village in France but by reason hereof of had widows and orphanes cursing this expidition And his Holinesse after he had made allowance for his losse of time bloud and credit found his gain de claro very small Besides such was the chance of warre and good Catholicks were so intermingled with hereticks that in sacking of cities they were slain together Whereupon the Pope resolved of a privater way which made lesse noise in the world attracted lesse envy and was more effectuall To prosecute them by way of Inquisition Hereby he might single them out by retail rooting out the tares without hurting the corn and overthrowing them by piece-meal whom he could never stagger in grosse Dominick a Spaniard was first authour hereof Well did his mother being with child of him dream that she had a dog vomiting fire in her wombe This ignivomous curre sire of the litter of Mendicant Friars called Dominicanes did bark at and deeply bite the poore Albingenses After his death Pope Honorius for his good service bestowed a Saintship on him For he dreamed he saw the Church of Rome falling and Dominick holding it up with his shoulders wherefore he canonized this Atlas of their religion The proceedings of this Inquisition were the abridgement of all cruelty turning the sword of Justice into the butchers ax But no doubt God when he maketh inquisition for bloud will one day remember this bloudy Inquisition And who can but admire at the continuance of the doctrine of the Albingenses to this day maugre all their enemies Let those privy-counsellers of Nature who can tell where swallows lie all winter and how at the spring they have a resurrection from their seeming deadnesse let those I say also inform us in what invisible sanctuaries this doctrine did lurk in spite of persecution and how it revived out of its ashes at the coming of Luther To conclude it is observed That in those parts of France where the Albingenses were most cruelly handled now the Protestants heirs to most of their tenets flourish most as in the countreys of Gascongne Daulphine and Languedoc Chap. 23. King Almerick for his lazinesse deposed by the Pope WElcome the Holy land welcome Ptolemais How shallow and almost quite dry is the stream of Pilgrimes grown here since the Pope hath drained it with so large a by-chanel into France As for Almerick the idle King of Jerusalem we find him as we left him drowning his cares constantly in wine his hands being lazier then those are printed in the margent of a book which point what others should read whilest he would neither do nor order what should be done So true was it of him what is said of another Titularis non tutelaris Rex defuit non praefuit Reipublicae And now the warre betwixt Noradine Saladines sonne and Saphradine his uncle about the sovereignty lasting nine yeares ended with Saphradines death and Noradine contented himself with the government of Aleppo whilest Saphradines two sonnes shared his dominions Coradine commanding in Damascus and Syria and Meladine in Egypt The former of these without any resistance built a fort in mount Tabor to the great annoyance of the Christians To prevent farther mischief arising from Almericks negligence the Pope who would have a finger in every Crown and a hand in this deposed him from the Kingdome This Almerick grieved to lose what he was never carefull to keep soon after died for sorrow But how doth this agree with Marinus Sanutus who maketh him to die of a surfet of gilt-heads five yeares sooner and saith there was five yeares interregnum in Palestine wherein the Christians had no King at all Chap. 24. Iohn Bren made King of Ierusalem A most promising voyage into Palestine of new Pilgrimes which remove the seat of the warre into Egypt IN the place of Almerick the Pope appointed John de Bren a private French Gentleman to be King Who to twist his title with another string married Maria Iole the sole daughter of Conrade late King of Jerusalem This John had behaved himself right valiantly amongst other Latine Princes in the voyage against the Greeks and was a most martiall man as all do witnesse Onely one calleth him imbellem hominem why I know not except he be of that humour to delight to be one of the Antipodes treading opposite to a world of writers besides In the beginning of his reigne this accident whether monstrous or miraculous fell out In France a boy for his yeares went about singing in his own tongue Iesus Lord repair our losse Restore to us thy holy Crosse. Numberlesse children ranne after him and followed the same tune their captain and chanter did set them No bolts no barres no fear of fathers or love of mothers could hold them back but they would to the Holy land to work wonders there till their merry musick had a sad close all either perishing on land or drowned by sea It was done saith my authour by the instinct of the devil who as it were desired a cordiall of childrens bloud to comfort his weak stomach long cloyed with murdering of men Soon after began the Laterane Councel under Innocent the third Wherein many things were concluded for the recovery of the Holy land as That the Crosse should every where be preached with zeal and earnestnesse to procure Pilgrimes That all tiltings in Christendome for three yeares should be forbidden that so the spears of Christians might onely be broken against Infidels That Clergie-men that went this voyage might if need were mortgage their Church-livings for three yeares to provide themselves with present necessaries That all debters during their Pilgrimage though bound by oath in conscience the strongest specialty should be dispensed with to pay no use to their creditours who if Christians by excommunications if Jews were to be forced by the secular power to remit their interest That all Priests should contribute the twentieth part of their revenues for three yeares to advance this designe And lest saith his Holinesse we should seem to lay heavy burdens on others which we will not touch with our least finger we assigne a ship at our own cost to carry our Pilgrimes of the citie of Rome and disburse for the present what can be spared from our necessary expenses to the summe of thirty thousand pounds to further the project and for three yeares to come we and our brethren the Cardinals of Rome will fully pay the tenth of our Church-profits Hereupon next spring a numerous armie set forward to Palestine conducted by Pelagius the Popes Legate Andrew King of Hungarie who having washed himself in the river of Jordan would stay no longer but instantly returned home the three Electorall Archbishops with those of Liege Wirtzburg Bamberg Strassburg Paris c. Lewis Duke of Bavaria Leopold of Austria a navie of our English besides Florentines Genoans and many other nations The autumne they spent in the
maintain that a confession extorted on the rack is of no validitie If they be weak men and unable to endure torment they will speak any thing and in this case their words are endited not from their heart but outward limbes that are in pain and a poore conquest it is to make either the hand of a child to beat or the tongue of the tortured man to accuse himself If they be sturdie and stubborn whose backs are paved against torments such as bring brasen sides against steely whips they will confesse nothing And though these Templars were stout valiant men yet it is to be commended to ones consideration whether slavish and servile souls will not better bear torment then generous spirits who are for the enduring of honourable danger and speedie death but not provided for torment which they are not acquainted with neither is it the proper object of valour Again it is produced in their behalf that being burned at the stake they denied it at their death though formerly they had confessed it and whose charitie if not stark-blind will not be so tender-eyed as to beleeve that they would not breathe out their soul with a lie and wilfully contract a new guilt in that very instant wherein they were to be arraigned before the Judge of heaven A Templar being to be burned at Burdeaux and seeing the Pope and King Philip looking out at a window cried unto them Clement thou cruel tyrant seeing there is no higher amongst mortall men to whom I should appeal for my unjust death I cite thee together with King Philip to the tribunal of Christ the just Judge who redeemed me there both to appear within one yeare and a day where I will lay open my cause and justice shall be done without any by-respect In like manner James grand Master of the Templars though by piecemeal he was tortured to death craved pardon of God and those of his Order That forced by extremitie of pain on the rack and allured with hope of life he had accused them of such damnable sinnes whereof they were innocent Moreover the people with their suffrage acquitted them happie was he that could get an handfull of their ashes into his bosome as the Relique of pious martyrs to preserve Indeed little heed is to be given to peoples humours whose judgement is nothing but prejudice and passion and commonly envie all in prosperitie pitie all in adversitie though often both undeservedly And we may beleeve that the beholding of the Templars torments when they were burned wrought in the people first a commiserating of their persons and so by degrees a justifying of their cause However vulgus non semper errat aliquando eligit and though it matters little for the gales of a private mans fansie yet it is something when the wind bloweth from all corners And true it is they were generally cried up for innocents Lastly Pope Clement and King Philip were within the time prefixed summoned by death to answer to God for what they had done And though it is bad to be busie with Gods secrets yet an argument drawn from the event especially when it goeth in company with others as it is not much to be depended on so it is not wholly to be neglected Besides King Philip missed of his expectation and the morsel fell besides his mouth for the lands of the Templars which were first granted to him as a portion for his youngest sonne were afterwards by the Councel of Vienne bestowed on the Knights-Hospitallers Chap. 3. A moderate way what is to be conceived of the suppression of the Templars BEtwixt the two extremities of those that count these Templars either Malefactours or Martyrs some find a middle way whose verdict we will parcel into these severall particulars 1. No doubt there were many novices and punies amongst them newly admitted into their Order which if at all were little guiltie for none can be fledge in wickednesse at their first hatching To these much mercie belonged The punishing of others might have been an admonition to them and crueltie it was where there were degrees of offenses to inflict the same punishment and to put all of them to death 2. Surely many of them were most hainous offenders Not to speak what they deserved from God who needeth not pick a quarrel with man but alwayes hath a just controversie with him they are accounted notorious transgressours of humane laws yet perchance if the same candle had been lighted to search as much dust and dirt might have been found in other Orders 3. They are conceived in generall to be guiltlesse and innocent from those damnable sinnes wherewith they were charged Which hainous offenses were laid against them either because men out of modestie and holy horrour should be ashamed and afraid to dive deep in searching the ground-work and bottome of these accusations but rather take them to be true on the credit of the accusers or that the world might the more easily be induced to beleeve the crimes objected to be true as conceiving otherwise none would be so devilish as to lay such devilish offenses to their charge or lastly if the crimes were not beleeved in the totall summe yet if credited in some competent portion the least particular should be enough to do the deed and to make them odious in the world 4. The chief cause of their ruine was their extraordinary wealth They were feared of many envied of more loved of none As Naboths vineyard was the chiefest ground for his blasphemie and as in England Cornwall Lord Fanhop said merrily That not he but his stately house at Ampthill in Bedfordshire was guiltie of high treason so certainly their wealth was the principall evidence against them and cause of their overthrow It is quarrel and cause enough to bring a sheep that is fat to the shambles We may beleeve King Philip would never have took away their lives if he might have took their lands without putting them to death but the mischief was he could not get the hony unlesse he burnt the bees Some will say The Hospitallers had great yea greater revenues nineteen thousand Mannors to the Templars nine thousand yet none envied their wealth It is true but then they busied themselves in defending of Christendome maintaining the Island of Rhodes against the Turks as the Teutonick order defended Spruce-land against the Tartarian the world therefore never grudged them great wages who did good work These were accounted necessarie members of Christendome the Templars esteemed but a superfluous wenne they lay at rack and manger and did nothing who had they betook themselves to any honourable employment to take the Turks to task either in Europe or Asia their happinesse had been lesse repined at and their overthrow more lamented And certain it is that this their idlenesse disposed them for other vices as standing waters are most subject to putrifie I heare one bird sing a different note
and have at Italie Wherefore the Hospitallers left Nice and planted themselves at Syracuse in Sicilie Where they right valiantly behaved themselves in defending that countrey But Charles the fifth a politick Prince though he saw their help was usefull yet desired not much to have them live in his own countrey He liked their neighbourhood better then their presence to have them rather neare then in his Kingdome Wherefore he appointed them the Island of Malta to keep for themselves their grand Master onely paying yearly to the King of Spain a Falcon in acknowledgement they held it from him Loth were the Hospitallers to leave Sicilie that Paradise of pleasure and went very unwillingly from it Malta is an Island in the mid-land-sea seated betwixt Europe and Africa as if it meant to escape out of both as being in neither Here S. Paul suffered shipwrack when the viper stung him not but the men did condemning him for a murderer And here the Hospitallers seated themselves and are the bulwark of Christendome to this day giving dayly evident proof of their courage But their master-piece was in the yeare 1565 when they couragiously defended the citie of Malta besieged by Soliman When he discharged seventie eight thousand bullets some of them seven spans in compasse against it big enough not onely to overthrow walls but overturn mountains yet notwithstanding they held out valiantly five moneths and at last forced the Turk to depart These Knights of Malta are at this day a good bridle to Tunis and Algiers I am informed by a good friend who hath spent much yet lost no time in those parts that these Knights are bound by vow not to flie from the Turks though one man or one galley to foure half which ods Hercules himself durst not venture on but if there be five to one it is interpreted wisdome not cowardlinesse to make away from them Also if a Christian ship wherein there is a Knight of Malta take a Turkish ship that Knight is bound by his Order first to go aboard to enter it The grand Master of this Order hath a great command and is highly esteemed of insomuch that the authour of the Catalogue of the glory of the world beleeveth he is to take place next to absolute Kings above all other temporall Princes even above Kings subject to the Empire Sure he meaneth if they will give it him otherwise it seemeth improper that the alms-man should take place of his benefactours Yet the Lord Prior of the Hospitallers in England was chief Baron of the Realm and had precedencie of all other Lords and here his Order flourished with great pomp till their finall period which I now come to relate Chap. 6. The Hospitallers in England stoutly withstand three severall assaults which overthrew all other Religious foundations THe suppression of the Hospitallers in England deserveth especiall notice because the manner thereof was different from the dissolving of other Religious houses for manfully they stood it out to the last in despite of severall assaults 1. Cardinall Wolsey by leave from the Pope suppressed certain small houses of little value therewithall to endow his Colledges in Oxford and Ipswich He first shewed Religious places were mortall which hitherto had flourished in a seeming eternitie This leading case of Wolseys did pick the morter out of all the Abbey-walls in England and made a breach in their strongest gate-houses teaching covetousnesse an apt scholar a readie way to assault them For it is the dedication not the value of the thing dedicated stampeth a character of sacrednesse upon it And King Henry the eighth concluded if the Cardinall might eat up the lean Covents he himself might feed on the fat ones without danger of a sacrilegious surfet True it is Wolsey not wholly but in part alienated the lands of these pettie houses reserving them still to the generall end of pious uses But the King followed this pattern so farre as it was for his purpose and neglected the rest 2. For not long after the Parliament granted him all Religious houses of and under the value of two hundred pounds yearly and it was thought that above ten thousand persons masters and servants lost their livelihoods by the demolishing of them And for an introduction to the suppression of all the residue he had a strait watch set upon them and the Regulars therein tied to a strict and punctuall observation of their orders without any relaxation of the least libertie insomuch that many did quickly un-nunne and disfriar themselves whose sides formerly used to go loose were soon galled with strait lacing 3. Then followed the grand dissolution or judgement-day on the world of Abbeys remaining which of what value soever were seised into the Kings hands The Lord Cromwell one of excellent parts but mean parentage came from the forge to be the hammer to maul all Abbeys Whose magnificent ruines may lesson the beholders That it is not the firmnesse of the stone nor fastnesse of the morter maketh strong walls but the integritie of the inhabitants For indeed foul matters were proved against some of them as Sodomie and much uncleannesse Whereupon unwillingly willing they resigned their goods and persons to the Kings mercie But the Knights-Hospitallers whose chief mansion was at St-Johns nigh London being Gentlemen and souldiers of ancient families and high spirits would not be brought to present the King such puling petitions and publick recognitions of their errours as other Orders had done They complained it was a false consequence as farre from charitie as logick from the induction of some particular delinquents to inferre the guiltinesse of all Religious persons Wherefore like stout fellows they opposed any that thought to enrich themselves with their ample revenues and stood on their own defense and justification Chap. 7. The Hospitallers at last got on an advantage and suppressed BUt Barnabe's day it self hath a night and this long-lived Order which in England went over the graves of all others came at last to its own They were suffered to have rope enough till they had haltered themselves in a Praemunire For they still continued their obedience to the Pope contrary to their allegeance whose usurped authoritie was banished out of the land and so though their lives otherwise could not be impeached for any vitiousnesse they were brought within the compasse of the law The case thus standing their deare friends perswaded them to submit to the Kings mercie and not to capitulate with him on conditions nor to stop his favour by their own obstinacie but yeeld whilest as yet terms honest and honourable would be freely given them That such was the irresistiblenesse of the Kings spirit that like a torrent it would bear down any thing which stood betwixt him and his desires If his anger were once inflamed nothing but their bloud could quench it Let them not flatter themselves into their own ruine by relying on the aid of their friends at
home who would not substitute their own necks to save theirs from the ax nor by hoping for help from forrein parts who could send them no seasonable succour This counsel harsh at first grew tunable in the eares of the Hospitallers so that contented rather to exchange their clothes for worse then to be quite stript they resigned all into the Kings hands He allowed to Sr William Weston Lord Prior of the Order an annuall pension of one thousand pounds But he received never a penny thereof but dyed instantly struck to the heart when he first heard of the dissolution of his Priory and lieth buried in the Chancell of Clarkenwell with the portraiture of a dead man lying on his shroud the most artificially cut in stone saith my Authour that ever man beheld Others had rent assigned them of 200l l 100l l 80l l 60l l 50l l 20l l 10l l according to their severall qualities and deserts At the same time justs and tornaments were held at Westminster Wherein the challengers against all comers were Sr John Dudley Sr Thomas Seymore Sr Thomas Poinings Sr George Carew Knights Antonie Kingstone and Richard Cromwell Esquires To each of whom for reward of their valour the King gave a hundred marks of yearly revenues and a house to dwell in to them and their heirs out of the lands belonging to these Hospitallers And at this time many had Danae's happinesse to have golden showres rained into their bosomes These Abbey-lands though skittish mares to some have given good milk to others Which is produced as an argument That if they prove unsuccessefull to any it is the users default no inherencie of a curse in the things themselves But let one keep an exact Register of lands and mark their motions how they ebbe and flow betwixt buyers and sellers and surely he will say with the Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is most sure Let land be held in never so good a tenure it will never be held by an unthrift The Hospitallers Priory-church was preserved from down-pulling all the dayes of King Henry the eighth but in the third yeare of King Edward the sixth with the bell-towre a piece of curious workmanship graven gilt and enamelled it was undermined and blown up with gunpowder and the stone imployed in building the Lord Protectours house in the Strand Thus as chirurgeons in cutting off a gangrened leg alwayes cut it off above the joynt even where the flesh is whole and sound so belike for fear of further infection to banish Monkerie for ever they rased the structures and harmlesse buildings of Priories which otherwise in themselves were void of any offense They feared if Abbeys were onely left in a swound the Pope would soon get hot water to recover them To prevent which they killed them and killed them again overturning the very foundations of the houses infringing altering and transferring the lands that they might never be reduced to their old propertie Some outrages were committed in the manner of these dissolutions Many manuscripts guiltie of no other superstition then red letters in the front were condemned to the fire and here a principall key of antiquitie was lost to the great prejudice of posteritie But in sudden alterations it is not to be expected that all things be done by the square and compasse Chap. 8. Queen Mary setteth up the Hospitallers again They are again deposed by Queen Elisabeth QUeen Mary a Princesse more zealous then politick attempted to restore Abbeys to their pristine estate and former glory And though certain of her counsellers objected that the state of her Kingdome and dignitie thereof and her Crown imperiall could not honourably be furnished and maintained without the possession of Abbey-land yet she frankly restored resigned and confirmed by Parliament all ecclesiasticall revenues which by the authoritie of that high court in the dayes of her Father were annexed to the Crown protesting she set more by her salvation then by ten kingdomes But the Nobilitie followed not her example They had eaten up the Abbey-lands and now after twentie yeares possession digested and turned them into good bloud in their estates they were loth therefore to emptie their veins again and the forwardest Romanist was backward enough in this costly piece of devotion How-ever out of her own liberalitie she set up two or three bankrupt Covents as Sion and Westminster and gave them stock to trade with The Knights also of S. John of Jerusalem she reseated in their place and S ◠Thomas Tresham of Rushton in Northamptonshire was the first and last Lord Prior after their restitution For their nests were plucked down before they were warm in them by the coming in of Queen Elisabeth To conclude In the founders of Religious houses were some good intents mixt with superstitious ends amongst the Religious persons themselves some pietie more loosenesse and lazinesse in the confounders of those houses some detestation of the vices of Friars more desire of the wealth of Friaries in God all just all righteous in permitting the badnesse and causing the destruction of these numerous Fraternities Chap. 9. Observations on the Holy warre The horrible superstition therein WE have finished the story of the Holy warre And now I conceive my indentures are cancelled and I discharged from the strict service and ties of an Historian so that it may be lawfull for me to take more libertie and to make some observations on what hath been past Before I go further I must deplore the worlds losse of that worthy work which the Lord Verulam left unfinished concerning the Holy warre an excellent piece and alas it is but a piece so that in a pardonable discontent we may almost wish that either it had been more wholly to have satisfied our hunger or lesse not at all to have raised our appetite It was begun not in an historicall but in a politick way not reporting the Holy warre past with the Turks but advising how to manage it in the future And no doubt if he had perfected the work it would have proved worthy the Authour But since any have been deterred from finishing the same as ashamed to adde mud-walls and a thatched roof to so fair a foundation of hewen and polished stone From that Authour we may borrow this distinction That three things are necessarie to make an invasive warre lawfull the lawfulnesse of the jurisdiction the merit of the cause and the orderly and lawfull prosecution of the cause Let us apply to our present purpose in this Holy warre For the first two Whether the jurisdiction the Christians pretended over the Turks dominions was lawfull or not and Whether this warre was not onely operae but vitae pretium worth the losing so many lives we referre the Reader to what hath been said in the first book Onely it will not be amisse to adde a storie or two out of an Authour of good account When Charles the sixth