to these joyned themselves the Embassadors of Maximilian the Emperor and of Lewis XII King of France who were also embarqued in the same Design The time when this Council was called was the Nineteenth of May in the Year of our Lord 1511 that so the first Session might begin on the First of September next ensuing The Cause they alledg'd to justifie this their Proceeding was That the Pope had broken his Oath for that although so many years of his Pontificate were already elapsed yet he had not given them any the least hopes of his having any Inclination to call a Council and that because they had very great and heinous Crimes to lay to his charge they could not any longer neglect the care of the Church which was a Duty imcumbent on them as Members of the sacred College Their intent really was to depose him from the Popedom which he had obtained by Bribery and other such honest arts and means as all Persons make use of who aspire to the Infallible Chair And because they could no way safely convey this their Remonstrance to him they caused it to be publickly affixed at Regio Modena and Parma which were all three Towns belonging to St. Peter's Patrimony and they added a Citation to him to appear Personally at a certain day therein mentioned Julius having received Information of all this returned this Answer on the Eighteenth of July That before he came to be Pope he longed for nothing more than the calling a general Council as was very well known to several Kings and to the whole College of Cardinals and that purely upon this account he lost the Favour of Alexander VI. That he continued still of the same mind but that the state of Italy had been so unsetled for several years last past and was left so by his Predecessor Alexander That it was altogether impossible to have formed a Council while things continued in that distracted condition After this he shews them that their Summons was void in it self by reason of the shortness of the time limited in it and the inconveniency of the place for that Pisa had suffered so much in the late Wars that it was now nothing almost but an heap of Ruins and that the Country round about it was all wasted and desolate nor could there be any safe passage thither because of the daily Hostilities committed between the Florentines and those of Senese To this he adds in the last place That they had no legal Power of issuing out any such Summons and that the Reasons given by them for so doing were altogether false and groundless Therefore under pain of the severest Censures he forbids all Persons to yield any Obedience to them At the same time he by a Bull subscribed by One and twenty Cardinals called a Council to meet the next year which should commence on the Nineteenth of April and be held in the Lateran Church in Rome For this they say has always been one of the Papal Artifices that whensoever upon any Pretext they took occasion for some secret motives to decline the holding of a Council though called by never so lawful an Authority at the same time to Summon another to meet in such a place in which they could with the greatest ease influence all the Proceedings in it After this he admonishes the Confederate Cardinals to desist in time and return to Rome and accept of the Pardon now offer'd them But they continuing still refractory on the Twenty fourth of October he Excommunicates them all and those three that we mentioned before in particular by name as Hereticks Schismaticks and Traytors to the Apostolick See and sends Copies of this Bull to Maximilian the Emperor and several other Princes And because there were divers Bishops of France who adhered firmly to the Cardinals interests he Excommunicates them also unless they return to their Duty and make their Purgation within a prefixed time On the other side the Cardinals having several times in vain cited the Pope to come and appear before them there in Council by a Decree made in the Eighth Session suspended him from all Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and commanded all Christians for the future to renounce his Authority and acknowledge him no longer for St. Peter's Successor This was in the Year of our Lord 1512 on the Twenty first of April But you must take notice that although the Council were removed from Pisa to Milan yet it still kept its old Name and was called the Pisane Council At this time there was a very famous Civilian at Pavia whose Name was Philip Decius he having espoused the Cardinals Cause published a Book in Defence of their Proceedings against the Pope A little after this Maximilian strikes up a League with Julius and Ferdinand King of Spain and so leaves the Cardinals in the Church to shift for themselves and sends Matthew Langus Bishop of Gurk to Rome to sit as his Proxy in the Council that was holden there and him Julius immediately promoted to the Dignity of the Purple But Lewis II King of France who was truer to his Engagements and had lately routed the Popes Forces near Ravenna could not escape the thunders of the Vatican his Subjects were absolved from their Allegiance his Kingdom put under an Interdict and an Invasion of it was now no less than meritorious But after the end of the Fifth Session on the Twenty first of February in the Year of our Lord 1513 Pope Julius dies and Leo X is chosen by the Conclave to succeed him He immediately after his Inaguration proceeds to compleat what his Predecessor had begun and because the state of Affairs in Europe was now a little more calm than at any time during the former Pontificate a great many Kings and Princes sent their Embassadors to Rome to assist at this Lateran Council The Cardinals also whom Julius had Excommunicated having since his Death nothing to give any colour to their continuing in their Obstinacy made their humble Submission and Suit to be indemnified for what was past and being received into Favour by Leo were restored to their former Dignities and Preferments as Leo himself declares in an Epistle wrote by him to Maximilian The Council broke up on the Twelfth of March in the Year of our Lord 1516 there having been seven Sessions since the Death of Julius for there were but twelve in all the whole four years that this Council lasted from its first Convention to its Dissolution The chief Transactions in it were these The Praises of Julius and Leo were the Subjects of those luscious Panegyricks with which the Auditory were almost daily entertained There were some Motions made in order to the engaging in a War against the Turks and concerning the Reformation of the Church And also there was a Debate about the Immortality of the Soul which began to admit of a Dispute now in
manner turned out of Place it must not be expected that for the future they would contribute any thing to the defraying of the Charges of that Judicature But all these Courses were ineffectual and King Ferdinand answering the Mediators himself told them That any other City which observed the Emperour's Edicts might be substituted in place thereof After a long Debate about Religion they made a new Decree wherein resuming in a few Words the Acts of the former Dyet of Spire how that it had been ordained there That as to the Emperour's Decree of Wormes all should so behave themselves that they might be able to render an account of their Actions both to God and the Emperour but that it being now abused by many who under colour and pretext thereof excused and defended all sorts of New and Horrid Doctrins it was therefore enacted and decreed to this effect That they who had hitherto observed that Edict should do so for the future and oblige their People to do so also until the meeting of the Council which the Emperour gave great Hopes of very speedily But that they who had changed their Religion and could not now retract for fear of Troubles and Sedition should for the future moderate themselves and make no more Innovations before the sitting of the Council Moreover that the Doctrin of those who dissent from the Church about the Lord's Supper should not be received neither the Mass abolished nor those who were willing hindred from going to Mass in those Places where a New Doctrin was taught That Anabaptists also who obstinately maintain their Tenet should be put to Death and that Ministers should preach according to the Sense and Interpretation of Scripture approved by the Church That they should not meddle with other Points which probably might be controverted but expect the Decree of a Council Besides that all States should live together in Peace do no Injury to one another upon account of Religion and not take the Subjects of others Jurisdiction into their Protection And that such as did otherwise should be put to the Ban of the Empire This Decree was opposed by the Elector of Saxony George Marquess of Brandenburg Ernest and Francis Dukes of Lunenburg the Landgrave and Count Anbald who April 19 publickly read their Protestation against it in Writing And in the first place they repeat the Decree of the former Dyet whereby all are permitted the free exercise of their Religion until the meeting of a Council from which they ought not to recede nor violate those things which for Peace-sake were then agreed upon and confirmed by Oath under Hand and Seal That for their own Parts they were ready in imitation of their Ancestors to comply with the Emperour in any thing and to spend their Lives and Fortunes in his Service But that the present Case concerned their Eternal Salvation and therefore prayed that it might not be taken ill if therein they dissented from the rest For that as the former Decree had been made with the unanimous Consent of all so also could it not be repealed and made void unless all in like manner agreed to it That they were not against it but that they themselves might appoint what Form of Religion they pleased within their own Territories and prayed God that he would enlighten the Minds of all with his true Knowledge That for some Years now past there had been great Dissention and Quarrelling about Religion and that who were the Authors and Causes thereof it had in some measure been made out in the Dyet of Norimberg and by the Confession of the Pope himself and the Grievances and Demands of the Princes and States which to the number of eighty had been delivered to the Pope's Legate whereof nevertheless no redress was as yet made That the Result of all Deliberations had always been this That the readiest way to put an End to Controversies and corrupt Abuses was a free Council But that now laying that Course aside they should Decree That they who had changed the Form of their Religion and could not without Troubles recede from what they had done should make no other Innovations they could not approve nor admit of that unless they would professedly derogate from the Doctrin which hitherto they had owned as True and Holy For to forsake that Doctrin provided it might be done without Stirs and Commotions what was it else than to deny the pure and uncorrupted Word of God which they had than which there could not be a more grievous Sin For that it was to be professed not only in Word but in Deed also Besides that what Mischief such a Denyal would bring with it and how pernicious it would be to many Professors of the Gospel it was easie enough to be conjectured That as to the Popish Mass it was well known How the Ministers of the Churches within their Dominions had by firm and unanswerable Arguments and Testimonies of Holy Scripture quite overthrown it and in place thereof appointed the Lord's Supper according to the Command and Institution of Christ and the manner observed by the Apostles so that neither could they approve that Clause of the Decree nor give leave to their People to repair to Mass which was already abolished For that granting That the use of the Popish Mass were never so Right and Pure yet if they should admit of two contrary Masses in their Churches it was obvious to all Men how bad an example that would give and what grumbling and heart-burning would thereupon ensue That again they wondred very much That they should prescribe to them what they were to enjoyn their People and what Laws they should make within their own Jurisdictions especially seeing if the like were attempted upon them they would by no means suffer it That all Men knew what was taught in their Churches of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament so that it needed no farther Explication But that nevertheless as they had often said before so it still seemed to them That no such Decree was as yet to be made against those who taught otherwise because there was nothing of that mentioned in the Emperour's Commission and besides because the Assertors of that Doctrin were neither called nor heard That therefore it was seriously to be considered How unreasonable and unbeseeming a thing it would be to pass a Judgment at any time upon such difficult and weighty Affairs without hearing those who were concerned speak for themselves Now as to what they said That the Gospel was to be taught according to the Interpretations approved and received by the Church it was right indeed however the Dispute still was Which is the True Church But that since no Doctrin was more certain than that of God's Word since nothing should be taught besides it and that the obscure Places of Scripture could not be better explained than by other clearer Places of the same Scripture they would
Reasons of both Parties being heard a Committee out of the whole Diet was chosen to consider of the Matter The Result of their Deliberation was That the Sentence past against Albert should stand good but nevertheless because they saw that it would prove a most difficult Business to put it in execution they refer the whole Matter to the Emperour Some time after King Sigismund died at a great Age after he had Reigned Two and fourty years Casimire as has been said was his Father He had three Brothers of whom Ladislaus was King of Hungary and Bohemia the Father of King Louis and Anne John Albert and Alexander having successively Reigned after their Father Casimire died without Children and left the Government to their youngest Brother Sigismund to whom succeeded his Son of the same Name and Son in Law to Ferdinand King of the Romans It has been said in the former Book that Mendoza protested against the Council at Rome To that the Pope having called a Consistory of Cardinals February the first made this Answer When you told Us said he my Lord Ambassador that you had Orders from the Emperour to protest against the Council you struck us all with great grief But when afterwards we diligently considered your Commission we took heart again and first I will say somewhat to the cause of our Grief And it is because that kind of protesting is a thing of bad Example made use of chiefly by those who have either wholly shaken off their Obedience or have begun to waver in it Wherefore it grieved me exceedingly who have always born a Fatherly Love towards the Emperor and as it becomes the Pastor of the Church studied Peace and Concord And it grieved both me and the Colledge of Cardinals the more that at this time it was the thing we least expected since the Emperour when he made War against his and the Churches Enemies had Aid and Assistance from me And though my Lord Ambassador you seem to make but small account of this yet it ought to be reckoned as a singular favour For the Aid I sent was very great so as it even exceeded the reach of the Apostolical Chamber and came besides in a most seasonable time What could have been less expected then than that after a Victory and lately obtained too the Emperour should render unto me such fruits of his Faith and Benevolence Such I say as that the end of the War should be the beginning of protesting against me I have now found by Experience what the Prophet complaineth of That I looked for good Grapes but found none but sower Grapes From my entrance into the Popedom I have with much care cherished the Emperour as a most noble Plant that some time or other I might reap a most plentiful Vintage but this attempt of his hath made me almost despair of any fruit You have heard the cause of our Grief now you shall know what it is that hath given us Comfort You have used that Authority which you think has been given you of protesting against me and this sacred Colledge in a manner as was neither Honourable to us nor becoming the Character of the Emperour But in your Letters of Instructions there is not one word which shews it to have been the Emperours will that you should have acted so I say not one word that you may the better understand me that gives you power to do so The Emperour indeed Commands his Agents at Bolonia that they should so protest before our Legats there who changed the place of the Council and when you found that that was done there you would needs use the same form of Protestation here with us but in that you have transgressed the bounds of your Commission If my Lord Ambassadour you were not sensible of that before take now Admonition and acknowledge it For the Emperour's Orders are not that you should protest against us but that you should do it in this our Consistory against the Legats who were the Authors of the Translation Wherefore the Emperour in that did the Duty of a most modest Prince who confined himself within those limits and would have that Protestation to be made before me whom he knew to be the only lawful Judge of the whole Matter Had I indeed refused to take cognisance of the Affair then would he have had a cause of Protestation but you taking another course than you ought to have done made no application to me that I should examine the Matter but made use of a certain Prejudice demanding that I should annul the Decree made for translating the Council and enjoyn the greatest part of the Fathers to give place to a few who remained at Trent And what could more enervate all the Authority of the Council than that Had it not been much more reasonable that if the small number which is at Trent had had any cause of Complaint against the rest who are at Bolonia they should have brought it before me I would not then truly have rejected their demands nor would I neither now reject them Since then it is certain that your way of acting is not consonant to the Emperours Intentions we have cause to thank God who thus disposes his Mind and Purposes we have cause to Congratulate and you also to Rejoyce in your Princes behalf And though by what we have said the foundation of your Plea and Proceeding is wholly overturned so that there is no need of making Answer to your Protestation nevertheless that I may not by my silence seem to acknowledge the truth of your Accusations and thereby offend many especially the weaker sort I will refute them severally And in the first place therefore You seem to have proposed this Scope to your self that you may expose me as negligent a Shuffler and Starter of Delays to baffle the sitting of the Council and make the Emperour appear on the other hand to be a vigilant and active Prince sollicitous for the publick good and wholly bent upon the sitting of the Council Truly I do not nor ought I envy the Emperours Praises and had you stopt there and gone no farther I should have nothing to answer but because you so extol him as to depress me so celebrate his Praises as to render me in some sort Contemptible whilst you say that he urged not only me but my Predecessors Popes of Rome to call a Council the Thing it self requires that I should answer you as to these things Wherefore if it has been always the Emperours mind and desire that a Council should be held I have ever been of the same mind as well as he And besides as I am older than he so also have I wished for this sooner than he which the most eminent Cardinals who were then of this Colledge can testifie When I was made Pope I persevered in the same mind and upon the very least occasion that offered I called a Council first at Mantua and
to the amazement of many who had read his Books before The Soldiers as well they who besieged Magdeburg as the Garison that held it out had their Winter Quarters in Thuringe and the adjoyning Places and did much damage especially to the Churchmen and among those also to the Archbishop of Mentz whose frontiers reached so far The Electors of Mentz Treves and Cologne being moved thereat the first because of the damage he received and the other two for that they feared it might be their own case next resolved to return home and accordingly made the Emperour acquainted with it by Messengers and Letters But the Emperour who earnestly desired that the Council might be continued thus answered them on the Third of January I received says he your Letters of the One and twentieth of December and because I sent Orders to Don Francisco de Toledo to discourse you concerning the Affairs you wrote to me about and then because the Bishop of Arras had in my Name imparted several things of that nature to your Agent here I thought you had been satisfied But since I hear that because of an unwelcome report now spread abroad you are resolving to return home I thought fit to advise you in Writing that you would not lightly give credit to every thing that is told you For though there has been a rumour now for some time of some hidden designs in Hesse as if it were to be feared there might be an Insurrection there yet I am informed that if there be any such thing it is but the attempt of a few which the greater part dislike so that it is more credible that they themselves will reflect not only upon the Oath and Promises whereby they have bound themselves to me but also upon the Duty they owe both to me and the Publick and not run themselves into so great danger upon any uncertain hopes Besides having by Messengers diligently enquired of the Neighbouring Princes States and Cities how things went and if any new attempts were on foot I have found that all were dutiful and obedient for indeed I have given no Man any cause of offence There has been a great talk for sometime past of Duke Maurice also arising perhaps from hence that he formerly commanded the Forces which getting together into a Body after the surrender of Magdeburg had done hurt in some places but he hath lately both by Letters and Ambassadours assured me of his fidelity nay he has at this present two Ambassadours here who will set out to morrow for Trent to come to the Council He hath signified to me besides that for some weighty and important Affairs he is preparing to come unto me and I have certain intelligence that to day or to morrow at farthest he will set out from Magdeburg upon his Journy hither In short he makes me such fair and ample promises of his Duty and Allegiance that I ought not to look for any thing from him but what is just and honourable if there be any faith amongst Men. And seeing he is a true German by Birth and Extraction I cannot be induced to think that he can hatch such sinistrous Designs and Counsels As to the Forces complaints have indeed been brought me from many hands and some States are apprehensive that they may remove their Camp and do more mischief but after that I came to understand that they kept together in Bodies and used violence for want of their pay I sent Messengers and Officers with a strict charge to use all their endeavours and by any means raise Money to pay them off nor is that all for I have written also to Duke Maurice and past my word and promise for what Money might be owing provided the Soldiers were disbanded and this I did not that I was obliged to it but because I wish the quiet of Germany above all things I now therefore expect hourly that it should be done and make no doubt but that they being fairly dismissed all this stir and busle will be over But if the Soldiers having received their pay be not disbanded then will it easily appear that some under-hand designs are on foot and then also will it be fit to take other measures such as I have already in my heaâ— Now as to the other frequent but uncertain and almost contradictory Reports that are brought unto me it is my opinion that they are in a great part devised by our Enemies and according to their wonted levity dispersed among the People with design to disturb the Council and Peace of Germany But I trust that by Gods Blessing these Clandestine Counsels and Contrivances will at length be brought to light and meet with the success they deserve For now that Magdeburg is surrendered all are still and quiet Germany and all the Princes and States behave themselves so lovingly and obediently towards me that I cannot indeed devise what excuse or pretext can possibly be invented to colour any new sâ—irs I am not however ignorant but that circumspection is to be used and that at this time when there are such Commotions in Foreign Nations the least suspicion of danger is not to be neglected Again I am neither so unadvised nor negligent as to be deaf to the Reports that are brought unto me for I have Spies in all places that enquire into every thing and in that I spare neither cost nor labour Nevertheless that upon every light report the whole State should streight be alarmed you in your wisdom know how silly and unadvised a thing it would be Now that you should leave the Council unless in case of extream necessity I can in no ways approve for since very much dependeth on your presence it is to be â—eared lest by your departure not only the Council may be dispersed but also a fatal blow given to Religion wherein both the salvation of Mankind in general and your own private Fortuens consist Which being so I earnestly desire you my Lords of Mentz and Treves that you would alter your resolution and not think of going as yet and you my Lord of Cologne who seem not to be in so great haste continue in the same mind I pray you In general I exhort you all that since you hold the chief place among the States of the Empire you would help one another with Aid and Counsel and entertain Brotherly Love and Kindness amongst your selves In the mean time it shall be my care to watch for the Publick and as far as I am able either by parts or power to endeavour timely to quench any fire that may break out that Civil Broils being over and strength increasing at home we may be in a better condition to resist a Foreign War and that you may have leisure all things being quiet and peaceable within your Jurisdictions to mind the affairs of Religion and Christianity After all though I would advise you to give Orders to the Counsellors and Officers that
last interrupted by the Commotions of Germany In order to this the 19 th of November 1559. he Published a Bull for the recalling this Council to Trent at the Feast of Easter of this Year vehemently Exhorting all Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops and Abbats and all others who had the Right or Privilege to Sit and Vote in a General Council by common right or any Privilege or Ancient Custom that at that Day they would be present in the said Council He also Admonished the Emperor Elect and all other Christian Kings and Princes that if they could not be personally present they should send their Ambassadors thither affirming beforehand that he designed nothing by this Council but the Glory of God the Reduction and Salvation of the scattered Sheep and the lasting Peace of Christendom There was soon after a sharp Invective Printed at Ausburg by Paulus Vergerius Bishop of Cabo di Istria in Friule who was a Cardinal and had been imployed by several of the preceding Popes in great Ambassies and had lately left that Church and betaken himself to the Protestans of Germany In it he set forth the Pride Pomp Luxury Ambition Bribery and corrupt Manners of the Court of Rome which he vow'd he well knew and from his heart detested That the Council was not call'd by the Pope to establish the Doctrine of Christ but those Human Inventions which they had brought in contrary to the Commandments of God not to Purge God's fold but to disseminate their inveterate Errors not to restore Christian Liberty but to introduce a misrable Servitude and Oppression on the Souls of Men none but the Bishops and Abbats who should take an Oath prescribed by the Roman Ceremonial Lib. 1. c. III. § XIV being permitted to sit there That all the inferior Clergy and secular Princes had only a right to come be instructed but not to deliberate or vote by which it must needs come to pass that not only all those who had separated from that Church on the account of her gross Errors would not be heard which was promised at first by Paul III. but that also many of the most Skilful and most Learned Doctors of that Church would be excluded from giving any Vote and all Liberty in which only there was any hope of restoring the Peace of the Church would be taken away and a Door opened to let in a Schism which would never have an end The Pope perceiving that this Complaint would irritate the Minds of the German Princes for whose sake the Council was first Indicated sent Ambassadors to them Zachariah Delfino Bishop of Faro and John Francis Comendon Bishop of Zant being by his order directed to all the Princes with Letters of Credence They went first to Ferdinand the Emperor who was then at Vienna from thence they went by his Advice to meet all the Princes of the Augustane Confession who were then Assembled at Naumberg upon the River Saole in Saxony whom they were to treat very gently and modestly studying to avoid whatever might give occasion of Exasperation or Offence by the Counsel of this great and excellent Prince he telling them this was the easiest way to do their Business and to get a Positive Answer He also reminded them of the Conditions upon which the Protestant Princes had in the last Dyet declared they would consent to the Council of Trent That if they hap'ned to be mentioned the Ambassadors might not be destitute of an Answer He also sent Three Ambassadors of his own with them 1. Otho Count of Eberstin 2. Felix Bogislaus Baron of Hassenstein And 3. Christopher Meela Vice-Chamberlain of Bohemia These being admitted the day after their Arrival at Naumburg into the Assembly of the Princes exhorted them to be present in the Council to be shortly holden at Trent that an end might so be put to the lamentable Differences of Religion and the Calamities of Germany When they had deliberated on the Proposal they return'd this Answer That they were very Thankful to the Emperour for his Care of and Love to the Empire As to the Council they did not refuse a Free General and truly Christian Council in which not the Pope but the Word of God should sit as Judge the Oath of the Bishops being discharged and a Liberty allowed to those of the Augustane Confession to Vote But on the contrary they perceived the Pope pretended to continue the Council of Trent and only to allow those Bishops to Vote who were Sworn to him against which they had already Protested in many Dyets of the Empire They concluded with a Promise of a more partiticular Answer when they had consulted the Princes assembled at Newburg they having as yet no Instructions concerning this Point from them or their Deputies And in the mean time they prayed the Emperour that he would preserve inviolably the League of Passaw and the Peace of Religion After this both the Pope's Legates were heard one after another who said very much in Commendation of Pius IV. his great Care of Religion and good Affection towards them That to this end he had recall'd the Council to Trent for the Extirpation of Heresie and Sects in which he promised all things should be transacted with Christian Charity and Brotherly Affection and all should be fully and sweetly heard and Determinations made and Suffrages given with the utmost freedom and liberty Therefore they exhorted them to send Ambassadors with Plenary Instructions and lend their Assistance to the bringing so commendable a Design to its desired end which was the restoring Peace to Christendom They delivered also the Pope's Letters to the several and respective Protestant Princes which being Superscribed with the word Son were all return'd Seal'd to the Legates The last day of the Meeting the Electors and other Princes in the Morning return'd an Answer to the Pope's Legates That they did not acknowledge the Popels Jurisdiction nor think themselves bound to give him any account what they intended in the Business of the Council the Calling and holding of which belonged not to him but they had fully declared their Minds to Ferdinand the Emperour their gracious Lord. That as for them the Legates they esteemed them for their Noble Birth and great Learning and should have shewn them greater respects if they had not come on the Pope's Errand Being thus dismissed they went to Lubeck and sent to Frederick King of Denmark for leave to come to him but had for an Answer That neither he nor his Father had never had any Business with the Pope nor did he desire now to know their Errand And Martinego who was sent to Queen Elizabeth of England was forbidden to come over To give the Reader a certain and clear knowledge of this Meeting at Naumburg The 13th of January Fredcrick the Elector Palatine Augustus Duke of Saxony and Elector Jo. Frederick of Saxony Wolfang of the Palatine Family Ernest and Philip Dukes of Brunswick
Though the Edict of July had forbidden all Meetings of the Protestants yet their Number daily increasing and with it their Confidence not only Sermons were openly made but the Priests were in many places forcibly expell'd and the Churches seized for the use of the Ministers which gave being to the Edict of the 3d of November for the Restitution of those Churches upon pain of Death which by the Perswasion of the Ministers themselves was obeyed throughout the Kingdom But when notwithstanding Men seem'd rather enraged than appeased by the Edict of July and the Conference of Poissy was broken up without any effect there being every day news brought of new Commotions they began to think of some more effectual Remedy which that it might meet with the greater approbation and by consequence be the more universally executed the Presidents and some chosen Members of all the Parliaments of France were summon'd before the King to St. Germain by whose Advice it was to be drawn and Moddel'd Upon which the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise left the Court conceiving the thing would do it self now Montmorancy and the King of Navar had espoused that Interest About the same time there was a dreadful Tumult at Dijon whil'st the Protestants were assembled at their Sermon the Rabble thought fit to make themselves the Executioners of the Edict of July and having procured a Drum to beat before them they marched against the Huguenots but the Meeters made use of their Weapons and repell'd Force with Force The Rabble thereupon turn'd their fury against the Private Families and plundered several Houses There were also some Tumults at Paris on the same score and towards the end of the year all things tended to a general Revolution Having thus represented the State of Religion in all the rest of Christendom as shortly and as well as I can I return now to Scotland The Messengers they had sent into France to procure the Royal Consent to the Acts they had made in their last Parliament were no sooner return'd with a positive denial and a dreadful Reprimand which frighted and exasperated the Nation both at once but they had the Joyful News of the Death of King Francis II. to their great satisfaction and the no less affliction of the French Faction in that Kingdom On the other side the Nobility who had lent their Assistance to the Expulsion of the French immediately met at Edinburg and after a Consultation sent the Lord James to their Queen to perswade her to return into Scotland Lesley however prevented them and got to her some days before the Lord James She was then at Vitrie in Campaigne whither she was retired to lament her Loss His business was to bespeak her favour to the Catholick Party and return into Scotland The first she readily promised and as for the other she ordered him to Attend till she had resolved what to do It was soon after resolved that she should leave France so that the Lord James found her fixed to return when he came into France yet his Assuring her of the great desires the Nobility of Scotland had to see her there again much confirm'd her So she sent him back with Orders to see that nothing should be attempted contrary to the Treaty of Leith in her absence In March following M. Giles Noailles a Senator of Bourdeaux arrived at Leith with three Demands from the new King of France 1. That the old League between France and Scotland should be renewed 2. That the late Confederacy with England should be dissâ—lved 3. That the Church-men should be restored to all they had been deprived of But the Council replied That it did not befit them to treat of things of that Consequence before the Assembly of the States which was to be held the 21st of May when the Lord James made answer That the French and not the Scots had broke the old League by endeavouring to enslave them 2. That they could not violate the Treaty made with England and as to the third That they did not acknowledge those he interceded for to be Church men and that Scotland having renounced the Pope would no longer maintain his Priests and Vassals About the same time the Earls of Morton and Glencarn returned from England whither they had been sent with Assurances That the Queen would assist them in the Defence of the Liberties of the Kingdom if at any time they stood in need of her Help which was heard with much Joy. As the Lord James returned into Scotland he waited upon Queen Elizabeth and advised her to stop Queen Mary if she came by England as he expected she would 'till he had secured the State of Religion in Scotland for tho' she had promised She would continue all things in the State she found them ye he would not intirely rely upon her Promise having so often heard the old Maxim from the late Regent To make sure work therefore he procured an Act to be passed in this Convention for the Demolishing all the Cloysters and Abby Churches which were yet left standing in that Kingdom the Execution whereof as to the Western Parts was committed to the Earls of Arran Argile and Glencarn as to the North to the Lord James and as to the Inland Counties to some Barons that were thought the most Zealous Whereupon ensued a most deplorable Devastation of Churches and Church-buildings saith Spotiswood throughout all the Kingdom for every one made bold to put to their Hands the meaner sort imitating the Example of the greater and those who were in Authority No difference was made but all the Churches were either defaced or pulled down to the ground The Church Place and what ever Men could make Money of as Timber Lead and Bells were put to sale and the Monuments of the Dead the Registers of the Churches and Libraries were burn'd or destroyed and what escaped the Fury of the first Tumults now perished in a common Shipwrack and that under the colour of publick Authority John Knox is said to have very much promoted this Calamity by a Maxim he published That the sure way tâ— drive away the Rooks was to pull down their Nests which in probability he meant only of the Monks but now their Hands were in was extended to all the Church Buildings Noailles was then in Scotland and carried the News of this dreadful Reformation to the Queen into France She was much enraged at it and said to some of her Confidents that she would imitate Mary Queen of England but however she had wit enough to dissemble her Resentment for the present In order to her return she left Vitri and went to Paris and having waited upon the King and Queen-Regent to take her leave of them she took her Journy towards Calais Queen Elizabeth had sent the Earl of Bedford to condole the Death of Francis her late Husband and to desire her Ratification of the Treaty of
prescribed by the Electors which the Emperour's Ambassadours ratified and as is customary gave Security in his Name under Hand and Seal for performing the same Now they were these That he shall protect and defend Christendom the Pope and Church of Rome whereof he is the Advocate that he shall equally administer Justice and maintain Peace that he shall not only confirm the Laws of the Empire especially that which they call the Golden Bull but also when there is occasion with their Consent amplifie and enlarge them that he shall chuse and appoint a Council of Germans to govern the State that he shall not alter nor diminish the Rights Priviledges Dignities and Immunities of the Princes and States of the Empire that it shall be lawful for the Electors to meet together upon occasion and consult about publick Affairs and that he shall in no ways hinder them to do so nor take it ill when they do that he shall rescind and annul the Leagues and Associations of the People or Nobility made against the Princes and make a Law that no such be made for the future that he shall make no League or Compact relating to the Affairs of the Empire with Strangers but with the Consent of the Electors that he shall neither sell nor mortgage the Publick Lands and Revenues of the Empire nor any ways imbezil them and that he shall with the first Occasion regain those Lands or Goods that have been invaded and possessed by other Nations or have been dismembred from the Empire but so still that it be not prejudicial to those who are supported by Right or Priviledge That if he himself also or any of his Family possess any thing belonging to the Empire not lawfully purchased he shall being demanded by the Electors restore the same that he shall live in Peace with his Neighbours and other Kings and not make War either within or without the Limits of the Empire for the publick concerns thereof without the Advice and Consent of all the States especially of the Electors that he shall not bring any Foreign Soldiers into Germany unless the States be willing but that if either he himself or the Empire be attacked by War he may make use of any Assistance that he shall not call a Dyet of the Empire nor impose any Taxes but with the consent of the Electors neither shall he hold Dyets without the Limits of the Empire that in publick Affairs he shall not employ Strangers but Germans chosen from among the Nobility and that all publick Writings shall be made in Latin or the Vulgar Language that he shall not summon any of the States to answer in Law without the Bounds of the Empire that seeing many things are acted at Rome contrary to former Agreements made with the Popes he shall negotiate with the Pope That no encroachment be made upon the Priviledges and Liberty of the Empire that he shall advise with the Electors How the Monopolies of Merchants that are very pernicious to Germany may be restrained and bring that matter which hath been often stated before them to an Issue that he shall impose no Toll nor Customs without the consent of the Electors nor by Grants and Patents lessen or prejudice the Customs belonging to the Electors upon the Rhine that if he have any Action or Suit against any of the States he shall try it by Law but shall not use Force against those who offer to stand a fair Tryal that he shall not put any Man to the Ban of the Empire without a hearing but therein follow the course of Law that he shall not bestow upon any Person the vacant Goods and Revenues of the Empire but reserve them for the publick that if he acquire any Foreign Province by the Help of the States he shall annex it to the Empire that if he recover any thing that belongs to the Publick by his own Forces he shall restore it to the Commonwealth that he shall Confirm and Ratifie what the Electors Palatine and Saxony have acted in Publick Affairs during the interreign that he shall entertain no Counsils nor Design of making the Imperial Dignity proper and Hereditary to his own Family but shall leave the Electors in full and free Power of Election according to the Statute of Charles IV and the Provision of the Canon Law that what is done otherwise shall be void and null that with the first Opportunity he shall come into Germany to be Installed When his Ambassadours had upon Oath confirmed and approved these Conditions in his Name as hath been said they gave every one of the Electors an Instrument of the same under hand and Seal And this was done on July 3. What they said of the Cannon Law refers to the Decretal Epistle of Pope Innocent III which grants That the Electoral Princes of Germany have the right of chusing the Emperour and that the Imperial Dignity does not depend on Succession but Election Now Pope Innocent lived about the Year of our Lord 1200. But let us return again to Luther Much about that Time Erasmus of Roterdam writing from Antwerp to Frederick Elector of Saxony among other things takes notice also of Luther whose Books he said were read with great Applause by Good and Learned Men and that no Man censured his Life as being free from all Suspicion either of Covetousness or Ambition but that the Divines of Lovain hearing that he was much born down by the Authority of Cardinal Cajetane did now triumph and rail against him in all their Sermons and at their Feasts as if he were an Heretick and the Antichrist That he was much displeased thereat especially seeing he had but proposed some things for Disputation sake and had submitted himself to the Judgment of those both to whom he ought and to whom he ought not but that they had neither admonished the Man Friendly nor as yet taught him nor convinced him of his Errour but only made a turbulent and seditious Noise and Clamour about the Matter which was a way of Proceeding altogether unworthy of Men that made Profession of the Christian Religion but especially Divines for that no Man was to be rashly accused of Heresie To the same effect he wrote also to the Archbishop of Mentz and Cardinal Campegio and in his Letter enveighs against those Sophistical Divines and Monks who could not endure the Study of Languages and Eloquence nor of sound Doctrine He wrote in like manner to Luther at that time telling him That he had received his Letter which shewed both a sharp Wit and Christian Disposition but that his Books had raised a sad Tragedy in those Parts and that for them he lay under both the Envy and Suspicion of the Divines who would admit of no Excuse at his Hands That there were many Men in England and of great note too who had a great esteem for his Writings that he himself also had perused his Commentaries upon the Psalms and hoped
were sailing in the midst of dangerous Rocks who attribute to him no less than a sort of Divinity and cry him up for the Monarch of the Universe and make him Superior to all Councils He assures him that nothing can be more pernicious to any one than to hearken to this sort of Parasites That therefore he should rather give credit to such Persons who put him in mind that he is Mortal as well as other Men and who exhort him to the faithful discharge of his Duty That because he was placed in such a state of Life in which as in the middle of a tempestuous Sea he was continually exposed to very great dangers that therefore he had written to him thus freely and without any the least admixture of Flattery and in this he thought himself to have performed the part of a true Friend In the last place he presents him with his Book which he had lately composed concerning Christian Liberty giving it only this short Recommendation That it was a full and compleat Summary of true Doctrin In the beginning of Spring the Emperor sets sail from Spain and arriving in England was very magnificently entertained by King Henry who married his Aunt Catherine After which he passed into the Low-Countries where he was received with the general Shouts and Acclamations of all the People Much about this time the Elector Frederick fell very dangerously sick upon which Luther by the advice of some Friends compiled a little Book to afford him some comfort at this season to which he gave the Title of Tessaradecas and in his Letters to him he tells him it was the Command of Christ that among other mutual charitable Offices which we are to perform one to another the administring to the Sick ought never to be forgotten That for this cause he who was in a peculiar manner upon several accounts obliged to his Highness had for his sake made this short Collection not being in a capacity of evidencing to the World and Him any other way how much he is devoted to his Service He tells him that the Constitution of Human Bodies was such that if any the least Distemper invaded the Head all the other Members sympathised with it and each particular part felt the pain as sensibly as if it self were immediately afflicted therewith So now this Indisposition of his could not but affect all his Subjects with a very deep sorrow for that a considerable part of Germany look'd upon him as their greatest Ornament as well as strongest Bulwark After this he publish'd a Book treating of Confession the chief Heads of which are these That Men ought not to rely on Confession as of it self Meritorious of Pardon but upon the gracious Promise of God to forgive Sins That in the first place they should make their Confession to God and that he that Confesses ought at the same time to have a perfect hatred and abhorrence of his Sin and to desire sincerely to amend his Life That a particular enumeration of every Sin was not necessary nay that by reason of the innumerable slips of a Man's Life and the general depravity and almost lethargick security of most Mens Consciences it was even impossible to be performed That a great difference ought to be made between Sins committed against the Command of God and such as are only breaches of some Human Ordinance In the last place he adds a word or two about Vows and bewails that barbarous cruelty which under colour of them is exercised by covetous and illiterate Persons upon the Souls of Men But of this he speaks more at large in a separate Tract afterwards published by it self In another Piece of his he had said That it appeared to him as a thing which would be of great advantage to the Church if the Authority of a Council first interposing all Persons were admitted to participate of the Lord's Supper in Both Kinds This Saying of his because it was contrary to a Decree of the late Lateran Council many resented highly and among these was John Bishop of Meissen who commanded all the Clergy of his Diocese to suppress the Book and teach all under their Charge that the whole compleat Sacrament was exhibited under each distinct Species Luther being inform'd of this presently replies and lays all the blame of this Injunction not upon the Bishop but upon some few unlearned and turbulent Fellows and to them he turns his Discourse and shews that this which he was thus desirous of having established by a Council did not deserve so severe a Censure no more than if he had said he could wish a Council would decree it lawful for Priests to have Wives That this very thing Pope Pius II. publickly declared himself for and that herefore he was not to be blamed who concurred with him in the same Opinion He granted there was such a Canon of the Lateran Council as they spoke of but he thought it absurd to go about to Confirm any Doctrin by an Ordinance of a later Council which was repugnant to all the more ancient Councils as well as the constant usage in all the first Ages of the Church He minds them that among the Bohemians the Laity were admitted to partake of the Cup and that for this reason we brand them with the name of Hereticks who deny it to all those who hold Communion with us That they in their defence urged Christ's own Institution and the Practice of the Apostles and of all Christians down almost to these times and all that we have to say in our own Justification or to convince them of their being in an Errour is only this Lateran Decree which is but a trifling Argument and such as carries no great weight in it for that every Body was sensible now what a sort of Council that was since the Papists themselves whose Interest it was to uphold it were not grown so expert in the Art of Dissimulation as at all times to counterfeit an esteem for it But supposing this Council to have been Oecumenical yet it was not for the Credit of a Church which pretends so much to Antiquity to be beholding to an Authority of so late a date for the Ratification of any of its Doctrins But to lay open the whole Intrigue of this Lateran Council thus it was Julius II. at his coming to the Poâ—pedom obliged himself by an Oath to call a Council within two years This was in the Year of our Lord 1503. But the Affairs of Italy being very much embâ—oiled the Pope engaging himself in a continual War either with the Venetians or King of France or Duke of Ferrara or else with the Family of the Bentivolio's Prinas of Bononia nine Cardinals withdrew themselves and when they were come to Milan they summoned a Council to meet at Pisa The Chief of these Cardinals were Bernardine de la Croix William Bishop of Praeneste and Francis Bishop of Bazas and
Rome and it was consulted by what means the Bohemians might be made to renounce those Errours which were lately crept in among them And this I suppose is what Luther means when he says there was a Decree made in this Council relating to the Eucharist For most of the Bohemians contended that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper all the Communicants ought to partake of Both the Symbols of the Wine as well as the Bread. And besides what we have mentioned there is no Decree extant of this Council touching that matter But it received its final Determination at Constance in the Thirteenth Session of that Council of which there will be occasion to speak more hereafter While those things were in Agitation in Saxony which were hinted upon in the beginning of this Book several of Luther's Writings viz. that which he dedicated to Sylvester Prierias and his Discourses concerning Repentance Excommunication Indulgences and Preparation to Death were all by a Synodical Decree of the Divines of Lovain and Cologn condemn'd as tending to the encouragement of Impiety and Irreligion and which therefore ought to be burnt and their Author made publickly to recant When this came to Luther's Ear he immediately replies and defends all those principal Points of his Doctrin which had fallen under their Censure and in the Introduction laments the Misery of that state and Condition to which those his Adversaries were now reduced That although some Years ago they had very fiercely opposed Capnion yet he was still willing to put the favourablest Interpretation he could upon all their Actions but now since they went about to expugn the plain manifest Doctrin of the Gospel and were grown even past reclaiming he could not but think That they had justly incurred God's highest Displeasure that if they went on as they had begun and no one had the Courage or Honesty in the least to controul them he expected that by degrees they would suppress all the whole Sacred Volumes and impose on the World in their stead whatsoever they should please to call Expositions of them That whilst he seriously considered all these things with himself they appeared to him to be evident Demonstrations either that the Reign of Antichrist was already begun or that the Prophecyes concerning it were very near their Accomplishment that he could not without Regret behold their Behaviour at this time for it was a clear and certain Token of their lying under the heavy Weight of the Divine Anger that through the whole Course of their Proceedings there was nothing had any firm sound Foundation but they were still wavering in their own Minds and were at one time the Maintainers of that Opinion which at another could not escape the Lash of their unbridled licentious Tongues He rubs up their Memory That it is not long since William Ockam was condemned by the whole University of Paris and his Works were rejected by all as containing things contrary to the true Catholick Doctrin whenas now he was become the very Darling of the Schools and his Name as much cryed up as it was before loaded with Infamy But how low the Credit of that University runs may be gathered by this That its Judgment is had in very little esteem in France it self and is of no Authority at all in any other Country for 't is grown almost into a Proverb among the English That the Paris Decrees never cross the Seas among the Italians That they never climb over the Alpes and among the Germans That they never pass the Rhine In the Censures past upon Picus Mirandula his Enemies could not hide that rancour and Malice which had in so great a Measure byass'd their Judgments for his Books were now hightly prized by all Persons and no one could read any thing of his without being insensibly drawn into a very great Admiration of the most incomparable Parts of the Author Nor had Laurentius Valla himself met with the least better Treatment although Learned and Judicious Men had always an esteem for him and thought themselves very profitably employed as long as they were conversant in his Writings He tells them That in that Controversie with Capnion they had managed their Business in such a manner that they never at any time more openly betrayed their gross Ignorance as well as obstinate Wickedness That the Counsels of God are very wonderful That the Jews were of Old his own peculiar People but when they wilfully shut their Eyes against the Light of the Gospel and despised all the Benefits of Christ they were then deservedly reprobated and the Gentiles imbraced that Grace and Favour of which the first Tenders were made to them That much after the same manner it was now That the Popes and others who were and loved to be called the Dignitaries of the Church and who assumed to themselves the Supreme Power and all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction had in truth nothing but an empty Name whilst there were others who affected none of all that pompous Pageantry who yet had a better Right to all the Honours and Titles which these had so unjustly usurped In short That it never was otherwise but that all Good and learned Men had at all times been thus persecuted by them and yet they never could produce one Example of their having made Good their own Ground or foiled their Adversaries by any solid substantial Argument but rather by mere Tricks and Shifts or else by the dint of Fire and Faggot that thus it was in the Case of John Hus and Jerome of Prague which was such a Piece of Barbarity as their Memories would stink to all succeeding Generations but he could not but be struck with a very great amazment to see their precipitated Folly who notwithstanding all these Warnings would still proceed in those unwarrantable Methods which must of Necessity leave a Blot not only upon their own but upon all the other Universities in Christendom for granting all their former Processes were according to the known established Rules and the Sentences pronounced by them upon several famous Men were well grounded and in due Form of Law yet as to what relates to his Cause and the present Controversie they had done very Injuriously and Spitefully to deal with him in such an unexampled manner if he had offended in any thing they should not immediately construe it in the worst Sense but think with themselves That all Men are subject to Infirmities That in the giving their Judgment upon his Tenets they ought to have shewed a Christian-like Disposition Lenity Mildness and Gentleness but thus without any previous Examination to condemn all at one Dash discovered at once the Distemper of their Minds and the Virulency of their Malice that Aristotle was of great Repute amongst them and that there was nothing which he had said though never so absurd or even repugnant to Christianity it self which they would not defend or at least excuse and palliate by
some far fetch'd Gloss or Comment so as the Credit of the Author might not suffer any Diminution but towards him their Carriage had been very different for they had not only put a candid Interpretation upon those Parts of his Writings which might be wrested to his Disadvantage but had endeavoured to pick a Hole even in those very things in which he had been so cautious in his Expression as not to dread the Censure of the most Captious and Prejudiced Reader That the better and more effectual way had been to have admonished him either to explain or correct what he had wrote or else not to be obstinate in the maintaining of it That if notwithstanding all this he had continued disobedient they might then after having first shewed him his Error have acted according to Christ's Precept But besides all this the Pope could not but think his Honour touch'd in this that they had done in daring to pass such a Sentence on a Book which was wrote and Dedicated to him which was no other than rashly to upbraid him both with Sloth and Negligence but no Wonder that they made so bold with his Holiness since the Majesty of God himself was daily affronted by the Contempts which they put upon his Laws This William Ockam of whom Luther speaks lived in the Time of the Emperour Lewis IV about the Year of our Lord 1320 and among other things wrote a Book concerning the Pope's Supremacy in which these eight Questions were handled very curiously Whether the same Person can at one and the same time be both Pope and Emperour Whether the Emperour receive his Power and Authority from God alone and not also from the Bishop of Rome Whether Christ delegated any such Supreme Jurisdiction over the whole World to the Pope and Church of Rome which they might at their Pleasure parcel out to the Emperour and other Kings and Princes Whether the Emperour being once Chosen has not thereby the Government put absolutely into his Hands Whether other Princes besides the Emperour and King of the Romans because the Ceremony of their Coronation is performed by Priests upon that account derive any Authority from them Whether such Princes owe any sort of Subjection to those by whose Hands they received their Anointing and Investiture Whether if they should make use of any new Ceremonies or take upon them to Crown themselves they thereby forfeit their Regal Power and Dignity Whether the Suffrages of the seven Princes Electors do not give as good a Title to the Elected Emperour as a lawful Succession does to the other Kings where the Government is Hereditary In the Examination of these Points having shewed a great deal of Variety and Subtlety of Argument of both Sides he for the most part determines in Favour of the Civil Magistrate And upon that Occasion he makes mention of Pope John XXII who lived at that time and had made certain Ordinances which they called Extravagentes and inserted them into the Canon-Law All which he says were generally condemned as Heretical and Spurious Then he recites what Errors had been observed by other Persons both in his Books and publick Discourses and says That all Orthodox Men did admire how they came to gain any Credit in the World but that this was the Time of which S. Paul in his Epistle foretold Timothy That the time would come when men should not endure sound doctrin but after their own lusts should they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and should turn away their ears from the truth and be turned to Fables That this was too sadly verified in these Days in which most Men never enquire what was the Doctrin of Christ or of the Apostles or Primitive Fathers but are guided in every thing only by the Pope's arbitrary Will and Command As to what relates to Capnion Reuchline the matter stands thus John Phefercorne who had forsaken Judaisme and embraced Christianity had a long time been a Petitioner to the Emperour Maximilian That all the Jewish Books might be suppressed as those which trained up Men only in Impiety and Superstition and very much hindred their Conversion to the Christian Religion and that therefore they ought to be allowed the use of no other Book besides the Bible Maximilian at last sends his Orders to Vriel Archbishop of Mentz That he should make choice of some certain University to whom together with the Inquisitor James Hogostrate and John Reuchline he might refer the Examination of this Affair that they might consult what was fit to be done in it and whether it were agreeable to the generous and open practices of our Religion to condemn all Books to the Flames except those whose Authors were divinely inspired this was in the Year of our Lord 1510. Reuchline who was a Civilian and a great Master of the Hebrew Tongue having received Letters from Mentz returned this Answer That the Jewish Books were of three sorts Historical such as treated of Medicks and their Talmuds which last were of several different kinds that although there were a great many things contained in them which were Ridiculous as well as Superstitious yet upon one account they were of great use in that they served to refute their Errors and fond vain Opinions This his Sentence he sends sealed to the Archbishop but when Phefercorne came to hear of this he presently began to make no small stir about it and published a Book in opposition to what Reuchline had wrote reproaching him with the most odious Titles of the Champion and Patron of the Jews Capnion that his Silence might not be interpreted as a Confession of the Charge writes an answer to it which drew upon him the ill-Will of several Universities but chiefly of that of Cologne The most Famous Men there at that time were James Hogostrate and Arnold van Tongren And Hogostrate he put out a Book in which he was not in the least sparing of his Invectives following exactly the Copy that Phefercorne had set him and this he Dedicates to the Emperour Maximilian After this they commenced a Suit against him and the Tryal was before the Archbishop of Mentz to whose Jurisdiction the supposed Criminal belonged and the Prosecutor was James Hogostrate him Reuchline excepted against as one whom he thought not indifferent and this he did at first not in his own proper Person but by his Advocate But being persuaded to it by some Friends he at last came himself to Mentz accompanyed with a great many of the First Rank both for Nobility and Learning which Vlrich Duke of Wirtemberg had sent along with him There when he saw that whatsoever Proposals he made in order to a Reconciliation they were still all rejected by his Adversaries he was forced to appeal to the Pope He commits the hearing of the Cause to George Palatine Bishop of Spire and at the same Time issues out an Injunction That no Person besides presume to intermeddle in it But
and of this he prays them to bear him witness Some few Days after he wrote to the Cardinal Albertus Archbishop of Mentz in a very submissive Stile The Substance of his Letter was this That his being impeached before him therefore touched him the more nearly because he supposed it to be done by those who had formerly commended his Works and been the most forward Sticklers for them but whether the Accusation were true or false take it either way they had not dealt very handsomely in it for if it were False they then put the grossest Abuse upon him without any respect to his Character and that sublime Station that he has in the Church He bids him call to mind how David himself was deceived by the Flattery of Siba and that there was scarce any Prince who could at all times stand so well upon his Guard as not to be in danger of being imposed upon by such fawning Courtiers But supposing he was really guilty of the Crimes laid to his Charge yet it had been a much fairer way of proceeding to have shewed him his Error and to have endeavoured to rectifie his Understanding wheresoever they perceived him to labour under any Mistakes that this he had several times beg'd of his Adversaries who still continued Deaf to all his Requests He tells him there were two sorts of Men who generally condemned his Writings one was those never read them and the other such as indeed vouchsafed them the reading but their Minds were prepossess'd with an ill Opinion of him and then whatsoever he said though never so conformable to the Precepts of Christianity must of necessity be misinterpreted by them But if that his more important Affairs could but afford him so much Leisure as to peruse his Books he did not in the least doubt but that he would be of a very different Judgment from his Accusers He intreats him therefore not to believe Calumnies or to entertain any suspicious Thoughts of him but to take a full and exact Examination of the whole Matter since not only his alone but the eternal welfare of all his Followers was nearly concerned in it For because his Desire was to be heard speak for himself and to be instructed by those who were more learned if he could not obtain this Favour the Truth it self would suffer very much by it Confiding therefore in his Candor and Humanity and being also born and bred in that Country which is properly under his Episcopal Care and Government he thought himself in some measure obliged to give him this short Account of his Case The Archbishop answers That he was very well pleased with his Promise Not to be obstinate in the Defence of his Tenets but to be willing to yield to any who should better inform him As for his part though he had a great regard for the concerns of Religion yet he had not hitherto been able to steal so much Time as would serve to read over his Treatises That therefore he could not give any Judgment upon them but referr'd it wholly to those whose proper Province it was and who had already ingaged themselves in that Disquisition That his hearty Wishes were That he and all other Divines would handle Points of Religion reverently modestly and conscientiously without uttering any reproachful Words or harbouring any secret Malice in their Breasts That he heard with great regret with what Heat and Passion some Men of Note and Fame disputed about the Supremacy of the Pope and Free-Will and other such trifling insignificant Questions which are far from being any of the Essentials of Religion That those things began now to be controverted which had been so long received and which were confirmed by the common Consent and Approbation of the whole Church as well as by the Authority of General Councils such is that which relates to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and the manner of communicating therein And because this is done openly and the Ears of the common People begin to be tickled with the Novelty he should not but have very dreadful Apprehensions of what would be the dangerous Consequences of them That he could not see how he or any other Person could raise any useful pious Instructions out of these Points But if Scholars had a mind to debate them friendly and privately among themselves he could not be against it Nor did he blame him for saying That what he taught was no other than the true Doctrin of the Gospel provided there was nothing of Bitterness or Spite in the Assertion and that it was not spoke in contempt of the Authority of the Church For if this publick Declaration of the Truth flowed purely from the gentle impulse of the Divine Spirit it then would baffle all Attempts whatsoever that should be made against it but if that either Haughtiness of Mind or a private Grudge against any one were the Motives in it it then could have no firm Foundation but that and its Author would soon fall together For whosoever abuses the Gifts and Favours of God on him will he assuredly pour out the full Vials of his Wrath. To the same effect on the same day Luther writes to the Bishop of Mersburgh that as to his Doctrin his Conscience bore him witness that it was the same that Christ and his Apostles had taught But because his Life and manners were not in all things answerable to the Purity of his Profession he could even wish that he were silenc'd from Preaching as being unworthy to exercise that Sacred Function That he was not moved either by the hopes of Gain or Vain-glory but that the End to which all his Endeavours were directed was to imprint a-fresh in the minds of Men those eternal Truths which were now almost utterly defaced or else obscured by a gross and wilful stupidity That those who condemn his Writings were hurried on by the violence of their Passions and promoted their own ambitious designs under the specious pretence of upholding the Authority of the Bishop of Rome That a great many Foreigners famous both for Parts and Learning had by their Letters approved of his Works and thanked him for his obliging the Publick with them That this confirm'd him in his Opinion that his Doctrin was Orthodox He beseeches him therefore to shew some Fatherly tenderness towards him and if he had hitherto erred to guide him now into the right way That he could not as yet get his Cause to be heard although he had been importunate in requesting it That he should think it a great happiness to be convinced of any of his Errours and they should find he had been misrepresented by those who had possessed the World with a belief of his Obstinacy The Bishop returns to this That he had been often under a very great concern for him and that he was heartily sorry for his having publish'd a Book concerning the Lord's Supper which had given offence to many That
depart allowing you one and twenty Days to return home in He will also inviolably observe the Safe-Conduct he gave you but charges you not to teach the People by Word nor Writing as you are upon your Way homeward Being thus dismissed he gave Glory to God and April 26 departed being conducted by the same Herald who brought him before He wrote to the Emperor upon the Road and after he had in few words resum'd all that had past he begg'd of His Imperial Majesty That since he had been alwaies hitherto and still was willing to submit to Conditions of Peace and Agreement and desired no more but that the Controversie might be determined by any impartial Judge according to the Authority of holy Scripture he would be pleased to Protect him against the violence and fury of his adversaries That 't was not his private Cause but the publick Concern of the whole World and especially of Germany whose safety and welfare he preferr'd before his own life To the same purpose also he wrote to the rest of the Princes and States and that whensoever it should seem good to the Emperor and them he would come upon safe conduct whithersoever they pleased and debate his cause before impartial and unsuspected Judges Whereas in this work there is frequent mention made of Huss the Council of Constance and the Bohemians I 'll give the Reader a short account of the whole matter In the year of our Lord 1393 there was one John Wickliff in England who wrote many things against the Roman Papacy which were afterwards carried into Bohemia At that time there was a famous University in Prague and therein slourished John Huss a Divine by profession This man Preach'd up Wickliffs Doctrin as holy and saving and dispersed it far and near But being accused of this he was cited to appear before Pope Alexander V. he by his Proctors alledged causes why he could not come And King Wenceslaus also interceded for him desiring the Pope to send Legats into Bohemia to try the matter there but that could not be obtained Huss being therefore condemned for an Heretick published a Book wherein he appealed from the Pope to Christ as Judge The Church of Rome at that time was in a very troublesom State. For the Cardinals being divided into factions had chosen three Anti-Popes Gregory XII Benet XIII and John XXIII which highly displeased other Kings as well as the Emperor Sigismund who having solicited Pope John he at length called the Council of Constance Now Sigismund who was the Brother of King Wenceslaus called John Huss thither and in October 1414 sent him a safe conduct in due form Whereupon Huss being accompanied by some persons of quality came to Constance on the third of November but three weeks after being called to a private Conference with the Pope and Cardinals he was detained prisoner The Emperor Sigismund was absent then and being inform'd of the matter was highly displeased and came thither But the Papists urging that Faith was not to be kept with Hereticks he not only remitted the offence though the Bohemians importun'd him to the contrary and demanded performance of the safe conduct but was also the first that spake bitterly against him In fine on the sixth of July following the Council condemn'd him as an Heretick and Seditious Person and ordered the Books he had written to be burnt Being thus condemn'd he was delivered over to the Emperor and burnt his ashes being afterwards cast into the Rhine that no relick of him might remain After him Jerome of Prague his Disciple and Hearer was put to Death in the same manner In this Council besides the Emperour were the Ambassadours of many Kings three Electoral Princes of the Empire Lewis Prince Palatine Rodulph Duke of Saxony and Frederick Marquess of Brandenburg and a vast number of the other Princes three Patriarchs of Aquileia Antioch and Constantinople eight and twenty Cardinals an hundred and fifty five Bishops very many Divines and Lawyers Italians Germans French English Hungarians and Polonians The Doctrin of Wickliff was here also condemned and a Decree made that his Body should be taken up and burnt in England It was besides Decreed that none but Priests should receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in both kinds and that all others should be content with one kind which had been impugned by Huss A Law was also made that Faith should not be kept with Hereticks or persons suspected of Heresie though they should come under the Emperours Safe-Conduct to be tryed in Council Lastly the three Popes were degraded and by common Consent Martin V chosen When the News of the Execution of Huss and Jerome was brought into Bohemia it occasioned a terrible Commotion and afterwards a very cruel and bloody War under the Conduct of John Zischa so that Sigismond was forced to beg the Assistanc of the Empire but the greatest Cruelty was exercised against the Priests in hatred to the Pope whom they Cursed whose Dominion they shook off and embraced the Doctrin of Huss adoring his Memory Much about this Time the Divines of Paris condemned Luther's Books and out of that which is entitled Of the Captivity of Babylon and some others also they gathered certain Heads as of the Sacraments the Canons of the Church the Equality of Works Vows Contrition Absolution Satisfaction Purgatory Free-Will the immunity of the Clergy Councils the Punishments of Hereticks Philosophy School-Divinity and many more of the like sort admonishing the Reader and all who professed the Name of Christ to beware of such pernicious Doctrins For that it was the Custom of Hereticks to propose specious Matters at first which sinking once down into the Mind could hardly ever be got out again but that under those alluring Words present Poyson lay hid Then they reckoned up in Order the Hereticks of the several Ages and among these Wickliff John Huss and last of all Luther whom they mightily blamed as an arrogant and rash Man that he should imagine himself alone to know more than all others contemn the Judgments of all the Holy Fathers and Interpreters of all Councils and Schools and that he should reject the Custom and Consent of the Church observed for so many Ages as if it were credible That Christ would have left all that while his only Spouse to wander in so great Darkness of Errour but that it was the usual way with Hereticks to wrest Scripture to their own Sense Having then reckoned up some Books written by him they shew what Hereticks Luther imitated in such and such Opinions and that seeing it properly belonged to their Office and Profession to stifle springing Heresies as much as lay in their Power they had therefore diligently perused his Books that they might direct all Men how to have a Care of them and that after much Reading of his Writings they found that his Doctrin was pernicious deserving to be burnt and that
that the One and twenty days which he had allowed him to return in being expired every one should endeavour to apprehend him and bring him into lawful Custody Banishing in the same manner all that should any ways aid or assist him He ordered all his Books also to be destroyed appointing a severe Penalty for Stationers that should meddle with them for the future And this Decree which he said was made with the common Consent and Advice of the Princes and States he commanded to be inviolably observed by all It was said that there were but a few who had a hand in framing this Decree For some of the Electors acknowledged that they were not privy to it as shall be said of the Elector of Cologn in its proper place The Elector of Mentz who is Chancellor of the Empire had a great stroak in Matters of that nature However it be the Emperor by this Sentence procured to himself much Favour so that the Pope fell quite off from the Frienship of France and made a League with him as you shall hear by and by After the Publication of this Sentence Duke Frederick appointed some Gentlemen in whom he could most confide to convey Luther into some more private place remote from the concourse of People that so he might be out of danger and this was performed with great secrecy and diligence In this his Retirement he wrote several Letters to his Friends and some Books also as one for abolishing private Mass which he dedicated to his Brethren the Augustine Friers Another concerning Monastick Vows dedicated to his Father John Luther and one against James Latome a Divine of Lovain He exhorted the Augustines to Courage and Constancy telling them that they had a strong support in Duke Frederick who was a wise Prince a lover of Truth and most averse from rash Judging They of all others were the first that began to leave off saying of Mass and therefore it was that Luther composed for them the Book we now mentioned that he might both encourage the weak and confirm the strong earnestly exhorting them to persevere in that purpose Duke Frederick hearing of this and fearing that some great disturbance might thereupon ensue commanded that the Opinion of the whole University should be taken about the matter and brought to him For that purpose the University chose four of their Members Justus Jonas Philip Melancthon Nicholas Amstorff and John Dulce These having had a Conference with the Augustines made a report of what their resolution was and at the same time declared how great injury was done to the Lord's Supper Wherefore they prayed the Duke that he would abolish that great Impiety not in one Church only but in all places also and restore the true use of the Lord's Supper according to the Institution of Christ and the Practice of his Apostles without regard to the Reproaches and Calumnies of Gain-sayers For that it was the course of this World that he who would undertake the defence of the true Doctrin of the Gospel must suffer many things That he ought to make it his chief study reverently to acknowledg that singular Mercy wherewith God had now blest him in making the Light of the Gospel to shine among the People To these things Duke Frederick made Answer That he would omit nothing that might conduce to the propagating of Piety but that since the matter was very difficult he did not think it fit to make too much haste and that hardly any thing could be effected by them who were so few in number But that if the Matter were grounded on Scripture many would certainly come over to them and then such a change as might seem to be pious and necessary would more conveniently be brought about That for his own part who was ignorant of the Scripture he could not tell when that accustomed Rite of the Mass which they condemned was first introduced into the Church and when that which the Apostles are said to have followed was left off That all Churches generally and Colleges wer founded for the Mass being endowed for that end with great Revenues so that should Mass be now abolish'd the Goods and Lands heretofore given for that use would be taken from the right Possessors That any Man might see what disturbance and confusion that would breed And that since they had referred the whole Affair to him it was his advice to them That having consulted the rest of the good and learned Men of the University they would proceed in the matter moderately and devise with themselves such means as might be proper for keeping Peace and Piety among them The Commissioners having consulted together made their Reply and again advise him to abrogate the Mass alledging that it might be done without Tumult and that though it could not yet that which was just and good ought not therefore to be omitted That their being fewer in number was no new thing since that from the beginning of the World the greatest part of Mankind had always opposed the true Religion That none would accept and approve the right way of administring and receiving the Lord's Supper but they to whom it should be given from above That Colleges were founded of old not for Mass but for the pious Education of Youth and these Possessions given for the Maintenance of the Masters and Scholars and for the Use of the Poor which Custom had lasted almost to the time of St. Bernard but that about Four hundred years since this trafficking about Masses came in play which now ought to be utterly abolished That though it were of ancient date yet such a Profanation was not to be tolerated And that if Stirs and Commotions should arise from thence it was not to be imputed to the Religion but to the Wickedness of the Adversaries who for Gain sake withstand the Truth against their own Conscience That however Men ought not to regard such inconveniences but to proceed absolutely whatever Tumults the World might raise for that all these things had been long ago foretold by Christ This year the Emperor's Brother Ferdinand Archduke of Austria married the Lady Ann Sister to Lewis King of Hungary Among so many Adversaries as Luther had Henry VIII King of England opposed him also in Writing and in the first place refuted his Opinion about Indulgences and defended the Papacy Afterwards he censured all his Disputations concerning the Sacraments of the Church taking occasion of writing from the Book of the Captivity of Babylon When this came to Luther's knowledge he wrote a most bitter Answer declaring That in defence of this Cause he valued no Man's Honour nor Greatness However Pope Leo gave the King an honourable Title for this calling him Defender of the Faith. How Charles of Austria came to be chosen Emperor hath be shewn before But some private Quarrels happening afterwards betwixt Him and the French King it came to a War at last though
yet considering with himself That the Course proposed might be profitable and advantagious to the Publick he therefore approved of a Council also but conditionally That it were called by the Pope's Authority and held in Time and Place convenient so that he himself might be present thereat as he was fully resolved to be But that they had appointed another Dyet to begin the eleventh of November wherein they resolved to adjust matters of Religion until the sitting of the Council That they had also appointed some learned Divines to collect and judge of the chief Points of Doctrin he could by no means nor would he consent to it but as by Duty he was obliged being Protector and Defender of the Roman Church he utterly disapproved that Decree left he should offend both God and the Pope For what could be more Reproachful to the Church of Christ than to see the Reverence which was done to the Supreme Power thus prostituted to see Germany which had been ever celebrated above all other Nations for Piety and Obedience alone to attempt so weighty an Affair as no Princes no not the Pope himself durst undertake which was to renounce and abolish that Religion which had so long flourished in the Christian World from which Religion no Man ever made defection but he felt the heavy Hand of God punishing him for his Crime That Luther indeed now opposed it and by alluring Words and crafty Insinuations seduced Men into Snares and made himself Popular just so as Mahomet formerly had done who by his Doctrin wrought more Mischief to Christendom than any armed Force could ever have done but that when Errours of that Nature under a Colour of Truth once made an Impression upon the Minds of Men it was not easie to efface it again That he prayed God to look favourably upon Germany and not to suffer so great a Calamity to overspread it during his Life That therefore they should obey the Edict of Wormes unless they would smart for it and not to meddle in Controversies about Religion till the Pope and he who were their chief Magistrates should think fit to call a Council To the same purpose also he wrote privately to some of the States and among others to the Senate of Strasburg so that that Decree for a future Dyet was vacated for the Emperour being ingaged in a War with France endeavoured by all means to gain the Pope This Summer Charles Duke of Bourbonne Constable of France who the Year before partly of himself and partly at the Emperour's Sollicitation had revolted besieged Marseilles but in vain Upon his Retreat from thence into Italy the King pursued him in great haste and having seized most of the Places in Lumbardy and taken the City of Milan it self towards Winter he laid Siege to Pavia a Town upon the River Tesino In the Month of November the Boors of Schwabenland began to rise against their Lord the Count of Lupsie pretending to be overcharged by him The same did afterwards some of their Neighbours also against their several Magistrates so that the Council of the Empire which as we said managed the Government in the Emperour's absence and sate then at Esling were obliged to send Commissioners to compose some Controversies However this Tumult ceased not for all that as we shall shew hereafter but was the beginning of an extraordinary and dangerous Commotion which in process of time imbroiled a great part of Germany As Luther's Doctrin began more and more to spread so the Clergy bestirred themselves more vigorously to oppose it finding that their Goods and Fortunes lay at stake And some of the Church-men of Strasburg made a heavy Complaint to the Council of the Empire That the Senate did many ways invade and infringe their Liberties and Priviledges that they promoted married Priests and Monks as Capito Bucer and others to Churches That they received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in both Kinds and that they had in a tumultary manner cast the Images out of their Churches Wherefore Frederick Prince Palatine and Philip Marquess of Baden two of the chief of the Council of the Empire which then was at Esling wrote to the Senate of Strasburg in the Month of January admonishing them to desist and to restore all things as they were before Some of the Switzers as particularly they of Schafhausen and Basil where John Oecolampadius preached began by little and little to relent in their spight against the Zurichers but the rest especially Lucerne Vri Switz Vnderwaldt Zug and Friburg could by no means be appeased And when the Governor of Turegie to which Country Zurich adjoyns was carrying off a Priest whom he had apprehended in the Night-time he called out for help and presently raised a Tumult of the People as is usual in such cases so that the Allarm flying into the Country all were presently in Arms. The Zurichers alledged that this was an injury done unto them because the Man had been taken within their Jurisdiction And having received many other Affronts besides on the Fourth of January they wrote to all their Confederates and Allies to this effect Christ say they commands That if one smite us on one Cheek we should turn up to him the other In obedience to this Doctrin we have indeed suffered many things and that patiently too But now that there is no end nor measure of Wrongs and Injuries we are forced to betake our selves to that which Christ himself made use of and if we have done any evil we desire to be convicted of it Since then we lye obnoxious to so much envy and are every where evil spoken of the thing it self certainly requires and extorts an Answer from us And therefore we will shew the Causes of this hatred refute the Accusations brought against us and make it appear how we stand affected towards the common Country And in the first place when Francis King of France had long and earnestly solicited a League and had therein obtained your consents though you had often dealt with us to engage therein yet we absolutely refused it and that for divers reasons but chiefly this That we did not like that course of letting out our Men to others for Money that they may fight against those who never did them any injury for that it was a thing of bad Example and accustomed them to idleness and if they should chance to die in the Wars they must leave their Wives and Children in extreme poverty Nay we looked upon it also as base and unworthy with our own loss to sneak so to any King as in a manner to enslave our Countrymen to his Will and Pleasure Wherefore we judged it our Duty to retain the liberty of Bodies and Estates which our Ancestors with great Valour and bloody Hands purchased for us and to defend it with the like Courage and Constancy Now this seemeth to be the source and cause of all the grudge
for in the first Year of the Reign of Henry VII of England which was in the Year of our Lord 1486 the same Plague infested that Country And because there was no Remedy known for such a new Distemper it swept away a vast number of People At this time also there was a great Scarcity of Corn and Wine so that all the Judgments wherewith God in his Anger uses to punish an unthankful people as the Sword Pestilence and Famine fell upon Germany at one and the same time At this time also were Prisoners at Cologne Peter Flisted and Adolph Clarebacke two learned Men because they differed in Judgment from the Papists concerning the Lord's Supper and other Points of Doctrin The Senate of that Town hath Right and Power to imprison Offenders but the Archbishop alone hath the Power of Life and Death and it may fall out that whom the Senate hath condemned to Death the Bishop's Judge may acquit Now these two having lain in Prison a Year and an half and more were at length condemned by both Judicatures and burnt to the great Grief and Commiseration of many Most People blamed the Preachers for that who cryed that the Wrath of God who afflicted us with a new kind of Disease was to be appeased by the Execution of the Wicked and Ungodly Adolph was a handsome Man Eloquent and Learned and when they were led to the place of Execution they made profession and gave the Reasons of their Belief confirming and encouraging one another with Texts of Scripture so that all People fixed their Eyes and Thoughts upon them We told you before of the Difference betwixt Luther and Zuinglius about the Lord's Supper when this had been tossed to and fro for above three Years with much Contention many who were troubled that this single Controversie should hinder an Uniformity in Doctrin earnestly wished that some Remedy might be thereunto applyed therefore the Landgrave having communicated the matter to his Associates and prevailed also with the Switzers appointed a Day when Learned Men of both Parties should meet at Marpurg and calmly discourse the Point From Saxony came Luther Melanchthon and Jonas from Switzerland Zuinglius and Oecolampadius from Strasburg Bucer and Hedio and from Norimberg Osiander many Grave and Learned Men were present besides though none but Luther and Zuinglius reasoned the Point But the Sweating Disease infecting that Town also the Conference was broken up by the Landgrave's order and this concluded upon That since they all agreed about the chief Points of Doctrin they should for the future refrain from all Contention and pray to God that he would also enlighten them in this Controversie and put them in the way of Concord And so they friendly parted in the beginning of October It hath been said already That at the Dyet of Spire which was held three Years before the Elector of Saxony and Landgrave made mention of entring into a League this matter was several times brought into deliberation afterwards and especially now that this Decree was made they began to think of it more seriously so that after the Dyet was over a certain Draught of it was made at Norimberg and afterwards more fully debated And when in the Month of October the Deputies of the Princes and States met at Swaback it was propounded in the Names of the Elector of Saxony and George Marquess of Brandenburg That seeing the Defence of the True Religion was the Ground and Cause of this League it behoved first that all should be unanimous in the same wherefore the summ of their Doctrin comprehended in some Chapters was read and approved by all only the Deputies of Strasburg and Vlm alledged That no mention had been made thereof in the former Assembly nor had they any Instructions concerning it They were not all of the same Opinion about the Point of the Lord's Supper as we told you before and this was the only Scruple Seeing therefore nothing could be concluded because of that another Meeting was appointed to be at Smalcalde the thirteenth of December When the Emperour was now come into Italy Erasmus of Roterdam who having left Basil because of the Change of Religion and to avoid Suspicion was come to Friburg a Town belonging to King Ferdinand in the Month of November published a little Book entituled Against some who falsly called themselves Gospel-Teachers but in reality he has a Touch at all the Reformed for among many other things he says he never knew any of them who appeared not to be a worse Man than he was before This Book was afterwards answered by the Divines of Strasburg because they and those of Basil were chiefly aimed at but above all others Bucer When the Emperour was coming to Bolonia Francis Sforza who had been before in League with the Pope and French King went to meet him and having pleaded his own Cause at the Intercession of Clement VII at length recovered the Dutchy of Milan from the Emperour but upon this among other Conditions That he should pay him nine hundred thousand Crowns one half the same Year and the rest within ten Years successively by equal Portions and as a Pledge the Emperour was to keep in his Hands Como and the Castle of Milan until the first Years Payment should be made THE HISTORY OF THE Reformation of the Church BOOK VII The CONTENTS The Protestant Ambassadors sent to the Emperor appeal from the Answer they received at Piacenza where they were stopt which the Protestants understanding appoint a meeting at Smalcalde The City of Strasburg makes a League with Three of the Switz Cantons The Emperor being Crowned by the Pope at Bolonia calls a Diet of the States of the Empire at Ausburg where the Protestants exhibit a Confession of their Faith which in a contrary writing is Answered and Confuted by their Adversaries Some are appointed to accommodate the matter amicably and to find out some means of Concord The Emperor sollicites the Protestants who notwithstanding all the Exhortations that were made unto them the Objections and Calumnies wherewith they were charged stedfastly persevered in their Confession and having given in their last Answer depart The Tyber overflows at Rome Eckius and Faber demand and obtain an honourable Reward for the Refutations they wrote against those of Strasburg and other Cities The Transaction of Prusia is rescinded The Decree of Ausburg is related Luther who was come nearer to Ausburg comforts Melanchthon then in Anxiety because of that Decree Bucer goes to him that he might reconcile him with Zuinglius The creation of Ferdinand King of the Romans comes into Agitation and is withstood by the Elector of Saxony and other Princes but nevertheless he is created King and installed in the Kingdom WE told you before that the Protestants resolved upon sending Ambassadors to the Emperour These were John Ekinger Alexius Fraventrute and Michael Caden of Norimberg who being advanced as far as
of any thing that is acted contrary to the Customs and Liberty of the Empire and therefore cannot confer upon him the Title of King of the Romans But the Duke of Saxony adds this in his Letters to the Emperor That if the matter be carry'd on in a legal way he will not shew himself unlike his Ancestors Concerning the admittance of the Helvetians into the League which the Cities very much desire the Duke gives in this Answer by his Embassadors that he cannot enter into any Society with them because they entertain a different Opinion concerning the Lord's Supper He is not indeed ignorant of how great consequence their Accession would be upon the account of their Strength and Power but this is what he least of all regards lest the event thereof should prove as dismal as is recorded in Scripture to have faln upon them who for the strengthning of themselves had recourse to any sort of unlawful Assistances During this Assembly there were Letters brought from the Duke of Saxony and the Lantgrave to the Embassadors of the other Princes and Cities the Contents of which were to this effect That the Emperor had permitted the Bishop of Mentz and Lewis the Prince Palatine to be Mediators of a Peace who by their Letters had desir'd that they likewise on their parts would give them the same permission and that then they would appoint a day for a Meeting After some deliberation the Embassadors do return their consent and then the Lantgrave and the Duke of Saxony make the Mediators this Answer That they are not against the Expedient provided the Exchequer will be quiet in the mean time this therefore being obtain'd of the Emperor they appoint the 30th of August for the day of Meeting The Cities which had their Embassadors in this Convention were these Strasburg Vlm Lubesk Nuremburg Constance Rutelingen Memmingen Lindaw Bibrach Isenach Kempen Hailbrun Magdeburg Bremen Brunswick and Gottingen Wigand Bishop of Bamburg had some years before made a Complaint to his Associates of the Schwaben Confederacy against George Duke of Brandenburg the substance of which was this That he had disturb'd him in his Ecclesiastical Rights that he had very much sunk his Customs that he had converted the Revenues of the Church to other uses and forc'd the Priests into this Novel and false Religion or else ejected them for their non-compliance All which things are not only a Violation of the Pope's and Emperor's Edicts but also of common Equity and the Laws of the Country and since he highly suffers by them he desires that they would either by their Interest and Authority reduce him to his Duty or else afford him such Assistance as they are oblig'd to by the League whereby he may be inabled for the time to come to defend his own and recover what he had lost But when after various Disputes a day was appointed for the hearing of this Cause at Nordlingen the Embassadors of the Protestants at the Brandenburger's entreaty came thither in the month of July With the Bishop of Bamburg were the Bishops of Auspurg Wurtzburg and Aichstadt as his Assistants and Counsellors The Plaintiff puts in his Charge wherein he sets forth how great Injury and Damage he had sustain'd and withal declares that notwithstanding the Associates of the League had under a penalty commanded the Defendant to desist from his Undertaking and to restore the Plaintiff to his own yet nothing as yet had been effected He therefore prays that he may be proceeded against according to the Prescript of the League The Defendant on the other side demurs to that part of the Charge which properly belongs to Religion and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Appeals from their Edicts and Decrees to a Council But they after some days intermission reply that they very much wonder he should put in such an Appeal as this because it is unusual and against the Prescript of the League which takes care that the Plaintiff and Defendant shall be both concluded by the Determination of select Judges That in this they had all agreed to defend the Ecclesiastical Liberties and therefore the Cognizance of this Cause does properly belong to them And since He himself had hitherto without any exception acknowledged their Jurisdiction with what reason could he now reject it As for a Council they are not by any means to be superseded by that nor ought the Preference to be giv'n unto it in this matter for these reasons therefore they do not accept his Appeal but proceed to confirm their former Edicts and if he will not yield Obedience they declare that they must proceed against him according to the Stipulation The Defendant on the contrary protests that he will stick to his Appeal in what relates to the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction nor will he take any notice of their Sentence This Cause was managed by the Duke of Brandenburg both in his own Name and upon the account of his Nephew Albert Son to his Brother Casimire whose Guardian he was In the mean time the Emperor appoints a Diet of the Empire to convene at Spiers upon the Sixth of September for the composing of Religious Differences But upon the 21th of August there came to the Duke of Saxony the Counts of Nassaw and the Count de Newenar Men of great Reputation for their Vertue and being permitted by the Emperor to treat of a Reconciliation they to that end lay down five Propositions relating to the Supper of our Lord Ecclesiastical Rites the Goods of the Church Assistance against the Turk and the Election of King Ferdinand But when it appear'd from their Discourse that the Emperor lay under a perswasion as if the Duke was a Favourer both of Zuinglius his Doctrin and of the Anabaptists His answer was That 't is sufficiently known from the Augustine Confession what kind of Doctrin it is which he professes and which the Ministers within his Dominions do Preach in the Churches That 't is farther plain that while he was at the Diet of Auspurg he had held no Correspondence with those who are reputed Zuinglians nor yet afterwards till they had giv'n him an explication of their Opinion That he still continues in the same mind and shall by the Grace of God till his last breath persist in that Doctrin of which he made profession at Auspurg he therefore prays that as to that point they will vindicate him to the Emperor They tell him that as for their parts they were before very well satisfied of his Innocence and will therefore do him justice to the Emperor to whom they doubt not but this will prove very pleasing and acceptable News As to the other Propositions they were pleas'd to refer them to the next Imperial Diet. However they intreated him that he would either come himself in Person to that Diet or at least send thither his Son. His Answer was that truly he was desirous in all things to oblige the Emperor
the Popes Bull was not sufficient nor authentick She answer'd that it was too late to complain of the Bull now since they had approv'd it so long before And when the Dispute began to grow warm the Pope's assistance was desir'd to determine the Matter The Queen had miscarried several times neither did any of her Children live excepting the Princess Mary The Pope therefore undertook the Cause and delegated the hearing of it to the Cardinals Campegio and York And after a long debate when the King had hopes given him from Rome that things should go on his side Campegio by the Pope's Order when he was just upon the Point of the Sentence began to draw back and to throw in delays This Turn they say was occasioned by the death of General Lautrech and the loss of the French Army before Naples Andrew Auria likewise happening to revolt from Francis at the same time which made the Pope conclude that the Emperor Catharines Nephew by her Sister who was now so prosperous in Italy ought not in prudence to be disoblig'd Campegio therefore at last leaves England without bringing the Affair to any point at which the King was extreamly dissatisfied But that he might not seem to do any thing rashly he dispatch'd away several Agents into France Italy and Germany to Collect the sense of the Divines concerning his Marriage The Parisians and most of the rest seemed to declare for the unlawfulness of it though they were suspected to be bribed into their opinion Now there was one Anne Bolen in the Queens Service an incomparable handsome Maiden-Lady This Person the King began to set his Affections upon and discover'd intelligibly enough that he had a mind to marry her As soon as Cardinal Woolsey who was most intimate with the King and as they say moved first for the Divorce understood this design he changed his Resolution and writing to the Pope advised him not to null the Marriage for if he did another Woman infected with Lutheranism would succeed Catharine When the King was acquainted with the Cardinals proceedings by his Embassador at Rome he was very much offended with him and not long after removed him from his Office of Lord Chancellor and deprived him of two of the three Bishopricks which he held At last being reduc'd to a private Life and letting fall some passionate indecent Expressions importing a desire of revenge The King commanded him to dismiss the greatest part of his Servants and to come to Court with a small Retinue The Cardinal not being able to avoid it sets forward but before he reached the King he fell into an acute Distemper contracted by the dissatisfaction of his mind and died upon the way Now the Pope that Campegio might have some pretence for coming away revokes the Cause to himself at Rome And foreseeing the Marriage with Anne Bolen would be of very ill consequence to himself he plies the King with Admonitions and sometimes with Threatnings to give over his design But not being able to prevail there upon the 24th of March this year to oblige the Emperor he gave Judgment on the Queens side When the King was already divorc'd from her had declar'd his Daughter Mary Illegitimate and married the other Lady above a year since As soon as the King understood that Sentence was pronounced against him he began to hate the Pope mortally and immediately passeth an Act in which he declares himself Head of the Church of England next after Christ denies all manner of Obedience to the See of Rome and makes it death for any one to maintain the Pope's Supremacy He likewise refuseth to pay the yearly Tax which the Pope's Collector used to receive and forbids the Conveyance of any Mony to Rome under severe Penalties all which Injunctions were confirmed by the States of the Realm which they call a Parliament Francis the French King is thought to have struck a Considerable stroak in this Divorce that he might make an irreconcilable Breach between Henry and the Emperor As concerning the Tax which I mention'd the Case stands thus Ine King of England in the year 740. out of a sense of Piety made his Kingdom Tributary to the Pope as the History of those times informs us and charged every house with the payment of a peny From that time the Popes sent their Collectors thither yearly to receive this Duty which was commonly call'd Peter-pence This payment having been made by the English without any Interruption from the first Grant this Henry was the first who forbad the Continuance of it any longer I have given an account in the Fourth Book how Luther and Erasmus wrote against each other concerning the Subject of Free Will. This year the Pique between them broke out again For Luther in a Letter to a Friend takes occasion to charge Erasmus very high as if he ridiculed the Christian Religion and expos'd it to question and contempt and cites several places in his Writings to make good his Accusation He also objected that the other had an equivocal two-handed way in expressing himself and made a Tyrannical use of his Elocution And in regard he takes the liberty to play with religious Arguments at that ambiguous rate when he both can and is obliged to be more clear he ought always to be construed in the worst sense This Letter was afterwards answer'd by Erasmus and smartly too who was more sensibly concern'd for nothing than to keep up the Reputation of his own Writings About this time the Franciscans made a strange tragical piece of Work of it at Orleans in France The thing was thus The Provost's Wife of that Town had order'd in her Will to be buried without any Ceremony or noise For when any one dies in France it 's the Custom for Funeral Cryers who are hired for this purpose to go about the principal Streets in the City and call the common people together with their hand-Bells When they have done this they tell the Name and Quality of the Person deceas'd and exhorting the Company to pray to God for his Soul they let them know when and where he is to be buried When the Corps goes to the Grave the Mendicant Friers are usually invited to attend it and a great many Torches are carried before the Hearse In these Solemnities people commonly strive to out-do one another for the more expensive the Funeral is the greater Crowd there is to see and admire it But this Woman I spoke of would have none of all this Her Husband therefore who loved her entirely perform'd this part of her Will and burying her by her Father and Grandfather in the Franciscans Church presented these Gentlemen with no more than six Crowns whereas they expected a much greater Sum. Afterwards when he felled a Wood and sold it they desired him to give them some Timber but were denied They took this very heinously which with their former Disgust made them resolve to
to deal more severely with him than either his custom nature or inclination led him to do But that he would by no means let it be thought that he had neglected his duty having always before his eyes that instance of divine severity against Eli the High-Priest That hitherto he had indeed used the clemency of a Father but that if he obtained nothing now by that means he must needs take another course That he would therefore consider what it became him to do and whether it would conduce more to his own honour and interest to assist his old age in recovering the peace of the Church or to favour those rather who aimed at nothing else but the rending of her into pieces It was thought that the Pope was put upon it by the French King on whom he relyed to write in this manner to the Emperour for it is credible that that King had put odious interpretations and constructions upon the English League that he might whet the edge of the Pope Hence that insinuation in the Letter mentioned before of contracting friendship with ill men for both of them are wont by Letters and Embassadours sollicitously to court the friendship of the King of England especially in time of War and severally strive which can make himself most acceptable unto him About this time Stephen Bishop of Winchester published a very reproachful and bitter Book against Bucer wherein amongst other things he defended the single life This year the Pope created Cardinals Christopher Madruce Bishop of Trent Otho Truchses Bishop of Ausburg Germans George d'Armagnac James Annebaud Kinsman to the Admiral of France French-men Francis Mendoza Bartholomew de la Cueva Spaniards and that to gratifie the Emperour Ferdinand and King of France About the same time also he again summons the Council which had been hindered by the Wars to meet on the 15th of March of the following year and because the Emperour and French King were now at peace he makes a great shew of gladness beginning his Bull of Indiction of the Council with that place of Scripture Rejoyce O Jerusalem At this time also Luther's Book about the Lords Supper came abroad wherein he renews the old Controversie and falls foul upon Zuinglius and his Adherents but it was afterwards answered by those of Zurich and that smartly too We mentioned before how vigorously the Clergy and Colledge of Cologne had resisted the Archbishop in his intended Reformation But he still persisting in the same by Deputies and Letters again sent to him they repeat their former sute telling him That they had earnestly desired two things of him some time ago First that he would desist from his purpose and expect the Decree of the Council and then that he would discharge all new Preachers but that he proceeded and would not condescend to their Supplications which must needs prove very prejudicial to the whole Province That therefore they again besought him by all that was sacred that being mindful of his own Duty and the obligation that lay upon him to the Church of Cologne the Pope of Rome and the Emperour he would remove those Preachers and defer the whole matter until it should come to a publick hearing That unless he did do so they must implore the protection of higher Powers and take such courses as might discharge their Consciences and avert the anger of God. That they were unwilling to proceed so far but that if he persisted they must of necessity do so When by this means they could not prevail neither October the ninth they meet in the chief Church of Cologne and there read over a Writing containing amongst other things what was acted at Wormes three and twenty years before when Luther with consent of all the Princes was condemned by the Emperour what had been done at Ausbourg Ratisbonne and what was lately decreed at Spire That since Archbishop Hermon had taken a new course and setting light by all these things had sent for Bucer an Apostate Monk twice polluted by incestuous Marriages and an Assertor of the Sacramentarian Doctrine whom he employed in the Ministry as he every-where also appointed lewd and profligate Wretches to be new Teachers of the people That by the same hands a new Model of Reformation had been drawn up and published by command of the Prince That they had indeed vigorously protested against all these Innovations and often but in vain besought the Archbishop that he would expect the meeting of the Council or at least delay till the Diet of the Empire That now the Province being in a deplorable condition and all things tending to confusion without any hopes of condescension on his part they were necessitated to betake themselves to the last Remedy and to appeal to the Pope and to the Emperour the chief Advocate and Protector of the Church of God and to commit themselves and all their concerns to their protection George of Brunswick the Brother of Duke Henry and Provost of the Colledge presided in that Assembly When this came to the knowledge of the Archbishop by a publick Writing he denied that they had any cause for an Appeal that he had done nothing but what was his duty and therefore that he rejected the Appeal hoping that they would let it fall of themselves but if not that he would proceed in those things that concerned the glory of God and the Reformation of the Church In another writing afterwards he refutes their Accusations alledging That he had no private Engagement neither with Luther nor Bucer but that he looked upon their Doctrine as being consonant to Scripture to be truly Apostolical and worthy to be embraced by all That Luther was indeed condemned by the Church of Rome but in a violent tyrannical manner without being heard That he knew nothing of that Edict of Wormes whereby they affirm that Luther was condemned before it was printed and published That whereas then they affirm it to be made with consent of the Princes that did not at all concern him to whom nothing of the matter was ever communicated That he never liked that Decree of Ausbourg concerning Religion And that when some Princes promised the Emperour great matters at that time and offered their lives and fortunes for maintenance of the Popish Religion he sent Orders to his Deputies that they should promise no such thing nay that in express terms they should declare the contrary But that they acted not according to their Orders and that the cause of their silence was known to some who now held the chief Rank amongst his Adversaries Which being so he was no ways obliged by that Edict and that though he might have been sometimes obliged yet upon discovery of the truth he was no longer bound seeing no Covenant or Oath that derogates from the honour of God can have any force or obligation That the Decree of Ratisbonne not only permitted but also enjoyned him and some other
for a certain he understands Religion To which the Emperour again replied To bring in a new Faith and Religion is not to reform an old Nor does he profess said the Landgrave to have embraced any new Religion but to have restored the ancient and true one as it was left unto us by Christ and his Apostles that he hath turned out some and promoted others to Cures in the Church is a Duty belonging to his Charge for if a Minister be either of a scandalous life and conversation or unlearned it is certainly the Bishops part to substitute a fit man in his place there are a great many vacant Churches in the Bishops Lands as I can affirm where for want of Pastors the People are neither taught nor ruled but lead a dissolute and barbarous Life liker to Beasts than Men. That he intercepts some of the Revenues of the Clergy he gives this reason That he had contributed a great deal of Money to the maintaining of the War against the Turk and French now it is the custom of the Empire for Magistrates to lay Taxes upon their Subjects on such occasions and that therefore he was not to be blamed but as it is commonly given out that he does it upon a religious account that is a malicious Aspersion of his Enemies to render him odious Next day the Landgrave Granvell Naves and Masbachen met at the Elector Palatine's Lodgings There Naves begins the discourse repeats somewhat of the Conference the day before with the Emperour declares the reason of their present meeting and shews that when the Emperour out of his earnest desire of peace and concord had appointed a Conference at Ratisbonne the Divines had of themselves broken up and departed To this the Landgrave made answer That he knew nothing as yet of their departure but that they had written to the Elector of Saxony and himself what uneasie Conditions were proposed to them when the Presidents would neither suffer them in the beginning to have Clarks exhibit any Copy of the Proceedings nor to send home any account of them that he did hear also how immodestly the conferring Monks behaved themselves who not only recinded what had been agreed upon before took away all hopes of agreement but also gave scandal and offence by their leud Lives and Conversation that he did not as yet know whether or not his Deputies were therefore gone but that he had not recalled them Next spoke Granvell and having premised some things concerning the Emperour's good intentions and desire of peace he partly excuses what was objected touching the Conditions of the Conference nevertheless that they were forbid to write home what they thought fit to be imparted was a thing he said they had no orders for from the Emperour But the Landgrave having pray'd them to wave those things and come to the matter in hand makes mention of that Decree made two Years before at Spire concerning Peace and the Administration of Justice urging chiefly a Provincial Council of Germany as the fittest means for setling and quieting Religion and because the Italians Spaniards and French differed so much from the Germans in the matter of Doctrine it was his opinion that a General or as they call it an Oecumenical Council would be but of little use but let things happen as they pleased whether a reconciliation could or could not be effected that yet the Decree of Spire ought not to be recinded that the state of Religion was such now in Germany that if any attempted to bear it down by force it would cost many and many a thousand Lives which would redound to the great loss of the Emperour whose Power was mightily encreased by the Forces of Germany and to the no small Joy and Benefit of other Nations and especially the Turks our Enemies The Decree of Spire was suited to the times said Granvell and it was none of the Emperour's fault that it had not its effect but that it was well enough known at whose door it lay In Private and National Councils Vices and Manners only are reformed but not a word of Faith and Religion Now there is nothing but Sects and Divisions when all Men have not the same thoughts in matters of Faith so that to the Debates of this Nature not only the Germans but all other morose Christians also have a just right That most part of Divines are a morose awkward and obstinate sort of Men unfit to dispatch any business that therefore Princes and Great Men ought to be admitted and some middle way found out of according Doctrines nor do you yourselves allow a liberty of Religion since they who differ from you in Opinion are imprisoned and fined Now though the Emperour be above all things desirous of agreement yet he cannot grant any thing that is impious for if all things were left to the disposal of the promiscuous multitude the chief Magistrate himself could no longer be safe It is unwisely done in me said the Landgrave to speak of such weighty Matters in the absence of my Associates However since there is no body here upon the catch I will go on I think that the Decree of Spire was made by the Emperour with a very good intent and since our Adversaries promised then to comply with it they ought not now to retract In the next place because we gave the Emperour good assistance against the French King we hope that what was then granted and confirmed under Hand and Seal is not to be violated Now there is nothing that ought to put a stop to a National Council do we not profess the same Faith that the Apostles that the Nicene Council and Athanasius professed and are not our Divines agreed about the chief Points of Faith There was indeed some dispute amongst them concerning the Lord's Supper but that is now quite hushed there is none but confesses that the Body and Bloud of Christ is really there received There are Anabaptists Davidians and I know not who besides but those are punished by Law there is no need then that foreign Nations should also be present when these things are determined though if they proposed to themselves the knowledge of the truth that were chiefly also to be wished that certain middle Opinions were established and that by Men of Honour and Quality I am not much against it but do not think that it can well be done without Divines However make no doubt but that if the pure Doctrine of the Gospel were preached the Sacrament given in both kinds and Church-men allowed to marry as Paphnutius of old urged in the Council a reconciliation might be accomplished I know no place where men are forced to be of our Religion we do not indeed suffer a variety or diversity of Doctrine in one and the same place but we compel no man nor upon that account deprive any of Life or Goods Now if men of our Religion were suffered to
live quietly and allowed their Churches apart in your Dominions I should be content for my own part to allow the same liberty to those of your Perswasion throughout all my Territories but because you will by no means grant that we also are willing that there should be an equality in those matters what then I said before of the Decree of Spire and a Council of Germany I say again that I look upon it as the best course that can be taken There is no man living a greater lover of Religion than the Emperour said Granvell nor will he for fear or favour of the Pope step the least out of the way of Equity and Justice nay he hath also observed the Decree of Spire notwithstanding the other Party and the Pope too were highly offended thereat for which reason also the Hier Naves and I lie under envy and ill will enough But now in a National Council I cannot see who is like to be the Judge for all men do not understand the Scripture in the same sence and because there seems to be but little hopes in a Conference other ways certainly are to be thought on some Points are setled indeed already but again many are still under controversie and then Bucer gives a larger interpretation to the Points adjusted than the thing it self will bear Now if men go on at that rate it may be easily judged what state Germany will be reduced to You tell very acceptable News said the Landgrave when you say that the Emperour is not at all influenced by the Pope and would to God he might bring the Pope to know his duty Heretofore the Bishops of Rome honoured the Emperour as their chief Magistrate but now Emperours are bound to them by an Oath of Obedience In all Controversies the Word of God ought chiefly to be the Judge which is not obscure provided the mind of man would submit to it For it lays Sin open before us invites us to Repentance and Amendment of Life and offers to us Christ who took away the Sins of the World in whose Name also we are to pray to God the Father that he would bestow his holy Spirit upon us This is the Faith and Doctrine which hath always continued in the Church as the Lord's Prayer the Apostles Creed and several Hymns and Songs about the Benefits of Christ that are used in Churches do sufficiently demonstrate Nor is it to be minded here what the Opinion of the greatest part is but what is true For when at Jerusalem most of the Apostles and Disciples would have had the Gentiles to whom the Gospel was preached circumcised Peter only and Paul James and Barnabas were of a contrary opinion and having convinced the rest of their error abolished that yoke of the Law at which time the greatest part of the Assembly was over-ruled by and yielded to the judgment of a few that were in the right We do not indeed give Rules to other People but heartily wish that the Germans at least might agree amongst themselves I should not truly be against the finding out and laying down of some middle ways but so that the Decree of Spire should still be in force in so far as concerns the Peace and the Administration of Justice Now in other things it is to be considered what may lawfully according to the Word of God be established and what not But I wish the Prince Elector my Kinsman and Friend who has been present at several Diets and knows what has pass'd would now be pleased to speak what he thinks fit to the purpose Then he having spoken somewhat as to the Emperour 's good intentions declared his opinion to be that the Conference at Ratisbonne was well begun and that if it were renewed and the Points already agreed upon brought no more under debate he thought matters might be brought to a tolerable accommodation The Emperour answered Granvell is very much for an accommodation as hath been oftener than once said before for he-knows that unless that can be accomplished the Publick must needs suffer and though the Emperour reap not the least profit from the Empire and be besides indisposed in health yet for the sake of Germany he hath undertaken this Progress He entertains no secret Designs with the French King or any else nor is he come to ask Supplies but to do all the publick good he can The Kings of England and France are both raising Forces which is a thing much to be suspected besides the death of the Emperour's Daughter-in-law hath cut him out work enough to do in Spain Nevertheless he hath laid aside the care of all these things that he may repair to the Diet but if none of the Princes meet there what can he do alone He is much called upon and implored to interpose his authority and reform things and yet no body comes to the place appointed for publick deliberation It would do very well then my Lords speaking to the Elector Palatine and Landgrave if you who make the chiefest Figure amongst the rest would go thither and be present at the Diet. Though perhaps said the Landgrave the Emperour have no great Revenues from the Empire yet is it to be reckoned nothing that he hath aid and assistance given him against the Turk the King of France and others that the Dignity of the Empire procures him great Authority with all other Kings that he can always levy Forces and raise vast Armies in Germany which is not allowed to others Our Adversaries are more clamorous than we and yet acquiesce not to safe and sound Councils On our parts we have approved the Decree of Spire and demanded that the Points which five Years since were agreed upon at Ratisbonne should be confirmed and entred upon record and admitted also all the just and reasonable Conditions of the last Conference they on the contrary have accepted none of these things nor will they condescend to any terms nay and at Wormes they openly protested against the Conference Now for my own part it is not possible that I should go to Ratisbonne the Charges will be so great Besides there is a difference depending betwixt the Elector of Saxony and Duke Maurice which as it is referred to me because it could not be taken up by Commissioners appointed on both sides it is of great concern to be adjusted nevertheless I shall send Deputies with ample Instructions to the Diet. The Conference thus breaking up some hours after Naves came back to the Landgrave to assure him that the Emperour was pleased with that days Conference he again pressed him that he would come to Ratisbonne in person and asked him if he was willing to wait upon the Emperour again towards the Evening He declined not the proposal and so soon as he was come the Emperour gave him thanks by the mouth of Naves first for his coming thither and then because he perceived that the
Cardinals therewith and in name of the whole Empire to demand the continuation of the Council at Trent He ordered Mendoza also to do the same but the Pope took time to consider of it and having thought fit to consult you about the matter obtained from you a dubious crafty and captious Answer Besides he answers the Emperour oddly and shews sufficiently by his tergiversation that he is little concerned for the Publick for the cause of the removal ought to have been proved by credible Witnesses The Emperour King Ferdinand and the Princes by Letters and most ample Embassies declared what the mind of the States was concerning the Council but the Pope believed and preferred the Report of some mean and base People before the Testimony of all these How many tedious and irksome Journeys hath the Emperour made upon the account of the Council What Charges and Expences hath he been at And must all these be lost For most weighty and necessary causes was the Council both called and begun at Trent the Emperour and Germans demanding it and all other Christian Princes consenting thereunto so that unless the publick Authority of all States intervene it cannot be translated to another place for indeed there was no cause for the Translation only something invented for an excuse as some slight Feaver and badness of Air forsooth and for that purpose some Physicians were suborned but chiefly Serving-Maids and Cooks Now what a trifling cause that was the thing it self and the event declared You say that you went away without the Pope's knowledge and advice but the Letter he wrote to you and the Answer he gave the Emperour imply the quite contrary Certainly you ought not to have departed nor changed the place but with consent of the Emperour to whom it belongs to protect all Councils but you posted away in so much haste that ye rejected the Opinion of those who said that the Emperour and Pope ought first to be consulted Now if you must needs have been removing ye ought to have observed at least the Decrees of the Holy Councils and remained within the bounds of Germany that the Germans for whose cause chiefly the Council was called might safely come to it but now ye have chosen Bolonia a Town seated in the heart of Italy and under the Jurisdiction of the Church of Rome whither it is certain the Germans will not come and therefore have you chosen it that to the great prejudice and disgrace of Christendom the Council may be either dissolved or managed at your pleasure The Emperour therefore requireth and that most earnestly that you return to that place which pleased all before especially since all things are now safe and quiet and no more cause of any fear remains But if this you refuse I do here in the name and by command of the Emperour protest against this Translation of the Council as frivolous and unlawful and that all that has been done or shall be done therein is of no force nor effect I also publickly declare That that Answer of yours is silly and full of Lyes and that the prejudice and inconveniences which hereafter shall ensue to the Publick are not to be imputed to the Emperour but to you affirming withal that you have no Power nor Authority to remove the Council And because you neglect the publick Welfare the Emperour as Protector of the Church will take the care of that upon himself in so far as it is lawful for him by Law and the Canons of Holy Church When he had read over that Protestation he delivered a written Copy of it and desired it to be entered upon Record With that the Cardinal de Monte having highly commended the pious intentions of the Fathers called God to witness that they had wrong done them saying They were ready to suffer death rather than that such a practice should be brought into the Church that the Civil Magistrate might call or controul a Council when and how he pleased That the Emperour was indeed a Son of the Church but not the Lord and Master That he and his Colleagues were the Legates of the Apostolick See and did not refuse even then to render first to God and then to the Pope an account of their Commission That after all within a few days they should have an Answer to their Protestation Much about the same time Mendoza having received Instructions from the Emperour made a Protestantion to the same effect at Rome before the Pope and Colledge of Cardinals and in presence of all the Forreign Embassadours whom according to his Instructions he had invited to be Witnesses of it THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH BOOK XX. THE CONTENTS In the beginning it is hotly disputed whether Prussia belong to the King of Poland or rather to the Empire The Pope makes a large Answer to the Harangue that Mendoza made before The Emperour being informed of that and seeing but very little hopes of a Council causes the Book which is called the Interim to be made The Protector of England in a very long Letter to the Scots counsels them to Peace and demands their Queen Vogelsberg is beheaded The Emperour invests Duke Maurice in the Electorship which he had bestowed upon him in the Camp before Wittemberg Bucer refuses to subscribe to the Interim The Pope also publishes a Censure of it which many of the Electors and Princes also did and many refuse it though it was published by the Emperour The Duke of Saxony though a Prisoner with great magnanimity rejects it The Landgrave by Letters which were published from the Emperours Court seems to approve it that he may obtain his freedom Whil'st the Mass is abolished in England by Act of Parliament the free Towns of Germany are solicited to accept of the Interim and especially Strasburg which is pressed by Threats to do it WE have shewn in the former Books that Marquess Albert of Brandenburg did Homage to the King of Poland and altered the Government of Prussia for which he was Outlaw'd by the Imperial Chamber As also that the King of Poland had several times solicited the Emperour and rest of the States in the Publick Diets to reverse that Outlawry because he was his Vassal and under his Protection But since to this day nothing could be obtained and that by this Victory of the Emperours some greater danger seemed to be threatned the King of Poland sends an Embassy to this Diet whereof the chief was Stanislaus Alaski He in the month of January delivered to the Emperour and Colledge of the Princes a Speech in Writing whereof the substance was That the Cause of Prussia had been some times already debated but because it had been always put off to other Diets he was commanded to open it again that the King was in good hopes because of the civil Answers he had often received from them and of the equity of his Cause they would Consider his Affair yet not as
afterwards at Vicenza but thither hardly any and hither but a few came And the Legats that I sent for six months stayed expecting the rest of the Bishops whom I called by Letters and Messengers sent unto all Parts Now you say that these Towns were not fit for Men of different Nations to meet in but Trent with you is a proper place And yet all Men know that Trent is not to be compared with them either for bigness or plenty of all things It was not the inconvenience of the place then but the Wars of Princes that was the hindrance Tell me then now which of the two was most zealous in this particular the Emperour who by Wars and Commotions hindered the Council or the Pope who was always a Lover and Promoter of Peace who never sided with any Prince but the Emperour alone and that too only in that War which seemed to secure a way for a Council Whether the Emperour was forced upon War and unwillingly engaged in it or not I shall not dispute but it is certainly known that the Wars put a stop to the progress of the Council I enter not willingly unto this Comparison because it is a contending for the praise of Virtue and Goodness which is all to be ascribed unto God but you have put me upon it my Lord Ambassadour However I will not insist any longer only advise you to reflect seriously on the several years of my Pontificate and attentively consider what care and pains we have taken And indeed the two things which I always proposed to my self were that I might entertain peace amongst Princes and call a Council wherein I have spared neither cost nor labour though I be stricken in years but neither do you find fault with any thing that preceded the Council and only accuse the Legats that without my knowledge they removed to Bolonia Then it offends you too that I call the Assembly of the Fathers at Bolonia a Council and you think that therein I do an injury to those who are at Trent but what hurt is there in that for so all Men speak The Council is translated from Trent to Bolonia Wherefore if I would do the duty of a just Judge I cannot but call it so till I be otherwise convinced by contrary Evidences especially since the greater part of the Bishops went thither with my Legats Nor ought the smaller part as you affirm but the greater to be reckoned the sounder in a dubious case And it is certain that it is in the Councils power to remove to another place but whether or not it be lawfully removed which is the thing in controversie I reserve that to my own Judgment to which it is referred and in the mean time give the name of Council to that Assembly But you say that the Authors of the Translation are devoted to me Do you think that is to be found fault with then You consequently praise those who remained at Trent because they are not so complaisant Consider what danger there is in that for Schisms and Dissentions that are very pernicious to the Church commonly spring from this when Bishops withdraw themselves from their obedience to the Pope But if by being addicted to me you mean Factious Men that right or wrong take my part I own no such For I have no other private Concerns but those of a Father towards his Children and of a Pastor towards his Flock nor hath there any such Controversie been as yet started in the Council that I should stand in need of any such addicted and pre-engaged Creatures but I chiefly required of the Bishops that they have regard to the liberty of their Conscience and I laid strict Injunctions on my Legats when they departed from me to the Council that they should take special care that the Fathers might have no cause to complain that they were not allowed the freedom of speaking their Judgments You find fault also that I will not be prevailed with by the Intreaties neither of the Emperour King Ferdinand nor of the States of the Empire to recal the Fathers to Trent and from thence gather that I take no care of Germany especially seeing with great pains and trouble the Emperour has brought it about that those who heretofore were fallen off from the Church would not now refuse the Decrees of the Council provided it were continued at Trent Truly I never refused in positive terms but that they might return to Trent if it might be done lawfully and without giving offence to other Nations Now how desirous I am of the welfare of Germany is manifest from this that I have called the Council there twice already and twice sent my Legats where the Cardinals Pairizio Morono and Pool in the first Legation stayed the space of seven Months expecting the coming particularly of the Germans and yet you your self know that none came then There came indeed from the Emperour Granvell the Bishop of Arras and you your self my Lord Ambassador and you can bear witness with how much patience our Legats expected the rest But what was the issue Ye your selves did not tarry and though my Legats prayed that one of you three at least might stay because it would be an example to others nevertheless you alledged a certain kind of excuse and a few days after departed Then two years after being indeed a more convenient time there was a second meeting there and I sent Legats the Cardinals de Monte Santacruce and Pool whither you also and Don Francesco de Toledo came But you may call to mind what a tedious expectation there was and how many Months spent in vain before any thing was done Nay more after that they had fallen to Business and many useful Decrees were made you know how few of those came who chiefly wanted that Remedy Not any of the Bishops came some few sent their Proxy's and in short they gave no hopeful signs that they would admit of any Remedy For when many flocked thither out of Spain France Italy and more remote Provinces scarcely one came from Germany which is the next of all But the state of Affairs is now much altered you say and the Emperour whose Power and Authority is now much increased will engage that if the Council return to Trent all the Germans shall submit to its Decrees Good my Lord Ambassadour if what you say be true and if the Germans be in that mind why do not they absolutely submit to the Council wherever it be Yet I would not be so understood neither as if it much concerned me in what place the Council be held But you stick so close to Trent that you say Germany is lost unless it be finished in the same place where it was begun But take heed what you say For whil'st you fasten us to the Walls of one City you do an injury to the Holy Ghost God of old set apart Jerusalem as the peculiar place of his Worship so
against Vergerio And not content with that neither he published also a Libel wherein through hatred to the reformed Religion he most slanderously traduces Germany When Grisonio came to Pola and Justinopolis he rushed into the Citizens Houses and searched for prohibited Books Next he went to the Pulpit and amongst many other Terrours denounced he excommunicated all who did not inform against those that were suspected of Lutheranism Promising however easier Penance to those that did repent and of their own accord asked Pardon from him But threatning such as did not openly confess their Crime and were afterwards accused by others that they should be burnt for the same and thus he went from house to house scaring the people out of their wits So that some came in and acused themselves and for fear did as they were bid The richer sort were forced to acknowledge their Errour privately but the poor publickly Such as confessed that they had read the New Testament in the Vulgar Tongue were strictly charged to do so no more for the future This wrought so upon the common People who were struck with a panick fear that they strove who should inform most without any regard to Relation Friendship or Obligation the Son not sparing the Father the Wife the Husband nor the Tenant his Lord and Master Now the Informations were most commonly about frivolous Matters such as superstition made them take for scandalous sins Besides they had frequent Sermons against the Doctrine of Vergerio And on a certain day when there was a great confluence of People in the Cathedral Church of Justinopolis Grisonio who then publickly said Mass in very rich Vestments steps up into the Pulpit and amonst other things that he might drive the Nail to the Head Now said he and for some years past you have been visited by many Judgments and Calamities that fell sometimes upon your Olives and sometimes on your Corn sometimes upon your Vines and sometimes again on your Cattle or other Goods And the cause of all these evils has been your Bishop and the rest of that heretical Rout nor are ye to expect any relief before they be restrained and the best way to do that is to fall upon them and stone them Vergerio being thus baited by their violents courses was forced to step aside to Mantua to Cardinal Hercules Gonzaga who his familiar acquaintance But since some at Rome and John Caso the Popes Legat at Venice urged Gonzaga by Letters and Messengers that he should no longer harbour such a man He went to Trent where the Council then sate that he might purge himself When this came to the Popes Ears though he could rather have wished to have had him Prisoner yet to avoid all suspition especially in Germany as if it had not been a free Council he wrote to his Legats that they should not allow him any place amongst the Fathers but command him to be gone some where else Being in this manner turned out he went to Venice There Caso the Legat persuaded him by all means to go to Rome But he knowing his own danger refused it Then some days after another charges him in the Popes Name not to return again to Justinopolis and therefore he went to Padua during his abode there he was a Spectator of the sad Example we mentioned and being moved thereat and an eye-witness of Gods heavy wrath which persued that poor wretch for denying of the Truth he began to be confirmed more and more and then fully resolved to leave his Native Country and all that ever he had and take upon himself a voluntary Banishment that he might go live in some place where he might freely profess the Doctrine of Christ This he did some Months after for leaving the Country of Bergamo he went and setled amongst the Grisons who were the next Neighbours And having for some years preached the Gospel there and in the Valteline he was by Christopher Duke of Wittemburg invited to Tubingen His Brother the Bishop of Pola died before he left Italy and was suspected to have been poysoned Many other Great Men besides Vergerio had seen Spira in that State and amongst these Matthew Gribaldo a Lawyer of Padua who published a relation of all that he himself had seen and heard as also did Vergerio himself Sigismund Gelou Polonus and Henry Scot. The Archbishop of Benevento whom we mentioned wrote a Book of Sodomy than which nothing can be imagined more filthy and obscene Nor was he ashamed to extol and praise the foulest of Crimes which nevertheless is too well known over Italy and Greece In the mean time the Archbishops of Germany especially those of Mentz Cologne and Treves call Synods in their several Provinces to reform the Church according to the formulary prescribed by the Emperour Bucer as we told you before had preached in the Province of Cologne and there were some Ministers in it that had married Wives Now though it was by the Emperours Decree allowed that married Priests might retain their Wives until the Council determined the Matter yet the Archbishop of Cologne pretended that that was only indulged to the Lutherans but not to Roman Catholicks wherefore he made a Decree annulling Marriages contracted pronouncing them to be incestuous and declaring the Children begot in them to be illegitimate The Archbishop of Treves hath but a small Province and only three Suffragan Bishops Metz Toul and Verdun There was no need of such a Law amongst them For the Church-men in those places liked Concubines better than Wives But in this Archbishoprick where he perceived the danger to be greater he made the same Decree as his Colleagues did The Jurisdiction of Mentz is of a vast extent for he hath twelve Suffragan Bishops and all Hesse in a manner is subject to him in Spirituals He therefore began to urge and press the Observation of the Emperours Decree and of the Doctrine contained in the Interim The same did the Archbishop of Treves who also had some Jurisdiction there But the Landgrave's Sons and the rest of the Governours and Counsellors were deaf to these things The Archbishop sent also Michael Sidonius his Vicar General to Franckfurt where having first consecrated the Churches he preacht and taught after his own manner And the Bishop of Ausburg made some inconstant Priests that wavered in their Opinions abjure their Doctrine We spoke before of the French who in the Summer time went to the assistance of the Scots Now these at length carry over into France Mary the Kings only Daughter and Heir a young Lady of six years of age that so they might put the English out of all hopes of obtaining her This year the Pope made Charles of Vendosme a French man Cardinal After that Maximilian of Austria arrived in Spain and had married the Lady Mary the Emperour's Daughter Philip the Emperour's Son a Prince of one and twenty years of
his part to compel them to do otherwise That he had therefore desired the Bishops that they themselves would take some course about it and that he had already acquainted His Majesty with their Answer being in good hopes that no more would have been required of him But now that you would have a plain and positive Answer Most mighty Emperour said he I 'le freely tell Your Majesty what my Judgment is And first as to the Religion Rites and Ceremonies which now for some Years past have been observed within my Dominion I have been born and bred up in them Sir as I told Your Majesty before to this very time and never heard of any other kind of Doctrine besides Sir I have been at some pains to study and examine it and as far as I can conceive it hath seemed to me in all things consonant to the Word of God. For so much I must confess now the Question is put to me lest I should wound my own Conscience and endanger my Salvation This is also the reason why I cannot approve the Decree though in every thing else I be most ready in imitation of my Ancestors to render you most humble obedience Your Majesty Sir as chief Magistrate has power to Enact and Enjoyn what you think fit to be done for I am no such man as can will or ought to be against that it wholly depends on your own will and pleasure This only I humbly beseech that neither I nor the people of my Dominion be constrained to do any thing contrary to our Judgment and Conscience As for the Ministers of the Church in my last Letter I begg'd of Your Majesty that you would be pleased to suffer them to stay chiefly to baptise Children and visit the Sick till others should be put into their places Nevertheless if Your Majesty command them instantly to be gone and not stay the coming of others you shall be obeyed Sir though it will be a great grief and detriment to the People for many of them are already gone and in all things that can be performed I know that Obedience is due to Your Majesty When in the Territories of Duke Maurice things seemed to tend to a change in Religion the Ministers of Lubeck Lunenburg and Hamburg published a Writing wherein they fully confuted the Book and Decree of Ausburg and the chief Author of that Writing was one John Epine Moreover the Doctors of Magdenburg Nicholas Armstorff and especially Matthias Flacius a Sclavonian born in the Town of Albona and Nicholas Gallus take up sharply the Divines of Wittemberg and Leipsick in many publick Papers accusing them that they acted disingenuously and by their adiaphorous and indifferent things opened a Door to Popery This at length they lay down for a Rule that all Rites and Ceremonies though never so indifferent in their own Nature yet are no longer indifferent if force an opinion of holiness and necessity intervene and if occasion be thereby given to impiety The Sclavonian had for some years been an Hearet and Disciple of Melanchton but when this Debate arose he went to Magdeburg and in a little Book which he afterwards published gave his Reasons why he did do so Furthermore the Divines of Hamburg wrote to those of Wittemberg and particularly to Melanchton telling them what they called Adiaphorous or indifferent things and how far they might be admitted and desiring of them on the other hand that they would write back and plainly shew them what it was they comprehended under that Name to the end Men might be sure what they were to follow without wavering in their minds and that that name Adiaphorous might not give occasion to many other Errors which might insensibly insinuate themselves into the Church again Melanchton answered that Letter wherein amongst other things he said that some little Bondage was to be endured provided it were not joyned with impiety The Archbishop of Mentz having called a Provincial Synod in the beginning of May afterwards published a Book of the Decrees thereof The same did also Treves and Cologne which last has a very large Province too That Book amongst other things determines about Confession that no man be admitted to the Lord's Supper unless he have confessed his Sins about the hallowing of Salt Water and other things which by Exorcisms and Prayers are prepared for the use of believers as they say about Relicts the Invocation and Adoration of Saints about Pilgrimages Prayers for the Dead Purgatory Fasting and the choice of Meats about Canonical Hours as they call them and the tremendous Ceremonies of the Mass Maurice Bishop of Aichstadt came in person to the Synod but the rest sent their Vicars Now the constitution of the Synod touching Consecrations and Exorcisms is of a very large extent Every Lord's day when there is a great Congregation of People in the Church the Priest with many Prayers exorcises as they term it first Water and then Salt then putting the Salt into the Water he therewith sprinkleth the People and this Sprinkling is thought to give Health both to Body and Mind to defeat the Snares of the Devil and to cleanse not only Men but inanimate things also for it is sprinkled upon the Ground Stones and the Graves of dead Men the Priests praying God that he would endow it with that Virtue and efficacy After the same manner also is Salt used in Baptism for the Priest putteth Consecrated Salt into the Child's Mouth commanding the Devil to come out of it then he dips the Insant three times into Water and wetting his Thumb in Oyl anoints its Breast and Shoulders Women also when after their Childbed they go to be Churched at their entring the Church door are sprinkled with this Holy Water In short it serves for many uses especially when there is occasion to engage Spirits that walk in the Night time or are to be exorcised Whatever also belongs to the Accoutrement and Dress of the Priests is consecrated by certain Prayers Besides in hallowing the Baptismal Water of the Font Tapers Palms the Pascal Lamb or Agnus Dei as they call it which is made of Wax Eggs Flesh Cheese Bacon Flowers Herbs the Fruit of Trees in all these the Holy Water we have been speaking of is employed When a Church is to be built the Bishop or his Vicar lays the first Foundation Stone and sprinkleth it with Holy Water and when it is finished he goes thrice round it and first sprinkles the upper Walls then the middle and the last the lowermost of all with his Crozier making the sign of the Cross upon the leaves of the uppermost Door to keep the Devil off that he do not approach it Entering afterwards into the Church and some Prayers being sung an Officer makes the sign of the Cross with the sprinkling of some Ashes that being done the Bishop with his Crozier draws some Greek Characters upon
had been handed down to them from their Ancestors and successively even to the present time was a thing that could noways be defended nor justified to Posterity That now it manifestly appeared what end the Authors of the Book made at Ausburg had proposed to themselves and what they drove at for that they had endeavoured to deprive Mankind of the chief head of the Doctrine of Justification the very groundwork of our Salvation as also to question the use of the Lords Supper and the Marriage of Priests to teach besides the Invocation of Dead Men and all that depends thereon in short to restore Popery again in its full extent as many Men of Excellent Learning had made it appear that certainly so great Impiety was not to be winked at nor past in silence but earnest and fervent Prayers made to God that he would not suffer the glory of his own Name to be thus polluted That it was indeed a sad and lamentable spectacle to see men violently driven to a false Religion and Idolatry the Ministers of the Church cast into Gaols or with their Wives and Children forced into Exile and some also butchered and killed but it was extreamly grievous that though these things were openly seen especially in Upper Germany yet there were some who had the boldness to say that Religion was not struck at that nevertheless it was no new thing since from the very Creation of the World it had been the condition of Pious and Innocent Men to suffer affliction and that there were many Examples both in the Old and New Testament which declared the constancy of holy Men when Kings and Princes set forth Edicts contrary to the Word of God for that Rule of Scripture always prevailed with them That it is better to obey God than Men That this was not only the Doctrine of St. Chrysostome St. Austin St. Ambrose and others but their Practice also when the Emperours commanded any thing repugnant to the Law of God that their case was now the same that they saw the danger they were in and yet could do not otherwise than they did for that they would suffer any thing rather than applaud to and embrace manifest Errours That it was reported of Gordius the Martyr how that being desired by his Friends as he was going to the place of Execution that to save his Life he would forsake his Opinion he made answer That the Tongue ought not to speak any thing in reproach of him who created it A saying that concerned all Men in general for that it was the Opinion of the Ancient Church and of some of the first Bishops of Rome also that they do not only betray the Truth who teach false Doctrine but those also that dare not openly confess and defend the known Truth That therefore the event of all was to be committed to God and that Men ought not for love or favour or the fear of any danger to turn aside from the profession of the Truth but to have the Example of Daniel always before their Eyes who contrary to the Decree of King Darius prayed to God with his Windows open That he might indeed have done the same privately and closely without any danger but because the open confession of his Faith and the glory of the Divine Majesty required it should be otherwise he had with a great and undaunted mind openly called upon God without any regard to that danger which being laid for him by his Enemies fell afterwards upon their own heads That therefore they begg'd they would not raise Arms nor attempt any Hostility against them who were Members of the true Church but therein follow the Example of the Christian Soldiers of former Ages who would not obey when the Emperours would have employed their Arms against those who professed the Christian Religion as might be made out by the instance of St. Mauritius the Martyr That it was to be found in the Book of Judges how highly God was offended with the Israelites because being terrified by the multitude of the Enemies they assisted not their weaker Brethren which might be a lesson to all that not only Brethren and Associates were not to be deserted but ought also to be relieved and succoured That they made no doubt but that good Men were moved at these things that God lived and was immortal who had often shew'd strength with his Arm in old time and was still able to do it That after all they most earnestly besought them that they would carry these their Complaints to the Emperour King Ferdinand and the other Princes and States and at the same time intercede for them that they might not be reduced to extremity for that they refused nothing that could be lawfully and honestly performed that it was their hearty Request also that they would commend them in their Prayers to God that in imitation of the Ninivites they might from the bottom of their hearts repent of their Sins and send up their sighs unto God that they might undauntedly persevere in the profession of the Doctrine of the Gospel which had now for these thirty years been preached amongst them and set it forth with Pious Lives and Conversations that they might do the Works of Charity to all Men but especially to the Ministers of Gods Church who were now turned out and in exile to their Wives and Children and such other poor People in distress and that they might retain this pure and wholesome Doctrine in spight of the tricks and artifices of those who under the Pretext of restoring of Ceremonies would again let in upon us the sink of Popish Pollutions In the Month of October Francis Duke of Mantua the Son of Frederick took to Marriage the Lady Catharine Daughter of Ferdinand King of the Romans and the Tenth day of November after Pope Paul III. departed this Life in the Fourscore and second year of his Age. The day before he died he discharged the Imposts which he had laid upon Salt and most part of other Commodities to the grievance of the People Some Months before he had solicited the Emperour about the restitution of Piacenza but it was in vain and it was generally thought that if he had lived longer he would have espoused the Interests of the French King for it was believe that he had been hatching Revenge in his mind ever since the Murder of his Son Petro Aloisio His Body lay for three days in State in the Chapel of Pope Sixtus whither the People flocked in great numbers to kiss his Feet which were put out at an Iron Gate as the custom is Before he died a bitter and Satyrical Book came out against him under the Name indeed of one Bernardino Ochino but as it was thought written by other hands with a Prefatory Dedication to Ascanio Colonna whom he had banished This little Book amongst a great many other things which would be too long to relate addressing to him calls
thereupon mention has been made in the third Book And because a Decree past at Constance that the next subsequent Council should be held five years after another seven years after that and so for the future one every tenth year the Fathers met again at Basil But because the Bohemians were not as yet reconciled the Affair was managed betwixt them by Letters and Messengers and at the Town of Egra a Draught of a safe Conduct was made which if the Fathers did admit of the Bohemians did not refuse said they to come And so soon as the Deputies whom they had sent had declared their Commission the Fathers did approve and set their Seals to that form of safe Conduct which they sent to them with a most friendly Letter exhorting them to prepare themselves that when the safe Conduct also of the Emperour Sigismund should be brought to them they might be in readiness to undertake the Journey This was done in the fourth Session in the year 1432. Now what kind of safe Conduct that of the Fathers was it shall be at length delcared in the following Book Duke Maurice then being by his Divines informed of this makes application to the Emperour and urges the precedent of Basil as the latest and most suitable to the Age. For the Protestants were much in the same case as the Bohemians had been in formerly and for the same causes in a manner was the Council of Trent called that that of Basil had heretofore been to wit that Heresies might be rooted out that peace and tranquillity might be restored to the State and that the Church might be purged from Vices and reformed On the Twenty sixth day of August in the Morning after Sermon the Doctors and Preachers of the Church of Ausburg ten in number with the School-Masters were sent for to the Lodgings of the Bishop of Arras every one by himself When they were come thither some sooner some later not knowing what the matter was they were commanded to keep a part and not to talk to one another afterwards they were called in order one after another into a Hall where the Bishop of Arras sate with Hasen Selden Malvenda and some others Selden was Spokesman and as he was bid proposed the Questions Whether or not in the Lords Supper there was as much contained under one Kind as under both Next How many Sacraments they believed there were And lastly Why they did not teach according to the form prescribed by the Emperour three years ago whereas they had promised to do so no less than the Senate it self and all the States had done They answered every one for himself severally That Christ instituted the whole Supper and that his Institution ought to be followed That there is mention made but of two Sacraments in the holy Scriptures Baptism and the Lords Supper That they received not that Form of Doctrine because it disagreed with the holy Scripture Here the Bishop of Arras took them up in a great heat Do ye think then said he that the Emperour cannot make Laws and prescribe Rules in Spiritual Affairs as well as in Temporal What the Emperour may do we do not now dispute said they but as we said we neither received that Form nor can we indeed approve it With that he fell into a greater passion and in a rage bestowed some bitter and reproachful words upon them When also they spake as they did of the Sacraments Selden the Lawyer as being Interpreter rebuked them sharply So they were ordered to withdraw and stay without being attended by a Guard who placed them severally that they might not come together Presently some of the chief Senators were called and when these came the Ministers were all brought in together and strict charge given them That within three days they should depart out of the City before Sun setting the third day That they should never preach any more within the Empire nor as far as the Emperours Jurisdiction extended That they should not speak with any of their Friends or Relations nor tell any Man the cause of their departure That they should not write back to any in the City nor give an account of what course had been taken with them and all these things with hands lifted up as the custom was they were made to Swear against their wills Then the Town Council was enjoyned to put a stop to all preaching in the Lutheran Churches until the Emperours farther pleasure should be known in the matter The same course was afterwards also taken with the Schoolmasters and with those of Memmingen and others in Schwabia who had been also sent for and came thither for the one was prohibited to teach and the other to return home any more And when one of them urged that his Wife was near her time and therefore earnestly begg'd that he might be suffered only to go and see her The Bishop of Arras turning to his Company He calls her a Wife said he who is a Harlot Thus then were they forced to be gone which occasioned much sorrow in the City but the Citizens shewed them all the kindness they could in Presents and other Instances of Liberality When it came to the Ears also of the captive Duke of Saxony he sent Messengers to comfort them and to help them with Money at their departure The reason why the Emperour did do so was thought to be first because he was egg'd on to it by some then that upon enquiry he had found the Ministers to have obstructed the execution of his Decree about Religion And lastly that he had been informed of the consent and agreement of the Divines of Saxony Schwabia and Strasburg And it is believed they lookt upon this as the best course that could be taken to banish them that so the Fathers at Trent might have the less work to do and an easie victory their Adversaries having none hardly left whom they might send to oppose them Being thus banished then and forced to flie they went some into Switzerland and some to other places Many were terrified at the report of this For no Man doubted but what had been done there would also be practised in other places But at the same time that all Men lay under this consternation the French King made War against the Emperour seized some Dutch Ships and made prize of them and took several Towns in Piedmont and Turin and amongst the rest Cherie and St. Damian by the Conduct and Command of the Duke of Brisack As to the Ships that were taken the Imperialists published a Declaration importing That in time of Peace when the Emperour expected nothing less than a War and had commanded his Subjects to be quiet a French Captain come up with them and sent them word that in honour to the Queen of Scots whom he had on board they should after the old and ancient custom Strike Sail and give him so many Guns and
he thought it belonged to him to appoint his Successor and the rather because there was a general and common Dispute concerning their Legitimacy and Mary did also profess the Roman Catholick Religion and if she should succeed he had reason to fear the Religion which was then established would be subverted and the Nation be endangered to be brought under the Dominion of a Foreigner He resolved therefore after great deliberation to chuse Jane Duchess of Suffolk Grand-child to Mary the younder Sister of Henry the 8th for his Successor This Resolution being approved by his Council and Nobility and the Mayor of London the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England was sent for to Court to sign it But he refused to do it till he had spoken with the King being accordingly admitted into the King's Chamber and having with great freedom discoursed this Business with him at last he consented upon the King 's extream importunity The King died as I have said the 6th of July and the fourth Day after Jane was proclaimed Queen of England and the Instrument was read at the same time reciting how King Edward for great and weighty Causes had with the Consent of his Peers disinherited Mary and Elizabeth his Sisters and transmitted the Succession of the Kingdom to Jane his Cousin The Nobility and People of England were much displeased with this not so much out of affection to the Princess Mary as out of hatred to the Duke of Northumberland there being very few or none who did not look upon him as the Author of this Project that he might bring the Crown into his own Family Whilst these things were thus in agitation the Princess Mary fled to the Castle of Framingham in Suffolk and assuming the Authority of a Queen implored the assistance of her Subjects This being known at London Northumberland levied Forces and with the consent of the Council marched out of the City with an Army to take the Queen But in the Interim that part of the Council which continued in London seeing the dissatisfaction of the People and that great Forces came in to the Assistance of the Queen in Suffolk they thereupon changed their Minds and proclaimed Mary Queen and detained Jane a Prisoner in the Tower. Assoon as the News of this change came to the Camp the Army which neither willingly embraced the Cause nor loved the General revolted also and upon the Receipt of a Letter to that purpose seized the Duke of Northumberland at Cambridge and brought him the 25th day of July a Prisoner into London It is incredible with what Reproaches the People entertain'd him Some call'd him Traytor others Parricide and other the Murtherer of a most innocent Prince For his attempting to set his Daughter-in-Law upon the Throne had caused a mighty Jealousie that he had a long time been forming this Project and in conclusion had hasted the King's Death Afterwards his Children and his Brother were taken into Custody and some other Noblemen and Sir John Cheek the King's Tutor a Person of great Learning and Virtue but this last was soon after dismissed when they had stripp'd him of almost all he had The Third of August Queen Mary entred London and going to the Tower she immediately released the Duke of Norfolk who had been almost seven years a Prisoner there Tonstal Bishop of Durbam and some others who being of the Roman Catholick Religion had been removed from their Sees whom she also restored to their Places again And as for Gardiner Bishop of Winchester though he had in a Printed Book defended the Divorce made by Henry the Eighth of Catherine the Mother of Queen Mary as I have set forth in the Ninth Book of this History yet she notwithstanding made him Lord Chancellor of England which is an Office of the greatest Dignity and Power in that Kingdom When Queen Catherine urged in her Defence the Bull of Pope Julius the Second in Approbation of her Marriage the King on the other side said it was invalid and sent Gardiner who was not then advanced to the Dignity of a Bishop to Pope Clement to procure that Bull to be by him declared void He coming to Rome in February in the Year 1529. earnestly pressed his Errand on the Pope Clement according to the Proverb had then got a Wolf by the Ears and though he was very desirous to please the King yet fearing to offend the Emperor he only said he would write to the Emperor to produce the true Bull. Gardiner consented to this but desired it might be done in two Months and when that time was elapsed that if the Bull were not then produced it might be declared false The Pope thought this way of Proceeding was contrary to the Custom and unjust and endeavoured to appease and quiet the King by good words But Gardiner said on the other side that if what the King desired were not done it would bring great Mischief on the See of Rome The Emperor and Ferdinand his Brother the 27th of April by their Ambassadors express'd their discontent at this and expostulated with the Pope as too too much inclin'd to favour the King and for that he had permitted the Case to be heard in England and at the same time they appointed Proctors to prosecute the Suit in their Names at Rome with large Commissions and Instruction Thereupon the Pope commanded Cardinal Campeio to return back to Rome to which he was induced by a Letter which he had received from Wolsely Archbishop of York wherein he had given the Pope an Account of a new Love the King had entertained as I have set forth in the said Eleventh Book The Twenty second Day of August the Duke of Northumberland having before been tried and found guilty of High Treason and received Sentence of Death was brought upon a Scaffold on Tower-Hill where he made a Speech to the People and amongst other things exhorted them That they should continue stedfast in that Religion which they had received from their Ancestors affirming that he thought all the Calamities which had befallen the English especially since the Death of Henry the 8th proceeded from nothing but their having separated themselves from the rest of Christendom He had for some years before pretended to be of a contrary Opinion and had openly renounced the Roman Catholick Religion and it was said he had been prevailed upon to discourse thus upon Promises of a Pardon And although he ended his Speech with a Protestation that what he had said came from his heart yet some thought he repented it when he had look'd about him and saw there was no refuge to be expected and that he had been impos'd upon by flattering Promises Sir Thomas Palmer Knight who was beheaded at the same time professed the Protestant Religion with great constancy Northumberland was as I have said convicted of Treason and Rebellion and altho there were great Suspicions that he had poyson'd the late
such thing and that without any Declaration of War. Now this to me appears the more strange because between me and you there is not the least cause of offeuce For as to the report that I should send Succors to the Marquess of Brandenburg against you that is entirely false But then as to the favour I have of late shewn to him I have only done it upon the account of the ancient Union which I mention'd and in compliance with the hospitable Custom of the Crown of France which has ever given entertainment and protection to all afflicted Princes and in a more especial manner to those of Germany in their Distresses In truth I should have been much better pleased to have seen him flourishing at home and enjoying his own than thus to see him ruined driven out and deserted I say I should rather have desired he should not have fallen into this calamity or that at least now an end might be put to it by a just and equal Treaty But now that I see him reduced into this distress by the fault of my Adversary who first pronounced the Sentence void and yet afterwards confirmed it why am I suspected if I compassionate his Fortunes But as to the giving him any assistance against the Empire that never entred into my Thoughts and you may rest assured that I will not now do it if you do not your selves first break the League of Friendship And now I have given you assurance that you shall meet with nothing but Peace and Kindness from me I desire that you would not be so far circumvented by the Artifices of those who have as little kindness for you as they have for me as to take up Arms or to contribute Men or Moneys against me for their whole Design is to make their own private a publick Concern It rather befits you to continue the Amity and to accept of the Conditions I proffer you I desire also that you would give me a clear assurance by him who delivers you this Letter what you intend and that according to the ancient Custom and the Treaty of Passaw my Ambassadors who are to attend in the next Diet may have sufficient Pasports The Answer he received was That as to the Troops sent by the Borders of Lorrain there was no Affront intended to his Majesty but it was done to the intent that if the Marquess of Brandenburg should make any irruption into the Empire his Attempts might be hindred That as to what concerned his Ambassadors and the publick Peace they had no Commands from their Principals but they would give an Account of his Demands to them and they did not doubt but they would do what was just and fit About the end of October the Emperor delivered up to his Son by his Ambassadors according to the accustomed Ceremonies the Dukedom of Milan The King of France soon after the raising the Siege of Renty in the manner I have express'd dismiss'd the Swiss and put the rest of his Forces into Quarters And the Emperor having found a convenient place not far from the Castle of Hesdin which he took and demolished the last year began the foundation of a new Town and Fort and for the building of it with the greater security kept his Army together which in the Month of November wasted with Fire and Sword the Country of Bolonois and the Territory of Amiens Thus the whole force of the War on both sides fell on the miserable and unarmed Multitude Afterwards he dismissed the greatest part of the Army and kept only with him one or two Regiments About the same time the King of France sent some Forces into Italy and amongst them some Germans for the Relief of Siena which was then sharply besieged by the Forces of the Emperor and of the Duke of Florence The Twelfth Day of November a new Parliament began in London thereupon Cardinal Pool who was then in Brabant had some Persons of great note dispatched to him to bring him over into England the Principal of which was the Lord Paget the 24th he came to London and was honourably receiv'd wheresoever he came and was soon after restored to his former Place Honour Family and Estate by the consent of the States which had been taken from him by Attainder in the Reign of Henry the Eighth The 27th day of November he came into the Parliament and in the Presence of King Philip and the Queen he discovered the Cause of his Legation and exhorted the States to return to the Communion of the Church and to restore to the most Holy Father the Pope of Rome his due Authority who was willing to receive them with the utmost Clemency and Affection He admonished them also that they should offer up their Thanks to God who had given them such a King and Queen Then returning them his Thanks for their restoring him to his Inheritance and Family which he esteemed a very great Benefit he said he was so much the more obliged to restore them also to their heavenly Court and Countrey which he wished above all things Having said this he withdrew and the Bishop of Winchester Gardiner who was Lord Chancellor having repeated his Speech and with many words exhorted them to Union and Concord He added that great Thanks were due to Almighty God for his immense Goodness and Mercy in that he had raised up a Prophet of their own Seed to wit this great Cardinal who would wholly employ himself in the promoting of their Salvation The next day when the Upper House had approved the Cardinal's Speech there was a Bill drawn in form of a Petition wherein the States supplicate the King and Queen to intertcede with the Cardinal on their behalf In it they say that they earnestly repent of the Schism that they had denied the Obedience which was due to the Apostolick See and that they had given their Assent to Acts of Parliament against it That for time to come they would be in the power of their Majesties and do all that ever they could that all such Acts might in this Parliament be repealed and therefore they did most earnestly beseech their Majesties that they would interpose and obtain an Absolution of their Sin and a Remission of the Censures which by the Canons of the Church they had incurred That they might be received into the bosom of the Church as penitent Children that in the obedience of the See of Rome and of the Pope they might serve God to the Glory of his Name and the encreasing their Salvation The 29th day when the King Queen and Cardinal were present the Chancellor arose and openly declar'd what the States had consented to in relation to the Demands of the Pope's Legate and thereupon he delivered to the King and Queen the Petition of the States in writing Sign'd and Seal'd by them and begg'd they would receive it the King and Queen receiving and opening it they again delivered
scarce have been possible to have reduced you to Concord And when so many other Princes have made a defection from the Church and that Enemy of Mankind has invented such variety of Stratagems against you yet God in his divine Goodness has look'd upon you and defeated the devices and attempts of the Devil By which he has given us a certain Token not only of his Goodness and Clemency towards you but also of his Intentions to use your Services and to unite you two to his Vicar on Earth for the taking away these destructive Contentions and restoring a general Peace both as to Church and State. These and many other such Arguments did that Cardinal offer to the Consideration of these Princes threatning them also with the Wrath and Vengeance of God if they did not desist and suffer their People which was grievously Harrassed and impoverished to recover Now though these Arguments did not prevail then yet when he went into England he went on with his design of reconciling them and at last he prevailed so far as to dispose both the Emperor and King of France to send their Ambassadors to treat of a Peace The Queen of England who was the Mediator in this Treaty appointed a place betwen Calais Ardee and Graveling three Towns belonging to these three Princes in the Center of which she chose out a dry and convenient place in the middle of a Plain and having moted the same she caused four houses to be built which though not intended for any long duration were yet made very convenient and Beautiful In this place the Ambassadors met the twenty third of May. There met for the Emperor amongst others the Bishop of Arras for the King of France the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Constable and for the English as Mediators were present Cardinal Pool the Earl of Arundel and the Lord Paget A Rumour spread it self throughout Christendom which caused great Expectations and various Judgments in the Minds of Men and especially in those who were best acquainted with the Controversies of these Times for that in this Treaty the Dukedoms of Milan and Burgundy Savoy Piedmont Corsica Navarr Lorrain and Luxemburg and the Cities of Toul Verdun and Metz were to be contended for and setled The Affair being much and long debated and the Mediating English insisting to have some of these things referred to the determination of a Council nothing at last was done but the Treaty was broke up The tenth of June Ferdinand and the States of Germany wrote a Letter to the Emperor wherein they desired him that in this Treaty he would particularly concern himself for the restitution of those Places which the King of France had taken from the Empire When therefore the Meeting was ended without any Effect the Emperor the twenty fifth of June wrote to the Diet to this Purpose It is very grateful to me to see you thus affected with the Calamities of those who have been so much afflicted by the publick Enemy of the Empire and of me and truely their Cause was most dear to me and I accordingly before I received your Letter had commanded my principal Ambassadors who were to attend this Treaty that they should persist in the restitution of these places to their former State with the utmost diligence and they should not remit any thing as to that Article And although I for my part having opened all the ways I could to a Peace thought that the King of France would for the sake of Peace not have been stubborn and refractory yet after all the Congress is for the present broke up without any good Effect Yet however that I may consult the good of Christendom I will not refuse to make a Peace if any tollerable Conditions are offered and when time serves I will do my endeavour to have those places restored to the Empire and to put them for the future into a better Condition than they were before The Emperor had a little before sent the Duke de Alva into Milan that he might take care of the War there as his General Ferdinand Gonzaga having obtained a release from that Post and being about this time gone from Flanders to live privately at Home There was also a strong Report which prevailed much about this time that Mary Queen of England was with Child About this time also the Persecution in England grew sharper Bradford who was condemned to be burnt in the manner I have set down in the end of my twenty fifth Book and was afterwards respited and kept in Prison was burnt in July Frederick the eldest Son of John Frederick Duke and Elector of Saxony Married Agnes the Daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse and which had been the Wife of Maurice the last Elector of Saxony Many of the neighbouring Princes met on the occasion of this Marriage and appointed a second Meeting at Naumburg to consult of their affairs About the same time Joan the Mother of the Emperor died and Ferdinand her second Son celebrated her Obsequies at Ausburg About the same time there was a tumult raised at Geneva in the night time by some of the Senators of that City who designed by this means to make themselves and their Party Masters of that Commonwealth these Men had also a great aversion for John Calvin who had fled thither on the account of the Persecâ—tions in France and now the driving him out of this City was one of the principal Motives of this Insurrection In the night time there was a sudden Commotion made in several parts of the City and the Cry was The French are in Arms and the City is betrayed The French in the mean time keeping within their Houses and so the design miscarried and many of them who were in this leud Conspiracy were Executed and some others were forced to fly for the safety of their Lives The reason why they would have had the French Banished out of the City was because many of the French Fugitives and Sojourners in the City had been lately taken into the number of the Citizens by which they believed their Party was weakned and the other encreased The Turkish Fleet came this Year into the Tyrrhenian Sea as it had done several years before and much terrified Tuscany That therefore there might be the less dammage done by this Navy the Marquess di Marignano General of the Emperors Forces about the thirteenth of June suddenly set upon Porto Ercole which was then in the Hands of the French and by the Valour of his Soldiers took the Castle and slew all the French that were there in Garrison after this the Turks too besieged Piombino but receiving great Losses in their Attacks and not being likely ever to take it they left that place and attempted the Island of Elba belonging to the Duke of Florence but to no purpose neither About this time there were some Civil Laws published by the King of France at
in the Council of Trent and he dedicated his Answer with much Assurance to that Duke whereupon John Brentius wrote a large Reply and exposed all his Sophistry This last Piece was Translated into the Italian Tongue by Vergerius that the Italians might understand it and judge of the Controversy and which of the sides had the concurrence of the Scriptures About the middle of September George Count of Monbeliard married Bâ—â—baria a Daughter of the Landgrave's After the Arrival of the Duke de Alva in the Dukedom of Milan the French King sent more Forces and many expert Leaders under Brisac his General They finding the Town of Vulpiaâ—o which was then very strong and well Garrison'd by the Spaniards to be very troublesom to the progress of the French Arms in those Countries because that Garrison was able to make Inroads as far as Turin and sometimes further That they might remove this almost only Obstacle and open a way to the Supplies they might want besieged this Place with all their Forces about the end of August They suffered much in this Siege and acted great Things against the Town but the 22. of September the Place was yielded to them and they presently dismantled both the Town and Castle and reduced it into a meer Village Some few days after they took Moncalno a Town and Castle between Casale and Aste That Controversie concerning the Presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper which had now for Thirty years together so much exercis'd the Pens of Learned men about this time broke out again the Ministers of Breme and Hamburg publishing some Pieces against Calvin and John à Lasko by Name Calvin answered with great sharpness and Bullinger bore his share in this Controversie and John à Lasko wrote a Book which he dedicated to the King of Poland in which he complains That this Difference was not treated of by comparing the two Opinions and then debating them in Conferences but they out of meer prejudice condemned his Opinion and after the manner of the Roman Catholicks would not hear of Arguments or Scriptures but thought to bear all down that stood before them by Force and Authority About the End of September Magnus the Second Son of Augustus Duke of Saxony was born whose Godfathers were Henry Duke of Brunswick and John Frederick Duke of Saxony I have said already how Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Ridley Bishop of London and Hugh Latimer were sent to Oxford and having there defended their Faith against the Roman Catholick Divines they were for it condemned to be burnt yet they were after this kept in Prison and the 16th of October this year they were both burnt at one Stake before Baliol-College in Oxford Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury was then brought out also and at the Stake openly implored the Mercy of God but he was after this remanded to Prison Hugh Latimer was very old In this Month the Cardinals of Lorain and Toures went to Rome and about the same time the Parliament of Paris made an Answer to the Edict brought them from the King by the Cardinal of Lorain as I have remembred above which was to this effect Your Majesty's Edict which was published above four years since has reserved to Your Majesty and Your Judges the sole Cognizance and Correction of the Lutheran Heresie nor is there any thing excepted but when the Heresie may need a Declaration or the Sentence was to be pronounced against a man in Holy Orders but this Edict which is now under consideration is directly contrary For it puts the People of your Kingdom under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and the Inquisition and diminisheth that Dignity which You now enjoy above all other Princes and it gives Your People a just Cause of Discontent to see themselves deserted by Your Majesty and subjected to a foreign Jurisdiction But there will much greater Mischiefs follow when the Lives Fortunes Safety and Honour of all Your Subjects shall be put into the hands of these men without the benefit of an Appeal For in truth Appeals are the Sanctuary and Refuge of wronged Innocency But now if the Inquisitors and the Bishops Officers shall once have a Right and Power given them of judging all Appeals being taken away this will certainly open a Window and plain a Way for the condemning of the innocent and the spoiling them of their Lives and Estates For when these men shall once see themselves Masters of this Regal Power they will soon forget their Duty and no longer regard any thing when they see all Orders of Men made subject to them and they have in their hands the Lives and Fortunes not only of Your meaner Subjects but also of your Princes and Great Men. Your Majesty may make use of this as a middle Way That Your own Judges may still take cognizance of these Causes and hear and determine them and if there be any Doctrine that is obscure it may be defined by the Ecclesiasticks and those that are in Holy Orders may be tried only by the Clergy And as for Appeals let a Bull be desired of the Pope for the allowing them to your Judges And when Judgment is to be passed upon these Appealers let some of the Clergy who are of Your Majesty's Privy Council be joyned with Your Judges or if there be none such then let other eminent and fit men supply their Places And in all Inquisitions let this Order be observed That the Pope's Inquisitor chuse and send into the Provinces good Men and of unspotted Fame and let the Bishop and not the Parties who are accused bear the Charge of the Inquisition but so that when the Case depending is determined the Charge may then be paid by those that ought to pay it The Design of all these Provisions is That all Suits of this Nature may be kept within some Bounds and Limits Moreover it appearing that all the Executions which have been made of Hereticks though they are necessary have yet rather made the Crime detestable than amended those that were infected and it being much better to prevent a Disease than to give it time to get strength and then attempt the Cure it will be fit Your Serene Majesty should in this follow the Custom and Footsteps of the Ancient and Primitive Church For she was neither established by Fire nor Sword but the diligence of the Bishops supplied the want of these by their frequent Preaching of the Word of God and the good Examples of an holy Life which She gave the People The Church then having been thus at first established it may without doubt now by the same ways be preserved if Your Majesty would but be pleased to do all that You lawfully may do towards it May then Your Majesty be pleased to take care that the Bishops who are the Shepherds should in person govern their own Churches and that the same be done by the inferior Clergy That they live piously and Preach
except ye are resolved to feel the greatest of all Calamities and Miseries I will not be larger now and I trust you will in this do what the necessity of Affairs and the consideration of your Duty shall require But they on the contrary urged the same things over again and said they could not desist and if they obtained nothing the consideration of the Supplies would thereby be obstructed and hindred because they had no Command to promise any thing till they had obtained a sufficient Security for the freedom of Preaching their Religion their Ministers and Schoolmasters In this Month of February Henry Duke of Brunswick Married the Sister of Sigismond King of Poland and about the same time John Isemburg Archbishop of Trier Died and was succeeded by John Ley. The twenty sixth of the same Month the Elector Palatine Frederick died at Alzem in a great old Age and Otto Henry his Brother's Son succeeded him who had before imbraced the Reformation and had thereby run the hazard of being deprived of all his Fortunes He having taken the Oath of Allegiance of his People presently put out an Edict that no Man should say Mass or use the other Ceremonies of the Church in his Dominions In our twenty second Book we have given an account of the disturbances raised in Prussia by Osiander who had brought in a new Doctrine concerning Justification but the greatest part of the Learned Men disliking his Opinion Albert Duke of Prussia by a publick Declaration set forth that he was resolved to follow the Doctrine of the Augustan Confession and therefore he Commanded the Ministers of the Churches to Teach according to it and promised them to pass by what was past if they obeyed thiâ— Edict for the future That therefore this Controversy might be truly composed and not break out afresh John Albert Duke of Meckelburg the Son-in-Law of the Duke of Prussia a Prince of very great Learning went thither and calling in the Assistance of some other Learned Men he reduced John Funcius the principal Man of the Osiandrians to an open acknowledgment of his Error and obtained a Promise from him that he would for the future Teach according to the Augustan Confession and this being done by the other Divines of that Province too there was a Reconciliation made between the Parties and that Church was setled in Peace The fourth day of March a Comet appeared and was seen for twelve days together and in the same Month the Deputies of the German Princes and Cities met at Ratisbon and began with the consideration of the Case of Albert Marquess of Brandenburg because his Adversaries in the last Diet had desired the Assistance of the Princes against him But his Kindred interposing on his behalf it was at last decreed that he should have the publick Faith for his Security and that this Cause should be determined by Arbitrators and upon his return into Germany out of France in the Month of February there was accordingly a Treaty begun which was now assumed by the Diet the affairs of the Empire being delayed to the Month of April Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury had been long since condemned and after the Death of Ridley and Hooper was returned back to his Prison as I have said but now the twenty first of March he was burnt at Oxford Some few days before upon promise of Life and at the urgent Perswasion of some that were sent to him he had recanted most of his former Doctrines and appeared unconstant but when he saw he must die he made an Exhortation to the People wherein he spoke much of Repentance and amendment of Life the People being very attentive to him then he said how much he had offended God by denying the Truth and recapitulating the principal Points of Doctrine he shortly explain'd his Belief as to each of them and proved that the Papacy was the Kingdom of Antichrist Here he was interrupted and after many Reproaches he was hurried to the Place of Execution When he was tied to the Stake and the Fire was kindled about him he stretched forth his Right Hand saying This has Sinned by subscribing those wicked Doctrines which the Enemies of the Truth proposed to me and therefore it shall first be Punished he thereupon thrust it into the Flames as far as he could that it might first be Tormented Thus was the Primate of England Burnt a Person of great Learning and Authority At the time the Papal Character was taken from him by what they call a Degradation which is attended with many Ceremonies he was forced to wear mean Cloaths made of Canvas and he was now brought out in this Habit that he might be scorned but it had a contrary Effect for that the greatest part of the Spectators commiserating his Condition could not forbear weeping over him though they did not doubt but he was changing this miserable Life for an Immortal one and passing into his Heavenly Country Cardinal Pool soon after was enriched with his Spoils and made Archbishop of Canterbury having the Winter before been made a Priest for he was only a Cardinal-Deacon when he came over As the Inhabitants of the Lower Austria sollicited King Ferdinand to grant them the free Exercise of the Lutheron Religion so the Subjects of the Duke of Bavaria about the same time became very troublesom to Albert their Duke upon the same account This Prince observing that King Ferdinand his Father-in-law had yielded something he also having then need of Money did for a time comply with his Subjects and granted them liberty to take the Sacrament of the Lord 's Supperin both Kinds and to eat Flesh on the days prohibited in case of great necessity Yet at the same time he made a long Protestation That he would not desert the Religion of his Ancestors nor suffer any thing to be changed in the Ceremonies and Rites of the Church which he said was not lawful for him to do without the consent of the Supreme both Civil and Ecclesiastical Magistrate And that he granted these two things for so long time only as till there was a publick Order made to the contrary or a Reconciliation between the contending Parties for that it was his will that all his former Orders concerning Religion should be exactly observed in all other Points but these Two and that in these he would take all the care he could that the Metropolitans and Bishops should confirm these his Concessions and should not on these accounts trouble any of them This Edict was dated the last day of the month of March. About this time some of the Nobility of Transylvania revolted from King For dinand whereupon he commanded the Dyet to be prorogu'd to an uncertain day and began to levy Forces which were afterwards sent down the Dâ—â—ube towards Hungary There is a Town call'd Oberen seated in Alsatia three miles from Strasburg an Inhabitant of this place who was a Vine-Dresser being then in
too much and would for his sake prejudice others But then how candidly I manag'd that business will appear by my Letters to him Seeing then I have been thus disposed towards him and he cannot charge me to have omitted any thing which it became me to do for him I have great confidence that as becomes his natural Virtue and true Nobility he will believe my Words or rather my Actions which are full of light than these seditious men who like Bellows endeavour to kindle a Fire amongst us With how great charity and kindness I have ever entertain'd all Germans whil'st I was at Rome out of a kind remembrance I have of my dearest Country may be easily known from the Ambassadors of many of the Princes and many of the Nobility will bear me witness who were then at Rome when I was there insomuch that the Nobility of Mentz Trier Cologne Saxony Brandenburg Magdeburg Bavaria Brunswick Passaw Osnaburg Minden and Basil did all as one man repair to me who heard all their Affairs with great fidelity and by my Interest and Commendations I procured some of them Commanders Places and other Employments which were convenient for them And now as to what concerns the Landtgrave what a silly fiction the story of one Titelman is for I never had any discourse with the Landtgrave or his Sons about this Affair nor do I remember I ever mention'd him all the while I was at Rome or in Italy It is equally as unknown to me what the Ministers of his Countries Teach or Recant and I may truly aver that to my knowledge there was no such Recantation made at Rome and therefore I do not question but if he be ask'd the Landtgrave himself will confute both this and the story of his Commendation as false Now seeing the Authors of this wicked Libel have basely made all that is in it that they might by these Lyes revive that Fire which they kindled so many years since to the end that it might break out afresh and burn with equal Rage it is fit the Princes and Magistrates should diligently preserve themselves from the danger of them and when they shall be discover'd to make them such Examples of their Justice as may terrifie others from the same Offences Lastly If there should happen to be some who on the account of these slanders have taken up and ill Opinion of me I most earnestly desire them they would lay by their hard thoughts of me and that they would certainly believe that as I am a German by Birth and descended of an Illustrious and Noble Family so I will do nothing unworthy of the Virtue of my Ancestors and the Dignity of my Family Having as I said published this Paper the 27th of June he sent â—everal Letters to the same purpose to the Princes of Germany and then return'd back to Rome at the same time that Bona the Mother of Sigismund King of Poland return'd to Naples her Native Country In the mean time there were as is reported some Commotions in England and some were Imprison'd and others Beheaded and others escaped into France in which number was Andrew Dudley Brother to the late Duke of Northumberland and two of the Princess Elizabeth's Servants were taken up The 15th of May Peter Cart who had fled some months before for a Sedition was reconcil'd to King Philip and Sir John Cheeck who had been Praeceptor to Edward VI. and was come into the Low Countries to meet his Wife and going from Brussels to Antwerp they were both taken and treated with great Indignity â—nd at last shipp'd for London In the end of June Thirteen were ty'd to one Stake and burnt near London for their Religion In the mean time Charles Marquess of Baden received the Augustan Confession and borrowed Ministers of the Neighbour Princes and States to instruct People and reform his Churches The Chamber of Spire had before this time admitted one or two Ministers of the Gospel Maximilian the eldest Son of King Ferdinand going about this time from Vienna with Elizabeth his Lady a Daughter of the Emperour 's the 17th of July they arrived at Brussels which Journey they undertook after a long sollicitation to it Peter Martyr the Florentine who has been often mentioned by me lefe Strâ—â—burg about this time and went to Zurich upon the account of the revival of the old Quarrel concerning the Lord's Supper he having been ill treated in some Books written on that Subject which inclin'd him the more to setle in Zurich where he should have greater liberty to write upon it and teach his Judgment in this Point Conradus Pelicanus the old Professor of Hebrew at Zurich died also about this time and thereupon the Ministers of that City persuaded their Senate to write to that of Strasburg to send them Peter Martyr to be his Successer The 13th of July he left Strasburg to the great sorrow of many who loved him for his incomparable Learning exquilite Judgment great Civility and Modesty and his other rare Virtues About the same time the Archbishop and Cardinal of Pisa who was a Sicilian by Birth travell'd through Bafil to the Emperour in the Low Countries to whom he was sent by the Pope the Cardinal of Carassa a near Kinsman of the Pope's having been sent some small time before to the King of France There was a Report which was also confirm'd by Writing That there were great Debates between the Pope and the Emperour and that things tended to a War for that amongst other Grievances the Pope had disposessed the Family of Colonna of their Estates in Campagnia di Rome which was esteem'd an Injury to the Emperour and besides he would not admit King Philip the Emperour's Son to the Succession of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily which are Fees holden of the See of Rome but upon very hard conditions those Kingdoms paying a Tribute to the Popes of Rome This ended in a War the next year The 15th of July Albert Duke of Bavaria in the Name of King Ferdinand began the Dyet at Ratisbon he being in the mean time detain'd from coming hither at the time appointed by his Dyets in Austria and Bohemia which as I said he was now holding Hereupon he acquainted the States with the great Difficulties which oppressed him and the Reasons why he could not be present in this Dyet He said That all Transylvania had revolted to one John by the procurement of one Peter Petrowich a Subject of his and when there was no necessity nor any just cause of War sollicited the Turk for Succours That after this Francis Beveck and George his Son had raised a Rebellion against him in Hungary and with the help of the Walachians had taken several Towns and Castles That the Turks had sent a Bassa to govern Buda That another Bassa in the time of a Treaty of Peace had besieged Sigeth from the 11th of June and had batter'd it with all the violence
thousand Horse and a great number of Peasants who being inraged at the Spoil of their Country were desirous of an opportunity to Revenge their Losses This being known to Thermes who expected the Duke of Guise every day according to his order he recollected his scattered Forces and although he was not well took Horse and posted to his Camp near Graveling being very solicitous though too late to secure his Retreat to Calais Count Egmont being now at his heels with his Forces A Council of War was thereupon held in the Night and it was resolved that the French should take the advantage of the Ebb the next Day and march by the Sea-shore towards Calais They passed the River Aa that Morning without any difficulty at the Low-water which Egmont observing he passed it too and met the French. Thermes who saw now there was no security but in their Valour having the Sea to the North the Dike of Boulaie on his Back and the Enemy on his Front and Side thereupon drew up his Men in the order of Battel being secure on two Sides to the South which was his left-hand he placed his Wagons and planted his Field-pieces in the Front which consisted in six Culverins and three Faulcons and on his Wings he placed his Horse that they might cover the Gasconers who were in the Front the other French were in the Middle and the Germans in the Reer Count Egmont had for haste left all his Cannon on the other side of the River and would not stay for it fearing the French might in the mean time escape him dividing his Horse into five Parts he commanded the Light Horse to begin the Fight his Foot were divided into three Parts according to their Nations Flemings Germans and Spaniards He himself was one of the first that charged the Gasconers who at first stood their ground stoutly and Count Egmont's Horse was slain under him but his Army being most in number when they came to close Fight Horse to Horse and Foot to Foot the Flemings being much encouraged by the hopes of Victory and the French despairing of any other Escape the Fight was a long time doubtful the Gasconers fought manfully the Germans were only Spectators and the French Horse could do little for want of Ground in the very heat of the Battel twelve English Ships coming up put an end to the Fight by gauling the French on the Right Wing with their Canon on that side they thought themselves most secure Fifteen hundred were kill'd in the Fight and many more perished in the Flight being knock'd on the head by the Peasants who were inraged by their Rapins others were drown'd and Thermes Villebone Senarpont the Count of Chaulness and Merviliers were taken Prisoners and the English Fleet took up Two hundred in the Sea and carried them into England to the Queen This Victory cost the Flemings Five hundred Men and was gain'd the Thirteenth of July The Duke of Guise hearing of this Defeat return'd to Pierre-pont in the Borders of Picardy and Champagne the Twenty eighth of July that he might be ready at hand to prevent any Attempt might be made on France The Townsmen meeting as the Custom is in a place call'd the Scholars Field without the Suburbs of St. German near Paris a few of them who were addicted to the Protestant Religion began to sing David's Psalms in French Metre thereupon the People began to leave their Sports and joyning with them sung the same Psalms After this a greater number and among them Anthony King of Navarr and Jonae his Lady who was already suspected to favour that Religion fell into the same Practice The Clergy were much allarm'd at this affirming that this new Invention was design'd to bring the ancient Custom which they had received from the Church of Rome their Mother of singing the Publick Service in the Latin Tongue into contempt by introducing the use of one understood by the meanest of the People Whereupon they represented this as very Seditious to the King who order'd an Enquiry after the Authors of it to be made and forbad the Use of this Custom for the future on pain of Death About the same time News was brought of the arrival of an English Fleet of an Hundred and twenty Ships upon the Coast of Normandy under the Lord Clinton Haure de Grace and Diepe being feared they sent the President of Boulogn to take care of those Places but the Fleet went on and at Conquet a Port of Britain the Thirty first of July they landed an Hundred and fifty Pesants at first opposing them but Seven thousand Men being landed and the Ships with their Cannon playing upon them the Inhabitants left the place and fled The English entred the Town and plundred it but Kersimont the Governor of that Province coming up with Six thousand which he had hastily raised he forced the English with the loss of Six hundred of their Men to return on board their Ships about an Hundrd of them fell into the hands of the French and among them one Hollander who told the Fnench that thirty Dutch Ships under the Command of one Wakenheim had joyn'd this Fleet at the Isle of Wight by the order of King Philip and that they were ordered to take Brest which the French thereupon fortified and took great care of Whereupon the Lord Clinton finding no Good was to be done returned having made a very expensive and unprosperous Voyage The French by this time had got together a very great Army which the King saw drawn up near Pierre-pont and King Philip's was not less but then neither of these Princes were disposed to try the Hazards of the War any further and Montmorency having agreed for his Ransome at the rate of one hundred and sixty five thousand Crowns and being now grown old and averse from the Thoughts of War he and Christierna the Mother of the Duke of Loraine went to and fro between the two Princes to promote a Treaty of Peace Vendosme Vidame of Chartres who was made Governour of Calais after Thermes was taken Prisoner had a Design upon S. Omers but it was discovered and prevented In the middle of September Ambassadours from England France and Spain met at Cambray to treat of a Peace in good earnest and the first thing they agreeed upon was the withdrawing of the two Armies because they seemed very dissonant from the End of that Meeting The greatest Difficulty they met with was about Calais which the French were resolved to keep pretending it was an ancient Piece of their Dominions tho' lately recovered And the English on the other side would never consent to the Treaty if it were not restored But before this Contest could be brought to a conclusion Mary Queen of England dyed which ended the Controversie for the present and thereupon this Congress was dissolved and another Meeting appointed in the same Place in January following The fifth of November the English Parliament
met but in a very ill Temper On the seventeenth day of that Month the Queen dyed in the forty third Year of her Age when she had reigned five Years four Months and eleven Days Her Death was for some Hours concealed and then it was communicated to the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellour who sent for the House of Commons and the Lord Chancellour signified to them also the Queen's Death and both Houses presently agreed to proclaim Elizabeth her Sister Queen wishing her a long and a happy reign The great Thuanus contrary to his Custom passeth over Queen Mary without any Character he could say little that was good of heâ— and would say nothing that was ill Those of her own Religion are now so sensible of the Errors of her Government that they are more put to it for Apologies than Panigyricks on her Memory In Germany a Dyet was appointed to meet at Frankford the twenty fourth of February to which the Ambassadours named by Charles V before his Voyage into Spain came and delivered his Resignation of the Empire by which he had transferred his Authority to Ferdinand his Brother then King of the Romans to the Electors who after a short deliberation accepted the same and in a solemn manner elected and admitted Ferdinand to the Empire and afterwards crowned him After his return to Vienna he sent Martin Gusman his Lord High Chamberlain to Rome to acquaint the Pope with the Resignation of Charles V and his Advancement to the Empire and to assure his Holiness of his good Affections to that See. The morose Old Gentleman would not admit the Ambassadour but left the business to be discussed by the Cardinals who were appointed for that purpose who must needs make a great business of it and resolved That what had been done at Frankford was of no Validity because the Holy See had not consented to it and Christ's Vicar who was entrusted with the Keys of the Celestial and Terrestial Government without whose Consent neither Charles could be discharged from the Empire nor Ferdinand be admitted That no Resignation or Deprivation could be made to or by any other than the Pope Besides what was done at Frankford had been transacted by Men infected with Heresie who had lost all that Grace and Power which belonged to them whilst they were Members of the Church of Rome That therefore Ferdinand was to appear within three Months before the Pope's Tribunal to answer for his Misdemeanours and to shew his Repentance and then without doubt he would obtain Pardon from this meek Father With much more to the same purpose Ferdinand was of another Temper and ordered his Ambassadour to return if he were not admitted within three Days leaving a Protestation behind him This a little quelled the Pope who admitted him to a Private Audience the thirteenth of July when the Pope excused himself for not having granted his Request sooner for want of Leisure and Time to examine all the Difficulties which were proposed in this Affair by the Cardinals and seeing his Lordship could stay no longer at Rome he might return when he pleased and he would send an Ambassadour to the Emperour so he called Charles V notwithstanding his Resignation as soon as was possible And thus this thing stood till the Death of Pope Paul III. Charles V late Emperour of Germany being at last overpowered by the many Diseases which oppressed him died the twenty first of September In this Prince saith Thuanus Fortune and Virtue strove to Crown his Deserts with the utmost degree of Temporal Felicity And for my part I take him for the best Pattern which can possibly be given of a virtuous Prince in this or any former Age. His last Words were these Continue in me my dear Saviour that I may continue in thee He lived fifty eight Years six Months and twenty five Days and was Emperour of Germany thirty six Years Thuanus saith of him That no part of his Life was destitute of some commendable Action yet he shew'd the greatness of his Soul most visibly in the close of it Before he was wont to conquer others in this he overcame himself and reflecting on a better Life renounced this present which was lyable to so many Chances before he dyed and having so many Years lived to the good of others began now to live only to God and himself In all that two Years which went next before his Dissolution he lived in the Society of some Monks of the Order of S. Jerome and by the Advice of one Constantin his Confessor applied himself chiefly to the reading of S. Bernard and fixing his Soul only on God thus he argued That he was unworthy by his own Merits to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven but his Lord God who had a double Right to it that of Inheritance from his Father and that of the Merits of his Passion was content with the first as to himself and has left the second to me by whose Gift I may justly claim it and trusting to this Faith I shall not be ashamed For neither can the Oyl of Mercy be put in any other Vessel than that of Faith That this is the only Confidence of that Man who forsakes himself and relies upon his Lord That to trust any otherwise to ones own Merits was not of Faith but Perfidy That Sins were forgiven by the Mercy of God and therefore we ought to believe that none but God can blot them out against whom only we have sinned in whom is no sin and by whom alone our sins are forgiven us These Doctrins were afterwards thought in Spain to approach so near those of the Lutherans that his Confessor was burnt for an Heretick after he was dead and some others that were about him had hard measure after his Death on that account and Lucas Osiander affirms in express Terms That Charles V dyed a Lutheran in the Point of Justification Queen Elizabeth presently after her settlement dispatched Messengers to all the Princes of Christendom giving notice of her Sister's Death and her Succession and among them to the Pope also by Sir Edward Karn then Resident at Rome His Holiness in his usual Stile replyed That England was held in Fee of the Apostolick See That she could not succeed being illegitimate nor could he contradict the Declarations made in that matter by his Predecessors Clement VII and Paul III He said it was a great boldness in her to assume the Crown without his Consent for which in Reason she deserved no Favour at his Hands Yet if she would renounce her Pretentions and refer herself wholly to him he would shew a Fatherly Affection to her and do every thing for her that could consist with the Dignity of the Apostolick See. It was great pity this generous Pope should fall into such Heretical Times his great Soul would certainly have wrought Wonders before the Days of Luther but now alass all this Papal Meekness
setting forth That since the Marriage of their Queen to the Dauphine of France the Government of Scotland had been chaâ—â—ed the French Soldiers laid all waste The principal Employments were given to Frenchmen their Forts and Castles put into their Hands and their Money adulterated to their Advantage That the Design was apparently to possess themselves of Scotland if the Queen should happen to die without Issue Cecil who was the Queens Prime Minister imployed Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland to find out what the Lords of the Articles designed and what Means they had to attain their Ends and upon what Terms they expected Succours from England They said They desired nothing but the Glory of Jesus Christ the sincere Preaching of the Word of God the extirpation of Superstition and Idolatry the Restraint of the Fury of Persecution and the Preservation of their ancient Liberties That they knew not for the present how to effect this but they hoped the Divine Goodness which had begun the Work would bring it to its desired End with the Confusion of their Enemies That they earnestly desired to enter into a Friendship with the Queen of England to the Preservation of which they would Sacrifice their Lives and Fortunes The Consideration of these things was not warmly entertained in England be cause the Scots had little Money and were not over-well cemented among themselves so they were only advised Not to enter rashly into a War. But as soon as the English knew that the Marquess of Elboeuf the Queen of Scots Unkle was listing Men in Germany by the Rhinegrave for a War in Scotland That Cannons were sent to the Ports and Preparations amde to conquer that Kingdom and that in greater Quantities than seemed necessary to reduce a few unarmed Scots That the French to draw the Danes into this War had proffered That the Duke of Lorrain should renounce his Right to Denmark And that they were renewing their Solicitations with the Pope To give a declaratory Sentence for the Queen of Scot against the Queen of England Thereupon Sir Ralph Sadler a wise Man was sent to the Earl of Northumberland and Governour of the middle Marches on the Borders of Scotland to assist him and Sir James Croft Governour of Berwick The English Council could not see whither all this tended unless the French designed to invade the Kingdom of England as well as assume the Title and Arms of it Upon this the Council of England began to consider in good earnest and with great Application of the Scotch Affairs it was thought a thing of very ill and dangerous Example that one Prince should undertake the Protection of the Subjects of another Prince who were in Rebellion But then it was thought impious not to assist those of the same Religion when persecuted for it And it was certainly a great Folly to suffer the French the sworn Enemies of England when they challenged the Kingdom of England too and were at Peace with all the rest of the World to continue armed in Scotland which lay so near and convenient for the Invasion of England on that side which had the greatest number of Roman Catholicks both of the Nobility and Commons This was thought a betraying the Safety and Quiet of the whole Nation in a very cowardly manner And therefore it was concluded It was no Time now for lazy Counsels but that it was best to take up their Arms and as the English Custom was To prevent their Enemies and not stay till they should begin with us It was always as lawful to Prevent an Enemy as to repel him and to defend our selves the same way that others Attack us That England could never be Safe but when it was Armed and Potent and that nothing could contribute more to this End than the securing it against Scotland That in order to this the Protestants of Scotland were to be protected and the French Forces driven out of it and this was not to be done by Consultations but by Arms. That the neglect of these Methods had not long since lost Calais to our great Hindrance and Shame That a little before whilst the French pretended to preserve the Peace with great Fidelity they had surprized the Fort of Ambleteul and some other Places near Bologne and by that means forced the English to surrender that important Place That we must expect the same Fate would attend Berwick and the other Fronteer Garrisons if they did not forthwith take Arms and not rely any longer on the French Pretences of maintaining the Peace which were never to be believed their Counsels being secret their Ambition boundless and their Revenues immense so that it was then a Proverb in England France can neither be Poor nor Quiet three Years together And Queen Elizabeth was used to say that Expression of Valentinean the Emperour was good Francum amicum habe at non vicinum Let a Frank be thy Friend but not thy Neighbour So that upon the whole it was concluded That it was Just Honest Necessary and our Interest to drive the French as soon as was possible out of Scotland Hereupon William Winter Master-Gunner in the Fleet was sent with a Fleet to Edinburgh Frith who to the great terror of the French fell upon their Ships of War on that Coast and their Garrison in the Isle of Inchkeith The Duke of Norfolk then Lieutenant of the North was also sent towards Scotland William Lord Grey who had well defended Guines against the French tho' unsuccessfully was made Governour of the Eastern and Middle Marches and Thomas Earl of Sussex who had been Lieutenant of Ireland in the Reign of Queen Mary was sent thither again with the same Character and commanded to have a particular care the French did not excite the barbarous and superstitious Irish to a Rebellion under the Pretence of Religion The French in the interim were not idle but the Regent reproach'd the Lords of the Congregation so the Protestants were call'd in a Proclamation that they had brought Englishmen frequently into their Houses that came with Messages unto them and returned Answers back to England though they made no Answer to them because they did not think it convenient either to deny it or openly to Avow it for the present and the King of France and Queen Mary wrote each a distinct Letter to the Lord James Stewart threatning him with Punishment as his wickedness deserved and by Word of Mouth let him know That he would rather lose the Crown of France than not be revenged on the Seditious Tumults raised in Scotland And one Octavian a French Captain landed soon after with a French Regiment great Sums of Mony and Ammunition of War and was forthwith sent back by the Regent for one hundred Horse and four Ships of War and in the mean time she fell to Fortifie Isith or Leith expelling all the former Inhabitants and making it a Colony of French only it being a Sea-Port-Town
fit to receive Supplies and a Place that might serve the French Companies for a Refuge if they should happen to be reduced to any great streight This was done about September as appears by a Letter of the Nobility about it in that Month. The Regent's Reputation was by this time at so low an Ebb that nothing she said was believed and all she offered suspected About this time M. Pelleuce Bishop of Amiens afterwards Bishop of Sens arrived at Leith attended by three Doctors of the Sorbon Furmer Brochet and Feretier he pretended he came to dispute with the Preachers of the Congregation and he sent to some of the Nobility residing then at Edinburg desiring a Hearing But for fear their Arguments might not prove so effectual as was expected Le Broche a French Knight came over at the same time with two thousand Foot to reinforce their Sylogisms The Congregation-Nobility reject however their armed Logick and would have nothing to do with them The Eighteenth of October the Lords assembled their Forces at Edinburg and the Regent with the Bishop of St. Andrews Glasgow Dunkeld and the Lord Seaton the same day entred Leith And some Messages having pass'd betwixt them they proceeded so far at last as to suspend the Queen-Regent's Commission discharging her of all Authority till the next Parliament prohibiting the Officers to serve under her or by colour of her Authority to exercise their Offices from thenceforth This Decree bears Date the Twenty third of October The Twenty fifth they summoned the Town of Leith commanding all Scots and Frenchmen to depart within twelve hours But failing in this Attempt the Regent took Edinburg and restored the Mass there and all those of the contrary Religion were forced to flee into England or where they could find shelter Hereupon the Queen sent for more Forces and the Marquis d' Elboeuf was sent from Diep with eighteen Ensigns of Horse which were dispersed at Sea by Tempest so that he arrived not at Leith before the Spring of the next year The Lords retired first to Sterling and then to Glasgow where they reform'd all things after their usual manner and in the mean time they sent William Maitland and Robert Melvil to Queen Elizabeth where at last they obtained what they designed in the manner I have express'd The French hearing this resolved to suppress the Lords before the English should come up to their Assistance and thereupon began to waste and spoil the Country to Sterling but though they met with little Resistance yet they could not attain their End. In February an Agreement was made between the English and the Scotch Commissioners sent by the Lords for the Preservation of the Scotch Liberties and Freedoms from a French Conquest and for the Expulsion of the French Forces out of Scotland the Articles of which were Sign'd the Twenty seventh of that Month. About this time the English Fleet under Captain Winter came up and took all the French Ships in the Fyrth of Edinburg which much amazed the French who were then marching for St. Andrews by the Sea-side whereupon they returned to Leith About the same time the Lords of the Congregation reformed Aberdene but the Earl of Huntley coming up in good time saved the Bishop's Palace which had else been reformed to the Ground The English Land-Forces to the number of two thousand Horse and six thousand Foot entred Scotland under the Command of the Lord Gray in the beginning of April The English at first beat the French into Leith and battered the Town very diligently but remitting in their Care and Industry the French made a Sally out of Leith and cut off a great number of the English which made them more vigilant The last of April a Fire happened in the Town which burnt the greatest part of it with much of the Soldiers Provisions The Seventh of May the Town was Storm'd but the Ladders proving too short an hundred and sixty of the English were slain and nothing was gain'd Soon after there came up two thousand English more In the mean time the French King sent to Queen Elizabeth that if she would withdraw her Army out of Scotland he would restore Calais to her To which she replied She did not value that Fisher-Town so much as to hazard for it the State of Britain Thereupon the French perceving no Peace could be had without the French were recall'd out of Scotland and disdaining to treat with the Scots who were their Subjects they began a Treaty with the Queen of England In the mean time Mary of Lorain Queen Regent of Scotland died in the Castle of Edinburg the Tenth of June partly of Sickness and partly of Displeasure Before her Death she sent for the Duke of Wastellerand the Earl of Argile Glencarne Marshall and the Lord James and bewailing the Calamities of Scotland prayed them to continue in Obedience to the Queen their Soverign and to send both the French and English out of the Kingdom so asking their Pardon and granting them hers she took her leave with many Tears kissing the Nobility one by one and giving the rest her Hand to kiss She was a Wife Good Religious Princess full of Clemency and Charity and would doubtless have prevented the Calamities of Scotland which befel there in the end of her days if she had been left to her own Measures but being governed by the Orders of France she was forced to do and say what she did to her great dishonour and disquiet which too at last ended in the Ruine of those she most desired to Promote as it always happens in Breach of Faith. She would often say That if her own Counsel might take Place she doubted not but to compose all the Dissention within that Kingdom and to settle the same in a perfect Peace upon good Conditions Soon after her Death or as Thuanus saith a little before it Embassadors from France and England came to Edinburg who sending for the Scoth Nobility began to treat about the sending the French out of Scotland which was at last agreed and the Sixteenth of July the French embark'd on the English Fleet for France and the English Army the same day began their march by Land for Berwick and the Fortifications of Leith and Dunbar were dismantled but sixty Frenchmen were left to keep the Castle of Dunbar and the same number the Isle of Inchkeeth until the States should find means to maintain the said Forts upon their own Charges from all Peril of Foreign Invasion In August the Parliament met which established a Confession of Faith contrary to the Roman Religion and pass'd three other Acts one for Abolishing the Pope's of Jurisdiction and Authority another for Repealing the Laws formerly made in favour of Idolatry and a third for the Punishing the Hearers and Sayers of Mass and with these Acts Sir James Sandelands was sent into France for the Royal Assent of the King
many thousand Souls perish which God without doubt would require at his Hands But if said he a General Council cannot be had the King ought to follow the Examples of Charles the Great and S. Lewis his Ancestors and call a National Council of France commanding the Teachers of the Sectaries to be present in it and to enter into Conference with the Divines concerning the Points in Controversie c. That the Sectaries were worthy of Blame for their Rebellion and the Roman Catholicks for having been too Bloody and Cruel in the Prosecution of them which had only served to irritate the Minds of Men and make them enquire more greedily into the Opinions of those they saw suffer so patiently That the ancient Fathers imployed no other Arms against the Arians Macedonians and Nestorians but the Word of God and the Princes then did only banish Hereticks The Archbishop of Vienne represented the great Difficulties that hindred the obtaining a General Council For said he there is none of us who doth not know what great pains Charles V took to procure a General Council and what Arts and Stratagems the Poples imployed to defeat that commendable hope this pious Prince had entertained The Disease is of too acute a Nature to attend long Delays which are very uncertain and therefore the best way was to call a National Council which the King had already promised and the urgent Necessities of the Church would not suffer him to delay any longer Having shewn how this had been constantly practised from the Times of Clovis to Charles the Great and so downward to the times of Charles VIII He concluded That the Necessity being Great they ought to delay no longer nor to regard the Oppositions the Pope would make against this Method For the appeasing the Civil Dissentions of France he advised the calling an Assembly of the three Estates The third day Coligni discoursed of the Petition he had presented and being asked why it was not subscribed He said There was above fifty thousand Men in the Nation ready to subscribe it Concluding That there was nothing more calamitous than for a Prince to fear his Subjects And they to be at the same time afraid of him That the House of God the Church was to be forthwith reformed the Army to be dishanded and an Assembly of the three Estates called as soon as might be The Cardinal of Lorrain was so inraged with Coligni's Speech that he made a sudden reply to it That the whole scope of ill Men was to deprive the King of his military Guards that they might the more easily oppress him That the late Conspiracy was against the King and not against his Ministers as was pretended That as to what concerned Religion he would submit to Learned Men But then he protested That no Councils should be of that Authority with him as to depart in any thing from the Customs of his Ancestors and especially in the most sacred Mystery of the Lord's Supper And as to an Assembly of the States he submitted that intirely to the King. He concluded The Sectaries were a Seditious Proud sort of Men and that the Gospel and Faith of Christ was made an occasion of Tumults and Seditions by them and therefore they were to be severely prosecuted Yet he was for mitigating the Severity of the Laws towards such as met peaceably without Arms who were to be reduced to their Duty by more gentle Methods more than by Force To which purpose he would freely spend his Life That the Bishops and Curates should by their presence redeem the Time they had lost and the Governours of the Provinces be forced to do their Duties But then since there was nothing under Debate but want of Discipline and Corruption of Manners it seemed very unnecessary that either a General or a National Council should be called The free Confession of this Cardinal is the Opinion of the whole Party and though the name of a General Council makes a great noise yet we very well know how they have treated the ancientest and best Councils when they have in any thing crossed their Humors or Interests and from thence may conclude They will never submit to any that shall not be conformable to their Wills. The twenty sixth of August a Decree was past that an Assembly of the three Estates should meet before the tenth of December in the City of Meaux And that if a General Council could not be had a National Council should be assembled And in the mean time all Severities in matters of Religion should be omitted Thus saith Thuanus my Author the Protestant Religion which before was so much hated began by degrees to grow up and get Strength with the tacit Consent of its greatest Enemies Thus ended the Assembly of the Princes and Notable Men of France About this time Ferrieres Maligni one of the Conspirators of Amboise escaping out of Prison had a Design to surprize Lyons and had formed so great a Party in the Town as might have done it but remitting the execution of his Project to a more convenient time by order of the King of Navarr the thing was discovered and many of his Partizans taken but yet such was the constancy of the Party that though many were tortured yet nothing could be found out to prove the King of Navarr or Prince of Conde concerned in this Attempt Yet were they invited to Court by the King to purge themselves of the Suspicion upon a Promise they should receive no Injury But this they wisely refused as not Reasonable This and several other such alarms procured an Edict That no Prince or other person of what condition soever should provide Money Soldiers Arms or Horses and if any Person did otherwise it should be taken for High-Treason The Cardinal of Bourbon was also imployed to bring the Princes of his Family to Court by passing his Faith to them That nothing should be done against them The three Estates in the interim meeting at Meaux were from thence adjourned to Orleans and the Marshal de Thermes was sent to Poictiers with two hundred Horse to watch the Motions of the King of Navar if he came to the Assembly The Protestants in France having obtained a little respite from the Pressures of the Persecution by the late Edicts encreased and there were great Assemblies of them in all Parts of the Kingdom especially in Dauphine At Valence which was an University much celebrated for the Study of the Law the fear of the Laws being now removed there succeeded in its stead a lawless Boldness and Petulance so that some of the Young Students forcibly seized the Franciscan's Church for the holding their Assemblies At Montelimard they had also their Publick Sermons and at Romans And which was yet more insufferable they met armed and were very injurious and rude to the Roman Catholick Which as to Valence was soon after revenged with equal Cruelty and perfidy by one Maugiron who
Council which he had rather promised than desigued before The Conference was to be begun the First of August at Poissy and the Bishops and Divines were already arrived there and had entered into a Debate what Points were to be Disputed where they spent the time to no great purpose disputing amongst themselves concering the Office of a Bishop the Dignity of Cathedral Churches of Colleges and their Exemptions of the Ordination of Curates and Priests concerning allowing them Competent Pensions abating their number reforming the Discipline of the Monasteries of Commendam's and Benesices of cutting off the Pleasures and Luxuries of the Clergy and of Censures And they thought the Answering such like Queries was of great use to the Church in these confused times There appeared for the Protestants Augustin Marlorat Francis de S. Pol Jean Remond Merlin J. Malo Francis de Mureaux N. Tobie Theodore Beza Claud Brisson J. Bouquin J. Viret J. de la Tour Nich. de Crallas and John De l'Espine who abjuring the Dominican Order did then first openly prosess the Protestant Religion Soon after Peter Martyr came to Zurich These Asked four things 1st That the Bishops should be Parties and not Judge 2d That the King and Council should Preside 3d. That all things might be determin'd only by the Word of God 4th That whatever was agreed should be set down by Notaries The Queen yielded all these but would have one of the Secretaries of State be the only Notary and she would not consent that the King should Preside in the Conference The Cardinal of Lorraine had before objected against Beza That he should say that Christ was no more present in the Sacrament than in a Muddy Ditch This Expression is said to have been urged by Melanchthon against Oecolampadius as the Consequence of his Doctrine and was by a mistake of the Cardinal wrongfully charged on Beza who denied and detested it as Blasphemous The First of September the Conference began the King the Queen his Younger Brother and Sister and about Eleven Bishops being present and the Cardinals of Bourbon Tournon Chastillon Lorrain Armagnac and Guise The King opened it with a short Speech which was seconded by the Chancellor with a longer In which he preferr'd a National Council before a General and shewed that the Errours of many General Councils had been corrected by National Synods particularly the Arrian General Council of Ariminium was condemn'd by a Private Council held by St. Hillary Bishop of Poictiers and banished out of France He said they neithe needed much Learning nor many Books the Bible alone being sufficient by which Religion was to be Tried and Examined That the Protestants were their Brethren and to be treated as such if out of Ambition or Avarice they did otherwise God would judge and condemn them and their Decrees would be rejected That they ought to Amend and give God Thanks for any Errour that was discovered and if they did not God would Punish them After him the Cardinal of Tournon spoke and Thanked the King Queen and Princes for being present and approved highly of what the Chancellor had said but desired a Copy of it which the Chancellor refused though it was seconded by the Cardinal of Lorrain because he perceived they craftily designed to mischief him by it Theodore Beza being next commanded to speak fell upon his Knees and after a Prayer and reciting his Faith complained to God that they had been injuriously treated as Enemies of the Publick Peace Then he shewed wherein they agreed with the Church of Rome and wherein they differed and discoursed of the way of attaining Salvation of Faith Good Works the Word of God the Authority of the Councils and Fathers of the Sacraments and of their use and true Interpretation of Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation and lastly of the Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline and obedience to Princes he was so long and so sharp in some of these things that they had scarce patience to hear him out and the Cardinal of Tournon presently replied with a Voice trembling for Rage That he and the other Prelates had done violence to their Consciences by condescending to this Conference in compliance with his Majesties Commands by hearing these new Evangelists That he foresaw if they were heard many things would be spoken by them injurious to the Majesty of God which would offend the Ears of the King and of all good Men. And therefore he beseeched his Majesty not to believe what was said That if he could have prevented it the King should not have been present but however he desired he would not suffer his Mind to be pre-ingaged in their false Opinions but to suspend till the Bishops had Answered it and the King and the rest there present should know the difference between Falsehood and Truth He Asked a Day to Answer in and prayed the King that he would persevere in the Religion of his Ancestors Lastly he added that but for the respect they bore to the King the Bishops would have arisen and put a stop to those horrible and abominable Words The Queen calmly said she had done the thing without the Advice of the Parliament of Paris the Princes and privy-Privy-Council That no change was designed but that the Disturbances of France might be appeased and Men friendly brought from their Errors into the Old Way which belonged to them to effect The first Dispute was about the Lords Supper The second which was the 17th of August was about the Church which the Cardinal of Lorrain said could not Err That if any particular Church did Recourse was to be had to the Head the Church of Rome and the Decrees of a General Council and the Concurrent Opinions of the Ancient Fathers and before all to the Sacred Scriptures explain'd by the Right Sense and Interpretation of the Church As to the Lord's Supper in effect he said That if the Protestants would not embrace their Opinions there was no hope of an Agreement The Cardinal of Tournon thereupon applauded his Harangue and said he was ready to lay down his Life for this Faith intreating the King to continue stedfast in it and was contented Good Man that if the Protestants would subscribe these two Points they should be admitted to dispute all the rest but if they refused this all hearing was to be denied them and they were to be expell'd out of his Dominions Beza desired to Answer him Extempore but the King delayed the Answer to the next day Upon a Petition the Ministers were heard at last again the 24th of September before the Queen only when Beza discoursed of the Church and its Notes which he said were the Preaching of the Word and a Pure Administration of the Sacraments As for the Succession of Persons and Doctrines it had been often interrupted He discoursed of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Vocation of the Universal Church and her Authority of Councils which he affirm'd
Leith but this she said she could not do 'till she had consulted with the Nobility of Scotland and when the Ambassador replied They could not but approve of what they had made she replied They did but not all and when I come amongst them it will appear what mind they are of The Duke of Guise and the rest of the great Men of that Family attended her to Calais and the Marquess of Elboeuf and Francis Grand Prior of France went with her She took Ship the 14th of August and arrived at Leith in Scotland the 20th She was much concerned for fear Queen Elizabeth might intercept her in her way home and therefore sent again for the English Ambassador but when he still insisted to have the Treaty of Leith ratisied she delayed it Her Uncle the Cardinal of Lorrain advised her to leave her Jewels and Treasures in France 'till she were safe in Scotland but she said It was folly to be more concerned for her Jewels than for her Person which she must hazard The truth is her Fear was well grounded for Queen Elizabeth sent a Fleet to way-lay her but the two Navies passed by one another in a dark foggy day unperceived and she safely arrived at Leith the 21th of August The beginning of her Government was very gracious and she condescended to grant That no Change or Alteration should be made in the present State of Religion only she said she would use her own Religion apart and have a Mass in private which was and by many was thought very reasonable she having been Educated in the Roman Church and being a Sovereign Princess Yet the Preachers in their Sermons publickly condemned that Toleration of their Queen as unlawful and the Earl of Arran being exasperated by his Imprisonment on the account of Religion in France by the Order of the Guises from whence he made his Escape replied That he did neither agree to Publick nor Private Mass which highly displeased the Queen And Archimbald Douglas Provost of Edinburg put out an Order commanding all Papists to be gone for which the Queen committed him to the Castle of Edinburg And one of the common sort of Men broke the Tapers in the Court which were prepared for her Chapel and a Tumult had ensued to the Ruine of the other Preparatives for her Chapel if some wiser Men had not interposed amongst whom the Lord James was one of the greatest and forwardest to suppress this insolent Disorder On the other side the Marquess of Elboeuf was much offended to see the Protestant Religion exercised openly in Scotland and the Earl of Huntley a vain Man proffer'd the Queen his Service to reduce all the North Parts of Scotland to the Popish Religion which was wisely rejected In the middle of September the Duke of Aumarl and the rest of the French which had come home with the Queen went back to France but the Marquess of Elboeuf who stayed with her all the Winter She sent William Lord Maitland to Queen Elizabeth with Letters full of kind and friendly Expressions and desiring the like Returns from her And amongst other things that she would declare her the lawful Heir to the Crown of England in case she Queen Elizabeth should dye without Issue which Queen Elizabeth denied but said She would never wrong her nor her Cause if it be just in the least point and that she knew not any whom she would prefer before her or who if the Title should fall to be controverted might exclude her The Queen of Scots caused a new Provost of Edinburg to be Elected changed the Common Council and put out a Proclamation That all her good and faithful Subjects should repair to and remain within the Birgh at their pleasure for doing their lawful Business which was in opposition to the Provost's Order She kept her Masses too more publickly and with greater pomp of all which the Ministers complain'd in vain in their Sermons The Nobility had divided the Church Lands amongst them and had now another Game to persue and were striving who should be most in the Queen's Favour The Queen's Expences being soon found too great for the poor Revenues of the Crown of Scotland to maintain The Remainder of the Church Lands was divided into three parts one was assigned to the Queen one to the Ministers and the third was left to the Bishops and Parsons of the Romish Communion which they were forced to yield to to prevent the loss of all they now subsisting merely by the Queen's Favour The Earl of Huntley to be made Lord Chancellor turned Roman Catholick again which encouraged one Winyet a Priest to write a Book against the Reformation for which he was censured and forced to leave Scotland Not long after which she created the Lord James her Brother first Earl of Marr and then of Murray the Lord Ereskin claiming and at last obtaining the Earldom of Marr which much offended Huntley which had enjoyed both these Titles ever since the death of James the Fifth This made Huntley enter into many base and unworthy Designs to murder Murray which were all by one means or other discovered and at last ended in the Death of Huntley and the Executiou of John Gordon his eldest Son a hopeful young Gentleman in the Year following The beginning of the Year 1562 was very unquiet in France The King had called an Assembly of the Delegates of all the Parliaments of France in the end of the last year which was to meet at St. Germain the 17th of January of this year to consider of the means of appeasing these Broils and preserving the Peace of France The King opened this Assembly with a short Speech which was seconded by a larger made by the Chancellor who having given a short account of the several Edicts that had been made before in the business of Religion and shewn how they had all by one means or other been defeated He added That Laws were of no use if they were not Religiously observed But then said he if the Question is put Why are not the Laws executed Must not you that are the Judges bear the blame For if they excuse themselves and say That it was not in their power to execute them I will accept the Answer upon condition they will ingenuously confess That neither was it in the King's power And that this Affair of Religion by a secret Judgment of God for the Castisement of our Luxury Indevotion and Neglect of his Glory is so disposed that we may by the severity of the Punishment be brought to Repentance In the year 1518 when these Commotions first began there is no Man but knows how corrupt the Manners and how loose or rather profligate the Discipline of the Church was throughout the World For to omit the Court of Rome in which there was nothing right and sound we had here in France a young King brought up in Pleasures tho' he afterwards was
days ibid. Marot Clement an account of him 310. Mary Q. of Hungary made Governess of the Netherlands 149. Goes to Augsbourg to Mediate for the mitigation of the Emperors Edict 501. Holds a Convention of the States of the Netherlands at Aix la Chapelle 560. She stops the Landgrave at Mastricht 573. Mary Q. of Scots Troubles in her Minority 316. Affianced to Prince Edward of England ibid. Is carried into France 477. Mary Daughter to Henry VIII Proclaims her self Queen of England upon K. Edward's death 589. Enters London ibid. Makes Gardiner Chancellor ibid. Beheads the D. of Northumberland ibid. She Establishes the Popish Religion again in England 591. Orders a publick Disputation at London 593. Dissolves K. Edward's Laws about Religion in Parliament 595. Marries Pr. Philip of Spain ibid. Breaks Wiat's Conspiracy 596. Beheads Jane Grey and the Duke of the Suffolk ibid. Banishes Foreign Protestants out of England 597. Publishes a Book of Articles about Religion ibid. Commits the Princess Ellizabeth to the Tower 598. Her Marriage with K. Philip is solemnized with great splendor 604. Calls a Parliament wherein England is again subjected to Rome 605 606. Dissolves that Parliament 607. Burns several for Religion ibid. She mediates a Peace between the Emperor and King of France 616. It was reported that she was with Child ibid. She encreases the Persecution in England ibid. Her Ambassadors return home from Rome 618. She calls a Parliament where she proposes the Restitution of the Church-Lands in vain 627. Martyr Peter comes into England and professes Divinity at Oxon 443. Disputes there about the Lord's Supper 483. Is in trouble upon Edward's Death 590. Applies himself to Cranmer ibid. Gets leave to be gone Ibid. Goes to Zurich 637. Matthews John a great Prophet among the Anabaptists commands a Community of Goods 194. Runs Truteling through with a Pike by Inspiration ibid. Is run through himself by a Soldier ibid. Maurice D. of Saxony Marries the Landgrave's Daughter 272. Quarrels with the Elector of Saxony 292. Is wounded in Hungary 304. Refuses to enter into the Protestant League after his Father's death ibid. Makes Laws for the Government of the Country 311. Endeavours an accommodation between the D. of Brunswick and the Landgrave 353. Perswades the D. of Brunswick to surrender 354. Purges himself of Treachery ibid. Holds a Secret Conference with the Emperor at Ratisbon 380. Has a Conference with K. Ferdinand 391. Calls a Convention of the States at Chemnitz 405. Consults against the Protestants ibid. His Friends write to the Protestants 406. He writes to the Landgrave ibid. Writes to the Elector 409. And to his Son ibid. Takes most of the Electors Towns ibid. Is ill spoken of and Lampoon'd by the Protestants 410. Publishes a Manifesto to clear himself ibid. Joins Ferdinand to go towards Bohemia 423. Intercedes for the Landgrave 429. Writes to the Landgrave to comply 430. Receives Wittemberg with the rest of the Electorate from the Emperor 431. Exacts an Oath of Allegiance of John Frederick's Subjects ibid. Promises the Landgrave to interceed with the Emperor at Hall 433. And Remonstrates about it ibid. Receives the Wittemberg Divines Graciously 435. He is invested in the Electorate Solemnly at Augsbourg 457. Calls a Convention at Meissen who draw up a Form of Religion for Saxony 478. Intercedes with Prince Philip for the Landgrave ibid. Writes to the States to clear himself from the imputation of Popery 484. His Deputies at Augsbourg protest against the Council of Trent 499. He engages in the Expedition against the Magdebourghers 502. He is made Generalissimo of that War 503. He attacks the Magdebourghers 504. Defeats Heideck and Mansfeldt ibid. He promises the Landgrave Aid secretly 505. Routed in a Sally by the Magdebourghers ibid. Proposes Conditions of Peace to the Town 515. Commands his Divines to draw up a Confession of their Faith ibid. Demands a safe Conduct for his Divines to go to the Council of Trent 516. Sends the Proposals to the Magdebourghers by Heideck 521. He holds a Convention about the business of Magdebourg 525. He takes an Oath of Fidelity from the men of atzenelbogen 526. He concludes a Peace with the City of Magdebourg 528. Complains of the Preachers ibid. Hatches a War against the Emperor 529. Sends Ambassadors to the Emperor about the Landgrave 531. He holds a Conference with Prince William the Landgrave's Son 534. His Ambassadors come to Trent and declare their Instructions 537. They join with the Agents of Wirtemberg and Strasburg to sollicite for the hearing of the Protestants in the Council ibid. The Saxon Divines are upon their way to come to the Council 541. The Ambassadors complain against Perlargus ibid. Maurice sends Letters to his Ambassadors 542. They leave Trent secretly ibid. His care for the release of the Landgrave 549. He declares War against the Emperor 550. Takes the Field and joins with Marq. Albert 555. He goes with the other Princes and besieges Ulm 556. Treats with Ferdinand of Conditions of Peace ibid. Writes to the French King 558. His Army Skirmishes with the Imperialists 559. A Mutiny in his Camp for want of Pay ibid. His Soldiers make the Emperor fly from Inspruck 560. Which is Plundered ibid. They Publish a Declaration ibid. He restores the Outed Ministers ibid. His Grievances at the Treaty of Passaw 563. His Proposals at the Treaty 566. He is impatient of delay and hastens Ferdinand 568. He returns to the Confederates 569. Besieges Francfort ibid. At last he accepts a Peace 571. Sends his Forces into Hungary 573. Sends Commissioners to treat with John Frederick's Commissioners to no purpose 577. Went to Heidelberg to mediate between Albert and the Bishops 578. Makes a League with the D. of Brunswick ibid. Declares War against Marq. Albert 581. He overcomes Albert and is killed in the Fight 586. His Death foretold by Prodigies ibid. Maximilian Emperor holds a Diet at Augsbourg 4. Writes in August 1518. to Pope Leo to correct Luther and to put an end to his growing Heresies 5. Dies Jan. 12. 1519. 13. Sends Ambassadors to the Council of Pisa 26. Goes off to Pope Julius 27. Sends Langus to the Lateran Council ibid. Commissions Hogostrate and Reuchlin to examine Jewish Books 30. Wars with the Switzers 469. Maximilian Son to Ferdinand comes into Germany out of Spain 505. Is well beloved ibid. He returns home from Spain 529. Is honourably received at Trent 535. Goes to Brussels 637. Mecklenbourg vide George D. of Mecklenbourg Mechlin almost consumed by Lightning 392. Medices the rise of that Family to Greatness 169. Meinier President of the Parliament of Aix persecutes the Waldenses 345. Vses the Inhabitants of Merindol and Cabriers barbarously 345 346. Meissen John Bishop of Meissen Opposes Luther about Communion in both kinds 25. Melancthon Philip comes to Wittemberg 21. Goes to Leipzick ib. Answers the Parisian Censure of Luther's Books 47. Comes to the Diet at Augsbourg 127. One of the Protestant Deputies there to mediate an
Council of the Empire 76. The Senates Answer 79. Their Ministers draw up an Apology ibid. Quarrels there about the Mass 115. They stience the Popish Ministers ibid. The Bishop complains to the Diet at Spire 116. Mass abolished there ibid. Their Deputies protest upon their being denied to sit in the Diet 118. Their Divines answer Erasmus 122. Makes a League with the Evangelick Cantons of Switzerland 126. Which is resented by the Council of the Empire ibid. They with some other Consederate Cities exhibit a Confession at Augsbourg to the Emperor 130. They debate the matter further against the Emperor 138. They are oppugned by Popish Divines ibid. They set up a School 241. Their Letter to the Emperor to disswade him from the War 378. They make their Peace and are fined 423. They refuse the Interim 464. And stand to it to Granvell 465. They send their Judgment of the Interim to the Emperor in a Letter 471. In a Consultation they resolve to accept of the Interim 472. They send Deputies with another Letter to the Emperor 473. Their Bishop writes to them about yielding ib. They are commanded to agree with their Bishop 474. They write to the Emperor of the Bishops unreasonable demands 478. The Bishop says Mass again 479. Quarrels between him and the Senate about the publick Professors 480. The Senate and the Bishop agree 485. Mass first said in the Cathedral 491. Derided by the People ibid. Whence the Priests fly ibid. The Bishop complains to the Emperor 496. But the Breach is made up ibid. The Bishop complains against the Preachers 513. The Senate sends Sleidan their Deputy to the Council of Trent 529. vid. Sleidan They answer the Demands of Marq. Albert 571. Stroza Peter a Florentine gulls the Protestants with Promises of Money 404. Stupitz John General of the Augustine Friars 2. Stura Steno vide Christiern Sturmius James dies 594. Sweden vide Gustavus Switzers oppose the Election of Francis I. to the Empire 14. An account of their Commonwealth 48. Had a Custom that Priests should publickly keep Concubines 51. They complain against Zuinglius in a Convention of Estates 66. They assemble at Lucern and make Edicts against the New Religion 67. They Remonstrate against those of Zurick 69. They join with Zuinglius in the Doctrine of the Eucharist 97. They meet 12 Cantons to Dispute at Baden 105. The Popish Cantons make a League with Ferdinand 118. Seeds of Civil Wars arise amongst themselves 120. Which are taken up ibid. They make a League for six years with the Landgrave of Helse 141. Do not refuse to join in the League of Smalcald if Comprehension be allow'd them 148. Not admitted into the League 151. The Popish Cantons League against the Zurichers 155. They overcome the Zurichers 156. They overcome them again ibid. They conclude a Peace ibid. The Protestant Cantons interceed with the French King to remit his Severities towards the Protestants 210. They answer the Letter which was sent to them by the States of the Empire 323. Interceed to the French King for the Waldenses 347. They give an answer to the Protestants Embassy 392. They answer the Emperors Letter 398. The Protestant Cantons differ in their Answer about the War from the Popish ones 399. Their Answer to the Protestants demands 404. Two Protestant Cantons refuse a League with Henry II. King of France 484. Sylvius Aeneas vide P. Pius T. TEcelius John Tetzel a Dominican writes against Luther's ninety five Theses 2. Teutonick order its institution 99. They subdue Prussia ibid. Thomas of Becket Arch-Bishop of Canterbury 241. Killed by some of King Henry II's Court ibid. His rich Shrine ibid. Canonized 242. Toledo Don Francisco de Ambassador from the Emperor at the Council of Trent 374. Treats vigorously with the Protestant Ambassadors there 539. Transylvania Vaivod claims the Kingdom of Hungary against Ferdinand 112. Writes about it to the Princes of the Empire ibid. Invites Solyman into Germany 121. Is made King of Hungary by Solyman ibid. Dies 269. His Son is delivered up to Solyman 285. Made Vaivod of Transylvania ibid. Transylvania revolts from Ferdinand 633. Tregerus Conradus disputes with the Preachers of the Reformed Religion at Bern 111. Trent nominated by the Pope to hold a Council 292. Allowed by the Catholick Princes of Germany ibid. Protested against by the Protestants ibid. The Council called 296. It is opened 361. The first Session ibid. The decrees of it 362. The second Session ibid. The third Session 373. The fourth Session with its decrees 377. The French Ambassadors Speech in the Council ibid. It is put off 391. What number of Bishops were there ibid. Decrees made there about Justification 416. The seventh Session 422. The Council is divided and some go to Bononia 425. The Emperors Deputies commanded not to stir thence ibid. The Councilis divided 439. Cardinal of Trent speaks to the Pope about removing the Council 443. The Council meets once more at Trent 513. Sits formally 518. Receives the French King's Letter ibid. The Ceremony of their Sessions 520. The way of making Articles and Canons 521. They decree the business of the Lords Supper 525. They leave some things to be disputed when the Protestants should come to the Council 526. The form of their safe conduct ibid. They answer the French Kings Letter 527. They make decrees about Pennance and Extream Vnction 530. Long debates about a Safe Conduct at Trent 539. They are wonderfully divided 546. Fly from Trent in haste 547. And they prorogue the Council for two Years 548. Treves vide Triers Triers Elector makes a Speech for Francis I. 16. Perswades Luther to yield 46. Very courteously ibid. Richard the Elector makes War with Francis Sicking 56. Not for Religion ibid. Kills several Boors at Wormes 81. After they had thrown down their Arms ibid. Dies 149. The Elector of Triers leaves the Council of Trent 542. Truchses George Head of the Schwabian League 80. Routs the Boors in Schwaben ibid. And at Winsberg 81. Burns the Town ibid. Routs others in Franconia ibid. Makes a Speech to the Protestant Princes in the Emperors Name 134. Turegie vide Oxline Turks vide Solyman their Original 295. They invade Hungary 314. They take Tripoly 518. Their Fleet takes Corsica 591. Their Fleet scours the Coasts of Italy 617. V. VAiod vide Transylvania Valla Laurentius his book censured 28. Vargas Francisco de and Martino Velasco the Emperors Ambassadors protest against the Council at Bononia 446. Venetians make a League with the Emperor against Francis 204. They conclude a Peace with the Turk 252. They publish a Proclamation about Religion against the reformed 468. Venize Gabriel Provincial of the Augustans in Germany vide Leo. Vergerius Peter Paul the Popes Legate at Augsbourg 127. Had orders to manage the business of a Council cautiously 166. Is recalled into Italy by P. Paul III. 147. And sent back with the old Instructions 175. Consults with the Duke of Saxony at Prague 180. Sent to Naples to
the Emperor 204. Appointed of the Committee to draw up a Bull for the calling of a Council ibid. His Speech at Wormes 272. Talks with Spira at Padua 475. Turns Protestant 476. Perswades his Diocess of Justinople to joyn with him ibid. Being Persecuted settles in the Valteline 477. And thence removes to Tubing ibid. Writes a Book to disswad the Switzers from sending to the Council of Trent 528. Vey a Lawyer of Baden speaks to Luther from the Commissioners at Wormes 45. Exhorts him to submit his Books to the Emperor and Princes 46. Vienna vide Solyman Visconti Dukes of Milan their Pedigree 203. Ulm receives the Protestant Religion and a Church is constituted there 149. Is reconciled to the Emperor and fined 413. A Diet called thither 428. What was done at it 431. Adjourned to Augsbourg 432. The Government changed by the Emperor 472. Their Divines refuse with great Courage to acknowledge the Doctrine of the Interim ibid. Their Ministers are released 479. Their answer to Albert's Proposals 563. Ulric Duke of Wirtemberg claims his Country 79. Is repulsed by the Schwabian Confederates 80. Is restored into it by the Landgrave of Hesse 173. Engages to be Feudatary to Ferdinand ibid. And recovers his Country entirely 174. He acknowledges himself Feudatary to Ferdinand 180. Is admitted into the Protestant League 206. Excuses himself by Letter to King Francis 249. He with Vpper Germany first takes Arms 380. Writes Supplicatory Letters to the Emperor 413. Is received upon hard Conditions 415. He makes his Submission to the Emperor in Person at Ulm 421. Receives the Interim 462. Dies 502. Vogelsberg Sebastian raises Men in Germany for Henry King of France 434. Is beheaded at Augsbourg for it 456. W. WAradin George Martinhausen Bishop of made a Cardinal 528. Is killed for Commotions in Transylvania 535. Waldenses Persecuted 345. Barbarously Massacred at Merindol 346. Their Opinions 347. Wenceslaus Emperor intercedes for Husse 46. Wiat Sir Thomas rises in Kent upon Queen Mary's Marrying King Philip 594. Is suppressed 596. Executed 598. Wiclef John Preached against the Pope in England 46. His Bones ordered to be Burnt by the Council of Constance 47. William vide Bavaria Winchester Stephen Gardiner Bishop of he writes a Reproachful Book against Bucer 340. Is Imprisoned for Obstinacy 511. Made Lord Chancellor by Queen Mary 589. An account of his Proceedings in the Divorce of Henry VIII ibid. He dies of a Dropsie 627. Wirtemberg vide Ulric and Christopher Wittemberg a City of Saxony upon the Elbe and an Vniversity 2. Connives at Luther ibid. They write to Pope Leo in his behalf 6. And to Miltitz that he might be tried in Germany ibid. And to Frederick in excuse of Luther's proceedings against Cajetan 12. The Vniversity abett the Augustines in not saying Mass 49. Their Reply to Frederick about that Matter 50. Wolfgang made Grand Master of Prussia 324. His Plea at the Diet of Augsbourg about the Teutonic Order 447. Is driven out of his Country 571. Wolfgang D. of Deux-Ponts absolutely refuses the Interim 480. Yet promises to obey the Emperor as far as he could 481. Wolsey dies for Discontent 170. Wormes a Diet called thither 38. It is opened 41. Luther Proscribed by an Edict there 48. A Diet called to punish the Anabaptists 200. Another Diet called there 201. A Convention cited thither 268. The Heads of the Conference at Wormes 271. A Diet there 343. Z. ZIsca John raises a War in Bohemia against Sigismund in revenge of Husse's death 47. Zuinglius Ulricus comes to Zurick 22. Opposes Friar Samson about Indulgences ibid. Disswades the Switzers from serving abroad in the Wars 48. Defends himself against the Bishop of Constance 51. Writes to the Switzers to allow Marriage among their Priests ibid. Disputes with John Faber in the Assembly at Zurick 57. Acquits himself of the Accusation of the States 66. Preaches up the abrogation of Images ibid. Differs with Luther about the Sacrament 97. Would not go to the Conference at Baden 105. Disputes at Bern 111. Disputes with Luther at Marpurg 121. Is killed 156. Zurick vide Zuinglius They refuse to serve abroad at Zuinglius's desire 48. They est ablish the Reformation 57. They Answer the Remonstrance of the other Cantons 70. And the Bishop of Constance's Book abort Images 72. They remove Images 76. They Expostulate with the other Cantens about the seizing of their Ministers 77. The Mass abolished there 82. They stop Provisions from the other Cantons 155. They are routed in Battle 156. And so a second time ibid. And at last conclude a Peace ibid. The Ministers of Zurick answer Gardiner's Book 340. A TABLE TO THE CONTINUATION A. ALbert Marquess of Brandenburg dies 13. Alva's War on the Pope 9. He goes to Rome 11. The Emperor's Ambassadors to the Electoral Princes to carry his Resignation 6. Dr. Woton English Ambassador in France 14. Between France and King Philip at Peronne 19. At Cambray 22. In France 27. To the Diet of Germany 28. The Popes Ambassadors to the Christian Princes and to the Council 49 62. Admitted by the Princes of Germany of the Augustane confession 63. Refused by Queen Elizabeth 64. His Legates to Trent French Ambassadors to the Council of Trent 87. The Ambassador of Spain received 91. Lansac Ambassador for France at Rome 94. The French Ambassadors protest against the Council 95. And go to Venice 96. Andelot Marshal of France loseth the favour of his Prince 19. Suspected to be in the conspiracy of Bloys 43. Sent for Succours into Germany 78. Is in the battle of Dreux 80. Defends Orleans 82. The Archbishop of Toledo suspected of Heresie 48. An Assembly of the great Men of France at Fountainbleau 44. Of the three Estates decreed 46. Opened at Orleans 51. Prorogued 52. Reassembled at Pont Oyse 58. An Assembly of the Delegates of France 68. B BAbotz a Town in Hungary besieged 5. The battle of St. Quintin 15. Of Graveling 20. Of Dreux 80. The Bavarians demand the Cup and the Marriage of their Clergy in a Tumult 97. Bellay Jean Cardinal Dies 50. The Bible sufficient alone to determine the controversies of Religion 60. Books prohibited and why 86. Bona Sfortia Queen of Poland dies Du Bourg Anna a member of the Parliament of Paris offends the King 31. Is Prosecuted 32. Condemned and Executed 34. C CAlais its Form and Strength 17. Siege and taking from the English 18. Profered to the Queen 41. Catharine de Medicis Queen Dowager of France made Regent 33. She preserves Conde and Navar 47. She shews great favour to the Protestants but yet underhand opposed them 56. Suspecteâ—h the Nobility 57. Excuseth the conference of Poissy 60. Dissembles the Rudeness of Laines 61. Solicited to begin a Persecution by the Spaniards 65. She prohibits the worship of Images 69. She puts her self and her Son under the Protection of the Prince of Conde 72. Yet out of fear joyns with the Catholick Lords 72. And betrays Conde 73. She pretends she is at
the Council of Trent 90. His Severity much commended there 91. He is sollicited to endeavour the Preservation of the Romish Religion in France 61. Poltrot who Assassinated the Duke of Guise an account of him 82. Princes the Pope hath power to depose them and to dispose of their Dominions 62 92. Denied by the King of France 94. Prioli Lawrence Duke of Venice dies and is succeeded by Jerome his Brother 36. Q. QUintin Jean makes a long Apology for the Clergy in the Assembly of the three Estates at Orleance 51. He dies of Grief for the Reflections made on it ibid. St. Quintin besieged 14. Taken 15. R. REligion ought not to be the occasion of Rebellions 50. A Remonstrance of the Protestant Princes of Germany 12. Riga Reformed 57. Rouen or Roan taken by the Protestants 74. Twice besieged and at last taken by the Roman Catholicks 77. Rome prepared for a Siege 8. And might have been taken S. SArdinia the Isle of proffered to the King of Navar 65. Savoy enclined to a Reformation 97. St. Quintin See Quintin Sanfloriano a Cardinal 10. Sactaries never to be suffered 51. But to be severely treated 91. Segni a strong City in the Papacy taken 10. Seldius Vice-Chancellor Ambassador 6. Siena consigned to the Duke of Florence 10. Sigeth a City in Hungary twice besieged 4. Sleidan John his Death and Character 7. Succession in the Clergy 61. A Synod held by the Protestants of France in the time of a violent persecution 31. T. THermes a Marshal of France defeated 20. Thionville taken 10. A Toleration granted to the Protestants of France 68. Transylvania revolts 4. The Treaty of Cambray 22 30. V. VAlence the Bishop of favours the Reformation 45. Valenza taken 9. Vallidolid 35. Vassey a Town in Champaigne 70. Vergerius Paul a Cardinal writes against the Council of Trent 62. Vienne the Archbishop of for a National Council 45. The Vocation or Call of the Ministry 61. Vinoxberg taken 20. W. WAr in Italy 8. Between France and Spain 14. In Piedmont 53. The Reasons of the Scotch War 40. The beginning of the Civil War of France 72. Wentworth Lord Governour of Calais 17. William Prince of Henebery dies 36. Dr. Wotton Ambassador in France 14. At Cambray 39. Z. ZEaland the Province of oppose the Continuance of the Spanish Forces in the Netherlands 48. ERRATA In the History PAge 27. line 20. for Church read Lurch l. 23. r. Lewis XII p. 31. l. 7. r. Tortosa p. 32. l. 41. r. Ambitious as Lucifer himself That he p. 36. l. 38. concerning r. call'd p. 39. l. 47. r. Brindisi p. 43. l. 29. Ensure r. Ensnare p. 45. Work r. Rock p. 46. § 2. l. 1. resum'd r. repeated p. 80. Sturney r. Sturmius as oft as it occurs p. 94. l. 38. our r. your p. 115. l. 36. Cantreck r. Lautrec p. 119. l. 5. Anbald r. Anhalt p. 134. l. 52. r. Vey p. 143. l. 10. convenient r. inconvenient p. 157. l. 14. r. Nordlinghen p. 170. l. 37. 740. r. 728. p. 184. l. 58. r. Mecklenbourgh p. 189. l. 1. r. out of his c. p. 200. l. 63. danger r. hunger p. 206. l. 21. Campodune r. Kempten p. 209. l. 61. first r. fifth p. 215. l. 21. impression upon r. inroad into p. 230. l. 34. r. Pomerania p. 232. l. 36. r. Aleander p. 242. l. 10. r. John the Vaivod p. 264. l. 52. r. did not only c. p. 269. l. 45. r. Budaeus p. 270. l. 24. r. than that that long c. p. 284. l. 26. Indico r. Ynigo l. 45. r. Rene. p. 287. l. 16. Mark r. Work. p. 288. l. 48. Religion r. Provinces p. 289. Compert r. Rampart p. 292. l. 28. r. Vendosme l 29. Nivern r. Nevers p. 293. Concord r. Counsel p. 294. l. 6. r. first place to be c. p. 317. l. 14. edge r. Egge p. 338. l. 38. Ozias r. Uzziah p. 356. l. 40. r. Mentz p. 361. l. 53. Esdras r. Ezrah p. 363. l. 13. slept r. stept p. 443. l. 8. r. Ebbleben p. 435. r. Nevers p. 439. l. 30. implorable r. implacable p. 441. l. 50. severity r. security p. 447. l 20. r. Vicenza l. 24. r. Morone l. 27. r. Santacruce p. 468. l. 35. Pecord r. Record r. Riseberg l. 48. r. Rochlitz p. 471. would r. should p. 473. l. 11. r. Fano p. 475. l. 28. r. Casa p. 477. l. 19. Gelou r. Gelenius p. 478. l. 50. Fez r. Tunis p. 481. l. 19. r. Matthias Flaccius Hlyriucus and as oft as it occurs p. 518. l. 23. r. Vienna p. 519. l. 34. r. Lewis Hutin p. 531. l. 41. with r. of p. 545. l. 60. would r. should p. 554. l. 38. r. Bay. onne p. 580. In the Contents l. 4. Albert r. Maurice p. 594. l. 33. r. Blasseburg p. 618. l. 58. r. Barbara In the Continuation PAg. 8. l. 55. Security r. Severity p. 10. l. 18. r. brought together an Army p. 28. l. 15. drought r. draught p. 25. l. 2. 1233. r. 1523. p. 28. r. 600000 Crowns p. 56. l. 62. perished r. persisted p. 59. r. from Zurich p. 60. l. 41. thing r. nothing p. 90. l. 11. Annals r. Annates The Life of John Sleidan The fate of this History in the Life of the Author And in after times La naissance de l' Heresie l. 1. Sect. 4. p. 4. Chap. 4. Sect. 1. Secâ—â—â—dorf In Anno 1556. Praeloquiâ— p. 8. Memoires Touchant les Ambassadeurs p. 442. 8o. part I. An account of this Version 1517. Pope Leo sends out Indulgences Luther Preaches against Indulgences And writes about them to the Archbishop of Mentz Luther's Theses concerning Indulgences Tetzel the Dominican opposes Luther Luther published an Explication of his Positions 1518. And wrote to the Bishop of Brandenburg to John Stupitz and Pope Leo. Eckius writes aganst Luther and he answers So also does Silvester Prierias And lays down the Heads he is to insist upon Luthers Answer to Silvester Prierias Silvester's Reply Who Thomas Aquinas was Luther answers Silvesters Reply James Hogostrate writes against Luther whom he answers A Diet at Ausburg The Archbishop of Mentz made Cardinal Maximilian's Letter to Pope Leo about Luther and his Doctrin Luther Cited by the Pope to appear at Rome Pope Leo writes to Frederick Elector of Saxony Pope Leo writes to the Provincial of the Augustine Fryers Luther desired his Cause might be tryed in Germany And the University of Wittemberg write to the Pope in his behalf And also to one of the Popes Bed-chamber that Luthers Cause may be heard in Germany Duke Frederick deals with Cardinal Cajetane at Ausburg Cajetane's conference with Luther Luther writes to Cajetane when he was going home and appeals from him to the Pope The Form of Luther's Appeal Pope Clement's Decree about Indulgences The Decrees of the Councils of Constance and Basil concerning the Power of the Pope An account of Gerson Cajetane's Letter to the Elector of Saxony The Elector's Answer Luther's Answer to the
Maximilian Barbarossa's Incursions Anthony Duke of Lorrain dying his Son Francis succeeds to him The English make an Expedition into France Boloigne besieged Sandizier taken upon Surrender Renate Prince of Orange killed The Consternation of the Parisians Boloigne taken by the English The Peace betwixt the Emperor and French King at Soissons and the Conditions of it The Pope's Letters to the Emperour written at the instigation and upon the confidence of the French King. The Bishop of Winchester's Book against Bucer Cardinals created to gratifie Princes The Council is again called The Controversie about the Lords Supper is renewed The Plea of the Clergy of Cologne with the Archbish The Clergy of Cologne appeal to the Pope and Emperour George of Brunswick President The writing of the Archb against the Conspiracy of his Clergy The Clergy of Cologne subscribe the Appeal The Emperour's Embassie to the King of England The Netherlanders loveâ— of the Reformed Religion Peter Bruley burnt The Intercession of Strasbourg and the Protestants for Bruley The Emperour 's severe Edicts against the Lutherans Bruiey's Answer to the Monks Interrogatories Of the Body and Bloud of Christ Of the Mass Of the Adoration of the Bread. Of Purgatory Of Masses and Prayers for the Dead How the Saints are truly worshipp'd Of Free-will Of Faith. Of Traditions that enslave Minds Of Images Of Baptism Of Vows Of Confession Of the Virginity of the Blessed Mary The Assembly of the Divines of Paris at Melun Luther's Positions contrary to those of the Divines of Louvaine An Imperial Diet at Wormes The first Session The Protestants make answer to Ferdinand The deliberation of the Popish States King Ferdinand and the Emperor's Deputies Answer to the Protestants The Protestants Petition Grignian the the French Embassador to the States The Persecution of the Waldenses at Merindole A cruel Sentence of the Parliament of Aix against the Waldenses Meinier President of the Parliament of Aix Philip Cortine Forces raised by Meinier against the Waldenses A Soldier gives the Fugitives forewarning Merindole is burnt Cabriere surprised by craft Is demolished A honourable piece of Cruelty of Meinier The number of the slain Coste is taken and the Inhabitants most barbarously used The Intercession of the Swizers for the Merindâ—lanes The King's Answer to the Swiss The Heads of the Waldensian Doctrine The Spaniards marched through Germany into Austria The Death of Louis Duke of Bavaria The Emperour and Cardinal Farnese come to Wormes The Emperour's Embassie to the King of Poland The King of Poland's Answer to the Emperour The Pope very greedy of Lutheran blood A bloody Sermon of a Franciscan Fryer Cardinal Farnese parts from Wormes for Rome Luther's Book against the Papacy of Rome A Picture set before the Book Luther's Theses of the three Hierarchies The Emperour's Treaty with the Protestants The Plea of Grignian the French Embassadour Francis Duke of Lorrain dies King Ferdinand's Daughter dies The Birth of Charles the Son of Philip King of Spain The Emperour's Daughter-in-law dies Piscara comes to Wormes The Duke of Brunswick chouses the French King of Money The Emperour makes a Truce with the Turk The Senate of Metz inquire after Protestants The Archbishop of Cologne is cited by the Emperour and Pope The Emperour takes the Clergy and Colledge of Cologne into his protection The Archbishop of Cologne is cited The Pope's prejudice against the Archbishop An Assembly and Conference appointed at Ratisbonne Conferours are appointed for the pacification of Religion The Papists refuse the Conference The Dutchy of Brunswick adjudged to the Emperour The stubbornness of the Duke of Brunswick The Elector of Cologne sends a Proctor to the Emperour War betwixt the French and English at Bologne The Death of the Duke of Orleans The Duke of Brunswick takes the field He takes Stembruck The Landgrave's Expedition against the Duke of Brunswick Maurice interceeds for Peace The Conditions of Peace proposed A Truce granted Duke Henry breaks the Truce A Fight betwixt Brunswick and the Landgrave The Duke of Brunswick surrenders himself with his Son to the Landgrave The Death of Albert of Mentz Maurice purges himself of the suspicion of betrying Brunswick Luther's Book against the setting the Duke of Brunswick at liberty William of Furstenberg is set at liberty The Duke of Saxony and Landgrave's Letters to the Emperour about the taking of the D. of Branswick The Landgrave's Letter to the Emperour The Emperour's Answer to the Landgrave by an Embassadour The Landgrave's Answer A Treaty of Peace betwixt the Kings of France and England 1546. The King of England forewarns the Protestants of their danger A Meeting of the Protestants at Franckfurt The Elector Palatine appoints Preachers of the Gospel A Meeting of the Electors of the Rhine for the Archbishop of Cologne A Report of a War against the Protestants The Landgrave's Letter to Granvell Granvell answers the Landgrave A Meeting of some Princes at Franckfurt Sebastian Scherteline Deputies from the Protestants are sent to the Emperour and Clergy of Cologne The Protestants accused of a Conspiracy The Conference of Naves and Renard Count of Solmes The Landgrave's Letters to Naves The Conference of learned Men at Ratisbonne Presidents Colloqutors and Witnesses of the Conference The Conference begins The Heads of Doctrine to be chiefly handled The Conditions of the Conference Malvenda treats of the Point of Justification Bucer answers Malvenda as to the Article of Justification Billick the Carmelite Malvenda answers Bucer The Emperour's Letter to the Doctors Pflugg admitted amongst the Presidents The Conference is broken up The Protestant Embassadours with the Emperour in favour of the Elector of Cologne The Emperour's Answer to them The Pope's Legates sent to Trent Mendoza's Speech to the Fathers in Name of the Emperour The Cardinals answer Mendoza Preaching Monks acted the first part in the Council A Bull of Indulgences The commencement of the Council The first Session The Decree of the first Session The second Session of the Council of Trent Luther chosen Umpire betwixt the Counts of Mansfield Whether we shall know one another in the life to come Luther's Prayer before his death Luther's death His dead Body is carried to Wittemberg The Birth and Life of Luther He was sent to Rome Luther's Eloquence in the German Language His Constancy and Courage The Authors of the Decree of Ausbourg John Diazi went to the Conference at Ratisbonne John Diazi's Conference with Malvenda Malvenda's Letter to the Emperour's Confessour Diazi goes to Newbourg Alfonso Diazi's Brother comes into Germany The Cain-like and traitorous Mind of Alfonso John Diazi is killed by his Brother's means What was done with the Ruffians at Inspruck The Emperour comes to Spire on his Journey to Ratisbonne He visits the D. of Deuxpont's Lady Daughter to the Landgrave The Landgrave comes to the Emperour The Landgrave's Speech to the Emperour The Emperour's Answer to the Landgrave The Landgrave's words to the Emperour Monks the disturbers of the Peace The Emperour's Answer to the
the Pragmatical Sanction The Pragmatical Sanction in danger A Transaction about it The pragmatick Sanction a curb to the Popes Twelve Archbishopricks in France And ninety six Bishopricks The order of Sessions in a Council Subjects allotted to the Divines Who chiefly examined all Points The way of making Articles of Faith. The way of making Canons The Holy Ghost in the Pope's hands The French King's Edict against the Pope A most severe Edict of the French King's against the Lutherans The Emperour's Declaration against the King of France The French King's Justification The cause of the difference betwixt the Emperour and the Pope For making Peace with Magdeburg Duke Maurice holds a Convention of States He also desires a safe Conduct from the Council for his Divines The Decree of the Council concerning the Lord's Supper Four Heads left undecided to be disputed about The form of the safe conduct from the Council Brandeburg's Ambassador claws the Fathers of the Council Frederick of Brandeburg elected Archbishop of Mâ—gdâ—burg The end of the War of Magdeburg Duke Maurice makes the Hessians swear Aâ—legiance to him The Protector of England again made Prisoner Martinhausen made Cardinal The Council's Letter to the French King. The French King frightens the Switzers from the Council Vergerio's Book about avoiding the Council The Bishop of Coyre recalled from the Council The Duchy of Wirtemberg rid of the Spaniards Hasen's Exploits in Schwabia The Duke of Wirtemberg's Ambassadors at the Council The Pacification of Magdeburg The Conditions of Peace The Magdeburgers having received Duke Maurice swear to be true to the Emperour Duke Maurice's Complaint to the Preachers of Magdeburg The Preacherâ— Answer The constancy and renown of the Magdeburgers Duke Maurice hatches a War against the Emperour An Ambassadour from the French King Duke Maurice Maximilian comes from Spain His Ships plundered by the French. Sâ—eidan sent Deputy from Strasburg to the Council Thirteen Cardinals created The Decree of the Council concerning Penance The Decree concerning Extreme Unction Wirtemburgs Ambassadours apply themselves to the Cardinal of Trent And are gulled The Deputy of Strasburg applies himself to the Emperours Ambassadour The Ambassadours of Duke Maurice and the Elector of Brandeburg solicited the Emperour about the Landgrave The names of the Princes that interceded for the Landgrave The Speech of their Ambassadouâ— The Danish Ambassadour intercedes for the Landgrave The Emperours Answer to the Mediators The Conference of Duke Maurice and Prince William the Landgrave's Son. 1552. Maximilian honourably received at Trent Groppers immodesty in the Council The Bishop of Waradin murdered in Hungary King Ferdinand gets Transilvania Huberine an Interimist The Soldiers of Magdeburg create trouble to the Elector of Mentz The Letters of the Spiritual Electors to the Emperour The Emperours Answer The Wirtemberg Ambassadours desires to Count Montfort The Ambassadours of Duke Maurice come to the Council And declare their Instructions The diligence of the Protestant Ambassadors in the Council The Protector of England beheaded The Discourse of the Emperour's Ambassadors with those of Duke Maurice A draught of the safe Conduct given to the Ambassadors of Duke Maurice The safe Conduct of Basil perverted and altered The form of the safe Conduct of Basil Upon examination of the Council's safe Conduct a new form of one is drawn up according to the Decree of Basil The Speech of the Wirtemberg Ambassadors to the Fathers at Trent and the Exhibition of the Confession of Doctrine The Confession of Wirtemberg given in to the Fathers The Ambassadours of Saxony sent for by the Fathers The Confession of Faith written by Melanchton is not produced Another Session of the Council The safe Conduct is delivered without any alteration Poictiere's Discourse as to the Ambassadours Demands The Answer made to the Demands of the Ambassadours The Ambassadours of Wirtemberg depart from the Council The Divines of Saxony come to Norimberg on their way to the Council The bitter Reflection of Ambrose Pelarg upon the Protestants The Ambassadour of Duke Maurice his Complaint of the sawciness of Pelarg. Pelarg Justifies himself before the Cardinal of Trent Duke Maurice's Letters to his Ambassadours The Elector of Treves returns home A Rumour of a War with the Emperour Indulgences published by the Popes Legate The Electors of Mentz and Cologne return home New Ambassadours from Wirtemberg to the Council Duke Maurice's Ambassadours depart secretly from Trent Divines of Wirtemberg and Strasburg come to Trent The Confession of the Duke of Wirtemberg The Protestation of the Ambassadours of Wirtemberg The Deputy of Strasburg's Discourse with the Ambassadour Poctieres The Deputy of Strasburg being upon his return home is stopt Divisions amongst the Fathers of the Council The French King negotiates a Peace with the Pope The Demands of the Protestant Divines to the Council Duke Maurice takes Ausburg upon surrender The Ambassadour Poictieres Conference with those of Wirtemberg and Strasburg The flight of the Fathers at Trent The Writing of the Wirtemberg Ambassadours given to the Imperialists The different Opinions and Intentions of the Fathers of the Council The last Session of the Council of Trent at this time Peace betwixt France and the Pope The death of the Popes Legate The number of Bishops and Divines in the Council of Trent The cause of the Sickness of the Popes Legate The care Duke Maurice took for the Landgrave his Father-in-Law His League with the French King. Duke Maurice's Declaration to the States of the Empire The Declaration of Albert of Brandenburg against the Emperor The French King's Declaration against the Emperor Germany the Bulwark of Christendom The badge of Liberty The French King calls himself the Defender of the Liberty of Germany and of the Captive Princes The out-lawed Men who served the King of France Duke Maurice taketh the Field Albert of Brandenburg joyns Duke Maurice and the Landgrave's Son. Ausburg surrendred to the Princes The Cities are summoned to come to Ausburg The Prince of Salerno revolts from the Emperor The French King takes Toul Verdun and Metz. Lenencour Bishop of Metz. The French King takes an Oath of Allegiance of the Senate and People of Metz. The Princes go to Ulm and besiege it The German and French Hostages are set at Liberty Albert of Brandenburg wastes the Country about Ulm. Conditions of Peace propounded by Duke Maurice to King Ferdinand King Ferdinand's Demands Duke Maurice his Answer Otho Henry Prince Palatine recovers his own Province The Emperor raises Soldiers The Judges of the Imperial Chamber fly from Spire The French King's demands from the Strasburgers The answer of the Senate of Strasburg The Constable chides the Strasburgers They address themselves to the King. The King's Speech to the Deputies Strasburg provides a Garrison against the French. The demands of some Princes made to the French King. Duke Maurice's Letters to the French King. The French King's answer to the Ambassadors of the Princes The reasons of the French King 's leaving Germany The French King's Answer
of any Bargain Gift Reward or Promise Now the reason that the two Brothers of Bavaria were inserted in the number is this They among the rest had oppos'd the Election of King Ferdinand and having communicated their Counsels with the Duke of Saxony the Lantgrave and the King of France they enter'd into the League for the defence of the Liberties of Germany And the King of France had deposited 100000 Crowns in the hands of the two Brothers that they might be in a readiness when occasion would serve The Mediating Princes upon the 20th of April return an Answer to those things which we have recited That 't is for the sake of Peace and Concord that they negotiate this Affair nor could they think that such things as these would have been propounded by them Now that a King of the Romans should be chosen whilst the Emperor is in being they have many weighty Reasons to urge which reasons have been formerly made use of to John Frederick who was then his Fathers Embassador and should now if the matter so requir'd be more copiously explain'd But since they are not alone concern'd in this business but likewise the Emperor the King and the other Princes their Colleagues they will not debate this Point any longer but leave it undecided that so they may come with greater ease to the accommodating of other things as the occasion of this Assembly does require However if it be expected that they should give them and their Allies a reason for what they do they will not decline the trial and they question not but they shall back their Cause with such Proofs as will not admit of any Exception But now if an account of these things should be brought to the Emperor they are very much afraid that they will be so far from taking any place there that they will rather prove an occasion of interrupting at least this Pacifick Treaty if not of wholly taking it away To the end therefore that a Truce and Reconciliation may be brought about as well in relation to the matter of Religion as to that of the Election and that there may not be a separation between those two Points they earnestly intreat the two Princes of Saxony the Father and Son that they will have some regard to themselves in this Affair and depart from their Resolution For then they have reason to hope that both the Emperor and King will abundantly take care that this Election shall never be prejudicial either to them or their Heirs Nay they doubt not but they will lay aside all Resentment and afford their Favour to them all especially to the Duke of Saxony in promoting that business which he now solicits and ev'n in the Cause of Religion as far as 't is possible to be done For they are very much afraid that he cannot be prevail'd with to grant them a Peace as to matters of Religion whilst the Point of Election remains undecided As for their parts 't is out of Love and Friendship that they give this advice and do intreat them so to accept it and that they would so manage themselves that they at length may see that this their Intercession was not without it's weight nor their Diligence imploy'd to no purpose Four days after John Frederick the Prince made them this return viz. That he had not expected from them such an Answer as this for in that they had among other things affirm'd That 't was for the Safety and Dignity of the Empire that a King of the Romans should be created he is under a necessity of giving an Answer to this as well in the Name of his Father as the other Associates whose perswasion it is that this Election is irregular and not at all for the Welfare of the Empire Now since they sustain the Character of Arbitrators he greatly hop'd that they would not have defended this Cause but have propounded it as a doubtful and controverted Point For as to the other things mentioned by them they do not properly belong to Arbitrators but ought to be referr'd to such a time when they may fall under a common deliberation Indeed when at Cologne the Emperor desir'd that his Brother Ferdinand should be admitted into a Partnership of the Empire there were some Reasons offer'd for the doing of it but they were not of such weight that for their sakes the Caroline Law together with the Rights and Liberty of the Empire should be violated that at the same time He together with the rest of his Father's Embassadors gave in their Reasons by way of Answer why it ought not to be done He therefore now again repeats what he said before that if the Emperor would not admit of these their Propositions then the Cause may come to be discuss'd in a fair Trial that so the reasons of their Descent may be known Now since 't is their part to act equally and impartially he did imagine that being Arbitrators in other matters they would likewise in this Controversie find out some honest Expedient which might be for the advantage of the Empire but since nothing of this is done he will not urge them any further As for his Father and his Confederates they will undoubtedly make it evident without injuring any Man how great a Breach this is upon the Laws and Liberty of the Empire and that they are not to be blamed if any inconvenience arises from thence He hopes likewise that since these things concern the Honour and Safety of the Empire the Emperor will not take it unkindly Among the other Propositions the first which belongs to that head in which the Zuinglians are concern'd has this tendency viz. to hinder the Princes from confederating with a number of Cities and so indeed the Umpires did in their debate explain it That if the Zuinglians would confess and forsake their Error then they should be included in the Peace but if otherwise then they were to be deserted no assistance to be afforded them nor any League to be made with them But last year at Smalcalde there happen'd to be a good understanding between the Protestants for when those of Strasburg together with some Cities of Schwaben had made a fuller explication of their Doctrin about the Lord's Supper which before had only been propounded in the Diet at Auspurg this their Interpretation was accepted of by the Saxons Being therefore now unanimous they all of them return the same Answer to the former Propositions and agree at last to lay down these conditions of Agreement That they who have exhibited a Confession of their Doctrin and an Apology for the same at Auspurg as likewise those who hereafter shall receive the same Doctrin shall keep themselves within those bounds and shall make no further Innovations till such time as a Council shall sit which has so often been promis'd and agreed upon that they shall not joyn themselves as to the Doctrinal part
with those who entertain different Opinions about the Lord's Supper and Baptism from what is contain'd in the Writing set forth at Auspurg They shall not draw over to them or give Protection to the Subjects of other States upon the score of Religion But if there be any whose condition is such that they may lawfully go whither they will these having first giv'n notice to their Governors may Travail if they please and be entertain'd they shall not send out any Preachers to teach without their Dominions unless the Magistrate of such a place where a Convention is held shall desire or permit it But if he refuses it they shall then have liberty to do it privately at home But whenever they are present at a Diet of the Empire or do send out Forces against the Turks they may then make use of their own Teachers and receive the Supper of our Lord according to the Institution of Christ That all Reproaches be forborn however the Ministers of the Church may as they are in duty bound rebuke Vice and Error and shew which is the right way provided they do it with temper and moderation That those of their Religion be not excluded from the Imperial Chamber That Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction stand where it does but that the Bishops may not bring those into danger or trouble who make profession of this Doctrin That those Ordinances which have been made but are not yet put in execution concerning Religion Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Ceremonies and the Goods of the Church be suspended till the time of a Council That the Goods of the Church be made use of and enjoy'd by them who are in possession of those places to which those Goods do properly belong and that nothing be taken by violence from any Man but that the annual Revenues be dispos'd of to those places which have formerly receiv'd them till such time as a Council shall decree otherwise That in political Affairs every Man perform his duty that all Men endeavour the good of the Publick and exercise acts of mutual kindness and fidelity to one-another Though both sides stood thus at a distance from one another without any probability of a nearer Conjunction yet the Arbitrators thought fit to proceed in the Treaty and therefore for the convenience of dispatching a more speedy account of all things to the Emperor they appoint another Meeting to be held at Nuremburg upon the third of June Now though the main Controversie could not here be made up yet by reason of the Turks Interruption into Germany the Emperor finding himself obliged to draw his whole Strength together from all parts ratify'd a general Peace to all Germany and did by his Edict command that no Disturbance should be giv'n to any Man upon the account of Religion till such time as a Council should sit and if no Council should be held then till such time as the States of the Empire should find out some expedient to salve these Differences To those that shall disobey this Edict he threatens a very severe punishment and declares that he will use all his Endeavours that a Council may be call'd within six months and begin it's Session the year following But if this cannot be brought about then the whole matter shall be brought to an Issue in a Diet of the Empire He therefore Commands that all judicial Actions commenc'd upon the score of Religion be suspended and that no Process be hereafter carry'd on against the Protestants or if there be that all such Process become null and void The Protestants on the other side who were then seven Princes and 24 Cities do make him a tender of their utmost Obedience and Devoir and promise their Assistance against the Turks This Scheme of a Peace was by the Arbitrators drawn up on the 23th of July and the Emperor to whom they had address'd by Letters and Messengers gave it his Confirmation on the second of August and ratify'd it afterwards by a publick Edict commanding the Imperial Chamber and his other Judges to be obedient to it Whilst these things are transacting the Emperor as we said before is holding a Diet at Ratisbon where among other things he declares that he had some time since sent an Embassy to the Pope and the Colledge of Cardinals about calling a Council to which he has likewise received an Answer which he communicated to the King of France whose judgment it is that a Council is necessary But as to what the Pope has writ back concerning the manner but more especially the place of holding the Council there arises very great difficulty nor can they as yet come to any Resolution about it But because these differences about Religion do daily increase from which there is great danger fear'd he will therefore endeavour to prevail with the Pope to call a Council to some convenient place within the time appointed and he hopes that he will not be wanting either to his own Duty or the Publick Good. But if this cannot be effected then he will endeavour to find out some remedy in another Diet of the Empire which he will call for that purpose It was decreed in the Diet at Auspurg that a Reform should be made in the Court of the Imperial Chamber To which purpose the Emperor adds two Commissioners in his own Name and moreover delegates the Elector of Mentz and the Prince Palatine together with the Bishop of Spiers John Simmerius the Palatine William Bishop of Strasburg and Philip Marquess of Baden The Embassadors of all which Princes having met together at Spiers on the first day of March do Enact certain Laws which partly affect the Judges partly the Advocates and partly the Litigants A Copy of this Reform they present to the Emperor with which having first consulted his Friends he declares himself to be well pleas'd having first made some small additions to it This year which was the Tenth of his Exile Christiern King of Denmark having got together a Navy had some hopes of recovering his Losses but being taken at Sea he was committed to Custody and about the same time his Son died being a young Man and educated by the Emperor his Uncle In a former Book we took notice how the Emperor had rescinded the Contract that was made between Albertus Duke of Prussia and Sigismund King of Poland but Albert persisting in his purpose was about this time proscrib'd by the Imperial Chamber at the Suit of Walter Cronberg Which thing when the King of Poland understood he set forth in this Diet by his Embassador how Prussia had been anciently under the Command and Patronage of his Kingdom and therefore desires that this Proscription may be totally revers'd But Cronberg on the third of June did in a long Harangue declare that Prussia was a dependency of the Empire and did not at all belong to the King of Poland For though their Ancestors being overcome in battel had been forc'd to