the League between the French King the Duke of Savoy and the Venetians negotiates another between himself and the Princes of Italy The Spaniard spreads abroad defaming Libels against the League of France Venice and Savoy Those great losses which the Protestants had sustained for some preceding years in Bearn and Languedoc alwaies kept them waking especially after the Peace of Montpelier they well perceiving that those small â—outs which they had suffered did threaten their Party with an utter destruction The Spaniards therefore laboured very much to get the Sieur de Soubize and Rohan who were the only eminent persons to Command their Arms. Their design took effect These two Brothers being met at Castres resolved to raise those of their Party the one by Sea at Guienne and the other in Languedoc The attempt upon the Fort of Blavet otherwise Port S. Lewes of which we have spoken before was an effect of that resolution as also the endeavours of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan began at the same time in Languedoc to draw in more Towns in to their Party But the Marquess de Ragny was sent in all haste into Languedoc with certain Regiments to oppose the first Commotions and to employ many persons of discretion to assure himself of the Counsels of the chief Towns and by this means most of them kept within their duties Soubize publisht a Manifest which sounded an Alarm to all the Protestant Party making them to believe that their utter ruine was concluded on in the King's Council That the loss of their Religion was inevitable if they did not defend themselves by Arms and that the raising of Fort Saint Lewes built by Rochel was a sign of it He suggested to them that the Catholicks were of opinion in most of their Bcoks that they were not obliged to keep Faith with Hereticks Most were taken with these reasons because the Duke of Rohan clapt into some Towns certain Gentlemen and Captains of his own Religion to encourage them and to stir up the Popular Ministers who after this looked for nothing but when to rise not considering that the insurrections which they were carried to were contrived by the Spaniards who pretended not to make use of them but only to divert and draw off the King's Arms from Italy That fomentation which the Spaniard gave to the Hugonots whereby to force the King to draw off his Army from the Valtoline obliged the French King to do the like by the Spaniard in assaulting the Common-wealth of Genoa The Pope sends the Cardinal Barbarino in the quality of a Legate into France to negotiate the Peace between the French King and the King of Spain The Hugonots by the Spaniards instigation arm themselves very potently against the French King The Duke of Rohan took the Command upon himself of those Forces in Languedoc Soubize those in Poictou Although Soubize had been repulsed from before the Port of Blavet yet by that means he made himself master of six great Ships which were the King 's and the Duke 's of Nemours which gave him opportunity of doing very considerable damages He had formerly got together about eleven Ships of War and many Shallops and small Boats and with these roved up and down the Coasts of Poictou and Guienne as hath been before hinted at The Duke of Rohan got together about two thousand men near Castres He gave out that the Rochellers had taken Arms and sworn a League with the Churches of his Party that he might by this pretence get a like interest in some other Towns which he had an eye upon And accordingly he went to Puilaurens Ruel Soreze St. Pauls Leviate and Briteste and made the Consuls swear to the Confederacy afterwards he came to the Gates of Lavaur to surprâ—zâ— it but his design took no effect The Count of Carmain Governour of Foix got into Ruel and Soreze after the other had forsaken them and so dealt with the Consuls that they confessed their faults and protested not to take part with him any more A Process was made in the Parliament of Tholouse against him and all his Adherents The Marquess de Cragny and the Count of Carmain marched against the Duke and whilst those who made the first Encounter were at it the rest got into Vianes who were however so closely pursued by the Marshal's Forces that the Regiment of Normandy was hard at their heels entring into the Town with them Thus he remained Master of Peyresquade where there were about one hundred and fifty of the Rebels Souldiers killed and hurt all which the Duke of Rohan beheld from a Fort in Vianes where he then was from which time forwards he began to despair of doing any great matters for the future especially since he saw himself so closely followed and that the Cardinal had taken such a course in Languedoc that the King could have raised more men in twenty four hours than the Duke in a whole month Soubize finding little assurance on the main Land had fortified himself in the Isles of Reé and Olleron it was the more important to remove him thence because otherwise it would be impossible to reduce Rochel unto its obedience so easily and abundantly might he recruit them with necessaries from those fertile Islands but the Duke of Montmorency the King's Admiral made himself Master of the Isle of Reé after a three daies Combate with a great deal of obstinacy on both parts The Duke of Montmorency Landed at Olleron where he met with no resistance The Sieur de Soubize haying withdrawn himself into England lived at a House called Burgate in Hampshire near the New Forest for divers years after The whole Province was now setled in quiet both by Sea and Land of all which King Lewes was informed who received the news with much joy Cardinal Barbarini Legate from the Pope arrived in France and came to Marseilles where he was received with great honour 〈◊〉 also at Lions according to the Orders sent by the King He came to Paris on May 21. and entred in great pomp He is bound by the Laws of the Kingdom before he officiate the Function of a Legate to present the Brief which the Pope hath given him for the employment to the Parliament of Paris The Pope having omitted in this Brief to give the King the title of King of Navarre the Parliament refused to acknowledge it and obliged him not to proceed any further in the business till that were amended The Legate coming to Paris alighted at St. James de Haut-pas where the Clergy of the City the concourse of the Court and other Officers to the number of twelve thousand went to salute him and receive his Benediction After this the Prelates of Paris came to pay their respects to him There was a little dispute in what habit they should appear before him the Legate desiring they should be in their Rochets and Camall covered over with a Mantlet as a mark that they had no power in
of Paris that a publick thanâ—sgiving might be made and himself returning to Paris passed by Nostre Dam des Ardilliers that there he might pay his Vows for to his Devotions there he ascribed his first Victories as that of the relieving Reé upon which the whole success depended The King before he left Rochel published a Declaration wherein was contained that the Roman Catholick Religion should be freely Exercised there both in the City and Government of Aulnis That the Churches which had been lately destroyed thereabouts should be re-edified and restored to them in whose Possession they formerly were together with all their appurtenances That a sufficient maintenance should be given to such Curates as had not means to live on out of those lands which belonged to the Town-house That the Religieux de la charitè les Religiouses Hospitaliers should be re-established in the Hospitals of the Town to attend upon all sick persons That a Cross should be raised in the Castle-yard at the Foot of which an Inscription of the taking the City should be inscribed and that every first of November a Procession general should be made to give God thanks for his mercies That the Church-yard Consecrated in the Lands of Coreille where those of the Camp who died during the siege had been buried should still be conserved to that use That a Covent of Religieux Minimes should be built there who might pray unto God for them and perpetuate the memory of the thing The King took this course to keep Rochel in obedience He deposed the Mayor and discharged the Shrievalty and Commonalty of the Town without hopes of restauration He ordained that the most Seditious persons of the City should forsake it and among others Guison Mayre Godefray Salebret and Deserbrieres not so much as excepting the Dame de Rohan who was carried to Niort by the Sieur de Lannay Lieutenant des Gardes des Corps Next he revoked all the Priviledges and Charters heretofore granted to the City He commanded the Walls the Ramparts and the rest of the Fortifications to be razed and the Ditches to be filled up leaving only the Towers de S. Nicholas de la Chains de la lantern standing with that part of the Wall toward the Sea to preserve the Town from Pirates He appointed also that no stranger should have an House or Family in the Town without his Majestie 's permission had and obtained or that any Hereticks as the Protestants were called should return to their former dwellings And for the better keeping them in their obedience he ordained that there should be an Intendent of justice in the City Country and Government of Aulins who should see the Execution of his Ordinances and have an eye to that which concern'd his service all which was inserted in the said Declaration He then commanded the Inhabitants to be disarmed and that certain Regiments should remain in the Town until it were quite demolished After all these things he returned to Paris where he was magnificently received the Companies of the City making Orations unto him The expences of the Siege of Rochel are said to have amounted unto forty millions of Livres Then Monsieur the Prince the Dukes of Montmorency and Vantadour who Commanded his Majestie 's Forces in Languedoc became Masters of the Field and before the end of the year repossessed themselves of all those places in a few daies which were capable of being forced The King in the year following having resolved upon going into Italy commits the Government of the State to the Queen his Mother And before he goeth into Piedmont he compelleth the Hugonots in Languedoc to lay down their Arms and to declare in form before his Parliaments and Judges that they will live in all duties and obedience hereafter His Majesty caused his Declaration to this purpose to be read in Parliament himself being present which put a stop to all the Hugonots affairs until after the taking of Suze Whilst the King is in Italy the Duke of Rohan takes Arms in the Sevennes And with the assistance of the Cities of Montauban Nismes Millaut Castres Privas Vsetz and some others had got such a body of an Army together as therewith he hoped to maintain himself in that little angle of the Kingdom and either presently to obtain some advantagious Conditions or to expect a more favourable time for the re-establishment of his depressed Party In the mean time he treated secretly with the King of Spain from whom he had also obtain'd a promise of some supply of money But the King who had intelligence of his practice returning with the same celerity out of Italy into France in the most violent heats of Summer with which he had passed out of France into Italy in the greatest extremity of Winter presented himself before Privas one of the Hugonot Cities in June which at his first coming he carried by assault after which Aletz another of the same Principles surrendered without resistance The Duke of Rohan observing what a terrour the taking of these two places had infused into his whole Faction and knowing on the other side that a Peace with Italy and England was already conclued began to apprehend at last he should be totally deserted by all his Confederates and Friends and left alone to bear the shock of all his Majesties Victorious Arms which made him in time seriously apply himself to his mercy to avoid the severe effects of his justice A Peace was concluded in July 1629. with the Duke of Rohan which all the other Cities of his Party likewise accepted except Montauban which for some daies stood out but afterwards was surrendered to Cardinal Richlieu who settled all things in peace to the great happiness of the King and the whole Kingdom The next year the French King procured from the Pope the Cardinals Hats to be bestowed on the Archbishop of Lions and Monsieur Bagni the Pope's Nuntio Now new stirs are at Court occasioned by the discontents of the Queen-Mother and the Monsieur The Queen-Mother professeth open hatred to the Cardinal she directly opposeth all his Counsels which how well soever they succeeded she still found matter enough to render them suspected to the King and to discredit them by sinister interpretations The Duke of Savoy was grown by this time sensible of the dishonourable Peace he had concluded at Suze to which the loss of Montferrat stuck mainly in his stomach The Duke therefore seizeth upon all the French in his Territories not so much as excepting the Merchants and Religious Orders The Marshal of Crequi hereupon advanceth to Pignerol with one thousand Horse six thousand Foot and some Cannon and reduced the Town and Citadel to the obedience of the French King And the passages from France to Piedmont were open after the reducing of certain Towns of the Duke of Savoy In short time the King makes himself Master of all Savoy The Cardinal offered all sorts of submission to the Queen-Mother to
of Emperour unto Lewes Bavaria and unto Chrarles France Pepin enjoyed Aquitain without contradiction Lewes not content with Bavaria levies an Army and passeth the Rhine The miserable Father prepares an Army to go against him but he falls sick and dieth Anno 840. There was a Council held at Paris by the Command of Lewes and his Son Lotharius Anno 829 and three others at the same time in other places as is collected from the Preface It was Ordained that Synods should then be Assembled in four several places of their Empire In his Reign in France was used of Priests and Church-men precious and shining Vestures and golden and rich staring Girdles with Rings and other Ornaments of Gold Fabian's Chron. Wherefore the said Lewes procured of the Pope a correction for all such as used such strange apparel causing them to wear brown and sad colours After the death of the Emperour Lewes Lotharius his eldest Son and Emperour by his Fathers Testament would force his Brethren to a new division He quarrelleth with Charles King of France and Lewes Duke of Bavaria but the two Brethren unite together and joyn their Forces to oppose Lotharius Lotharius finding himself the stronger refuseth the Conditions of Peace offered by his Brethren Then Lewes and Charles charging the Army of Lotharius overthrew it with a notable slaughter Lotharius after this defeat changeth his humour with his estate he enjoyed the titulary mask of the Empire with Austrasia yet much curtailed and divided to his three Sons Lewes Charles and Lotharius Then Lotharius having remorse of Conscience for attempting against his Father and Brethren professeth himself a Monk in the Abby of Pluviers and dies a Monk in the Year 855. Charles and Lewes after the Victory call the Bishops to take their Advice upon Occurrents who being solemnly Assembled exhort them to Concord They hearken to them make an Alliance and come to the dividing of their parts Charles remains the sole King of France Daulphine and Provence were left to Lewes in his partage for the commodity of Italy which was given him notwithstanding the pretensions of Bernard's Children But he died soon after without any Issue-male leaving one only Daughter called Hermingrade Heir of all his great Estates Charles married his Neece Hermingrade to Boson Earl of Ardennes Concil Meldens Cap. 78. Tom. 3. brother to his Wife Richilde who called himself King of Arles At the Council at Meaux held about this time it was Decreed that the Capitular Laws concerning the Church made by Charlemagne and his Son Lewes should be strictly observed The same Council entreats King Charles the Younger to grant the Bishops a freer liberty for the execution of their Ministeries in their Parishes Charles called the Bald began his Reign Anno 841. King Charles was present at the Council holden at Pistis upon Sein Anno 963. He is named first the Decrees are conceived in his name He caused himself to be proclaimed Emperour after the death of Lewes who survived Lotharius without contradiction He went to Rome and was Crowned Emperour by the Pope with the Imperial Diadem then raising his Spirit very high after the custom of the Grecians he walketh with a Surplice This King Charles the Bald relying on the Popes help favoured the Pope with all his Power and brought the French Clergy to the subjection of the Roman See as much as he could Then began the Popes Legates to come to the Councils of France and there to preside Then also the French Kings began to tremble under the thunderbolts of the Vatican and to fear the Excommunications of the Pope The first Pope that made tryal of his Excommunications against them was Pope Nicholas the first who threatned Lothary to Excommunicate him unless he recalled Tietberga his Wife whom he had put away to take Waldrada whom he loved which also this Pope did Excommunicate Whereupon there was great murmuring of the Prelates and People of France against the Pope being displeased both at the Pope's Usurpations and the pusillanimity of their Kings These things happened from the Year 863 to 866. After that Nicholas came Adrian the second who favouring Lewes Du Moulin cont Perron lib. 3. c. 9. Grand-child to Lewes the Gentle against Charles the Bald his Unckle sent peremptory Letters into France whereby he declared That if any presumed to make an enterprize upon the Kingdom of Lewes not only he would make void by his Authority all that he should do but also that such a man being bound with the bonds of Anathema and deprived of the name of Christian should be lodged altogether with the Devil * Pope John the 8. having excommunicated Count Lambert and Count Adalbert and some others which had ill entreated him in Italy came into France Anno 870 where he called a Synod at Troyes consisting of the Bishops of that Kingdom to desire their Consent to that Excommunication which they accordingly granted him This is seen in the Epistle which Hinomarus Arch-Bishop of Rhemes writes to the said Adrian upon the said subject where he saith That both Ecclesiastical and Secular men being Assembled at Rhemes would say in a reproachful way That never any such Mandate was sent from that See to any of the Kings Predecessors Adding That the Bishops of Rome had never withdrawn themselves from the obedience of Heretical Emperours Wherefore said they we will not believe that we cannot otherwise attain to the Kingdom of Heaven but by receiving him for a Temporal King whom this Apostolical Lord recommendeth to us It was in this ninth Age that the Decretals were forged by Riculphus Bishop of Mentz as is supposed who published them under a false Title And at that time and a long time after the Arch-Bishops of Mentz were the first promoters of Papal Authority in Germany And nothing hath helped more to the establishment of the Papal Empire than these Epistles which have for a long time been held for Oracles in the West by them the Father of lies hath wrought very powerfully These Decretals were forged under the Reign of Charlemagne and of his Son Lewes the Gentle being unknown before and never mentioned in all Antiquity bearing on the front the name of Isidorus Peccator and in some Copies Isidorus Mercator a man unknown and a name forged at will That Collection of Decretals began to go about in France in the beginning of the Reign of Charles the Bald. The first that used them was Hinckmar Bishop of Laon upon this occasion Hinckmar Arch-Bishop of Rhemes had promoted to the Bishoprick of Laon another Hinckmar his Nephew who having excommunicated his Clergy and hindered the Divine Service and the Baptism of Children in his own Bishoprick and committed divers crimes and excesses was cited to appear before his Unckle who was his Metropolitan But he would not obey nor appear Upon that Hinckmar of Rhemes disanulled all the Acts of Hinckmar of Laon and would synodically proceed against him
and gave courage to their Commanders Philip seeing his Errour raiseth another Army of 40000 men and puts them under the command of Robert Earl of Artois accompanied with the Constable of France and many other great Personages Century XIV THe Armies forementioned meet near unto the Town of Courtray in a place called Groeming The French were defeated Of this great Army there hardly escaped three hundred not one Commander escaped and very few Noble-men There were taken Robert Earl of Artois General of the Army the Constable of France James of Chastillon Governour of Flanders John King of Majorca Godfrey of Brabant and his Son the Lord of Viezon the Earls of Ewe la March Damartin Aumale Auge Tankerville and many other great Personages Twelve hundred Gentlemen were slain by this enraged Multitude All Flanders now revolted from the French This happened in the Year 1302. on July 11. John of Namour is their Governour in the absence of their imprisoned Earl All the threats of the King of England and the Emperour now vanished away only Pope Boniface had Excommunicated King Philip and interdicted his Realm in the hottest of these Flemmish affairs upon this occasion The Christians Estate was lamentable in the East the Tartarians encreased daily The Pope Anno 1301. sent Boniface Bishop of Apamea unto King Philip requiring him to go into the Holy Land When the Bishop saw no appearance of obedience he threatned the King that the Pope would deprive him of his Kingdom Whereupon the Bishop being charged of Arrogancy and Treason and cast into Prison the Pope sends to him again one Peter a Roman born Arch-Bishop of Narbon commanding him to set the Bishop at liberty and to take a Voyage against the Infidels and not to meddle with the Tenths of the Clergy Philip answered his troubles at home hindred him from going into the East and constrained him to impose a Subsidy upon the Clergy and he was willing to dismiss the Bishop The Arch-Bishop replyed that he was ignorant of the Pope's Authority who was not only the Father of Christian Souls but also Soveraign Lord in Temporal things And therefore by that Authority he did excommunicate him declaring him unworthy to reign and his Realm forfeited to the Pope to invest whom he pleased Moreover he brought another Bull directed to the Prelates and Noblemen of France whereby he acquitted all French-men and dispensed with them as to their Oath of Allegiance to Philip. And cited all the Prelates and Divines of the French Church to appear before him at Rome disanulling all indulgences and priviledges granted to the French by any Popes his predecessours The Earl of Artois disdaining this affront takes the Bull and casts it into the fire Philip was so born out by the Peers of France that when he demanded their advice how he should demean himself and whether he should put up that wrong they answered That they were ready not only to spend their goods which they there wholly offered unto him for that end but also to expose their persons even to death for him not refusing any torments Adding further and that more plainly by word of mouth That if the King which God forbid would suffer it or connive at it yet for their parts they would never endure it Mr. John Tillet Bishop of Paris speaking of this Fact in his French Chronicle The impudence of this man saith he of Boniface was wonderful who durst affirm that the Realm of France was a Benefice of the Papal Majesty But I think them saith he the greater fools who dispute the point whether the Pope hath this power or no he put our France under an Interdict for the time but the Bishops took the King's part King Philip appealed from the usurpations and insolencies of Boniface VIII to the See Apostolick then vacant as he said and to a future Council as Platina saith in his Life Platina in Bonifac 8. The States of France disanulled Boniface's excommunication Boniface by a glosing Letter of his written unto the Bishops endeavoureth to make them approve his unjust proceedings against King Philip where he saith among other things Those who hold that Temporal matters are not subject to spiritual do not they go about to make two Princes He complains also of the Parliament holden at Paris where it was enacted saith he by under-hand and begged voices that none should appear before him upon the summons of the See Apostolick Math. Westm li. 2. sub Ann. 301. He complains also of the Report which was made to that Assembly by Mr. Peter Flotte whom he calleth Belial half blind in body and quite in understanding This was the man who being sent in Embassage to him by King Philip to that saying of his we have both the one power and the other made this reply in behalf of his Master yours is verbal but ours is real This Pope will have it necessary to salvation to believe that all the faithful people of Christ are subject to the Pope of Rome and that he hath both the swords and that he judgeth all men and is judged of none This Boniface was the Authour of the sixth book of the Decretals King Philip sends back the Pope's two Nuncio's to Rome and forbids the Prelates of France to go or send any Money to Rome This being done Philip raiseth new forces to return into Flanders and subdueth the Flemmings but by the instance of John Duke of Brabant he makes peace with them upon strict conditions During this Treaty Guy Earl of Flanders and his Daughter do both dye Robert William and Guy Brethren the Sons of the Earl Guy of Flanders were freed with all the Prisoners Isabel the Daughter of Philip is married to Edward the second King of England This War of Flanders had wasted above three hundred thousand French-men in eleven years during the which it continued Adolph was deposed from the Empire by a Decree of the Electors and Albert of Austria was seated in his place who pursuing him with War slew him with his own hand in an encounter near unto Spire Albert being chosen and installed Emperour Boniface presently seeks to win him against King Philip. He proclaims him Emperour and invests him King of the Realm of France giving him both the Title and Arms and taking occasion to sow division in the heart of the Realm by means of the Clergy who by reason of their Revenues had great power in the State He also wrote Letters to Philip in this manner Boniface Bishop Servant of the Servants of God to Philip King of French-men Fear God and observe his Commandmens We Will thee to understand that thou art subject unto us both in Spiritual things and in Temporal and that it belongeth not to Thee to give any Prebend or Benefice If thou hast the keeping of any of them being vacant thou must reserve the profits of them to the Successours If Thou hast given any we judge thy gift to be void and do revoke
the siege and at the end of the siege the Fishes were found no more in that coast Sanserre a Protestant Town after eight Months siege was forced to surrender to Castrius the King's Lieutenant in those parts Upon the ninth day of May 1572. Henry Duke of Anjou was with a general consent chosen King of Poland Wherefore he having long besieged Rochel and seeking to come off from that siege with such moderation that his reputation might be safe and the minds of his new subjects not unsatisfied from whom he endeavoured to remove all suspicion of his taking away their liberty of Conscience he proceeded not so violently against the Protestants who now being quite tyred out desired peace This was favoured by the Duke and the City was yielded upon these conditions That the King should declare the Inhabitants of Rochel Nismes and Montauban to be his faithful Subjects pardoning all faults whatsoever had been committed by them during the Civil War That in those three Cities he should allow the free and publick exercise of the Reformed Religion they meeting together in small numbers and without Arms the Officers appointed for that purpose being there among them That in all other outward matters except Baptism and Matrimony they should observe the Rites and Holy-daies observed and commanded by the Church of Rome That the King should confirm all the liberties and priviledges of those three Towns not permitting them to be in any part diminished altered or violated That the Rochellers should receive a Governour of the King's appointment but without a Garrison who might freely stay there inhabit go and return into the City at his pleasure That they should be governed by the Laws and Customs with which they had been governed under the Kings of France ever since they were Subjects to that Crown That they should not lend any aid to those which should continue up in Arms though of the same Religion That the use and exercise of the Catholique Religion should be restored in those Cities whence it had been taken leaving freely unto the Church-men not only the Churches Monasteries and Hospitals but likewise all the Profits and Revenues belonging to them That all Lords of free Manours through the Kingdom might in their own houses lawfully celebrate Baptism and Matrimony after the manner of the Protestants provided the Assembly exceeded not the number of ten persons That there should be no Inquisition upon mens consciences and that those who would not dwell in the Kingdom might sell their Estates and go live where they pleased provided it were not in places that were enemies to the Crown And that for the observing these Articles the said three Cities should give Hostages which should be changed every three Months and alwayes should follow the Court. When these conditions were established and the Hostages given which by the Duke were presently sent to the Court Monsieur de Byron the Governour appointed by the King entred Rochel with one of the publick Heraulds took possession of the Government and caused the Peace to be Proclaimed After which the Duke of Anjou now King of Poland having dismissed the Army went with a Noble Train of Princes Lords and Gentlemen unto the City of Paris where assuming the title of his new Kingdom and having received the Polish Ambassadours he prepared for his journey to go and take possession of the Crown All the Protestants dwelling in Languedoc Dolphinè and Provence were offered those conditions which the Rochellers had embraced But they craved liberty first to assemble themselves together before they should give their answer Which being granted and the Assembly convened at Miliald they craved these Conditions viz. That in every Province of France two Towns might be granted unto the Protestants for their further security and those Towns to be kept by the Guards of their own Souldiers and have all their pay out of the King's Treasury and that liberty should be granted to all that were of their Religion to exercise the same freely without any exception of places Also that all those that should be found guilty of the horrible Murthers committed at Paris August 24. should be severely punished The Queen-Mother when she had read the Conditions which were required said with great indignation That if the Prince of Conde had been in the midst of France with twenty thousand Horse-men and fifty thousand Foot-men yet would he not have required the half of those conditions This great boldness of the Protestants put the Enemies in suspicion that the Nobles of France were confederate with them About the same time Count Montgomery had returned out of England and taken some Towns in Normandy but soon after he was besieged in Donfront a Town of Normandy where he is taken and sent to Paris and condemned to death This is that Noble man who had slain King Henry the second with a Spear whom King Henry would not suffer to be harmed for it But when he came into the hands of this cruel woman he must die She caused divers of the Nobility to be imprisoned and spared not her own Son the Duke of Alançon The Prince of Conde conveyed away himself secretly into Germany In November following after the bloody Massacre a new Star was seen in the Constellation of Cassiopeia which continued full sixteen Months being carried about with the daily motions of the Heaven Theodore Beza wittily applyed it to that Star which shone at the Birth of Christ and to the murthering of the Infants under Herod and warned Charles IX King of France who confessed himself to be the Authour of that bloody Massacre at Paris to beware in this Verse Tu verò Herodes sanguinolente cave Cambden's Hist of Qu. Elizab. And thou bloody Herod look thou to thy self And he was not wholly deceived in his belief for in the fifth Month after the vanishing of this Star King Charles died of a bloody Flix As he had caused much Protestant blood to be shed so in his sickness before his death great store of blood issued out by vomiting Thuan. Hist li. 57. and by other passages of his body in the two last weeks of his sickness and in his bed he could have little rest but horribly Blasphemed the name of God which he had accustomed himself unto even from his Child-hood Such was his unquietness and affrightments in the night that he endeavoured to appease it by Musick Andrew Melvin hath these Verses to Charles IX dying with an unusual Flux of blood Naribus ore oculis atque auribus undique ano Et pene erumpit qui tibi Carle cruor Non tuus iste cruor Sanctorum at caede eruorem Quem ferus hausisti concoquere haud poteras In those Verses are comprised both the cause and manner of his death He died May 30. 1574. before he was full five and twenty years of Age. As soon as Henry King of Poland heard of his Brother's death he returned privily and speedily and was
that should seek to hinder the effect of the precedent Articles To cause Judges to be appointed to examine the crime committed by the Duke of Alançon declaring himself Chief of the Hereticks To cause the said Duke to come to Court with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and to seize upon the said Duke King and Prince and all their Accomplices That the Captains that should be under the Duke of Guise should put all Protestants and adherents to the Sword both in the Country and in Walled Towns To subdue the revolted Princes To be Masters of the Field To block up the Towns that were opposite and to put all to fire and sword that should make head against them Then to take exemplary punishment of the Duke of Alanâ—on now henceforth to be called the Duke of Anjou and his Complices Then by the Pope's consent to put the King and Queen into a Monastery as King Pipin in former time had done Childeric and in favour of the Roman See to abolish the liberties and priviledges of the French Church These high projects were hearkened unto received and favoured in the Court of Rome The Articles of this Association were first drawn at Peronne in Picardy but disguised with goodly shews to blind them that would examine them more exactly which were To maintain the Law of God to restore the holy service thereof To preserve the King and his Successours in the Estate Dignity Service and Obedience due unto him by his Subjects To restore unto the Estates of the Realm their Rights Preheminencies and Ancient Liberties And for the execution of these Articles a certain form of Oath was propounded inflicting pains of eternal damnation to the Associates that for any pretext whatsoever should withdraw themselves from this League and a Bond for such should be enrolled to employ their goods persons and lives to punish and by all means to ruine the enemies and perturbers thereof and to punish them that should fail or make any delays by the Authority of the Head as he should think good This being done many Posts went to and fro carrying the news of these designs They cast many Libels through the Streets in many great Towns They murmure that the Protestants are too much supported by the Edict And under this plausible name of the Church the people give ear to such as are ready to thrust them into Mutiny The King was daily advertised of these things But on the other side he hated the Protestants and sought to ruine them by degrees but not by any Instruments without his Authority His Mother likewise hated them to the death She causeth the Duke her Son to come to the Court and the King to be reconciled to him The King calls an Assembly of the States at Bloyes where Peter d'Espinac Arch-Bishop of Lions and the Baron of Senecey are Speakers the one for the Clergy the other for the Nobility and both conclude a publick Exercise of one only Religion in France Peter Versoris Advocate in the Court of Parliament in Paris Oratour for the third Estate insists on the Union of all the Kings Subjects in one Religion but by mild means and without War The King seemed to encline only to alter some Articles in the last Edicts of Pacification and not to abolish it quite But at length the King consenteth to root out all other Religion but the Popish to banish all Ministers Deacons and Overseers of the Reformed Religion and yet to take all his other Subjects of the said Religion into his protection attending that by better instructions they might be brought into the bosome of the Church But the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde the Marshal of Montmorency d'Anville and other Noble-men both of the one and the other Religion refusing to assist at this present Parliament conclude a nullity of all that was Decreed to prejudice the Edict of Pacification protesting to maintain themselves in the Rights Liberties and Freedoms which the last Edict had granted them The King of Navarre beseecheth the Estates by the Duke of Montpensier who was sent unto him not to infringe the Edict of Peace but to suffer the Protestants to enjoy that which had been so formerly granted He desireth time to attend the opinion of an Assembly of those of his Religion and of the Catholick-Associates which was to be shortly made at Montaubon The Prince of Conde answers more sharply That he doth not acknowledge the Assembly at Bloys for the Estates of the Realm but a Conventicle of persons corrupted by the sworn enemies of the Crown who have sollicited the abolition of the Edict to the subversion of the Realm That he hath alwaies honoured the Clergy and Nobility but he pities the people whom this Assembly at Bloys sought to ruine The chief of the Politicks declare that they adhere not to any other Religion than that of their Fathers but they are against the taking from the Protestants the publick Exercise which had been so solemnly allowed them The Duke of Montpensier being returned perswaded to have the Edict confirmed John Bodin a man famous for Learning and experience in State-affairs one of the Deputies of the Commons of Vermandois sheweth to the Assembly how ruinous and fatal the new taking up of Arms would be repeating from the beginning all the dangers and miseries of the late Wars which made a deep impression on the minds of the third Estate But the other Orders being byassed and pre-ingaged it was determined by plurality of voices that request should be made unto the King to establish only the Romish Religion in the Kingdom and to exclude for ever all Communion with the Hugonots Nevertheless Bodin procured certain words to be entred in the Records of the Order of Commons to certifie their desire of unity in Religion without the noise of Arms and the necessity of War This Bodin was a man eminent as well among Protestants as Papists though himself professed the Romish Religion His Learning and skill in Politicks appears in his great Book de Republicâ Thuanus highly commendeth his writings Possevine dislikes his Methodus Historica because he makes such honourable mention of the Protestants there Some commend his Theatrum Naturae for a choice piece a Book full of natural curiosities The King gives notice to his Governours and publisheth by his Letters Patents that he is resolved to grant the Estates their requests touching the Exercise of one only Religion And thus the sixth Civil War begins in Guienne During the Parliament the Deputies of the Low Countries demand succours of the King and the Duke of Anjou for Pfotectour of their Liberties against the insolencies of the Spaniards Anjou is now declared the King's Lieutenant General They deliver him a mighty Army with which contrary to the Oath taken by him in the observation of the accord and promise pass'd with the Prince of Conde and Duke Casimire he besiegeth and taketh La-Charitè by Composition and Ysoire in
manner as might breed neither disorder nor confusion He sent them five Commanders to order the five quarters viz. the Count of Brisac the Sieur de Bois Dauphin the Sieur de Chamois the Sieur d'Esclavoles and Colonel St. Paul to whom the Sieur de Meneville was added who had been a chief Instrument in that business These entred openly into Paris under colour of private affairs and being lodged in those quarters of the City which were appointed them frequented the Court leaving the care to Meneville to bring the matter to its conclusion The Duke of Aumale is in readiness with five hundred Horse to assist the Conspiracy of the Parisians The Conspirators resolve to make use of the occasion which the time of Lent would afford them to seize on the King's Person then when with the Duke of Espernon he should be in Procession as he was wont in the habit of a Penitent among the whipping Friers neither accompanied by his Guards nor the ordinary retinue of the Court and to shut him up with strong Guards in a Monastery After which the Duke of Aumale's five hundred horse and his other Forces should presently come in and take possession of the principall places and keep them guarded till the arrival of the Duke of Guise But Nicholas Poulain who was privy to all this Conspiracy reveals the whole Plot to the High Chancellour and confirms it also to the King himself who hereupon feigned himself not well and so forbare to go to any spiritual exercise with the Fraternity of the Penitents The King had no Forces sufficient to bridle the Parisians whereupon the Queen said in the Italian tongue Bisogna coprisi bene il viso inanzi che stuzzicare il vespaio He that will stir up a Wasps nest had need to cover his face well and then means would not be wanting to suppress the Conspirators But the King to make himself sure of the Conspiratours blocks up the passages about Paris to keep victuals from thence The Council of sixteen begin to suspect that their Plot is discovered and the Heads being dismayed send for the Duke of Guise to Paris the King sends a command unto the Duke of Soissons not to come to Paris but he comes to Paris at noon on May 9. 1588. followed only with eight Gentlemen He lights at the Queen-Mother's Lodging and goes with her to do his duty unto the King The people follow him by troops with great joy crying God save the Guise God save the Pillar of the Church He makes his reverence to the King layes open the causes of his coming justifies his actions as well as he could and so withdraws till the King had dined They meet both after dinner at the Queen-Mother's Lodging the King full of fear and jealousie the Duke with a resolute countenance The next day the Archbishop of Lions the chief Pillar of the League arriveth the Duke's friends and servants enter The Sixteen bring and carry away sundry intelligences The King commands the Marshal de Byron to draw his Guards of Swisses and French out of the Suburbs into the City and Lodgeth them in divers quarters The people grow amazed the chief of the League terrifie them with the apprehension of a spoil they shut up their shops and leaving their traffique betake themselves to Arms. The Parisians raised at the Ringing of the Bells make Barricado's cross the Streets and blocking up all the King's Corps de Garde come up to the Louvre The Swisses were presently assaulted in St. Innocent's Church-yard where 36. of them being slain in the first onset the rest yielded themselves without resistance and with great violence were pillaged by the people All the other Guards of the Chastelet the little Bridge the Butchery and the Town-house were assaulted at the same time the Swisses being in the same manner disarmed and made Prisoners at the peoples discretion They made the French Guards to put out their matches and lay down their Arms and kept them in that manner till they had further order The Duke of Guise seeing the City in his power and the King as it were a Prisoner ceaseth to prosecute the forcing of the Louvre and appeaseth the people but gave order that the Barricado's should be continued That the people should be every where in a readiness with their Arms that the Guards should be kept with great care expecting some body should come from the King besieged and straitned to make an overture of some agreement The Queen-Mother goes to the Duke of Guise in her Sedan being denied passage in her Coach confers with him but brings nothing but complaints and exorbitant demands While the Queen-Mother returns to the Duke of Guise and treats with him the King with sixteen Gentlemen leaves Paris and retires to Chartres where the people receive him with as much affection as the Parisians had done the Duke of Guise The King at his departure from the Louvre turning at Chaliot towards Paris said De Serres Hist in vit Henry III. O disloyal and ingrateful City a City which I have alwaies honoured with my constant abode which I have more enriched than any of my Predecessours I will never enter within the compass of thy Walls but by the ruine of a great and memorable breach Cursed likewise be you all for whose content I have purchased the hatred of so many The Duke being angry at the news of the King 's sudden departure labours to secure his absolute power in Paris and seizeth on the Bastille The Capuchins are sent in Procession unto Chartres to mitigate the heat of his fury The chief of the City also go to beseech him to return to Paris Seven demands are made by the League viz. the extirpation of Heresy by his Majesties Forces and the holy union the banishment of the Duke of Espernon and of his Brother de la Valette War in Guienne by the King in Person and by the Duke of Mayenne in Daulphiné Abolition of the tumults of Paris confirmation of Offices chosen for Civil Causes since the Barricado's a restoring of the goodly and ancient Ordinances of the Realm and an abolition of parties gifts and abuses brought in by Espernon and la Valette The King determined to give outward satisfaction to the Duke of Guise and the League knowing that Peace would never be granted unless he consented to remove from the Court the Duke of Espernon Who coming to Court being not received by the King with his wonted favour quits his Government in Normandy and retires to Angolesme where by a Conspiracy of the Citizens his life is in great danger He was accompanied by the Abbot del Bene who was no less persecuted by the League than He. This retreat removed all impediments that might have hindered Peace Now the conclusion of the Peace was easie for on the one side the King granted all that the League asked for or pretended to The conditions of Peace were almost the same that were
contained in the writing framed at Nancy with the privity of the Duke of Lorain which had been presented to the King in the beginning of the year That the King should again declare himself Head of the Catholick League he promiseth never to make a Peace nor Truce with the Hugonots nor any Edict in their favour He shall by a publick Edict oblige all Princes Peers of France Lords and Officers of the Crown Towns Colledges Corporations and the whole people to swear the same and bind themselves with a solemn Oath never to suffer any one to reign that was not of the Romish Religion and that for time to come none should be admitted to Offices Places and Dignities in any part of that Kingdom but such as were Catholicks and made profession of their Faith according to the Doctrine of Sorbon and the Belief of the Church of Rome That the Council of Trent should be received and observed through the whole Kingdom upon the conditions and exceptions formerly mentioned the priviledges of the Gallican Church being within three Months to be declared by a Congregation of Prelates and the King's Council with divers other Articles The Articles concluded and confirmed the King presently sent forth his Letters Patents into all Provinces and several Bailages to appoint the Assembly of the States in October following at Blois a place far from Paris where the people were at his devotion far from any commerce or intelligence with the League and near those Towns which were held by the Hugonots The Duke of Guise goeth with the Queen-Mother to Chartres unto the King and is received by him with great demonstrations of honour in appearance The King causeth the Edict of the union to be published in his Council and sworn to by every one and the War against the Hugonots to be openly Proclaimed for the prosecution whereof two several Armies were appointed one in Dauphiné under the Duke of Mayenne the other in Poictou under Ludovico Gonzaga Duke of Nevers The King gives the Duke of Guise the General Command over all the men at Arms of the Realm This though not the name and title yet in effect was the Office and charge of Constable He makes the Cardinal of Guise Legate of Avignon the which he promiseth to obtain for him of the Pope He determined to give the Seal unto Peter of Espinac Archbishop of Lions He declares the Cardinal of Bourbon first Prince of the blood And the King 's late Counsellours are dismissed the Court. But two things trouble the League one iâ— the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armado at Sea by the English the other is that the King will not return to Paris howsoever they importune him Pope Sixtus V. writes congratulatory Letters to the Duke of Guise full of praises comparing him to those holy Macchabees the Defenders of the People of Israel and exhorting him to continue successfully and gloriously to fight for the advancement of the Church and the total extirpation of the Hugonots Which Letters to encrease the Duke's Fame were by his dependants caused to be Printed and divulged in Paris with as much applause in the people as anger and trouble in the King who could not be pleased that another should have more Credit and Authority in his Kingdom than himself The Assembly of the States meet at Blois at the time prefixed viz. on October 16. After dinner all being met in the great Hall of the Castle the King sate down in a Throne raised by many steps from the Earth and covered with a rich cloth of State The Queens Princes Cardinals Peers and Officers of the Crown sate upon Seats fitted for that purpose in two long rowes on the right hand and on the left and between them in the inner part of the Theatre sate the Deputies according to the Ancient preheminence of their degrees and the Duke of Guise as Grand-Mastre with the Staff of Office in his hand sate down upon a Stool at the foot of the State on â—he right hand and on the left sate the Sieur de Monthelon who represented the Person of the High Chancellour of the Kingdom The King begins the Assembly with an elegant Oration wherein attesting the earnest desires of the good of his people and shewing the dangerous condition wherein intestine discords had involved the Crown he exhorted every one to lay aside their passions to forget their enmities to reunite themselves sincerely under his obedience forsaking all novelties condemning all Leagues c. which had disturbed both him their Lawful Sovereign and the peace of the Kingdom For as he pardoned all that was past so for the time to come he would not endure it but account it as an Act of absolute Treason That as he resolved to persecute and tread down Heresie to favour those that were good to restore the splendour and force of justice to advance Religion to uphold the Nobility and to disburden the Common people so he earnestly prayed and conjured every one of them to assist him with their good Counsels and sincere intentions This speech of the King 's stung the Duke of Guise to the quick and all those of his party He caused his Speech to be Printed which served much to excuse those things which followed afterward After the King's Speech followed the Oration of Monthelon who prosecutes and amplifies the King's Speech To which the Archbishop of Bourges answered for the Order of the Clergy the Baron de Seneschay for the Nobility and the Prevost des Merchands of Paris for the third Order of the Commons The Tuesday following the King and the States swear in solemn manner to perform the Edict made before of persevering in the Romish Religion The Archbishop of Bourges shewed the States the greatness and obligation of the Oath which they were to take Beaulieu the new Secretary of State inrolled an Act of that Oath in memory of so solemn an Action After it was done they gave thanks to God publickly in the Church of S. Saveur The Proposition of receiving the Council of Trent made in the Assembly of the States is generally rejected The King is requested to declare the King of Navarre incapable of the Crown and all others suspected to be Hugonots and after much opposition he coldly consents unto it and gives unto the Deputies a Protestation which had been presented unto him from the King of Navarre who having called a Congregation of those of his party at Rochel had caused a writing to be printed wherein he demanded the execution of those Edicts and Grants which had been so often made to those of his party the Convocation of a National or universal Council wherein he might lawfully be instructed in those things that were controverted in matter of Faith and finally he protested to count invalid whatsoever should be determined against him in that Assembly at Blois To which Propositions of the King of Navarre the French King added That if justice requires no man
should be sentenced or condemned without being summoned or without hearing his defence it was not good to Decree so heavy a sentence without giving him warning to answer for himself and without hearing his reasons whatsoever they were The King seeing the obstinacy of the States and their resolution against the King of Navarre procures an absolution at Rome for the Prince of Conti and Count Soissons of the House of Bourbon which much troubleth the Duke of Guise The King being no longer able to bear the insolencies of the Duke of Guise resolves upon his destruction and to bring the matter the better to pass seeming as it were to be stirred by devotion determined to remove to a Cell meaning there to be confessed and receive the Sacrament He called into his Chamber four of his Council such as he best trusted to whom he discovered the injuries and indignities he had received of the Duke of Guise his extreme ambition the danger himself stood in by the Treasons continually practised by the said Duke and his Confederates against his Person He told them he was determined to have the Duke slain as a Traytour which was consented to The evening of the 22. day of December being come the King commanded Monsieur de Larchant one of the Captains of his Guard to double them the next morning and to keep the Hall door after the Lords of the Council were gone in but that he should do it in such a manner as the Duke of Guise might not suspect any thing which was done In the morning the King made himself ready before day Davil Hist of the Civil Wars of France l. 9. under colour of going Personally to the Council and pretending he should stay there many hours dismissed all his Servants and in his closet there only remained Revol Secretary of State Colonel Alfonso Corso and Monsieur de la Bastide a Gascon who were all commanded by him to stay there In his Chamber was St. Pris one of his old Gentlemen-waiters in the Wardrobe the Count de Termes Great Chamberlain and in the Anti-chamber two Pages an Usher that waited at the Council-chamber-door and Lognac with eight of the five and fourty to whom the King had with very great Promises signified his pleasure and found them most ready to obey his command At break of day the Counsellours met and went into the Great Hall The Duke being come into the Council sitting near the fire fell into a little swound but quickly recovered Secretary Revol came into the Council out of the Anti-chamber and told him the King would have him to come unto him in the Closet The Duke arose and entred into the Anti-chamber which presently being locked after him he saw there only eight Gentlemen of the King's Guard which were well known unto him and as he went from thence into the Closet he stretcht forth his hand to lift up the hanging of the door but at that instand S. Malin one of the eight stabbed him into the neck with a Dagger The Duke of Guise Slain and the rest presently fell upon him on every side and after many wounds given him in the head being at last struck by Lognac upon whom he had most violently thrown hlmself he fell down at the door of the Wardrobe and there expired The Cardinal of Guise and Archbishop of Lions are made Prisoners as also all the Lords and other chief adherents of the Duke of Guise with Anne d'Este Duchess of Nemours and Mother to the Guises Pelicart the Duke of Guise's Secretary was likewise taken with all the writings which belonged to his Lord among which they found many Letters containing divers practices within and without the Kingdom the accounts of money which he had received from Spain to the summ of two millions of Ducats Many whom the King desired to get into his hands escaped the fury of that present revenge The body of the dead Duke being laid up in a green cloth was carried by the door-keepers into the great room beyond the King's Closet and there laid till further order Then the King sent Revol to the Cardinal-Legate to give him notice of all that had passed and to entreat him to meet him at Mass shewing how great a desire he had to be excused to the Pope Then having caused the doors to be opened and every one to be admitted into his Chamber he said with a loud voice That from thence-forward he would have his Subjects learn to know and obey him that every one therefore from that time should forget stubbornness and Rebellion for he would be a King not only in words but in deeds also So with an angry look and sowr countenance he went down the stairs into his Mothers Lodgings The Queen having been ill lay in her bed when the King came unto her to whom the King said This morning I have made my self King of France having put to death the King of Paris The Queen replyed You have made the Duke of Guise to be slain but God grant you be not now made King of nothing Have you foreseen the mischiefs that are like to follow Two things are necessary Speed and Resolution So being much afflicted in mind and with the Gout she held her peace And the King went to meet the Legate that they might go to Mass together and before Mass the King discourseth long with the Cardinal of Moresini about the Duke of Guises death The King seeing that the Legate shewed no trouble at the imprisonment of the Cardinals Commandeth that Lewes of Lorain Cardinal of Guise be also put to death And Du-Gast Captain of the King's Guard causeth the Cardinal of Guise to be slain by four Souldiers Armed with Partezans His body was carried to the same place where the body of the Duke his Brother lay The King doubted that if their bodies were seen they might occasion some tumult and therefore having by the Counsel of his Physitian caused them to be buried in quick-lime within a few hours all their flesh was consumed and afterwards the bones were secretly interred in an unknown place The Duke of Nemours escaped out of Prison on the fourth day And Anne d'Este Mother to him and the dead Princes of Lorain was also voluntarily freed by the King and divers others were set at liberty The Cardinal of Bourbon the Prince of Janville now Duke of Guise the Archbishop of Lions and the Duke of Elbeuf are all put into the Castle of Amboyse The Archbishop of Lions being often examined would never answer alledging that as Primate of all France he had no other Superiour but the Apostolick See Charles Duke of Mayenne third Brother to the Guises being advertised of the death of his Brothers flees from Lions unto Dijon a place under his Government In his valour and wisdom all the foundations and hopes of the League were now reduced The Queen-Mother died on January 5. 1589. in the seventieth year of her age After the death of
the Duke and Cardinal of Guise the City of Orleans took Arms suppressed the King's Magistrates and assaulted the Fortress The Citizens of Chartres did the same though in the late commotions it had been of the King's party At Paris the Council of the League being come together in the midst of the City full of tumults resolved to send for Charles Duke of Aumale who flying from the States at Bloys out of a certain presaging fear had stayed in Paris and that very day was retired to his devotions to the Covent of Carthusians hard by the City at whose arrival all the multitude ran to his house though late at night spending the time only in lamentations The next day the whole City being in grief they dispatched divine service quickly and from the Churches being come to the Town-house the same Council met again there at which were present the most noted Citizens and many also of the Magistrates some drawn by an anxious curiosity some driven by the fear of being torn in pieces by the fury of the multitude and some came to find remedy against the unbridled rashness of the common people But it was all in vain Charles of Lorain Duke of Aumaele being made Governour of Paris by the City Arms the people and orders them regularly under Commanders The Preacher from their Pulpits trumpet out the praises of the Duke of Guises Martyrdom and detestations of that slaughter committed by the King Upon December 28. the Council of Sixteen caused a writing to be presenâ—ed to the Colledge of Divines called the Sorbonne in the name of the Provost and Eschuins of the City wherein relating how much the Lords of Guise deserved of the Catholique Church and their being murdered by the King as Protectors of the Faith They demanded whether he might not Lawfully be said to have forfeited his Crown and whether it were not Lawful for his Subjects notwithstanding their Oath of Allegiance to withdraw their obedience from him as a Persecutor of the holy Church who had embrued his hands in the blood of a Sacred Cardinal The Colledge of Sorbonne declares Henry III. to have forfeited his Right to the Crown and his Subjects free from their Oath of Allegiance The Kings Arms and Statues are thrown down the Navarrists and Politicks are slain many quiet men left their houses in those tumults to save their lives All the Streets were full of Arms noises and confusions and the meanest people raging against the marks of Royalty committed intolerable insolencies The Preachers aggravated the Parricide committed by the King and all places were full of Libels both in Verse and Prose which contained and amplified the same things several waies By the advice of the Council of Sixteen all the Counsellours of Parliament and Officers who adhered to the King are imprisoned in the Bastille And the Parliament being afterward assembled to the number of 160. they with a Publick Declaration assented to the deposing of the King and to the freeing of the City and substituted new men in the places of those whom they had put out and imprisoned They also made a Decree to unite and combine themselves for the defence of Religion calling that League the Holy union At the insurrection of the Parliament and City of Paris the greatest Cities and most Warlike People of France took Arms likewise and made a General Commotion so that the party of the League was not only grown very great by the conjunction of the principal Cities but was also strengthened by the abetting of the Nobility in whom for the most part the Forces of that Crown consist All the Provinces of the Kingdom were divided and dismembred Cities were against Cities Castles against Castles Lords Gentlemen and meaner persons against one another the Laws were trodden down the bond of common Charity broken the Magistrates driven away from all places and a most cruel Civil War with fire slaughter blood and rapine was begun so that all commerce being broken off the waies beset the Gentry and Commons Armed and even the very Clergy incompassed with Guards and weapons sometimes under the names of Hugonots and Catholicks â—andes Blanâ—hes sometimes of Royalists and Leaguers sometimes of the holy union and White Forces sometimes of Navarrists and Lorains they were as with a fatal general Frenzy bent upon the destruction of their common Countrey The King dissolved the Assembly at Bloys but many of the Lords as soon as they were departed from Bloys joyned again to the party of the League Pope Sixtus V. being told of the Cardinal of Guise's death is highly offended and answereth the King's Ambassadours very sharply who come to excuse it to him and chuseth a Congregation of Cardinals who were to consult about the affairs of France The King writes kind Letters to the Duke of Mayenne promising him very great things but the said Duke notwithstanding the King's promises being perswaded by Madam de Montpensier his Sister makes himself Head of the holy union and gave order to the Sieurs de Rhosne de S. Paul Chamois and d'Eschavoles to recruit their Regiments of French foot and began to summon the Nobility and Gentry his dependents and to win the hearts of the people in every place On February 15. the Duke came to Paris with 4000. Souldiers and 500. Gentlemen there he is declared Lieutenant General of the Crown of France On February 22. the Duke took possession in the Parliament of his extraordinary dignity having taken a publick Oath for the defence of the Romish Religion against every one to preserve entire the State belonging to the Crown of France to defend the priviledges of the three Orders the Clergy Nobility and Commons and to cause the Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom to be observed as also the authority and power of the Parliaments After which Oath many Prayers and Processions having been made he chose and appointed the Council of the Union consisting of forty of the most eminent persons of the League which with his assistance was to treat of and to conclude all the most weighty affairs the Council of Sixteen being nevertheless left and particularly appointed for the special Government of Paris Now the Duke of his Forces began to form an Army and in every Province he allotted both Forces and Commanders to order the affairs of the League and to make war against those who were of the King's party He dispatcheth Ministers to Rome to confirm the Pope's inclination who afterward publisheth a Monitory against the King of France and foments the League exceedingly The King being necessitated to make War agreeth with the King of Navarre and concludes a Truce with him The Spanish Ambassadour leaveth the Court and goeth to reside in Paris with the Heads of the League The Pope's Legate departeth also and not having been able to perswade the Duke of Mayenne to consent to Peace goes out of the Kingdom The War begins furiously in every place The King of Navarre
of Mayenne posts to Paris to appease this tumult and causeth Louchart Auroux Hamelin and Emmonot four of the chief of the Council of Sixteen which were most guilty to be strangled The King marcheth into Normandy layes siege to the City of Roven The Duke of Parma with the Spanish Army marcheth to relieve that place They fight at Aumale the King is wounded his men routed and he is put hard to it to save himself Villars the Governour of Roven sallying out enters the trenches and gains the Artillery The Duke of Parma retiring the King returns to Roven and reneweth the siege The Duke of Parma also returns to bring relief and the King's Forces being wasted he riseth from the siege and marcheth to the Banks of the River of Seine Those of the League begin to think of a peace The Catholicks of the King's party are displeased that the peace should be treated by the Sieur de Plessis a Hugonot The Mareschal de Biron is killed with a Canon shot before Espernay The King wept bitterly at the news of his death The Baron de Biron to revenge the death of his Father scales a great Tower at Espernay and takes it but is sorely wounded and the Town is delivered up into the hands of the Duke of Nevers Governour of thâ—t Province August 9. 1592. Now the King desireth a reconciliation with the Catholick Church by way of agreement not by way of pardon The King takes Dreux and being constrained by the importunities of his own Catholick party who threaten to forsake him resolves to change his Religion And being instructed by the Archbishop of Bourges by René Benoist Curate of S. Eustache of Paris and of some other Doctors desires to be admitted into the bosom of the Romish Church And on July 25. he went to Mass at St. Dennis and made a publick and solemn Profession to the said Arbhbishop assisted by Charles Cardinal of Bourbon Archbishop of Roven and Nephew to the deceased nine Bishops with many other Prelates and Religious men protesting to live and die in the Romish Religion swearing to defend it against all men Having made profession of his Faith he performed all Ceremonies requisite in so solemn an Act and then he received absolution and blessing with wonderful joy and acclamation of the people Presently after this Act the King sent the Duke of Nevers the Marquess of Pisani and Henry of Gondy Bishop of Paris to the Pope to yield obedience by them to the See of Rome to beseech him to allow of his Conversion and to countenance it with his own blessing Whilst Elizabeth Queen of England upon account of Religion did with so great expences relieve the French King a strong rumour was spread in England that he either would or had already changed his Religion hereupon was Thomas Wilkes sent over into France to understand the certainty thereof But before his arrival the King had made a publick Profession of the Popiâ—h Religion at St. Dennis as hath been before expressed although some Papists of Religious Orderâ— at that time plotted against his life But he ingenuously declared unto Wilkes the causes that moved him to forsake his Religion And Morlante the French Agent in the mean time telleth the Queen all the very same things and with fair and specious words offereth her all kindness in the King his Masters behalf The Queen being much troubled and disquieted in mind snatched up her Pen and a while after sent this Letter to him Alas what deep sorrow Cambden hist of Q. Eliâ—abeâ—h what vehement grief what sighs have I felt at my heart for the things which Morlante hath told me of Alas is the world come to this pass Was it possible that any worldly matter should make you quit the fear of God can we expect any happy issue of such a fact or could you think that He who hath hitherto with his own right hand upholden and preserved you would now forsake you It is a very dangerous thing to do evil that good may come of it Yet I hope a sober spirit will put you into a better mind In the mean time I will not omit to make it a principal part of my prayers the recommending you to God beseeching him that the hands of Esau may not lose you the blessing of Jacob. Whereas you do Religiously and solemnly offer me your friendship I know to my great cost I have well deserved it neither should I repent that had you not changed your Father Verily from henceforth I cannot be your Sister by the Father for the truth is I shall ever more dearly love and honour my own Father than a false and counterfeit one which God knoweth very well who I beseech him bring you back again to a better mind Subscribed Your Sister if it be after the old manner as for the new I have nothing to do with it Elizabeth R. Yet notwithstanding a Contract was made between him and the Queen at Melun in the Month of August to make War offensive and defensive against the Spaniards And the Queen recommended again and again the Reformed Religion and the Professours thereof to his Care and Protection by Sir Robert Sidney He promised Thâ—t as he had been hitherto their Protectour so he would not for the future fail them though most of the Nobler sort of them had forsaken him On August 26. Peter Barrier born at Orleans was taken Prisoner at Melun where the King then was by the discovery of a Jacobin Florentine to whom he had confessed himself in Lions He confessed that seduced and perswaded by a Capuchin of Lions and afterwards confessed by Aubry Curate of St. Andrews des Acts at Paris by his Vicar and by Father Varade a Jesuite he was come thither expresly to murther the King The Priest revealing this Crime incurs no Ecclesiastical censure The wretch was found seized of a sharp knife with two edges He was pinched with hot Pincers his right hand burnt off holding the said knife his arms legs and thighs broken and his body burnt to ashes and cast into the River Upon a general surceasing of Arms the King assembled some of the chief of the Realm at Mante especially to hear the complaints of such as stood in doubt of the King's change in Religion and were grieved at divers contraventions of his Majesties Edicts whereby they suffered wrongs in all Provinces For the Partisans of Spain continually exclaimed of the incompatibility of two Religions in France and many were of opinion That the King ought not to be admitted but he should promise expresly to banish all such as made Profession of any other Religion than that which he did embrace or at least to abolish all publick Profession But the King employed all his care to unite his people in concord Vitry desiring to be the first that should re-enter under the King's obedience as he had been the first that had separated from it brought back the City of Meaux Aix
Lions Bourges and Orleans surrender to the King On the 22. of March the Parliament the Provost of Merchants and the Sheriffs having disposed the City of Paris received the King maugre the vain endeavours of some remnant of the faction of the Sixteen The Duke of Mayenne was gone into Picardy and Brissac to whom he had committed the Government of Paris for some Months past having taken it from the Count of Belin broke his faith with him believing he ought it rather to the King than to him The King had a little before caused himself to be anointed at Chartres with the Cruise of St. Martin of Tours The City of Rhemes was yet in the hands of the League but he would no longer defer his Coronation because he knew that That Ceremony was absolutely necessary to confirm to him the affection and respect of his people It was wonderful how that there being four or five thousand Spaniards engarrisoned in Paris and ten or twelve thousand factious persons of the Cabal of the Sixteen who all cruelly hated the King he could nevertheless render himself Master of it without striking stroak or without shedding blood His Troops having by intelligence seized on the Gates Ramparts and publick places he entred triumphantly into the City by the new Gate by which Henry III. had unhappily fled six years before and went directly to Nostredame to hear Mass and cause Te Deum to be sung Afterwards he returned to the Louvre where he found his Officers and his Dinner ready as if he had alwaies remained there After Dinner he gave the Spanish Garrison a safe-conduct and a good Convoy to conduct them as far as the Tree of Guise in all security The Garrison departed about three a clock the same day of his entrance with twenty or thirty of the most obstinate Leaguers who chose rather to follow Strangers than obey their natural Prince The same day that he entred into Paris the Cardinal de Peleve Archbishop of Sens a passionate Leaguer expired in his Palace of Sens. The Cardinal of Placentia Legate from the Pope had safe-conduct to retire home but he died by the way Brissac for recompence had the Staff of Mareschal and a place of honourable Counsellour to the Parliament D' O was replaced in his Government of Paris which he had under Henry III. but he died soon after That part of the Parliament which was at Tours was recalled and that which was at Paris re-inabled for it had been interdicted and both re-united conjointly to serve the King By noon of that day in which the King entred Paris the City was every where peaceable the Burgesses in a moment grew familiar with the Souldiers the shops were opened and the Artificers wrought in them And the calm was so great that nothing interrupted it but the ringing of the Bells the Bonfires and the Dances which were made through the Streets even till midnight Balagny with his City of Cambray turns to the King's side In like manner Amiens Beauvais and Peronne renounced the League Yea the Duke of Guise compounds with the King and brings the Cities of Rhemes Vitry and Mezieres under his obedience who in recompence of it gave him the Government of Provence from which he was obliged to withdraw the Duke of Espernon because the people the Parliament and the Nobility had taken Arms against him The Duke of Lorain also made his peace with the King on November 26. Now the Court of Parliament revokes and disannuls all other Decrees Orders or Oaths given or made since the 29. of December 1588. to the prejudice of the King's Authority and the Laws of the Realm And especially they disannulled all that had been done against the honour of the deceased King as well during his life as after his decease commanding to inform of the detestable Parricide committed on his Person and to proceed extraordinarily against such as should be found culpable They revoked the Authority given unto the Duke of Mayenne under the Title of Lieutenant General of the Estate and Crown of France forbidding all men to acknowledge him in that quality or to yield him any aid or obedience upon pain of High-Treason They likewise enjoyned the Duke of Mayenne upon the like pains to acknowledge Henry IV. of that name for King of France and Navarre and their King and to yield him the obedience of faithful Servants and Subjects And to all other Princes Prelates Noblemen GeBtlemen Towns Commonalities and private men to forsake that pretended Faction of the League whereof the Duke of Mayenne had made himself the Head and to yield unto the King obedience and fealty upon pain to the said Princes Noblemen c. to be degraded of their Nobility and Gentry and they and their posterity declared base with confiscation of Bodies and Goods and the razing of their Towns Castles and places that should infringe the King's Ordinances and Commandments Moreover they decreed That the 22. day of March should be for ever celebrated and the same day a general Procession should be made after the accustomed manner where the said Court should assist in their Scarlet Robes as a remembrance to give God thanks for the happy reduction of this said City to the King's obedience Now one John Castel Son of a Merchant-Draper of Paris about the end of the year 1594. having thrust himself with the Courtiers into the Chamber of the fair Gabriella where the King was would have struck him with a knife into the belly but the King then bowing to salute some one the blow chanced on his face only piercing his upper lip and breaking a Tooth It was not known for the present who had struck it but the Count of Soissons seeing this young man affrighted stopt him by the Arm. He impudently confessed that he had given the blow and maintained that he ought to do it The Parliament condemned him to have his right hand burned his flesh torn off with red hot Pincers and after to be torn in pieces by four Horses burnt to ashes and cast into the wind The Jesuites under whom this Miscreant had studied were accused for exciting him to this Parricide Among other things he heard the Fathers of that Society to say That it was lawful to kill the King That he was Excommuncated out of the Church that he was not to be obeyed nor taken for their King until such time as he was allowed by the Pope Therefore the Parliament Decreed That the Priests Scholars and all others terming themselves of that Society of Jesus as corrupters of Youth should depart within three daies after the publication of the said Decree out of Paris and other places where they had Colledges and within fifteen daies out of the Realm upon pain after the same time to be punished as guilty of high Treason The house of Peter Castel the Father of this Parricide standing before the Palace was razed and a Pillar erected containing for a perpetual monument the
by Sir Philip Sidney and at his request finished by Arthur Golding He published a Treatise containing the reasons why the Council of Trent could not be admitted in France He was sent by the King of Navarre to the National Synod of Vitray in Bretagne where he was joyfully received by the whole Company He was likewise present in the General Assembly of the Protestants held at Montauban by the King's permission Anno 1584. Where he was desired by the Assembly to draw up the form of their Complaints against the violation of the Edict for Peace which He together with the Count de la Val presented afterwards to the King at Blois When the League of the House of Guise brake forth which was formed first against the King under pretence of the Defence of the Catholick Religion and afterwards declared against the King of Navarre and the Protestants That famous Declaration in the name of the said King was Penned by Du Plessis In the following Civil Wars for Religion he did many important services for the King of Navarre and the Protestants both with his Sword and Pen having answered a virulent Book published by the League against the King of Navarre called the English Catholick In the year 1590. he built a Church for the Protestants in Saumur and obtained a Grant from the King for the instituting an University there which was afterwards confirmed by a National Synod held in the same place Anno 1593. he wrote a large Letter to the King who then had changed his Religion desiring the continuance of his favour to the Protestants and withal expostulating that sudden change Anno 1598. he Printed his Work of the Lords Supper The Jesuites of Bourdeaux Petitioned the Parliament there that it might be burnt Jacobus August Thuanus is a most faithful Historian He wrote an History of things done throughout the whole World from the year of Christ 1545. even to the year 1608. in a most elegant style He is highly commended by divers Learned men Suae aetatis Historiam summo judicio fide sine odio gratia ad Dei gloriam publicam utilitatem prudentissimè conscripsit opus styli elegantiâ gravissimarum rerum copiâ ac majestate cum quibusâ—is sive veterum sive recentium in eo genere scriptis conferendum Lans Orat. pro Gallia Inter multa quae in te admiratura est posteritas ego illud unicè obstupesco unde tibi modo in fori arce modo in summâ Republicâ versanti otium unde vis indefessa animi ut res tot ac tantas aut scribendas cognosceres aut cognitas scriberes Grot. Epist 16. Jac. Aug. Thuano Quem ego virum divinitus datum censeo saeculo isti in exemplum pietatis integritatis probitatis Casaub Epist Append. Vir immortali laude dignus Historicae Veritatis lumen Montac Antidiat Vir non minus eruditione quà m officij dignitate Nobilis siquis alius Veri studiosus Morton Causa Regia Isaac Casaubon was a great Linguist a singular Grecian and an excellent Philologer He hath written in twelve Books of his Exercitations Animadversions on those twelve Tomes of Baronius his Annals Scaliger in an Epistle to Casaubon commends his Bok de Satyra and in another his Theophrastus his Characters He is thus styled by Salmasius Incomparabilis Vir seculi sui decus immortale Isaacus Casaubonus nunquam sine laude nominandus nunquam satis laudatus Salmas Praefat. ad Hist August script The Marriage between the King and Queen Margarite being pronounced void and a Contract past between him and Mary of Medices the Duke of Florence's Daughter She being blessed of Aldobrandino the Pope's Legate at Florence went from thence and arrived at Marseilles from wheâ—ce being every where Royally entertained she came to Lions and there after eight daies stay met with the King where in St. John's Church the Nuptial solemnity was performed to this Couple by the Legate On September 27. 1601. the Queen was delivered of a Son which was named Lewes The King blessing him put a Sword in his hand to use it to the glory of God and the defence of his Crown and people The Pope sent presently unto the King and Queen to congratulate with them of this Birth and to carry unto the young Prince swadling bands bearing clothes and other things blessed by his Holiness Then the Pope granted a Jubilee and pardons to all the French that should go visit the Church of St. Croix at Orleans doing the works of Christian Charity An infinite number of people went thither from all parts of France the King and Queen went thither with the first and gave means to help to build this Church which had been ruined during the fury of the first Civil wars The King laid the first stone of this building Then the King did forbid the superfluous use of Gold and Silver in Lace or otherwise upon garments and made an Edict also against Usury and another against Combates Not long after the Duke of Biron's Conspiracy was discovered who was sometimes heard say he would die a Sovereign Refusing to submit hiâ—self to the King's Clemency he is seized on at the King's Chamber door and his Sword being taken from him is carried Prisoner to the Bastille There uttered he those passionate words That if they desired to put him to death they should dispatch him that they should not brag they had made him to fear death that they should speedily drink themselves drunk with the blood which remained of thirty five wounds which he had received for the service of France The King sent his Letters to the Court of Parliament to make his Process In the end being found guilty the Chancellour pronounced the sentence of death whcih was inflicted on him in the Bastille which he took most impatiently King James of happy memory before his coming to the Crown of England sent expressions of Royal favour to the Consistory of Paris who chose the forementioned Du Moulin to address their humble thanks by Letters to his Majesty And when his Majesty publisht his Confession of Faith against which Coeffeteau since Bishop of Marselles writ an eloquent Book Du Moulin undertook the defence of the King's Confession and wrote a French Book with that Title which was most welcome to the King and to the English Clergy and his Majesty made Royal and bountiful expressions of his acceptance And because other Adversaries besides Coeffeteau had writ against the King Du Moulin wrote another Book in his defence in Latine entituled De Monarchia Pontificis Romani The Duke of Bovillon having been accused by those which had been examined in Council upon the Conspiracies of the Duke of Biron being sent for refuseth to come to the King but afterwards in the year 1606. he made his peace and came to the King being then at Dunchery on April 11. The King with the Queen Princes of the blood and other Officers of the Crown
entred into Sedan where he was joyfully received by the Duke being Prince of Sedan and Protectour of the Protestant Church there The King promised that the Church of Sedan should suffer no alteration but enjoy the liberty of their conscience In the year 1603. the Duke of Savoy had an enterprize upon Geneva his men on scaling Ladders mounted the Walls undescried surprized the Souldier that stood Centinel got the word of him and slew him being also Masters of the Streets about two hours But they were disappointed thirteen were by the Towns-men taken alive among whom was the Baron of Attignas which were condemned to be hanged whose heads with the heads of those that were killed in all seventy seven were set upon the Gallowes and their bodies thrown into the River of Rhosne for which deliverance they made a solemn thanksgiving to God concluding a peace with the Duke in July the same year The same year the King being at Metz there came unto him four Jesuites to obtain their re-establishment in France In October there was a National Synod held at Sap by those of the Reformed Religion which Treated touching Doctrine Discipline and the Government of Churches The King made Monsieur Alexander his Bastard Son of the Order of the Knights of Malta A great number of Commanders and Knights being assembled at Paris where he was invested into the Order in the Augustines Church by the Grand-Prior of France who set upon his Breast a Plastron of black Satten with a white Cross So the Ceremony ended with great joy and sounding of Trumpets The new Knight feasted the Grand-Priors of France and Champagne with the Commanders and Knights at the Temple The King having promised to restore the Jesuites Father Cotton came to Paris by his Majesties Command with Father Armand the Provincial and Father Alexander and the King grew presently into such a liking with Father Cotton as he did nothing but he was called and in the end his Majesty granted their return upon certain Conditions and the Edict made for their establishment notwithstanding any oppositions made unto the Court to hinder the confirmation therof was confirmed in the beginning of the year 1604. and their Colledges were restored at Lions Roven Bourges and Dijon The Signeur of Varenne Controller General of the Posts and now Governour of the Town and Castle of Anger 's who loved them of this company besought the King to build a new Colledge at La Fleche in Anjou with priviledges like to the other Universities of that Realm the which the King made of a Royal Foundation and gave them his own House with Pensions for the instruction of a good number of young Gentlemen whom his Majesty would have bred up and instructed there in all Professions Tongues and Exercises But Father Cotton returning one night somewhat late about the end of February and passing by the Street of the new Bridge to go unto the Louvre there were certain Pages and Lacquies which calling for him at the door of the Coach wounded him with their Rapiers giving him one great wound in the shoulder going toward the neck and throat whereof he was soon after cured There was great search made for this attempt Some were taken and examined Cotton requested the King to pardon them yet were they banished the Court and forbidden ever to come there upon pain of death In the year 1606. the King made special orders on the behalf of those of the Reformed Religion enjoyning them to carry themselves according to the Edict of Nantes avoiding all occasions of scandal About Easter this year were such violent winds and storms throughout all France as the tops of houses being cast down many were slain and sore hurt in Paris Not long after there was a violent Plague in the same and in the beginning of the following year In the year 1608. were the Jesuites admitted into Navarre and Bearn whereat all the Judges and Officers of the Country were discontented as who hated the Jesuites above all Creatures living and had in former times put them to death like Spies if they found any within their limits The Prelates of France in like manner Petitioned the King once again that the Decrees of the Council of Trent might be observed On April 11. Anno 1609. there was a Conference between Monsieur Du Moulin lone of the Ministers of the Reformed Church of Paris and Father Gontier a Jesuite being seconded by the Baroness of Salignar after which it was bruited abroad that Gontier had confuted Du Moulin in divers points which the Protestants held Gontier himself writing a specious Letter to the King to that effect Du Moulin finding his Reputation touched and the truth misreported was forced to publish a true Discourse of the whole Conference In the year 1610. another attempt against Geneva was discovered whereof the Authour was â—analis one of their own home-bred and native Citizens a man not meanly reputed of both for his knowledge in Physick and the Languages whereof being found guilty and of another before he was condemned and his body broken and so laid half dead on a wheel unbound he was cast from thence to be burned in a fire under him On May 13. the Queen was solemnly Crowned at St. Dennis by the Cardinal of Joyeuse On Friday May 14. the day after the Queens Coronation the King was treacherously murthered by the cursed hand of a bloody villain The King being advertised of some ominous influence and Prediction which did threaten him that day went to see Mass with great devotion At his return they brought him some of his Children among the rest the Duke of Anjou whom he dearly loved but being then very pensive he commanded they should carry him to breakfast Then being very sad he cast himself upon his bed to sleep if he might but not being able to take any rest he fell upon his knees and began to pray Then he lay down again and prayed again and thus he did three times In the end he went and walked in the Gallery till dinner time After dinner many Noblemen came into his Chamber and began to tell some tales to make him laugh Having smiled a little with the rest being naturally of a pleasant disposition in the end he said We have laughed enough for Friday we may well weep on Sunday Hereupon he caused some to go to the Arsenal at four of the clock Whereupon they say that the Duke of Vendosme told him that he had been warned to beware of the 14. day yet making no account thereof he went down into the Court where a man of a mean condition entertained him a quarter of an hour Then he went into his Coach by the Duke of Espernon who sate in the first place of the Boot on the King 's right hand Montbazon the Marshal of Lavardin la Force and Praulin being followed by two Foot-men and one of his Guard on Horse-back having commanded Monsieur de Vitry and the rest of
entitled La confusion des Disputes Papistes Par Daniel Chamier And another in answer to some questions of Cotton the Jesuite He was killed at Montaubon with a Canon Bullet which had a C. on it on the Lords day Being asked by one before whether he Preached on that day he said it was his day of repose or rest and so it proved though he meant it in another sense In the year 1618. the Lords States and the Curators of the University of Leyden renewed a former demand of theirs concerning Dr. Du Moulin to be their Divinity Reader The Learned Erpenius was sent twice into France on that errand And when he could not be obtained from the Church of Paris they demanded by the same Erpenius the famous Rivet and had him The Queen-Mother makes an escape from the place of her confinement and is received by the Duke of Espernon Anno 1619. And being arrived at Loches she endeavours to justifie her escape Cardinal Du Perron died Anno 1618. charging his friends upon his death-bed then about him to send a solemn Farewel by him to Monsieur Du Plessis and to manifest his sorrow for not having made a stricter League of friendship with him having so high an esteem of his Conscience and integrity The Queens affairs having ill success all those who had engaged in her party were abandoned to the King's mercy but as for her self she was permitted to come to Court The Duke of Espernon layes down his Arms and the Marquess de Valette by the Command of the Duke his Father The Duke of Mayenne refuseth to accept the Peace and endeavours to engage the Duke of Espernon in his discontents but he refuseth to stir In the year 1620. a National Synod of the Protestants being called at Alais in Languedoc Dr. Du Moulin was sent Deputy to it and he made account in his return to go out of the way to see Rochel A little before he took that journey the Lord Herbert of Cherbury then Ambassadour of England in France urged him to write to the King his Master to exhort him to undertake vigorously the defence of his Son in Law the King of Bohemia So the Doctor writ to the King and delivâ—red his Letters to the Lord Ambassadour's Secretary then immediately he went to Alais where he was chosen President of the Synod In the mean while his Letters to King James were delivered to the Council of State in France how or by whom the Doctor could never learn Scarce was he in Languedoc when it was concluded at Paris in the ouncil of State that he should be apprehended and committed Prisoner for exhorting a foreign King to take Arms for the defence of the Protestant Churches And because the Council was informed that the Doctor would return by Rochel a place which then gave great jealousies to the Court they wouid not take him before he had been there the informers against him intending to make his going to Rochel an Article of his indictment The affairs of Bearn were now of such a nature as that the King's presence seemed to be very necessary there therefore he determines to move that way and goes to Xantonge and from thence passeth over into Guienne He is magnificently entertained by the Duke of Espernon two daies at Cadillac and departs from thence to go into Bearn He was made believe that the Council of this little Country would submit to his Royal pleasure without obliging him to perform that voyage but the King must undergo that trouble He went thither where his presence produced the same effect it had done in other places He over-ran all this little Province seizing as he passed on Navarrens the strongest place in it as he did also of Ortez and Olleron Principal Cities of that Country He subverted all their antient Customes restor'd the Bishop and other Ecclesiasticks to their Estates and Dignities took away the Administration of affairs of the Country from those of the Reformed Religion and re-established his own Authority but he left the Government of the Province in the hands of the Marquess de la Force since Mareschal of France who impatient to see his Authority cut so short by these alterations could hardly forbear till the King was got back to Paris from reducing things again to the same posture they were in before He therefore laboured all the Winter to drive out the Garrisons of Ortez and Olleron so that excepting Navarrens which was kept by the Marquess of Poianne whom the King had left Governour there he overthrew whatever his Majesty had done shuffling all things again into their former confusion During the Reign of Henry IV. who would not see it and the troublesom minority of Lewes XIII who could not molest them the Protestants had made themselves Masters of Ninety nine Towns well fortified and enabled for a siege In the opinion of their Potency they call Assemblies Parliaments as it were when and as often as they pleased There they consulted of the Common affairs of Religion made new Laws of Government removed and exchanged their general Officers the King's leave all this while never so much as formally asked In this licentious calling of Assemblies they abused their Power into a neglect and in not dissolving them at his Majesties commandment they encreased their neglect into a disobedience The Assembly which principally caused the War and their ruine was that of Rochel called by the Protestants presently upon the King's journey into Bearn This general meeting the King prohibited by his special Edicts declaring all them to be guilty of Treason which notwithstanding they would not hearken unto but resolutely went on in their purposes Being Assembled they sent the King a Remonstrance of their grievances to which the Duke L' Esdeguiers in a Letter to them written gives them a very fair and plausible answer wherein also he entreats them to obey the King's Edict and break off the Assembly Upon the receipt of this Letter those of the Assembly published a Declaration wherein they verified the meeting to be Lawful and their purpose not to dismiss themselves till their desires were granted This affront done to the King made him gather together his Forces yet at the Duke of Lesdiguier's request he allowed them twenty four daies respite before his Army should march towards them He offered them also very fair and reasonable Conditions such almost as their Deputies had solicited but far better than those which they were glad to accept when all the Towns were taken from them In their Assembly they made Laws and Orders that no peace should be made without the consent of the general Convocation about paying of the Souldiers wages for the detaining of the Revenues of the King and the Clergy and the like The Synod at Alais being ended Doctor Du Moulin hearing how the the Protestants would keep a Politick Assembly at Rochel against the King's will judged that it was an ill conjuncture of time for him to go to
his Person and with such contumacy carry himself To which with due reverence bowing himself he did answer I am Sir the Servant and Minister of Jesus Christ whose Truth I Preached this day which if your Majesty rightly knew ye would have judged it your duty to have come and heard And for my Doctrine I did this day Preach these three Truths to your people 1. That man is fallen and by nature in a lost condition yea by his own power and abilities is not able to help himself out of that estate 2. That there is no salvation or deliverance from wrath by our own merits but by Jesus Christ and his merit alone 3. I did also Preach this day the just liberties of the Kingdom of France that your Majesty oweth obedience to Christ only who is Head of the Church and that the Pope as he is an enemy to Christ and his Truâ—h so also to the Kings of the Earth whom he keepeth under slavery to his usurped power Whereat the King for a time keeping silence with great astonishment turned to some about him and said Surely this is a man of God Yea the King did afterwards commune with him and with much respect dismissed him The year following whilst the differences between the King and the Protestant party did grow the City was again besieged taken and in part sacked as Mr. Welsh had publickly foretold at which time tâ—e King passed a strict order that none should in the least wrong Mr. Welsh or any thing that belonged to him under highest pains and did after give a safe-conduct to him for transporting himself into England where de died The Duke of Espernon having now received the Command of the Army sets down before Rochel at the end of July but the taking of this City was reserved for the King himself Whilst the Duke lay before Rochel the King had with extraordinary vigour prosecuted his designs in Guinne where he had compell'd most of the places possessed by the Protestants in that Province to submit to his Power He had reduced Bergâ—rac St. Foy Puimirol Tournon Monstanquin with several others besieged and taken Clerac and at last laid siege to Montauban though herein he had not been so succesful as in his other enterprises so that the year ending with this variety of accidents his Majesty was constrained to return to Paris where he abode until the ensuing Spring The Winter being scarce over Monsieur Soubize having fortified himself in the Isle of Reé and some other Islands of Poictou thought the difficulty of their access would protect him from the Royal power but the King passed over the marishes and gave him so notable a defeat that he could not of a long time after recover that blow nor put himself again into any tolerable posture of War In the beginning of the year 1622. the Count of Soissons had the charge of the Army which lay before Rochel conferred upon him and the Duke of Espernon is sent to lay siege to Royan which is a little City built upon a very high Rock by the Sea side inaccessible on that side toward the water the height whereof breaking off the impetuosity of the winds at the foot of the Precipice affordeth a very secure harbour to so many vessels as it could contain This harbour was defended by an ancient Castle rais'd upon the eminence of the Rock and in the midst of it a litle way was levell'd that led to the harbour by one of the Gates of the City On that side toward the Land the scituation was more even but there also so well Fortified that it was thought to be one of the most tenable places for its Circuit in France And it was almost without danger to be defended forasmuch as after their outworks should be taken which could not be till after a long siege the convenience of the Sea and the vicinity of Rochel rendered their retreat at any time so easie and so secure that it was to be defended to the last extream But by the Dukes admirable Conduct and the valour of his Souldiers this place was in a few weeks reduced to the King's obedience The King's Army now marcheth into Guienne where at his Majesties arrival he found Monravet taken by the Duke d'Elboeuf and Themeins after a long and obstinate resistance surrendered to the same Duke Le Mont de Marsan with several other considerable places were also reduced to his obedience by the Marquess de la Force de Lusignan and de Castelnau de Chalosse who had taken them in His Majesty passed speedily from Guienne into Languedoc Nigripolisse a little Town of Queren upon his way was so impudent as to stand a siege but it was soon taken by assault and there the Souldiers shewed the very rigour of severity which either a barbarous Victor could inflict or a vanquished people suffer for they spared neither man woman nor child all equally subject to the cruelty of the sword and the Conquerour the Streets paved with dead carkasses the channels running with the blood of Christians no noise in the Streets but of such as were welcoming death or suing for life And when the Souldiers had made the Women the subjects of their lusts they made them after the subjects of their fury in this only pitiful to that poor and distressed Sex that they suffered them not to survive their honours Such of them who out of fear and faintness had made but little resistance had the favour to be stabbed but those whose vertue and courage maintain'd their bodies valiantly from the rape of those villains had the secrets of nature filled with Gun-powder and so blown into ashes St. Antonin having after a siege surrendered to mercy the neighbouring places thought it convenient to flie to the King's Clemency to evade the trial of his victorious Arms. Then the King besiegeth Montpelier and after much blood spilt the Duke of Rohan was glad to make use of a juncture wherein his party had some little advantage to procure a more favourable peace which was accordingly signed before Montpelier October 22. 1622. and Calonges surrendred up the place to his Majestie 's hand who if he had by his courage won himself a great reputation in the siege he obtained no less by his ingenuity in the handsom manner of his submission to the King The King made his entrance into the City and having taken order for the defence of the City he returned towards Paris and in the year 1623. the Duke of Espernon arrives at Paris with a numerous train where he was received by the King and the Queens with great kindness All his accompts and the other affairs that most required his presence at Paris were in less than four Months dispatched so that toward the latter end of April in the year 1624. he began to think of his return into Guienne Cardinal Richlieu was after his departure made Prime Minister of State who soon shews himself to be opposite
his presence But the Prelates refusing to stoop to this Order it being contrary to the Rules of the French Church took a middle course They went so habited to salute him and accordingly accompanied him in the Cavalcade to Nostre-Dame whither being come they took off their Mantlets but all was done under a Proviso of saving their antient right He proposed to the King what the Pope had given him in charge He urged the King in general terms to peace to restore things in the Valtoline to their former state as they were before the Army of the Confederate Princes entred into it and desired him to grant a Cessation of Arms in Italy The King answered to the three Propositions That he was ever enclin'd to Peace and that he would still be induced to it provided it were for the publick safety and honourable for him and his Allies That as to what concern'd the Valtâ—line the late Treaty of Madrid had made provision for all those difficulties which have risen ever since and that he desired the execution of it As to the Cessation of Arms that he could by no means hearken to it because of the great prejudice it would be to himself and his Allies and the great advantage those of the adverse Party might make out of it Thereupon the Legate unexpectedly departeth from the French Court and goeth toward Rome The Hugonots now begged his Majestie 's pardon by their Deputies whom they sent unto him to testifie the sense they had of their fault and to assure him of their future fidelity and obedience His Majesty was well pleased with it and the Deputies coming to him at Fountainbleau about the end of August whilst the Legate was there there was no kind of acknowledgements and submissions which they did not make both in behalf of themselves as also of the Duke of Rohan and the Sieur de Soubize who sent to supplicate him by their particular Deputies that he would be pleased to employ them in the War of Italy that they might testifie by their passion to serve him that there was not any danger by Sea or Land to which they would not cheâ—rfully expose themselves to contribute to his glory Having made their speeches they presented the paper of their Complaints which they said were grounded upon several Graces which had been conferred upon them by the Edict of Nantes and several other grants The King received it and appointed it to be examined After the paper of their grievances had been examined the French King confirmed to them whatever had been granted to them by the Edict of Nantes granting them free liberty for the exercise of their Religion in such Towns where they had Churches and Church-yards and an Act of Oblivion for any thing done in the War but be would not consent to the demolishing of Fort Lewes as being of great importance for the keeping of Rochel in awe and obedience These favours were accepted by the general Deputies of the Protestants in the name of all their Towns excepting those of Rochel Montauban Castres and Milhaud who having been gained by the Duke of Rohan and Sieur de Soubize and finding that their Leaders had obtained only a single Pardon without any other advantage and without being employ'd in Italy according as they desired they entreated his Majesty upon other pretences that he would be pleased to grant some time till their two chief Officers and those four Cities were joyned with them The King granted to them that delay upon condition it were not over long who presently sent away the heads of those resolutions which had been taken But the Duke of Rohan excuseth himself from accepting those Articles which were granted to those of his Party He did his utmost to surprize some places in Languedoc He made an attempt upon Tillet in Albigeois He had some time before caused the Towns of Masdazil Pamiers and several other of Foix to revolt from which places he sent out his Scouts who committed great havocks in the plain Countrey But the Marshal de Themines and the Count de Carmain fell upon the Hugonots charged and killed many of them and took divers places from them some by storm some by composition Hereupon the Duke of Rohan went to the Assembly at Milhaud where he made those of his Party send a Currier to the King to accept of the Articles of Peace which his Majesty had granted to them His Majesty confirmed them though they had rendered themselves unworthy by their new Acts of Rebellion But it was necessary so to be for the better opposing of the enterprizes of Spain though Rochel was still excepted by reason of the little inclination they had testified of keeping themselves within their duty Then the Bishops and Clergy of France assembled at Paris The chief intent of their meeting was for the renewing of that Contract which they made every tenth year with the King for the payment of those Rents which are imposed on them They also condemned certain Libels sent abroad by the Spanish ambition which had been sent into France They condemned the Authours of them as enemies to the publick quiet and seducers of the people to Sedition And they granted to the King Six hundred thousand crowns upon the Churches oâ— France as a Contribution toward the Wars in which the State was engaged as also to preserve the Catholick Religion in its splendour and to maintain the glory of the Crown But many sordid spirits grudged at it who considering but one of those ends for which Lands were given to Churches began to oppose it as if the Church which is part of the State were not bound to contribute to the good of those Corporations of which they were members and as if the publick necessities were not more considerable than the private profits of some particular people who often employ their Revenues to bad uses The Cardinal now endeavoureth the procuring of Peace for those of Rochel And the same reasons which enclined his Majesty to shew his Clemency to the rest of that party did also perswade him to do the like to those of Rochel The King consented that the Town should be delivered into the hands of the Corporation on condition that they kept no Ships of War that they observed those Orders for traffique which were established in the rest of the Kingdom That they should restore to the Ecclesiasticks all the goods which had been taken from them That they should suffer the Catholicks to live freely and quietly in the exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion and in the enjoyment of those goods which appertained to them That his Majesty should leave what Garrison he thought fit in Fort Lewes and the Islands of Reé and Olleron only promising that he would settle such a course in it as those of Rochel might receive no trouble by it either in their Commerce or in the enjoyment of their goods These Articles were agreed on about the beginning of February An.
one of his Vicars to absolve the Sieur Guillet and to licence the going on of the Fortifications In the year 1627. those of Rochel could not endure to see the Articles of Peace which the King had accorded to them put in execution they could not permit that the Rules of Commerce observed over all France should be taken notice of among them The cutting off of that absolute authority which they had made use of in the Isles of Reé and Olleron and other places bordering upon their City was looked on as an outrage The exercise of the Catholick Religion amongst them was esteemed as a great slavery and a rigorous constraint imposed upon that whereof they made Profession They complained of those Souldiers in Fort Lewes and the Isles of Reé and Olleron left there only to prevent their relapsing into their former insolencies as a most unsufferable Tyranny They resented his Majestie 's Commissaries Acts in order to the execution of the Treaty as so many unjust attempts upon their Liberties With these complaints they filled their Manifests They made use of these Motives to perswade the rest of the Hugonot Towns to revolt to form themselves into a Common-wealth and to obtain that by force from the King which with justice they could not expect The Duke of Rohan discontented for that he had made no advantage by the Peace did not a little foment those Mutinies of the Rochellers to which end he under-hand sowed divisions among the Consuls of the chief Hugonot Towns in Languedoc and some he made for his own Party but his design took little effect in those parts The French King animated by the sage Counsels of Cardinal Richlieu resolves on the siege of Rochel and from that time forwards preparations were made in all the adjacent Provinces of Warlike Ammunitions great store of Cannon were sent before-hand towards the place that they might be in readiness when time should serve Divers means were thought on to block up the Channel and to begin with those of less charge to prevent greater expences in case they might do the work Private Computation was made of what Horse and Foot would be requisite to invest the place and secure the neighbouring Isles And every thing was disposed to the best advantage for the carrying on of the siege The Duke of Lorrain comes to the King at Paris to complain of his Majesties actions towards the Bishop of Verdun his Kinsman He was answered that Bishops being his Majestie 's Subjects owe respect and obedience to him That when they fall off from their duties it is the more just to punish their faults That enjoying their Temporal States only in order to the Oath of Allegiance which they all swear to his Majesty they do most especially deserve to be deprived of them when they break their said Oath That his Majesty was more especially concern'd to maintain his right in Verdun which was a Frontier Town and likewise because the Bishop had attempted against his Royal Authority in hindering the building of the Citadel though it were a thing only relating to the Soveraignty and in which he was not at all concerned But this was not the chief end of his journey He pretended to do homage in his own name to the King for the Dutchy of Bar as appertaining to him in Fee and not in right of his Wife But he therein met with greater obstacles than in that of the Bishop of Verdun The Duke obtained his request for the Bishop upon condition he should revoke the Censures against the King's Officers and for the future should comport himself with more moderation The Duke willingly became bound for his performance and the King discharged the seizures and setled all things in their former state The English and others endeavour now to divert the French King from his resolution against Rochel On July 28. 1627. the English Fleet arriveth before Reé They Landed ten thousand men The Sieur de Thoyras was then Governour of the Citadel St. Martin in the Isle of Reé Rostaincler the Baron of Chautail Navailles and divers other Gentlemen and light Horse and about one hundred and fifty French Souldiers resisting the English were slain in the encounter most part of the Officers being wounded Fifteen Officers of the English Army were said also to be killed besides divers Lieutenants and Ensigns They likewise lost one of their Colours and had five or six hundred killed and wounded The Duke of Buckingham stormeth the Citadel of St. Martin but could not take it The Cardinal sent to Bayonne for fifteen flat Vessels called Primaces built both to sail and row withal and very fleet and able to endure a storm In the end of August Captain Baslin who Commanded these Primaces came with them to the Sands of Olonne where the Abbot of Marsillac received him joyfully and his Vessels being well stored with Victuals and Ammunition he lent him Sixscore men of the Regiment de Champany with some Voluntiers On September 5. he set sail in the head of his little Fleet about six a clock at night Soon after he knew that he was near the English Fleet he spread abroad his great Sails and was easily discovered But the Primaces going very swift could not be stopped by the English Vessels They went without loss only some Sails and one or two Masts were shattered and one shot through with a Bullet Baslin having thus passed the English fell upon the Barricado which they had made to hinder Relief which consisted of great masts linked together with Iron Chains and tied with Cables fastned to great Anchors But many of the Primaces by reason of their lightness and swifness passed over the rest lighted on a certain place where the foregoing night a Tempest had broken part of their Barricado through which they passed without difficulty so that about two in the night they ran a shore near one of the Bastilions of the Citadel a place where the English could not hurt them The Relief was great both for their reputation and assistance Ten other Pinnaces were got from Bayonne which the Count de Grant-mont rigged out and sent under the Command of Captain Audum October 4. they came on the Sands of Olonne They were soon laden and accompanied with twenty five other little Vessels Three hundred Souldiers went aboard them and sixty choice Gentlemen Upon October 6. they put off Two daies past the wind changing before they came to Reé and that by day too The English Fleet engaged them in a rough Fight But their courage surmounting their danger twenty nine of the Vessels got clear to the Citadel where they ran ashore on Friday morning October 8. five of their Vessels were forced to give back One only in which were the Sieurs de Beaulieu and Razilly was taken by the English Who were so incensed at it that they made in twenty four hours above two thousand great shot upon the Port Saint Martin so that there were only five
between the Bishop of Evereux and Du Plessis Morney page 90 A new Colledge built by King Henry IV. at la Fleshe page 95 A conference between Du Moulin and Father Gontier a Jesuit page 96 A Congregation of French Prelates page 4 A Colloquy at Poisy in France between the Popish Doctors and the Protestant Ministers page 5 6 John Croy a Learned French Divine page 10 A Conference at Flex page 33 A Conference between the German and French Divines at Mompelgart page 45 A Council of sixteen in Paris page 53 Robert Constantine a Learned Frenchman page 19 An affront put upon the Duke of Crequi at Rome and the effects thereof page 177 178 Jacobus Cujacius a great Lawyer page 11. D. LAmbertus Danaeus a French Divine of Orleans page 71 The Death of the Bishop of Chartres who had been Confessour to Cardinal Richlieu page 171 Dionisius Lambinus a Learned French-man page 24 The French Divines answer and censure the Book of Sancterellus the Jesuit page 182 The Death of King Lewes XIII page 160 Daniel Chamier a learned French-man page 107 Daniel Tilenus Professor at Sedan page 104 E. AN Edict made against Duels page 129 Father Edmonds Prior of the Covent of Jacobines executed page 70 Queen Elizabeth 's Letter to King Henry IV. upon change of his Religion page 80 French Exiles at Mompelgart page 45 F. ANthony Faius a good French Divine and Abraham his Son their works page 50 John Fernelius a learned French Physician page 8 A difference between the Bishops and the Fryars in France page 143 A sore Famine in Paris page 76 Francis Cupif a Sorbon Doctor turneth Protestant his Censure page 152 Fishes called Surdonnes sent by God's providence to the relief of the Poor at Rochel during the Siege page 27 G. THe Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Guise slain page 59 60 A League of the Guisian Faction page 34 35 Gilbert Genebrard a Divine of Paris page 10 Paul Gondy Arch-bishop of Corinth and Cardinal de Rhetz page 163 Henrico Gaetano sent Legat by the Pope to the League of France page 71 The Guisian League sworn in Tholouse by the black Penitents page 45 Many places in France side with the Guisian Faction page 43 H. KIng Henry III. curseth the City of Paris p. 55. he is murthered by a Jacobine Monk page 67 Michael Hospitalius Chancellour of France an opposer of wicked Counsels against the Protestants page 29 King Henry IV. embraceth the Roman Catholick Religion p. 79. he is murthered by Ravillac page 97 I. THe Jesuits restored in France page 95 Julius Caesar Scaliger and Joseph Scaliger very learned Men. page 9 L. A List of the Protestant Churches in France lately demolished page 189 190 191 The latter Councils of France since the Council of Trent page 192 c. The Laws of a Seminary College p. 194. and that of Bourdeaux in particular page 199 200 A Letter of King Henry III. to the King of Navar. page 41 M. CHarles Marillac Bishop of Vienna page 2 August Marlorat Minister of the Reformed Church at Roven hanged by the Guisians page 17 Clement Marot a famous French Poet. page 17 The bloody Massacre of the Protestants at Paris page 23 24 Peter Merlin a learned French Divine page 24 John Morinus a Learned Papist page 19 Muretus an eloquent Writer page 17 Duke of Montmorency beheaded page 144 Papyrius Massonius a Writer of the French Chronicle page 1â— Count Montgomery taken and put to death page 28 Andrew Melvin his Verses page 29 Michael Montaign his Works and when he flourished page 30 Cardinal Mazarine made prime Minister of State p. 164. he raiseth a stately Library p. 164. his Death page 175 John Mercer a learned French-man Successor of Vatablus as Hebrew Professor at Paris page 24 N. KIng of Navar and Prince of Conde excommunicated by Pope Sixtus V. page 44 Their Protestation against it ibid The King of Navar 's Declaration against the Guisian League page 44 O. OBusson Arch-bishop of Yverdon A Form of an Oath propounded by those of the Guisian League page 35 D'Ossat and Du Perron made Cardinals page 84 Some Orders cryed down in France because of their Conspiracies against the State page 45 P. PEter de Espignac Arch-Bishop of Lyons page 35 Peter Verseris Advocate in the Court of Parliament at Paris page 35 The Protestant Princes of Germany raise an Army to defend the French Protestants page 51 John Passeratius an excellent Orator and Poet. page 11 Du Plessis Morney his Story page 103 104 105 Protestants disturbed in the exercise of their Religion page 34 A Popish Form of Profession of Faith page 195 ad 203 The Works of Cardinal Du Perron page 101 Q. JOhn Quinquarboreus Professor of the Hebrew and Chaldee to the French King in Paris page 18 R. A Relation of the present Estate of the Reformed Churches of France page 184 ad 188 The Duke of Rohan his military Actions in France p. 140. his Peace made with the King 141 his Death page 152 The Siege of Rochel page 137 The English attempt to relieve it but in vain ibid It is yielded to the King page 138 Cardinal Richlieu his death The Characters given of him page 156 157 Francis Rabalaesus a Witty but Atheistical Writer page 19 Peter Ramus slain in the Parisian Massacre page 24 Rozarius a Preacher at Orleans Apostatizeth and afterwards recanteth page 24 Andrew Rivet and William Rivet two Godly French Divines page 107 A Provincial Synod held at Roven page 41 S. SEdan a Refuge for the Protestants page 122 A Star seen in the Constellation of Cassiopea page 29 A National Synod held at Tonneinx p. 104. another at Alais in Languedoc page 108 Gaspar Scoppius his Book tending to the Rebellion of Subjects against the Soveraign power burnt by the Hangman page 102 The Spanish Renuntiation of all Priority to France page 176 Claud. Salmasius a learned French Critick page 100 Jac. Sirmondus a Learned French Jesuit p. 99. his works page 100 T. BEnedict Turretine a learned French-man page 100 V. FRancis Vieta a learned French Mathematician page 100. Nicholas Vignerius a Learned French Historiographer page 100 Nicholas Vignerius Junior a Learned French Divine page 100 The Bishop of Verdun imprisoned page 131 FINIS ERRATA PArt I. Page 2. Line 31. read Mantz p. 13. l. 23. 24. r. circumcelliones p. 28. l. 14. r. Avergne p. 31. l. 29. r. Theodorick p. 57. l. 38. r. levies p. 83. l. 17. r. Carthusians p. 91. l. 20. r. his p. 109. l. 27. r. and p. 112. l. 8. r. There Part II. p. 7. l. 11. r. leave and l. 37. r. leave p. 11. l. 3. r. Undiquaque p. 30. l. antepenult r. peace was concluded p. 54. l. 41. r. at Soissons p. 70. l. 19. r. Mars p. 105. l. 3. r. Towns p. 130. l. 19. r. the chief p. 146. l. 22. r. one Fish-day p. 208. l. 8. r. Bells
renounce Gregory was hereupon declared Legate Della Marca and went to his charge but he dyed soon after at Ricanati of discontent John and Gregory being removed there remained a third still which was Benedict XIII who declared that he would never renounce Hereupon Sigismund the Emperour went in person to the Kings of France and of England to advise with them about forcing Benedict to a renouncing also Sigismund having received a satisfactory answer from these two Princes he went to Narbon and discoursed personally with Ferdinand King of Arragon whose Subjects paid obedience to Benedict But Benedict still alledged that he was the true Vicar of Christ saying that Constance was not a place convenient for the liberty of an Ecclesiastical Council seeing that John had been condemned and deposed from the Papacy by those very persons who had been formerly his Friends and received him to the Pontifical dignity The Princes of Spain observing the pertinacity of Benedict concurred with the opinion of the Council which was managed by five several Nations viz. Italy Germany England France and Spain What these Nations had done was approved and published by a Trumpet or a publick Notary Then Benedict's cause being discussed he was at last deposed and declared void of the Papacy no reckoning being made of the absent Scots and Count d'Armignac who continued their obedience to him About this time John Huss and Jerome of Prague his Disciple were condemned and burnt for Hereticks On Novemb. 8. Anno 1417. thirty two Cardinals entred the conclave with thirty others for the several Nations which is six a piece and on the 11 th of the same Month which was the Feast of St. Martin about three in the Morning Cardinal di san Gregorio called Oddo Colonna before was created Pope with great satisfaction to the people The Emperour presently went into the conclave and having thanked the Cardinals kissed the Pope's Feet The Pope embraced him and thanked him for his great industry in that affair This Pope would needs be called Martin because his Election hapned on that Saint's day Then all the French Cardinals left Benedict and came in unto Martin the Scots and d'Armignac did the same and all Christendom except Paniscola which remained divided Martin being desirous to put an end to the Council Anno 1418. he made a publick Assembly after which by common consent but especially of Sigismund Ibaldo Cardinal of St. Vito by order from the Pope pronounced these words of dismission Domini ite in pace and so all had liberty to depart Then Martin hastned to Rome travelling by Milan as the nearest way He sate fourteen years and dyed of an Apoplexy Febr. 20. Anno 1431. When Benedict had sate thirty years and was dead his Cardinals chose Pope Clement VIII but he compounded with Martin and so the schism was ended Henry V. King of England had invaded France and soon after at the Battle of Agin-Court ten thousand French-men were slain Anthony Duke of Brabant with his Brother Philip Earl of Nevers were also slain by the English Bow-men These were Brethren to John Duke of Burgundy Charles Duke of Orleans and Lewes of Burbon the Earls of Richemont Ew and Vendosme the strongest pillars of the Orleans faction with many other Noble-men and Gentlemen were taken prisoners and carried into England Lewes the Daulphin dyeth soon after this defeat The Emperour Sigismund cometh into France making shew of the great desire he had to make a peace betwixt the French and the English The English take all Normandy and Rhoan is besieged and taken and all the Isle of France yieldeth to King Henry even to the Gates of Paris France was now strangely divided into divers factions The King's Authority were for the Queen and the Burgundian Piccardy Burgundy and many other Towns in Bry Champagne and Beausse obeyed them absolutely after the great massacres that had been lately done in Paris Only Sens adhered to the Daulphin Charles The Prince of Orange of the Burgundian Faction makes War in Daulphinè and Languedoc to cross the affairs of Charles who notwithstanding had the greatest part of the Countrey at his devotion with the friendship of Avignon and the Earldom of Veness The English possessed all Normandy and a great part of Guienne But Rochel Poictiers St. John de Angelo Angoulesm Fontenay and some other Towns acknowledged the Daulphin All Anjou was his Avergne Berry Burbonois Forrest and Lionois obeyed him He likewise took upon him the Name of Regent The Duke of Britain leaves the English and joyns with the Daulphin The people grow in dislike with the Duke of Burgundy and the Parisians mutiny against the Burgundian faction and kill his Servants At length a peace is made betwixt the Daulphin and the Burgundian Anno 1419. but soon after the Daulphin causeth John Duke of Burgundy to be murthered in his presence This John had slain Charles Duke of Orleans traiterously and now he is treacherously slain by Charles the Daulphin Philip Son to John Duke of Burgundy stirs up great troubles against Charles the Daulphin in revenge of his Father 's death By his means Isabel an unkind Mother makes War against Charles her Son and peace with Henry V. King of England then a Capital Enemy to the State She gives him her Daughter Katherine in Marriage and procures King Charles VI. her Husband to declare Henry his lawful Heir and to disinherit his only Son Charles from the Realm of France But in the midst of these occurrences Henry V. dyeth in the vigour of his age and spirit on the last day of August Anno 1422. and Charles VI. the French King dyed fifty days after on the 22. of October the same year After his Funerals Henry VI. an Infant Son to Henry V. is proclaimed King of France and after is crowned King at Paris Charles VII after the decease of his Father Charles VI. took upon him the name of King of France notwithstanding the pretension of the English He was 21 years old when he began to reign and reigned 39 years The beginning of his reign was troublesome till he was installed King and thereby acknowledged of all the French Afterwards he reduced the Cities subdued by the English to his obedience beginning with the City of Paris and so proceeding to the rest of the Realm expelling the English from all except Calais In the close of his Reign he had many Domestical discontents which hastened him to his Grave after the happy events of all his difficulties At this time flourished John Gerson a divine of Paris he was present at the Council of Constance and in some written Treatises highly commendeth the decree Bishop Jâ—el's preface to his defence of his Apolâ—gy Bishop Bedel Waddesw â—eâ—â— p. 107. that the Bishop of Rome should be subject to the Council and saith The thing is worthy to be written in all places for a perpetual memory He was the most learned Man of his time and the only Doctor and Leader of
the Queen intended to continue with the same power till her Son came of Age they thought it more easie to gain the King of Navarre who was already much averse to the Protestants Religion by reason of the different opinions he found among them about the Points in Controversie And now the King of Navarre joyns himself with the Duke of Guise and the Constable These three the Hugonots called the Triumvirate Queen Joan was highly displeased at this so unexpected deliberation of her Husband and leaving the Court carrieth with her Prince Henry and the Princess Katherine her Children whom she brought up in Calvinism into Bearn being determined to separate her self from the Counsels and conversation of her Husband The Queen Regent was also terrified herewith and in opposition to the Triumvirate joyns with the Prince of Conde and the Admiral The Prince of Conde takes upon him openly to Head the Hugonots who ardently desire to revenge his past affronts upon those that were his chief persecutours His power and boldness was moderated by the wise Counsel of the Admiral of Chastillon Their Authority led after them being of the same Faith the Prince of Porcien the Count de la Roch-fou-caut Messieurs de Genlis de Grammont and Duras the Count of Montgomery the Baron des Adrets Messieurs de Bouchavane and Soubize and many other the Principal in the Kingdom Thus upon a sudden the King of Navarre went over to the Popish party and Queen Katherine though dissemblingly took upon her the Protection of the Protestants The King of Navarre staying in Paris laboureth to hinder the Assemblies of the Protestants to diminish their force and credit and finally to take away their liberty of Religion The Prince of Conde being likewise in Paris Davil Hist of the Civil Wars of France lib. 3. on the contrary encourageth the Preachers and as he could enlargeth their licence and liberty The King of Navarre deliberating to drive the Prince of Conde out of Paris for this purpose sends for the other Popish Lords to Court The Duke of Guise makes a journey thither and passing through Vassy his Servants heard a noise of Bells and having askt what was the reason of it answer was made That it was the hour wherein the Hugonots used to Assemble at their Sermons The Pages and Lacquies of the Duke that went before the rest of the Company moved with the Novelty of the thing and a curiosity to see for then those Congregations began first to be kept in Publick with jesting speeches and a tumult went towards the place where the Hugonots were Assembled at their Devotion Who understanding that the Duke of Guise their great Persecutour was there and seeing a great Troop come directly toward them inconsiderately fell presently to gather up stones and began to drive back those that advanced first to the place of their Assembly By which injury the Popish party rashly betook themselves to Arms. The Duke putting himself in the midst of them was hit with a blow of a stone upon the left cheek which bled much which caused him to withdraw from the hurly-burly His followers impatient of such an affront done to their Lord with their fire-arms presently assaulted the house whither the Hugonots retired to secure themselves killed above sixty of them and grievously wounded the Minister who climbing over the Tyles saved himself in some of the adjoyning houses The tumult being ended the Duke of Guise called for the Officer of the place sharply reproving him for suffering such a pernicious Licence to the prejudice of Passengers He excusing himself as unable to hinder it by reason of the Edict of January which tolerated the publick Assemblies of the Hugonots the Duke no less offended at his answer than at the thing it self laying his hand upon his Sword replyed in choler This shall soon cut the Bond of that Edict though never so binding From which words many afterwards concluded that he was the Authour of the ensuing War But the Hugonots incensed by this Chance now full of rage stirred up such horrible tumults and bloody Seditions that besides the slaughter of men in many places the Monasteries were spoiled Images thrown down the Altars broken and the Churches defiled The people in all places ran headlong to take Arms and the Heads of the Factions went about gathering Forces preparing themselves for a manifest War And now each Faction desired to draw the King to their party and to possess the Persons of the King and Queen But the Catholicks prevent the Hugonots and lead them both to Paris from Fountainbleau The Prince of Conde therefore possesseth Orleans and prepareth for the War The Popish Lords under the King's name likewise raise an Army Many writings are published on each side and both Armies go into the Field The Queen-Mother labours for a Peace To this end she comes to a parley with the Prince but without success notwithstanding she continues to Treat of an Agreement which at length is concluded But the Prince by the perswasion of the rest again takes Arms purposeth to assail the King's Camp by night but misseth of his design Forces come to the King's aid out of Germany and many thousands of Swisses whereupon the Prince is forced to retire unto the Walls of Orleans where being unable to keep the Army together he divides it He sendeth for succour from Germany and England consents to give Havre de Grace to the English and to receive their Garrisons into Deipe and Roven to obtain aid from them The King's Army takes Blois Poictiers Tours and Bourges besieges Roven and takes it and sacks it where Anthony King of Navarre received a Musket shot in the left shoulder which breaking the bone and tearing the Nerves he presently fell down on the place as dead and died shortly after Succours come to the Prince of Conde out of Germany with which being re-inforced he makes haste to assault Paris The King and the Queen arrive there with the Army and the Prince after many attempts is necessitated to depart Both Armies go into Normandy and there follows the Battel of Dreux in which the Prince of Conde is taken Prisoner on the one side and the Constable on the other The Duke of Guise being Victorious layes siege to Orleans and is ready to take it and is treacherously slain by Poltrot Sieur de Mereborn of a Noble Family near Angoulesme He feigns to forsake the Protestant party leaves Orleans insinuates himself into the Duke of Guises Court and whilst the Duke gives order for an assault shoots him in the shoulder whereof he dieth Poltrot aided by the swiftness of his horse saved himself in the neighbouring Woods and the Duke being carried to his Lodging died three dayes after of his hurt Poltrot was taken and being taken was by sentence of Parliament publickly quartered After the death of the Duke of Guise an accommodation followed Conditions of Peace were conluded at Orleans March 18. 1563. viz.
repealed or of any Custom or Priviledge or any other manner whatsoever or that make use of them when they are made and ordained when by them the Ecclesiastical liberty is abolished impaired depressed or restained in any manner whatsoever or who do any prejudice to our Laws and those of our See directly or indirectly implicitely or explicitely See yet another which follows after this Those likewise who do any ways hinder the Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates superiour and inferiour and all other ordinary Ecclesiastical Judges in the exercise of their Ecclesiastical jurisdiction against any person according as the Canons the sacred Constitutions of the Church the Decretals of General Councils and principally that of Trent do ordain There is further in the same Bull some Excommunications against those which appeal from the Pope's Sentence to General Councils Against those that hinder Clergy or Lay-men from going to plead at Rome which is a remarkable thing Against Kings and Princes which make the fruits of Ecclesiastical Livings to be sequestred upon any occasion whatsoever which concerns the right of the Crown Against those which impose any Tenths Subsidies or other Taxes All this was levell'd against the rights of the King and the liberties of the Gallican Church Rebuff in praxi benefic de union benef num 28. A Bull had been granted by Pope Alexander VI. in the year 1500. for the union of the Parish-Church of Doway with the Chapter of the Cathedral-Church of the same place But the Parliament of Paris upon the appeal Papon lib. 3. tit 8. art 2. as from abuse exhibited from the Curate of Doway to stop the Execution of it disannulled the union by an Arrest of the first of May 1575. because there wanted a Writ for Commission In Partibus Divers other unions besides have been declared to be abusive because they were made without the consent of the Lay-Patrons and the Bulls have been annulled as well by the Parliaments as by the Grand Council King Charles IX in his demands of the Council of Trent required a reformation of the abuses of Fraternities That Council found nothing to be corrected in them but tacitely confirmed them by ordaining That the Administrators of them shall give account of their Administration every year unto the Ordinary We read that Leagues and Monopolies and Conspiracies against the State have been hatched in such Fraternities as these and that disorders and other unlawful things have been committed among them They have been prohibited in all well policied Kingdoms and Common-wealths and particularly in France where we must observe That as they have been Instruments of trouble and dissoluteness so they have been judged hurtful to peace and concord And for that reason they are condemned by the Edicts and Declarations of the French Kings as the Mothers or at least the Companions of Conspiracies For they are so joyned together by the same Ordinances as in that of King Henry III. of September 1577. And all Leagues Associations and Fraternities made or to be made under any pretence whatsoever to the prejudice of this our Edict shall be utterly void and of no effect And in that of the same Prince given the 20. of December in the same year We expresly forbid all our said Subjects of what quality soever they be to begin make or prosecute any League Association or Fraternity among themselves to the prejudice of our said Edict of Pacification The forty fourth Article of the Conference of Flex saith in express terms All the foresaid viz. Provosts Majors Consuls Sheriffs of Towns c. mentioned in the former Article and other Subjects whatsoever of this Realm of what Condition soever shall depart from and renounce all Leagues Associations Fraternities and Intelligences as well within the Realm as without Duke Casimire had no sooner turned his back from France but they began to find the Peace to be counterfeit being made only to disarm them and to divide the Commanders The Prince of Conde first felt the breach of these Promisâ—s They deny him his Government of Picardy Peronne is seized upon Divers enterprizes upon the Princes person make him to leave the Duke of Alançon and to retire into Guienne to the King of Navarre who had before declared himself for the Protestants and whom those of Rochel received into their Town with much honour on June 28. All such of his Train aâ— they suspected were excluded Upon denial of Peronne the King granted to the Prince the Town of S. Jean d'Angeli but the Inhabitants had a Watchword and a mutual Oath after the manner of a private League made by sixty Gentlemen of Poitou who would have no exercise of any Religion but the Catholick to maintain one another and not to give access to any one of what Religion soever to the end their quiet might not any way be disturbed The Prince finding this repulse caused some Captains to enter secretly and so assured himself of the place But finding this place too weak for the assurance of his Person in the end of October he takes Brovage a strong place near unto Rochel The Protestants complain unto the King that in divers places they are disturbed in the exercise of their Religion granted by the Edict That many Preachers move the people to Sedition That the Chambers of both Religions are not erected and that justice is denied them That both great and small bandy against them And they produce ample proofs of these complaints Now those of the house of Guise studied to discover those terrible Projects which they had long hatched Their chief designs were to overthrow the succession brought in by Hugh Capet in the full assembly of the States and to cause the naming of a Successour to be subject unto the said Estates to cause the Princes of the blood that should oppose against the Decrees of the Estates to be declared incapable to succeed unto the Crown And the residue of what qualities soever Noble-men Gentlemen and others to be degraded of their Dignities the money growing of their Confiscations to be employed for the War and their Bodies to be executed To make the Estates protest to live and die in the Faith set down by the late Council of Trent to cause it to be signed in the open Parliament To revoke and disannul all publick Edicts in favour of the Protestants and their Associates and to pursue them to the death that should hinder the extirpation of Heresies De Serres Hist in vit Henry III. To cause the King to revoke the Promises made unto the Protestants and to prescribe a certain time unto their Associates in the which they should present themselves before the Ecclesiastical Judges to be absolved and then to be sent unto the King to purchase pardon of the Crimes committed against his Majesty To cause the King to make the Duke of Guise his Lieutenant General A League of the Guisian Faction a Person fit to encounter the Rebellion of Princes
Avergne by force where the blood of the Inhabitants shed without pity by the Duke of Anjou confirmed the Protestants in the bad opinion they had conceived of him The Duke of Mayenne sends forth a Navy to Sea under the Command of Lansac which coming before the Isle of Ré retired seeing the Islanders resolved to fight if they approached The Rochellers Arm seven Ships those of the Islands five entreating aid from Holland and Zealand to withstand the force of the Fleet. The Nobility invite all others to charge themselves willingly for the maintenance of this Army Mayenne assaulteth Brovage a little square Town built in a Marsh recovered out of the Sea fortified during the third Peace and after the Rochellers had cut off six hundred of his men the Town for want of victuals entred into Capitulation and departed August 28. 1577. with their Arms and Baggage leaving the place at the Duke's devotion But a Peace was concluded at Poictiers and was in the end of September Proclaimed with great joy of either party This last Edict cut off some Articles of the former made no mention of Strangers left their consciences free yet without exercise of Religion but in Towns and places where then it was publickly used in the houses of Gentlemen Feudataries or as they call them de Haute justice free admission was given to every body but in the houses of private Gentlemen not above the number of seven was allowed and in a prefixed place in every jurisdiction and Baily-wick except in Paris and ten Leagues about it and two Leagues compass from the Court wheresoever it should be But the Marshal D'anville who every day withdrew himself further from the Protestants ceased not to prosecute those by whom he pretended to be injuried in Languedoc under colour of reducing the places of his Government under his own Command Nor did the Sieur des Diguieres in Dolphinè dare to trust the Peace nor hazard himself upon the King's word remembring what had befallen Monbrun in whose company he had made War and therefore still continued Armed for his security And the Papists when they saw the Protestants meet at their Sermons could not suffer them without murmurings and detractions which occasioned many contentions and sometimes dangerous bloody accidents whereby a great part of France though the Peace was made continued still in broyls and insurrections About that time the King created two Mareschals men valiant in War and very prudent in Government viz. Armand Sieur de Byron and Jaques Sieur de Matignon men free from the Interests of the Duke of Guise depending wholly upon the King's will And Renato di Birago the High Chancellour being made Cardinal Philip Hurault Viscount de Chiverny is chosen in his place In the year 1579. the King shews himself in publick for a mirrour of Reformation and Piety he builds many Monasteries Chappels and Oratories undertakes many Pilgrimages on foot confirms the brotherhood of Penitents erects tne Order of Jeronomites is daily conversant with the Capuchins and Fucillans called Jesuites and by their instructions erects many Congregations He carrieth a Crucifix and Beads in Procession with a Whip at his Girdle He causeth many Books of Devotion to be Printed And leads a Life more befitting a Cloyster than a Court. He institutes the Order of The Knights of the Holy Ghost binding them to Conditions which carry a strict bond to the Church of Rome The Duke of Anjou dies and now the King of Navarre is by quality the first Prince of the Blood and first Peer of France and most part of France cast their eyes upon him as upon the Sun rising This amazeth the Duke of Guise and his adherents they assemble the Heads of their house at St. Dennis and endeavour to renew the Catholique League which before was almost laid aside for seeing that the King ballanced the forces very carefully with those of the Hugonot Lords and that he would not suppress that party which as they believed he might easily have done and that under several pretences he devested all the dependants of both Factions of their places and honours to bestow them upon such as should acknowledge them meerly from himself they were the more highly incensed Nor could it satisfie them to see the King taken up with Religious thoughts and addicted to a quiet unactive life for they knowing his nature wherewith they had been conversant from his very Childhood interpreted that course of life to subtil deep dissimulation Wherefore the Duke of Guise a man of a very quick insight discerning judgement and high thoughts determined to prevent and not stay to be prevented In which resolution he was seconded by his Brother Louis the Cardinal a man of an high spirit and great wit as also by Henry of Savoy Duke of Nemours and Charles Marquess of San-Sorlin both Sons of Anna d'Esté and therefore his Brothers by the Mother Charles of Lorain Duke of Aumale and Claude his Brother a Knight of Jerusalem Charles of Lorain Duke d'Elbeuf Emanuel Duke de Mercure and his Brothers Only Charles Duke of Mayenne proceeded more slowly than the rest who thinking how dangerous it would be to hazard their safety by rash resolutions advised them to proceed with more patience and more respect toward the Lawful possessour of the Crown But the Duke of Guise resolute in his thoughts by the Authority of his Person Vivacity of his courage and Eloquence of his Language drew all the rest to his Opinion and excluding his Brothers advice setled all his thoughts upon the machinations of the League for the establishment whereof dissembling his discontents no less than his jeolousies and private interests he made shew of stirring only for the respects of Religion and the general good making an ill interpretation of all the King's actions and with many arts and circumstances aggravating that danger which he pretended hung over the Catholick Religion in France He grounded his fears upon the death of the Duke of Alançon and the Queens barrenness which in the space of ten years had had no Son whereby the King dying without heirs of the house of Valois the Crown fell to the Princes of Bourbon and in the first place to the King of Navarre whom he termed a relapsed Heretick and an open enemy to the Roman Religion He urged that his coming to the Crown would be the universal ruine of Religion and the total Conversion of all France to the Doctrine and Rites of Calvin and therefore shewed how all good Catholicks were obliged to look to it in time Davil Hist of the Civil Wars of France lib. 7. and to prevent the terrible blow of that imminent subversion He shewed that when sometimes he had been constrained to make War against the King of Navarre he employed the Mareschal de Byron who though a Catholick in outward appearance was yet by many former proofs known to be a favourer of the Hugonots and interessed in their Factions that therefore he
formerly done by the States of Bloys and the Clergy convâ—â—â—â—â— at Melun that he would be pleased for proof of his true Piety and Religion to enjoyn the publication of the said Council whereby the maintenance of the Church is well-provided for which is observed to be daily impaired and abated And the Provincial Council of Aix in Provence Anno 1585. Petition the King at the beginning of the Acts That he out of his singular Piety would command the Council of Trent to be published which had so exactly provided against all dangers wherein the Christian Common-wealth was then impugned We must not think that these earnest solicitations which the French Ecclesiasticks here made did proceed so much from them as from the Pope One argument hereof which may be alledged is this that they were not now interessed herein for most of the Decrees which concerned them were admitted and there was no default in the observation of them unless it were on their part and one company of them were inserted in the Edict of Bloys the rest in divers other Provincial Councils holden afterwards in France the Canons whereof are to be seen in Print at Roven 1581. at Bourges 1584. at Tours 1585. and at Aix in Provence the same year The better to countenance the League forementioned it is presented to Pope Gregory XIII that he might bless it The Pope was well-pleased they should attempt any thing against the Protestants but he did not approve those Popular Rebellions which were made against a most Christian King neither would he be the fire-brand of a War which he could not quench and so he sent the Deputies back without any answer The King of Navarre causeth the Deputies of the Protestants to assemble at Montauban to resolve of the means to maintain themselves if the League abusing the King's name and authority should seek to offend them The Duke of Espernon goeth also to the King of Navarre to confer with him privately in the King's name The chief of the League presume That the King means to Arm and to employ the King of Navarre's Forces against them They send forth many Commissions in the King's name that what they did might be thought as done for his Majestie 's service The King in the end of March disavows them and forbids all Leavies of men of War The King made no War but by writing seeking first by gentle means to pacifie them Hedâ—clares the Zeal he hath alwaies born to the Catholick Religion and the necessity that forced him to a Peace Then having promised to restore the Church to her beauty to content the Nobility to ease the people he entreats conjures exhorts and commands all Clergy-men Gentlemen Parliaments and Towns Corporate to abandon all Leagues and Associations and to unite themselves under his obedience The King of Navarre likewise sets forth a Declaration and whereas he was accused of Heresy he answereth That he was born under the toleration of two Religions in France That he will leave that wherein he was bred when by a Lawful Council they shall shew him another truth than that which he believeth He saith he is not relapsed seeing he was not fallen from his first Opinion That he is no enemy to the Catholicks for that when the Edicts had granted Liberty of Conscience he presently laid down Arms. That in all places he maintains his Subjects in the same Liberty as he found them after the decease of his Mother That he hath requested of the King a prolongation of the Towns which he holds for assurance of the last Edict and will deliver them before the time so as the League lay aside Arms and yield unto the King the places they had seized That whereas they declare him uncapable of the Crown it toucheth him very near yet doth he think least of it hoping that God by his bounty will long preserve the King for the good of his Realm and will give him issue to the grief of all his enemies The Queen-Mother accustomed to fish in troubled waters winkt at the Duke of Guise She was contented the Duke should terrifie the King to make him abandon the Protestants and to force him to banish his new Minions from Court who had brought her in disgrace with the King her Son Her ambition moved her hereunto rather than any desire she had to advance the Duke and to bring disorder and confusion into the State and to stand alone in the midst of these furious tempests The Heads of the League march with an Army of 12000. men to Verdun a City upon the Confines of the Duke of Lorain which they take And the Duke of Guise being entred the City drove out the Governour with all his adherents and placed Guittald in his place The City of Thoul drave out the King's Officers and freely gave up it self into the hands of the League The City of Marseilles riseth in favour of the League but the Conspirators are suppressed by the rest of the Citizens They call the Grand-Prior of France Governour of that Province who was then at Aix at whose coming though with but 200 Horse the Fort de la Garde was taken and in it the Consul Daries and Captain Chabanes who the next morning were executed by which severity the City was kept under the King's obedience The same happens at the City of Burdeaux Lions Bourges and many other places in the Kingdom side with the League The King laboureth to disunite the League by drawing many particular men from that party as also the City of Lions but seeing his design succeedeth not to his mind he resolves to Treat an agreement with the Confederates The Queen-Mother goes into Champagne to confer about it with the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Bourbon And after many Negotiations the Peace is concluded The King by his Edict of July 18. revokes all other Edicts in favour of the Protestants he commands their Ministers to depart the Realm and all his Subjects within six Months to make profession of the Romish Religion or to avoid the Country He approves the Leaguers Arms as Levied for his Service allows of their pretexts and by secret Articles concluded at Nemours contents them in all matters only with this condition to leave the League and instantly to lay down Arms. Yet would they have in their power the Towns of Chalon Verdun Thoul S. Disier Reims Soissons the Castle of Dijon Beawne Rue in Picardy Dinan and Coneq in Britain They caused the King to pay one thousand two hundred and six crowns and two third parts for the Strangers which they had Levied They had a discharge for vast summes which they had taken upon the General Receipts They obtained an hundred thousand crowns to build a Citadel at Verdun and entertainment for Guards on horseback for all the Lords of the League This Peace had made a great breach in the King's Authority The King of Navarre seeing this Cloud ready to break upon his party complains that
to the Duke The peace that had been concluded before Montpelier in the year 1622. Vid. The Histâ—ry of the life of the Duke of Espernon part 3. had hitherto continued the affairs of the Kingdom in some repose and although those of the Reformed Religion expressed some dispositions to a new Commotion there was as yet no manifest breach Soubize by an attempt made upon the King 's Shipping at Blavet made the first breach All the rest of the party broke into Arms at the same time and the Duke of Rohan who had long been known to be the Head of that party stirred them into insurrection A promptitude in his Partizans so much the more to be wondered at as he commanded a sort of people whose obedience was only voluntary Montauban was one of the Cities not only of Guienne but also of the whole Kingdom that engaged the deepest in this revolt the Inhabitants whereof by having had a siege raised from before their Walls and by having baffled a Royal Army even when animated by the presence of the King himself began to think themselves invincible and their City a place not to be taken The King therefore sent order to the Duke of Espernon to take Arms which he did and laid waste the Country about Montauban Many smart engagements there were with great loss of men on the side of the besieged who made a vigorous resistance Many lamentable objects were every where to be seen from Picqueros 〈◊〉 place famous for having been the King's quâ—rter during the siege of Montauban and from whence the whole Plain betwixt the Rivers Tarn and Vairan lay open to the view so soon as the obscurity of the night gave colour to the fire that had been kindled by day one might have seen a thousand fires at once the Corn Fruit-trees Vines and houses were the aliments that nourished this flame Soubize in the mean time endeavours to divert the Duke from his enterprize by Landing three thousand five hundred Foot and some few Horse in the lower Gascony in the Country of Medoc This little Country which is almost all the Duke's environs a great part of the Metropolis of Burdeaux extending it self to the very Gates of the City but Soubize was shamefully repulsed his Forces routed the few that escaped the Victors hands with much ado recovered their Ships leaving their dead their Arms Artillery and Baggage as infallible testimonies of a total defeat About the year 1623. the famous Book of Cardinal Du Perron against King James of famous memory came forth That Book was extolled by the Romanists with great brags and praises His Majesty being especially interessed and provoked by that Book was pleased to recommend the confutation of it to his old Champion Dr. Du Moulin who undertook it upon his Majesties Command And that he might attend that work with more help and leisure his Majesty invited him to come into England And together being moved with compassion by the adversities the Doctor had suffered for his sake he offered him a refuge in England promising to take care of him and to employ him in one of his Universities He accepted that Royal favour He set out of Sedan in March 1624. and went to Bruxels and Antwerp and so to Holland whence after some daies stay at the Hague with his worthy Brother in law Doctor Rivet he took Shipping for England He was graciously received by his Majesty God visited him with a grievous sickness by an heavy oppression in his Hypochondries with an inflammation of black choler which seldom let him sleep and kept him in perpetual agony Yet even then he spent much time in his great work against Cardinal Du Perron and preached often in the French Church In the depth of his pain and anguish he was beyond measure afflicted with the persecutions that ruined the Churches of France and the divisions then increasing in the Churches of England There was at London at that time the Marquess d'Effiat See the Life of Dr. Du Moulin extraordinary Ambassadour of France a zealous Papist who upon a false information of Fisher and other Jesuites that were about him that Doctor Du Moulin by his long watchings and other melancholy fumes was decayed in his Intellectuals did malitiously invite him to his house to engage him in a Conference and insult over his weakness After dinner the Ambassadour desired him to hear a Scottish man who would tell him the reasons that made him leave the Protestant Religion to embrace the Catholick The Scottish man then assisted by Fisher and others of his sort made an elaborate Discourse half an hour long of the Church of St. Peter's Primacy of succession of Chairs and the like When he had done the Doctor resumed all his points and allegations in the same order and answered them with his ordinary vigour and presence of wit And because the principal matter in question was about the Marks of the true Church he maintained that the Profession of the true Doctrine was the Mark of the true Church and thence took occasion to lay open the foulness of the errors of Popery with so much pregnancy that the Ambassadour a Cholerick man rose from his seat in great fury and gave many foul words to the Doctor who thereupon went out and returned home But the Ambassadour sent his Coach to him the next day and invited him to dinner And after dinner the Scottish man spake again of the same points and when the Doctor in his answer had turned his Dispute against the grossest errours of Popery incompatible with the true Church Fisher would have taken the Scottish man's part but the Ambassadour's passion gave him no time to answer but broke vehemently out saying that he could hear no longer that one should revile before him the Catholick Religion and maintain to him that he did wilfully damn himself his Wife and his Children Then the Doctor went out of his house Soon after King James fell sick of the Sickness whereof he died That death of his Royal Patron and the Plague raging in London soon perswaded the Doctor to return to Sedan The labour of the journey and the intolerable heat of the season increased his sickness which to heal the Physitians of Sedan made him drink Spaw-waters which were broâ—ght to him from Spaw to Sedan These waters brought him to a most violent Feaver and the Feaver consumed all those humours and winds that opprest him and left him in health So he returned to his former Function in the Church and University serving God with chearfulness and assiduity and blessed with great success He lived at Sedan thirty and three years from his return into England unto his death without any notable change in his condition but one of publick concernment by the miserable change of the Duke of Bovillon That Duke being Prince of Sedan the Protectour of a flourishing Protestant Church and the refuge of many oppressed Protestants in France was perverted by falling in
reconcile himself to her favour but all in vain she was still so implacably bent against him that the Peace of Italy being now concluded and the time come wherein the King had promised her to remove the Cardinal she was importunately instant with the King for the accomplishment of his Royal word At last the order was signed for the Cardinal's removal The Cardinal withdrawes himself a little time from the Court but by the advice of the Cardinal de la Valette restores himself again with the the King and so the Queen-Mother not only fell from her hopes but also from her credit with the King whereupon she departeth out of France and goeth to Bruxels Monsieur the King's Brother requesteth the Parliament to indict the Cardinal so doth the Queen-Mother But the King justifies Richlieu by his Letters and Declarations The Duke of Espernon stops the progress of a new Insurrection by dismantling several strong Cities of the Hugonot Party as Millant St. Afrique Pont de Camares Saint-Rome Tarn and several other places The King of Sweden having invaded Germany the French King makes an Alliance with him he establisheth a Chamber of justice in Paris who give judgement against several persons Then is the Cardinal Richlieu created Duke and Peer of France The French Protestants had obtained permission by the King 's Breviate about the beginning of this year to make a National Assembly of their Ministers of France for the maintaining of their Order and worship The Cardinal was of opinion that his Majesty should require them to meet at Charenton because being within his view they would have the less freedom to renew such Cabals as they had formerly made in their Assemblies of Guienne and Lauguedoc This Order was followed and the Sieur de Galland Counsellour to his Majesty was sent to be President in the King's behalf his Loyalty was not to be suspected and they were obliged to accept of him in regard of divers authentique testimonies which made appear that this Order was conformable to that of Councils assembled in the Primitive times which they professed to honour The King especially commanded him to be careful that no Proposition were made which did not concern their Faith or Discipline to silence them in his Majestie 's name in case they should discourse of any other affairs and to establish such Rules as the Cardinal had proposed to keep that Party in submission To this end he used his utmost Prudence and Loyalty he perswaded them to enact that there should not any more National Assemblies be made but in the presence of a Commissary from the King who might by testifying their obedience be a means of continuing them in quiet Besides he induced them to resolve upon the absolute excluding of all Stranger Ministers this being intended of all that were not natural French and to inhibite their Ministers from leaving the Kingdom without his Majestie 's Licence by this means to prevent all intelligences associations and correspondencies with the enemies of the State according to the Laws of the Kingdom and his Majestie 's particular prohibitions In fine he used so much prudence that they required their Ministers not to intermeddle in any affairs Politick or Military and condemned a Book of Berraut Minister of Montauban as erroneous because he maintained that Ministers had a particular call from God to bear Arms. Divers Ordinances were made there for the subsistence of their Party The Emperour of Germany sendeth Cardinal Pasman to Rome to endeavour to break the French King's Alliance with the King of Sweden The French King having lately been in Lorrain The Administ of Card. Ricâ—â—eu after his return the Cardinal undertook to compose a difference between the Bishops and Friers which had made a great noise for sundry ages together The Friers relying upon their priviledges obtained from Rome pretended to have power both to Preach and confess without permission from the Bishops And the Bishops unto whom all people within their Diocess are subject by common right did perpetually thwart that pretension They could not down with the Friers Priviledges alledging they ought to be declared void as being repugnant to the Primitive Constitutions of the Church This quarrel had been especially fomented during the last year by reason some Books had been published in the name of the English Catholicks which preferred the Monastical life before that of the Prelates and seemed to imply that Friers were more necessary at least more useful to the Church than the ordinary Pastors Was it probable that the whole Society of Friers would relinquish the Priviledges they had obtained from the See of Rome On the other side what reason was there that the Prelates should have so little Authority over them in Administration of Sacraments and the Word of God seeing of old Friers were only mixed among the Laity and addressed themselves unto the Bishops Congregations to receive the Sacraments from their hands or those who executed their charge The Cardinal took upon himself to end this difference though he was at that time employ'd in the most important affairs of Christendom He therefore caused the Superiours of the Orders to come before him one by one well knowing that to negotiate such a business in a publick Assembly would be a labour in vain He was a person well versed in all Antiquities and accordingly he represented to them how that in the first institution of Monks they were Consecrated unto God by the mediation of Bishops who received their Vows instructed them and directed their Consciences He laid before them the Original of the whole affair and shewed them how that the Son of God had subjected all those who sold their goods and followed him unto the Apostles whose Successours the Bishops are whereupon they making a strict profession of leading an Evangelical life were more particularly obliged to observe the Order established in and by the Gospel not that he would question the validity of those exemptions granted from the See of Rome unto which he owed much more respect and obedience than to debate the Ordinances thereof yet that he must needs inform them that they could not be dispensed with from following the Order established by Jesus Christ or his Apostles in Administring the Sacraments and Word of God That in fine themselves could not deny but they were obliged to relinquish some part of their pretensions for the avoiding of trouble to the Church which was likely to ensue upon this account and whereof the Hugonots discoursed with much freedom That this peace would be more acceptable to God than all the advantages it could otherwise procure unto particular persons That it would tend unto their honours by testifying unto the world the moderation of their minds and humility of their spirits and that the world would esteem the better of them That he should not willingly propose that the Bishops should have ordinary jurisdiction over their persons or power to visit their Monasteries but