THE HISTORIES OF THE Gunpowder-Treason AND THE Massacre at Paris Together with a Discourse concerning the ORIGINAL of the POWDER-PLOT proving it not to be the Contrivance of Cecill as is affirmed by the PAPISTS but that both the Jesuits and the Pope himself were privy to it As also a Relation of several Conspiracies against Queen ELIZABETH LONDON Printed for J. Leigh at the Sign of the Blew Bell near Chancery Lane end in Fleetstreet 1676. THE HISTORY OF THE Bloody Massacres OF THE PROTESTANTS IN FRANCE IN THE Year of our LORD 1572. WRITTEN In Latin by the Famous HISTORIAN JA. AVG. THVANVS and faithfully rendred into English LONDON Printed for John Leigh at the Sign of the Blew-Bell by Flying-horse-Court in Fleet-street 1674. A brief Introduction to the History of the MASSACRE THE Lords of the House of Guise whether through the instigation of the Jesuites whom they first introduced into France and highly favoured or through their emulation * V. Discourse sect 40. against the Princes of the Blood who favoured the Reformed Religion or both professing themselves great zealots for the Papal Authority and irreconcilable enemies to the Hugonots as they called them of the Reformed Religion especially after the dissentions grew high between them and the Princes to whom they doubted not but the Protestants would adhere as well upon the account of Religion as of the Right of the Princes having * V. Disc sect 41. by force gotten the young King Charles 9. into their hands endeavoured by all means to raise in his mind as great prejudice and hatred against the Protestants and the chief men of their party as possible The young King thus trained up in prejudice against them and moreover from his youth inured to cruelty and the slaughters of his Subjects even in cold blood whereof by the D. of Guise he had been early made a spectator was scarce out of his minority when he was ivited by the Pope V. Dâ—sc sect 42. the K. of Spain and the D. of Savoy to joyn in a holy League for the extirpation of the Hereticks but being by nature of an Italian genius and well instructed by his Mother in the policies of her Country he chose as a more safe and surer way to attempt that rather by secret stratagems and surprize than by open hostility And therefore at an enterview at Bayonne between him with his Mother and his Sister the Queen of Spain accompanied with the D. of Alva having by the way had secret conference at Avignon with some of the Pope's trusty Ministers the Pope having perswaded that meeting and earnestly pressed the King of Spain himself to be present at it it was concluded to cut off the chief heads of the Protestants and then in imitation of the Sicilian Vespers to slaughter all the rest to the last man But the design being discovered to the Prince of Conde Colinius and others of the Nobility when they perceived such preparations made for the execution of it as unless timely prevented they were likely suddenly to be all destroyed V. Disc sect 43. they put themselves into a posture of defence whereupon broke out a Civil War But that being contrary to the design to effect the business by stratagem and surprize it was in few months composed for the present but shortly after when the same design was again perceived to be carried on and the like inevitable danger approached as neer as before was again renewed in the former manner and continued somewhat longer and hotter than before V. Disc sect 45. Whereupon the King perceiving that the greatest difficulty was to beget and confirm in the Protestant Nobility a trust and confidence in himself used all arts imaginable to do that and to that purpose in all solemn manner granting and confirming to the Protestants in France very fair terms of peace and security he at the same time pretended a resolution to make a war with Spain entred into a League with the Queen of England and with the Protestant Princes of Germany and which was the principal part of the policy proposed a match between the Prince of Navar the first Prince of the Blood and chief of the Protestant Party and his Sister Margaret as that which would not only serve his purpose to beget a confidence in the Protestants of his sincerity and good intention but moreover afford him a fair opportunity at the solemnization of the Marriage of effecting his design at last which had been so often and so long disappointed All which having managed with wonderful art and dissimulation he at last obtained what he desired as in the following History is more particularly related THE HISTORY OF THE MASSACRES OF THE Protestants at PARIS and many other places in FRANCE in the Year of our Lord 1572. 1. THE day of the Nuptials between Henr. King of Navar and Margaret Sister to the King of France drawing on Lib. 51. which was appointed the * August 18th 15th of the Kalends of September the King by Letters solicits Coligni that he should come to Paris having before given in charge to Claudius Marcellus Provost of the Merchants that he should see to it that no disturbance did arise upon Colignie's coming to Paris Likewise Proclamation was published the third of the Nones of July July 5th when he was at Castrum Bononiae about two miles from the City wherein it was forbidden that any of what condition soever should dare to renew the memory of things past give occasion of new quarrels carry pistols fight duels draw their swords especially in the King's retinue at Paris and in the Suburbs upon pain of death But if any difference should arise among the Nobles concerning their Honour or Reputation they should be bound to bring their plaint to the Duke of Anjou the King's Deputy throughout the whole Kingdom and to pray justice of him if they were of the Commons they should betake themselves to the High Chancellor de l'Hospital if it shall happen among those that shall not be in the Court but in Paris they shall go before the ordinary Magistrate It was also provided by the same Proclamation that those who were not of the Courts of any of the Princes or Nobles or of the Retinue of others or were not detained upon some necessary business but were of uncertain abode and habitation about Paris or the Suburbs should depart from the Court City within 24 hours after the publication of this Edict upon the same pain of death This was published for three days together with the sound of Trumpet in the Court and through the City and it was ordered that the publication should be repeated week by week upon the Sabbath-day Also there was adjoyned to the guards of the King's body for his greater security a guard of 400 choice Souldiers all which Coligni full of confidence and good assurance so interpreted as if the King desirous of the publick Peace did only prepare
fury of these cruel merciless men for dreading the very mention of an Assembly of the Estates which might correct the Exorbitances of their Usurped Power they accused all those as Rebellious and Seditious who desired it and when they perceived the Protestants who were now very numerous notwithstanding all the cruelties used against them to concur in the same desire new Arts and Snares were devised to apprehend them wherein also others who were not of their Religion were often unawares surprised For every where at Paris especially were erected Images of Saints in the Streets by-ways with lighted Candles set up to them in the day time and a deal of Superstitious Worship and boxes set by them into which they who passed by were pressed to cast in money for providing of the Lights and such as refused to do it or neglected to give reverence to the Images were suspected and instantly assaulted by the Rabble and happy was he that in such case could escape with his life though immediately thrust into prison All this was done the same year that Francis came to the Crown And although in the entrance of the next year about 12. Thu. l. 24. Mart. lest the Protestants exasperated by all these Cruelties should be provoked to joyn with them who at that time held a Consultation against the Guises to remove them and the Queen-mother from the Government this severity by the mediation of Colinius the Admiral and Olinier the Chancellour was by a publick Edict for the present in part remitted Yet no sooner was the danger of that Confederacy over by the defeat of the Enterprise at Amboise but the Edict was recalled 1660. and new resolutions concluded for the utter ruine and extirpation of the Protestants and that upon this further occasion and by the means following The Guises nothing doubting but that the late attempt at Amboise to surprise and remove them from the Government was secretly excited and managed by the Princes of the blood to whom the right during the Kings inability did belong and that the Protestants thus provoked by such unjust persecutions would favour the right of the Princes resolved to cut off both But considering that it would be difficult and hazardous by open Force to get the Princes into their power Davil l. 2. they resolved to essay to accomplish that by Art and therefore first by all means to conceal and dissemble their suspicion of them and to that purpose endeavoured to have the late business at Amboise imputed to the Protestants and to attribute all to Diversity of Religions which might also serve them to a further purpose viz. to render their own cause and proceedings more plausible to the people and the others more odious and to urge this yet further they endeavoured to possess the King with great apprehensions of the danger of his own person from that party and the people with an opinion that that attempt was designed against the King himself which was so gross a Calumnie that Davila himself though otherwise partial enough against the Protestants thought it not fit to be credited and at last having used all their Arts to beget a confidence in the Princes that they had no designs against them to accomplish their designs they cause an Assembly of the Estates whereat the Princes by their place were to attend to be appointed at Orleans Where against the Protestants in general Thu. l. 26. they presently proceed more openly and having obtained an Edict that all should exhibit a profession of their Faith according to a Form 18. years before prescribed by the Sorbon Doctors and that they who refused should be punished with loss of life and Goods such were sent out throughout the whole Kingdom who should apprehend all that were suspected to be of the Reformed Religion with command to pull down the Houses and Castles of those who made any resistance And the Princes being at length with much Art and difficulty wrought upon to come to the Assembly though contrary to the perswasion of their friends are instantly upon their arrival secured Navar under a kind of Guard but Conde close prisoner Having thus gotten them into their hands they without much difficulty resolve to circumvent Conde with Accusations of Rebellion and put him to death under colour of Law But for Navar they were not a little doubtful what to do with him and at last conclude to murder him secretly But when all these designs against both the Protestants in general and these Princes in particular were brought to the very point of execution and the Tragedy already begun It pleased God by the same means whereby he had decreed to prosecute his judgments and vengeance against this persecuting House of Valois to deliver those who were designed for slaughter and by the seasonable intervention of the otherwise untimely death of this young King before he had accomplished the age of eighteen to confound and disappoint all the subtile machinations of these ambitious unchristian persecutors As the force and violence of thunder says Davila useth in a moment to overthrow and ruine those buildings which are built with great care and long labour so his unexpected death destroying in an instant those Counsels which with so much art and dissimulation were brought to maturity and concluded left the state of things already in the way although by Violent and Rigorous Means yet to a certain and secure end in the height of all discord and more than ever they were formerly troubled wavering and abandoned Thus he but we may rather observe the unsuccessfulness of such violent and Rigorous Courses though for the attaining of never so good and lawful ends and that not so much of their own nature as by the special Providence of God who doth frequently suffer wicked and proud conceited men confident of their own wit or strength to proceed in their wicked policies and the exercise of their malitious practises till they be at the very point to receive their expected fruits of all and then by some little occurrence to frustrate and blast all their hopes and make them so much more miserable by their disappointment by how much they thought themselves nearer and surer of the enjoyment Such were the Popes and Spaniards disappoinment mentioned before Sect. 26. pag. 32. and that of 88. Sect. 33. and others Whereas Queen Elizabeths moderate proceedings but in a better cause were all along blessed with happy success 41. To this young King thus cut off in his youth and leaving no issue behind him though some years married to a beautiful young Lady succeeded his brother Charles the nineth a Childe of about Eleven years of Age who by reason of his Minority 1560. being incapable to exercise the Government by Agreement between the Queen-mother now sufficiently weary of the Ambition and Insolencies of the Guises and suspitious of their designs and the King of Navarre first Prince of the blood though the Guises used
Onel Earl of Tyron Captain General of the Catholick Army in Ireland who with their Souldiers had in process of time performed many brave atchievements fighting manfully against the enemy and for the future are ready to perform the like that they may all the more cheerfully do it and assist against the said Hereticks being willing after the example of his Predecessors to vouchsafe them some Spiritual Graces and Favours he favourably grants to all and every one who shall joyn with the said Hugh and his Army asserting and fighting for the Catholick Faith or any way aid or assist them if they be truly penitent and have confessed and if it may be received the Sacrament a Plenary Pardon and Remission of All their Sins the same which used to be granted by the Popes of Rome to those who go to war against the Turks 18. April 1600. Camd. p. 750. Foul. p. 651. And the next year again for their further encouragement year 1601 he sends a particular letter to Tyrone wherein he Commends their Devotion in engaging in a Holy League and their valour and atcheivements Exhorts them to continue unanimous in the same mind and Promises to write effectually to his Sons the Catholick Kings and Princes to give all manner of Assistance to them and their cause and tells him he thinks to send them a peculiar Nuncio who may be helpful to them in all things as occasion shall serve 20. Jan. 1601. Foul. p. 655. The King of Spain likewise sends his Assistance a great fleet who landed at King-Sale 20. Sept. under the conduct of Don John d'Aquila who sets out a Declaration shewing the King of Spain's pretense in the war which he saith is with the Apostolick Authority to be administred by him that they perswade not any to deny due Obedience according to the word of God to their Prince but that all know that for many years since Elizabeth was deprived of her Kingdom and All her Subjects Absolved from their Fidelity by the Pope unto whom he that reigneth in the Heavens the King of Kings hath committed All Power that he should Root up Destroy Plant and Build in such sort that he may punish temporal Kings if it should be good for the Spiritual Building even to their Deposing which thing hath been done in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland by many Popes viz. by Pope Pius v. Gregory XIII and now by Clement VIII as is well known whose Bulls are extant that the Pope and the King of Spain have resolved to send Souldiers Silver Gold and Arms with a most liberal hand that the Pope Christs Vicar on Earth doth command them the Papists in Ireland to take Arms for the defense of their Faith c. Camd. p. 829. Foul. 658. And not long after more Supplies were sent from Spain under Alonso de Ocampo Thu. l. 125. Cam. an 1601. 1602. But it pleased God to make the Queen still Victorious over All and part of them with the Irish Rebels being beaten and routed in the Field the rest are brought to articles upon which they Surrender All and are sent home when more forces were coming from Spain to their recruit The next year most of the other Rebels being defeated and subdued last of all Mac Eggan the Popes Vicar Apostolick 1602. with a party of the Rebels which he himself led with his Sword drawn in one hand and his Breviary and Beads in the other was slain by the Queens forces and the Rebels routed in January 1602 3. and so the whole Kingdom Tyrone also submitting to mercy totally subdued Camd. an 1603. Foul. p. 664. 37. And now this Blessed Queen having by an Admirable Providence of Almighty God been Preserved from All these both Secret Conspiracies and Open Invasions through a long Reign of four and forty years compleat and made victorious over All her Enemies as well abroad as at home Out-lived her great and bitter enemy Phil. 11. King of Spain who himself lived to be sensible of the Divine Judgment of the Iniquity of his Actions against her and to desire a Peace with her though he lived not to enjoy it Out-lived four Kings of France eight Popes and the greatest part of the ninth and maugre all the Powers of Hell the Malice and Wicked Machinations of Men of most turbulent and Anti-christian Spirits Defended that Purity of Religion which even at the very beginning of Her Reign she had with Mature Deliberation and a Generous and most Christian Courage and Resolution notwithstanding all Difficulties and Dangers which on every side threatened her undertakings established was by the same at last brought to her Grave in Peace 1603. in a Good Old Age. Her very Enemies admiring as well her Worth and Excellence as her Glory and Felicity see the one extolled by Sixtus v. Thu. l. 82. p. 48. and the other by An. Atestina l 129. and both more largly described by the Noble and Ingenuous Thuanus l. 129. and Sir Francis Bacon in his Collection of her Felicities while her Neighbours who wickedly and barbarously persecuted the Professors of that Reformed Religion for their Religion sake which she with great and Christian Moderation towards the adversaries of it happily established and defended either lived not out half their days or died violent deaths and were murthered by their own Subjects of the same Religion with themselves or were otherwise unhappy in their attempts in that Eminently Remarkable manner as is so far from being impertinent to our subject and design briefly to note that it would be a great fault and unworthy neglect not to do it Certainly who ever shall impartially and without prejudice consider the History of this blessed and happy Queen and with it compare the History of the Times both precedent and subsequent to her reign and especially of her neighbours in France dur ng her own times must needs acknowledge not only an Admirable Providence over Her in both Preserving and Blessing her in all her Affairs but a Special Distinguishing Providence thus favouring her and at the same time in a very remarkable manner dis-favouring Crossing Blasting and Severely Punishing and Revenging the different and contrary Courses and Practises of her Neighbours and others 38. We might here remember the Story of Don Sebastian King of Portugal who in the heat of his youth and devotion to the See of Rome had tendered his service to the Pope and engaged in an Expedition against England and Ireland but having raised a great Army and prepared a great Fleet was by the King of Fesse prevailed with to assist him in the recovery of his Kingdom in Mauritania Where with Stukely who commanded the Italian Forces raised by the Pope and King of Spain for the service against Ireland whom he perswaded to go with him first to the African war he was slain dyed without issue and left his Kingdom a prey to the Spaniard whereby not only the present storm which threatned the Queen was
window himself at the hour prefixed with the Duke of Aumale and Monsieur d'Angoulesme the King's bastard-Brother and other Commanders and Souldiers to the number of 300 went to the Admiral Colinius his house and having forcibly entred the Court-gate kept by a few of the King of Navar 's Halbardiers and the servants of the house who were all killed without mercy they likewise kill the Admiral himself and threw his body out of the window Felinius his son-in-law with other persons of quality and all the rest that had relation to him This done Monsieur d'O Colonel of the King's Guards calls out the principal Protestants that were in the Louvre one by one who being come into the Court were all killed by the Souldiers that stood in two long ranks with their arms ready for that purpose there died divers Noblemen and persons of great quality and others to the number of 200. At the same time the bell gave the sign and those who were prepared for the deed having received order what to do fell a killing the Protestants throughout all the lodgings and houses where they were dispersed and made an infinite slaughter of them without any distinction of age sex or condition and of many of the Papists among the rest And those who fled were pursued by the Duke of Guise with a great many horse and foot and being overtaken some without shooes some without saddles some without bridles but all more or less unprovided were scattered and cut off There were killed in the City that day and the next above 10000 whereof above 500 were Barons Knights and Gentlemen who had held the chiefest employments in the War and were now purposely met together from all parts to honor the King of Navar 's Marriage Thu. l. 52. A sad time it was what through the noise and clatter of those who every where ran to killing and carrying away of their prey and the doleful groans and sad cryes of those who were slain and murthered without mercy young and old rich and poor men and women women great with child and others with their little children sucking at their breasts and in the dead time of the night plucked out of their beds and houses what with the horrid spectacle of dead bodies thrown out of the windows and trod about the streets and the channels running down with streams of bloud into the River And yet so little moved were the Court Ladies with all this that without either fear or shame in an impudent manner they beheld and stood gazing upon the naked bodies of the Noblemen and Gentlemen which lay on heaps before the Court The day after the Admirals death Da. 375. the Duke of Anjou with the Regiment of the Guards went through all the City and Suburbs causing those houses to be broken open that made any resistance but all the Protestants were either already dead or else being terrified had put white crosses in their hats the general mark of the Papists endeavouring by that means and by hiding themselves to save their lives but being pointed at in the streets by any one or discovered any other way they were without mercy torn in pieces by the people and cast into the River The day before this terrible execution the King dispatched Posts into divers parts of the Kingdom commanding the Governors of Cities and Provinces to do the like And the same night at Meaux and the days ensuing at Orleans Rouen Bourges Angiers Tholouze and many other places but above all at Lyons there was a most bloudy slaughter of the Protestants without any respect of age sex or quality of persons Most sad and lamentable stories says Davila might be here related for this cruelty was prosecuted in so many several places with such variety of accidents against people of all conditions as it was credibly reported that there were slain above forty thousand Protestants in few days The King himself as In vita Greg. 13. Cicarela relates told the Pope's Nuncio that seventy thousand and more were slain Some days after the King dispatched his Grand Provost with all diligence to seize upon Colinius his Wife and Children but his eldest Son with the widow-Lady his Mother-in-law and others being already fled secretly to Geneva the younger children both male and female were condemned to death in their tender years About two days after the Massacre was finished at Paris a Jubilee was there appointed and a publick Thanksgiving kept by the King the whole Court and a great confluence of the people for the business so happily managed according to their wish and desire Thu. l. 52. 53. In memory whereof St. Bartholomew's day was by a decree of the Parliament of Paris appointed to be observed as an Anniversary Thanksgiving-day 46. Thu. l. 51. 53. This horrible act of most barbarous and inhumane cruelty is highly extolled by the Italian Writers as a good and laudable deed and the politick contrivance of it as most worthy the subtil wit of a magnanimous Prince And certain it is that the news of its being effected was received at Rome with triumphant joy by the new Pope and his Cardinals but how far his predecessors were concerned in the contrivance and promotion of it in regard of the great secrecy wherewith all was managed would be very difficult fully to discover as to all the particulars and circumstances yet that they had a great hand in it is evident enough in many passages of the story For when after the first Civil War the King Thu. l. 36. Da. p. 189. instructed by the Queen-Mother had dismissed the Ambassadors sent in the joynt names of the King of Spain the Pope and the Duke of Savoy with thanks to their Masters for their wholsom counsel and proffers of Forces and Aid to expel and extirpate Heresy out of his Dominions assuring them that he would live according to the rites of the Church of Rome and take care that all his people do the like and that he had concluded the peace to that end to expel his enemies out of his Kingdom and promising by Ministers of his own to acquaint the Pope and other Princes particularly with his resolutions they resolved under pretence of a Progress among other things Da p. 190. to come to a Parly with the Duke of Savoy in Dolphine with the Pope's Ministers at Avignon and with the King of Spain or the Queen his Wife upon the Confines of Guienna that so they might communicate their Counsels to them without the hazard of trusting French-men who either through dependence or kindred might be moved to reveal them to the Protestants And having sufficiently informed and fully satisfied Savoy with their intentions and way Da. p. 194. designed to free themselves without noise or danger from the trouble of the Protestants at Avignon they confer with Ludovico Antinori one of the Pope's trusty Ministers and a Florentine being according to the Queens desire come thither
Massacre Lastly when we see after all imaginable injuries and indignities offered him his murder not only plotted and counselled by the chief of the Grand Council at Paris but also executed by an Emissary sent from thence by a religious Zealot of that Religion for which himself had been so barbarously cruel and in that * Thu. l. 51. Serres p. 789. very place at St. Cloud where some time the Council of the Massacre had been held This we may not without reason look upon as the just judgment of God upon him for his wicked dealings in that barbarous Massacre Again when we see his Popish Subjects every where break faith with him and all bonds and oaths of Obedience and Fidelity to him and teach and hold it to be their duty so to do when we see them through whose importunity he had violated the publick faith given to the Protestants to rage and storm and furiously exclaim upon his breach of faith with themselves when we see him brought to need and desire the assistance of the King of Navar and his Protestants with whom he had broken faith against those for whom to comply with their perfidious and rebellious humours he did it and by them notwithstanding thus brought to his end and murthered with whom he had so basely complied in that perfidious dealing this we may likewise with great reason look upon as a just judgment of God upon him for that his perfidious dealing with the Protestants And certainly if all the circumstances of the History from that barbarous Massacre of the Protestants at Merindol and Cabriers under Francis 2. to the death of this his Grand-son Henr. 3. the last of his race for almost 50 years be duly considered it will be hard to find in any History a more eminent example of Divine Vengeance prosecuting a Family to the utter extirpation of it than this an example wherein the judgment of God is more conspicuous and remarkable or the causes of that judgment more manifest and apparent wherein the sin and the punishment do more exactly agree or of a more remarkable distinguishing providence if with this the hapy reign and actions of their neighbour Prince Queen Elizabeth be impartially compared This was a judgment not upon one person alone nor upon a Family so as to involve all in one sudden destruction as is sometimes seen but a continued prosecution of vengeance against a whole Family for three generations without intermission V. Sect. 39. the Grand-father Fran. 1. not long enjoying himself or his life after he had authorized that fatal persecution His Son Henr. 2. having time to repent and reform and admonished so to do by his dying Father but persevering in his Fathers sin cut off by a violent death in the height and heat of his persecutions against the Protestants and upon his consummation of an agreement for a War against them His four Sons all living to be men but not to half the age of men three of them coming successively to the Crown but so as rather only to wear the Crown than by a just and peaceable exercise of their authority to sway the Scepter being at first over-ruled by the deceitful and pernicious counsels of their Mother and her Italians and the violent courses of the Guisian Faction to destroy their subjects and at last necessitated by the bold attempts of the Guisians and fury of the Leaguers to fight for Crown Liberty and Life against them whereby they and their Kingdom were continually embroiled in Civil Wars and miserable confusions each of them succeeding other as in their access to the Crown so in their unhappy reign if they might be said to reign while so obnoxious to the wills of others and continually imbroiled in such confusions and exit and catastophre of it the first Francis 2. cut off by a death remarkable though not for the kind yet for the time and season of it both in respect of his years and of those who were preserved by it V. Sect. 40. p. 63 64. the next Charles 9. living some years longer and thereby more capable by his own personal management of the affairs of the Kingdom to derive the guilt of his Ancestors miscarriages upon himself and increase it by his own which accordingly he did in no mean degree being likewise cut off by a death every way remarkable in respect both of the time and all other circumstances and lastly the third Brother Hen. 3. coming likewise to that unhappy end which hath been but now related all of them with their Brother Alancon dying without issue to succeed them Nor did this fate attend only the succession but light also upon those who were incapable to succeed in the Government their bastard Brother Angolesme who had been a forward actor in the Massacre being also as hath been said cut off by a violent death and of their Sisters Elizabeth the eldest * V. Sect. 39. p. 60. married to Phil. 2. of Spain a Marriage concluded with an agreement between him and her Father of a War against the Protestants but solemnized with the otherwise untimely death of her Father and by Philip her Husband first employed in the * V. Sect. 42. p. 74. Consultation at Bayonne and at last brought to that †V. Sect. 44. unhappy end when great with child and in the 23 th year of her age which hath been mentioned before and is more fully related in the late French History of Dom Carlos and Margaret the youngest first forced by her Mother and Brother Charles to a Marriage with the King of Navar that unhappy Marriage which was made the introduction to the Massacre afterwards for her * V. Busbeq ep Aug. 27. 1583. Da. p. 599. Thu. l. 80. lewdness and incontinency reproachfully turned from the Court by her next Brother Henr. 3. and at last divorced from her Husband when King of France without issue by him unless she had any by any other which was kept secret as her Brother objected to her If their other Sister Claud married to Charles Duke of Lorain was less unhappy in this respect she seems less to have merited the like misfortune for we meet with no mention of her in all the story of these confusions in France Thus were five Kings in a continued succession cut off besides three others of the same line the youngest son of Francis 1. in few months after the beginning of those persecutions at his age of 23. and the second and youngest of Hen. 2. who never came to the Crown and their whole line and posterity extirpated in France while they sought the extirpation of the Protestants there whereby the Crown at last notwithstanding all opposition and endeavours to hinder it descended to a Protestant Prince and all this by a constant course of Divine Vengeance upon that Family for about 44 years for so long it was from the execution of the Decree of the Parliament of Province Apr. 1545. and
a contrary strength against those which were seditious and movers of troubles Therefore he comes into the City though many were greatly disturbed at it to whom when they importunately dehorted him both by letter and word of mouth he after he had given them thanks answered in one word That he was resolved now that Peace was concluded and things past forgotten to rely upon the faith of the King and that he had rather be dragged through the streets of Paris than to take up Civil Arms again 2. Among other letters there was one brought to him being now come to Paris written very smartly after this manner Remember that it is an established Decree of the Papists upon the account of Religion and confirmed by the authority of Councils that Faith is not to be kept with hereticks in the number of which Protestants are accounted Remember also that Protestants upon the account of the former Wars do lie under an eternal odium so that it is not to be doubted but this is the Queens resolution that Protestants be rooted out by any means whatsoever Add to this that it cannot be but that a woman that is a stranger and an Italian descended of the race of the Popes whom they oppose and of a Florentine and guileful nature should study all extremities against her enemies Consider moreover in what School the King was educated in which he drew in with his milk under his good Tutors this Doctrine that he should make it a sport to swear and forswear to use the name of God profanely to defile himself with Whoredomes and Adulteries to dissemble his Faith Religion Counsels to set his countenance according to occasion And that he might be accustomed to the effusion of the bloud of his Subjects he was taught from his childhood to behold the slaughters and butcheries of * And of men also v. l. 24. p. 275. beasts that he is setled in this perswasion to suffer no Religion in his Kingdom but that which may uphold his state according to the opinion of his Master Machiavel otherwise it would never be at Peace so long as two Religions flourished in it and that it was instilled into his ears that the Protestants did decree to spoil him of his Life and Empire And therefore he would never suffer the Protestants who had once whether upon a just or unjust cause taken up Arms against him to enjoy the benefit of his Edict but that he would with Arms revenge what was done with Arms against him nor would he look upon himself obliged to keep his Covenants which he had entred into with his armed Subjects These are the Arts of Princes the Elements of Policy the Arcana Imperii So Commodus of old commanded Julian whom he owned and embraced as his Father to be slain Thus Antonius Caracalla under pretence of mustering slew the prime youth of the City So Lysander cut the throats of eight hundred Milesians called together under pretence of friendship and society So Sergius Galba raged upon six thousand Spaniards and lately by the command of Antonius Spinola the chief men of the Isle of Corsica were called together to a Feast and slain In our memory did Christiern a King of a barbarous nature use the same arts in the Massacre of Stockholm So heretofore Charles 7 though reconciled to the Duke of Burgundy yet abstained not from killing him though he begged for his life Nor are the discourses that the King lately had with his mother at Blois unknown For when in a jocular manner profanely using as his custom is the name of God he asked her whether he had not acted his part handsomely at the coming of the Queen of Navar the Queen answered that he had begun well but these beginnings would little advantage him unless he proceeded But I said he with often repeated oaths will bring them all into your toils From these words the truth whereof you may be assured of you ought to take counsel and if you are wise get out of the City and so from the Court as from a most filthy sink with all the speed as may be 3. Coligni having read this letter though he was not a little troubled at it yet that he might not seem altogether to neglect the admonitions and intreaties of his friends made answer That there was no place left for these suspitions that he could never perswade himself that so great perfidiousness could enter into so good a King than whom France for this many years never had a better That Anjou indeed was more averse to the Protestant party but that hatred would now cease even out of respect to the affinity contracted with the King of Navar. For the rest the League entred into with England and that which the King was now making with the Protestant Princes of the Empire did sufficiently shew how he stood affected to the Protestants when as he would have one of the Sons of the Elector Palatine in his retinue and some one of the English Nobles as Leicester or Burgleii who were most forward for Religion Moreover he had given his Faith to the Prince of Orange and Nassau his Brother concerning aids against the Spaniards and that a great supply was preparing in the place of those who were routed under Jenlis their leader That John Galeacius Fulgosius who lately returned from Florence did assure them that Cosunus would lend the King two hundred thousand Aurei towards that War That the King's Ambassador did carefully pry into the counsels of the Duke of Alva and daily acquaint the King with them That this he knew every day from the King That the Navy that Philip Strossy and Polinius Garda do command at Broage and upon the Coasts of Poictou was not prepared to any other use but to disturb the Spanish Fleet which being done it shall go to help the Prince of Orange at Flushing As for himself and his own particular safety all might be secure of that for that he through the King's means is reconciled to the Guises each engaging their Faith to the King that they would neither of them hereafter impeach one the other Lastly that the King did all he could to make Peace at home and War abroad and that he might transfer the War into the Low-Countreys and against the Spaniards Wherefore he prayed the Author of the writing and others that are of his mind that they would no more with these suspitions trouble his mind which was taken up with more weighty businesses and better designs but rather that they would joyning their prayers with his beg of God that he would prosper things so well begun and bring them at last to an happy end for the good of the Church and Kingdom 4. The same things were written to Coligni from the Rochellers which he did in as friendly manner take off with all moderation and constancy Therefore when they could not divert him from that mind they set upon the King of Navar with
he should afford no occasion of mischief to the audacity and violentness of the Guisians things being so enflamed and the people enclining to the Guisian party That he should command those whom he knew most faithful of his servants to come into the Louvre to be ready upon any sudden accident which Navar did interpreting it in good part calling those which were most active to lodge with him that night in the Louvre Castle Wise men also did presage some future commotions when they observed armed men to run up and down about the City and the Louvre the people to mutter threatnings to be every where heard This being brought to Coligny he who no way doubted of the good will of the King but thought it to be the devise of the Guisians to enflame the people sends one to the King who should in his name acquaint him with it To whom the King answered that Coligny need fear nothing for those things were done by his command to compose the tumults of the people that were stirred up by the Guisians Therefore that his mind might be secure It was also told Teligny the very same hour that Porters laden with Arms were seen to be brought into the Louvre but he contemned the message and answered that unnecessary suspitions were sought for in this sad and dismal time and forbad that this should be made known to Coligny affecting the unseasonable reputation of prudence and moderation from his despising of reports and consequently of dangers and excusing the matter as if those Arms were carried into the Louvre upon the account of a Castle represented and assaulted in a shew 16. Forthwith Guise to whom the chief command of the execution of the whole matter was committed calling together in the deep of night some Captains of the Switzers and the Captains of the French Troops explains to them the Kings will and pleasure That the time was come wherein by the King's command punishment should be taken upon that head that was so hateful both to God and men and also upon the whole faction of the Rebels that the beast was now in their toils that they should take care that he escape not that they should not be wanting to such an opportune occasion of obtaining a more glorious triumph than they ever yet obtained in all their former Wars with the bloud of so many Royallists that the Victory was easy that rich spoils are proposed which they might acquire without bloud as rewards of their good service Upon this the Switzers are placed about the Louvre to whom are joyned the French Troops and command was given that they should look to it that no man of the Family of Navar or Conde should go out of the Louvre The keeping of Coligny's house was committed to Cossenius to whom was given a party of Musquetteers to lie in the neighbouring houses that none might escape them Matters being so disposed as to the foreign Souldiers the Duke of Guise calls to him John Charron President of the Court of Revenues who after a long canvasing and often repulses was at last put into that Office in the place of Marcellus Provost of the Merchants and commands him that he should give notice to the Corporals to command their Souldiers to their Arms but that they should remain at the Town-Hall till midnight there to understand what was needful to be done The same thing was given in command to Marcellus who though he was discharged of his office yet for some private good offices that he had done was retained in the Queens favour and kept his authority though he lost his dignity He by often going to the Court brought himself into an opinion with men that he was in favour with the King and Queen and upon that account was acceptable to the people and from his mouth the people that were of themselves apt enough to stirs were certified That it was the King's pleasure that they should take Arms to cut off Coligny and the other Rebels that therefore they should see to it that none were spared nor that those wicked men should be any where concealed So the King will have it so he commands who also will provide that other Cities of the Kingdom do presently follow the example of the Parisians The sign at which they should rise is the tolling of the bell of the Palace-clock The Mark whereby they should be distinguished from others is white linen-cloath bound about their left arm and a white cross in their hats That good store of them should therefore be ready with arms and good courage and take care that candles be lighted in their windows throughout all their houses that no stir or tumult arise before the sign given The commands and admonitions of Marcellus are readily received by the Corporals Colonels Captains and Wardsmen of the City who put themselves into a posture with the greatest silence that the sudden state of things would permit setting their Guards in the streets and passages but at first within dores On the other part the Duke of Guise and Angolesme did what they could that things might be done as they were ordered The Queen fearing lest the King whom she thought she did observe still wavering and staggering at the horridness of the enterprize should change his mind comes into his Bed chamber at midnight whither presently Anjou Nevers Biragus Tavannes Radesianus and after them Guise came by agreement There they immind the King besitating and after a long discourse had to and fro upbraided by his Mother that by his delaying he would let slip a fair occasion offered him by God of subduing his enemies By which speech * He died in less than two years after of a Bloudy-flux proceeding as was suspected from poison given him by the procurement of his Mother and Brother Anjou v. l. 57. the King finding himself accused of Cowardise and being of himself of a fierce nature and accustomed to bloud-shed was inflamed and gave command to put the thing in execution Therefore the Queen laying hold of his present heat lest by delaying it should slack commands that the sign which was to have been given at break of day should be hastened and that the Bell of the nearer Church of St. German Auxerrois should be tolled 17. The Souldiers had for some time stood ready in their Arms drawn up in the streets expecting the sign with greedy ears and desires by whose clattering and unusual noise at so unseasonable a time the Protestants who lodged by the King's command in the neighbouring lodgings being awakened went forth and repaired toward the Louvre where the concourse was and enquiring of those they met what was the meaning of that concourse of so many armed men and why so many candles were lighted they as they were instructed before-hand answered that there was a certain mock-fight preparing and that many from all parts did flock together to the sight But when notwithstanding they went on further they are
till he could raise his passion by which speech he for some time eluded their cruelty but by and by a Messenger coming from the Palace as from the King he was forced to deliver him into the hands of the Guard who were to carry him before the King but they in the way first stabbed Lavardinus with daggers and then threw him over the Mill bridge into the River The same fortune and in the same place ran Claudius Gaudimdus an excellent Mositian in our Age who set the Psalms of David as they were put into verse in the Mother-tongue by Clemens Marot and Theodoret Beza to divers pleasant tunes as they are now sung in the publick and private meetings of the Protestants Briolius a Gentleman who was Tutor to Marquess Conte in his childhood venerable for his grey head being now an old man was likewise slain in the embraces of his Pupil who stretched forth his arms and opposed his own body to the blows Truly lamentable was the spectacle of Franciscus Nâ—mpar Cammoâ—dius who had lodged in that neighbourhood but which fortune sporting after her manner mingled with an event of unexpected joyfulness he with his two sons whom he loved with a paternal affection being taken in bed by the murderers who prosecuted him with his children not through an hatred of his Religion but through hope of gain was slain with one of his sons the other being all bloudy with the bloud that flowed upon him saving himself from their blows as he could at that tender age for he was hardly twelve years old by the interposition of the dead bodies dissembling himself dead he was at last left by them for dead a little after more 〈◊〉 flocking to the house for prey of whom some commended the fact as well done for not only wild beasts but their whelps are altogether to be destroyed others that had more humanity said this might be lawful to be done upon the Father as guilty but the innocent off spring which perhaps would never take the same courses ought to be spared Among those that came toward the evening of that day when as one did highly detest the fact and said God would be the avenger of such impiety the boy stretching his limbs and a little lifting up his head gave signs that he was alive and when he asked him who he was he answered not unadvisedly that he was the Son and Brother of the slain not telling his name concerning which when he was asked again he answered that he would tell his name if he would lead him where he desired and withal asked him that he would take care to conduct him to the King's Armory for he was near of kin to Biron Master of the Ordnance or Artillery nor should he lose his reward for so great a benefit which thing he carefully performed This James Nompar that is his name with great gratitude rewarded the man brought to him by the Divine Providence and afterwards married the Daughter of Biron and is now chief of a Noble Family in Aquitania Godfry Caumont his Unckle being dead and leaving only one Daughter Being raised by the King to great honours of which he carried himself worthy as Colonel of the King's Life-guard and Governour of Bearne he seems to be preserved from that danger by the singular Grace of God that he might by his numerous off spring which he had by his Wife propagate that Family that was reduced to a few and by his virtue add the highest ornament to the honours of his Ancestors The same day were slain these Protestants of great note Loverius thrown out of a window into the high-way Montamarius Montalbertus Roboreus Joachinus Vassorius Cunerius Rupius Cobombarius Velavaurius Gervasius Barberius Francurius Chancellor to the King of Navar Hieronimus Grolotius Governour of Aurleance and Calistus his base Brother who were both inhumanely dragged about the streets and at last cast into the River by the instigation of those who gaped after his office and goods Stephanus Cevalerius Pruneus the King's Treasurer in Poictou a man of great integrity and one that was very solicitous for the good of the Common-weal who had been the principal mover for the building the Stone-bridge of Vienne laid at Eraldi-castrum was by certain cut-throats sent by Stephanus Fergo Petauderius who sought after his Treasurer-ship after the payment of a great sum of mony cruelly murdered and thrown into the River and Patanderius is by the commendation of Monpenserius whose affairs he managed put into his office Also Dionysius Perrotus the Son of Aemilius Senator of Paris a man not less renowned for his integrity than his knowledge in law worthy of such a Father underwent the same fortune 19. Nor did they spare those whom Navar being advised so to do by the King had brought into the Palace for they were by the King's command made to come down from their Masters chambers into the Court-yard and being brought out of the Palace their swords being taken from them they were many of them presently slain at the Gate others were hurried to the slaughter without the Palace Among these were Pardallanius Sammartinus Bursius and Armannus Claromontius Pilius famous for his late valour in defending the Temple of St. John He when he was led out to be butchered standing before the heaps of the slain is said to cry out Is this the King's faith Are these his promises Is this the peace But thou O most great and most good God behold the cause of the oppressed and as a just Judge avenge this perfidy and cruelty and putting off his Coat which was very rich gave it to a certain Gentleman of his acquaintance that stood by Take this from me as a remembrance of my unworthy death which gift he not accepting under that condition whiles Pilius said these things he was thrust into the side with a spear of which wound he fell down and died Leiranus now grievously wounded but escaping out of the hands of the murderers rushing into the Queen of of Navars chamber and hiding himself under her bed was preserved and being carefully commended by Margaret to the King's Physitians was healed Bellonarius formerly Tutor to the King of Navar having a long time lien under the Gout was slain in his bed The King received to his grace Grammontanus Lord of Gascoign Johannes Durforlius Duralius Joachimus Roaldus Gamarius and Buchavarius having promised to be faithful to him and they were worth their word Then the King calls Navar and Conde and tells them that from his youth for many years the publick peace had been disturbed by often renewed wars to the great damage of his affairs but now at last by the grace of God he had entred into such a course as would extirpate all causes of future wars That Coligny the author of these troubles was slain by his command and that the same punishment was taken throughout the City upon those wicked men who were infected with the poison of superstition That
he remembred what great mischiefs had befallen him from them Navar and Conde who had headed a company of profligate persons and seditiously raised war against him That he had just reason to revenge these injuries and now also had an opportunity put into his hand but that he would pardon what was past upon the account of their consanguinity and the lately contracted affinity and lastly of their age and that he would think that these things were not done by the advice or fault of them but of Coligny and his followers who had already or should shortly receive the just deserts of their wickedness that he was willing that those things should be buried in oblivion provided they would make amends for their former offences by their future loyalty and obedience and renouncing their profane superstitious Doctrine would return to the Religion of their Ancestors that is to the Roman Catholick Religion for he would have only that Religion professed in his Kingdom which he had received from his fore-Fathers Therefore that they should look to it that they do comply with him herein otherwise they might know that the same punishment which others had suffered did hang over their heads To this the King of Navar did most humbly beg that no violence might be offered to their consciences nor persons and that then they would remain faithful to him and were ready to satisfy him in all things But Conde added that he could not perswade himself that the King who had engaged himself by solemn oath to all the Protestant Princes of his Kingdom would upon any account violate it or hearken to their enemies and adversaries in that matter As to Religion that was not to be commanded that his life and fortunes were in the King's power to do with them what he pleased but that he knew he was to give an account only to God of that Religion that he had received from God Therefore that he was fixed and resolved never to recede from his Religion which he knew assuredly was true no not for any present danger of life With which answer the King being highly provoked he called Conde stubborn seditious Rebel and the son of a Rebel and told him that if he did not change his mind within three days his head should pay for his obstinacy 20. Many of the Protestant Nobles had taken up their lodgings in the Suburbs of St. German and could not be perswaded to lie in the City Among these were Johannes Roanus Frontenaeus Godofridus Caumonlius Vidame of Chartres Gabriel Mongomerius Jo. Lafinius Bellovarius Segurius Pardallanius and others The destroying of whom was given in charge to Laurentius Maugironus and besides Marcells was ordered to take care that 1000 Souldiers of the City Trained-Bands should be sent thither to Maugironus who went but slowly on in his business While this was doing tidings came to Mongomery of the rumor of taking up Arms in the City who signified the same to the Vidame of Chartres and presently they met all together uncertain what was to be done for that many confiding in the King's faithfulness perswaded themselves that this was done without the King's command by the Guisians encouraged by the forwardness of the seditious people therefore they thought it was best to go to the King and that he would succour them against any violence In that doubtfulness of mind though the more prudent did not doubt that these things were done by agreement and by the King's command were many hours spent so that they might easily have been destroyed but that another impediment happened to the Conspirators for whiles Maugironus doth in vain expect Parisians to be sent from Guise who were all busied in plundering Guise impatient of further delays calls forth the King's Guards out of the Louvre intending whiles they passed the River to go thither himselfe And when he came to the gates it did too late appear that they had mistaken the keys therefore while they sent for others it being now broad day the Switzers and others of the King's Guards passing the Siene were seen from the other side and upon the discharging of a Gun on the other side of the River as was thought by the King's command the Associates take counsel to fly and before they came were gotten a good way off Guise pursued Mongomery and others to Montfort but in vain and meeting with Sanleodegarius he commands him that he should follow them with fresh horses There were some sent to Udencum and to Dreux who should intercept them if they went that way but all in vain Franciscus Bricomotius who could not be destroyed in the tumult flies to the English Ambassadors lodgings †In Bernardinorum caio. where he for some days lay hid Arnoldus Cavagnius also hid himself not far from hence with a friend who fearing the danger desired him to provide for himself but both being taken were cast into the Palace prison and with that event which we shall shew anon In the mean time Guise with Aumale and Angolesme return into the City where the King's Guards did commit outrages upon the lives and fortunes of the Protestant Nobles and Gentlemen even of those that were their familiars and well known to them This work being assigned to them in particular whiles the people incited by the Sheriffs wardsmen and tything-men that ran about did furiously rage with all manner of licentiousness and excess against their fellow-Citizens and a sad and horrid face of things did every where appear For the streets and ways did resound with the noise of those that flocked to the slaughter and plunder and the complaints and doleful out-cries of dying men and those that were nigh to danger were every where heard The carkasses of the slain were thrown down from the windows the Courts chambers of houses were full of dead men their dead bodies rolled in dirt were dragged through the streets bloud did flow in such abundance through the chanels of the streets that full streams of bloud did run down into the River the number of the slain men women even those that were great with child and children also was innumerable Annas Terrerius Chapius being eighty years old and an Advocate of great name in the Senate was slain Also Jo. Lomerius Secretary to the King having compounded for his safety was thrown into Gaol by Johannes Parisiensis Judge of Criminals and having sold * Versalium fundum his Estate at Versailles to his adversary with whom he had a Suit depending about it at a low rate and leaving his office upon the account of another was afterwards slain by the command of those with whom he had those dealings Magdalena Brissonetta the Relict of Theobaldus Longiolius an Irish-man Master of the Requests Neece of Cardinal Gulielmus Brissonettus and besides a woman of most rare accomplishments and of no mean learning when in old apparel taking with her her daughter Francisca and Johannes Spina a noted Preacher who was her
and many thrown into the River Mandelotus being offended at the horror of the sight of the bodies of the slain lying in the Court of the Arch-Bishop's house commanded them to be put into boats and carried to the other side of the River that they might be buried in the Church-yard of the Monastery of Aisnay where was formerly the Altar of Lions and sent men thither to see them buried But the Monks said they would never suffer that and that those carkasses were unworthy of burial Therefore upon a sign given there is a concourse made and they are thrown by the enraged people into the River the grosser bodies being given to the Apothecaries upon their desir for their fat as is reported by those who wrote whiles things were fresh Nor did the slaughter stay here For not long after the two Brothers Darutii Merchants of great account Labessaeus Galterus and Floccardus honourable Citizens being brought out of the prison had their throats cut and were cast into the River Rhone Among these slaughters some escaped by the help of the guards and the favour of Manta the Governor among whom were Jo. Ricaldus and Antonius Callia Pastors of the City when as Joannes Anglus chief Pastor was slain in the first tumult it is said that 800 of all kinds and sexes were barbarously slain the carkasses of the slain swimming down Rhone to Turnonium lay so thick about the banks that the Townsmen affrighted at the accident cried Arm Arm as if the enemy had been coming upon them by and by being amazed with horror and detesting the authors of such a villany though they had no favour for the Religion of the Protestants to remove that sad spectacle they set men to thrust the bodies off with poles from the banks which the swift stream brought down So horrid a spectacle they also detested at Vienne at Valence at Burgh at Viviers at the Temple of the Spirit yea at Avenion where there is great hatred of the Protestants But at Arles when through want of wells and springs they drink of the water of the River the Townsmen besides the detestableness of the villany were grievously distressed when as they would not use the fishes and water that they could be supplied with only from Rhone yea they abhorred the very sight of the River 28. But in Dauphine and Provence things were carried after far another manner For Claudius Sabaudus Count of Tende who was very nearly allied to the Momorancies when Letters were brought him about the same business by Josephus Bonifacius Mola who two years after came to an †Being executed and his quarters set upon the City-gates unhappy end at Paris ingenuously answered that he did not think that that was the King's pleasure but that some that were evilly affected to the publick Peace did falsly pretend his name when as not many days since he had received quite other commands that therefore he would rather obey the former as more worthy of the King's Faith and Clemency But he not long after being at Avignon died of a sudden disease to the great grief of the people of Provence not without suspition given him by the Emissaries of the seditious In Dauphine Bertrandus Simienus Gordius educated in the Family of the Momorancies receiving the same command he excused himself pretending the great danger he was like to be in from the powerfulness of Mombranius and other Protestants in * In allobrogibus Savoy and Dauphine yet some were slain at Valence Also at Romans there were some slain though it were late first Septembr 22. viz. 10 Kal. VIII br where when many of that great number that was cast into the prison for fear of death returned to the Religion of their Ancestors only seven were stabbed with daggers by the raging people Also Santeranus Governor of Auvergne who also was well affected to the Momorancies used the same moderation and made the same answer to those that came posting to him from Court that the Count of Tende had done before him adding to this moreover that he would never obey such commands unless the King in person did command him Greater was the fury that did rage at Tholouse for news of what had been done at Paris being brought prid Kal. VII br August 31. which was the Lord's-day upon which the Protestants went out of the City to Castanetum to Sermon straitway the Gates were shut up and care was taken that no one should go out but that whosoever would might come in But many of those that had gone out would not return into the City but went thence to †Podium Laurentii le Puy St. Laurence Montauban * Regium montem Regimont and some one way some another Two days after by authority of the Senate publick Proclamation was made that no violence or molestation should be offered to the Protestants The day following Guards being set at the Gates of the City and in the Streets those that were suspected are some of them distributed into Monasteries others are cast into the common prisons some days after upon the coming from Court of Delpechius and Madronius rich Merchants and most bitter enemies to the Protestants they were all thrown into the Palace prison where presently in the night by certain cut-throats chosen out of the Students of the Civil Law that went to the Fencing-School among whom one Turrius was most eminent together with other men of lewd life and conversation 200 were barbarously slain and among them some Senators and in the first place Johannes Corasius who afterwards to double their cruelty were hanged in their Senatorian habits upon an Elm growing in the Palace-yard the bodies of the dead were buried in a ditch made in the Arch-Bishop's house At the same time but with greater slaughter were things carried at Rouen where Tanaquilius Venator Carrugius the Governor of the chief Nobility of Provence a man of a merciful disposition did what he could to hinder it But at last not being able any longer to withstand the violence of the seditious and especially of those who the year before were by the decree of the Judges delegated from Paris proscribed who hoped that by this course they should both revenge the injury offered them and also obliterate the memory of the Decree many were thrown into prison and afterwards 15 Kal. of VIII br being called out one by one by the voice of the Cryer were cruelly slain by those Emissaries Septemb. 17. Maronimus a most wicked wretch leading them on Upon this they set upon private houses and that day and the day following they sell upon men women without distinction and 500 of both sexes and all ages were slain and their bodies being stripped were cast into the ditches ad Portam Caletensem and their garments all bloudy as they were were distributed among the poor they seeking even by these murders to ingratiate themselves with the people This the Senate was in
ignorant of these last counsels of Coligni be comprehended in the same guilt To whom doth it not seem absurd and most ridiculous that Coligni should at so unseasonable a time conspire against Navar that professed the same Religion with him and whom he had in his power for four years together Thus many did discourse and so they judged that upon the account of this fact the French Name would for a long time labour under an odium and infamy and that posterity would never forget an act of so great unworthiness Typographical Errors to be Corrected as followeth in THe Hist of the Massacre Pag. 5. l. 1. Burleigh l. 7. Cosmus p. 7. l. 4. compact p. 8. l. 10. when he l. 36. Palace near the Louvre p. 12. l. 1. receive p. 13. l. 28. Antonius Marafinus Guerchius without commas so p. 14. l. 2. Rochus Sorbaeus Prunaeus l. 7. Armanus Claromontius Pilius l. 8. Moninius l. 26. racket p. 18. l. 7. your Kingdom p. 21. l. 9. as he did p. 28. l. 11. Cossenius l. 36. Atinius l. 37. Sarlaboux p. 29. l. 5. Merlin the Minister Coligny p. 32. l. 32. Claromontius Marquess of Renel p. 34. l. 19. Caumontius p. 35. l. 25. Montalbertus Roboreus Joach Vassorius Cunerius Rupius Columbarius Velavaurius Gervasius Barberius Francurius p. 36. l. 15. Armanus Claromontius Pilius l. 32. Bellovarius l. 36. Durfortius Duracius l. 37. Gomacius Buchavanius p. 40. l. 36. Perionius p. 41. l. 13. Languages who had private feuds and contentions with Carpentar l. 22. to those l. 30. Roliardus p. 43. l. 2. Sancomontius Sauromanius l. 3. Bricomotius p. 53. l. 33. Meletinus p. 57. l. 17. Arles where l. 36. suspition of poison given p. 58. l. 2. Momhrunius p. 62. l. 20. Helionorus Chabotius p. 63. l. 11. Chabotius THe Hist of the Powder-Plot Pag. 8. l. 27. Harrington p. 14. l. 30. detest p. 15. l. 21. for wikes r. de Vic p. 16. in marg So on the p. 22. l. 27. dele Book entituled l. 29. for Provincial 1. Father General A TRUE NARRATION Of that Horrible CONSPIRACY AGAINST King JAMES And the whole PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND Commonly called the Gun-Powder TREASON Written in Latine by Jacobus Augustus Thuanus Privy-Councillor to the King of France and President of the Supream Senate of that Kingdom Faithfully rendred into English LONDON Printed for John Leigh at the Sign of the Blew Bell by Flying-Horse Court in Fleet-street 1674. The History of the Powder-Plot Translated out of Thuanus lib. 135. MDCV. NOw shall we in a contiued Relation declare that Horrid and by all Parties justly * So detestable it seems it was to some of the Students of the English Colledge at Rome that being informed of the discovery of the Plot Sixteen of them abhorring such jugling and bloody Designs forsook the Colledge slipt into France some of them turning to the Church of England whither they came Foulis Hist of Popish Treasons li. 10. c. 2. p. 692. detested Conspiracy entred into a-against the King of Great Britain which being discovered about the end of this year 1605 was in the next year suppressed by the Death of the Conspirators To the Petition for Liberty of Conscience made by the Papists in the former Session of Parliament and rejected by the King there was a rumour there would be another preferred at the next Sessions which had been now often deferred which should be in no danger of being denyed as the former but should carry with it a necessity of being granted by the King whither he would or not Therefore those that managed the Affairs of the Kingdom under a generous and no wayes suspicious King fearing nothing worse did make it their business to avoid such Petitions and that necessity that did attend them But among the Conspirators it was consulted not how they might obtain the Kings favour which they now despaired of but how they might revenge that repulse though with the ruine of the Kingdom which the other never thought of The beginning of these Counsels are to be derived from the latter end of Q. Elizabeth For then as appeared afterwards by proofs and confessions Robert Winter to whom Oswald Tesmond alias Greenwell of the Society of the Jesuits joyned himself as his Companion was by the advice of Hen. Garnet Provincial or Superiour of the said Society in England Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham of the Gentry instigating privately sent into Spain in the name of the Catholicks with Letters Commendatory to Arthur Creswell of the same Society living in Spain Dec. 1601. Mandatis and with Commands to the King of which this was the summe That he should forthwith send an Army into England for which the Catholicks would be ready in Arms as soon as it came over In the mean while that he should assign yearly Pensions to some Catholick Gentlemen Furthermore that he should insinuate it to the King that there were some Gentlemen and Military persons that were aggrieved at the Present state of things whom he might easily draw to his Part by relieving their necessities And whereas the greatest difficulty after the Landing such an Army would be for supply of Horses they in England would take care to have Two thousand Horses ready provided upon all occasions This thing was secretly transacted by the Mediation of Creswell with Petrus Francesa Secretary to King Philip and Franciscus Sandovallius Duke of Lerma and he affirmed that the thing would be very acceptable to King Philip and that he had offered his utmost assistance that it was also agreed among them of the Place of Landing For if the forces were great then Kent and Essex would be most commodious for their Landing if less Milford in Wales and that King Philip had promised by Count Miranda toward that Expedition Ten hundred thousand Crowns Decies centena aureorum M. Stored with these promises Winter returns into England and acquaints Garnet Catesby and Tresham what he had done These things were transacted under Q Elizabeth who dying about this time Christopher Wright who was privy to these Matters is speedily sent into Spain Mar. 1603. who bringing the News of the Queens Death Sir Will. Stanly presseth the business of the Pensions and the Expedition With him was sent from Bruxells by William Stanly Hugh Owen and Balduinus one of the Society of the Jesuits Guido Fawkes 22 Jun. 1603. with Letters to Creswell that he should speed the business To him was given in Command that he should signifie to the King that the Condition of the Catholicks would be more hard under the new King then it had been under Q. Elizabeth and therefore that he should by no means desist from so laudable an Enterprize That Milford lay open for an easie Landing to Spinola But the state of things was changed by the death of the Queen and King Philip returned an Answer worthy of a King that he could no longer attend to their Petitions
and they had the Author of it in Custody and Bonds The fame of this being spread abroad for in so great a matter of Joy it could not be concealed the Conspirators fly some this way some that way and meet together at Holbech at the house of Stephen Littleton in the borders of Stafford-shire Thither came those that were privy to the Conspiracy out of Warwick shire and Worcester-shire although they were ignorant of the discovery of the Plot having taken away by force from Gentlemens houses their Warr-horses thereby giving a manifest token what they would have done when they had got the power in their hands when as they ravaged with such boldness while the event was yet doubtful The Leaders of the Faction trusted that great numbers of Men and a considerable Army would flock into them as soon as they should appear in Arms. But the Lieutenants and Sheriffs being before while the Treason was only suspected Commanded by the King to ride about their Counties their attempts were all made void and scarcely an Hundred of all that number appeared in Arms. And they were encompassed by Richard Walsh High Sheriff of the County of Worcester who came upon them unexpectedly with a strong power of Men so that they could not escape When despairing of Pardon and their troubled Consciences putting them upon desperate exploits the Gun-powder that was drying by the Fire took fire by a sparkle that fell into it and so suddenly burnt the Faces Sides Arms Hands of the Besieged that they were rendered unable to handle their Arms and so lost their strength and courage together Catesby and Percy that were most active together with Tho. Winter while they betake themselves to a corner of the house are both shot through with a Leaden Bullet Winter being wounded fell into the hands of the Kings Party both the Wrights were slain Grant Digby Rockwood and Bates were taken Prisoners Tresham whiles shifting his Lodgings in London he sometime escaped yet at last was taken Robert Winter and Littleton a long time wandring up and down the Woods at last fell into the hands of the Guards and were all committed to the Tower at London Being Examined without the rack for only Fawks was put under this way of Examination and that but moderately they severally discovered the whole series of the matter as we have before recounted and taxed none in Holy Orders which many looked upon as purposely avoided because they were bound by Oath not to do it When as Francis Tresham had before he dyed in Prison of his own accord nominated Henry Garnet being admonished thereof by his Wife he wrote a Letter to the Earl of Salisbury and excusing his too rash confession he so discharged Garnet as much as in him lay by a solemn adjuration interposed that he did entangle himself in a notorious lye affirming †He took it upon his Salvation even in articulo mortis a lamentable thing for within three hours after he dyed Proceedings against the late Traitors C c 2.3 that he had not seen Garnet of sixteen years when as it did appear afterward by the confession of Garnet * And of Mrs. Anne Vaux who confessed that she had seen Mr. Tresham with Garnet at her house three or four times since the Kings coming in and that they were at Erith together the last Summer and that Garnet and she were not long since with Mr. Tresham at his house in Northampton-shire and stayed there Proceedings ibid. that they had often and for a long time together conversed one with another before the six Moneths last past MDCVI Digby confessing the matter as it was in truth endeavoured †He sought to clear all the Jesuits of those practises whith they themselves have now confessed ex ore proprio Proceedings ibid. Even at the time of Garnets Tryal was current throughout the Town a report of a Retractation under Bates his hand of his accusation of Greenwell Proceedings ibid. to excuse the horridness of the Fact which he acknowledged and seemed to detect by the desperateness of their condition For being made to hope that the new King upon his coming to the Kingdom would indulge liberty of Conscience to those of the Popish Religion and would permit the exercise thereof with some restriction This being denyed it drove those miserable men unadvisedly to pernicious Counsels Here the Earl of Northampton and Cecil who together with the Earl of Nottingham Suffolk Worcester and Devonshire did sit as Judges in that Cause interposed affirming that the King never gave them any hope of liberty nor ever engaged his word for it but factious persons did maliciously throw such a report abroad that they might have a pretence wherewith to excuse both themselves and such as they were for the Seditions which they raised in the Kingdom At length being Convicted and found Guilty they are condemned to the punishment wont to be inflicted by the Laws of the Realm upon Rebels and Traytors Everard Digby Robert Winter John Grant and Thomas Bates were Executed at London nigh the Western Gate of St. Paul's Church in the later end of January The day following Tho. Winter Ambrose Rockwood Robert Keies and Guido Fawks who confessed that they had wrought in the Vault were Executed at Westmonaster in the Old Palace yard near the Parliament house Upon this many who for this cause were banished or of their own accord changed their Native Soil were most courteously received at Calice by Dominick Wikes Vicus the Governour there for so the King commanded Of whom one was of such a perverse mind that when Wikes did shew himself to bewail his and his Companions fortune and for their comfort added Though they had lost their Native Countrey yet by the Kings grace they had a Neighbouring one allowed them Nay saith the other It is the least part of our grief that we are banished our Native Countrey and that we are forced to change our Soil because every good man counts that his Countrey where he can be well this doth truly and heartily grieve us that we could not bring so generous and wholsom a design to perfection Which as soon as Vicus contrary to his expectation had heard he could hardly for anger abstain from throwing that man into the Sea who gloryed in such a Plot as was damned by all men For so I remember I have heard Vicus often say when together with Alexander Delbenius he came courteously upon the account of our Ancient friendship to visit me a little before he went from us The Plot being discovered the Parliament among publick rejoycings was held with great security To whom the King made a most weighty Oration and set forth the inexpressible Mercy of God over all his works towards Himself his Family and His whole Kingdom largely aggravating the thing from its several circumstances This temperament being * And this conclusion with no less truth That as upon the one part many
and President of the Supreme Senate of that Kingdom but of known and confessed Candor Impartiality Faithfulness and Exactness as an Historian And being one who lived and dyed a Catholick in the Communion of the Church of Rome his Authority hath in that respect some advantage above any of the other Relations which have been written by any of the Reformed party which of it self may be sufficient to refute the Impudence and vanity of all such as would have had the world believe that it was the contrivance either of the * This bloudy design found in the hands of the malefactors was notwithstanding father'd upon the Puritans as Nero did the burning of Rome upon the Christians by some impudent and cunning Jesuits Which some years after I had opportunity at Bruges in Flanders to make Weston and old Jesuit active in the Powder plot ingenuously to confess Wilson ibid. Puritans V. Speed Sect. 48. Wilsons History of King James pag. 32. Foulis pag. 690. or of Cecil the then Secretary to draw those unhappy Gentlemen into it V. Foulis pag. 694. The Papists Apol. answered pag. 31 33. edit 1667. the contrary whereof may easily be perceived in the series of this Relation And indeed the first of these projects was extinguished almost with the plot and the other hath been long since sufficiently disproved and the plot it self confessed by some and defended magnified and gloried in by others of that party and now scarce denyed by any to have been of their own contrivance so that more need not now be said as to that particular though the following considerations if need were might be made use of in that respect 2. This design of Blowing up the Prince and People together hath been commonly taken to have been the contrivance of Catesby and of no ancienter Original than their despair of foreign assistance upon their last negotiation with Spain Of that mind seems our Historian here to have been So also Speed Sect. 33 37. Proceed E. 4. pag. 3. And the truth is there is scarce to be found in print any direct and express proof of other author and contriver or more ancient original of it though possibly we may ere long see it further proved to have been designed in the Queens days against her but upon further consideration of her age not likely according to the course of nature to live long deferred till the coming in of King James In the mean time it may be remembred what is often seen in Judicatories and Tryals of Causes both Civil and Criminal that those things and works of darkness which are carried on and managed with so much secrecy and caution that no direct proof can be made against them are notwithstanding often discovered and brought to light by a heedful and circumspect observation and comparing of circumstances insomuch that the evidence of the truth which is by this means made out is not seldom more satisfactory to all present than the direct and express proof and testimonies of witnesses which many times prove false even then when they seem to be most full and punctual And therefore to prove this contrivance proceeded from other heads than Catesby 's alone and was of longer standing than hath been commonly thought what is yet wanting in direct proofs may in some measure be made up by the consideration of the following Circumstances 3. And first it may be noted that though Catesby be the first of all these Conspirators taken in this plot that did propose it to the rest for ought appears by what was discover'd at their examination and tryals yet doth it not thence follow but it might have been before proposed to him being the most active of them by some other nor doth it any way appear that it was of his own only devising as to omit other reasons is manifest from their attempt who would have fathered it upon Cecil as a trick to ensnare those gentlemen for otherwise there would have been no ground or colour for that pretense 4. It may 2. be remembred that this was not the first time that this means by blowing up by Gunpowder hath been proposed by confederates of that party for the destruction and murther of our Princes For it had been long before proposed by one Moody to be laid under Queen Elizabeth's bed and secretly fired Camden Anno 1587. principio So that this may seem to have been but a further improvement of a former project 5. But 3. to come nearer to this present business There is a passage of the Jesuite Del Rio 6. Disquis Magic cap. 1. edit Lovan 1600. which with the concurrence of other circumstances makes it very suspitious that he was privy to the Contrivance if not the Author of it and which though published in Print some years before the discovery of this plot hath scarce been taken notice of as to this purpose till of late And this it is Pag. 154. Sect. 2. This Section saith he I add by reason of the simplicity of some Confessors and the rashness and malice of some Judges c. Then he first gives us this note that the Seal of Confession hath the same force in all crimes even the most enormous as in the crime of Treason and then makes a distinction between offences committed and offences to be committed and as to offences committed he says it is the opinion of some which seems to be the common opinion of the Canonists that the priest may reveal the offence already committed which he hath learn'd not in the Sacrament of Penance but without it under a promise of secrecy and of the seal of Confession yea that he ought to reveal it before the Judge if he be produced for a witness This opinion Pag. 155. saith he is rejected by others but I think both probable but the latter more safe Then as to offences to be committed when a person will not abstain or amend himself but resolves to accomplish the crime there hath been some Jurists saith he that have thought that they may be revealed by the Confessor This is a dangerous opinion and withdraws men from Confession and therefore he concludes that the common contrary opinion is altogether to be followed That it is not lawful to detect not even Treason against the state In order to a further proof of this Conclusion he tells us what limitations they of this opinion do put upon it this among the rest If the penitent have partners accomplices and he indeed is penitent and promises amendment but he discovers that yet there is danger still lest while be desists the mischief be committed by his accomplices For then they think that to prevent the future damage the Priest may reveal the offence which is to be committed although the penitent consent not And as to this limitation he says it depends upon this Question Pag. 156. Whether a Priest may at any time make use of the discovery which he hath made from
of Secresie from them and by them were absolved after the Plot defeated Nor do we find any in Holy Orders except the Pope himself to have had any hand in it or particular knowledge of it but such as were of this Society of the Jesuites For the Secular Priests though two of them in pursuance of the Popes Bulls immediately upon the coming in of the King were ingaged in a Conspiracy of their own if not trapan'd by the Jesuites V. Stowe Fuller Anno 1603. Sect. 14. against him but of a lower and more ordinary nature and by the Actions of the Jesuites perceived something in general that the Jesuites had then some notable Plot in agitation yet we may reasonably believe that they were utterly unacquainted with the Kind and Particulars of this so high and refined a project above the pitch of their imaginations to conceive not onely from what hath been already said out of their Confessions but also by reason of the differences and dissentions which were then and have since continued between the Jesuites and them V. Declarat Motuum Edit 1601. Watsons Quodlibets Edit 1602. 15. 2. Nor were they two or three Jesuites only in a corner and they of the lower rank or of mean or ordinary authority but such as were of greatest reputation place and Authority among them who were concerned in this business as besides Osw Tesmond alias Greenwel who with Robert Winter was by Garnet Catesby and Tresham Anno 1601. sent into Spain with Letters commendatory to F. Creswel to Negotiate the then intended Spanish Expedition besides Gerrard and Hammond and Hall besides * V. Wilson Hist of King James F. Weston who heretofore Anno 1595. at Wisbich castle by his contention for a Superiority over the other Priests as well as Jesuites began the differences which have since continued between them and in his book de Triplici hominis Officio Printed Anno 1602. foretold of many calamities storms and dangers that were like to ensue upon the Queens death as did also the Author of The Ward-word Printed at Lovane 1599. said to be Parsons as was observed and noted * Answer to the Supplication chap. 4. Edit Lond. 1604. in Print before this Plot was detected besides all these and many more no doubt not yet discovered the Superiour of the whole Order of English Jesuites even their Provincial himself here in England F. Hen. Garnet who had been eighteen years here in England and a promoter of former conspiracies and held correspondence with divers other of prime note and authority in forrein parts as with F. Creswel in Spain who being many years Vice-praefectus Anglicanae Missionis Sub-provincial and Leger there did great matters and by the Authority which he had with the two Philips II III. Kings of Spain obtain'd many things of them for the good of the Catholick cause in England as we read in Alegambe and about a month or six weeks * About the time that Banham was sent by Garnet to the Pope before this Plot should have been effected went from Villadolit to Rome to be created a Cardinal saith L. Owen but more probably upon some other negotiation concerning this great business then in hand L. O. of the Engl. Col. in forrein parts pag. 74. Lond. 1626. quar also with F. Baldwin in the Low-countries of like place and Authority there ever since the year 1590. at which time Del Rio read Divinity at Doway as he did afterward at other places in those parts as Leige and Lovane who being so famous as he was in those parts and so great a zealot against hereticks it is not to be doubted that he had frequent converse with F. Baldwin and divers others of the English Fugitives of the better quality Lastly at Rome with the English Assistant there F. Parsons whom we may conclude to have had particular knowledge of this design not only from what he wrote concerning the Journey or Pilgrimage to S. Winefreds-well the mystical prayer which he ordered his Students to use to say nothing of the many projects which his working brain continually devised and his furious zeal as earnestly urged and prosecuted or of his Letter wherein he wrote Anno 1600. that he had then been ten years dealing in such matters but we are moreover given to understand so much from some of his own Religion though not of his Order and that he was highly accessory to it both before and after the discovery as might be proved by great and manifest instances The Jesuites Reasons unreasonable Doubt 1. But for his Correspondence at Rome we need do no more but first remember who Garnet was viz. Provincial of the English Jesuites and then reflect upon the continual weekly or octiduan Intelligences which the Provincials from all parts constantly transmit concerning all matters of moment to their several respective Assistants at Rome who immediately impart the same to the F. General of the whole Society always Resident there and he or they as the matter requires or deserves to the Pope of which the Discourse of the Jesuites Politicks written under Paul v. Printed in the Myst of Jesuit part 2. and other Writers give us an account and then we cannot doubt of his correspondence there not only with the English Assistant Parsons but also at least by means of the Assistant with the F. General Claudius Aquaviva and with the Pope himself and that in this very particular being a matter of so great moment which doth more particularly appear by the Bulls prepared to be sent over hither as soon as the plot had taken effect and other instances not necessary here to be insisted on So that if we consider the Persons and their Correspondences and Intelligences it will not be hard to conceive how easily this Plot wheresoever or by whomsoever invented might be communicated if by Del Rio to our Incendians here if by any of them to him if at Rome both to him and to them or for the more secret conveyance of the notice of it from thence by him to them Which is not unlikely that it was and that it was the contrivance of F. Parsons who at that time Anno 1600 had been ten years dealing in such matters and studying and promoting projects against his Country as we may perceive by his aforesaid letter then written 16. Lastly if from the Actors we come to consider their Actions and Management of the whole business we shall find a wonderful agreement from first to last in all the Circumstances not one crossing or thwarting our conjecture not one failing not one that doth not afford some matter or ground to confirm it For 1. If we consider the whole Section of Del Rio and with it compare the Actions and carriage of the Conspirators in all there is so punctual an agreement that without further proof it seems to own and bewray its parent being as like him as if according to our proverb it was
old policy formerly practised in order to the Spanish Invasion which was after attempted in 88. when many were so cunningly engaged that they knew not of and so were not able to accuse any but the person that ingaged them as Sir Francis Bacon in his Observations upon the Libel published 1592. and in his Collection of the Felicities of Queen Elizabeth shews from a Letter of one of their Principal Heads which was intercepted and not only practised before but also repeated immediatly after this Plot when Five had severally undertaken the Earl of Salisbury's death and vowed the performance of it and yet it was so ordered that none of those Five knew who the other Four were for the better preventing the discovery of the rest if any one by attempting and not performing should be apprehended from hence it may well be answered That it is very probable that Winter and Fawkes from whose Confessions this mistake hath arisen and the Objection may be made and most of the other Conspirators did indeed know of no other Author of the Contrivance but Catesby And yet it may very well be that He received it from others the first Contrivers of it either immediately or mediately either the full Project expresly with the Reasons mentioned by Thuanus under some Oath of Secrecy or Engagement not to discover from whom he received it or at least some such Hints and Intimations of it as were sufficient to set on work a mind so active and well disposed to improve the same to the utmost and without any such engagement he might be apt enough to take the Invention upon himself not only out of Devotion to the Society whose reputation he might thereby the better secure in case it should miscarry but even out of an Ambition to be reputed the Author of so Glorious an Enterprise And that He should be intrusted with so Great a Secret and the Chief visible Management of it rather than any of the rest was very likely 1. Because he and his Family had been addicted and devoted to the Jesuits from their very first coming into England and were harbourers of Campian who with his Comrade Parsons the two first and principal who were designed and employed for that Service came into England Anno 1580. where he was apprehended 22. July in the year next ensuing as we are informed by Sanders 3. de Schismate Anglicano From which time it is not unlikely that he held correspondence with F. Parsons who soon after returned to Rome and continued there Rector of the English Colledge till some years after the discovery of this plot he was shamefully turned out of Rome by Mounsieur Bethunes the French Embassadour and Order from the King of France being discovered to plot a new treason against his Majesty to introduce the Duke of Parma as we are told by a Romanist But 2. this was not all why Catesby was preferred before the rest in this service for in this respect Tresham might perhaps have claimed that honor as well as he as we may see in Sanders but Catesby had another more special qualification as being more Cautious and Cunning as we may observe in Thuanus 21. But because so plausible a Pretense for the Occasion of these desperate resolutions at that time as the King of Spain's then deserting of the Conspirators upon his Treaty of Peace with England may seem to have some weight in it though it must be noted that this seemes rather to have been the Conjecture of the Historians and others than that any such thing was expresly alledged by the Conspirators for ought appears in the Printed Confessions of Fawkes and Winter yet that we may leave no scruple and make it further appear that we have not only the concurrence of all Circumstances to confirm our belief of the truth of what hath been said but have also sufficient matter and ground for Answer to all Objections we shall return such Answer though touch'd before as may both sufficiently solve this doubt and be of some use to other purpose And therefore it must be remembred 1. That all the neighbouring Popish Princes especially France Spain and the Archdukes of Austria toward the latter end of the Queens Reign were not a little concerned upon Fear of what Consequence the Vnion of the three Kingdoms viz. of Scotland with England and Ireland might prove in time as is not only apparent in it self but intimated to us by the Papists themselves in their Supplication to King James before the discovery of this plot and thereupon bent all their Consultations and used all Means to prevent or hinder it as well after the Kings coming in as before and even by their Embassadours here did not only tamper with some of the Prime Ministers of State to corrupt them but also practised to raise stirs and Rebellions Of the French Cambden tells us that the French Embassadour studied to move Commotions ne duo divisa Britanniae Regna Angliae Scotiae in unum coalescerent and others inform us of his tampering with some of the Prime Statesmen here And of Count Arembergh Embassadour Extraordinary for the Archdukes we find him reported to have been an agent in the Treason of Watson and Clark and not only so but that He and they were the Contrivers of it and that He drew into it the Lord Cobham and by his means his brother Brook Parham the Lord Grey of Wilson and at length Raleigh also was brought in 22. And 2. we must take notice that there was certainty a deeper mystery in the Counsels of Spain than meerly an Invasion intended For long before this The King of Spain as Sir Fr. Bacon in his Report of the Treason of Loper year 1588 well observes having found by the Enterprise of 88 the Difficulty of an Invasion of England layed aside the Prosecution of his Attempts against this Realm by Open Forces and by all means projected to trouble the waters here by Practise first to move some Innovation in Scotland then he sollicited a Subject within this Realm being a Person of great Nobility to rise in Arms and Levy war against her Majesty Perhaps he means the Earl of Darby whom Richard Hesket endeavoured to perswade to assume the Title of King year 1593 deriving his Right from his great Grandmother Mary daughter of Hen. VII and made him large promises of Aids and Money from the Spaniard threatning him with sudden destruction if he did not do it and conceal the business year 1594 Cambd. Anno 1593. Lastly either of himself or his Counsellers and Ministers using his name descended to a course Against all Honour all Society and Humanity Odious to God and Man Detested by the Heathens themselves to take away the life of her Majesty by Violence or Poison A matter which might be proved to be not only against all Christianity and Religion but against Nature The Law of Nations The Honour of Arms The Civil Law The Rules of Morality
the Confederates and all things here being again made ready against the Queen is sent to acquaint the Pope with their preparations which he approving presently sends him to the King of Spain year 1571 promising that if need be himself will go to their Assistance and will pawn All the Goods of the Apostolick See the Chalices Crucifixes and Sacred Vestments Hereupon the Spaniard presently gives express Command that Vitellius with an Army shall Invade England and the Pope prepares his money in the Low-Countries But it pleased God that a messenger coming over with Letters to the Queen of Scots the Spanish Ambassadour Norfolk and others being intercepted the whole business is discovered Norfolk and others committed and all their Preparations and Hopes disappointed Which says Catena the Pope took sadly and the Spaniard condoled who said before Cardinal Alexandrino the Popes Nephew not long before sent to him from the Pope that no Conspiracy was ever more advisedly undertaken nor with greater unanimity and constancy concealed Which in so long time was revealed by none of the confederates and that the forces might easily have been transported from the Low-Countries in the space of twenty four hours which might have suprised the Queen and the City of London restored Religion and setled the Queen of Scots in her Throne especially when as Th. Stucley an English fugitive had taken upon him at the same time with 3000. Spanish Souldiers to reduce all Ireland to the Obedience of Spain and with one or two scouting Ships to fire the English Navy The Duke of Norfolk was brought to his Tryal the 16. of January following and Condemned and the 2. of June after beheaded The Pope in the mean time the first of May being called to his tryal and to give an account for these things before a far other Supreme Throne of Justice year 1572 than what he pretended himself here placed in 27. Before we leave this Pope Pius v. we may take notice of two notable horrid exploits about his time practised in our neighbour Countries The first in Scotland the murther of the Lord Darby King James his father in the first year of his Papacy and the house wherein he was murthered at the same time blown up with Gun-powder in relation to which Thuanus tells us Ad haec Pontificis ut passim jactabatur Caroli Lotaringi Cardinalis Literis incitabantur nam cum per eum a Pontifice petiissent pecuniam ad instaurandam majorum religionem responsum fuerat frustra ipsos conari nisi sublatis iis per quos stabat ne res exitum sortiretur c. lib. 40. ad finem Anni 1566. The other in France that barbarous Massacre at Paris which though not executed till near two moneths after this Popes death yet it is observable that Cicarella notes in his life Ad Regem Galliarum ejusque Ministros optima misit documenta ad eosdem Hereticos Regno illo exturbandos and what these documenta were we may the better guess if we take notice of the temper and employments of this man a most severe austere man who had with so much rigor exercised the business of the Inquisition wherein he was imployed as made many dread his severity when he was chosen Pope And the same Authour notes his irreconciliabile in Hereticos odium though he looks upon it as matter of Commendation But how exceeding mad he was against them condemning and burning even for familiarity with Sectaries or those that were suspected such may be seen at large in the Noble Author de Thou lib. 39. pr. And in both these exploits is observable the Care that was taken to cast the Odium of the fact upon others But to return to our own story 28. After the death of this man the thirteenth of the same moneth was Gregory XIII chosen Pope And although with their late disappointment their party also in England was much broken and disabled for the future the chief heads being taken off yet was it not long before this Pope was also engaged in the same Combination Which was first begun between him and Don John of Austria base brother to the King of Spain year 1576 and by him about that time appointed Governour of the Low-Countries and in pursuance thereof the Pope wrote to the King of Spain But Don John's Exploits were prevented by his own death before ever he could put them in practice 1578. Thu. lib. 65. Camd. hoc An. Yet the like Consultations were soon resumed by the Pope and the King himself and now England and Ireland both are to be invaded together and Th. Stucley whom the Pope had honoured with the Title of Marquess Earl Viscount and Baron of several eminent places in Ireland is to command the forces thither the Pope providing men and the Spainard money But this storm was blown over into Africa where Stucley and part of his men were slain However the next year is sent into Ireland from Spain James Fitz-Morice with some Companies of Souldiers 1579. Thu. lib. 68. and with them from the Pope Nic. Sanders our Author above mentioned with Authority Legatine and a consecrated Banner 1580. Thu. lib. 70. and to them the years after San Joseph with seven hundred Italian and Spanish Souldiers and arms for five thousand more to arm the Irish and some store of money these being but * Bacons Observations the forerunners of a greater Power which by treaty between the King of Spain and the Pope should have followed and the Pope to animate the Irish sends them his Breve with Apostolical Benediction wherein reciting that he had of late years by his Letters exhorted them to the Recovery of their Liberty Ofullenan Hist Cathol Hibern and Defence of it against the Hereticks c. and that they might more cheerfully do it had granted to all such as should be any ways assisting therein a Plenary Pardon and Forgiveness of All their Sins he now grants to all such whom he also exhorts requires and urges in the Lord to indeavour to help against the said hereticks the same Plenary Indulgence and Remission of their Sins which those who fight against the Turk do obtain And to this expedition the Pope promised a Cruciat and 1000000 Aurea But all these with their Irish Confederates the Earl of Desmond his brothers and their party were very happily defeated by the Queens forces at the very instant when divers ships upon the Sea were bringing them more forces and assistance and the Popes Legate Sanders died miserably of hunger and as some say mad upon the ill success of the Rebellion 29. About this time the Seminaries began to swarm and because the Bull of Pius v. had not yet sufficiently produced its intended and expected effect even with a great part of the Papists themselves Sanders p. 372. Camd. p. 180. who seeing the neighbour Popish Princes and Provinces not to abstein from their usual commerce with the Queen continued still in
fact for the greatness and admirableness of it to the Mystery of the Incarnation and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour The King had caused the Duke of Guise who was head of the Rebels to be slain and this was one main matter which incensed the Pope against him Thu. l. 94. For the Pope had agreed with Guise in secret to marry his Niece to the Prince of Jonvil Guise his son and heir and to depose the King thrust him into a Monastery and compel him by the Popes authority to renounce his right to the Kingdom and to set up Guise the father King in his place But how zealous and jealous he was for the Dignity and Authority of the Holy See is worth our further notice in an instance related by a good Catholick the learned Civil Lawyer William Barclay in his book De Potestate Papae dedicated to Pope Clement VIII None of all the writers of the Popes part saith he hath either more diligently collected or more ingeniously proposed or more smartly and subtilely concluded their reasons and arguments for the Popes Authority than the Eminent Divine Bellarmine who although he attributed as much as with honesty he could and indeed more than he ought to have done to the Authority of the Pope in Temporals yet could he not satisfie the Ambition of that most Imperious man Sixtus v. who affirmed that he held a Supreme Power over All Kings and Princes of the whole Earth and all People and Nations delivered to him not by humane but Divine Institution In so much that he was very near by his Papal Censure to have abolished to the great detriment of the Church all the works of that Doctor which at this day oppose heresie with very great success as the Fathers of that Order of which Bellarmine was have seriously told me cap. 13. But enough of Sixtus By whom for example we may guess by these fruits what likelyhood there is that he and such as he whereof there hath been no small number Popes since the tenth Age especially that Seculum Infelix when with a great Eclipse of Learning the Popes of Rome as even Bellarmine noteth degenerated from the Piety of the Ancients were partakers of and directed by that Holy Spirit which God giveth to them that obey him to conduct them in all truth or rather the Spirit of the world the Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience whose works they have done 35. The three next succeeding Popes Vrban 7. Gregory 14. and Innocent 9. did not all of them live out half three years from the death of this year 1591 and therefore we cannot expect to hear of any attempts or design of theirs against this Kingdom But after Clement VIII who was elected Pope 3. Feb. 1591 2. year 1592 was settled in his seat the like practises soon began again wherein those agents whom we have mentioned before year 1593 Hesket Lopez and Complices his Cullen York and Williams who confessed some others and Squire year 1594 were imployed to raise rebellion poison or assassinate the Queen Lopez by the King of Spain's Ministers of State not without the privity and consent of himself all the rest incited and encouraged by the Jesuites who for the like practises at the same time against the most Christian King though then become Catholick too Thu. l. 111. were exterminated out of all France and a Pyramid erected for their perpetual Infamy But from all these God still preserved her the Emissaries being discovered taken and Executed Nor did he only preserve her from their attempts but shortly after blessed her with happy successes in an Expedition against the Spaniards then preparing again to Invade England 1596. Bacon Observ wherein the King of Spains Navy of 50. tall Ships besides twenty Gallies to attend them were beaten and put to flight and in the end all but two which were taken by the English burned only the twenty Gallies by the benefit of the Shallows escaping the town of Cadiz manned with 4000. foot and 400. horse taken sack'd and burnt but great Clemency used toward the inhabitants and at last the English returning home with honour and great spoils besides the two Gallions Camd. an 1596. and about 100. great brass Guns and great store of ammunition and provisions of war taken in the town and with very small loss and but of one person of quality the Spaniards having lost in all first and last 13. of their best men of war and 44. other Ships of great burden and in Ships great guns and military provisions by the estimate of the most knowing persons above 3000000 ducates And when the King of Spain not long after that he might repair this loss in a heat had from all parts gathered together all the Ships he could and manned even the strangers Ships which were in the Ports of Spain and set out this Navy to Land upon the Coasts either of England or Ireland the Heavens fought for her and so favoured her that by a horrid tempest which arose most of those Ships were either sunk by the waves or broken against the rocks in so much that she sooner heard of the destruction of her enemies than of their setting out to Sea to assault her The year ensuing year 1597 great preparations were made on both sides but the Heavens not favoring any further proceedings of this kind both the Fleets were so dispersed by storms that neither came within sight of the other And now the King of Spain became well inclined to a peace with England which year 1598 though proposed by the French he lived not to see brought to effect for he died the 13. of Sept. after 36. But the death of the King of Spain did not dissolve the Combination no more than the deaths of so many several Popes before had done For it still survived in his son Phil. III. with Clement VIII Only so many former attempts having proved altogether unsuccessful against England there was now with the persons some change also of their Counsels and all their Consultations against England were afterward so directed as to depend for their execution upon the death of the Queen Yet in Ireland there seemed some hopes that something might be effected at present by assisting the Rebels there and therefore for their encouragement and assistance the King of Spain by his Agent Don Martin de la Cerda year 1599 sends them money and Ammunition and the Pope by Mathew de Oviedo whom he designed Archbishop of Dublin Promises of Indulgence with a Phoenix plume to Tir-Oen their General year 1600 and the year after he sends them his Indulgence it self to this effect That whereas of long time being led on by the Exhortations of his Predecessors and himself and of the Apostolick See for the recovery and defence of their Liberty against the Hereticks they had with Vnited minds and Forces given aid and assistance first to James Fitz-Girald and lastly to Hugh
many horrid crimes whereof they were accused did raise in mens minds one only of the offenders for want of friends at Court being executed but the principal actors of that wickedness restored to their former dignity and places so that instead of that Justice which if duly executed upon the offenders might possibly have averted or mitigated the Divine vengeance which hath since prosecuted his fathers guilt in his posterity he not only by neglect thereof but also by his own continuance of the like cruelties and for the same cause of Religion appropriated his fathers guilt to himself and with the addition of his own transmitted the same to his posterity with the Divine Vengeance further provoked attending it He began his Persecutions of the Protestants in the first year of his reign and continued the same to the last days of his life with that resolution that no sollicitation of neighbour Princes his allies could mitigate his fury He used his uttermost endeavour says Davila p. 40. to extirpate the roots of those seeds in their first growth and therefore with Inexorable Severity resolved that All who were found convict of this imputation should suffer death without mercy And although Many of the Counsellors in Every Parliament either Favouring the same Opinions or Abhorring the Continual Effusion of blood made use of all their skill to preserve as many as they could from the Severity of his Execution notwithstanding the Kings Vigilance and Constancy was such chiefly by the Incitements of the Cardinal of Lorain one of the Guises that he had reduced things to such a point as would in the end though with the Effusion of much blood have expelled all the peccant humours he means the Protestants out of the bowels of the Kingdom if the accident which followed had not interrupted the course of his resolution That which he calls an accident was the violent and in respect of the course of nature untimely but in respect of Gods Providence most seasonable death of that cruel King in the height of his Resolutions of Inexorable Severity against the Protestants by the hands of that same man whom he had but few days before imployed to apprehend and imprison some of the chief Senators for no other cause but their Religion and their free delivering of their Sentence according to the Laws in Parliament concerning the cause of the Protestants and at the same that Queen Elizabeth was 〈◊〉 Her Senators Consulting and Resolved to Establish that Religion which he persecuted which she happily by Gods Blessing effected and procured a Blessing upon her self and her Kingdom while he furiously fighting against God was in a Ludicrous fight running at Tilt by a Splinter of a broken lance which found entrance at his eye though his head and body were clad in armour cut off from further prosecuting his resolutions in the midst of his years and in the midst of his publick Solemnities of the Nuptials of his eldest daughter to the King of Spain which whom he had concluded to make a war against the Protestants and of his only Sister to the Duke of Savoy in the view of the Bastile where those Senators were kept in Prison and within two or three days if not less after one of the chief of them was declared heritick and delivered over to the Secular Power Leaving behind him a Curse upon his posterity and Misery and Confusion to his Kingdom principally caused and promoted by those very instruments whose Counsels and Instigations he had followed in his wicked and bloody practises year 1559 40. He left four sons all in a manner children the eldest Francis 11. who succeeded him under the age of sixteen who by reason of his youth Lib. 1. or rather as says Davila his natural incapacity requiring if not a direct Regent yet a prudent assiduous Governour till his natural weakness was overcome by maturity of years the Ancient Customs of the Kingdom called to that Charge the Princes of the Blood among which for nearness and reputation it belonged to the Prince of Conde and the King of Navarre But Katherine of Medicis the Kings mother and Francis Duke of Guise with Charles his brother Cardinal of Lorain uncles to Mary Queen of Scots whom the King in the life-time of his father had married severally aspiring to the Government to which neither had right by the Laws of the Kingdom and therefore despairing by their own power and interest to obtain and retain it alone they resolved to unite their several interests and powers and to share it among them and they quickly obtained she by her interest in the King her Son and they by the means of their Niece 〈◊〉 Queen that to the Duke was committed the Care of the Militia Davil l. 1. the Civil affairs to the Cardinal and to the Queen-mother the Superintendance of all the Princes of the blood and others of the prime Nobility being excluded not only from the Government but also by arts and affronts removed or repulsed from the Court it self The Guises having thus intruded into the Authority aforesaid continued the same Resolutions of Severity against those of the Reformed Religion which they had infused or at least fomented and agitated in the former King which they instantly put in execution And the same moneth that this King came to the Crown his Order is sent out for the tryal of the Senators imprisoned by his father Whereof one Anne du Boury was afterward for his Religion executed but the rest not being convicted were only degraded While these were brought to their Tryal by the command of the Cardinal Severe Inquisition is made at Paris Thu. l. 23. into all suspected of that Religion and many both Men and Women are taken and clapt into Prison and many to avoid the danger forced to fly many leaving their infants and little children behind them who filled the streets with the noise of their lamentable crys their goods taken out of their houses were publickly sold and their empty houses proscribed and to increase the Odium of the people against them the same Calumnies which were heretofore cast upon the Primitive Christians of promiscuous copulation in their Nocturnal Meetings the lights being put out were now renued against these and base people produced by the Cardinal to prove it who though upon tryal convicted of fraud and falshood were yet suffered to go unpunished The City being thus diligently searched the same Course is immediately taken in the Suburbes at S. Germans and presently after in the rest of the Cities of France especially at Poictiers Tholouse Aix and throughout the whole Province of Narbon Shortly after command is given to the Court to proceed severely against those who were suspected and with all diligence to attend to the tryal of them without intermission Whereupon the Prisons were all soon emptied some being condemned to death others banished and the rest punished with other mulcts and penalties Nor did all this satiate the
jurisdictioni regia excepta subsunt any City or Town where the Courts resided That in every Province certain Cities should be appointed in the Fauxburg whereof the Protestants might Assemble at their Devotion That in all other Cities and Towns every one should live free in his Conscience without trouble or molestation That all should have full Pardon for all Delinquences committed during or by occasion of the War declaring all to be done to a good end without any offence to the Royal Majesty and all be restored to their places c. And these and the rest were ratified in Counsel by an Edict of Pacification under the Kings own hand and Seal verified in Parliament and Proclaimed by sound of Trumpet in March 1562 3. which had they been honestly and justly observed might by Gods blessing have been a means of much peace and happiness to that Kingdom but we find the contrary as to the Observance and therefore no wonder if the contrary also to so hopeful and happy consequence and issue of it For no sooner was this War concluded upon this Edict of Pacification ratified with all the formalities and solemnities used for the establishing and confirming of Laws in France but the Edict began presently to be violated the Protestants in divers places both disturbed in their Religious Assemblies which this and other Laws allowed them to hold and injured in their Civil Rights and in divers manners frequently and grievously oppressed and that not onely by concourses and assaults of the vulgar and Rabble who having no pretence of Authority were many times with like force repulsed by the others Thu. l. 35 36 37 39. but even by the Presidents of the Provinces and other Magistrates whose duty it was to have seen the Laws justly observed but did the quite contrary and that not only by connivance at the exorbitances of the vulgar but also by their own actual iniquity and that no part or kind of injustice might be wanting both by force and violence Thu. l. 37. and also by fraud by breach of faith by subornation of witnesses Thu. l. 39. by false calumniations By which means and such like arts together with the mediation of their potent friends at Court the passionate young King being before prejudiced by the Arts of the Guisian faction especially the Cardinal of Lorain and further incensed by the Legate of Spain the Pope and Savoy who notwithstanding the late Edict urged him to banish and otherwise punish the Protestants and revoke the Liberty granted by it to them they easily obtained that the Complaints of the Protestants which were dayly brought to the King were anteverted and either totally rejected or eluded and the persons employed to exhibit the same ordinarily so discountenanced and discouraged that they were forced to return without any effect if not imprisoned and for the greatest violences and enormities even murther it self by which as some write not so few as three thousand had perished since the Edict of pacification could obtain no remedy or redress And of all this many plain and notable examples and proofs might be produced out of our Noble Excellent Historian Lib. 35 36 37 39. were it not too long to do it We might instance in that notable practice of the Bishop of Pamiers which gave the first occasion of that very tumult which that smooth Italian Davila mentions and while he exaggerates the actions of the Protestants in it with no little partiality conceals the first and true occasion of it but perhaps being a Courtier he relates it and other such passages as they were then by the Artifices and means above mentioned represented at the Court Nor was the Royal Authority abus'd to concur in this Iniquity and Injustice only by connivence and permission of these things thus done by the Kings Ministers and Officers in fraud and violation of the Agreement of Peace and the Edict made in Confirmation of it but also to give further occasion and countenance to it by divers fraudulent and elusory Interpretations of the Edict By which means whiles it seems it was thought too gross plainly and directly to revoke it they did notwithstanding indirectly elude its effect and the benefit expected by it in such sort that had the Protestants been of those pernitious principles that their adversaries indeed were and endeavoured to represent them to be the most subtile and malitious enemies of that Kingdom could not have devised and promoted a more effectual means and method of its confusion and ruine And the truth is this was it which the principal Authors and Fomenters of those courses the Guises at home and the Spaniards abroad aimed at and by these means in conclusion to make themselves Master of it Which though at that time not so visible to every one yet was afterwards very apparent The Pope also because France stood too much upon their Liberties and Priviledges being a well wisher to their designs especially of Guise though not so much of Spain as not desiring so potent a Neighbour But all these oppressions and Injuries though they provoked some little tumults of the vulgar yet were they not sufficient to produce and necessitate another Civil War which not only the Spaniard desired as well for his own security to divert a War from himself as in order to his further designs but also the Cardinal of Lorain his Nephews now growing up though his brother the Duke was slain and therefore besides these other means were thought on to do that at least if they should fail to make way for their ends by taking off those who most stood in their way And to this purpose besides some lesser Confederacies for an irreconcilable war against the Protestants there was a Conspiracy which was begun indeed by the Duke of Guise in his life time but renued again and carried on by the same faction with the King of Spain for the cutting off of those of the Nobility who favored the Protestant doctrine and particularly for surprising the Queen of Navarre and her Children the next heirs to the Crown of France after the familie of Valois who were all children and in their power already and clapping them into the Spanish Inquisition But this being discovered by the Queen of Spain in receit to her mother the Queen mother of France who easily perceived what was aimed at and by others to the Queen of Navarre and so prevented the Legates of Spain the Pope and Savoy were by the means of the Cardinal of Lorain sent to perswade the King to admit the Councel of Trent in France and to that end to invite him to a Consultation of the Catholick Princes at Nancie in Lorain to enter into a Holy League for the extirpation of the Hereticks but the Queen mother neither liking the admission of the Councel nor to engage so openly against the Protestants the Legates were under some other pretenses dismissed Wherefore the next year the King being declared out
and give that Answer to the Pope's Embassy which they would not trust to the Ambassadors concerning their purpose to extirpate Calvinism by secret stratagems without the danger or tumult of new wars And here no doubt was some matters of no small moment transacted Thu. 36. for the King having gone by Arles and Aix as far as Marseilles returned again to Avignon immediately under the Pope's Jurisdiction But what-ever they were in particular so well it seems was the Pope pleased with the means and method resolved upon for the extirpation of Calvinism Da. p. 194. that in order thereunto he consented that the Publication of the Council of Trent in France should be deferred till such time as they had brought their designs to maturity And probably for the same purpose by the mediation of the King and Queen-Mother desisted from his Excommunication of the Queen of Navar which by his Monitory he had threatned against her And at his instance was the next year held that Consultation at Bayonne before mentioned Thu. l. 37. p. 74. at which he desired that the King of Spain himself should have been present to whom it is not to be doubted but he sent his advice concerning what was there to be resolved But this Pope dying soon after his successor Pius 5. being as yet unacquainted with the mystery of them began presently to be offended with the proceedings in France Da. p. 210. till he was better informed of all those reasons which Ludovico Antenori had represented to his predecessor with which he remained fully content and satisfied says Davila The Queen also acquainted him with her Counsels Thu. l. 53. not only by Cardinal Sancta Crux four years before they were executed at Paris by him desiring the Pope's confirmation but also by letters under her own hand as Capilupus testifies who saith that he had seen the very letters themselves Nor was he only privy to these Counsels of the King and Queen-Mother but likewise communicated his counsel and advice in the same business to them He sent to the King of France and his Ministers most excellent instructions for the rooting out of those Hereticks out of that Kingdom says Cicarella Cicarel in vita Pii 5. but tells us not what they were yet that is not hard to guess at from the consideration of his nature and actions as hath been mentioned before as well disposed to promote cruel and bloudy designs as could be And when those Civil Wars which for the space of three years interrupted the course of those Italian policies and stratagems broke out he ordered them also the assistance of his Forces But when the War was concluded and the King with his Mother and Cabinet-Council had resolved to make a Marriage between the young Prince of Navar being now grown up and the King's Sister to be the train to draw the Protestant party into that snare which had been so long before devised the Pope not yet acquainted with this circumstance for though the thing which was to be done had been long resolved on yet the method and manner how to bring it about was often altered as accidents and occasions did intervene when he heard of the treaty of the Marriage but had not notice of the mystery of it and moreover heard of the preparations for a War against Spain he began to be suspitious that the King had forgotten his former kindness and excellent instructions and therefore ordered his Nephew Cardinal Alexandrino in his return from Spain to debate the business with him Whereupon the King assured him that he did all this to obey the instructions of P. Pius But P. Pius lived not to receive this satisfaction Catena in vita Pii 5. or not long after not to see that joyful day which his successor Greg. 13. did and kept with great joy and solemnity for the wished success of these Counsels For the promoting whereof being perswaded by the Cardinal of Lorain Da. p. 361. Answer to Philanax p. 100. and told that this Marriage was intended as a trap to destroy the Prince of Navar and his Protestant party he presently gave his dispensation for the celebrating of it and encouraged the design which was as much as he could do at present things being already ripe for execution But having received an account of the Massacre by letters from his Legate at Paris Thu. l. 53. he read his Letters in the Consistory of Cardinals where presently it was decreed that they should all go directly thence to St. Marks and there solemnly give thanks to Almighty God for so great a blessing conferred upon the Roman See and the Christian world In Minervae aede and that the Monday following a publick Thanksgiving should be celebrated in the Church of Minerva and that the Pope and Cardinals should be at it and thereupon a Jubilee should be published throughout all the whole Christian World and among other causes thereof expressed this was the first To give thanks to God for the destruction in France of the enemies of the Truth and of the the Church Toward the evening the Guns were fired at St. Angelo In Hadriani mole Bonefires every where made and nothing omitted of those things which used to be done upon the greatest victories for the Church of Rome Two daies after there was a Procession to St. Lewis with very great resort of the Nobility and people the Bishops and Cardinals going before then the Switzers then the Embassadors of Kings and Princes then under a Canopy the Pope himself a Deacon Cardinal on either side him and the Emperors Ambassador bearing up his train and a troop of Knights and Gentlemen following Being come to the Church which was adorned with more than ordinary magnificence Mass was said by the Cardinal of Lorain who for the incredible joy which he conceived for the so much desired news had ordered a thousand Aureos Franks to be given to the Messenger who was a Gentleman sent by his Brother the Duke of Aumale Upon the Church-doors was set an Inscription in which the Cardinal of Lorain in the name of the King of France did congratulate the Pope and the Colledge of Cardinals the most wonderful effects and incredible issue of their Counsels and Assistances This done Cardinal Vrsin is appointed to go Legate into France who speedily took his journey Thu. l. 54. and being come as far as Lions where next to Paris was the most bloudy slaughter he began to extol with many commendations the Faith of the Citizens and publickly praised Boidon a most vile wicked fellow who afterward came to a death worthy of his wicked life being executed at Clermont but now was the ring-leader and principal promoter of the barbarous and horrid slaughters and murthers committed at Lions and upon him he also Etiam ei potestatis plenitudine gratiae beneficium impertinit out of the plenitude of his legatine power conferred
King no longer to treat with him as a suppliant Thu. p. 430. but to deal with him according to his own rough nature and presently to seize upon Avignon and the County of Veniessine Da. p. 811. But the King was not a little grieved at it and said That he thought it very hard that he who had ever fought and laboured for Religion should be rashly excommunicated because he would not suffer his own throat to be cut by the arms of his Rebel-subjects and that those who had * Charles V. anno 1527. sacked Rome and kept the Pope himself prisoner had never been excommunicated to which the King of Navar who was present answered but they were victorious Sir Let your Majesty endeavour to conquer and be assured the censures shall be revoked but if we be overcome we shall all die condemned hereticks Whereunto the King assented and all the by-standers did the like and upon that hope order was given that the Army should march and the Kings affairs began to proceed very prosperously against the Leaguers For having first by supplies coming in from the King of Navar put a stop to the D. of Mayenne's progress at Tours and about the same time given a great defeat to the D. of Aumale by the assistance of La Noue one of the chief Commanders of the Protestants taken Gergean Thu. l. 96. Piviers Chartres Estampes Poissy Montereau Pontoise and all such places and passages of the Rivers which were fit to strengthen the City of Paris or furnish it with victuals he forthwith with an Army of 42000 fighting men laies close siege to the City it self himself on the one side and the King of Navar on the other whereby the Parisians were so straitned and dejected Da. p. 814. though the Preachers used all their arts in their Pulpits to animate them and the Priests and Friers themselves took up arms putting themselves generally upon Military Duty that there was no man but thought that within a few days the King would be Master of it But in the midst of this success and height of his hopes a zealous young Frier †Da p. 816 819. Thu. l. 96. Jaques Clement stirred up by the Sermons which he heard daily against Henry Valois the Tyrant and Persecutor of the Faith resolved in conscience as hath been mentioned before exhorted thereunto by the Prior one of the chief Counsellors of the League and other Fathers of his Convent in all likelihood It being unlikely that the chief men of the Union and particularly the Prior a trusty Counsellor of the Grand-Council of it should not have confered about the fact with the Princes and with their privity exhorted and with effectual motives spurred on the simplicity of the Frier Da. p. 819. v. Thu. l. 96. Serres p. 879. not without the privity of the Catholick Princes affirming to him that if he lived he should be made a Cardinal and if he died for freeing the City and killing the Persecutor of the Faith he should without doubt be Canonized for Saint by an expected stab put an end to his hopes and his life together within * Duobus post mentibus aliquot diebus quam Pontifex hanc Sententiam excommunicationis tulerat Cicarel p. 446. few days after the aforesaid term of 60 days prefixed by the Pope who had foretold his unfortunate end was expired to the great joy of the Leaguers and the Pope as hath been related before Sect. 34. this account of the French Story not being then intended The †Da. p. 857. Thu. l. 98. Prior of the Convent was Father Edmond Bourgoin who being afterward taken at Paris and convicted by witness to have publickly in the Pulpit for several days together praised this murder in studied speeches and to have counselled and instigated the murderer comparing him also in his Sermons after the fact to Judith and the dead King to Holofernes and the City delivered to Bethulia he was by judgment of the Parliament of Tours sentenced to be drawn in pieces by four horses his quarters burned and his ashes scattered in the wind which sentence was afterward severely executed Not long after at Vendosme was taken and likewise condemned to death Da. p. 861. Thu. l. 97. Father Robert Chesse a Cordelier or Franciscan Frier who had there publickly praised the King's murderer and with his Sermons stirred up the common people 54. This end had Henry 3. when he had scarce lived out half his days and in him thus dying without issue after 14 years Marriage many visits to Saints and the use of hallowed shirts and smocks for obtaining of issue the whole life of Valois his Bastard brother also the Duke of Angolesme not escaping a violent death some years before by a stab Thu. l. 85. In this King besides the hereditary guilt of his Ancestors descended upon him there are two things especially observable in his own actions whereby he involved himself in the participation of the common guilt of his Family and aggravated the load of it upon his own head the one during the Reign of his Brother in the Massacre wherein he was both a Counsellor and an Actor the other after he came to the Crown himself in his breach of publick Faith with the Protestants Of both which we may observe a very correspondent and exemplary judgment and punishment His sickness of a * Da. p. 777. Thu. l. 94. Bloudy-flux for some time before he was stabbed his death without issue and ere he had lived out half his days may perhaps have respect to his Grand-fathers and Fathers sins seeking by bloudy courses to extirpate the Protestants because these were not peculiar to himself but common to him with his other Brothers But when we see that very City of Paris where the Protestants with the concurrence of his †Eorumque Lotaringorum in gratiam praecipuus author suasor Parisiensis lanienae fuisse creditur de qua gloriari saepius auditus est Thu. l. 96. counsel and assistance had been so furiously destroyed now no less furious against him that City which to others had given example of cruelty against the Protestants now gives them example of rebellion against him and him on the other side no less enraged against it saying but the day before that fatal stroke that he hoped within a few days there should be neither walls nor houses but only the very foot-steps of Paris when we see almost all those who had been the executors of that Massacre and were not cut off at the Siege of Rochel as most of them were of the common sort especially now engaged in Arms against him and those who had joyned with him to destroy the Protestants now conspiring his destruction when we see him excommunicated by the Pope whose pretended authority is the principal part of that Religion which with so much cruelty and perfidiousness was sought to be established by that
openly embrace the Protestant Profession and live and die in it His son Henry 4. of France was bred up from his childhood in the Reformed Religion and when he was grown up * 1569. professed himself Head of that party and so continued till his †Thu. l. 45. 1572. unhappy Marriage with a Popish Lady Margaret Sister to Charles 9. then King of France which though for its warrant it had the specious colour and pretence of confirming the Pacification and begetting and establishing a better accord between the two parties by so near an alliance between the two Heads of them yet proved as it was intended by the others a snare to the destruction of the chief persons and of great numbers of the rest of his own party and to himself not only unsuccesful in respect of his wife and that not so much through her sterility as her inconstancy and unfaithfulness to his bed but also a snare whereby after he had seen the lives of his best friends and of great numbers of innocent people of his own Religion most barbarously and inhumanely taken away he was himself forced for the saving of his own life to change his Religion in shew and appearance at least But this being by constraint Thu. l. 96. and only in appearance for Religion as was well perceived by Henr. 3. after he had received his deaths-wound which is planted in mens minds by God cannot be commanded or forced by men year 1576 Upon the first opportunity he returned again to the open profession of that Religion which in the mean time he retained in his heart and constantly professed and maintained the same till after the descent of the Crown of France to him This happened very seasonable for him in many respects being then not a child or youth unexperienced in the World year 1589 but of mature age about 35. and firm judgment well experienced in affairs both Military and Civil of State and Government being then reconciled to and in perfect amity with the deceased King who upon his death-bed acknowledged him for his lawful Successor Thu. l 69. recommended the Kingdom to him and exhorted the Lords there present to acknowledg him for their lawful Sovereign notwithstanding his Religion and obey him accordingly being then not in Bearn or the remoter parts of the Kingdom with small or no forces but before the chief City of it in the head of a great Army under his command many of those in the Army who disliked his Religion yet being by the consideration of his undoubted right the recommendation of the deceased King and their own fresh experience of his virtue since his coming to the Army reconciled to his person acknowledging his sovereignty and submitting to his obedience now not as General but as their lawful and undoubted Prince This was 20 years after he had first professed himself Head of the Protestants 13 years after he had again returned to the profession of that Religion wherein he had been bred and educated when he had been all this while preserved notwithstanding all the power of France against him and had withstood all the tentations which after the death of Alancon whereby he became next heir to the Crown of France could invite him to change his Religion and when after all opposition he was as it were led by the hand to the possession of the Kingdom Yet was he not so entirely possessed of it but that there was still matter and occasion left him to make him sensible of that Providence which having preserved him all this while had at last raised him to the Throne and to exercise his dependance upon the same for the future for his entire possession of the Kingdom He was like David after many and long trials advanced to the Throne but yet like him not presently put into the full possession of the Kingdom For the Leaguers who thought his being an Heretick as they reputed him was a sufficient disability to his right to the Crown thought the same a sufficient warrant for them to keep him from it and to continue the rebellion against him which they had begun against his predecessor Thu. l. 98. Foul. 8. c. 7. And to remove or prevent all scruple of Conscience in that respect the Colledge of Sorbon gave them their solemn resolution May 7. 1590. That they who opposed him should merit much before God and Men and if they resisted so mindful were they of the Apostles Doctrine Rom. 13. to the effusion of their bloud should obtain a reward in Heaven and an immarcessible or never-fading Crown of Martyrdom And lest this should not be sufficient they institute a Procession which was made in the presence of the Pope's Legate Cardinal Bellarmine and all the Bishops who came with him from Italy wherein Rose Bishop of Senlis and the Prior of the Carthusians holding in one hand a Cross and in the other a Halberd led the Van the Fathers of the Capucins Foliacens Paulians Franciscans Dominicans Carmelites following in order all accoutred their Cowles hanging back upon their shoulders and having on instead of them Head-pieces and Coats of Male and after them the younger Monks in the same habit but armed with Muskets which they frequently and inconsiderately fired at those they met with a shot whereof one of Cardinal Cajetans domesticks was killed who being slain at so religious a shew was therefore held to be received into the blessed companies of the Confessors After this was made another Procession by the Duke of Nemours and Claud Brother to the Duke of Aumale who commanded the Infantry and the rest of the Officers of the Army who upon the great Altar of the principal Church renewed their League and Covenant and swore upon the Gospel to live and die for the cause of Religion and to defend the City against Navar. The Pope also that this Rebellion might want no authority which his infallibility could give it though there was no other scruple to his right and title but only his Religion fought against him with both swords by his Monitory against the Prelates c. who submitted to his obedience by his Legate Cardinals and other Emissaries sent to encourage the Rebels and by his forces and mony whereof in about 10 months time he wasted 5000000 of aureos Thu. l. 102. most upon the French War when there was more need of it to have relieved the poor who in the mean time died of famine at home and Clem. 8. who not long after succeeded in that Chair Thu. l. 103. said he was resolved in himself to spend all his treasures and bloud too if there was need to exclude Navar from his expected possession of the Kingdom Nor was their good son the Catholick King of Spain wanting to the promotion of so just a cause And in his own Army though many Thu. l. 97. otherwise of the Romish Religion submitted to him without any conditions or delay and
to their General who is always chosen by the King of Spain and whom they profess to respect as God present upon earth and promise a blind Obedience as they call it to him absolutely in all things and to the Pope to whom because they are so obsequious they ought so much the more to be suspected by the French who indeed acknowledge the Pope as Head and Prince of the Church but so as that he is bound to obey the sacred Decrees and Oecumenical Councils as inferior to them that he can decree nothing against the Kingdom or their Kings or contrary to the Decrees of the Court of Parliament or in prejudice of the Bishops within their limits and therefore to admit those new Sectaries would be to nourish so many enemies within the bowels of the Kingdom who if it should happen that the Popes in a fury should raise arms against us would denounce war against the King and Nation of France also in respect of their unreasonable and exorbitant priviledges contrary to the Common Law and of their ambitious Title their Practice for corrupting of youth and ruining of Families and lastly addressing himself more especially to the Senators he admonished them to beware that they did not when too late condemn their own credulity when they should see through their connivance that the publick tranquility not only in this Kingdom but through the Christian World should be endangered by the craft guiles superstition dissimulation impostures and evil arts of these men But the Senate whether through security or hatred of the Protestants whom these men were believed born to subdue determined to deliberate further on the business in the mean time granting them liberty publickly to open their Schools and instruct the youth And here we may take notice by the way 5 Apr. 1565. who were the first and chief favourers and introducers of the Jesuites and thence further observe whose Scholars they were who were the chief actors in those troubles in France But thus hung the cause till Apr. 1594. Thu. l. 110. after the discovery of Barrieres conspiracy the University with unanimous consent nemine reclamante renewed their Suit and prayed Judgment by their supplication to the Parliament wherein they set out that the Estates in the Senate had long since complained of this new Sect that great confusions were then raised by them in the discipline of the Schools that from that time they have given occasion of greater troubles since the factious did openly addict themselves to the Spaniards party and have confounded not only the City but the whole Kingdom with horrid seditions that this was prudently foreseen from the beginning by the Colledge of Divines who by their Decree declared this new sect to have been introduced to the destruction of all Discipline as well Civil as Ecclesiastical and namely denying the obedience of the University as well to the Rector of it as moreover to the Arch-Bishops Bishops Curates and others the Prelates of the Church that notwithstanding those Jesuites made supplication to the Senate to be incorporated into the University and the cause being heard the Senate suspended the the Suit Salvo partium jure so that nothing in the interim should be innovated in the cause in prejudice of the Decree that yet the Jesuites have not only not at all obeyed the Decree of the Court but forgetting their sacerdotal profession have thrust themselves into publick businesses carried themselves as spies for the Spaniards and managed their concerns and therefore pray that since all these things are openly and publickly known the Senate will interpose their authority and by their Decree command that Sect to depart not only from the University of Paris but out of the Kingdom and exterminate them thence Hereupon after various delays by the Jesuites the cause came again to an hearing in the Parliament not openly but at the instance and through the importunity of the Jesuites and their friends the dores being shut And Ant. Arnald of Counsel for the University deploring the condition of France heretofore formidable but of late become despicable to all through factions which factions have been caused by the Jesuites largely confirmed from experience of what had since been acted the truth of what was wisely foreseen and foretold so many years before That the Emperor Charles 5. when fortune favouring him he conceived hopes of obtaining and transferring to his Family a universal Monarchy and by his own sagacity and long experience found that many were tied up by scruples of conscience could not devise a more effectual means to work upon them than by introducing men of the Spanish design the Jesuites to the destruction of others under shew of Religion who in secret at confessions and openly also when occasion should be offered in their Sermons alienating the credulous and simple people from the obedience of their lawful Governors should insensibly draw them to his party That the principal Vow of these men is to be absolutely and in all things obedient to the General of their Order who for the most part is a Spaniard or subject of Spain as appears from the series of those who for these 50 years from the beginning of their Society have been their Generals for such were 1. Ignatius Loiola their founder 2. Jac. Lain 3. Enaristus 4. Fr. Borgia and 5. at present Cl. Aquanina that to their vow these horrible words are annexed in which they profess to acknowledge Christ as present in their General that their Sect whereas in Italy and France at the beginning it was generally opposed was with great applause approved in Spain they pray day and night for the safety and prosperity of the pious prudent vigilant Catholick King of Spain who opposeth himself as a wall of defence for the house of God the Catholick Faith but for the most Christian King of France never and let the F. General say the word that the King of France should be killed the command of the Spaniard must ex voti necessitate be obeyed That though upon their petition at Rome for the Popes Confirmation an 1539. they were at first opposed yet at last obtained it this fourth vow being added to it that they should be ready to obey the Pope at a beck which is that which doth so much ingratiate them at Rome but ought to make them so much the more suspected in France And that their Counsels tend to the subversion of the Kingdom is hence manifest that when ever the Popes exceeding their authority have sent out their censures against the Kingdom of France there have not been wanting pious men who with the common suffrage of the Gallican Church have couragiously opposed such their rash attempts as he shews more at large from divers instances in the times of Carolus Calvus Ludovicus Pius Philippus Pulcher Carolus vi and Ludovicus xii but now in these late tumults it hath fallen out quite contrary the sacred Order being corrupted with the venom
of this sect and taught that be who is once chosen Pope although of the Spanish Nation or Faction and a sworn enemy to the French may notwithstanding give up the whole Kingdom for a prey and absolve the French from their Faith and Obedience which they owe to their Prince That this is a schismatical and detestable opinion altogether contrary to the word of God who hath divided the spiritual power from the secular as far as Heaven is from the Earth and as much repugnant to the safety and conservation of Kingdoms as it is certain that the true Christian Religion is necessary thereunto That these monsters have kindled these furies in the minds of the French and excited so many slaughters and horrid confusions every where Hence that publick assertion of Tanquerellus 33 years since V. supra sect 41. p. 66. that the Popes may declare the King's subjects free from their Oath of Fidelity Hence that resolution 5 years since by the greater number of the Colledge of Sorbon that is those who were new moulded in the shop of the Jesuites that Subjects may be absolved from their Obedience to their Prince V. sect 53. That this Vow instituted by the Castilians of Spain which with so strait a tye binds mens consciences to the perpetrating of any kind of enterprize and to the killing of Kings themselves by suborned emissaries hath dissolved and wholly abolished the glorious institutes of our Ancestors the Laws of the Realm and the liberties of the Gallican Church whereas we have received this Law from our Ancestors that the Oath of Fidelity whereby the Subjects of France are obliged to their Kings can by no censures of the Popes be dissolved which is so conjoyned with the safety and weal of the Kingdom that without certain ruine it cannot be severed from it that the Royal Power in that suffers no rival nor admits any equal Jurisdiction That these emissaries and assertors of this excessive power in the Pope crept in insensibly at first in small numbers into France but in short time filled the whole Kingdom and with secret frauds and seditious Sermons have stirred up the wars That the first Conspiracies more pernitious than the Bacchanals and that of Cataline were hatched in their Colledge at Paris that the Spanish Agents did often secretly convene there that there the Nobility at their secret Confessions were enjoyned for the expiation or satisfaction of their sins to engage for the League viz. by a special commutation of penance into an heroick act of virtue and those who refused were denied the benefit of absolution That by them was the sedition at Vesuna stirred up and the rebellions at Agen Tholouse c. and the Spanish Souldiers brought into Paris that by their counsel the Council of xvi emboldned by the forein Forces offered the Kingdom of France to the King of Spain and 13 daies after ensued that detestable butchery of the principal Senators That at their Schools at Lions and afterward at Paris was made the late Conspiracy for the murder of the King as is attested by the confessions of Barriere for among them they are held for real Martyrs who lay out their lives for the killing of Kings Hence F. Commotet the last Christmas taking for his text out of the book of Judges the example of Ehud who slew the King of Moab and fled away cried out We have need of another Ehud whether Monk or Souldier or Lacquey or Shepherd it matters not Hence the furious speeches of Bernard and Commotet calling the King Olofernes Moab Nero Herod and every where bawling in their Sermons that the Kingdom may be transferred by Election c. That among these counterfeit Priests it is a symbol of their profession One God one Pope and one King of the Christian World meaning the Catholick King to whom they design the universal Monarchy of the whole World stirring up every where wars and rebellions that thereby the vast body of that Empire may grow up and devour the lesser Princes That by them Philip King of Spain when he had long gaped after the Kingdom of Portugal and foresaw that so long as the King and Nobility continued in safety he could not obtain his desires perswaded the young King Sebastian having removed his intimate and faithful friends from him to sail into Affrica and rashly engage in fight upon great disadvantage contrary to the opinion of all his party wherein himself and almost all the flower of the Portugal Nobility perished Nor did they cease till they had also ruined Don Antonio and till the King of Spain * V. Harlaeum apud Thu. l. 132. not so much by his Arms as by their Arts had made himself Master of the Kingdom Nor ought it to impose upon the credulous that they are vulgarly reputed serviceable for the †V. Sim. Marion apud Thu. l. 119. instruction of youth whose manners they rather corrupt instilling evil principles into their tender minds which in that age make the greater impression upon them and under a shew of Piety teach them to embrue their hands in their Princes bloud to be disobedient to Magistrates to stir up seditions among the people to cast off all affection to their own Country and be affected with an adulterous love to foreigners and being thus seasoned with pernitious errors they will in time when grown up bring the same into the Church and State And indeed already since this new sect hath as it were seized upon the youth the manners of our Ancestors have not by degrees insensibly degenerated but like a torrent been precipitated into corruption Nor have whole Families escaped ruine by them by their arts youths being enveigled from their Parents and the inheritances and estates of their Ancestors transferred to these new Lords The complaints and examples of divers Noble Families thus spoiled are known as of Petrus Aerodius Mombrunius Godranus Bollonius Largilactonius the Marques Canilliacus whose Brother was not admitted to his vow in that Society till they were certain of his succession to his elder Brothers Estate And for this purpose they have now their Book of Life as they call it wherein they describe the secrets of Families which they learn from confessions These things and much more having largely discoursed in conclusion he urges the necessity of a speedy remedy and therefore prays that according to the supplication the Jesuites may be decreed to depart the Kingdom within 15 days after denunciation to the several Schools Some days after was Ludovicus Dolaus heard for the Curates or Ministers who also became Plaintiffs in the Suit Id. Jul. 1594. who among many other things urged That by the Popes were many things inconsiderately and blindly granted them by Paul 3. Power to make new Statutes and to change those which their Founder had established also to absolve hereticks which if the Pope contend is more than the whole Gallican Church can do By Paul 4. To absolve penitents from
they would not call them by the name of Jesuites and all others of that Society as corrupters of Youth perturbers of the publick Tranquillity and enemies of the King and Kingdom shall within three days after denunciation depart from Paris and all other Cities where they have opened School and within fifteen days after out of the Kingdom upon pain to be prosecuted as guilty of Treason and that their Goods and Lands shall be imployed for pious uses and be distributed at the pleasure of the Court and all the Kings Subjects were interdicted to send their children to the Schools of that Society out of the Kingdom to be instructed in Learning upon pain of Treason This was executed the Summer following Li. 112. Some few days after this was made another Decree whereby Chastel's Father's house which was neer to the Palace was ordered to be pulled down and a Pyramid to be erected in the place of it with the Decree inscribed upon it ad aeternam facti memoriam which was likewise done with other inscriptions in detestation of the crime V. l. 134. 58. How necessary for the safety both of the King and Kingdom this was and that the Decree should be strictly executed throughout the whole Kingdom and duly and constantly observed for the future many in the Court and most in the Parliament of Paris and of the Clergy were very sensible and the King could not be ignorant especially after such fair warnings And yet whereas the Jesuites being by virtue of this Decree exterminated out of the Jurisdictions of the Court of Paris Thu. l. 129. which extends to near half the Kingdom and likewise of Burgundy and Normandy continued notwithstanding for three years after to keep up their Schools in the Territories of Tholouse and Bourdeaux to which many sent their Sons to be taught and many again from that Society changing their habits as if they had also renounced their vow crept into other Schools though the King was often importuned to command those Courts by his Edict to publish the Decree and it was once or twice so resolved in Council the execution notwithstanding was continually retarded by the craft and subtilty saith our Author of some about the King but perhaps some thoughts of a peace with Spain which had been proposed might make it thought unseasonable at that time But the Parliament of Paris was not wanting to do what in them lay 21 Aug. 1597. and by another Decree under a severe penalty prohibited all Cities Colledges and Universities to admit any of that society though pretending the renunciation of their vow to preach or to exercise any sacerdotal Ministery or to teach children either publickly or privately Thu. l. 120. The year following the King was again provoked through the obstinacy and insolency of the Court of Tholouse to send out his Edict commanding those Courts to publish the Decree and was moved by the Chancellor Ph. Huraltus Cevernius so to do but by some Courtiers says our Author the business was at present delayed and at last wholly put off and very likely was now also though unseasonable in respect of the King's desire to obtain a dissolution of his Marriage with the Queen Margaret that he might marry his beloved Mistress La belle Gabrielle Thu. ib. Perefix p. 294. whereof he began about this time to treat with the Pope's Legate And indeed though I know not whether so much be written by any yet it seems very legible in the actions and occurrences which are written that this was so powerful a motive with him as made him not only desist from further enforcing the execution of the Decree and total extermination of the Jesuites but on the contrary to yield to their Restitution Thu. ibid. For the Jesuites about this time taking occasion upon a Convention of the Clergy to offer him a supplication ceased not afterwards till by supplications and recommendations every where sought they at last obtained their desire the Pope's Legates sparing no pains on their behalf So our Author who afterward tells us L. 129. that when Ignatius Armandus their Provincial about a year before they were restored had made a Speech to the King for them the King answered that the business was now in the Pope's hands without whose direction he would determine nothing negotium penes Pontificem esse quo inconsulto nihil velit decernere But it may be more plainly perceived in a passage afterward at their restitution L. 132. for when the Parliament interceded against their restitution and were very averse from publishing the Kings Eidict for that purpose at last comes And. Huraltus Messius into the Senate and acquaints them from the King with the whole series of the business and tells them that above five years since the Pope had dealt with the King that the Jesuites might be restored to the same state in the Kingdom wherein they were before the Decree This was about the beginning of the year 1604 and the King having in the year 1598 treated with the Legate about the dissolution of his Marriage as hath been said in the year 1599 he obtained the Pope's Breve to certain Delegates L. 123. who upon hearing of the cause pronounced the Marriage null ab initio so that this points us to the time exactly and considering the common practice of the Court of Rome to neglect no opportunity of promoting their own ends it cannot be thought that they would let this go without some assurance from the King of the restitution of the Jesuites which at the same time was earnestly sollicited It is true that the King 's beloved Mis who had engaged him to send to the Pope about it died in Child-birth before the commission to the Delegates was sent yet this hinders not but she might before have prevailed with him to give all satisfaction to the Pope in order to the obtaining of it and that thereupon he might so far have engaged to the Pope that he knew not afterwards how to get off when he would and this it seems was the true reason why the business hung so long and yet was done at last For thus Messius goes on relating the series of the business the King says he put it off from day to day as much as he could he did not refuse or excuse himself from denying it but sought delays and when he could no longer shift it off Quantum potuerat diem de die dixisse he proposed certain articles almost uniform to the contents of the Decree and by his Embassador laboured with the Pope to be content with their restitution under those conditions For the Pope demanded their universal restitution throughout the whole Kingdom but the King offered it in certain places appointed to a certain number and in the Territories subject to the Court of Paris were only two places assigned them From that time two years passed without any mention of the business whereat
it no crime of Treason which is committed by an Ecclesiastick Then he goes on and imminds him of the fruits which had already been produced from these principles of Barriere Varada and Guignard and Chastel and of the last King's murder Gens ingrata against whom this ungrateful Society stirred up the people to sedition nor were they thought guiltless of that murder that in the late wars of other Orders many persisted constantly in the King's obedience but these conjoyntly and unanimously conspired against him with the inveterate enemies of the Kingdom the Spaniard nor was there one of that Society found who was of the King's party touches upon foreign examples how in Portugal they and they only deserting the cause of their Country adhered to the Spaniards and were the cause of the slaughters of so many Priests and devout Persons two thousand perishing under the Spaniards in several manners and by a singular indulgence obtained the Pope's pardon of so many confessed slaughters then having spoken of the reasonableness of the Decree which exterminates the Jesuites and had been received without contradiction in all other Courts had not they withstood it who were not well setled in the King's obedience and were hardly brought off from their inveterate hatred against him and answered objections he presents the humble obsecrations and obtestations of the Parliament for the continuance of it and to these adds the humble supplication of the University and at last imminds him of the regard which his Predecessors had always had to the intercessions of the Supreme Courts at whose Petition or Advice they revoked or altered their Edicts if they contained any thing amiss that this the Courts of the Kingdom beseech his Majesty and promise themselves from his Grace that he will please to suffer them to enjoy their authority entire which indeed is the authority of the King himself as that which depends upon him c. But all would not do notwithstanding the intercession of the Parliament the deprecation of the University the disswasions of those he held both able and faithful to him he had made an Edict and it must be published and the Jesuites restored mal-gre mesme les avis de quelques uns de son Conscil And they must not only be restored but moreover have a new Colledge built them at La Flesche which the King endowed with an annual Rent of 11000 Crowns Aurei and prevailed with the Clergy for 100000 more toward the building of it and he also orders that the hearts of Himself his Queen and their Successors shall be there intombed in a Church to be built by himself and in the mean time a Father of that Society is admitted to the inspection and conduct of his own being made his ordinary Preacher and Confessor viz. Father Cotton who presently thereupon began to shew his zeal for the Pope against a Sentence of the Colledge of Divines passed two years before wherein they had asserted the Liberties of the Gallican Church against the Pride and Haughtiness and Avarice of Rome and among other things that other Bishops have power to order the publick affairs of the Church within their own Diocess as well as the Roman Bishop in his V. l. 129. and at his instance by the command of the King L. 144. for the Court could not be brought to consent to it not only the marble Table whereon the Decree was engraved but the Pyramid it self with all the other inscriptions in detestation of that fact of Chastel was taken down and demolished and the printed-Cuts of it prohibited which being notwithstanding greedily bought up diligent search was by the King's command made for the brass Plate from which they were printed which yet was not found till few days before the murder of this King also renewed the common hatred against the Jesuits 59. But before we proceed to the murder it self of this King it will be necessary to take notice of some other Conspiracies against him whereof some were contemporary with those of Barriere and Chastel though not discovered till afterward and some were since The first of Nic. Malavicinus the Pope's Legate resident with the Arch-Duke at Bruxels who having every where sought for an assassine at last light upon Ch. Ridicone a Dominican Friar of Gant who was very ready to lay down his life for the cause of Religion but before he would undertake this business desired in the first place to have the authority of the Pope and Cardinal's approbation wherefore the Legate for his satisfaction gave him a writing under his hand in the name of the Pope and Cardinals to that purpose and having furnished him with Mony and blessed him with the sign of the Cross he dismissed him giving him also for his better security from discovery a faculty or dispensation to wear a secular habit of a Souldier and to ride dance fence c. Being thus prepared for the business the Jesuite Hoduma to whom his Mother at confession had discovered the agreement desired to see him and having viewed him disliked nothing but his little stature saying that there needed a more robust man In his journey at Vermand he understood that the King was reconciled to the Church and came to the Crown by lawful succession year 1593 yet he went on as far as St. Denys but from thence returned to Bruxels to the Legate and gave him this reason of his return whereat the Legate shaked his head and telling him that the Bearnois so he called the King and all his party stood still excommunicated by the Pope perswaded him to persevere in his purpose to whom Ridicone answered if I could see the Pope's mandate then it should soon be considered on At the same time Pet. Arger of the same Monastery at Gant having first treated with Malavicinus at Bruxels and then going to Rome being returned from thence likewise undertook the design of killing the King Some time after Ridicone with whom a servant of the Legates had afterward dealt in secret went also to Rome whither Malavicinus had returned where being by him confirmed in his purpose he took his journey by Milan and having there communicated the business to the Spanish Ministers he came into France about the same time that Alex. Medices the Pope's Legate arrived there year 1596 the King being then reconciled not only to the Church but to the Pope also At last being taken when the King saw that the business could not be examined in a judiciary way without the great infamy of Malavicinus and that not without some reflexion upon the Pope with whom he was already reconciled and moreover casting some suspition upon the Arch-Duke to the disturbance of the business of peace whereof some overtures had been made by the Legate he resolved to dissemble it and dismiss Ridicone out of the Kingdom requiring him not to return again upon pain and penalty of Treason Being returned to Gaunt he resumed his former design of killing
the King and after some secret conference at the Monastery of St. Vincent in the King of Spain's Territories he returned again into France year 1599 where being again apprehended he was condemned and executed At his Trial being asked how he could think of such a thing as to kill the King he answered that by the frequent Sermons from the Pulpit and daily Disputations in the School which he heard and moreover the praises of James Clemont as of a glorious Martyr who had devoted himself for the liberty of the French every where resounding not only at the Churches but in the Markets Streets and at Feasts he was easily perswaded that he should do a thing pleasing and acceptable to God who should kill the cruel Tyrant who without any right tore in pieces that most Christian Kingdom with the loss of so many souls and therefore when Malavicinus did moreover furnish him with the authority of God and the Pope to that purpose he readily undertook it being put to the rack he made no other onfession than he had done before At the same time was also executed one Nic. Anglus a Capuchin Frier of St. Michel in the Diocess of Thoul in Lorrain being convicted and condemned for the same crime The next year after Ridicone was first apprehended and while he was in prison Ledesma a Minister of the King of Spain employed one Pet. Owen a Carthusian Frier who Thu. l. 118. 1597. for his dissolute manners being censured in his Monastery had fled into Spain to suborn an emissary to murder the King Owen having treated with a Souldier in the King's Army about it to whom he had made great promises was himself the next year after apprehended and convicted both by witnesses and by his own confessions but was pardoned by the King in respect to the Carthusians being satisfied to have taken the evidence in a judicial manner whereupon he might when he pleased expostulate with the Spaniards But shortly after these things ensued the Peace with Spain at Vervins and not long after some hopes given of the restitution of the Jesuites which was at last granted as we have seen whereupon one might have thought that his enemies being all either subdued or reconciled having reconciled himself to the Church to the Pope to those of the League who remained unsubdued to the Spaniard and to the Jesuites that he should henceforward have enjoyed his Kingdom his new Religion which had brought all these blessings with it and his Misses too at least his life in safety But alas it may be feared he had forgotten to reconcile himself truly to his God which made the rest but male facta gratia que ne quicquam coit refcinditur For when a mans ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him But while he was thus endeavouring to engage the Jesuites to himself the Spaniard on the other side spared neither pains Thu. l. 132. 1604. nor cost nor promises that by their emissaries they might allure to themselves the minds of those who through the late Civil Wars were alienated from him and under the specious colour of Religion might invite them to disturb the publick peace and quiet of the Kingdom laying hold on all occasions for that purpose and that they might discover his arcana secret counsels and from the knowledge of them the better order their own designs made it their main business to corrupt those who were employed by the principal Officers and Ministers of State Thus among others Nic. L'Oste whom the Secretary Villeroy employed in decyfering letters being corrupted by them with an annual pension of 1200 Crowns continually discovered all the secrets of them to the Spanish Embassador L. 128. They had before corrupted the Mareshal de Biron and some other persons of Quality which being discovered brought him to his end about two years since and now they not only again set upon the Count d'Auvergne who had been convicted of Biron's conspiracy L 132. 134. and pardoned but also the Seigneur d'Entragues and the Marquise de Vernevil his beautiful and witty daughter the King's Miss to corrupt them and that by no meaner or other agents than their Embassadors in France Jo. Taxis and his successor Batth Sunica who to introduce him at first made use of an English fugitive Th. Morgan an actor in the Conspiracies against his own Princess Queen Elizabeth L. 134. 1605. The next year this same Embassador Suniga first in person and afterwards to avoid suspition by his Secretary Brunellus treated and at last agreed with Lewis Merargues a Gentleman of Provence to betray Marseilles to the King of Spain which both Merargues and Brunellus confessed being apprehended in private conference in Merargues's Chamber and in Brunellus his hose under his garter was a paper found written in Spanish with his own hand which confirmed the same Vn memoire contenant le plan de son entreprise Perefix These things I the rather note because of use as well to confirm the truth of their like practices in England as to help to ground some conjecture on concerning the murder of this King 60. While the Spaniards are thus active to continue their old and make new friends in France it is not likely they would be unmindful of the Jesuites whom they had always found such ready instruments to serve them and in other Countries were still as well affected to the interest of Spain and the house of Austria V. l. 135. 136. though contrary to that of their own Countrey as ever Nor is it to be thought that the Jesuites would be so easily drawn off from their old Friend and Patron by those little expressions of kindness not sufficient to compensate their injuries received and besides might be doubtful whether proceeding from any real affection to them or not especially considering their subjection to the same F. General by whom the motion of their society in other Countries under their several Provincials is in a correspondent uniformity steered only 't is probable as becomes wise men they would be cautious and wary how they did hazard the loss of what they had gotten and therefore act upon pretty sure grounds yet we meet with some instances of their affection to their old friend For to say nothing of F. Cotton a prime man of the Society and the King's Confessor his consulting a supposed Daemoniack concerning the * L. 132. King's life the same Father is reported to have †P. du Moulin Answ to Philanax Ch. 5. brought and recommended to the King a certain Spaniard of whom the King a while after received from Monsieur de la Force Vice-Roy of Bearne and Navar a description with an advertisement that such a day he went from Barcelona into France with intent to kill his Majesty and shewing his letter to Cotton commanded him to bring the man again but Cotton returning a good while after told him
he was gone and could not be found and that not a year before the King was murdered he was in disgrace for writing * P. du Moulin ibid. divers things to the Provincial of the Jesuites in Spain which the King had revealed to him in confession and that †Foul. 9. c. 2. the D. of Sully proved to the King that he was guilty of betraying his secrets What these secrets were I find not but this is to be noted that he had then a great design in hand which whether the same or not which he pretended and which is related by the D. of Sully and from him by Perefix the Arch-Bishop of Paris he had in pursuance of it raised a great Army which startled both Spain and Rome Perefix an 1608. He had about two years before his death entred into a League Offensive and Defensive with those Hereticks and Rebels against the Catholick King the Hollanders whereof the Spaniards grievously complained Don Pedro de Toledo representing to him that the ruine or conversion of the Hereticks was the common interest of all the Catholick Princes and what great wars his Master had made upon that design Foul. ibid. Per. an 1609 and was now though the Pope had earnestly dehorted him from any more arming going in person with an Army of 40000 choice men to assist the D. of Brandingburg with his Allies the Protestant Princes in the business of Cleves and Juliers whereof the Emperor complained as that which could not be without wrong to the Catholick Religion and what was worst of all this expedition was not doubted to be only a cover for some greater design that business of Cleves falling out very opportunely to furnish him with a good occasion to commence the execution of his projects Foul. ibid. While the King was raising this Army in France was a great Book secretly kept by some Priests wherein many did subscribe their fidelity and obedience to the Pope many of the subscriptions in blood and at Rome the Pope having dehorted him from arming four months before he was murthered Moulin ibid. was the Decree against John Chastel censured and forbidden to be read by an Act of the Consistory together with the History of Thuanus for relating too plainly that horrid action of Chastel and the part which the Jesuites had in it and likewise a Book of Mariana the Jesuite but not that which approveth the murthering of King's which by that means was in some sort that is tacitly and implicitly approved At last having as well ordered all things for the Government at home in his absence as perfected his preparations for the Expedition he was impatient to be gone from the City partly through his eager desire of pursuing the exploit partly boding and presaging some mischief to his person if he should stay longer there But the Queen to whom he had committed the Regency in his absence assigning her a select Council Per. p. 489 Quaere who was this Conchini who put this into the Queens head I think an Italian of Florence through the instigation of Conchini and his Wife being very importunate with him that she might be crowned before his departure he would not deny her that testimony of his affection though otherwise very unwilling and withal told her That that Coronation did presage him some mischief they would kill him he should never go from that City his enemies had no other remedy but his death it was told him that he should be slain at the first grand magnificence that he should make and that he should die in a Coach which made him taken with a trembling when he was in one He was counselled for the avoiding of the unhappy prophecies to depart the next day and to leave the Coronation which might well be done without him but this extremely offended the Queen and therefore to satisfie her he staid with such success as was foretold For the next day after the Coronation when in the morning * Continuation of de Serres he had been very sad and pensive one while casting himself upon his bed to sleep then again when he could not sleep arising to his prayers doing this several times in the afternoon he would needs go to the Arsenal to visit the Duke of Sully who was there indisposed though the Duke of Vendosme imminded him that he had been warned to beware of the fourteenth day but contemning the warning and predictions out of a desire to conceal his fear just as he had done before in the restitution of the Jesuites contrary to the advice and perswasions of his best friends in the way his Coach being stayed by a stop made by two Carts accidentally meeting in a narrow street he was stabbed between the second and third rib Peref and at a second blow to the heart whereof he died presently The Assassin was one Francis Ravaillac formerly a Monk but at that time a Sollicitor What motives perswasions or instigations he might have to this wicked act is much in the dark but that it was not out of revenge for any personal injury the meanness of his quality may induce us to believe and besides no such thing was ever pretended or alledged Nor was it out of hope of any temporal advantage for then he would have fled and endeavoured to have saved himself which he did not in the least but therefore upon the score of Religion which is further manifest for it seems he had in him some of the leven of the League and was perswaded that the King went to overthrow the Catholick Religion in Germany He †See the Petition of the University of Paris in the continuation of Serres K. James's Defence of the Right of Kings sub finem Foul. p. 646. from the Examination and Process said that the King made War contrary to the Pope's liking and boldly alledged at his examination this reason for what he did That the King had a design to make war against God because he prepared war against his Holiness for making war against the Pope is the same as to make war against God This is further confirmed by his carriage both at his Apprehension Examination and Execution When he had redoubled his stroke and offered a third he never so much as stirred from the place or offered to conceal the knife but stood still as if he desired to be taken notice of and gloried in the exploit and which may also help to satisfie us that he did it not of his own meer motion at his examination V. The Petition and Moulin p. 126. 137. were evident marks found in him of the Doctrine of the Jesuites and to the Divines who were sent to him he shewed himself perfectly instructed in all their distinctions and evasions about Rebellion and King-killing though otherwise very ignorant in all other Learning Lastly at his Execution such was his constancy in the midst of his terrible tortures as strongly confirmed
the suspition that certain Emissaries under the massque of piety had instructed and enchanted him by false assurances that he should dye a Martyr if he killed him whom they made him believe was the sworn enemy of the Church and possibly he might have been charmed by some such incantations as were heretofore used to Barriere and yet as 't is said he did confess thus much Foal p. 642. that he had informed Father d'Aubigny of his intended murther and shewed him the knife but it was in confession and therefore not to be revealed and the Jesuite upon examination protested that God had given him the grace that as soon as any thing was revealed to him in confession he presently forgot it The Jesuites were generally suspected and censured as guilty and several suspitious passages in their Sermons lately preached particularly by F. Hardy and F. Gontier were called to mind and thereupon the Parliament ordered the Jesuite Mariana's Book de Rege Regis Institutione to be burned by the common Executioner Continuat of Serres p. 1295 Foul. p. 646. and afterward condemned a Book of Suarez Defensio Fidei Cath. as containing many Seditious and treasonable Principles and after this another of another Jesuite Ant. Sanctarellus de Haeresi Schismate c. printed at Rome with the approbation of the General Foul. ibid. Moul. ubi sup and at the same time questioned F. Cotton and other chief men of their Society about their Doctrine in this respect but this was many years after the murder But that the History is so sparing in this particular of the accessories it self gives us a good reason the Judges themselves who examined him says Perefix durst not open their mouths and never spoke of it but with a shrug of their shoulders and that some grand thing was hushed up may be supposed from the publick complaint of the Prince of Conde and others five years after that the discovery of this murther was stopped and not fully prosecuted It should seem domestick and foreign jealousies conspired in it But that it was not done without the privity of others is further confirmed from the Predictions of it the general bruit which fore-ran it and the King's enemies confident expectation of it His enemies says Perefix were then in a profound silence which possibly was not caused by their consternation and fear of the success of his arms but for the expectation they had to see some great blow which was all their hope It was foretold in an Almanack brought to Peirescius out of Spain printed November before which Gassendus though he doubts not but the Artist might have some dealing with an evil genius yet thinks he might foresee by other means as being privy to the conspiracy which indeed is the more likely because it was composed by a Beneficiary or Beneficed man of Barcellonia or Barcinonia from whence the Spanish Emissary above mentioned came to Paris to Father Cotton by whom he was recommended to the King Perefix And perhaps of the same kind with this was that Prediction of his approaching death by a determinate blow Continuat of Serres which was found written in a paper upon the Altar at Montargis The Provost of Pluviers who 't is said was a Jesuite in Faction and had a Son a Jesuite being accused to have said the same day that the King was murthered that he was slain or wounded that day strangled himself in prison And indeed such and so many were the predictions and reports of it at the time and before it was done which are mentioned by * Li. 2. de vita Peireskii Gassendus Perefix and others as make it very apparent that it was generally fore-known both in Spain and Italy or at least that there was then many emissaries sent out to do it and that it was confidently expected that it would certainly be done Only it is somewhat strange that those circumstances at his next Solemnity in his Coach and the very day of the month should be so precisely foretold as it seems it was in that manner that he gave credit to it though no credulous person and was so sad and dejected that he was like one condemned to death though by nature neither fearful nor melancholy He had advertisements to this purpose by his Embassadors and namely by Jo. Bochartus from Venice and by others from twenty several places But it seems it was decreed the Decree was gone out and it must be executed This end had Henry le Grand in the height of his Grandure much like the fall of some stately structure deceitfully built upon an infirm foundation when just raised to its height He was frighted in his youth into a change of his Profession for the saving of his life the first but bitter fruit of his being unequally yoked but that being only through teror and constraint he returned again when he found a convenient opportunity to the open profession of his own Religion It was about the eighteenth year of his age when his youth might make his yielding to so extraordinary terror heightned by the sad spectacle of the horrid murthers of all his friends the more excusable About eighteen years after when he was grown up to maturity about the thirty sixt year of his age and had given some testimony of his constancy in his Profession and for his encouragement had received no small testimonies of Divine favour not only preserving and conducting him safe through many dangers and difficulties but leading him by the hand to the possession of the Kingdom and making way for him by the extirpation of a whole Family another Trial was assigned him by the great Agonothetes V. Ecclesiasticus 2. 1. 2 3 c. who never ceaseth to provide new matter and occasions of trial and exercise for all those who once apply themselvs to his service till either by many mutual experiments given and received of their fidelity and constancy to him and of his admirable Providence never failing them but ordering all for their good they become more than Conquerors and well setled and confirmed in his service one great reason of the difficulties and adversities wherewith good men are frequently exercised or on the other side after many acts of unfaithfulness whereby their courage and resolution is more and more broken and abated they become easily affrighted or allured from their duty and at last either wholly deserting or little regarding the same are accordingly by him abandoned to the deceitful and pernitious courses of their own lusts and devices The former was a trial whether he would be frighted or forced from his fidelity this rather whether he would be allured from it In the former he failed and now having had time to repent and resume new courage and resolution he is again called upon the stage and in the first assault he behaved himself not much amiss For who can mislike his referring all to the determination and advice
the death of the King 's youngest son Sept. 8. following to the murder of Henr. 3. Aug. 1589. the very same space of time which Queen Elizabeth happily and prosperously reigned in England and most of it contemporary Wherein it is very plain and observable a triple difference between her and them viz. a different cause or end and aim of their actions a different manner of proceeding and a different success As to the Cause they designed and endeavoured the suppression of the reformed Religion and extirpation of the Professors of it in their territories she established and promoted it in her Dominions As to their manner of proceeding they fought to attain their ends by fraud and violence slaughters and inexecrable severity either without Law or contrary to Law or by executions exceeding in severity the very rigour of the Decrees Laws or Edicts against the Protestants and all for no other cause but their Religion a Religion which teacheth nothing dishonourable to God or Christ or injurious to man which embraceth all that can reasonably be proved to have been taught by Christ or his Apostles receiveth honoureth and commends to the diligent study of all the sacred Scriptures such a Religion as they who persecute it confess to be true in what it affirms and is the most essential part of their own only believes not what they are not sufficiently convinced to be true and with no little reason suspect to be false or not proposed to their belief by Divine authority She did nothing without Law or contrary to the Laws was very moderate in making and no less in executing any Laws against Papists The first she made in the first and fift years of her Reign being so far from introducing any new severity that they take off from the harshness of what was in force before and those and the rest not being made against their Religion in general but upon special and particular necessary and urgent occasions for the necessary asserting and preservation of her own just authority against those who endeavoured to set up a pretended foreign jurisdiction against her to absolve her subjects from all duty and obligation of obedience to her and excite them to rebellions and to joyn with foreign enemies or by assassination to destroy her whereby she was necessitated and forced through their continual wicked seditious and rebellious practices for the curbing and restraining of them to proceed contrary to her own disposition to more and more severities of Laws which though none of them made without just cause and some special provocation yet were executed with admirable moderation the next after those above mentioned which was made in the thirteenth year of her Reign V. Camd. an 1577. p. 286. being occasioned by the Northern Rebellion and the Pope's Bull to absolve her subjects from their obedience yet notwithstanding in six whole years after was not put in execution against any one though there were those apprehended who had offended against it and in ten years after that rebellion were there but five executed till the further provocations before mentioned in the 29 th and following Paragraphs necessitated the execution of the Laws then in force and the enacting of some others in the 23 27 29 and 35 years of her Reign and yet did not the severity which was exercised in all her Reign against Papists equal what was done against the Protestants in two years of her Sisters Reign and oftner than once in few days in France and professedly for their Religion only whereas it cannot be proved * Sir Fr. Bacon in his Observations upon the Libel point 3. and Collection of the Queens Felicities and the late Treatise of the Grounds Reasons and Provocations necessitating the Sanguinary Laws Edit Lond. 1664. quarto that throughout her whole Reign there was any one executed meerly for their Religion Such certainly was her lenity and moderation in this respect considering the daily and high provocations against her as plainly argues an admirable magnanimity and piety in her and is scarce to be parallell'd in any History not to be denied but by such as have cast off all ingenuity and sense of their own credit and reputation and hath extorted the †V. Watson Widdrington c. apud Foulis l. 7. c. 2. The Jesuits Reasons unreasonable confession and provoked the free acknowledgment of her more candid and ingenuous adversaries There might also be observed a great difference between the actions of the Protestants in France and the Papists both here and there too but that for brevity sake shall be left to the Readers own observation from what hath been related of each Therefore lastly as to their success they while by fraud and violence they sought the utter extirpation of the Reformed Religion and Professors of it in France were themselves extirpated there and the last of their race cut off by his own Subjects of that same Religion which by those wicked courses was sought to be established and the Religion which they sought to suppress and extirpate took deeper root and flourished more notwithstarding all their opposition and persecutions She while with rare moderation and a generous plain-dealing constancy and resolution established the Reformed Religion both easily and happily attained her end and was her self established in her Throne and in a long happy and prosperous Reign as long as all theirs from the beginning of their persecutions preserved from all the secret plots and machinations and open rebellions and assaults of her enemies made victorious over all and at last brought to her grave in peace and in a good old age leaving her Kingdoms in peace and in a flourishing condition and a blessed and glorious memory behind her while they were cut off in the flower or middle of their age and left their Kingdom embroiled in Civil Wars Confusion and Misery and an infamous memory of their no less unsuccesful than perfidious and barbarous actions 55. Nor was this distinguishing Providence thus visible only between her and those who persecuted the Reformed Religion but also between her and those who deserted the same as is to be seen in the next succeeding King of France Henr. 4. the greatest part of whose Reign was contemporary with her 1561. See before Sect. 41. p. 67. and in his Father before him Antony King of Navar who being drawn in by the Pope's Legate and Guises in hopes to recover his Kingdom of Navar or satisfaction for it to desert the Protestants and become Head of the Popish party within the space of about one year after ended his life by a shot before Rouen Had he lived longer says * P. 22. Perefix the Hugonots had without doubt been ill dealt with in France But having received his deaths-wound he became more †Thu. l. 33. solicitous for his own salvation than for his Kingdom for which he had thus wavered in his Religion and at last declared that if he recovered he would
the King who desired to gratifie the Pope in it was troubled at length the King's Ambassador being instant with the Pope he answered that the articles proposed by the King seemed to him to be such as the Jesuites ought to be contented with them but that hitherto he had deferred his answer because the General of the Society Aquanina shewed himself not at all satisfied with them nor would subscribe to them c. that the business therefore was no longer in the King's power but transacted by agreement between the King and the Pope rem proinde amplius non esse integram sed de ea inter Regem Pontificem quasi pacto transactum fuisse All which shews sufficiently that the Pope had then gotten some hank upon him which he could not get off Nor can any other be easily assigned so probable as this which I have said Only one thing more 't is likely helped forward the business viz. a desire to secure his life by ingratiating himself with the regicides for so it is said that when his great favourite the D. of Sully disswaded him from their re-admission Foul. l. 9. c. 2. he answered Give me then security for my life And indeed though in his answer to that grave speech of the chief President Harlay in the name of the Parliament and in behalf of the University representing to him both from their principles and practices the danger of what he was about not only to the Kingdom but to his own person he made shew of great contempt of that danger and hopes which upon mature deliberation he had conceived of the good fruits which France might receive from their restitution and also of confidence in God who had thus preserved him hitherto for his future preservation yet since it does plainly appear by what was delivered by Messius from him to the Senate and there can be no reason to think otherwise that he was sore against his will viz. through some inconsiderate pre-ingagement from which he could not recede brought to it his other favours to them besides their re-admission may be thought to proceed from this principle and his shew of contempt of the danger to argue rather what he sought to conceal than what he pretended or at least that that contempt proceeded from his hopes of securing his own safety by this means For what-ever he pretended it could not proceed from a well grounded confidence of God's protection a thing inconsistent with his living in continued known sin by reason of his Amores which the Reverend Bishop of Paris doth frequently deplore and when he had before violated his conscience by his change of Religion for securing his Kingdom For who can with confidence expect any favour from him whom he doth daily knowingly injure and offend Besides that confidence is not always the meer result of a good conscience but is often raised in pious souls by the special influence of the Spirit of God who as he doth more and more encrease it in those who continually and sincerely endeavour to persevere and go forward in a diligent observance of his will and to raise their souls by a constant exercise of the dictates of Reason and Faith above the animal or bruitish nature so doth he always withdraw the same from those who decline to bruitish affections and if they go on so to do at last leaves them dis-spirited Quos perdere vult Jupiter dementat prius and obnoxious to base and deceitful shifts and devices whereby they pull down mischief upon their own heads especially when this is mixt with ingratitude against great mercies Nor can a sacrilegious and profane absolution by those who cry peace peace when there is no peace serve the turn without a due repentance proportionable to the fault with all its aggravations and a sound reformation And for what fruits he might expect from their restitution for the good of the Kingdom his Parliament well informed him by the mouth of their worthy President Harlay in that notable speech which might well have deserved a larger place here had not so much been related already to that purpose from others As they have all one common Name and Vow so have they saith he certain heads of Doctrine wherein they all agree as that they acknowledge no Superior besides the Pope and to him they give Faith and an absolute Obedience and firmly believe that the Pope hath power to excommunicate Kings but that a King excommunicate is a Tyrant and that his subjects may with impunity make insurrection against him That every one of them who is initiated though but in the lower Orders of the Church whatsoever crime he commits cannot possibly incur the crime of Treason because they are not at all any longer the King's Subjects nor subject to his Jurisdiction Thus are the Ecclesiasticks by their Doctrine exempt from the secular Power and lawfully may with impunity lay bloudy violent hands upon the sacred persons of Kings This they assert in printed Books c. These false and erroneous Doctrines cannot be admitted by Kings and therefore it behoves that they who maintain them should before all things renounce the same in their Schools If they do not they ought by no means to be suffered as those who maintain a Doctrine devised to the subversion of the fundamentals of royal power and authority If they do yet are they not much more to be trusted for at Rome and in Spain where these new monstrous opinions flourish they think one thing but speak * See their Answers to the Questions proposed to them by the Court after the murder of the King in Foul. l. 9. c. 2. five and the Answer to Philanax Angl. ch 5. p. 128. another in France and as they pass into this or that Country so do they take up or lay down these opinions If they say that this they may lawfully do by †V. Spotswood Hist of Scotl. l. 6. an 1580. pag 308 309. secret Dispensation then what certainty can be had of their Doctrine which is thus changed with their change of place and is good or bad according to the times This Doctrine they embrace and maintain in common all of them and it so thrives by little and little that it is to be feared lest in tract of time it infect the other orders which are not yet levened by it At first they had none more their adversaries than the Sorbonists now many of them are their favourers viz. those who received their first institution in their Schools Others who are now training up in learning under them will hereafter do the like and one day hold the chief dignities in the Senate and if they shall think the same in point of Doctrine also they will by degrees withdraw themselves from their duty of obedience to the King set at naught the King's Laws and suffer the Liberties of the Gallicane Church to become obsolete and wear out and lastly will reckon