovered it again by the puissance of Henry But being held onely by the sword it was after thirty years recovered again as I have told you And now being passed over the Oyse I have at once freed the English and my self of Normandy here ending this Book but not that dayes journey The Second Book or FRANCE CHAP. I. France in what sense so called the bounds of it All old Gallia not possessed by the French Countries follow the name of the most predominant Nation The condition of the present French not different from that of the old Gaules That the Heavens have a constant power upon the same Climate though the Inhabitants be changed The quality of the French in private at the Church and at the Table Their Language Complements Discourse c. IVly the third which was the day we set out of St. Claire having passed through Pontoise and crossed the River we were entred into France France as it is understood in his limitted sense and as a part onely of the whole For when Meroveus the Grandchild of Pharamond first King of the Francones had taken an opportunity to pass the Rhene having also during the warres between the Romans and the Gothes taken Paris he resolved there to set up his rest and to make that the head City of his Empire The Country round about it which was of no large extent he commanded to be called Francia or Terra Francorum after the name of his Francks whom he governed In this bounded and restrained sense we now take it being confined with Normandy on the North Campagne on the East and on the West and South with the little Province of la Beausse It is also called and that more properly to distinguish it from the whole continent the Isle of France and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Isle I know not any thing more like it then the Isle of Elie the Eure on the West the Velle on the East the Oyse on the Northward and a vein riveret of the Seine towards the South are the Rivers which encircle it But the principall environings are made by the Seine and the Marne a river of Champagne which within the main Island make divers Ilets the waters winding up and down as desirous to recreate the earth with the pleasures of its lovely and delicious embraces This Isle this portion of Gaule properly and limitedly stiled France was the seate of the Franks at their first coming hither and hath still continued so The rest of Gallia is in effect rather subdued by the French than inhabited their valour in time having taken in those Countries which they never planted So that if we look apprehensively into Gaule we shall find the other Nations of it to have just cause to take up the complaint of the King of Portugal against Ferdinand of Castile for assuming to himself the title of Catholique King of Spain eius tam non exiguâ parte penes reges alios as Mariana relateth it Certain it is that the least part of old Gallia is in the hands of the French the Normans Britons Biscaines or Gascoynes the Gothes of Languedoc and Provence Burgundians and the ancient Gaules of Poictou retaining in it such fair and ample Provinces But it is the custome shall I say or fate of lesser and weaker Nations to loose their names unto the stronger as Wives do to their Husbands and the smaller Rivers to the greater Thus we see the little Province of Poland to have mastered and given name to the Pruteni Marovy and other Nations of Sarmatia Europaea as that of Moseo hath unto all the Provinces of Asiatica Thus hath Sweden conquered and denominated almost all the great Peninsula of Scandia where it is but
consisteth meerly of Doctors of Divinity neither can any of another profession nor any of the same profession not so graduated be admitted unto it At this time their number is about seventy their allowance a pint of Wine their pint being but a thought less than our quart and a certain quantity of bread daily Meat they have none allowed them unless they pay for it but they pay not so much for five Sols which amounteth to six pence English a day they challenge a competency of flesh or fish to be served to them at their Chambers These Doctors have the sole power authority in conferring degrees in Divinity The Rector and other Officers in the University having nothing to do in it To them alone belongeth the examination of the Students in that faculty the approbation and bestowing of the honours and to their Lectures do all such assiduously repair as are that way minded All of them in their turns discharge this office of reading and that by six in a day three of them making good the Pulpit in the forenoon and as many in the afternoon These Doctors also are accounted together with the Parliament of Paris the principal pillars of the French liberty whereof indeed they are exceeding jealous as well in matters Ecclesiastical as Civil When Gerson Chancellor of Paris he died Anno 1429. had published a book in approbation of the Council of Constance where it was enacted that the authority of the Council was greater than that of the Pope the Sorbonne Doctors declared that also to be their doctrine Afterwards when Lewis the eleventh to gratifie Pope Pius the second purposed to abolish the force of the Pragmatick Sanction the Sorbonnists in the behalf of the Church Gallican and the Vniversity of Paris magnis obsistebant animis saith Sleidan in his Commentary a papâ provacabant ad Concilium The Council unto which they appealed was that of Basil where that Sanction was made So that by this appeal they verified their former Thesis that the Council was above the Pope And not long since Anno viz. 1613. casually meeting with a Book written by Becanus entituled Controversia Anglicana de potestate Regis Papae they called an Assembly and condemned it For though the Main of it were against the power and supremacy of the King of England yet did it reflect also on the authority of the Pope over the Christian Kings by the by which occasioned the sentence So jealous are they of the least circumstances in which the immunity of their Nation may be endangered As for the government of the Vniversity it hath for its cheif Director a Rector with a Chancellor four Procurators or Proctors and as many others whom they call his Intrantes to assist him besides the Regents Of these the Regents are such Masters of the Arts who are by the consent of the rest selected to read the publike Lectures of Logick and Philosophy Their name they derive a regendo eo quod in artibus rexerint These are divided into four Nations Viz. 1. The Norman 2. The Picard 3. The Germain 4. The French Under the two first are comprehended the Students of those several Provinces under the third the Students of all Forrain Nations which repair hither for the attainment of knowledge It was heretofore called Natio Anglica but the English being thought unworthy of the honour because of their separation from the Church of Rome the name and credit of it was given to the Germains That of the French is again subdivided into two parts that which is immediately within the Diocess of Paris and the rest of Gallia these four Nations for notwithstanding the subdivision above mentioned the French Nation is reckoned but as one choose yearly four Proctors or Procurators so called Quia negotia nationis suae procurant They choose also four other Officers whom they call les Intrants in whose power there remaineth the delegated authority of their several Nations And here it is to be observed that in the French Nation the Procurator and Intrant is one year of the Diocess of Paris and the following year of the rest of France the reason why that Nation is subdivided These four Intrants thus named have amongst them the election of their Rector who is their supreme Magistrate The present Rector is Mr. Tarrisnus of the Colledge of Harcourte a Master of the Arts for a Doctor is not capable of the office The honour lasteth onely three moneths which time expired the Intrants proceed to a new election though oftentimes it happeneth that the same hath the lease of his authority renewed Within the confines of the University he taketh place next after the Princes of the Bloud and at the publike exercises of Learning before the Cardinals otherwise he giveth them the precedency But to Bishops and Arch-bishops he will not grant it upon any occasion It was not two moneths before my being there that there happened a shrewd controversie about it The King had then summoned an assembly of twenty five Bishops of the Provinces adjoyning to consult about some Church affairs and they had chosen the Colledge of Sorbonne to be their Senate-House When the first day of their sitting came a Doctor of the House being appointed to preach before them began his Oration with Reverendissime Rector vos Amplissimi Praesulei Here the Arch-bishop of Roven a man of an high spirit interrupted him and commanded him to invert his stile He obeyed and presently the Rector riseth up with Impono tibi silentium which is an Injunction within the compass of his power Upon this the Preacher being tongue-tied the controversie grew hot between the Bishops and the Rector both parties very eagerly pleading their own priority All the morning being almost spent in this altercation a Cardinal wiser than the rest desired that their question for that time might be laid aside and that the Rector would be pleased to permit the Doctor to deliver his Sermon beginning it without any Praeludium at all To which request the Rector yeilded and so the contention at that time was ended But Salus Academiae non vertitur in istis It were more for honour and profit of the Vniversity if the Rector would leave of to be so mindful of his place and look a little to his office for certainly the eye and utmost diligence of a Magistrate was never wanting more and yet more necessary in this place Penelopes suiters never behaved themselves so insolently in the house of Vlisses as the Academicks here do in the houses and streets of Paris Nos numerus sumus fruges consumere nati Sponsi Penelopes nebulones Alcinoque c. Was never the mouth of any of these when you hear of their behaviour you would think you were in Turkey and that these men were the Janizaries For an Angel given among them to drink they will arrest whom you shall appoint them double the money and they will break open his house and ravish
neither the said Infanta nor the Children born by her to the King shall be capable to inherit any of the estates of the King of Spain and in the eighth article she is bound to make an act of renunciation under her own hand-writing as soon as she cometh to be twelve years old which was accordingly performed But this being not sufficient to secure their fears it is thought that she was some way or other disabled from conception before ever she came into the Kings embraces A great crime I confess if true yet I cannot say with Tully in his defence of Ligarius Novum crimen Caie Caesar hec tempus mauditum Jaqueline Countess of Holland was Cozen to Philip Duke of Burgundie Her being fruitful would have debarred him from those estates of Holland Zealand and West-Freezland therefore though she had three Husbands there was order taken she should never have Child with her two first Husbands the Duke would never suffer her to live and when she had stollen a wedding with Frane of Borselle one of her servants the Dukes Physitians gave him such a potion that she might as well have married an Eunuch upon this injury the poor Lady died and the Duke succeeded in those Countries which by his Grand-child Marie were conveyed over into the House of Austria together with the rest of his estate I dare not say that that Family hath inherited his practises with his lands and yet I have heard that the Infanta Isabella had the like or worse measure afforded her before she was bedded to the Arch-duke Albertus A diabolical trick which the prostitutes of the heathen used in the beginnings of the Gospel and before of whom Octavius complaineth quod originem futuri hominis extinguant paricidium faciunt antequam pariunt Better luck than the King hath his Sister beyond the mountains I mean his eldest Sister Madame Elizabeth married to the King of Spain now living as being or having been the Mother of two Children His second Sister Madame Christian is married to Amadeo Victor Principe Maior or heir apparent of the Duke of Savoy to whom as yet she hath born no issue The youngest Henrietta Mariae is newly married to his most Excellent Majesty of England to whom may she prove of a most happy and fruitful womb Et pulchra faciat te prole parentem Of these alliances the first were very profitable to both Princes could there be made a marriage between the Kingdoms as well as the Kings But it is well known that the affections of each people are divided more unconquerable mountains than their dominions The French extreamly hating the proud humour and ambition of the Spaniard We may therefore account each of them in these marriages to have rather intended the perpetuity of their particular houses than the strength of their Empires and that they more desired a noble stock whereon to graft posterity than power The alliance with Savoy is more advantagious though less powerful than that of Spain For if the King of France can keep this Prince on his party he need not fear the greatness of the other or any of his faction The continuall siding of this House with that of Austria having given many and great impediments to the fortune of the French It standeth so fitly to countenance the affairs of either King in Italy or Germany to which it shall incline that it is just of the same nature with the estate of Florence between Millain and Venice of which Guicciaraine saith that Mantennero le coseâ—d Italia bilanâ—iate On this reason King Henry the fourth earnestly desired to match one of his Children into this Countrey and left this desire as a Legacie with his Council But the alliance of most use to the State of France is that of England as being the nighest and most able of all his neighbours An alliance which will make his Estate invincible and incompassed about as it were with a wall of brass As for the Kings bastard Brethren they are four in number and born of three several beds The eldest is Mr. Alexander made Knight of the Order of St. John or of Malta in the life time of his Father He is now Grand Prior of France and it is much laboured and hoped by the French that he shall be the next Master of the Order a place of great command and credit The second and most loved of his Father whose lively image and character he is said to be is Mr Caesar made Duke of Vendosme by his Father and is at this time Governor of Brittain a man of a brave spirit and one who swayeth much in the affairs of State His Father took great care for his advancement before his death and therefore married him to the Daughter and Heir of the Duke of Mercuer a man of great possessions in Brittain It is thought that the inheritance of this Lady both by her Fathers side and also by her Mothers who was of the Family of Marsegues being a stock of the old Ducal tree is no less than 200000. Crowns yearly Both these were born unto the King by Madame Gabriele for her excellent beauty surnamed labelle Dutchess of Beauforte a Lady whom the King most entirely affected even to the last gasp and one who never abused her power with him so that we may truly say of her what Velleius flatteringly said of Livia the Wife of Augustus Ejus potentiam nemo senset nisi levatione periculi aut accessione dignitatis The third of the Kings natural Brethren is Mr. Henry now Bishop of Metz in Lorraine and Abbot of St. Germans in Paris As Abbot he is Lord of the goodly Fairbourg of St. Germans and hath the profits of the great Fair there holden which make a large revenue His Bishoprick yeildeth him the profits of 20000. Crowns and upwards which is the remainder of 60000. the rest being pawned to the Duke of Lorraine by the last Bishop who was of that family The Mother of this Mr. Henry is the Marchioness of Verneville who before the death of the King fell out of his favour into the prison and was not restored to her liberty till the beginning of the Queen Mothers Regency The fourth and youngest is Mr. Antonie born unto the King by the Countess of Morret who is Abbot of the Churches of Marseilles and Cave hath as yet not fully six thousand pound a year when his Mother dieth he Will be richer The Kings lawful Brother is named John Baptist Gaston born the 25th of April Anno 1608. A Prince of a brave and manlike aspect likely to inherit as large a part of his Fathers spirit as the King doth of his Crown He is entituled Duke of Aniou as being the third Son of France but his next elder Brother the Duke of Orleance being dead in his childhood he is vulgarly and properly called Monsieur This title is different from that of Daulphin in that that title is onely appropriated to the Heir
live happily if they can be content to live obediently that which is taken from them being matter of strength onely not priviledge Let us now look upon them in their Churches which we shall find as empty of magnificence as ceremony to talk amongst them of Common prayers were to fright them with a second coming of the Mass and to mention Prayers at the burial of the dead were to perswade them of a Purgatory Painted glass in a Church window is accounted for the flag and ensign of Antichrist and for Organs no question but they are deemed the Devils Bap pipes Shew them a Surplice and they cry out a rag of the Whore of Babylon yet a Sheet upon a Woman when she is in childâ—bed is a greater abomination than the other A strange people that could never think the Mass-book sufficiently reformed till they had taken away Prayers nor that their Churches could ever be handsome until they were ragged This foolish opposition of their first Reformers hath drawn the Protestants of these parts into a world of dislike and envy and been no small disadvantage to their side whereas the Church of England though it dissent as much from the Papists in point of doctrine is yet not uncharitably thought on by the moderatest Catholikes by reason it retained such an excellency of discipline When the Liturgie of our Church was translated into Latine by Doctor Mocket once Warden of All-Souls Colledge in Oxford it was with great approof and applause received here in France by those whom they call Catholikes Royal as marvelling to see such order and regular devotion in them whom they were taught to condemn for heretical An allowance which with some little help might have been raised higher from the practise of our Church to some points of our judgement And it is very worthy of our observation that which the Marquess of Rhosney spake of Canterbury when he came as extraordinary Embassadour from King Henry the fourth to welcome King James into England for upon the view of our solemn Service and Ceremonies he openly said unto his fellows that if the reformed Churches in France had kept the same orders amongst them which we have he was assured that there would have been many thousands more of Protestants than now there are But the Marquess of Rhosney was not the last that said so I have heard divers French Papists who were here at the Queens coming over and ventured so far upon an excommunication as to be present at our Church solemn Services extolling them and us for their sakes even almost unto Hyperboles So graciously is our temper entertained amongst them As are their Churches such is their discipline naked of all antiquity and almost as modern as the men which embraced it The power and calling of Bishops they abrogated with the Mass upon no other cause then that Geneva had done it As if that excellent man Mr. Calvin had been the Pythagoras of our age and his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Ipse dixit had stood for Oracle The Hierarchi of Bishops thus cast out they have brought in their places Lay-Elders a kind of Monsters never heard of in the Scriptures or first times of the Gospel These men leap from the stall to the Bench and partly sleeping and partly stroaking their beard they enact Laws of government for the Church So that we may justly take up the complaint of the Satyrist saying Surgunt nobis e Sterquitineo magistratus nec dum tot is manibus publica tractant negotia yet to these very men composed equally of ignorance and a Trade are the most weighty matters of the Church committed In them is the power of ordaining Priests of conferring places of Charge and even of the severest censure of the Church Excommunication When any business which concerneth the good of the Congregation is befallen they must be called to counsel and you shall find them there as soon as ever they can put off their aprons Having blotted out there a little classical non-sense and passed their consents rather by nodding of their heads than any other sensible articulation they hasten to their Shops as Quinctius the Dictator in Florus did to his Plow Vt adopus relictum festinasse videatur Such a platform though it be as needeth no further confutation then to know it yet had it been the more tolerable if the Contrivers of it had not endeavoured to impose it on all the reformation by which meanes what troubles have been raised by the great Zealots here in England there is none so young but hath heard some tragical relations God be magnified and our late King praised by whom this weed hath been snatched up out of the garden of this our Israel As for their Ministery it is indeed very learned in their study and exceeding painful in their calling by the first they confute the ignorant of the Romish Clergy by the second their laziness And questionless it behoveth them so to be for living in a Country full of opposition they are forced to a necessity of book-learning to maintain the Cause and being continually as it were beset with spies did therefore frequent the Pulpits to hold up their credits The maintenance which is alotted them scarce amounteth to a competency though by that name they please to call it With receiving of tythes they never meddle and therefore in their Systematical Tractats of Divinity they do hardly allow of paying of them Some of them hold that they are Jewish and abrogated with the Law Others think them meerly to be Jure Humano and yet that they may be lawfully accepted where they are tendered It is well yet that there are some amongst theÌ„ which will commend grapes though they cannot reach them This Competency may come to forty or fifty pound yearly or a little more Beza that great and famous Preacher of Geneva had but eighty pound a year and about that rate was Peter du Moulins pension when he preached at Clarenton These stipends are partly paid by the King and partly raised by way of Collection So the Ministers of those Churches are much of the nature of the English Lecturers As for the Tythes they belong to the several Parish Priests in whose precincts they are due and those I warrant you according to the little learning which they have will hold them to be Jure Divino The Sermons of the French are very plain home-spun little in them of the Fathers and less of humane learning it being concluded in the Synode of Sappe that onely the Scriptures should be used in their Pulpits they consist much of exhortation and use and of nothing in a manner which concerneth knowledge A ready way to raise up and edifie the will and affections but withall to starve the understanding For the education of them being Children they have private Schools when they are better grown they may have free recourse unto any of the French Academies besides the new Vniversity of Saumus which
lusty as the Horses of the Sun in Ovid neither could we say of them flammiferis implent hinnitibus aur as All the neighng we could hear from the proudest of them was onely an old dry cough which I le assure you did much comfort me for by that noise I first learned there was life in them Upon such Anatomies of Horses or to speak more properly upon such several heaps of bones were I and my company mounted and when we expected however they seemed outwardly to see somewhat of the post in them my beast began to move after an Aldermans pace or like Envie in Ovid Surgit humi pigre passuque incedet inerti Out of this gravity no perswasion could work them the dull jades being grown insensible of the spur and to hearten them with wands would in short time have distressed the Country Now was the Cart of Diepe thought a speedy conveyance and those that had the happiness of a Waggon were esteemed too blessed yea though it came with the hazard of the old woman and the wenches If good nature or a sight of their journeys ever did chance to put any of them into a pace like a gallop we were sure to have them tire in the middle way and so the remainder of the Stage was to be measured with our own feet being weary of this trade I made bold to dismount the Postilion and ascended the Trunk Horse where I sate in such magnificent posture that the best Carrier in Paris might have envied my felicity behind me I had a good large Trunk and a Portmantue before me a bundle of Cloaks and a parcel of Books Sure I was that if my stirrups could poize me equally on both sides that I could not likely fall backwards nor forwards Thus preferred I encouraged my Companions who cast many an envious eye upon my prosperity and certainly there was not any of them who might not more justly have said of me Tu as un meilleur temps que le pape then poor Lauarillo's Master dâ—d when he allowed him an Onion for four dayes This circumstance I confess might have well been omitted had I not great example for it Philip de Comminees in the midst of his grave and serious relation of the battel of Mont l' hierrie hath a note much about this nature which gave me encouragement which is that himself had an old Horse half tired and this was just my case who by chance thrust his head into a pail of Wine and drunk it off which made him lustier and friskier that day than ever before but in that his Horse had better luck than I had On the right hand of us and almost in the middle way betwixt Abbeville and Boulogne we left the Town of Monstreville which we had not leasure to see It seemed daintily seated for command and resistance as being built upon the top and declivity of an hill it is well strengthened with Bastions ramparts on the outside hath within a Garrison of five Companies of Souldiers their Governour as I learned of one of the Paisants being called Lenroy And indeed it concerneth the King of France to lâ—ck well to his Town of Monstreville as being a border Town within two miles of Artoys and especially coâ—siâ—ering that the taking of it would â—ut off all entercourse between the Countreys of Boulogne and Calais with the rest of France Of the like importance also are the Towns of Abbeville and Amiens and that the French Kings are not ignorant of Insomuch that those two onely together with that of St. Quintin being put into the hands of Philip Duke of Burgundy to draw him from the party of the English were redeemed again by Lewis the eleventh for 450000. Crowns an infinite sum of money according to the standard of those times and yet it seemeth the King of France had no bad bargain of it for upon an hope onely of regaining those Towns Charls Earl of Charoloys Son to Duke Philip undertook that warr against King Lewis by which at the last he lost his life and hazarded his estate CHAP. V. The Country of Boulonnois and Town of Boulogne by whom enfranchised The present of salt butter Boulogne divided into two Towns Procession in the low Town to divert the Plague The forms of it Processions of the Letany by whom brought into the Church The high Town garrisoned The old man of Boulogne The neglect of the English in leaving open the Havens The fraternity de la charite and inconvenience of it The costly journey of Henry the eigth to Boulogne Sir Waâ—ter Raleighs censure of that Prince condemned the discourtesie of Charls the fifth towards our Edward the sixth The defence of the House of Burgundy how chnrgeable to the Kings of England Boulogne re-yeilded WE are now come to the Country of Boulonnois which though a part of Picardy disdaineth yet to be so counted but will be reckoned a County of it self It comprehendeth in it the Towns of Boulogne Escapes and Neus-Chastel beside-divers Villages and consisteth much of hils and valleys much after the nature of England the soyl being indifferent fruitful of corn and yeilding more glass than any other part of France which we saw for the quantity Neither is it onely a County of it self but it is in a manner also a free County it being holden immediately of the Virgin Mary who is no question a very gracious Land Lady For when King Lewis the eleventh after the decease of Charles of Burgundy had taken in Boulogne Anno 1477. As new Lord of the Town thus John de Sierries relateth it he did homage without sword or spurs bare-headed and on his knee before the Virgin Mary offering unto her image an heart of Massie gold weighing two thousand Crowns he added also this that he and his successors after him being Kings should hold the County of Boulogne of the same Virgin and do homage unto her image in the great Church of the higher Town dedicated to her naâ—e giving 〈◊〉 every change of a Vassal an heart of pure gold of the same weight Since that time the Boulonnois being the Tennants of our Lady have enjoyed a perpetual exemption from many of those tributes and taxes under which the rest of France are miserably afflicted Amongst others they have been alwayes freed from the gabel of Salt by reason whereof and by the goodness of their pastures they have there the best Butter in all the Kingdom I say partly by reason of their Salt because having it at a low rate they do liberally season all their Butter with it whereas they which do buy their Salt at the Kings price cannot afford it any of that dear commodity Upon this ground it is the custom of these of Boulonnois to send unto their Freinds of France and Paris a barrel of Butter seasoned according to their fashion a present no less ordinary and acceptable than Turkeys Capons and the like are from our Country Gentlemen to those
Julius Caesar at the time of his second expedition into Brittaine this Haven being then Portus Gessorianus This Tower which we now see seemeth to be but the remainder of a greater work and by the height and scituation of it one would guesse it to have been the Key or watch Tower unto the rest it is built of rude and vulgar stone but strongly cemented together the figure of it is six square every square of it being nine paces in length A compass to little for a Fortress and therefore it is long since it was put to that use it now serving onely as a Sea mark by day and a Pharos by night Vbi accensae noctu faces navigantium cursum dirigunt The English men call it the Old man of Boulogue and not improperly for it hath all the signes of age upon it The Sea hath by undermining it taken from it all the earth about two squares of the bottom of it the stones begin to drop out from the top and upon the rising of the wind you would think it were troubled with the Palsie in a word two hard winters seconded with a violent tempest maketh it rubbish what therefore is wanting of present strength to the Haven in this ruine of a Tower the wisdom of this age hath made good in a Garrison And here me thinks I might justly acâ—use the impolitick thrift of our former Kings of England in not laying out some money upon the strength and safety of our Haven Townes not one of them Portsmouth onely excepted being Garrison'd true it is that Henry the eighth did eâ—ect Block-Houses in many of them but what bâ—bles they are and how unable to resist a Flees royally appointed is known to every one I know indeed we were sufficiently Garrison'd by out Naâ—e could it either keep a watch on all particular places or had it noâ— sometimes occasion to be absent I hope our Kings are not of Darius mind in the storie quâ— gloriosius raâ—us est hostem 〈◊〉 quam non admittere neither will I take 〈◊〉 to give counsell onely I could wish that we were not inferiour to our neighbours in the greatness of our care since we are equal to the best of them in the goodness of our Country This Town of Boulogne and the Country about it was taken by Henry the eighth of England Anno 1545. himself being in person at the siege a very costly and chargeable victory The whole list of his Forces did amount to 44000. foot and 3000. horse Field Pieces he drew after him above a hundred besides those of smaller making and for the conveyance of their Ordinance baggage and other provision there were transported into the Continent above 25000. Horses True it is that his designes had a further aim had not Charles the Emperour with whom he was to join left the field and made peace without him So that judging onely by the success of the expedition we cannot but say that the winning of Boulonnois was a dear purchase and indeed in this one particular Sr. Walter Raleigh in the preface to his most excellent History saith not amiss of him namely that in his vain and fruitless expeditions abroad he consumed more treasure than all the rest of our victorious Kings before him did in their several Conquests The other part of his censure of that Prince I know not well what to think of as meerly composed of gall and bitterness Onely I cannot but much marvail that a man of his wisdom being raised from almost nothing by the Daughter could be so severely invective against the Father certainly a most charitable judge cannot but condemn him of want of true affection and duty to his Queen seeing that it is as his late Majesty hath excellently noted in his ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΟΠΔΩΡΟΠa thing monstrous to see a man love the Child and hate the Parents And therefore he may earnestly enjoyn his Son Henry to repress the insolencie of such as under pretence to tax a vice in the person seek craftily to stain the Race Presently after this taking Boulogne the French again endeavoured the regaining of it even during the life of the Conquerour but he was strong enough to keep his gettings After his death the English being engaged in a warr against the Scots and Kit having raised a rebellion in Norfolk they began again the reconquest of it and that more violently than ever Upon news of their preparations an Ambassage was dispatched to Charles the fifth to desire succours of him and to lay before him the infancy and several necessity of the young King who was then about the age of ten years This desire when the Emperour had refused to hearken to they besought him that he would at the least be pleased to take into his hands and keeping the Town of Boulogne and that for no longer time than until King Edward could make an end of the troubles of his Subjects at home An easie request yet did he not onely deny to satisfie the King in this except he would restore the Catholike Religion but he also expresly commanded that neither any of his men or munition should go to the assistance of the English An ingratitude for which I cannot find a fitting Epithite considering what fast friends the Kings of England have alwayes been to the united Houses of Burgundy and Austria what moneys they have helped them with and what sundry warrs they have made for them both in Belgium to maintain their authority and in France to augment their potency from the marriage of Maximilian of the Family of Austria with the Lady Mary of Burgundie which happened in they ear 1478. unto the death of Henry the eighth which fell in the year 1548. are just seventy years in which time onely it is thought by men of knowledge and experience that it cost the Kings of England at the least six millions of pounds in the meer quarrels and defence of the Princes of those Houses An expense which might seem to have earned a greater requital than that now demanded Upon this denial of the unkindful Emperour a Treaty followed between England and France The effect of it was that Boulogne and all the Country of it should be restored to the French by paying to the English at two dayes of payment 800000. Crowns Other Articles there were but this the principal and so the fortune of young Edward was like that of Julius Caesar towards his end Dum clementiam quam praestiterant expectant incauti ab ingratis occupati sunt The CONCLUSION A Generall censure of France and the French A gratulation to England The end of our journey ON wednesday the third of August having stayed in Boulogne three dayes for wind and company and not daring to venture on Calice by reason of the sickness there raging we took ship for England the day fair and the wind fitly serving us we were quickly got out of the harbour into the main And so I take my leave of France
and preferments of the French By these propositions to which the Jusuits in the end subscribed I know not with what mental reservation it is more than evident that they have left him no command neither over their consciences nor their persons So that all things considered we may justly say of the Papal power in France what the Papists falsly say of Erasmus namely that it is Nomen sine rebus In one thing onely his authority here is entire which is his immediate protection of all the Orders of Friers and also a superintendency or supreme eye over the Monks who acknowledge very small obedience if any at all to the French Bishops For though at the beginning every part and member of the Diocess was directly under the care and command of the Bishop yet it so happened at the building of Monestaries in the Western Church the Abbots being men of good parts and sincere life grew much into the envy of their Diocesan For which cause as also to be more at their own command they made suit to the Pope that they might be freed from that subjection Vtque intutelam Dive Petri admitterentur A proposition very plausible to his Holiness ambition which by this meanes might the sooner be raised to his height and therefore without difficulty granted This gap opened first the several Orders of Friers and after them the Deans and Chapters purchased to themselves the like exemptions In this the Popes power was wonderfully strengthened in having such able and so many props to uphold his authority it being a true Maxime in State Quod qui privilegia obtenent ad eadem conservanda teneantur authoritatem concedentis tueri This continued till the Council of Trent unquestioned where the Bishops much complained of their want of authority and imputed all the schismes and vices in the Church to this that their hands were tied Hereupon the Popes Legates thought it fit to restore to their jurisdiction their Deans and Chapters At that of the Monks and Monestaries they were more sticking till at the last Sebastian Pighinus one of the Popes Officers found out for them this satisfaction that they should have an eye and inspection into the lives of the Monks not by any authority of their own Sed tanquam a sede Apostolica delegati But as for the Orders of Friers the Pope would not by any means give way unto it They are his Janizaries and the strongest bulwarks of his Empire and are therefore called in a good Author Egregia Romanae Curiae instrumenta So that with them the Diocesan hath nothing to do each severall religious House being as a Court of Peculiars subject onely to the great Metropolitan of Rome This near dependance on his Holiness maketh this generation a great deal more regardless of their behaviour than otherwise it would be though since the growth of the reformation shame and fear hath much reformed them They have still howsoever a spice of their former wantonness and on occasions will permit themselves a little good fellowship And to say truth of them I think them to be the best Companions in France for a journey but not for acquaintance They live very merrily and keep a competent table more I suppose than can stand with their vow and yet far short of that affluency whereof many of our books accuse them It was my chance to be in an house of the Franciscans in Paris where one of the Friers upon the entreaty of our Friend had us into the Hall it being then the time of their Refectory a favour not vulgar There saw we the Brothers sitting all on a side and every one a pretty distance from the other their several commons being a dish of pottage a chop of mutton a dish of Cherries and a large glass of water This provision together with a liberal allowance of ease and a little of study keepeth them exceeding plump and in good liking and maketh them having little to take thought for maketh them as I said before passing good Company As I travelled to Orleans we had in coach with us three of these mortified sinners two of the Order of St. Austin and one Franciscan the merriest Crickets that ever chirped Nothing in them but mad tricks and complements and for musick they would sing like Hawks when we came to a vein of good Wine they would chear up themselves and their neighbour with this comfortable doctrine Vivamus ut bibamus et bibamus ut vivamus and for Courtship and toying with the Wenches you would easily beleeve it had been a trade with which they had not a little been acquainted Of all men when I am married God keep my wife from them and till then my neighbours On the other side the common Priests of France are so dull and blockish that you shall hardly meet with a more contemptible people The meanest of our Curats in England for spirit and discourse are very Popes to them for learning they may safely say with Socrates Hoc tantum scimus quod nescimus but you must not look that they should say it in Latine Tongues they have none but those of their Mother and the Masse Book of which last they can make no use unless the Book be open and then also the Book is fain to read it self for in the last Romanum Missale established by the authority of Pius the fifth and recognized by Clement the eighth Anno 1600. every sillable is diversly marked whether it must be sounded long or short just as the varifying examples are in the end of the English Grammer When I had lost my self in the streets of Paris and wanted French to enquire homeward I used to apply my self to some of this reverend habit But O soeclum insipiens et infacitum you might as easily have wrought water out of the flint as a word of Latine out of their mouthes Nor is this the disease of the vulgar Masse mumbler onely it hath also infected the right worshipful of the Clergy In Orleans I had business with a Chanoin of the Church of St. Croiz a fellow that wore his surplice it was made of Lawne and Lace with as good a credit as ever I saw any and for the comliness and capacity of his cap he might have been a Metropolitan perceiving me to speak to him in a strange Tongue for it was Latine he very learnedly asked me this question Num potestis loqui Gallica which when I had denied at last he brake out into another Interrogatory viz. Quandiu fuistis in Gallice To conclude having read over my Letter with two or three deadly pangs and six times rubbing of his temples he dismissed me with this cordial and truly it was very comfortable to my humor Ego necotias vestras curabo A strange beast and one of the greatest prodigies of Ignorance that ever I met with in mans apparrel Such being the Romish Priests it is no marvail if the French be no more setled and resolute
in their Religion If the eye be blind the body cannot chuse but be darkned and certainly there is nothing that hath prepared many of this Realm more to embrace the reformation than this blockishness of their own Clergy an excellent advantage to the Protestant Ministers could they but well humor it and likely to be a fair inlargement to their party if well husbanded Besides this the French Catholicks are not over earnest in their cause and so do lye open to the assaults of any politick enemy to deal with them by main force of argument and in the servent spirit of zeal as the Protestants too often do is not the way Men uncapable of opposition as this people generally are and furious if once thwarted must be tamed as Alexander did his Horse Bucephalus Those that came to back him with the tyranny of the spur and a cudgel he quickly threw down and mischieved Alexander came otherwise prepared for turning his Horse toward the Sun that he might not see the impatiency of his shadow he spake kindly to him and gently clapping him on the back till he had left his flinging and wildness he lightly leapeth into the saddle the Horse never making resistance Plutarch in his life relateth the storie and this the Morall of it CHAP. XII The correspondency between the King and the Pope This Pope An Omen of the Marriage of France with England An English Catholick's conceit of it His Holiness Nuntio in Paris A learned argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the Allegory of Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly mannaged Their insolence and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free Estate The War not a War of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more than he did First forsaken by their own party Their happiness before the War The Court of the Edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministery c. WE have seen the strength and subtilty as also somewhat of his poverties at home let us now see the alliance which this French Esau hath abroad in the world in what credit and opinion he standeth in the eye of Bâ—eâ—i the Romish Hittite the daughter of whose abominations he hath married And here I find him to hold good correspondency as being the eldest son of the Church and an equal poize to ballance the affairs of Italy against the potency of Spain Oâ— this ground the present Pope hath alwayes shewed himself very favorable to the French side well knowing into what perils a necessary and impolitick dependance on the Spanish party onely would one day bring the state Ecclesiastick As in the general so in many particulars also hath he expressed much affection unto him as first by taking into his hand the Valtolin till his Son of France might settle himself in some course to recover it secondly his not stirring in the behalf of the Spaniard during the last warrs in Italy and thirdly his speedy and willing grant of the dispensation of Madames marriage of which his Papacy was so large an Omen so fair a Prognostick Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illi The Lar or Angel Guardian of his thoughts hastened him in it in whose time there was so plausible a presage that it must be accomplished For thus it standeth Malachy now a Saint then one of the first Apostles of the Irish one much reverenced in his memory to this day by that Nation left behind him by way of prophesie a certain number of Motto's in Latine telling those that there should follow that certain number of Popes onely whose conditions successively should be hereby expressed in those Motto's according to that order he had placed them in Messingham an Irish Priest Master of the Colledge of Irish fugitives in Paris hath collected together the lives of all the Irish Saints which book himself shewed me In that volume and the life of that Saint are the several Motto's and the several Popes set down columewise one against the other I compared the lives of them with the Motto's as farre as my memory would carry me and found many of them very answerable as I remember there are thirty six Motto's yet to come and when just as many Popes are joyned to them they are of opinion for so Malachy foretold that either the world should end or the Popedom be ruined Amongst others the Motto of the present Pope is most remarkable and sutable to the cheif action likely to happen in his time being this Lilium Rosa which they interpret and in my mind not unhappily to be intended to the conjunction of the French Lillie and the English Rose To take from me any suspition of imposture he shewed me an old book printed almost two hundred years ago written by one Wion a Flemming and comparing the number of the Motto's with the Catalogue of the Popes I found the name of Vrban now Pope directly to answer it upon this ground an English Catholike whose acquaintance I gained in France made a Copy of Verses in French and presented them to the English Embassadors the Earles of Carlisle and Holland because he is my Friend and the conceit is not to be despised I begged them of him and these are they Lilia juncta Rosis Embleme de bon ' presage de l' alliance de la France avec l' Angleterre Ce grand dieu quid ' un oecl voit tout ce que les aâ—s Souos leurs voiles sacrez vont a nous yeax cathans Descouvre quelque fois ainsi qui bon luy semble Et les moux avenir et les biene tout ensemble Ainsc fit il iadis a ce luy qui primier Dans l' Ireland porta de la foye le laurier Malachie son nom qu' autymon de l' Eglise On verra soir un jour il qui pour sa devise Aura les Lys chenus ioints aux plus belles fleures Qui docent le pinâ—temps de leurs doubles couleurs CHARLES est le fleuron de la roso pour pree HENRITTE est le Lys que la plus belle pree De la France nâ—urit pour estrâ— quelque iour Et la Reine des flâ—ures et des roses l' amour Adorable banquet bien beu reux courâ—nne Que la bonte du ciel en parrage nous donne Heu reux ma partie heu reux mille fois Cela qui te fera reflorrier en les Roys With these verses I take my leave of his Holiness wishing none of his successors would presage worse luck unto England I go now to see his Nuntio to whose house the same English Catholike brought me but he was not at home his name is Ferdinando d' Espado a
man as he informed me able to discharge the trust reposed in him by his Master and one that very well affecteth the English Nation He hath the fairest Eglise and keepeth the largest retinue of any ordinary Embassadour in the Realm and maketh good his Masters supremacy by his own precedency To honour him against he was to take this charge his Holiness created him Bishop of Damiata in Egypt A place which I am certain never any of them saw but in a Map and for the profits he receiveth thence they will never be able to pay for his Crosier But this is one of his Holiness usual policies to satisfie his followers with empty titles So he made Bishop whom he sent to govern for him in England Bishop of Chalcedon in Asia and Smith also who is come over about the same business with the Queen Bishop of Archidala a City of Thrace An old English Doctor used it as an especial argument to prove the Universality of power in the Pope because he could ordain Bishops over all Cities in Christendom If he could as easily also give them the revenue this reason I confess would much sway me till then I am sorry that men should still be boyes and play with bubbles By the same authority he might do well to make all his Courtiers Kings and he were sure to have a most Royal and beggerly Court of it To proceed a little further in the Allegory so it is that when Jacob saw Esau to have incurred his Fathers and Mothers anger for his heathenish marriage he set himself to bereave his elder brother of his blessing prayers and the sweet smell of his Venison the sweet smelling of his sacrifices obtained of his Lord and Father a blessing for him for indeed the Lord hath given unto this his French Jacob as it is in the Text The dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of corn and Wine Gen. 27. 5 28. It followeth in the 41. ver of the chapter And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing wherewith his Father had blessed him and Esau said in his heart the dayes of mourning for my Father are at hand then will I slay my brother Jacob The event of which his bloudy resolution was that Jacob was fain to relinquish all that he had and fly unto his Vncle This last story expresseth very much of the estate of the French Church The Papists hated the Protestants to see them thrive and encrease so much amongst them this hatred moved them to a war by which they hoped to root them out all together and this war compelled the Protestants to abandon their good Towns and strong Holds and all their possessions and to fly unto their friends wheresoever they could find them And indeed the present estate of the Protestants is not much better than that of Jacob in Mesopotamia nor much different the blessing which they expect lyeth more in the seed than in the harvest and well may they hope to be restored to the love and bosome of their brethren of which as yet they have no assurance For their strength it consisteth principally in their prayers to God and secondly in their obedience to their King Within these two Fortresses if they can keep themselves they need fear none ill because they shall deserve none The onely outward strengths they have left them are the two Towns of Moutabon and Rochell the one deemed invincible the other threatned a speedy destruction The Duke of Espernon at my being there lay round about it and it was said that the Town was in very bad terms all the neighbouring Townes to whose opposition they most trusted having yeilded at the first sight of the Canon Rochell its thought cannot be forced by assaults nor compelled by a famine some Protestants are glad of it and hope to see the French Church restored to its former powerableness by the resistance of that Town meerly I rather think that the perverse and stubborn condition of it will at last drive the young King into a fury and incite him to revenge their contradiction on their innocent Friends now disarmed and disabled Then will they see at last the issue of their own peremptory resolutions and begin to beleive that the Heathen Historian was of the two the better Christian when he gave us this note Non turpe est ab eo vinci quem vincere esset nefas neque illi in honeste etiam summitti quem fortuna super omnes extulisset This weakness and misery which hath now befallen the Protestants was an effect I confess of the ill will which the other party bare them but that they bare them ill will was a fruit of their own grafting In this circumstance they were nothing like Jacob who in the hatred which his brother Esau had to him was meerly passive They being active also in the birth of it And indeed the lamentable and bloudy war which fell upon them they not onely endeavoured not to avoid but invited During the raign of Henry the fourth who would not see it and the troublesome minority of Lewis the thirteenth who could not molest them they had made themselves masters of ninety nine Towns well fortified and enabled for a siege A strength too great for any one faction to keep tother under a King which desires to be himself and so rule his people In the opinion of their potency they call Assemblies Parliaments as it were when and as often as they pleased There they consulted of the common affairs of Religion made new Laws of government removed and exchanged their general Officers the Kings leave all this while never so much as formally asked Had they onely been guilty of too much power that crime alone had been sufficient to have raised a war against them it not standing with the safety and honour of a King not to be the absolute commander of his own subjects But in this their licentious calling of Assemblies they abused their power into a neglect and in not dissolving them at his Majesties commandement they increased their neglect into a disobedience The Assembly which principally the war and their ruine was that of Rochell called by the Protestants presently upon the Kings journey into Bearne This general meeting the King prohibited by his especial Edicts declaring all them to be guilty of treason which notwithstanding they would not hearken to but very undutifully went on in their purposes It was said by a Gentleman of that party and one that had been employed in many of their affairs that the very zeal of some who had the guiding of their consciences had thrusted them into those desperate courses and I beleive him Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Being assembled they sent the King a Remonstrance of their greivances to which the Duke Lesdiguiers in a letter to them written gives them a â—e y fair and plausible answer wherein also he entreateth them to obey the Kings Edict and