King and therefore without difficulty to be compassed By this Tenure are their estates all holden in every of the Islands except 6 only which are held in Capite whereof 4 in Jarsey and 2 in Guetnzey and those called by the names of Signeuries The Signeuries in Jarsey are first that of St Oen anciently belonging to the Carterâ—ts and that of Rossell bought lately of Mr. Daminick Perin by Sir Philip de Carteret now living 3. That of Trinity descended upon Mr. Jeshua de Carteret in the right of his Mother the heir generall of the L' Emprieres And 4 That of St. Marie vulgarly called Lammarez descended from the Paines unto the Family of the Du Maresque who now enjoy it Those of Guernzey as before I said are two only viz. that of Anneville and that of De Sammarez both which have passed by way of sale through divers hands and now at last are even worne out almost to nothing The present owners Fashion and Androes both of them English in their parentage The chief Magistrates in both these Isles for as much as concernes the defence and safety of them are the Governours whose office is not much unlike that of the Lord Lieutenants of our shires in England according as it was established by King Alfred revived by Henry III. and so continueth at this day These Governours are appointed by the King and by him in times of warre rewarded with an annuall pension payable out of the Exchequer but since the encrease of the domaine by the ruine of Religious houses that charge hath been deducted the whole Revenues being allotted to them in both Islands for the support of their estate In Civill matters they are directed by the Bailiffs and the Jurates the Bailiffs and other the Kings Officers in Guernzey being appointed by the Governour those of Jarsey holding their places by Patent from the King The names of which Officers from the highest to the lowest behold here as in a Tablet according as they are called in each Island GUERNZEY The Governour the Earl of Danby The Lieutenant Nath. Darcell The Bailiffe Aymes de Carteret The Provost  The Kings Advocate Pet. Beauvoir The Comptroller De la Morsh The Receiver Carey JARSEY The Governour Sir John Peyton Sen. The Lieutenant Sir John Peyton Jun. The Bailiffe Sir Philip de Cartâ—râ—t The Vicompt Hampton Le Procureur Helier de Carteres The Advocate Messerney The Receiver Dissâ—â— By those men accompanied with the Justices or Jurates is his Majesty served and his Islande governed the places in each Island being of the same nature though somewhat different in name Of these in matters meerly Civill and appertaining unto publick justice the Bailiffe is the principall as being the chief Judge in all actions both criminall and reall In matter of life and death if they proceed to sentence of condemnation there is requisite a concurrence of seven Jurates together with the Bâ—iliffe under which number so concurring the Offender is acquited Nor can the Countrey finde one guilty not takeâ— as we call it in the matter except that 18 voices of 24 for of that number is their Grand Enquest agree together in the verdict Personall actions such as are Debt and Tâ—espasse may be determined by the Bailiffe and two only are sufficient but if a triall come in right of Land and of Inheritance there must be three at least and they decide it For the dispatch of these businesses they have their Termâ—â— about the same time as we in London their Writâ— of Arrest Appearance and the like directed to the Vicompt or Provest and for the tryall of their severall causes three severall Courts or Jurisdictions viz. the Court Criminall the Court of Chattel and the Court of Heritage If any finde himself agrieved with their proceedings his way is to appeal unto the Councell-Table Much like this forme of Government but of later stampe are those Courts in France which they call Les Seiges Presideaux instituted for the ease of the people by the former Kings in divers Cities of the Realme and since confirmed anno 1551 or thereabouts Wherein there is a Bailiffe attended by twelve Assistants for the most part two Lieutenants the one criminall and the other civill and other officers the office of the Bailiffe being to preserve the people from wrong to take notice of Treasons Robberies Murders unlawfull assemblies c. and the like In this order and by these men are all such affaires transacted which concern only private and particular persons but if a businesse arise which toucheth at the publick there is summoned by the Governour a Parliament or Convention of the three Estates For however Aristotle deny in the first of his Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a great houshold nothing differs from a little City yet certainly we may affirme that in the art of Government a little Empire doth nothing differ from a greater whereupon it is that even these little Islands in imitation of the greater Kingdomes have also their Conventus ordinum or assembly of the States viz. of the Governour as chief the Bailiffe and Jurates representing the nobility the Ministers for the Church and the severall Constables of each Parish for the Commons In this assembly generall as also in all private meetings the Governour takes precedence of the Bailiffe but in the Civill Courts and pleas of law the Bailiffe hath it of the Governour In this Assembly they rectifie such abuses as are grown among them appoint Deputies to solicite their affairs at Court resolve on publick contributions c. and among other things determine the election of the Justices For on the vacancy of any of those places there is notice given unto the people in their severall Parishes on the next Sunday after the morning exercise and there the people or the major part of them agree upon a man This nomination at the day appointed for the Assembly of the States is returned by the Constables of each Village out of whom so named the whole body chuseth him whom they think most serviceable for that Magistracy This done the new Jurate either then immediately or at the next sitting of the Justices shall be admitted to his place and office having first taken an Oath for the upright demeanour of himselfe in the discharge of his duty and the trust reposed in him The tenour of which Oath is as followeth YOU Mr. N. N. since it hath pleased God to call you lawfully to this charge shall swear and promise by the faith and troth which you owe to God well and truely to discharge the Office of a Jurate or Justiciar in the Court Royall of our Soveraigne Lord the King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. in this Isle of Jarsey whose Majesty next under God you acknowledge to be supreme Governour in all his Realmes Provinces and Dominions renouncing all strange and forain powers You shall defend the rights both of his Majesty and Subjects You shall uphold the
the affaires of the King This Court the main pillar of the Liberty of France La Tournelle and the Judges of it The five Chambers of Enquestes severally instituted and by whom In what cause it is decisive The forme of admitting Advocates into the Courts of Parliament The Chancellour of France and his Authority The two Courts of Requests and Masters of them The vain envy of the English Clergy against the Lawyers p. 104. CHAP. IX The Kings Palace of the Louure by whom built The unsutablenesse of it The fine Gallery of the Queen Mother The long Gallery of Henry IV. His magnanimous intent to have built it into a quadrangle Henry IV. a great builder His infinite project upon the Mediterranean and the Ocean La Salle des Antiques The French not studious of Antiquities Burbon house The Tuilleries c. p. 113. La BEAUSE OR THE THIRD BOOK CHAP. I. Our Journey towards Orleans the Town Castle and Battail of Mont l'hierrie Many things imputed to the English which they never did Lewis the 11. brought not the French Kings out of wardship The town of Chartroy and the mourning Church there The Countrey of La Beause and people of it Estampes The dancing there The new art of begging in the Innes of this Countrey Angerville Tury The sawciness of the French Fidlers Three kindes of Musick amongst the Antient. The French Musick p. 121. CHAP. II. The Country and site of Orleans like that of Worcester The Wine of Orleans Praesidial Towns in France what they are The sale of Offices in France The fine walk and pastime of the Palle Malle The Church of St. Croix founded by Superstition and a miracle Defaced by the Hugonots Some things hated only for their name The Bishop of Orleans and his priviledge The Chappell and Pilgrims of St. Jacques The form of Masse in St Croix Câ—nâ—ing an Heathenish custome The great siege of Orleans raised by Joan the Virgin The valour of that woman that she was no witch An Elogie on her p. 131. CHAP. III. The study of the Civill Law revived in Europe The dead time of learning The Schools of Law in Orleans The oeconomie of them The Chancellour of Oxford antiently appointed by the Diocesan Their methode here and prodigality in bestowing degrees Orleans a great conflux of strangers The language there The Corporation of Germans there Their house and priviledges Dutch and Latine The difference between an Academie and an University p. 145. CHAP. IV. Orleans not an University till the comming of the Jesuites Their Colledge there by whom built The Jesuites no singers Their laudable and exact method of teaching Their policies in it Received not without great difficulty into Paris Their houses in that university Their strictnesse unto the rules of their order Much maliced by the other Priests and Fryers Why not sent into England with the Queen and of what order they were that came with her Our return to Paris p. 152. PICARDIE OR THE FOURTH BOOK CHAP. I. Our return towards England More of the Hugonots hate unto Crosses The town of Luzarch and St. Loupae The Country of Picardie and people Tho Picts of Britain not of this Countrey Mr. Lee Dignicoes Governour of Picardie The office of Constable what it is in France By whom the place supplyed in England The marble table in France and causes there handled Clermount and the Castle there The war raised up by the Princes against D' Ancre What his designes might tend to c. p. 162. CHAP. II. The fair City of Amiens and greatnesse of it The English feasted within it and the error of that action the Town how built-seated and fortified The Citadell of it thought to be impregnable Not permitted to be viewed The overmuch opennesse of the English in discovering their strength The watch and form of Government in the Town Amiens a Visdamate to whom it pertaineth What that honour is in France And how many there enjoy it c. p. 169. CHAP. III. The Church of Nostre Dame in Amiens The principall Churches in most Cities called by her name More honour performed to her then to her Saviour The surpassing beauty of this Church on the outside The front of it King Henry the sevenths Chappel at Westminster The curiousnesse of this Church within By what means it became to be so The sumptuous masking closets in it The excellency of perspective works Indulgences by whom first founded The estate of the Bishoprick p. 175. CHAP. IV. Our Journey down the Some and Company The Town and Castle of Piquigni for what famous Comines censure of the English in matter of Prophecies A farewell to the Church of Amiens The Town and Castle of Pont D' Armie Abbeville how seated and the Garrison there No Governour in it but the Major or Provost The Authors imprudent curiosity and the curtesie of the Provost to him The French Post-horses how base and tyred My preferment to the Trunk-horse The horse of Philip de Comines The Town and strength of Monstreuille The importance of these three Towns to the French border c. p. 183. CHAP. V. The County of Boulonnois and Town of Boulogne by whom Enfranchized The present of Salt butter Boulogne divided into two Towns Procession in the lower Town to divert the Plague The forme of it Procession and the Letany by whom brought into the Church The high Town Garrisoned The old man of Boulogne and the desperate visit which the Author bestowed upon him The neglect of the English in leaving open the Havens The fraternity De la Charite and inconveniency of it The costly Journey of Henry VIII to Boulogne Sir Walt. Raleghs censure of that Prince condemned The discourtesie of Charles V. towards our Edward VI. The defence of the house of Burgundy how chargeable to the Kings of England Boulogne yeilded back to the French and on what conditions The curtesie and cunning of my Host of Bovillow p. 192. FRANCE GENERAL OR THE FIFTH BOOK Describing the Government of the Kingdom generally in reference to the Court the Church and the Civill State CHAP. I. A transition to the Government of France in generall The person age and marriage of King Lewis XIII Conjecturall reasons of his being issuelesse Iaqueline Countesse of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all marryed and his alliances by them His naturall Brethren and their preferments His lawfull Brother The title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Montpensiers daughter That Lady a fit wife for the Earl of Soissons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a child may be born in the 11 month King Henry IV. a great lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barradas the Kings favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinall of Richileiu The Queen Mother a wise
and prudent woman p. 204. CHAP. II. Two Religions strugling in France like the two twins in the womb of Rebecca The comparison between them two and those in the general A more particular survey of the Papists Church in France in Policie Priviledge and Revenue The complaint of the Clergy to the King The acknowledgment of the French Church to the Pope meerly titular The pragmatick sanction Maxima tua fatuitas and Conventui Tridentino severally written to the Pope and Trent Councell The tedious quarrell about Investitures Four things propounded by the Parliament to the Jesuites The French B shops not to medle with Fryers their lives and land The ignorance of the French Priests The Chanoins Latine in Orleans The French not hard to be converted if plausibly humoured p. 216. CHAP. III. The correspondency between the French King and the Pope This Pope an Omen of the Marriages of France with England An English Catholicks conceit of it His Holinesse Nuncio in Paris A learned Argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the allegory between Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly managed Their insolencies and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free estate The war not a war of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more then he did First for saken by their own party Their happinesse before the war The Court of the edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministers c. p. 229 CHAP. IV. The connexion between the Church and Common wealth in generall A transition to the particular of France The Government there meerly regall A mixt forme of Government most commendable The Kings Patents for Offices Monopolies above the censure of Parliament The strange office intended to Mr. Luynes The Kings gifts and expences The Chamber of Accounts France divided into three sorts of people The Conventus Ordinum nothing but a title The inequality of the Nobles and Commons in France The Kings power how much respected by the Princes The powerablenesse of that rank The formall execution done on them The multitude and confusion of Nobility King James defended A censure of the French Heralds The command of the French Nobles over their Tenants Their priviledges gibbets and other Regalia They conspire with the King to undoe the Commons p. 246. CHAP. V. The base and low estate of the French Paisant The misery of them under their Lord. The bed of Procrustes The suppressing of the Subject prejudiciall to a State The wisdome of Henry VII The Forces all in the Cavallerie The cruell impositions laid upon the people by the King No demain in France Why the tryall by twelve men can be used only in England The Gabell of Salt The Popes licence for wenching The Gabell of whom refused and why The Gascoines impatient of Taxes The taille and taillion The Pancarke or Aides The vain resistance of those of Paris The Court of Aides The manner of gathering the Kings moneys The Kings revenue The corruption of the French publicans King Lewis why called the just The monies currant in France The gold of Spain more Catholick then the King The happinesse of the English Subjects A congratulation unto England The conclusion of the first Journey p. 258. GUERNZEY and JARSEY OR THE SIXTH BOOK The Entrance 1 The occasion of c. 2 Introduction to this work 3 The Dedication 4 and Method of the whole The beginning continuance of our voyage with the most remarkable passages which happened in it The mercenary falsnesse of the Dutch exemplified in the dealing of a man of warre p. 179. CHAP. I. 1 Of the convenient situation and 2 condition of these Islands in the generall 3 Alderney and 4 Serke 5 The notable stratagem whereby this latter was recovered from the French 6 Of Guernzey 7 and the smaller Isles neer unto it 8 Our Lady of Lebu 9 The road and 10 the Castle of Cornet 11 The Trade and 12 Priviledges of this people 13 Of Jarsey and 14 the strengths about it 15 The Island why so poor and populous 16 Gavelkind and the nature of it 17 The Governours and other the Kings Officers The 18 Politie and 19 administration of justice in both Islands 20 The Assembly of the Three Estates 21 Courts Presidiall in France what they are 22 The election of the Justices 23 and the Oath taken at their admission 24 Of their Advocates or Pleaders and the number of them 25 The number of Atturneys once limited in England 26 A Catalogue of the Governours and Bailiffs of the Isle of Jarsey p. 292. CHAP. II. 1 The City and Diâ—cesse of Constance 2 The condition of these Islands under that Government 3 Churches appropriated what they were 4 The Black Book of Constance 5 That called Dooms day 6 The suppression of Priors Aliens 7 Priours Dative how they differed from the Conventuals 8 The condition of theâ—e Churches after the suppression 9 A Diagram of the Revenue then allotted to each severall Parish together with the Ministers and Justices now being 10 What is meant by Champarte desarts and French querrui 11 The alteration of Religion in these Islands 12 Persecution here in the days of Queen Mary The Authors indignation at it expressed in a Poeticall rapture 13 The Islands annexed for ever to the Diocese of Wâ—nton and for what reasons p. 313. CHAP. III. 1 The condition of Geneva under their Bishop 2 The alteration there both in Politie and 3 in Religion 4 The state of that Church before the coming of Calvin thither 5 The conception 6 birth and 7 growth of the New Discipline 8 The quality of Lay-elders 9 The different proceedings of Calvin 10 and Beza in the propagation of that cause 11 Both of them enemies to the Church of England 12 The first enrtance of this Platforme into the Islands 13 A permission of it by the Queen and the Councell in St. Peters and St. Hillaries 14 The letters of the Councell to that purpose 15 The tumults raised in England by the brethren 16 Snape and Cartwright establish the new Discipline in the rest of the Islands p. 327. CHAP. IV. The Discipline Ecclesiasticall according as it hath been in practise of the Church after the Reformation of the same by the Ministers Elders and Deacons of the Isles of Guernzey Jarsey Serke and Alderney confirmed by the authority and in the presence of the Governours of the same Isles in a Synod holden in Guernzey the 28 of June 1576. And afterwards revived by the said Ministers and Elders and confirmed by the said Governours in a Synod holden also in Guernzey the 11 12 13 14 15 and 17. days of October 1597. p. 338. CHAP. V. 1 Annotations on the Discipline 2 Nâ—place in it for the Kings Supremacy 3
Western Barges The principall means by which the people do subsist are the Court of the King most times held amongst them and the great resort of Advocates and Clients to the chambers of Parliament Without these two crutches the Town would get a vile halting and perhaps be scarce able to stand What the estate of some of their wealthyest Citizens may amount to I cannot say yet I dare conjecture it not to be superfluous The Author of the book entituled Les estat du monde reckoneth it for a great marvell that some of our London Merchants should be worth 100000 crownes we account that estate among us not to be so wonderfull and may thence safely conclude that they who make a prodigie of so little are not worth so much themselves If you believe their apparell we may perhaps be perswaded otherwise that questionlesse speaketh no lesse then millions though like it is that when they are in their best clothes they are in the midle of their estates But concerning the ridiculous bravery of the poor Parisian take along with you this story Upon our first coming into Paris there came to visit a German Lord whom we met a ship-bord a couple of French Gallants his acquaintance the one of them for I did not much observe the other had a suit of Turkie grogram doubled with Taffeta cut with long slashes or carbonado's after the French fashion and belaied with bugle lace Through the openings of his doublet appeared his shirt of the purest Holland and wrought with curious needle-work the points at his waste and knees all edged with a silver edging his garters roses and hat-band sutable to his points a beaver hat and a pair of silk stockins his cloke also of Turkey grogram cut upon black Taffeta This Lord for who would have dared to guesse him other applyed himself to me and perceiving my ignorance in the French accosted me in Latine which he spake indifferently well After some discourse he took notice of mine eyes which were then sore and sea-sick and promised me if I would call on him at his lodging the next morning to give me a water which suddenly would restore them to their strength and vigor I humbly thanked his Lordship for such an ineffable and immerited favour in the best complement and greatest obeisance I could devise It was not for nought thought I that our English extoll so muth the humanity of this people nay I began to accuse the report of envy as not having published the one half of their graces and affabilities Quantillum enim virtutum illarum acceperim And thus taking my leave of his Honor I greedily expected the next morning The morning come and the hour of visting his Lordship almost at hand I sent a servant to fetch a Barber to come trim me and make me neat as not knowing what occasion I might have of seeing his Lady or his daughters Upon the return of the messenger presengly followeth his Altitude and bidding me sit down in his chair he disburdened one of his pockets Quis hoc credat nisi sit proteste vetustas of a case of instruments and the other of a bundle of linnen Thus accommodated he falleth to work about me to the earning of a quardesou In my life I had never more adoe to hold in my laughter And certainly had not an anger or vexation at my own folly in casting away so much humble rhetorick the night before upon him somewhat troubled me I should either have laught him out of his fine suit or have broke my heart in the restraint Quid domini facient audent cum talia fures If a Barber may be thus taken in suspicion for a Lord no doubt but a Mercer may be accused for a Marquesse CHAP. V. Paris divided into four parts Of the Fauxbourgs in generall Of the Pest-house The Fauxbourg and Abby of St. Germain The Queen Mothers house there Her purpose never to reside in it The Provost of Merchants and his authority The Armes of the Town The Town-house The Grand Chastelet The Arcenall The place Royall c. The Vicounty of Paris And the Provosts seven daughters THey which write of Lusitania divide it into three parts viz. Ulteriorem lying beyond Dueras North Citeriorem lying from Tagus South and Interamnem situate betwixt both the rivers Paris is seated just as that Province and may in a manner admit of the same division for the River of Seine hath there so dispersed it self that it hath divided this French Metropolis into three parts also viz. Citeriorem lying on this side the river which they call La Ville the Town Ulteriorem lying beyond the further branch of it which they call L'Universitiè and Interammem situate between both the streams in a little Island which they call La Citè To these add the Suburbs or as they call them the Fauxbourgs and you have in all four parts of Paris These Fauxbourgs are not incorporated unto the Town or joyned together with it as the Suburbs of London are unto that City They stand severed from it a pretty distance and appear to be what indeed they are a distinct body from it For the most part the houses in them are old and ruinous yet the Fauxbourg of St. Iacques is in a prety good fashion and the least unsightly of them all except St. Germains The Fauxbourg also of St. Marcell hath somewhat to commend it which is that the great Pest-house built by Henry IV. is within the Precincts of it a house built quadrangular wise very large and capacious and seemeth to such as stand afar off it for it is not safe venturing nigh it or within to be more like the Palace of a King then the Kings Palace it self But the principallest of all the Suburbs is that of St. Germains a place lately repaired full of divers stately houses and in bignesse little inferior unto Oxford It took name from the Abbey of S◠Germain seated within it built by Childebert the son of Clouis anno 1542. in the honor of St. Vincent Afterwards it got the name of St. German a Bishop of Paris whose body was there buried and at whose instigation it had formerly been founded The number of the Monks was enlarged to the number of 120 by Charles the balde he began his reign anno 841 and so they continue till this day The present Abbot is Henry of Burbon Bishop of Metz base son unto Henry IV. He is by his place Lord of all this goodly Suburb hath power of levying Taxes upon his tenants and to him accrew all the profits of the great Fair holden here every February The principall house in it is that of the Queen Mother not yet fully built The Gallery of it which possesseth all the right side of the square is perfectly finished and said to be a most royall and majesticall peece The further part also opposite to the gate is finished so far forth as concerneth the outside and strength of
to redeem him To which he answered that we had carryed our selves like Gentlemen which gave him no distrust of a reall payment that he would take if we pleased a Bill of our hands for the money to be paid in Dover and desired that we would give him leave to send over a servant in our Boat with a basket of poultery who should receive the money of us and give back our Bond. This being agreed upon the next morning we took boat for England the Mariners knowing nothing else but that the servant went over only to sell his Poultery that being an opportunity frequently indulged by them unto those of the Town though we knew well enough he went on another errand and as we could not but commend my Host for his courtesie and his care taken of our credit so we had reason to esteem our selves in a kinde of custody in that he would not let us stir without a Keeper Nor did my Host lose any thing by his kindnesse to us For we not only paid him honestly all his full demands but bestowed a reward upon his servant and sent a present of Gloves and Knives commodities much prized in France to his Wife and Daughters that he might see we knew as well how to require as receive a curtesie Which said I must step back into France again that having taken a brief view already of the Principall Provinces I may render some accompt of the Government also in reference to the Courts the Church and the Civill State The End of the Fourth Book A SURVEY OF THE STATE of FRANCE FRANCE GENERAL OR THE FIFTH BOOK Describing the Government of the Kingdom generally in reference to the Court the Church and the Civill Sate CHAP. I. A transition to the Government of France in generall The person age and marriage of King Lewis XIII Conjecturall reasons of his being issuelesse â—aqueline Countesse of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His naturall Brethren and their preferments His lawfull brother The title of Monseiur in France Monseiur as yet unmarried not like to marry Montpensiers daughter That Lady a fit wife for the Earl of Soissons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a child may be born in the 11 moneth King Henry IV. a great lover of fair Ladies Monseiur Barradas the Kings favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinall of Richileiu The Queen mother a wise and prudent woman HAving thus taken a survey of these four Provinces which we may call the Abstract and Epitome of the Realm of France and having seen in them the temper humors and conditions of the people of it We will next take a generall view of the Governors and Government thereof with reference to the Court the Church and the Civill State First for the Court we must in reason in the first place begin with the person of the King without whose influence and presence the Court is but a dead â—arkasse void of life and Majesty For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned then large his face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is black and swarty his complexion also much of the same hew carrying in it a certain boisterousnesse and that in a farther measure then what a gracefull majesty can admit of so that one can hardly say of him without a spite of Courtship which Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionlesse his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged 24 years and as much as since the 27 day of last September which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plaufible want of beard and the swarthinesse of his complexion making him seem older At the age of 11 years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yec he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principall cause of the Queens barrennesse proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the eldest Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh Article of the marriage there is a clause that neither the said Infanta nor the children born by her to the King shall be capable to inherit any of the Estates of the King of Spain And in the eight Article she is bound to make an Act of Renunciation under her own hand-writing as soon as she cometh to be 12 years old which was accordingly performed But this being not sufficient to secure their fears it is thought that she was some way or other disabled from conception before ever she came into the Kings imbraces A great crime I confesse if true yet I cannot say with Tully in his defence of Ligarius Novum Crimen Caje Caear ante hoc tempus inauditum Iaqueline Countesse of Holland was Cousen to Philip Duke of Burgundy her fruitfulnesse would have debarred him from those Estates of Holland Zâ—aland and West Friezland therefore though she had three husbands there was order taken she should never have child with her first two husbands the Duke would never suffer her to live and when she had stolen a wedding with Frane of Borselle one of her servants the Dukes Physitians gave him such a potion that she might have as well marryed an Euâ—uch upon this injury the poor Lady dyed and the Duke succeeded in those Countries which by his Grand-childe Mary were conveyed over into the house of Austria together with the rest of his estates I dare not say that that Family hath inherited his practises with his Lands and yet I have heard that the Infanta Isabella had the like or worse measure afforded her before she was bedded by the Arch Duke Albertus A Diabolicall trick which the prostitutes of the Heathen used in the beginning of the Gospell and before of whom Octavius complaineth Quod originem futuri hominis extinguant paricidium faciunt antequam pariunt Better luck then the King hath his Sister beyond the Mountains I mean his eldest Sister Madam Elizabeth marryed to the King of Spain now living as being or having been the mother of two children His second Sister Madam Christian is marryed unto Amadeo Victor principe major or heir apparent to the Duke of Savoy to whom as yet she hath born no issue The youngest Madam Henrietta Maria is newly marryed to his most Excellent Majesty of England to whom may she prove of a most happy and fruitfull womb Et pulcrâ— faciat te prole parentem
the Kingdom Thus live the French Princes thus the Nobles Those sheep which God and the Lawes hath brought under them they do not sheer but fleece and which is worse then this having themselves taken away the Wooll they give up the naked carkasse to the King Tondi oves meas volo non deglubi was accounted one of the golden sayings of Tiberius but it is not currant here in France Here the Lords and the King though otherwise at oddes amongst themselves will be sure to agree in this the undoing and oppressing of the poor Paisant Ephraim against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim but both against Judah saith the Scripture The reason why they thus desire the poverty of the Commons is as they pretend the safety of the State and their owne particulars Were the people once warmed with the feeling of ease and their own riches they would presently be hearkning after the warres and if no imployment were proffered abroad they would make some at home Histories and experience hath taught us enough of their humour in this kind it being impossible for this hot-headed and hare-brained people not to be doing Si extraneus deest domi hostem quaerunt as Justin hath observed of the Ancient Spaniards a prety quality and for which they have often smarted CHAP. V. The base and low estate of the French Paisant The misery of them under their Lord. The bed of Procrustes The suppressing of the Subject prejudiciall to a State The wisdome of Henry VII The French forces all in the Cavallerie The cruell impositions laid upon the people by the King No Demaine in France Why the tryall by twelve men can be used only in England The Gabell of Salt The Popes licence for wenching The Gabell of whom refused and why The Gascoines impatient of Taxes The taille and taillion The Pancarke or Aides The vain resistance of those of Paris The Court of Aides The manner of gathering the Kings moneys The Kings revenue The corruption of the French publicans King Lewis why called the just The monies currant in France The gold of Spain more Catholick then the King The happinesse of the English Subjects A congratulation unto England The conclusion of the first Journey BY that which hath been spoken already of the Nobles we may partly guesse at the poor estate of the Paisant or Countreymen of whom we will not now speak as subjects to their Lords and how far they are under their commandment but how miserable and wretched they are in their Apparell and their Houses For their Apparell it is well they can allow themselves Canvasse or an outside of that nature As for Cloth it is above their purse equally and their ambition if they can aspire unto Fustian they are as happy as their wishes and he that is so arrayed will not spare to aime at the best place in the Parish even unto that of the Church-warden When they go to plough or to the Church they have shooes and stockins at other times they make bold with nature and wear their skins Hâ—ts they will not want though their bellies pinch for it and that you may be sure they have them they will alwayes keep them on their heads the most impudent custome of a beggerly fortune that ever I met with and which already hath had my blessing As for the women they know in what degree nature hath created them and therefore dare not be so fine as their Husbands some of them never had above one pair of stockins in all their lives which they wear every day for indeed they are very durable The goodnesse of their faces tell us that they have no need of a band therefore they use none And as concerning Petticoats so it is that all of them have such a garment but most of them so short that you would imagine them to be cut off at the placket When the Parents have sufficiently worn these vestures and that commonly is till the rottennesse of them will save the labour of undressing they are a new-cut-out and fitted to the children Search into their houses and you shall finde them very wretched destitute as well of furniture as provision No Butter salted up against Winter no powdring tub no Pullein in the Rick-barten no flesh in the pot or at the spit and which is worst no money to buy them The description of the poor aged couple Phileman and Bauciâ— in the eight book of the Metamorphosis is a perfect character of the French Paisant in his house-keeping though I cannot affirme that if Jupiter and Mercury did come amongst them they should have so hearty an entertainment for thus Ovid marshalleth the dishes Ponitur hic bicolor sincerae bacca Minerva Intybaque radix lactis massa coacti Ovaque non acri leviter versata favilla Prunaque in patulis redolentia mala canistris Hic nux hic mixta est rugosis caricapalmis Et de purpureis collectae vitibus uvae Omnia fictilibus nitide But you must not look for this cheer often At Wakes or Feasts dayes you may perchance be so happy as to see this plenty but at other times Olus omne patella the best provision they can shew you is a piece of Bacon wherewith they fatten their pottage and now and then the inwards of Beastâ— killed for the Gentlemen But of all miseries this me thinketh is the greatest that sowing so many acres of excellent wheat in an year and gathering in such a plentifull Vintage as they do they should not yet be so fortunate as to eat white bread or drink wine for such infinite rents do they pay to their Lords and such innumerable taxes to the King that the profits arising out of those commodities are only sufficient to pay their duties and keep them from the extremities of cold and famine The bread then which they eat is of the coursest flowre and so black that it cannot admit the name of brown And as for their drink they have recourse to the next Fountain A people of any the most unfortunate not permitted to enjoy the fruit of their labours and such as above all others are subject to that Sarcasme in the Gospell This man planted a Vineyard and doth not drink of the fruit thereof Nec prosunt domino quae prosunt omnibus artes Yet were their case not altogether so deplorable if there were but hopes left to them of a better if they could but compasse certainty that a painfull drudging and a thrifty saving would one day bring them out of this hell of bondage In this questionlesse they are intirely miserable in that they are sensible of the wretchednesse of their present fortunes and dare not labour nor expect an alteration If industry and a sparing hand hath raised any of this afflicted people so high that he is but 40 s or 5 l. richer then his neighbour his Lord immediately enhaunceth his Rents and enformeth the Kings task-masters of his riches by which
crest-faln and at once lost both their spirits and their liberty The present Norman then is but the corruption of the Antient the heir of his name and perhaps his possessions but neither of his strength nor his manhood Bondage and a fruitfull soil hath so emasculated them that it is a lost labour to look for Normans even in Normandy There remaineth nothing almost in them of their progenitours but the remainders of two qualities and those also degenerated if not bastards a penurious pride and an ungoverned doggednesse Neither of them become their fortune or their habite yet to these they are constant Finally view him in his rags and dejected countenance and you would swear it impossible that these snakes should be the descendents of those brave Heroes which so often triumphed over both Religions foiling the Saracens and vanquishing the Christians But perchance their courage is evaporated into wit and then the change is made for the better Ortelius would seem to perswade us to this conceit of them and well might he do it if his words were Oracles Le gens saith he speaking of this Nation sont des plus accorts subtils d' esprit de la Gaule A character for which the French will little thank him who if he speak truth must in matter of discretion give precedency to their Vassals But as Imbalt a French leader said of the Florentines in the fifth book of Guicciardine Non sapeva dove consistesse lingegne tanto celebrate de Fiorentini so may I of the Normans For my part I could never yet find where that great wit of theirs lay Certain it is that as the French in generall are termed the Kings Asses so may these men peculiarly be called the Asses of the French or the veriest Asses of the rest For what with the unproportionable rents they pay to their Lords on the one side and the immeasurable taxes laid upon them by the King on the other they are kept in such a perpetuated course of drudgery that there is no place for wit or wisdome left amongst them Liberty is the Mother and the Nurse of those two qualities and therefore the Romans not unhappily expressed both the conditions of a Freeman and a discreet and modest personage by this own word Ingenuus Why the French King should lay a greater burden on the backs of this Nation then their fellowes I cannot determine Perhaps it is because they have been twice conquered by them once from King John and again from Henry VI. and therefore undergo a double servitude It may be to abate their naturall pride and stubbornnesse Likely also it is that being a revolting people and apt to an apostasie from their allegiance they may by this meanes be kept impoverished and by consequence disabled from such practises This a French Gentleman of good understanding told me that it was generally conceited in France that the Normans would suddenly and unanimously betray their Countrey to the English were the King a Catholick But there is yet a further cause of their beggerlinesse and poverty which is their litigiousnesse and frequent going to law as we call it Ortelius however he failed in the first part of their character in the conclusion of it hath done them justice Mais en generall saith he ils sont scavans au possible en proces plaideries They are prety well versed in the quirks of the Law and have wit more then enough to wrangle In this they agree exactly well with the Inhabitants of our Country of Norfolk ex infima plebe non pauci reperiuntur saith Mr. Camden quin si nihil litium sit lites tamen ex ipsis juris apicibus serere calleant They are prety fellowes to finde out quirks in Law and to it they will whatsoever it cost them Mr. Camden spake not this at randome or by the guesse For besides what my self observed in them at my being once amongst them in a Colledge progresse I have heard that there have been no lesse then 340 Nisi prius tryed there at one Assizes The reason of this likenesse between the two Nations I conjecture to be the resemblance of the site and soil both lie upon the Sea with a long and a spacious Coast both enjoy a Countrey Champain little swelled with hils and for the most part of a light and sandy mould To proceed to no more particulars if there be any difference between the two Provinces it is only this that the Countrey of Normandy and the people of Norfolk are somewhat the richer For indeed the Countrey of Normandie is enriched with a fat and liking soil such an one Quae demum votis avari agricolae respondet which may satisfie the expectation of the Husbandman were it never so exorbitant In my life I never saw Corn-fields more large and lovely extended in an equall levell almost as far as eye can reach The Wheat for I saw little Barley of a fair length in the stalke and so heavy in the ear that it is even bended double You would think the grain had a desire to kisse the earth its mother or that it purposed by making it self away into the ground to save the Plough-man his next years labour Thick it groweth and so perfectly void of weeds that no garden can be imagined to be kept cleaner by Art then these fields are by Nature Pasture ground it hath little and lesse Meddow yet sufficient to nourish those few Cattel they have in it In all the way between Dieppe and Pontoyse I saw but two flocks of Sheep and them not above 40 in a flock Kine they have in some measure but not fat nor large without these there were no living for them The Nobles eat the flesh whilst the Farmer seeds on Butter and Cheese and that but sparingly But the miserable estates of the Norman paisant we will defer till another opportunity Swine also they have in prety number and some Pullen in their back sides but of neither an excesse The principall River of it is Seine of which more hereafter and besides this I saw two rivulets Robee and Renelle In matter of Civill Government this Countrey is directed by the court of Parliament established at Roven For matters Military it hath an Officer like the Lieutenant of our shires in England the Governor they call him The present Governor is Mr. Le duc de Longueville to whom the charge of this Province was committed by the present King Lewis XIII anno 1619. The Lawes by which they are governed are the Civill or Imperiall augmented by some Customes of the French and others more particular which are the Norman One of the principal'st is in matters of inheritance the French custome giving to all the Sons an equality in the estate which we in England call Gavelkind the Norman dividing the estate into three parts and thereof allotting two unto the eldest brother and a third to be divided among the others A law which the French count not just
other would have sent them laughing to Pluto The French language is indeed very sweet and delectable It is cleared of harshnesse by the cutting off and leaving out the consonants which maketh it fall off the tongue very volubly yet in my opinion it is rather elegant then copious and therefore is much troubled for want of words to find out periphrases It expresseth very much of it self in the action The head body and shoulders concurre all in the pronouncing of it and he that hopeth to speak it with a good grace must have somewhat in him of the Mimick It is inriched with a full number of significant Proverbs which is a great help to the French humor of scoffing and very full of courtship which maketh all the people complementall The poorest Cobler in the Village hath his Court-cringes and his eau beniste de Cour his court holy water as perfectly as the Prince of Conde In the Passados of their court-ship they expresse themselves with much variety of gesture and indeed it doth not misbecome them Were it as graticus in the Gentlemen of other Nations as in them it were worth your patience but the affectation of it is scurvy and ridiculous Quocunque salutationis artificio corpus inflectant putes nihil ista institutione magis convenire Vicinae autem gentes ridiculo errore deceptae ejusdem venustatis imitationem ludicram faciunt ingratam as one happily observed at his being amongst them I have heard of a young Gallant son to a great Lord of one of the three Brittish Kingdoms that spent some years in France to learn fashions At his return he desired to see the King and his father procured him an entervenie When he came within the Presence-chamber he began to compose his head and carry it as if he had been ridden with a Martingall next he fell to draw back his legs and thrust out his shoulders and that with such a gracelesse apishnesse that the King asked him if he meant to shoulder him out of his chair and so left him to act out his complement to the hangings In their courtship they bestow even the highest titles upon those of the lowest condition This is the vice also of their common talk The begger begetteth Monsieurs and Madams to his sons and daughters as familiarly as the King Were there no other reason to perswade me that the Welch or Britains were the descendants of the Gaules this only were sufficient that they would all be Gentlemen His discourse runneth commonly upon two wheels treason and ribaldrie I never heard people talke lesse reverently of their Prince nor more sawcily of his actions Scarce a day passeth away without some seditious Pamphlet printed and published in the disgrace of the King or of some of his Courtiers These are every mans mony he that buyeth them is not coy of the Contents be they never so scandalous of all humors the most base and odious Take him from this which you can hardly do till he hath told all and then he falleth upon his ribaldry Without these crutches his discourse would never be able to keep pace with his company Thus shall you have them relate the stories of their own uncleannesse with a face as confident as if they had no accidents to please their hearers more commendable Thus will they reckon up the severall profanations of pleasure by which they have dismanned themselves sometimes not sparing to descend to particulars A valiant Captain never gloried more in the number of the Cities he had taken then they do of the severall women they have prostituted Egregiam vero laudem spolia ampla Foolish and most perishing wretches by whom each severall incontinencie is twice committed first in the act and secondly in the boast By themselves they measure others and think them naturals or Simplicians which are not so conditioned I protest I was fain sometimes to put on a little impudence that I might avoid the suspicion of a gelding or a sheep-biter It was St. Austins case as himself testifyeth in the second book of his Confessions Fingebam me saith that good Father fecisse quod non feceram ne caeteris viderer abjectior But he afterwards was sorry for it and so am I and yet indeed there was no other way to keep in a good opinion that unmanly and ungoverned people CHAP. II. The French Women their persons prating and conditions The immodesty of the French Ladies Kissing not in use among them and the sinister opinion conceived of the free use of it in England The innocence and harmelesnesse of it amongst us The impostures of French Pandars in London with the scandall thence arising The peccancie of an old English Doctor More of the French Women Their Marriages and lives after wedlock c. An Elogie to the English Ladies I Am come to the French Women and it were great pity they should not immediately follow the discourse of the men so like they are one to the other that one would think them to be the same and that all the difference lay in the apparell For person they are generally of an indifferent stature their bodies straight and their wastes commonly small but whether it be so by nature or by much restraining of these parts I cannot say It is said that an absolute woman should have amongst other qualities requisite the parts of a French woman from the neck to the girdle but I believe it holdeth not good their shoulders and backs being so broad that they hold no proportion with their midles yet this may be the vice of their apparell Their hands are in mine opinion the comliest and best ordered part about them long white and slender Were their faces answerable even an English eye would apprehend them lovely but herein do I finde a pretty contradictorie The hand as it is the best ornament of the whole structure so doth it most disgrace it Whether it be that ill diet be the cause of it or that hot bloud wrought upon by a hot and scalding aire must of necessity by such means vent it self I am not sure of This I am sure of that scarce the tithe of all the maids we saw had her hands and arme wrists free from scabs which had over-run them like a leprosie Their hair is generally black and indeed somewhat blacker then a gracious lovelinesse would admit The Poets commend Leda for her black hair and not unworthily Leda fuit nigris conspicienda comis As Ovid hath it Yet was that blacknesse but a darker brown and not so fâ—â—â—full as this of the French women Again the blacknesse of the hair is then accounted for an ornament when the face about which it hangeth is of so perfect a complexion and symmetrie that it giveth it a lustre Then doth the hair set forth the face as a shadow doth a picture and the face becometh the haire as a field-argent doth a sable-bearing which kind of Armory the Heralds call the most
do but exasperate that power which they cannot controul and betray themselves to much envie and discontentednesse a disease whose cure is more in my wishes then my hopes CHAP. IX The Kings Palace of the Louure by whom built The unsutablenesse of it The fine Gallery of the Queen Mother The long Gallery of Henry IV. His magnanimous intent to have built it into a quadrangle Henry IV. a great builder His infinite project upon the Mediterranean and the Ocean La Salle des Antiques The French not studious of Antiquities Burbon house The Tuilleries c. WE have discharged the King of one Palace and must follow him to the other where we shall finde his residence It is seated at the West side of the Town or Ville of Paris hard by Portenufue and also by the new bridge A house of great fame and which the Kings of France have long kept their Court in It was first built by Philip Augustus anno 1214. and by him intended for a Castle it first serving to imprison the more potent of the Nobles and to lay up the Kings treasury For that cause it was well moated strengthned with wals and drawbridges very serviceable in those times It had the name of Louure quasi L'oeuure or the work the building by way of excellency An etymologie which draweth nigher to the ear then the understanding or the eye and yet the French writers would make it a miracle Du Chesne calleth it Superbe bastiment qui n'a son esgal en toute la Christientè and you shall hear it called in an other place Bestiment qui passe aujourd hui en excellence et en grandeur tous les autres Brave elogies if all were gold that glistered It hath now given up its charge of money and great prisoners to the Bastile and at this time serveth only to imprison the Court. In my life I never saw any thing more abused by a good report or that more belyeth the rumors that go of it The ordinary talk of vulgar travellers and the big words of the French had made me expect at the least some prodigie of architecture some such Majesticall house as the Sunne Don Phoebus is said to have dwelt in in Ovid. Regia Solis erat sublimibus alta columnis Claramicante auro flamasquè imitante pyropo Cujus ebur nitidum c. Indeed I thought no fiction in Poetry had been able to have paralleld it and made no doubt but it would have put me into such a passion as to have cryed out with the young Gallant in the Comedy when he had seen his sweet-heart Hei mihi qualis erat talis erat qualem nunquam vidi But I was much deceived in that hope and could finde nothing in it to admire much lesse to envie The Fable of the Mountaine which was with childe and brought forth a mouse is questionlesse a fable this house and the large fame it hath in the world is the morall of it Never was there an house more unsutable to it self in the particular examination of parts nor more unsutable to the character and esteem of it in the generall Survey of the whole You enter into it over two draw bridges and through three gates ruinous enough and abundantly unsightly In the Quadrangle you meet with three severall fashions of building of three severall ages and they so unhappily joyned one to the other that one would half believe they had been clapped together by an earthquake The South and West parts of it are new and indeed Princelike being the work of Francis the first and his son Henry Had it been all cast into the same mould I perswade my self that it would be very gracious and lovely The other two are of an ancient work and so contemprible that they disgrace the rest and of these I suppose the one fide to be at the least 100 years older then his partner such is it without As for the inside it is far more gracefull and would be pleasing at the entrance were the Guard-chamber reformed Some Hugonot architect which were not in love with the errours of Antiquity might make a pretty room of it a catholick Carpenter would never get credit by it for whereas the provident thrift of our forefathers intended it for the house would else be too narrow for the Kings retinue both for a room of safety and of pleasure both for bill-men and dancers and for that cause made up some six ranks of seats on each side that sparingnesse in the more curious eyes of this time is little Kinglike Countrey wenches might with indifferent stomach abuse a good Galliard in it or it might perhaps serve with a stage at one end to entertain the Parisians at a play or with a partition in the middle it might be divided into two prety plausible Cockpits but to be employed in the nature it now is either to solace the King and Lords in a dance or to give any forain Ambassador his welcome in a Maske is little sutable with the Majesty of a King of France The Chambers of it are well built but ill furnished the hangings of them being somewhat below a meannesse and yet of these there is no small scarcity For as it is said of the Gymnosophists of India that Una Domus mansioni sufficit sepulturae so may we of this Prince the same Chamber serveth for to lodge him to feed him and also to confer and discourse with his Nobility But like enough it is that this want may proceed from the severall Courts of the King the Monsieur the Queen Mother and the Qeen Regoant being all kept within it Proceed we now to the two Galleries whereof the first is that of the Queen Mother as being beautified and adorned exceedingly by Katbarine de Medices mother to Henry III. and Charles IX It containeth the pictures of all the Kings of France and the most loved of their Queens since the time of St. Lewis They stand each King opposite to his Queen she being that of his wives which either brought him most estate or his fuccessors The tables are all of a just length very fair and according to my little acquaintance with the Painter of a most excellent workmanship and which addeth much grace to it they are in a manner a perfect History of the State and Court of France in their severall times For under each of the Kings pictures they have drawn the portraitures of most of those Lords whom valor and courage in the field enobled beyond their births Under each of the Queens the lively shapes of the most principall Ladies whose beautie and virtue had honored the Court. A dainty invention and happily expressed At the further end of it standeth the last King and the present Queen Mother who fill up the whole room The succeeding Princes if they mean to live in their pictures must either build new places for them or else make use of the long Gallery built by Henry IV.
eight Sols daily The Governor of them is the Duke of Chaune who is also the Lieutenant or Deputy Governour of the whole Province under the Constable their Captain Mr. Le Noyre said to be a man of good experience and worthy his place This Citadel was built by Henry 4. as soon as he had recovered the Town from the Spaniards anno 1597. It is seated on the lower part of the City though somewhat on the advantage of an hill and seemeth in mine opinion better situate to command the Town then to defend it or rather to recover the Town being taken then to save it from taking They who have seen it and know the arts of fortification report it to be impregnable Quod nec Joâ—is ira nec ignâ—s Nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas Nor am I able to contradict it For besides that it is a skill beyond my profession we were not permitted to come within it or to take a survey of it but at a distance As soon as we approached high unto it one of the Garrison proffes'd us the Musket a sufficient warning not to be too venturous So that all which I could observe was this that they had within themselves good plenty of earth to make their Gabions and repair their breaches With the same jealousie also are the rest of the Forts and Towns of importance guarded in this and other Countreys no people that ever I heard being so open in shewing their places of strength and safety unto strangers as the English For a dozen of Ale a foreiner may pace over the curtain of Portsmouth and measure every stone and bulwark of it For a shilling more he shall see their provision of powder and other munition And when that is done if he will he shall walk the round too A French crown sathometh the wals of Dover Castle and for a pinte of wine one may see the nakednesse of the blockhouses at Gravesend A negligence which may one day cost us dearly though we now think it not For what else do we in it but commit that prodigall folly for which Pltarch condemned Pericles that is to break open all the palâ—s and inclosures of our land to the end that every man might come in freely and take away our fruit at his pleasure Jealousie though a vice in a man towards his wife is yet one of the safest vertues in a Governor towards his fortresse and therefore I could wish that an English man would in this particular borrow a little of the Italian Besides these souldiers which are continually in garrison for the defence of the Citadell there are also 300 which keep watch every night for the defence of the City The watchmen receive no pay of the King but discharge that duty amongst themselves and in turns every house finding one for that service twelve nights in the year The weapons which they use are pikes only and muskets there being not one piece of Ordinance all about the Town or on the wals of it The Governor of this Town as it hath reference to the King is a Bailly who hath belonging to him all the authority which belongeth to a siege Presâ—dial Under him he hath a Lieutenant generall and particular seven Counsellors a publick Notary and other inferior Officers and Magistrates As it is a Corporation the chief Governor of it is a Maior and next to him the Eâ—sohevins or Sheriffs as protectors of the inhabitants and their liberties besides those of the Common-councell Another circumstance there is which 〈◊〉 this Town of Amiens which is that it is a Visdamate or that it giveth honour to one of the Nobility who is called the Visdame of Amiens This title at this time belongeth to the Duke of Chaune Governor of the Ciâ—adell together with the Lordship of Piquigni both which he obtained by marrying the daughter and heir of the last Visdame of Amiens and Lord of Piquigni anno 1619. A marriage which much advanced his fortunes and which was compassed for him by the Constable Luynes his brother who also obtained for him of the King the title of Duke his highest attribute before being that of Mr. de Cadinet by which name he was known here in England at such time when he was sent extraordinary Embassador to King James This honour of Visdame is for ought I could ever see used only in France True it is that in some old English Charters we meet with this title of Vice-dominus As in the Charter of King Edred to the Abbey of Crowland in Lincolnshire dated in the year 948. there is there subscribed Ego Ingulph Vice-dominus but with us and at those times this title was only used to denote a subordination to some superior Lord and not as an honorary attribute in which sense it is now used in France Besides that with us it was frequently though falsly used for Vice comes Between which two offices of a Vicount and a Visdame there are found no small resemblances For as they which did gerere vicem Comitis were called Vicecomites or Vicounts so were they also called Vidames or Vicedomini qui domini episcopi vicem gerebant in temporalibus And as Vicounts from officers of the Earls became honorary so did the Vidames disclaim their relation to the Bishop and became Signieural or honorary also The Vidames then according to their first institution were the substitutes of the greater Bishops in matter of secular administration for which cause though they have altered their tenure they take all of them their denomination from the chieftown of some Bishoprick Neither is there any of them who holdeth not of some Bishoprick or other Concerning the number of them that are thus dignified I cannot determine Mr. Glover otherwise alled Somerset Herald in his Discourse of Nobility published by Mr. Milles of Canterbury putteth it down for absolute that here are four only viz. of Amiens of Chartres of Chalons and of Gerberey in Beauvais but in this he hath deceived both himself and his readers there being besides those divers others as of Rheimes Mans and the like But the particular and exact number of them together with the place denominating I leave to the French Heralds unto whose profession it principally belongeth CHAP. III. The Church of Nostre Dame in Amiens The principal Churches in most Cities called by her name More honour performed to her then to her Saviour The surpassing beauty of this Church on the cut-side The front of it King Henry the sevenths Chappel at Westminster The curiousnesse of this Church within By what means it became to be so The sumptuous masking closets in it The excellency of perspective works Indulgences by whom first founded The estate of the Bishoprick THere is yet one thing which addeth more lustre to the City of Amiens then either the Vidamate or the Citadel which is the Church of Nostre Dame A name by which most of the principal Churches are known in France There have
is no question a very gracious Landladie For when King Lewis XI after the decease of Charles of Burgundy had taken in Boulogne anno 1477. as new Lord of the Town thus John de Serres relateth it he did homage without Sword or Spurs bare-headed and on his knee before the Virgin Mary offering unto her Image an heart of massie gold weighing 2000 crowns He added also this that he and his successors Kings after him should hold the County of Boulogne of the said Virgin and do homage unto her image in the great Church of the higher Town dedicated to her name paying at every change of a Vassall an heart of pure gold of the same weight Since that time the Boulonnois being the Tenants of our Lady have enjoyed a perpetuall exemption from many of those Tributes and Taxes under which the rest of France is miserably afflicted Amongst others they have been alwayes freed from the Gabell of Salt by reason whereof and by the goodnesse of their Pastures they have there the best butter in all the Kingdome I said partly by reason of their salt because having it at a low rate they do liberally season all their Butter with it whereas they which buy their Salt at the Kings price cannot afford it any of that deer commodity upon this ground it is the custome of these of Boulonnois to send unto their friends of France and Paris a barrell of Butter seasoned according to their fashion a present no lesse ordinary and acceptable then Turkies Capons and the like are from our Countrey Gentlemen to those of London As for the Town of Boulogne it is divided into two parts La haute Ville and La basse Ville or the high Town and the low Town distant one from the other above an hundred paces and upwards The high Town is seated upon the top of an hill the low Town upon the declivity of it and towards the Haven Or else we may divide it into other parts viz. the Town and the City the Town that towards the water and the City that which lyeth above it It was made a City in the reign of Henry II. anno 1553. at which time the City of Terovenne was totally ruined by the Imperials and the Bishops seat was removed hither the Church of Nostre Dame being made the Cathedrall There came along hither upon the remove of the Bishop 20 Canons which number is here still retained their revenue being about 1000 Livres yearly As for the present Bishop his name is Pierre d' Armè his intrado 2000 Livres his Metropolitan he of Rhemes The Town or as they call it the low Town is bigger then the City and better built the streets larger and the people richer most of the Merchants living in it because it lyeth upon the Haven But that which made this low Town most pleasing to me was a solemn procession that passed through the streets of it intending to pacifie Gods anger and divert the plague which at that time was in the City In the first front there was carried the Crosse and after that the holy or sanctified Banner next unto it followed all the Priests of the Town bare-headed and in their Surplices singing as they went the Services destinate to that occasion After them followed the men and next to them the women of the Town by two and two it being so ordered by the Roman Rituall U◠laici a clericis foeminae a viris prosequantur se paratae On the other side of the street went the Brethren De la Charitè every one of them holding in his hand a little triangular Banner or a Pennon after them the boyes and wenches In this method did they measure solemnly every lane and angle of the Town the Priests singing and ill the people answering them in the same note At the Church they began it with prayers and having visited all the Town they returned again thither to end it with the same devotion An action very grave and solemn and such as I could well allow of were it not only for one prayer which is alwayes said at the time of this performance and the addition of the Banners The Prayer is this Exaudi nos Deus salutaris noster intercedente beata gloriosa Viigine beato Sebastiano Martyre tuo this Sebastian is their Aesculapius or tutelary Saint against the Sicknesse omnibus Sanctis populum tuum ab iracundiae tuae terroribus libera misericordiae tuae fac largitate securum Amen This only excepted there is nothing in all the liturgie of it which can be offensive to any conscience not idlely scrupulous These Processions were first instituted by Pope Stephanus II. who began his Popedome anno 752. the intent of them as Platina reporteth it Ad placandam Dei iram The first place that ever they went to in procession was the Church of our Lady in the Shambles or Ad sanctam Dei genitricem ad praesepe as the Historiian calleth them As for the Letany which is a principall part of it it was first compiled by Mamercus Bishop of Vienna in Daulphine in the time of Pope Leo the first which was 308 years before the time of Stephanus The motive of it was the often danger to which France was subject by reason of the frequency of Earth-quakes Since those beginnings which were fair and commendable the Romish Church hath added much to them of magnificence and somewhat of impiety and prosanenesse As for the Brethren De la Charitè I could not learn any thing of their originall but much of their Office for they are bound to visit all such as are infected with the Plague to minister unto them all things necessary and if they die to shrowde them and carry them to their graves These duties they performe very willingly as being possessed with this fancie that they are priviledged from contagion by virtue of their Order And to say the truth they are most of them old and so lesse subject to it and indeed such saplesse thin unbodied fellowes that one would think almost no disease could catch them Yet hath their prerogative not always held to them of 33 of them in Calice three only surviving the disease about four yeers since But were the danger to which themselves are liable all the inconveniency of it I should not much disallow it There is a greater mischief waiteth upon it and that is the infecting of others they immediately after their return from the Pest house mixing themselves with any of their neighbours A most speedy means to spread the Pestilence where it is once begun though neither they nor the people will be perswaded to it The City or the high Town standeth as we have said on the top of the hill environed with deep ditches a strong wall and closed with a treble gate and two draw-bridges A little small Town it is not much above a flights shot thwart where it is widest and hath in it but one Church
of Nevers by whom he had no children To his second wife he took the Lady Katherine of Tremoville sister to the Duke of Thovars anno 1586. Two years after his marriage he dyed of an old grief took from a poisoned cup which was given him anno 1552. and partly with a blow given him with a Lance at the battail of Contras anno 1587. In the 11 moneth after his decease his young Princesse was brought to bed with a young Son which is the now Prince of Conde Charles Count of Soissons in the reign of Henry IV. began to question the Princes Legitimation whereupon the King dealt with the Parliament of Paris to declare the place of the first Prince of the Bloud to belong to the Prince of Conde And for the clearer and more evident proof of the title 24 Physitians of good faith and skill made an open protestation upon oath in the Court that it was not only possible but common for women to be delivered in the 11 moneth On this it was awarded to the Prince This Decree of Parliament notwithstanding if ever the King and his Brother should die issuelesse it is said that the young Count of Soissons his father died anno 1614 will not so give over his title He is Steward of the Kings house as his Father also was before a place of good credit and in which he hath demeaned himself very plausibly In case it should come to a tryall quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God prohibit he is like to make a great party both within the Realm and without it Without it by means of the house of Savoy having matched his eldest Sister unto Don Thomazâ— the second son of that Dukedome now living a brave man of armes and indeed the fairest fruit that ever grew on that tree next heir of his father after the death of Don i Amadeo yet childlesse Within the Realm the Lords have already declared themselves which hapned on this occasion In the year 1620 the month of March the King being to wash the Prince of Conde laid hold of the towell challenging that honour as first Prince of the bloud and on the other side the Count of Soissons seized on it as appertaining to his office of See ward and Prince of the bloud also The King to decide the controversie for the present commanded it to be given Monseiur his Brother yet did not this satisfie for on the morning the friends of both Princes came to offer their service in the cause To the Count came in generall all the opposites of the Prince of Conde and of the Duke of Luynes and Guâ—â—â— in particular the Duke of Maien the Duke of Vendosme the Dukes of Longueville Espernon Nemours the Grand Prior the Dukes of Thovars Retz and Rohan the Viscount of Aubeterre c. who all withdrew themselves from the Court made themselves masters of the best places in their governments and were united presently to an open saction of which the Queen Mother declared herself head As for the Commons without whom the Nobility may quarrel but never fight they are more zealous in behalf of the Count as being brought up alwayes a Papist and born of a Catholick kindred whereas the Prince though at this instant a Catholick yet non fuit sic ab initio he was born they say and brought up an Hugonot and perhaps the alteration is but dissembled Concerning the Prince of Conde he hath a sentence of Parliament on his side and a verdict of Physitians both weak helpes to a Soverainty unlesse well backed by the sword And for the verdict of the Physitians thus the case is stated by the Doctors of that faculty Laurentius a professour of Montpellier in Languedoc in his excellent Treatise of Anatomie maketh three terms of a womans delivery primus intermedius and ultimus The first is the seventh moneth after conception in each of which the childe is vitall and may live if it be borne To this also consenteth the Doctor of their chaire Hippocrates saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a child born in the seventh moneth if it be well looked to may live We read also how in Spain the women are oftentimes lightned in the end of the seventh moneth and commonly in the end of the eight And further that Sempronius and Corbulo both Roman Consuls were born in the seventh moneth Pliny in his Naturall History reporteth it as a truth though perchance the women which told him either misreckoned their time or else dissembled it to conceal their honesties The middle time terminus intermedius is in the ninth and tenth moneths at which time children do seldome miscarry In the former two moneths they had gathered life in these latter they only consummate strength so said the Physitians generally Non enim in duobus sequentibus mensibus they speak it of the intermedii additur aliquod ad perfectionum partium sed perfectionem roboris The last time terminus ultimus in the common account of this profession is the eleaventh moneth which some of them hold neither unlikely nor rare Massurius recordeth Papirius a Roman Praetor to have recovered his inheritance in open Court though his Mother confessed him to be borne in the thirteeenth moneth And Avicen a Moore of Corduba relateth as he is cited in Laurentius that he had seen a a childe born after the fourteenth But these are but the impostures of women and yet indeed the modern Doctors are more charitable and refer it to supernaturall causes Et extraordinariam artis considerationem On the other side Hippocrates giveth it out definitively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in ten moneths at the â—urthest understand ten moneths compleat the childe is borne And Ulpian the great Civilian of his times in the title of the Digests de Testamentis is of opinion that a childe born after the tenth moneth compleat is not to be admitted to the inheritance of his pretended father As for the Common Law of England as I remember I have read it in a book written of Wils and Testaments it taketh a middle course between the charity of nature and the severity of the Law leaving it meerly to the conscience and circumstance of the Judge But all this must be conceived as it was afterwards alleaged by the party of the Earl of Soissons taking it in the most favourable construction of the time after the conception of the mother and by no means after the death of the Father and so no way to advantage the Prince of Conde His Father had been extremely sick no small time before his death for the particular and supposed since his poison taken anno 1552. to be little prone to women in the generall They therefore who would have him set besides the Cushion have cunningly but malicionsly caused it to be whisppered abroad that he was one of the by-blowes of King Henry IV. and to make the matter more suspiciously probable they have cast out these conjectures
the Enfranchisement or Naturalization of Aliens anciently certain Lords officers of the Crown and of the prime counsell were appointed to look unto the accounts Now it is made an ordinary and soveraigne Court consisting of two Presidents and divers Auditors and other under Officers The Chamber wherein it is kept called La Chambre des comptes is the beautifullest peece of the whole Palais the great Chamber it self not being worthy to be named in the same day with it It was built by Charles VIII anno 1485. afterwards adorned and beautified by Lewis XII whose Statua is there standing in his royall robes and the Scepter in his hand He is accompâ—aned by the four Cardinall vertues expressed by way of Hieroglyphicks very properly and cunningly each of them having its particular Motto to declare its being The Kings portraiture also as if he were the fifth virtue had its word under written and contained in a couple of Verses which let all that love the Muses skip them in the reading and are these Quatuor has comites foveo Coelestia dona Innccuae pacis prospera scepâ—â—a gerenâ— From the King descend we to the Subjects ab equis quod aiunt ad asinos and the phrase is not much improper the French commonalty being called the Kings asses These are divided into three ranks or Classes the Clergy the Nobles the Paisants out of which certain delegates or Committees chosen upon occasion and sent to the King did antiently concur to the making of the Supreme Court for Justice in France It was called the Assembly of the three Estates or the Conventus ordinum and was just like the Parliament of England But these meetings are now forgotten or out of use neither indeed as this time goeth can they any way advantage the State for whereas there are three principall if not sole causes of these conventions which are the desposing of the Regency during the nonage or sicknesse of a King the granting Aides and Subsidies and the redressing of Grievances there is now another course taken in them The Parliament of Paris which speaketh as it is prompted by power and greatnesse appointeth the Regent the Kings themselves with their officers determine of the Taxes and as concerning their Grievances the Kings care is open to private Petitions Thus is that little of a Common-wealth which went to the making up of this Monarchie escheated or rather devoured by the King that name alone containing in it both Clergy Princes and People So that some of the French Counsellors may say with Tully in his Oration for Marcellus unto Caesar Doleoque cum respub immortalis esse debeat eam unius mortalis anima consistere Yet I cannot withall but affirme that the Princes and Nobles of France do for as much as concerneth themselves upon all advantages flie off from the Kings obedience but all this while the poor Paisant is ruined let the poor Tenant starve or eat the bread of carefulnesse it matters not so they may have their pleasure and be counted firme zelots of the common liberty And certainly this is the issue of it the former liveth the life of a slave to maintain his Lord in pride and lazinesse the Lord liveth the life of a King to oppresse his Tenant by fines and exactions An equality little answering to the old plat-formes of Republicks Aristotle Genius ille naturae as a learned man calleth him in his fourth book of Politicks hath an excellent discourse concerning this disproportion In that Chapter his project is to have a correspondency so far between Subjects under the King or people of the same City that neither the one might be over rich nor the other too miserably poor They saith he which are too happy strong or rich or greatly favoured and the like can not nor will not obey with which evill they are infected from their infancy The other through want of these things are too abjectly minded and base so that the one cannot but command nor the other but serve And this he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a City inhabited onely by Slaves and Tyrants That questionlesse is the most perfect and compleat forme of Government Ubi veneratur protentem humilis non timet antecedit non contemnit humiliorem potens as Velleius But this is an unhappinesse of which France is not capable their Lords being Kings and their Commons Villains And not to say lesse of them then indeed they are the Princes of this Countrey are but little inferiour in matter of Royalty to any King abroad and by consequence little respective in matter of obedience to their own King at home Upon the least discontent they withdraw themselves from the Court or put themselves into armes and of all other comforts are ever sure of this that they shall never want partizans Neither do they use to stand off from him fearfully and at distance but justifie their revolt by publick Declaration and think the King much indebted to them if upon fair terms and an honourable reconcilement they will please to put themselves again into his obedience Henry IV. was a Prince of as undaunted and uncontroulable a spirit as ever any of his predecessors and one that loved to be obeyed yet was he also very frequently baffled by these Roytelets and at the last dyed in an affront The Prince of Conde perceiving the Kings affection to his new Lady began to grow jealous of him for which reason he retired unto Bruxells the King offended at his retreat sent after him and commanded him home The Prince returned answer that he was the Kings most humble Subject and servant but into France he would not come unlesse he might have a Town for his assurance withall he protested in publick writing a nullity of any thing that should be done to his prejudice in his absence A stomachfull resolution and misbecoming a Subject yet in this opposition he persisted his humor of disobedience out-living the King whom he had thus affronted But these tricks are ordinary here otherwise a man might have construed this action by the term of Rebellion The chief means whereby these Princes become so head strong are an immunity given them by their Kings and a liberty which they have taken to themselves By their Kings they have been absolutely exempted from all Tributes Tolles Taxes Customes Impositions and Subsidies By them also they have been estated in whole entire Provinces with a power of haute and main Justice as the Lawyers term it passed over to them the Kings having scarce an homage or acknowledgment of them To this they have added much for their strength and security by the insconcing and fortifying of their houses which both often moveth and afterwards inableth them to contemn his Majesty An example we have of this in the Castle of Rochfort belonging to the Duke of Tremoville which in the long Civill wars endured a siege of 5000 shot and yet was not taken A very impolitick course in my conceit
means he is within two or three years brought again to equall poverty with the rest A strange course and much different from that of England where the Gentry take a delight in having their Tenants thrive under them and hold it no crime in any that hold of them to be wealthy On the other side those of France can abide no body to gain or grow rich upon their farmes and therefore thus upon occasions rack their poor Tenants In which they are like the Tyrant Procrustes who laying hands upon all he met cast them upon his bed if they were shorter then it he racked their joynts till he had made them even to it if they were longer he cut as much of their bodies from them as did hang over so keeping all that fell into his power in an equality All the French Lords are like that Tyrant How much this course doth depresse the military power of this Kingdome is apparent by the true principles of war and the examples of other Countries For it hath been held by the generall opinion of the best judgements in matters of war that the main Buttresse and Pillar of an Army is the foot or as the Martialists term it the Infantery Now to make a good Infantery it requireth that men be brought up not in a slavish and needy fashion of life but in some free and liberall manner Therefore it is well observed by the Vicounâ— St. Albans in his History of Henry VII that if a State run most to Nobles and Gentry and that the Husbandmen be but as their meer drudges or else simply Cottagers that that State may have a good Cavallery but never good stable bands of foot Like to Coppice woods in which if you let them grow too thick in the stadles they run to bushes or bryers and have little clean under-wood Neither is this in France only but in Italy also and some other parts abroad in so much that they are enforced to imploy mercenary Souldiers for their battalions of foot whereby it cometh to passe that in those Countries they have much people and few men On this consideration King Henry VII one of the wisest of our Princes took a course so cunning and wholesome for the increase of the military power of his Realm that though it be much lesse in territory yet it should have infinitely more Souldiers of its native forces then its neighbour Nations For in the fourth year of his Reign there passed an Act of Parliament pretensively against the depopulation of Villages and decay of tillage but purposedly to inable his subjects for the wars The Act was That all houses of husbandry which had been used with twenty acres of ground and upwards should be maintained and kept up for together with a competent proportion of Land to be used and occupied with them c. By this means the houses being kept up did of necessity enforce a dweller and that dweller because of the proportion of Land not to be a begger but a man of some substance able to keep Hinds and Servants and to set the plough a going An order which did wonderfully concerne the might and manhood of the Kingdome these Farmes being sufficient to maintaine an able body out of penury and by consequence to prepare them for service and encourage them to higher honours for Haud facile emergent quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi As the Poet hath it But this Ordinance is not thought of such use in France where all the hopes of their Armies consist in the Cavallery or the horse which perhaps is the cause why our Ancestors have won so many battailes upon them As for the French foot they are quite out of all reputation and are accounted to be the basest and unworthyest company in the world Besides should the French people be enfranchised as it were from the tyranny of their Lords and estated in freeholds and other tenures after the manner of England it would much trouble the Councell of France to find out a new way of raising his revenues which are now meerly sucked out of the bloud and sweat of the Subject Antiently the Kings of France had rich and plentifull demeans such as was sufficient to maintain their greatnesse and Majesty without being burdensome unto the Countrey Pride in matters of sumptuousnesse and the tedious Civill wars which have lasted in this Countrey almost ever since the death of Henry II. have been the occasion that most of the Crown lands have been sold and morgaged in so much that the people are now become the Demaine and the Subject only is the Revenue of the Crown By the sweat of their browes is the Court sed and the Souldier paid and by their labours are the Princes maintained in idlenesse What impositions soever it pleaseth the King to put upon them it is almost a point of treason not only to deny but to question Apud illos vere regnatur nefasque quantum regi liceat dubitare as one of them The Kings hand lyeth hard upon them and hath almost thrust them into an Egyptian bondage the poor Paisant being constrained to make up dayly his full tale of bricks and yet have no straw allowed them Upon a sight of the miseries and poverties of this people Sir John Fortescue Chancellour of England in his book intituled De Laudibus legum Angliae concludeth them to be unfit men for Jurors or Judges should the custome of the Countrey admit of such tryals For having proved there unto the Prince he was son to Henry VI. that the manner of tryall according to the Common Law by 12 Jurates was more commendable then the practise of the Civill or Emperiall Lawes by the deposition only of two witnesses or the forced confession of the persons arrained the Prince seemed to marvell Cur ed lex Angliae quae tam fiugi optabilis est non sit toti mundo communis To this he maketh answer by shewing the â—ree condition of the English Subjects who alone are used at these indictments men of a fair and large estate such as dwell nigh the place of the deed committed men that are of ingenuous education such as scorn to be suborned or corrupted and afraid of infamie Then he sheweth how in other places all things are contrary the Husbandman an absolute begger easie to be bribed by reason of his poverty the Gentlemen living far asunder and so taking no notice of the fact the Paisant also neither fearing infamie nor the losse of goods if he be found faulty because he hath them not In the end he concludeth thus Ne mireris igitur princeps si lex per quam in Anglia veritas inquiritur alias non pervagetur nationes ipsae namque ut Anglia nequerunt facere sufficientes consimilesque Juratas The last part of the latine savoureth somewhat of the Lawyer the word Juratas being put there to signifie a Jury To go over all those impositions which this miserable people
for without the sweat and bloud of the people no Pillages no Impositions upon our private wares no Gabels upon our commodities Nullum in tam inâ—enti regno vectigal non in urbibus pontiumve discriminibus Publicanorum stationes as one truely hath observed of us The monies which the King wanteth to supply his necessities are here freely given him He doth not here compell our bounties but accept them The Laws by which we are governed we in part are makers of each Paisant of the Countrey hath a free-voice in the enacting of them if not in his person yet in his proxie We are not here subject to the lusts and tyranny of our Lords and may therefore say safely what the Jewes spake â—actiously That we have no King but Caesar The greatest Prince here is subject with us to the same Law and when we stand before the tribunall of the Judge we acknowledge no difference Here do we inhabite our own houses plough our own Lands enjoy the fruits of our labour comfort our selves with the wives of our youth and see our selves grow up in those children which shall inherit after us the same felicities But I forget my self To endevour the numbring of Gods blessings may perhaps deserve as great a punishment as Davids numbring the people I conclude with the Poet O fortunati minium bona si sua norint Agricolae nostri And so I take my leave of France and prepare for England towards which having stayed 3 days for winde and company we set forwards on Wednesday the 3 of August the day exceeding fair the Sea as quiet and the winde so still that the Mariners were fain to takedown their Sails and betake themselves unto their Oares Yet at the last with much endevour on their side and no lesse patience on ours we were brought into the midst of the channell when suddainly But soft what white is that which I espie Which with its â—â—stre doth eclipse mine eye That which doth Nâ—ptunes fury so disdain And beates the Billow back into the main Is it some dreadfull Scylla fastned there To shake the Sailor into prayer and fear Or is 't some Island floating on the wave Of which in writers we the story have T is England ha t is so clap clap your hands That the full noise may strike the neighbouring Lands Into a Palâ—ie Doth not that lov'd name Move you to extasie O were the same As dear to you as me that very word Would make you dance and caper over board Dull shipmen how they move not how their houses Grow to the planks yet stay here 's sport enough For see the sea Nymphs fooâ— it and the fish Leap their high measures equall to my wish Triton doth sound his shell and to delight me Old Nereus hobleth with his Amphitrite Excellent triumphs But curs'd fates the main Quickly divides and takes them in again And leaves me dying till I come to land And kisse my dearest Mother in her sand Hail happy England hail thou sweetest Isle Within whose bounds no Pagan rites defile The purer faith Christ is by Saints not mated And he alone is worship'd that created In thee the labouring man enjoyes his wealth Not subject to his Lords rape or the stealth Of hungry Publicans In thee thy King Feares not the power of any underling But is himself and by his awfull word Commands not more the begger then the Lord. In thee those heavenly beauties live would make Most of the Gods turn mortals for their sake Such as outgo report and make â—ame see They stand above her hig'st Hyperbale And yet to strangers will not grâ—teâ— the blisse Of salutation and an harmlesse kisse Hail then sweet England may I 〈◊〉 my last In thy loâ—'d armes and when my dayes are past And to the silence of the gr 〈…〉 I must All I desire is thou wouldst keep my â—ust The End of the Fifth Book and the first Journey THE SECOND JOURNEY CONTAINING A SURVEY of the ESTATE of the two ILANDS Guernzey and Jarsey With the ISLES appending According to their Politie and Formes of Government both Ecclesiasticall and Civill THE SIXTH BOOK LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Seile over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1656. A SURVEY of the ESTATE OF Guernzey and Jarsey c. The Entrance 1 The occasion of c. 2 Introduction to this Work 3 The Dedication 4 and Method of the whole The beginning continuance of our Voyage with the most remarkable passages which hapned in it The mercenary falsnesse of the Dutch exemplified in the dealing of a man of warre WHen first I undertook to attend upon my Lord of Danby to the Islands of Guernzey and Jarsey besides the purpose which I had of doing service to his Lordship I resolved also to do somewhat for my self and if possible unto the places For my self in bettering what I could my understanding if peradventure the persons or the place might add unto me the knowledge of any one thing to which I was a stranger At the least I was in hope to satisfy my curiosity as being not a little emulous of this kind of living Multorum mores hominum qui vidit urbes which had seen so much of men and of their manners It was also not the last part of mine intention to do something in the honour of the Island by committing to memory their Antiquities by reporting to posterity their Arts of Government by representing as in a Tablet the choycest of their beauties and in a word by reducing these and the Achievements of the people as far as the light of Authors could direct me into the body of an History But when I had a little made my self acquainted with the place and people I found nothing in them which might put me to that trouble The Churches naked of all Monuments and not so much as the blazon of an Armes permitted in a window for fear as I conjecture of Idolatry No actions of importance to be heard of in their Legends in their remembrancers whereby to ennoble them in time to come unlesse perhaps some slight allarmes from France may occasion speech of them in our common Chronicles The Countrey indeed exceeding pleasant and delightsome but yet so small in the extent and circuit that to speak much of them wereto put the shooe of Hercules upon the foot of an Infant For being in themselves an abridgement only of the greater works of nature how could the character and description of them be improved into a Volume Having thus failed in the most of my designes I applyed my self to make enquirie after their form of Government in which I must needs confesse I met with much which did exceedingly affect me Their Lawes little beholding in the composition of them to Justinian and of no great affinity with the laws of England which we call Municipall or common The grand Customarie of Normandy is of most credit with them and that indeed the only rule
forced to pay deerly for every foot of ground which there he purchaseth For other strengths this Island is in part beholding unto Nature and somewhat also unto Art To Nature which hath guarded it with Rocks and Shelves and other shallow places very dangerous but neither these nor those of Art so serviceable and full of safety as they be in Guernzey Besides the landing places here are more and more accessible as namely the Bay of St. Owen and the Havens of St. Burlade Boule St. Katharines with divers others There is indeed one of them and that the principall sufficiently assured on the one side by a little Blockhouse which they call Mount St. Aubin and on the other by a fair Castle called the Fort Elizabeth The Harbour it self is of a good capacity in figure like a semicircle or a crescent and by reason of the Town adjoyning known by the name of the Haven of St. Hilaries On that side oâ— it next the Town and in a little Islet of it self is situate the Castle environed with the Sea at high water but at an ebb easily accessible by land but yet so naturally defended with sharpe Rocks and craggy cliftes that though the accesse unto it may be easie yet the surprizall would be difficult It was built not long since by our late Queen of famous memory at such times as the Civill warres were hot in France about Religion and the Kings Forces drawn downwards towards Narmandy Furnished with 30 pieces of Ordinance and upwards and now upon the preparations of the French there are some new works begun about it for the assurance of that well On the East side just opposite and in the view of the City of Constantia there is seated on an high and craggy rock a most strong Castle and called by an haughty name Mount Orgueil of whose founder I could learn nothing nor any other thing which might concern it in matter of antiquity save that it was repaired and beautified by Henry V. It is for the most part the inhabitatiou of the Governour who is Captain of it stored with about some forty pieces of Ordinance and guarded by some five and twenty wardours A place of good service for the safety of the Island if perhaps it may not be commanded or annoied by an hill adjoyning which doth equall if not overtop it This Island as before we noted is some 33 miles in compasse comprehending in it 12. Parishes whereof the principall is that of S. Hilaries Aâ— Town so called from an antient Father of that name and Bishop of Poyctiers in France whose body they suppose to be interred in a little Chappell neer unto the Fort Elizabeth and consecrated to his memory But of his buriall here they have nothing further then tradition and that unjustifiable for St Jerome telleth us that after his return from Phrygia whereunto he had been confined he dyed in his own City and we learn in the Roman Martyrclogie that his Obit is there celebrated on the 13 of January The chief name the which this Town now hath is for the convenioncy of the Haven the Market there every Saturday and that it is honoured with the Cohu or Sessions house for the whole Island The other Villages lie scattered up and down like those of Guernzey and give habitation to a people very painfull and laborious but by reason of their continuall toyle and labour not a little affected to a kinde of melancholy 〈…〉 surlinesse incident to plough men Those of Gueâ—nzey on the other side by continuall converse with strangers in their own haven and by travailing abroad being much more sociable and generous Add to this that the people here are more poor and therefore more destitute of humanity the children here continually craving almes of every stranger whereas in all Guernzey I did not see one begger A principall reason of which poverty I suppose to be their exceeding populousnesse there being reckoned in so small a quantity of ground neer upon thirty thousand living souls A matter which gave us no small cause of admiration and when my Lord of Danby seemed to wonder how such a span of earth could contain such multitudes of people I remember that Sir John Payton the Lieutenant Governour made him this answer viz. That the people married within themselves like Conies in a burrow and further that for more then thirty years they never had been molested either with Sword Pestilence or Famine A second reason of their poverty add also of their numbers may be the little liking they have to Trafick whereby as they might have advantage to improve themselves and employ their poor so also might that service casually diminish their huge multitudes by the losse of some men and diverting others from the thought of marriage But the main cause as I conceive it is the tenure of their Lands which are equally to be divided amongst all the Sons of every Father and those parcels also to be subdivided even ad infinitnm Hence is it that in all the Countries you shall hardly finde a field of Corne of larger compasse then an ordinary Garden every one now having a little to himself and that little made lesse to his posterity This Tenure our Lawyers call by the name of Gavel-kinde that is as some of them expound it Give all-kinne because it is amongst them all to be divided For thus the Law speaking of the customes of Kent in the 16 Chap. De praerogatlva Regis Ibidem omnes haetedes masculi participabant haereditatem â—orum similiter soeminae sed soemine non participabunt cum viriâ— A tenure which on the one side hath many priviledges and on the other side as many inconveniences For first they which hold in this Tenure are free from all customary services exempt from wardship at full age when they come to 15 years and if they please they may alienate their estates either by gift or sale without the assent or knowledge of the Lord. But which is most of all in case the Father be attaint of Felony or Murder there is no Escheat of it to the Lord the whole Estate after the King hath had Diem annum vastum descending on the Heires Et post annum diem terrae tenementa reddentur revertentur porximo haeredi cui debuerant descendisse si felonia facta non fuisset so the Lawyers On the other side by this means their estates are infinitely distracted their houses impoverished the Kings profits in his Subsidies diminished and no little disadvantage to the publick service in the finding of Armours for the Wars Whereupon as many Gentlemen of Kent have altered by especiall Acts of Parliament the antient Tenure of their Lands and reduced it unto Knights-service so is it wished by the better sort of this people and intended by some of them that their Tenure may be also altered and brought into the same condition A matter of no little profit and advantage to the
owner which they called Les Deserts But the Countreys after growing populous and many mouths requiring much provision these Deserts were broke up and turned into tillage Hereupon the Curates made challenge to the tithes as not at all either intended or contained in the former composition The Governours on the other side alleadging custome that those grounds had never paid the Tithe and therefore should not Nor could the Clergy there obtain their rights untill the happy entrance of King James upon these Kingdoms A Prince of all others a most indulgent father to the Church By him and by a letter Decretory from the Counsell it was adjudged in favour of the Ministery the Letter bearing date at Greenwich June the last anno 1608. subscribed T. Ellesmere Canc. R. Salisbury H. Northampton E. Worcester T. Suffolke Exeter Zeuch Wotton Cesar Herbert A matter certainly of much importance in the consequence as making known unto your Lordship how easie a thing it is in the authority royall to free the Church from that tyranny of custome and prescription under which it groneth The next of these three words to be explained is in the note French Querrui which in the note is told us to be the 8 and 9 sheaf by which account or way of tithing the Minister in 50 sheafs receiveth 6 which is one sheaf more then the ordinary tithe The word corrupted as I conceive from the French word Charrue which signifieth a Plough and then French querrui is as much as Plough-right alluding to the custome of some Lords in France who used to give their husbandmen or villains as a guerdon for their toyle the 8 and 9 of their increase As for the last that viz. which the Diagram calleth Champart it intimates in the origination of the word a part or portion of the field that which the Lord in chief reserved unto himself In Guernzey it is constantly the 12 sheaf of the whole crop the Farmer in the counting of his sheafes casting aside the 10 for the King and the 12 which is the Champart for the Lord. Now here in Guernzey for those of the other Isle have no such custome there is a double Champart that namely Du Roy belonging to the King whereof the Clergy have the tithe and that of St. Michael en leval not titheable The reason is because at the suppression of the Priorie of St. Michael which was the only Religious house in these Islands which subsisted of it self the Tenants made no tendry of this Champart and so it lay amongst concealments At the last Sir Thomas Leighton the Governour here recovered it unto the Crown by course of Law and at his own charges whereupon the Queen licenced him to make sale of it to his best advantage which accordingly he did For the Religion in these Islands it hath been generally such as that professed with us in England and as much varied When the Priors Aliens were banished England by King Henry V. they also were exiled from hence Upon the demolition of our Abbeys the Priory of St. Michael and that little Oratory of our Lady of Lehu became a ruine The Masse was here also trodden down whilest King Edward stood and raised again at the exaltation of Queen Mary Nay even that fiery tryall which so many of Gods servants underwent in the short Reign of that misguided Lady extended even unto these poor Islanders and that as I conceive in a more fearfull tragedy then any all that time presented on the Stage of England The story in the brief is this Katharine Gowches a poor widow of St. Peters-parte in Guernzey was noted to be much absent from the Church and her two daughters guilty of the same neglect Upon this they were presented before Jaques Amy then Dean of the Island who finding in them that they held opinions contrary unto those then allowed about the Sacrament of the Altar pronounced them Hereticks and condemned them to the fire The poor women on the other side pleaded for themselves that that Doctrine had been taught them in the time of King Edward but if the Queen was otherwise disposed they were content to be of her Religion This was fair but this would not serve for by the Dean they were delivered unto Elier Gosselin the then Bailiffe and by him unto the fire July 18. Anno Dom. 1556. One of these daughters Perotine Massey she was called was at that time great with childe her husband which was a Minister being in those dangerous times fled the Island in the middle of the flames and anguish of her torments her belly brake in sunder and her child a goodly boy fell down into the fire but was presently snatched up by one W. House one of the by-standers Upon the noise of this strange accident the cruell Bailiffe returned command that the poor Infant must be cast again into the flames which was accordingly performed and so that pretty babe was borne a Martyr and added to the number of the Holy Innocents A cruelty not paralleld in any story not heard of amongst the Nations But such was the pleasure of the Magistate as one in the Massacre of the younger Maximinus viz. Canis pessimi ne catulum esse relinquendum that not any issue should be left alive of an Heretick Parent The horrror of which fact stirred in me some Poeticall Fancies or Furies rather which having long lien dormant did break out at last indignation thus supplying those suppressed conceptions Si natura negaâ— dabit indignatio versum Holla ye pampred Sires of Rome forbear To act such murders as a Christian ear Hears with more horrour then the Jews relate The dire effects of Herods fear and hate When that vilde Butcher caus'd to cut in sunder Every Male childe of two years old and under These Martyrs in their cradles from the womb This pass'd directly to the fiery tomb Baptiz'd in Flames and Bloud a Martyr born A setting sun in the first dawn of morn Yet shining with more heat and brighter glory Then all Burnt-offerings in the Churches story Holla ye pampred Rabines of the West Where learnt you thus to furnish out a Feast With Lambs of the first minute What disguise Finde you to mask this horrid Sacrifice When the old Law so meekly did forbid In the Dams milk to boil the tender Kid. What Riddles have we here an unborn birth Hurried to Heaven when not made ripe for Earth Condemned to die before it liv'd a twin To its own mother not impeached of sin Yet doom'd to death that breath'd but to expire That scap'd the flames to perish in the fire Rejoyce ye Tyrants of old times your name Is made lesse odious on the breath of fame By our most monstrous cruelties the Males Slaughtered in Egypt waigh not down these scales A Fod to equall this no former age Hath given in Books or fancie on the Stage This fit of indignation being thus passed over I can proceed
in their severall families And if they finde among them any refractory and contentious persons which will not be reconciled to make a report of it to the Consistory IV. 4. They shall assemble in the Consistory with the Ministers which Consistory shall be holden if it may be every Sunday or any other day convenient to handle causes of the Church And those of them which are elected to go unto the Colloquies and Synods with the Ministers shall not fail to goe at the day appointed CHAP. VII Of the â—eacons Article I. 1. THe Deacons shall be appointed in the Church to gather the benevolence of the people and to distribute it according to the necessities of the poor by the directions of the Consistory II. 2. They shall gather these benevolences after Sermons faithfully endevouring the good and welfare of the poor and if need require they shall go unto the houses of those men which are more charitably enclined to collect their bounties III. 3. They shall distribute nothing without direction from the Consistory but in case of urgent necessity IV. 4. The almes shall be principally distributed unto those of the faithfull which are naturall Inhabitants and if there be a surplusage they may dispose it to the relief of strangers V. 5. For the avoiding of suspicion the Deacons shall keep a register both of their Receipts and their disbursements and shall cast up his accouncs in the presence of the Minister and one of the Elders VI. 6. The Deacons shall give up their accounts every Communion day after the evening Sermon in the presence of the Ministers the Elders and as many of the people as will be assistant who therefore shall have warning to be there VII 7. They shall take order that the poor may be relieved without begging and shall take care that young men fit for labour be set unto some occupation of which they shall give notice to the officers of Justice that so no person be permitted to go begging from door to door VIII 8. They shall provide for those of the poor which are sick or in prison to comfort and assist them in their necessity IX 9. The shall be assistant in the Consistory with the Ministers and Elders there to propose unto them the necessities of the poor and to receive their directions as also in the election of other Deacons X. 10. There ought to be Deacons in every Parish unlesse the Elders will take upon them the charge of collecting the almes and distributing thereof amongst the poor The Liturgie of the Church wherein there is contained the preaching of the Gospell the administration of the Sacraments the Laws of Marriage the Visitation of the Sick and somewhat also of Buriall CHAP. VIII Of the Preaching of the Gospell Article I. 1. THe people shall be assembled twice every Sunday in the Church to hear the Preaching of the Gospell and to be assistant at the publick prayers They shall also meet together once or twice a week on those dayes which shall be thought most convenient for the severall Parishes the Master of every houshold bringing with him those of his family II. 2. The people being assembled before Sermon there shall be read a Chapter out of the Canonicall books of Scripture only and not of the Apocrypha and it shall be read by one which beareth office in the Church or at the least by one of honest conversation III. 3. During the prayer every one shall be upon his knees with his head uncovered Also during the singing of the Psalmes the administration of the Sacraments and whilest the Minister is reading of his text every one shall be uncovered and shall attentively observe all that is done and said IV. 4. The Ministers every Sunday after dinner shall Catechize and shall choose some text of Scripture sutable to that section which they are to handle and shall read in the beginning of that exercise the said text as the foundation of the Doctrine contained in that Section V. 5. The Church shall be locked immediately after Sermon and the publick prayers to avoid superstition and the benches shall be orderly disposed that every one may hear the voice of the Preacher VI. 6. The Churches being dedicated to Gods service shall not be imployed to prophane uses and therefore intreaty shall be made to the Magistrate that no Civill Courts be there holden CHAP. IX Of Baptisme Article I. 1. THe Sacrament of Baptisme shall be administred in the Church after the Preaching of the Word and before the Benediction II. 2. The Parents of the Infants if they are not in some journey shall be near the Infant together with the Sureties to present it unto God and shall joyntly promise to instruct it according as they are obliged III. 3. No man shall be admitted to be a Surety in holy Baptisme which hath not formerly received the Communion or which is not fit to receive it and doth promise so to do upon the next conveniency whereof he shall bring an attestation if he be a stranger IV. 4. They which intend to bring an Infant unto holy Baptisme shall give competent warning unto the Minister V. 5. The Minister shall not admit of such names as were used in the time of Paganism the names of Idols the names attributed to God in Scripture or names of office as Angell Baptist Apostle VI. 6. In every Parish there shall be kept a Register of such as are Baptized their Fathers Mothers Sureties and the day of it as also of Marriages and Funerals which shall be carefully preserved CHAP. X. Of the Lords Supper Article I. 1. THe holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be celebrated four times a year viz. at Easter or the first Sunday of Aprill the first Sunday of July the first Sunday of October and the first Sunday of January and that after the Sermon in which expresse mention shall be made of the businesse then in hand or at least a touch of it in the end II. 2. The manner of it shall be this The Table shall be set in some convenient place near the Pulpit the people shall communicate in order and that sitting as is most conformable to the first institution or else standing as is accustomed in some places the men first and afterwards the women none shall depart the place untill after Thanksgiving and the Benediction III. 3. They which intend to be communicants shall first be catechized by the Minister that so they may be able to render a reason of their faith They ought also to understand the Lords Prayer the Articles of their belief the Ten Commandements or at the least the substance of them They shall also abjure the Pope the Masse and all superstition and Idolatry IV. 4. No man shall be admitted to the Lords Supper which is not of the years of discretion and which hath not a good testimony of his life and conversation and which will not promise to submit himself unto the Discipline V. 5.
If any be accused before the Justice to have committed any crime he shall be admonished to forbear the Supper untill he be acquitted VI. 6. The Minister shall not receive any of another Parish without a testimony from the Pastor or if there be no Pastor from one of the Elders VII 7. They which refuse to be reconciled shall be debarred the Communion VIII 8. The people shall have warning fifteen dayes at the least before the Communion to the end they may be prepared for it IX 9. Besides the first examination which they undergoe before they are partakers of the Lords Supper every one shall again be Catechized at the least once a year at the best conveniency of the Minister and of his people CHAP. XI Of Fasts and Thanksgiving Article I. 1. THe publick Fasts shall be celebrated in the Church when the Colloquie or the Synod think it most expedient as a day of rest in which there shall be a Sermon both in the morning and the afternoon accompanyed with Prayers reading of the Scripture and singing of Psalmes all this to be disposed according to the occasions and causes of the Fast and by the authority of the Magistrate II. 2. Solemn Thanksgiving also shall be celebrated after the same manner as the Fast the whole exercise being sutable to the occasion of the same CHAP. XII Of Marriage Article I. 1. ALL contracts of Marriage shall be made in the presence of Parents Friends Guardians or the Masters of the parties and with their consent as also in the presence of the Minister or of an Elder or a Deacon before whom the contract shall be made with invocation on the name of God without which it is no contract And as for those which are sui juris the presence of the Minister or of the Elders or of the Deacons shall be also necessary for good orders sake And from a promise thus made there shall be no departing II. 2. Children and such as are in Wardship shall not make any promise of Marriage wthout the consent of their Fathers and Mothers or of their Gardians in whose power they are III. 3. If the Parents are so unreasonable as not to agree unto a thing so holy the Consistory shall give them such advice as is expedient to which advice if they not hearken they shall have recourse unto the Magistrate IV. 4. They also which have been Married shall owe so much respect unto their Parents as not to marry again without their leave in default whereof they shall incut the censures of the Church V. 5. No stranger shall be affianced without licence from the Governours or their Lieutenants VI. 6. The degrees of consanguinity and of affinity prohibited in the word of God shall be carefully looked into by such as purpose to be marryed VII 7. Those which are affianced shall promise and their Parents with them that they will be marryed within 3 moneths after the contract or within 6 moneths in case either of them have occasion of a Journey if they obey not they shall incur the censures of the Church VIII 8. The Banes shall be asked successively three Sundayes in the Church where the parties do inhabit and if they marry in another Parish they shall carry with them a testimony from the Minister by whom their Banes were published without which they shall not marry IX 9. For the avoiding of the abuse and profanation of the Lords-day and the manifest prejudice done unto the Word of God on those dayâ—â— wherein Marriage hath been solemnized it is foâ—â—d expedient that it be no longer solemnized upon the Sunday but upon some Lecture days which happen in the week only X. 10. If any purpose to forbid the Banes he shall first addresse himself â—â—to the Minister or two of the Elders by whom he shall be appointed to appear in the next Consistory there to alleadge the reasons of his so doing whereof the Consistory shall be judge If he appeal from thence the cause shall be referred unto the next Colloquie XI 11. Those which have too familiarly conversed together before their espousals shall not be permitted to marry before they have made confession of their fault if the crime be notoriously publick before the whole congregation if lesse known the Consistory shall determine of it XII 12. Widowes which are minded to re-marry shall not be permitted to contract themselves untill six moneths after the decease of their dead husbands as well for honesties sake and their own good report as to avoid divers inconveniences And as for men they also shall be admonished to attend some certain time but without constraint CHAP. XIII Of the Visitation of the sick Article I. 1. THose which are afflicted with sicknesse shall in due time advertise them which bear office in the Church to the end that by they them may be visited and comforted II. 2. Those which are sick shall in due time be admonished to make their Wils while as yet they be in perfect memory and that in the presence of their Minister or Overseer or other honest and sufficient persons which shall witnesse to the said Wils or Testaments that so they may be approved and stand in force CHAP. XIV Of Buriall Article I. 1. THe Corps shall not be carryed nor interred within the Church but in the Church-yard only appointed for the buryall of the faithfull II. 2. The Parents Friends and Neighbours of the deceased and all such whom the Parents shall intreat as also the Ministers if they may conveniently as members of the Church and Brethren but not in relation to their charge no more then the Elders and the Deacons shall accompany the body in good fashion unto the grave In which action there shall neither be a Sermon nor Prayers nor sound of Bell nor any other ceremony whatsoever III. 3. The bodies of the dead shall not be interred without notice given unto the Minister IV. 4. The bodies of those which die excommunicate shall not be interred among the faithfull without the appointment of the Magistrate CHAP. XV. Of the Church censures Article I. 1. ALL those which are of the Church shall be subject unto the censures of the same as well they which bear office in it as they which have none II. 2. The sentence of Abstention from the Lords Supper shall be published only in case of Heresie Schisme or other such notorious crime whereof the Consistory shall be judge III. 3. Those which receive not the Admonitions and Reprebensions made unto them in the word of God which continue hardned without hope of returning into the right way after many exhortations if otherwise they may not be reclaimed shall be excommunicate wherein the proceeding shall be for three Sundayes together after this ensuing manner IV. 4. The first Sunday the people shall be exhorted to pray for the offender without naming the person or the crime V. 5. The second Sunday the person shall be named but not the crime The third
his part having been 13 years a Minister he never used it Totos ego tredecem annos quibus functus sum Ministerio sive in Sacramentis iis quae extant in agenda nunquam usus sum and this he speaks as he conceives it to his commendation Where by the way Agenda it is a word of the latter times is to be understood for a set form in the performance of those ministerial duties quae statis temporibus agenda sunt as mine Author hath it In the Capitular of Charles the great we have mention of this word Agenda in divers places once for all let that suffice in the 6 book Can. 234. viz. Si quiis Presbyter in consultâ— Episcopo Agendam in quolibet loco voluerint celebrare ipse honori suo contrarius extitit Chap. 8. 5. The Churches shall be locked immediately after Sermon The pretence is as it followeth in the next words to avoid superstition but having nothing in their Churches to provoke superstition the caution is unnecessary So destitute are they all both of ornament and beauty The true cause is that those of that party are offended with the antient custome of stepping aside into the Temples and their powring out the soul in private prayer unto God because for sooth it may imply that there is some secret vertue in those places more then in rooms of ordinary use which they are peremptory not to give them Chap. 9. 1. After the preaching of the word And there are two reasons why the Sacrament of Baptism should be long delayed the one because they falsly think that without the preaching of the word there is no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other to take away the opinion of the necessity of holy Baptism and the administration of it in private houses in case of such necessity In this strictnesse very resolute and not to be bended with perswasions scarce with power As our being in the Isle of Gueâ—â—ay the Ministers presented unto his Lordship a catalogue of grievances against the civill Magistrate And this among the rest that they had entermedled with the administration of the Sacraments This certainly was novum orimen O. Caesar ante hoc tempâ—â— inauditum but upon examination it proved only to be thus A poor man of the Vale had a childe born unto him weak and â—ickly not like to live till the publick exercise whereupon he defires Millet the Incumbent there that he would Baptize it but after two or three denials made the poor man complained unto the Bailiffe by whom the Minister was commanded to do his duty This was all crimine ab unâ— disce omnes Chap. 9. 5. Names used in Paganism Nor mean they here such names as occur in Poets as Hector Hercules c. though names of this sort occurre frequently in S. Pauls Epistles but even such names as formerly have been in use amongst our ancestors as Richard Edmund William and the like But concerning this behold a story wherein our great contriver Snape was a chief party as I finde in the book called Dangerous positions c. verified upon the oath of one of the brotherhood Hodkinson of Northampton having a childe to be baptized repaired to Snape to do it for him and he consented to the motion but with promise that he should give it some name allowed in Scripture The childe being brought and that holy action so far forwards that they were come to the naming of the childe they named it Richard which was the name of the Infants Grandfather by the Mothers side Upon this a stop was made nor would he be perswaded to baptize the childe unlesse the name of it were altered which when the Godfather refused to do he forsook the place and the childe was carried back unchristned To this purpose but not in the same words the whole history But if the name of Richard be so Paganish what then shall we conceive of these The Lord is near More-tryall Joy-again Free-gift From-above and others of that stamp are they also extant in the Scripture Chap. 10. 2. And that sitting c. or standing c In this our Synodists more moderate then those of the Netherlands who have licensed it to be administred unto men even when they are walking For thus Angelocrator in his Epitome of the Dutch Synods cap. 13. art 8. viz. Liberum est stando sedendo vel eundo coenam celebrare non autem geniculando and the reason questionlesse the same in both ob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 periculum for fear of bread-worship I had before heard sometimes of ambling Communions but till I met with that Epitome I could not slumble on the meaning A strange and stubborn generation and stiffer in the hams then any Elephant such as will neither bow the knee to the Name of Jesus nor kneel to him in his Sacraments Chap. 10. 4. which will not promise to submit himself unto the Discipline A thing before injoyned in the subscription to it upon all such as take upon them any publick office in the Church but here exacted in the submission to it of all such as desire to be Communicants The reason is because about that time it seemed good unto the brethren to make the holy Discipline as essential to the being of a Church as the preaching of the word and administration of the Sacraments and so essential that no Church could possibly subsist without it For thus Beza in his Epistle unto Cixxe Anno 1572 Magnum est Dei munus quod unam religionem puâ—am 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doctrinae viz retinendae vinculum in Scotiam intulistis Sicobsecro obtestor haec duo simul retinete ut uno amisso alterum diu permanere non posse semper memineritis So he Epist 79. According unto which Doctrine Mr. Dela-Marshe in his new Catechism which lately by the authority of the Colloquie he imposed upon the Churches in the Isle of Guâ—inzy hath joyned this holy Discipline as a chief note together with the others Chap. 12. 9. That it be no longer solemnized upon the Sunday Wherein so scarcely did the same Spirit rule them both the Dutch Synodists have shewed themselves more moderate then these contrivers they having licensed marriage on all daies equally except such as are destinate to the Lords Supper and to solemn fasts Quovis die matrimonia confermari celebrari poterunt modo concio ad populum habeatur exceptis c 〈…〉 diebus jejunio sacratis Cap. ult art 8. By both of them it is agreed that marriage be celebrated on such daies only on which there is a Sermon and if the Sermon be any thing to the purpose I am content they should expect it Only I needs must note with what little reason these men and their abettors have so often quarrelled our Church for the restraint of marriage at some certain seasons whereas they think it fit at some times to restrain it in their own Well fare therefore our
as I conjecture propound it farther to him then by way of due respect as little hoping that he should bend himself for their relief whom they so often had accused to be the cause of all this trouble At last they are resolved to cast themselves upon the grace and savour of the King and for that cause addressed themselves and their desires unto the Earl of Salisbury a man at that time of special credit with the King being also Lord High Treasurer and chief Secretary This their addresse as he took in special good regard so did he also seem to advise them for the best his counsel that they should joyn unto them those of Guernzey in the perusing of their Discipline and the correcting of such things most stomacked by the Civil Magistrates and after both together to refer themselves unto his Majesty A counsel not to be despised in the appearance but yet as certainly he was of a fine and subtil wit of exceeding cunning For by this means the businesse not yet ripe and the King scarce master of his purposes in Scotland he gains time farther to consider of the main and by ingaging those of Guernzey in the cause they also had been subject to the same conclusion But subtil as he was he found no art to protract the fatal and inevitable blow of death for whilest his Clients busily pursued this project in reviewing of their platform he yeelded up himself unto the grave March 24. anno 1612. upon report whereof they layed by the prosecution of that businesse referring of it to the mercy of some better times This comfort yet they found in their addresse unto the Court that things at home were carried on in a more fair and quiet course but long they would not suffer themselves to enjoy that happinesse The Parish of S. Peters being void Messerny was presented to it by the Governour one that had spent his time in Oxenford and had received the Orders of the Priesthood from the Right Reverend Doctor Bridges then Bishop of that Diocesse A matter so infinitely stomacked by the Colloquie that they would by no means yeeld to his admission not so much because of his presentation from the Governor as of his ordination from the Bishop For now they thought Annibalem ad portas that Popery began again to creep upon them and therefore they resolved to fight it out tanquam de summa rerum as if the whole cause of Religion were in danger Messerny howsoever enjoyed the profits of the living and a new complaint was made against them to the Councel In which complaint there also was intelligence given unto their Lordships that the inhabitants generally of the Isle were discontented with the Disciplineâ— and guidance of the Church and that the most of them would easily admit the form of English Government that some of them did desire it The matter thus grown ready for an issue and his Majesty desirous to bring all things to the most peaceable and quiet end both parties were commanded to attend at Court the Governor and secular states to prosecute their suit and make good their intelligence the Ministers to answer the complaints and tender their proposals Hereupon the Governor and those of the laity delegated to the Court Marret the Attorney and Messervy the new Parson of St. Peters by whom the people sent a formal Petition to his Majesty signed by many of their hands and to this purpose viz. that he would be pleased to establish in their Island the book of Common-prayers and to settle there among them some Ecclesiastical Officer with Episcopal jurisdiction On the other side there were deputed for the Ministers Mr. Bandinell the now Dean Oliveis the now Subâ—dean Effart the Curate of St. Saviours and De la place then Curate of St. Maries To whom this also was specially given in charge that with all industry they should oppose whatsoever innovation as they called it might be proposed unto them and resolutely bear up for the present Discipline Immediately upon their appearance at the Court both parties by his Majesty were referred to the Councel and by them again to my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury the Lord Zouche and Sir John Herbert then principal Secretary Before them the cause was privately argued by the Deputies of both parties and the desires of the Governor and of the people constantly impugned by the Ministers But as it alwaies hapneth that there is no confederacy so well joyned but one member of it may be severed from the rest and thereby the whole practise overthrown so was it also in this businesse For those which there sollicited some private businesse of the Governors had finely wrought upon the weaknesse or ambition of De la place bearing him in hand that if the Government of the Church were altered and the office of the Dean restored he was for certain resolved upon to be the man Being fashioned into this hope he speedily betrayed the counsels of his fellowes and furnished their opponents at all their enterviews with such intelligence as might make most for their advantage At last the Ministers not well agreeing in their own demands and having little to say in the defence of their proper cause whereto their answers were not provided beforehand my Lord of Canterbury at the Councel-table thus declared unto them the pleasure of the King and Councell viz. that for the speedy redresse of their disorders it was reputed most convenient to establish among them the authority and office of the Dean that the book of Common-prayer being again printed in the French should be received into their Churches but the Ministers not tyed to the strict observance of it in all particulars that Messerny should be admitted to his benefice and that so they might return unto their charges This said they were commanded to depart and to signifie to those from whom the came they full scope of his Majesties resolution and so they did But being somewhat backward in obeying this decree the Councel intimated to them by Sir Phil. de Carteret their Agent for the Estates of the Island that the Ministers from among themselves should make choice of three learned and grave persons whose names they should return unto the board out of which his Majesty would resolve on one to be their Dean A proposition which found among them little entertainment Not so much out of dislike unto the dignity for they were most of them well contented with the change but because every one of them conceived hopefully of himself to be the man and all of them could not be elected they were not willing to prejudice their own hopes by the naming of another In the mean time Mr. David Bandâ—â—ell then Curate of St. Maries either having or pretending some businesse unto London was recommended by the Governor as a man most fit to sustain that place and dignity And being also approved by my Lord of Canterbury aâ— certainly he is a man of good
administred in the Church with fair water according to the institution of Jesus Christ and without the limitation of any dayes No man shall delay the bringing of his child to Baptism longer then the next Sunday or publick Assembly if it may conveniently be done No person shall be admitted to be a Godfather unlesse he hath received the Lords Supper nor shall women alone viz. without the presence of a man among them be admitted to be Godmothers CHAP. IV. Of the Lords Supper Article I. 1. THe Lords Supper shall be administred in every Church four times a year whereof one to be at Easter and the other at Christmas and every Minister in the administration of it shall receive the Sacrament himself and after give the Bread and wine to each of the Communicants using the words of the institution of it II. 2. The Masters and Mistresses of Families shall be admonished and enjoyned to cause their children and Servants to be instructed in the knowledge of their salvation and to this end shall take care to send them to the ordinary Catechizing CHAP. V. Of Marriage Article I. 1. NO man shall marry contrary to the degrees prohibited in the word of God according as they are expressed in a table made for that purpose in the Church of England on pain of nullity and censure II. 2. The Banes of the parties shall be asked three Sundays successively in the Churches of both parties and they of the Parish where the Marriage is not celebrated shall bring an attestation of the bidding of their Banes in their own Parish Neverthelesse in lawfull cases there may be a Licence or dispensation of the said Banes granted by the authority of the Dean and that upon good caution taken that the parties are at liberty III. 3. No separation shall be made a thoro mensa unlesse in case of Adultery cruelty and danger of life duly proved and this at the sole instance of the parties As for the maintenance of the woman during her divorce he shall have recourse to the Secular power CHAP. VI. Of Ministers Article I. 1. NO man that is unfit to teach or not able to preach the word of God shall be admitted to any Benefice within the Isle or which hath not received imposition of hands and been ordained according to the forme used in the Church of England II. 2. None of them either Dean or Minister shall at the same time hold two Benefices unlesse it be in time of vacancy and only the Natives of the Isle shall be advanced to these preferments III. 3. The Ministers every Sunday after morning prayer shall expound some place of holy Scripture and in the afternoon shall handle some of the points of Christian Religion contained in the Catechism in the Book of Common-prayers IV. 4 In their Prayers they shall observe the titles due unto the King acknowledging him the Supreme governour under Christ in all causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill recommending unto God the prosperity of his person and royall posterity V. 5. Every Minister shall carefully regard that modesty and gravity of apparell which belongs unto his function and may preserve the honour due unto his person and shall be also circumspect in the whole carriage of their lives to keep themselves from such company actions and haunts which may bring unto them any blame or blemish Nor shall they dishonour their calling by Gaming Alehouses Usuries guilds or occupations not convenient for their function but shall endevor to excell all others in purity of life in gravity and virtue VI. 6. They shall keep carefully a Register of Christnings Marriages and Burials and shall duely publish upon the day appointed to them the Ordinances of the Courts such as are sent unto them signed by the Dean and have been delivered to them fifteen dayes before the publication VII 7. The Ministers shall have notice in convenient time of such Funerals as shall be in their Parishes at which they shall assist and shall observe the forme prescribed in the book of Common-prayers No man shall be interred within the Church without the leave of the Minister who shall have regard unto the quality and condition of the persons as also unto those which are benefactours unto the Church CHAP. VII Of the Dean Article I. 1. THe Dean shall be a Minister of the word being a Master of the Arts or Graduate at the least in the Civill Lawes having ability to exercise that office of good life and conversation as also well affected to Religion and the service of God II. 2. The Dean in all causes handled at the Court shall demand the advice and opinion of the Ministers which shall then be present III. 3. There shall appertain unto him the cognisance of all matters which concern the service of God the preaching of the Word the administration of the Sacraments Matrimoniall causes the examination and censure of all Papists Recusants Hereticks Idolaters and Schismaticks persons perjured in causes Ecclesiasticall Blasphemers those which have recourse to Wizards incestuous persons Adulterers Fornicators ordinary drunkards and publick profaners of the Lords day as also the profanation of the Churches and Church-yards misprisions and offences committed in the Court or against any officers thereof in the execution of the mandats of the Court and also of Divorces and separations a thoro mensa together with a power to censure and punish them according unto the Lawes Ecclesiasticall without any hindrance to the power of the Civill Magistrate in regard of temporall correction for the said crimes IV. 4. The Dean accompanied with two or three of the Ministers once in two years shall visite every Parish in his own person and shall take order that there be a Sermon every visitation day either by himself or some other by hi 〈…〉 appointed Which Visitation shall be made for the ordering of all things appertaining to the Churches in the service of God and the administration of the Sacraments as also that they be provided of Church-wardens that the Church and Church-yards and dwellings of the Ministers be kept in reparations And farther he shall then receive information of the said Church-wardens or in their default of the Ministers of all offences and abuses which need to be reformed whether in the Minister the officers of the Church or any other of the Parish And the said Dean in liâ—â— of the said visitation shall receive 4 s. pay out of the Treasures of the Church for every time V. 5. In the vacancy of any Benefice either by death or otherwise the Dean shall give present order that the profits of it be sequestred to the end that out of the revenue of it the Cure may be supplyed as also that the widow and children of the deceased may be satisfied according to the time of his service and the custome of the Isle excepting such necessary deductions as must be made for dilapidations in case any be He shall also give
of the French to bestow honours and immunities upon those Qui as the Historian noteth ea suo arbitrio aut reposituri aut retenturi videantur quique modum habent in sua voluntate For upon a knowledge of this strength in themselves the Princes have been always prone to Civill wars as having sufficient means for safety and resistance On this ground also they slight the Kings authority and disobey his Justice In so much that the greater sort of Nobles in this Kingdome can seldome be arraigned or executed in person and therefore the Lawes condemn them in their images and hang them in their pictures A pretty device to mock Justice If by chance or some handsome sleight any of them are apprehended they are put under a sure guard and not done to death without great fear of tumult and unquietnesse Neither is it unus alter only some two or three that thus stand upon their distance with the King but even all the Nobility of the Realm a rout so disordered unconfined and numberlesse that even Fabius himself would be out of breath in making the reckoning I speak not here of those that are styled La Noblesse but of Titulados men only of titular Nobility of the degree of Baron and above Of these there is in this Countrey a number almost innumerable Quot Coelum Stellas take quantity for quantity and I dare be of the opinion that heaven hath not more Stars then France Nobles You shall meet with them so thick in the Kings Court especially that you would think it almost impossible the Countrey should bear any other fruit This I think I may safely affirme and without Hyperbole that they have there as many Princes as we in England have Dukes as many Dukes as we Earls as many Earls as we Barons and as many Barons as we have Knights a jolly company and such as know their own strength too I cannot therefore but much marvell that these Kings should be so prodigall in conferring honours considering this that every Noble man he createth is so great a weakning to his power On the other side I cannot but as much wonder at some of our Nation who have murmured against our late Soveraign and accused him of an unpardonable unthriftiness in bestowing the dignities of his Realm with so full and liberall a hand Certainly could there any danger have arisen by it unto the State I could have been as impatient of it as another But with us titles and ennoblings in this kind are only either the Kings favour or the parties merit and maketh whomsoever he be that receiveth them rather reverenced then powerfull Raro eorum honoribus invidetur quorum vis non timetur was a good Aphorisme in the dayes of Paterculus and may for ought I know be as good still Why should I envie any man that honour which taketh not from my safety or repine at my Soveraign for raising any of his Servants into an higher degree of eminency when that favour cannot make them exorbitant Besides it concerneth the improvement of the Exchequer at the occasions of Subsidies and the glory of the Kingdome when the Prince is not attended by men meerly of the vulgar Add to this the few Noble men of any title which he found at his happy coming in amongst us and the additions of power which his comming brought unto us and we shall finde it proportionable that he should enlarge our Nobility with our Empire neither yet have we indeed a number to be talked of comparing us with our neighbour Nations We may see all of the three first ranks in the books of Milles Brooke and Vincent and we are promised also a Catalogue of the Creations and successions of all our Barons Then we should see that as yet we have not surfeited Were this care taken by the Heralde in France perhaps the Nobility there would not seem so numberlesse sure I am not so confused But this is the main vice of that profession of â—ix Heralds which they have amongst them viz. Montjoy Normandy Guyenne Valâ—ys Bretagne and Burgogne not one of them is reported to be a Genealogist neither were their Predecessors better affected to this study Paradine the only man that ever was amongst them hath drawn down the Genealogies of 24 of the chief families all ancient and of the bloud in which he hath excellently well discharged himself But what a small pittance is that compared to the present multitude The Nobles being so populous it cannot be but the Noblesse as they call them that is the Gentry must needs be thick set and only not innumerable Of these Nobles there are some which hold their estates immediately of the Crown and they have the like immunities with the Princes Some hold their Feifes or feuda of some other of the Lords and he hath only Basse Justice permitted to him as to mulct and amerce his Tenants to imprison them or give them any other correction under death All of them have power to raise and inhance up their Rents to Tax his Subjects on occasion and to prohibit them such pleasures as they think fit to be reserved for themselves By Brettaul in Picardy I saw a post fastned in the ground like a race post with us and therein an inscription I presently made to it as hoping to have heard of some memorable battell there foughten but when I came at it I found it to be nothing but a Declaration of the Prince of Condes pleasure that no man should hunt in those quarters afterwards I observed them to be very frequent But not to wander through all particulars I will in some few of them only give instance of their power here The first is Proict de bailli age power to keep Assize or to have under him a Bailli and a Superiour seat of Justice for the decision of such causes as fall under the compasse of ordinary jurisdiction In this Court there is notice taken of Treasons Robberies Murders Protections Pardons Faires Markets and other matters of priviledge Next they have a Court of ordinary jurisdiction and therein a Judge whom they call Le guarde de Justice for the decision of smaller businesse as Debts Trespasses breach of the Kings peace and the like In this the purse is only emptied the other extendeth to the taking of life also for which cause every one which hath Haute Justice annexed to his Feise hath also his peculiar Gibbet nay which is wonderfully methodicall by the criticisme of the Gibbet you may judge at the quality of him that owneth it For the Gibbet of one of the Nobles hath but two pillars that of the Chastellan three the Barons four the Earls six the Dukes eight and yet this difference is rather precise then generall The last of their jura regalia which I will here speak of is the command they have upon their people to follow them unto the wars a command not so advantagious to the Lord as dangerous to