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 Abborring 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 with 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 40. He left four sons all in a manner children the eldest Francis II. 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 his 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. 2â— 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 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
the Guises should immediately depart the City and go every one to his own house that thereby all might take notice that whatsoever had been done at Paris proceeded from their faction But the Queen and Anjou especially who did both of them with an over-weaning affection incline to the party of Guise did intercede seeing the King was at first enraged only against Coligny as not yet forgetting his flight from Meaux drew him on who yet wavered to the slaughter of all the Protestants in the City so that not knowing where he set his foot they brought him by degrees to this pass that he should take the whole blame upon himself and so ease the Guisians who were not able to bear such a burden And to that end Anjou did as it it was laid produce Letters found in Teligny's desk written by the hand of Momorancy in which after the wound given to Coligny he did affirm that he would revenge this injury upon the Authors of it who were not unknown with the same mind as if it had been offered to himself Thereupon the Queen and Anjou took occasion to shew the King That if he persisted in his former dissimulation things were come to that pass that he would endanger the security of the Kingdom his Fortunes Riches and Reputation For the Guisians who do by these Letters and otherwise understand the mind of the Momorancies being men desirous of troubles and seeking grounds of them upon every occasion will never lay down their Arms which they have by the King's command taken up to offer this injury that they will still keep them under pretence of desending their safety which they say is aimed at by the enemy and so that which was thought to have been the end of a most bloudy war will prove to be the beginning of a more dangerous one For the remainders of the Protestants who see their matters distressed will without doubt gather themselves to the Momorancies who are of themselves strong and thence will take new strength and spirits which if it should happen what a face of the Kingdom will appear when the name and authority of the King's Majesty being slighted and trampled upon every one shall take liberty to himself and indulge to private hatred and affections according to his own lust Lastly what will foreign Princes think of the King who suffers himself to be over-ruled by his subjects who cannot keep his subjects in their duty and lastly who knows not how to hold the reins of legal power Therefore there is no other way to prevent so great an evil but for the King to approve by his publick Proclamation of what was done as if it had been done by his command For by this means he should take the arbitrement and power to himself and on the one hand disarm the Guises and on the other hand keep the Momorancies from taking up Arms and lastly should bring it about that the Protestant affairs now already very low should be separated from the cause of the Momorancies That the King ought not to fear the odium of the thing for there is not so much danger in the horridness of a fact the odium whereof may be somewhat allayed by excuse as in the confession of weakness and impotency which doth necessarily bring along with it contempt which is almost destructive to Princes By these reasons they easily perswaded an imperious Prince who less seared hatred than contempt that he might recall the Guisians to obedience and retain the Momorancies in their loyalty to confirm by publick testimony that whatsoever had been done was done by his will and command Therefore in the morning viz. upon the Tuesday he came into the Senate with his Brethren the King of Navar and a great retinue of Nobles after they had heard Mass with great solemnity and sitting down in the Chair of State all the orders of the Court being called together He complained of the grievous injuries that he had from a child received from Gaspar Coligny and wicked men falsly pretending the name of Religion but that he had forgiven them by Edicts made for the publick Peace That Coligny that he might leave nothing to be added to his wickedness had entred into a conspiracy how to take away him his mother his brethren and the King of Navar himself though of his own Religion that he might make young Conde King whom he determined afterwards to slay likewise that the Royal Family being extinct he usurping the Kingdom might make himself King That he when it could not otherwise be did though full sore against his will extinguish one mischief by another and as in extream dangers did use extream remedies that he might extirpate that impure contagion out of the bowels of the Kingdom Therefore that all should take notice that whatsoever had been that day done by way of punishment upon those persons had been done by his special command After he had said these things Christophorus Thuanus chief President in a speech fitted to the time commended the King's prudence who by dissembling so many injuries had timely prevented the wicked conspiracy and the danger that was threatned by it and that that being suppressed he had now setled peace in the Kingdom having well learnt that saying of Lewis XI He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reign Then the Court was commanded that diligent enquiry should be made concerning the conspiracy of Coligny and his Associates and that they should give sentence according to form of Law as the heinousness of the fact did require Then lastly Vidus Faber Pibraccius Advocate of the Treasury or Attorney-General stood up and asked the King whether he did will and command that this declaration should be entred into the acts of the Court to the preservation of the memory of it whether the orders of Judges and Civil Magistrates which he had complained were corrupted should be reformed And lastly whether by his command there should be an end put to the slaughters and rapines To these things the King answered that he did command the first that he would take care about the second and that for the third he did give command by publick proclamation through all the streets of the City that they should for the future abstain from all slaughters and rapines Which declaration of the King astonished many and among the rest Thuanus himself who was a man of a merciful nature and altogether averse from bloud and feared that example and the danger that was threatned thereby who also did with great freedom privately reprove the King for that if the conspiracy of Coligny and his company had been true he did not rather proceed against them by Law This is most certain he did always detest St. Bartholomews-day using those verses of Statius Papinius in a different case Excidat illa dies aevo nec postera credant Saecula nos certe taceamus obruta multa Nocte tegi propriae patiamur
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 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