in large volumes now it is reduced and fitted to the time and purses of those that had no occasion and less abilities to accomplish the perusal or purchasing of large Folio's which I think was the grand reason of stifling the knowledge hereof to many of this age Reader thou art here presented with the most horrid Rapes Murthers Perjury and Treacherous Cruelty of a Prince and Court that ever landed on European shore for in few daies all the Protestant Nobility and Gentry with Ladies and innocent Gentlewomen and children to the number of fourty thousand were inhumanely butchered and cut off by the Kings special Commandment Here thou mayest see a Prince besmearing himself with the Goar blood of his own Subjects and at last wallowing in his own we shall here see Religious Vows and Promises no stronger ties to the King and Court than a Rope of sand to a wild beast being gone so far in perjury that the Kings faith was accounted like the Greeks whose unfaithfulness to their promises is become Proverbial that when one would express perjury they termed it Greca fides for though a Creditor had ten bonds and as many Sureties and Seals yet will he find it extreme hard to accomplish his debt so when a Jew is to deal with a Genoa he puts his finger in his eye fearing his Treachery They resolve to have no other virtue rampant than perjury and cruelty Abandoning that part of Religion which ties to a strict observance of Duty Omnia Religiosa nunc ridentur they will wade no further in Religion than may serve their cruel ends insomuch that in one Town which the Protestants kept they engraved on the gate this Motto Roy sans foy ville sans peur the King had no faith nor they no fear And as the Roman Emperor Caligula said of Seneca's Works they were Arena sine calce sand without lime having no connexion so was the King of France his Solemn Oaths and Promises It is a Christian accomplishment in Princes to govern non per timorem sed per amorem as it is said of Octavus Augustus And when any judgment befalls this Nation let them remember that as they made it an Acheldema or Field of Blood so will God the place of his Plagues for who knowes not that the Blood of so many thousand souls crys to heaven for vengeance upon the third and fourth Generation and I could wish that all Protestant Princes would beware how they shake hands with such faithless People Now the right use of these sad and sudden murthers should be to learn us the necessity of being ready prepared for such violent deaths and that prosperity is as diet to us Adversity as Physick reducing to a right tast of these mortal enjoyments How happy will the Torments of cruelty be when our cyes are fixed by faith on an Eternal inheritance linking our selves in that golden Chain of Salvation which extends from Eternity to Eternity Death comes not unexpected when a soul is interessed in Christ our Saviour how necessary is it for us to live ready to dy He that too closely hugs transitories makes a rent in his constancy and a greater in his soul How can a Christians Judgement but be at nonage when he values not the true worth of Celestials but puts them in the ballance with Terrene things He indeed hath found the Philosophers stone that can turn all events into a Subjection to Gods Will. It was the gratious words of Holy Greenham having food and rayment let us take the rest as an overplus these poor Souls had no other warning peice to dy than sudden and violent deaths that like the flying fish reported to be in great hazzard by the Shark and Dolphin in the Sea yet when advanced into the air to escape he is by Birds of prey in no less danger so were these poor Saints of God in War hazardous in Peace undone What shall we say of that Religion which perjury cruelty blood and the greatest cruelties are reckoned as virtuous Jewels in the Crown of their Government they are sweet when seasonable and parallel to their murtherous Hearts and it must needs presage ruin to that Nation that stands on no other Pillars for their foundation than bloody and infamous Plots and Treachery who will not conclude that Nation lies level to justice and I wish the large field of Liberty allowed the Papists in England to walk in may not insensably grow our inavoidable and swift ruin since it is well known by all how they wait for our destruction But to contract let me intrea◠〈…〉 my sincere and publick intentions which is all I adopt to be mine and that ex abundanti amoris out of the surplusage of Love thou wilt waft my Endeavours to the Haven of thy kind embraces where I cast Anchor and rest Reader these Books following are printed for and are to be sold by Richard Tomlins at the Sun and Bible neer Py-Corner THe General Practice of Physick Folio Drummonds Hist of 5. Kings of Scotl. fol. The Fortune Book in fol. English Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot Fol. Mr Collings Cordials 1st 2d 3d. part quarto His Vindiciae Ministerii quarto His answer to Mr Sheppard quarto His answer to Fisher and Hammond quarto His answer to Boatman Prin Humfries qua Dr Holdsworths one and twenty Sermons quar Euclides Elements in quarto Eng. History of seven Champions quarro Packet of Letters quarto Cupids Messengers quarto The birth of Mankind or Womens book quar The perfect Pharisee under Monkish holines qu. The false Jew quarto Mr Collings 5 lessons for a Christian to learn 8. His Faith and Experience octavo Mr Wincolls Poems octava Excellency of Christ octavo Erasmus Colloquies octavo Wings and Libourns Urania Practica octavo Velitationes Polemicae octavo Janua Linguarum octavo Brinsley's Cordelius octavo Mr Sidenham's Mystery of Godliness octavo Mr Sidenham's hypocrisie discoved octavo Paul Hobson's last book of Queries octavo Watson's untaught Bridegroom twelves Place this fol i Men quartered Aliue Roasted on a spit Rauishing woomen Burning men Aliue Beating mens Braines out Ripping vp woomen w th Child Cutting Throats 300 protestants Murthered in a Church Stabbing with daggers Men Cutt in peeces The Civil Wars of France CHAP. I. The Contents THe Reign of Charls the ninth A Parliament called the Government committed to the Queen Mother during the Kings minority the names of Hugonet and Papist forbid on pain of death Prince of Conde and King of Navar in discontent departs the Court the King of Nevar made Lieutenant General and joyntly interessed in the Government with the Queen Mother the Princes desire a Toleration of Religion for the Protestants which is privately granted the Protestants multiply and the Princes protect them demanding the Queens promise for Toleration the Protestants that were in Prison for Religion freed by a Decree of the Council the Duke of Guise surrenders the Keys of the Palaces
to the King of Navar the King crowned the Princes of the Bloud and Duke of Guise contends at the Coronation about precedency the King gives it to the Duke of Guise the Constable forsakes the Protestants and cleaves to the Duke of Guise the Queen Mother for her own advantage joyns with the King of Navar and gives some liberty to the Protestants which so enrages the Catholick party as presently all former Edicts in behalf of the Protestants were broken by a contrary Edict that no Religion should be suffered in the Kingdom but the Romish the King and Queen Mother subscribes thereunto the Protestants at their request have a Conference granted they meet and confer in a hot Dispute but agree not the Catholicks murder many Protestants in Paris the eight Parliaments of France assembles the Duke of Guise disapproved of it and so in a fury departs the Court and goes for Spain the Protestants deluded by the Queen Mother gives her a List of all their Forces the King of Navar turns Catholick the eight Parliaments meet and with the consent of the King and Queen Mother do decree a free and publick Toleration of the Protestant Religion but speedily a sad and cruel Massacre the Duke of Guise furiously assaults the Protestants at a Sermon and murders two hundred of them the Protestants complain to the Prince of Conde of breach of Covenant and Edict the Duke of Guise seises on the King and carries him to Paris the Queen Mother writes to the Prince of Conde for aid against the Duke of Guises Attempt the Prince in his journey to Court suddenly retires to Orleance and possesses it the first Civil War begins The death of King Francis and Reign of King Charls FRancis second King of that name dying the fourteenth of December 1560. made entrance for the Reign of Charls the ninth and as the first died of a Feaver so the last reigned in a Frensie the legitimate off-spring of his Predecessours disease whose short Reign was thought too much lengthened by the train of all sorts of bloudy cruelties which filled this poor distracted Nation of France whose wicked Reign was also attended with the sable clouds of Flagellum Dei which swept both Field and City The beginning of his wicked Reign had a bloudy ending to the poor Kingdom and himself for the bodies of the murthered Protestants was a Prey to the Birds of the Air and Beasts of the Fields the whole Nation wearing the Pensive Weeds of a Ruinous Distraction for through the Lords just Judgments on the Nation they suffer nothing less than all Roberies Rapes and all sorts of Cruelties with horrid Massacres for the space of twelve years And as the Prologue of his Reign was Perjury and Treachery so was the Epilogue Bloudy to himself and poor Nation especially to the poor innocent Protestants A Parliament sits and the Government committed to the Queen Mother during the Kings minority A Parliament being called they begin the 23. of December Now at this time in the Court of France was Katherine de Medices Pope Clements Brothers Daughter and this Kings Mother who being born in Florence a City of Italy had conferr'd upon her the Government of this Kingdom in the Kings minority for it is well known that according to the Laws of this Nation neither the Administration nor Inheritance thereof can justly be cast on the shoulders of a Woman and yet against this Law and through the negligence of the King of Navar the said Queen Mother was joyned with him in the Office of Protectorship the confirmation of her Regency being allowed of by the Chancellour was afterwards confirmed by the Speakers Now in this Assembly of Parliament one John Quintin a Doctor of the Common Law at Paris for the Clergy pleads that none of the Religion Reformed for so they called the Protestants should any more be tolerated or suffered and desired that the Laws in that case provided might be put in speedy execution but the day following that brave Commander and good Christian Gasper de Coligni the Admiral of the Protestants complained to the Queen Mother against the said Quintin who presently excuses himself and in his second Speech moderates his Plea to the Admirals content The Parliament a little enlarges the Protestants privileges Now the Estates proceeds in their consultations making themselves and the beginning of this year somewhat happy by some moderation in matters of Religion whereby the reproachfull names of Papist and Hugenot was forbidden upon pain of Death which name Hugenot they fixed in disdain and derision to the Protestants and was derived from a Gate-house in Tours called St. Hughs Gate where they met in Assemblies Many good and necessary Laws were then published but with more confusiom than advantage for Laws though good and many yet through want of a due execution by the Magistrates power makes the good intent thereof to be perverted and turned into an indirect Channel giving the people cause to slight such wholesom Laws and grow bad under a good Government Great contentions and private animosities arose between the Princes of the Bloud that is the Prince of Conde and King of Navar who were Protestants and Francis Duke of Guise who was descended of the House of Lorain and now Grand Master of the Kings House who being a strong Catholick was no less a bitter Enemy to the poor Protestants the Queen Mother in her affections did secretly incline to the Duke of Guise yet to secure her own interest and power in the Kings minority carried fair to both The Princes of the Bloud being Protestants in discontent absent from Court but the King of Navar and Prince of Conde with the Constable seeing themselves justled out of that power and favour in Court which as due they did expect and also foreseeing the event which must necessarily ensure having onely the pacings of the Duke of Guise they absent from Court with all their Attendants resolving to right their wrong on the Queen Mothers Regency and the Guisans usurpation of their unlimited power Now the Queen Mother by her subtil and natural insight to secret affairs judged so at their Discontent that she politickly cast her Cards that both might have a good hand yet deald her self the Trumps checking their power that they might not check hers The King of Navar by the Queens policy jointly governs with her To which purpose she makes a new Agreement with the Navarois concluding him in the Government that taking the Title and Power of Regency to her self he should be called and but called Lieutenant General to his Majesty All this but in Paper and Ink composed of a double intent but those that can break Oaths witnessed by God and all the World how soon can they swallow and digest the breach of such Paper-promises like that good Actor in Smyrna that cried O Terram yet pointing to the Heaven and O Coelum yet pointing to the earth
which when one of the Spectators saw in anger he said to the company This fellow has made a Solicism spoken as it were false Greek with his hand And indeed here it was so with the Queen Mother too many Leagues being betwixt her heart and her mouth for we shall ere long see these two parties the Princes of the Bloud and Duke of Guise and Queen Mother make greater wounds in a short time than Ages can afterwards cure The Prince of Conde we must understand was now at liberty and freed from the unjust Sentence against him in the Reign of Francis the second which was for some pretended Fact but indeed was for his Religion sentenced to be executed but the Kings death prevented it The Protestant Princes desire a Toleration The Prince of Conde and King of Navar with the Admiral and other principal of the Protestants desire of the Queen Mother a Toleration for their Religion but the Queen Mother now tottering between these two Factions of the Princes of the Bloud and Guisans counted all things below the present danger of either parties getting power and so thought it not fit therefore to deny their request telling them withall that it could not yet publckly be granted by her to the content and satisfaction of all therefore she would secretly promise them her best way of bargaining that she governing by common consent with the King of Navar would by indirect by ways so work under hand upon emergency of occasions which might daily occur that at last it should incensibly yet assuredly come to pass to their own desire which says she suddenly proclamed might render you in danger and my self out of power to help you These things the Queen Mother promised being forced by necessity and dissembling pollicy for her own safety and security but it is ill making a fast Bargain with a loose Merchant nothing by her being less intended than really promised for she thought it fit and convenient for preservation of her Son's and own interest not wholly to put under hatches nor quite to extinguish the power of the Duke of Guise who was an apt weight to ballance and counterpoise the Power of the Princes of the Bloud desiring to carry it so to both that she might displease neither till she had a sure staff of the one and the other no power lest to oppose hers which at last answered her hellish Plot so that reserving many things to the benefit of time and future industry she left no stone unrolled to provide for time to come and to remedy the present Distractions The Protestants increase and the Princes of the Bloud protect them and presses the Queen Mother for her promise of Toleration Now the goodness of God in converting many to the Protestant Religion appears in a great and vast multiplication of the Professours thereof the King of Navar and Prince of Conde with the Admiral protects and defends them who earnestly presses the Queen Mother to perform her Promises for a free Toleration of their Religion she findes many nice excuses and well-spun pretences to evade the dint of their resolute desires and her absolute promise endeavouring by most subtile arts of perswasion to put off the performance of her Promise till a seasonable oportunity offered to ripen her Designs But the King of Navar daily pressed forward and grew more and more earnest for the speedy effecting of it and he did so publickly reason their case that many of the Kings Council yielded to the force of his Arguments disbanding their former Reasons on the contrary for the King of Navar alleged that it pittied his soul to see so many Protestants and the Kings true Subjects scattered from their peaceable habitations for fear of death and danger and did further profess it did deeply penetrate his heart with an abhortency to think of any more effusion of blood Amongst those of the Religion were many of pregnant wit and Christian courage that with small Tracts in Print dispersed as also with sober Petitions seasonably presented did at last help forward their desires to a speedy Grant A Decree for Release of all Protestants that were imprisoned for their Religion The Queen being now forced to yield gave way by a Decree of the Council at Fontainbleau the 28. of January 1560. That the Magistrates should release all such Prisoners as stood committed for matters of Religion to their former freedom prohibiting all Reproaches of either party with Heretick or Papist To search no mans house The Protestants by this being not fully authorized by a full Toleration and free Exercise of their Religion yet were somewhat satisfied by this seeming Inclination thereunto at least being protected from the present violence daily threatned The Queen Mother would not suppress their power yet would she depress their growth The King of Navar has the Keys of the Palace delivered to him which his great Enemy the Duke of Guise kept Now the King of Navar falling short of the full Grant of the Queens Promise proceeds further to a full Grant which she had secretly made to him requiring that as he was the Kings Lieutenant General the Keys of the Palace might be assigned to him which the Duke of Guise as Grand Master always and at this day kept The Queen as she was loath to offend the Duke of Guise and his party who with the Duke of Lorain upheld the Catholick Cause and Religion so was she as carefull to please the King of Navar and Protestant Princes till time gave a more secure season to bring about her desires for her desire was to be firmly seated betwixt them both by a plausible carriage to either and keeping them both dependents to her power and both equal in strength that neither might have encouragement to murmour To which purpose she is the more willing to favour the King of Navar in his request by reason at this time she findes the power of the Duke of Guise a Pin higher than the Princes of the Bloud and invested with more power than jumped with her purposes she conceived this a fit oportunity to pull down the Guisans power to an equal ballance with the Princes of the Bloud which suiting with her own interest she willingly executed their growth at this time being high and insolent and at all times of an aspiring nature as that they could not be content to fit under the Pent-house of their present power but must suddenly aspire to the pitch of their ambitious aim So the Queen caused the Keys of the Palace to be delivered into the custody of the Kings Lieutenant General the King of Navar. At this the Duke of Guise is highly enraged whose pride findes no bounds but reserved and secret revenge waiting for a fit oportunity to desplay his envenomed hate so that he dissembles his inveterate anger and malice he bore to the Princes of the Bloud and Admiral so he onely makes some shew of discontent for the
July last took date the seventh of January which for the great liberty it gave the present freedom from persecution and hope of peace to all the Nation was commonly called by the name of the edict of January But Alas alas wee shall too soon see the sad effects of this edict for instead of bringing forth the peaceable fruits of a desired and expected tranquillity it brought forth such a sad Perisian Massacre as it may well be termed a monster of nature wherein was such a slaughter of poor Protestants as for the horidness of the fact it is not to be parrelled For before wee come to the end of this sad History wee shall see such a slaughter of Noble gentelmen Gallant souldiers poor Ladies and Gentlewomen and other innocent souls as in three dayes were no less slain then ten thousand whereof 500. were Noblemen Gentlemen and Ladies that were invited to Paris by the Kings dissimulation and treacherous bayt to their sad ruin And in other parts of France in ten dayes by the Kings own commandement were Murtherd most inhumanly thirty thousand Innocent Soules besides what the wars destroyed Such were the sad effects of solemn engagements as if there were no other way of keeping Covenant then by breaking it Nay this edict of peace was by the Kings command and so was the Masacre Oh! that it may stand as a Pyramide to all Nations to be ware how they Make a Peace with those that know no way of Lawfull keeping but unlawfull breaking their most sacred and solemn Oathes promises and engagements This edict being proclaimed did much trouble and dismay the Principal Catholicks setting them all on fire with rage and malice But the greatest enemies the Protestants had were the Duke of Guise King of Navar the Constable and Cardinalls the Queen also was a secret enemie and Ianus like had two faces One full of the greatest dissemulation that ever was found in a female sex taking their parts onely with fair words before their faces yet had the foulest heart wicked inventions as could be imagined And so to support her own power between the indifferent state of the Princes of the blood and the Guisans The Queen Mother being now returned to Fontanbleav Assures the Prince of Conde by all the protestations of Reality that her intentions was no less resolute to preserve the Edict of pacification for their good then it was to secure her own life and so likewise protested to the King of Navar and Duke of Guise that she would never forsake the Catholick partie Now what a wonderfull art of dissimulation was this Queen arrived too what depth of deceit lay hid in her breast which she so ordered by fair pretences that the Protestants that had cause and the Catholicks that had no cause of mistrust yet both alik doutbed of her Reality The Duke of Guise aforesaid being at Spain was absent from this Assembly of estates Asad Massacre of the Protestants at Vassay where the Duke of Guise blaspheming fell on them at a sermon and murthered 200. which was the begining of the first Civil war and consequently affented not to this famous Edict granted by the King Queen and eight Parliaments But he no sooner heard of it but his wonted malice begins to work it is not to be conceived or imagined how full loaden he was which malice and venemous intentions of Injurie to the poor Protestants and so boyling with incredible sorrow at this decree in their behalfs he resolves to wreak his furie on their Innocency He therefore with the constable Cardinal many Gentlemen of the prime Catholicks and two squadrons of Lances advances towads Paris Now as they march from Ianuile to Vassay a little Town in Campagne comming neer and understanding the bell was ringing to Sermon he draws nigher and whilst the poor Protestants were serving God in his holy Ordinances in a barn he furiously sets upon them crying Death of God kill those Huguenots Whereupon he murthered to the number of two hundred men and weomen some had their heads cleft in two others their hands and heads cutt off so that the walls and Galleries of the barn were died with the blood of the slain The Duke with his sword drawn stood among them charging his men to kill without sparing The faithfull Minister of Gods Word was brought to the Duke who cursing called for the Provost and commands him to be hanged on a Gibbot yet through Gods mercy he was released at the request of the Prince of Portion this sad murder we shall shortly see will produce sad effects The Protestants complain to the Prince of Conde of the Breach of the Edict and demands justice of the King Those that were the principal of the Protestants were Lewis of Bourbon of the Bloud Royal commonly called Prince of Conde after the name of a certain Town which Prince was of great force with the King in regard of his alliance so that when the Duke of Guise attempted the breach of the famous Edict endeavouring the utter ruine thereof especially in his bloudy cruelty at Vassey which coming to the hearing of the Admiral and his Brother Francis de Andelot Captain of the Fantery and other Princes Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Protestants they flock daily in heaps with Complaints to the Prince of Conde of the outragious malice and violent attempt of the Duke of Guise against their Brethren the Protestants demanding also of the King Justice for that bloudy Breach of his special Edict and Command The Duke of Guise to countenance his wicked intentions seizes on the King and carries him to Paris Presently after the Duke of Guise arrives at Paris with his bloudy Train and thought it not unfit for carrying on of his Design to get the King into his power that what afterwards he did might be in the Kings name well knowing what great Authority the name of the King would carry in France Whereupon he with the Constable and Marshall of St. Andres seizes on the Kings person and so carries him from Fontanbleau to Paris and there fell a defacing and overthrowing the places where the Protestants used to assemble which so encouraged the Romish party that in every place they abused the Protestants as the most cruel barbarous would blush to act The Queen Mother by Letters desires the Prince of Conde's help for the King and her assistance Hereupon the Queen Mother fearing the power and fierce pride of the Guisans makes a virtue of necessity and writes with her own hand to the Prince of Conde which Letters were produced by the Prince and at the Assembly of the Princes of Germany at Frankford holden under Ferdinand the Emperour were openly read the Contents were Earnestly to intreat his speedy succour and in so great danger and distress not to forsake her but to account both the Mother and the children meaning her self the King and his brethren as committed to his faith and natural kindness desiring
him that he would with all carefull speed powerfully to provide for their common safety assuring him that she would imprint his willing care into the Kings minde that he should never be a loser by it The Prince of Conde possesses Orleans The Prince of Conde being on his journey to Court news was brought him in the way how things were carried That they had taken the King and brought him to Paris Then presently the Admiral advances towards him and overtaking him they make a stand and there consulted what to do whereupon seeing their own danger the Duke speedily hasted to Orleans and possessed it And this was the beginning of the first Civil War CHAP. II. The Contents THe Prince of Conde publishes a Manifesto laying down the Reasons of taking Arms. Burges and Orleans are the Potestants refuge The King declares against the Prince The Armies meet but engage not The Prince and Admiral dispose of their Armies into Garisons The Kings Army takes and sacks some Towns takes Burges on conditions The Queen Mother unmasks her self causing the Protestants to be proclamed Rebels The Prince and Admiral delivers up Roan Diep and Haverdegrace to Queen Elizabeth of England The Kings Army besieges Roan where the King of Navar is slain and the City stormed and sacked for three days together with cruel murdring De Andelot joynswith the Admiral The Prince of Conde and Admiral advances to the City of Paris The Kings Army advances for defence of the City The Protestants march toward Normandy to receive Queen Elizabeths supplies The Kings Army follows them they joyn Battel where both Generals are taken Prisoners The Admiral with his Army marches to Normandy The Duke of Guise with the Kings Army besieges Orleans the Duke slain before it The Admiral returns from Normandy and enters Orleans A Treaty is begun and Peace concluded at Orleans with free liberty for Religion which is publickly proclamed THe Divisions thus increasing made way to erect a Theatre for a sad Tragedy for the Prince of Conde published a Manifesto and sent Letters also to the King Parliament of Paris Protestant Princes of Germany and to all other Christian Princes The Prince of Conde prints a Manifesto of the grounds of his proceedings The Reasons laid down by the Prince of Conde for his taking Arms. were these The defence of the famous Edict of Toleration which was made by the King being the high Road to Peace if duly observed which could not but be kept without horrible breach of faith and assured ruine of the French Nation in regard there were so many of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation that were Protestants and daily came in to the Religion And those of Noble birth that were in power dignity or otherwise above others thought it not meet to suffer the cruel punishments and Massacres daily inflicted on some and threatned to others since God had given them power to help themselves And further it was declared that the Duke of Guise a new-come Foreiner translated from the Forests of Lorain should usurp such power in France such dominion and command as the Princes of the Bloud must lose their proper interests to be his slaves and vassals against all the Laws of the Nation further declaring That if the King should cause an observation of the Edict for Religion already signed and that Arms might be laid down on the Kings part they were ready to do the like and would speedily lay down their Arms To this he added the Queen Mothers singular care as it was reported and as indeed she did outwardly shew for preservation of peace and pulling down the powerful rage of the Guisans which indeed she so dissembled that on the very account hereof it is certain above twenty thousand Catholiks joyned themselves to the Protestants in defence of their cause Burges Orleans proves a Sanctuary and hiding place in time of Gods These flames being begun could not so easily be extinguished mauy cruelties being committed on the bodies of the poor Protestants without mercy such as will no question draw out tears from the eies of serious Christians being such sad examples of crueltie as cant be believed should have proceeded from any that had known that ever Christianity had been in the world nothing being drunk more eagerly then the blood of the poor Saints Yet in this callamity God provided a place of refuge for such as he pleased in mercy to preserve from their cruelty For Bourges and Orleans being kept by the Protestants The King declares against the prince of Conde did greatly administer comfort to many distressed Christians that fled theither Hereupon the King at Paris declares against the Edict and the Prince of Conde The Queen Mother now arms those she privately huggs in the bosom of ther affections The Prince of Conde desires to lay all private interests aside for preservation of the Publick efusion of blood But the King of Navar the Duke of Guise the Constable and Marshall of St. Andre by an Edict banishes the Protestants out of Paris and sudenly advances towards the Prince of Conde with twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse They find the Prince strong enough to encounter them contrary to ther expectations and De Andelot and Boucart strongly urged to engage the Kings Army the Queen with subtilty and treacherous pollicie beguils the Protestants But the Queen Mother abuses them with her subtile treachery telling them the hopes of agreement was too near for them to undo all by a too hasty ingagement in so much that she fed them with hopes till the Catholick Army increased in strength both with French and forein forces Thus the Queen having delayed and protracted all hopes of Issue by battle the Prince of Conde maintains his Army about two months in such peace to the Country as was not in the least found to be outragious by spoyling or robbing such was the Christian and carefull discipline of the Prince and Admiral of the Protestant Army which in France was the greater wonder because whoring robbing and blaspheming was the usual attendants and constant harbingers to the Catholick camp which could not be avoyded because the King could not keep to so strickt a discipline as the Prince of Conde and Admiral The Prince and Admiral disperse the Armie into several Provinces The Prince of Conde and Admiral wisely prudently like valliant carefull Commanders take all waies to use their present power for future advantages and ensuing Storms so they send out to several Provinces men of approved fidelity to the Protestant cause which proved next to Gods blessing a great help to their success in possessing many strong holds in sundry parts of France as Roan Deip Angiers Blois Vendosme Tours Poictiers Ragency Maus Angoulesme Chalon upon Soan Maskon and the most part of Daulphin The Kings Army secures what they had and falls upon several Towns taking and miserably sacking them which
Protestants in France during this Civil War they are so sad they need no comment An unparralled murther but indeed that which follows is not to be paralleld for perfidious treachery Breach of the faith of a King and Court and for hellish and unheard-of cruelties sad murthers in cold blood upon Lords Gentlemen poor Ladies Rivers swimming with bodies and died with blood Indeed the most sad Tragedie that ever was yet acted upon the theatre of the world by Turks Heathens or Christians CHAP. IV. The Contents THE King and Queen Mother lay siege to Haver de grace which surrendered on Henourable tearms The King is declared out of his minority and swears to observe the Edict of Pacification but keeps not his oath nor promise The Council of Trent meet a League is made between the King of France and King of Spain called the Holy League the Cardinal of Lorain posts to Rome to desire the Pope to cause the French to observe the decrees of the Council of Trent Great heart-burnings arise The Protestants dayly complain to the King of their injuries desiring him to keep to his covenant but to no purpose The King and Queen Mother in progress rides through the Nation and secretly confer with the Popes Messenger and the King of Spain They come to Lyons and forbid the exercise of the Protestant Religion Many Protestants cruelly and inhumanly murthered by the Catholicks in several places The King and Queen Mother treacherously leavie six thousand Switzers to destroy the Protestants Letters are intercepted which discover a bloody plot against the Prince of Conde the Admiral and all the Protestants The Prince Admiral and Principal Protestants seize on Troys Lyons and Tholouse The King and Queen Mother forced to ret reat to Paris Thâ—â— beginning of the second war the King sends an Herauld to the Prince of Conde and Admiral Their answer The Principal of both Parties treat but to no purpose The Prince and Admirals answer to their Demands The Protestants never embrace a more sure ruin then a peace with the King The Armies meet and engage the success The Prince of Conde and Admiral march to join with Prince Casimir who had raised twelve thousand men for their aid The Duke of Lorrain made General of the Kings Army Prince Casimirs Noble Declaration in defence of the Protestants The Prince of Conde's Gallant speech to the Army A gallaut Resolution in a free Contribution through the Princes Army Prince of Conde and Admiral join with Prince Casimirs Army The Prince of Conde besieges Chartres The Queen Mothers treachery and speech a peace concluded but full of Treason Guile and hypocrisie The Protestants no sooner dismiss their Armies and deliver up their Garrisons but are speedily filled with Souldiers of the Kings A bloody Cabinet Council erected by the King They plot to cut off the Protestants but are discovered The Kings Army suddenly begirts the chief of the Protestants but they escape with their families to Rochel The Queen of Navar comes to Rochel with horse and foot Cardinall Castillon flies to England disguised The Prince of Conde and Admiral publish a manifesto to all Christian Princes the Queen of Navar declares for the Protestants A bloody Edict is published by the King that none should profess any other Religion but the Romish the King of France strangely declares to all the world That he meant not what he said WE concluded the latter part of the second chapter with a Peace concluded at Orleans whereupon was publickly proclamed a free liberty for the Protestants according to the Edict of Pacification Now the King and Queen Mother endeavour to reduce Haverdegrace to their obedience which the Protestant party had delivered up to the Queen of England as aforesaid The Kings Army besieges Haverdegrace To which purpose they lay siege the Town holds out a good while till at last being sore streightned and no hopes left of relief they come to conditions of surrenders but before Hostages were delivered and English Fleet of sixty brave Ships appears under sayl fleering directly to the Port but the Earl of VVarwick like a true hearted Englishman scorning to dishonour his Nation with such perfidious treachery as most of the French acted he sends word to the Admiral of the Fleet Honourably surrendred that the Town was to be surrendred that day being the seventeenth day of July and so performed his Contract to his great Honour I cannot compare this noble act to any but that brave Roman Consuls who being taken by the Carthaginians in Africa had liberty given to return to Rome to effect the release of some Prisoners and in them his own in exchange promising to return prisoner if he could not Now when he came to the Senate he perswades them not â—o accept of the conditions and so according to his promise returned and was miserably tormented to death Oh that it might be said so of our Charls the Ninth that he had but been regardful of his Oaths and covenants then had not we been partakers of such a sad spectacle of cruelty by reading this bloody Tragedie The Catholicks now after this peace at Orleans feared the greatest visible power rested in the Prince of Conde So the Queen Mother treads in her old paths of deceit intending by her cunning subtilty to cut off all pretences of right to the Government by the Princes of the blood The King declared out of his minority and swears in the presence of God to olserve the Edict of Pacification to which purpose she causes the King now but fourteen years old to be declared King and past his Minority She carries his Majestie to Roan and there the fifteenth day of December 1563. they went Solemnly with all the Lords of the Court and Officers of the Crown to the Parliament Where in the presence of the Counsellours he received the usual Ceremonies used in France at the Coronation the Parliament publishing the Declaration of his Majority the King there publickly protested and swore in the presence of Almighty God That be would for ever after duly observe the Edict of Pacification threatning all opposers for such was his express will and pleasure Thus all things seem in a peaceable way one would now think so much blood expences of treasure and a consumption of his subjects would weary any nation and make any King rejoice For a peace is the more sweetned by the effects of a Civil war already felt for two extreams illustrate each other The peace not kept But alas this peace succeeds not the hopefull expectation of his peaceable subjects in many places it was not observed The Council of Trent meets The King of Spain and France make a league and call it the Holy league And now assembles that Council known by the name of the Council of Trent who meet for the maintainance of the Catholick Religion Now the Cardinal of Lorrain being an active Agent to forward any design
unsufferable injuries and cruel murthers were dayly heaped and committed upon the poor Protestants even to the loss of the Estates and Lives of many of their dear friends which opposition was the greater being done by the Kings Liberty granted contrary to Articles of peace and Edict of Pacification promised by Oaths and Covenants therefore though they dayly waited yet now they saw no other way but to arm in their own defence which was the least they could do being tyed by the laws of God and Nature to preserve their Religion Lives and Estates of themselves with their poor wives children and families that else would be left to the power and rage of bloody and deceitful men and that this was their only design of taking arms And further did declare that if they could espy and other way to enjoy their Estates Liberty and Lives they would speedily lay down their arms yet notwithstanding they desired and resolved to continue his Majesties faithful Subjects in obedience to all lawful commands wishing a period to their lives the same moment their obedience ceased if they could but herein see security for enjoyment of their Religion and Lives The Q. of Navars noble Declaration in behalf of the protestants At the same time the Queen of Navar with some dashes of her illustrious pen and a full Testimony of a Christian Resolution does by Letters declare That she could do no less than joyn with the Prince of Conde and Protestants which with the life of her self and children as also the miserable Reliques of the Kingdom of Navar The Cardinal of Lorrain on the one hand and Spaniards on the other did jointly indeavour by force and policy to destroy which was so discernable that all the world was witness to her injuries And indeed this Noble Queen The Q. of Navars high merits in part described would be ecclipsed of her due value by the draught of my rude pen the highest Encomiums will but stain her virtues but to a little belief of her high deserts know only this That her enemies confessed her virtues and Christian valour to exceed the very applause of her Friendly admirers and therefore her deserts was concluded as much undeniable to them as unspeakable by her friends Thus the very beginning of this pretended peace ends in a third Civil War whose effects was as bloody as sharp and at last we shall speedily see in a Tragical Massacre of many thousand Protestants of all degrees and sexes so securely were the Protestants lull'd asleep in their too credulous opinion of the King and Court Now in this Cabinet Council of the Kings was Charls Cardinal of Lorrain The King publishes a bloody Edict that no Religion should be exercised but the Romish on pain of death which cuts off all former promises and Edicts as if they had never been made to be kept Brother to the Duke of Guise a man of a most crafty and terrible nature insomuch that at Rome he was no less reputed for he was a bitter enemy to the Protestants and for the cruelty of his nature was termed the Firebrand of all Civil Flames whose hands being deep in the blood of the Protestants For by his means and the willing mind of the King and bloody Council was published an Edict in his Majesties name levelling the famous Edict of January and enjoyning That none should profess any Religion but the Romish and that it was treason to embrace any other requiring upon pain of death a general conformity to the Catholick Religion Which bloody Edict was accordingly published whereupon all the Protestant Ministers were banished all places of the Kingdom which were in the Kings power The King declares he meant not what be said Oh deep deceit And that the King may stand amazed at this deep hypocrisie this following Sentence was expressed in this Edict printed at Paris And it was further then declared that albeit the King had in many Edicts before that time permitted the freedom of Religion yet his meaning was to retain and cause to be retained of all men the only Romish or Popish Religion within his Realm Which Edict and clause being so wonderfully strange to all that heard or saw it and because it stained the Kings name with the most horrid spot of perjury and breach of faith it was therefore in other impressions afterward printed purposely omitted in the Edict This Edict was published with an incredible confluence of all sorts of Catholicks and received with the highest celebrations of joy as can be imagined and the rather because the Catholicks much doubted of the Queen Mothers intentions in regard of her dissembling carriage to the Protestants and now all was put out of doubt by this Edict Which clearly demonstrates that the King and Queen Mothers intentions all along was to destroy the Protestants root and branch only took their best opportunity to effect their desires with the least noise of suspicion and greatest security to drive the nail home to the head and their bloody Swords to the hearts of the most innocent souls And thus begins strong preparations for a third Civil War for Religion the sad effects whereof we shall peruse in the next chapter CHAP. V. The Contents THe Protestants gallant Resolutions Both parties arm Queen Elizabeth aids the Protestants The protestants take several towns the Armies face one another but ingage not the Battel at Brisac where the Prince of Conde is slain the Prince of Navar and Prince of Conde chosen Generalls of the protestant Army the Admirall and whole Army swears subjection to these two young Princes the Queen of Navar coins money to pay the protestant Army the Princes and Admiral draw their Army into Garrisons the Kings army sits down before Cognac but are valiantly repulsed they take Mucidan put all to the Sword but lost Count Brisac the Duke Deux Pont with 14. thousand marches to join with the Princes but dies himself by the way The Pope sends Forces to ayd the King Both armies engage the Kings Army retires to Garrisons the Princes take in Chastelrault and Lusignan Town and Castle they lay siege to the great City Poictiers the Kings forces besiege La Charite but leave it after the loss of many brave Gentlemen and Commanders the Duke of Anjou besieges Chastelrault but after great loss leaves it the young Duke of Guise advances to Court and his Fathers place at once the Cabinet Council meets the Armies ingage in a bloody Battel the Kings Army besieges Angeli but receives a gallant shock of a resolute defence by that brave Commander Monsieur de Pilles and at last yielded honourably the Kings Army disbands the protestants increase and are Masters of the field The King summons his forces together and gives the command to Marshall de Coss the King Queen Mother and Cabinet Council plot to linck a peace and the Protestants ruin together the protestants at all times willing to embrace a peace the end
of the third Civil War the K. and Queen Mother speed Messengers to the princes and Admiral to make way for a peace they yield to imbrace a treaty the King propounds for both armies to join against a foreign Enemy A firm peace concluded with free liberty of the Edict Several protestant Princes congratulate the King for his happy peace the King subscribes to keep the Edict the Armies dismissed the peace not fully observed the King with the Council plot destruction the King and Court feed the protestants with favours to make them the easier to swallow their own ruin and his love together the King dissembles with the Princes in shewing a dislike to the Catholick party the prince of Orange and his Brother offer the King of France their assistance against the King of Spain and is accepted the Count of Nassaw disguised goes to the King the King invites the Admiral to Court the Duke of Guise and Cardinal Lorrain depart the Court the better to allure the Princes and Admiral to their Ruin the Prince of Orange takes the Spaniards slips the King propounds his Sister the Lady Margaret in mariage with the Prince of Navar the Popes Embassadour arrives at the Court the Kings plot to surprize Rochel the King pronounces the Admiral not guilty many protestants at Roan murthered the Admirall perswaded of the Kings Reality by a Letter under his own Hand and Seal The protestants noble resolutions NOw begins the third bloody War wherein the Protestants solemnly covenanted together so to cleave fast one to another so to knit themselves firmly together in their affections and resolutions as no future transactions should with the help of God ever make them to forget or forsake the cause of God concerned in the Protestant Religion but resolutely to maintain it to the loss of their lives and all that was dear to them Both sides prepare for war Hereupon the King arms amain so also the Princes and Admiral who send out a fleet of thirty sail for Provision for the Army to supply them for the ensuing Winter The Queen of Navar also endeavours all she can for their aid and assistance Q. Eliz. aids the protestants Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory sent over to their aid one hundred thousand Crowns besides ships of Corn and Ammunition A thing to be treasured up in the remembrance of her lasting fame The protestants take in many Towns both armies meet but fight not The Prince and Admiral advance with their Army and soon levels the force of many strong Towns to their power in taking them in and so become Masters of the Field At length both Armies meet yet no battel in regard of the cold season neither Army would fight but on advantage which would be given by neither The Winter being now past in the year 1569. the Armies engage at Battel at Brisac the 16. of March The Battel at Brisac the prince of Conde slain to his eternal honour fighting on his knees to the last wherein the Prince of Conde was wounded and his horse shot under him yet did valiantly defend himself on his knees in the midst of his Enemies but at last was slain On the Kings side was slain the Duke of Monsalez whom de Andelot the Admirals Brother charged so furiously that with his bridle hand he lifted up the Bever of his Helmet and discharged his Pistol in his face and so laid him dead on the ground Great was the slaughter on both sides of Gentry especially wherein the Protestants were worsted by the Catholiques comming upon part of their Army in full bodies which unfortunately was scattered by their too great security and sudden approach of the Kings yet their demeanor in the fight was such that the Kings Army had reason to bewail their great loss and admire their Enemies valour and undoubtedly in outward appearance had the body been entire and both encountred on equal advantatages the day was generally believed would have been otherwise for the Horse only was engaged but the foot never came to any service but secured themselves in a body And thus died that brave Prince of Conde exceedingly commended for virtue and valour and asmuch bewailed for his loss Prince of Navar and prince of Conde Generalls for the protestants After this Battel the Protestants rallie their Forces and by a General choice of the Army Henry Prince of Navar and Henry Son to the deceased Prince of Conde were both elected Generals of the Protestant Army The Prince of Navar was of a noble and gallant Spirit full of Urbanity and Civil courtesie The Prince of Navar shews a gallant spirit in a piâ—hy speech of a Warlike courage and being naturally given to valourous and heroick actions he embraces this courteous invitation and like a Souldier of a long standing being but fifteen or sixteen years old he lengthned their hopeful expectations by a short pithy speech wherein He promised to protect the true Religion and to persevere constantly in defence of the common-cause till death or victory proved the Issue Now to ballance this Royal assent and Christian magnanimity of so tender a Sprout of virtue The Admiral and whole Army profess fidelity and obedience to the princes of the blood and the protestant cause the Admiral and Count de la Roch-fou-caut first submitted and swore fidelity then followed the principal Officers and Soldiers in joint Resolutions to order their steps after his Royal commands and the religious ends proposed in his Speech All of the Army protesting fidelity to the Princes of Bourbon And thus with a volley of applause was this Gallant young Prince elected General of the Army and Protector of the Protestants whose yeers were far younger than his wise conduct of affairs in whom it was hard to say whether his resolution valor and wisdom or youth was more perspicuous for he seemed as if nature which accomplishes others by degrees had finished him in a trice He was no sooner come to his Horizon but his deserts lifted him up to his Meridian The Queen of Navar mother to this virtuous Prince approved well of their choice and his acceptance so that she sharpned all their resolutions by her couragious assistance of the Protestants The Religious and Noble Q. of Navar coins money and inserts a christian and resolute Motto She was a religious Queen in whom resided much virtue and constancy to a good cause Wherefore she caused monies to be coined with her picture on one side and the Princes on the other with these words Pax Certa Victoria Integra Mors Honesta A Motto becoming her noble Spirit Thus they fall to consultation how to order the Army with the best prudence they resolve to divide and draw into Garrisons so also does the King The Princes Army draws into Garrisons So the Princes and Admiral retire to Saint Jean D' Angeli Brave Monsieur de Pilles defended Xaintes Montgomery and Puviant
parrallelled CHAP. VI. The Contents THe Queen and Prince of Navar with the Prince of Conde comes to Court the Articles of the War of the Low Countries put in writing the Mariage between the Lady Margarite and Prince of Navar agreed on the King heaps honours on the Admirall and friends the King invites the Admiral to Court and protests his own life is envelloped in his a cross in derision of the Protestants is pulled down by his Majesties command the Plot almost discovered by a lively instance the King threatens severe punishment to any that shall affront the Admirall or Protestants the Admiral comes to Court and welcomed the King allowes 50. for his Guard the Count Lodowick of Nassaw enters the Low Countries and takes in Montz A league offensive and defensive with Queen Elizabeth of England but proved a deep plot the Queen of Navar poisoned by the Kings Apothecary by whose death the Prince is King of Navar the joyful and bloody mariage of the King of Navar and the Lady Margarite the Kings plot to take Rochel the names of the Protestants in Lyons is taken in a bloody Book sad complaints commeth to the Admiral and great suspition of a bloody Massacre at hand but he believed it not the Admiral from a Window shot in both Arms with a Harquebuzier as he walked in Paris the King in great rage dissembles his treachery but publishes his hypocrisie by a shew of grief and discontent he that shot the Admiral escapes having fresh horses waiting for him the Admiral shews himself a true Christian and patient sufferer the matter examined by Judges and the Issue he that shot the Admiral had commission from the King for it the Admiral like to dy requests the Kings visit the King and Queen Mother with many Attendants perform his request they profess sorrow and dissemble wonderfully the King and Admiral discourse alone the Admiral commits his injuries to the Lord the King intreats the Admiral to lodge in the Loure the Admiral refuses a great suspition of Treason by a sudden speech of the Count de Retz in the Protestants hearing the Admiral requested a Guard for his person which the King grants the Admiral and Protestants advised of their ruin but they depended on the Kings promises carriages mariage and solemn Oaths for their security and safety THe last Chapter concluded with the great favours of the King to the Protestants whereby he had so won into their affections and to perswade them all he said was true and to embrace his cruelty for loyalty now in this chapter we shall see the effects of his desires accomplished for we shall behold all the Nobles of the Protestant Religion and Princes with the most of the Gentry environed in Paris by the Treacherous baits of the Kings allurements The Queen of Navar with her Son the Prince and the Prince of Conde with a numerous train of the Nobility Gentry of the Protestants all come to the Court with many brave Commanders But Oh! my heart bleeds to think of the bloody issue In the beginning of June the Queen of Navar and Connt Lodowick of Nassaw arrived at the French Court at Paris the Count came to receive orders about the War in the Low Countries the Queen of Navar was courteously invited by the King to help prepare all things fitting for the Wedding who to that purpose came and was received with a joyful welcome both of the King and whole Court but as now we see their faces smiling with a good aspect so we shall shortly see their hearts full of poison Two daies after arrives the Prince of Navar the Prince of Conde accompanied with the Count de Rochfoucault with all the Trains of the Princes being the chief Commanders Cavalliers and Gentlemen of the Religion amongst which was brave Pilles Briquemault and Pluveault Collonels and resolute Souldiers who in time of the War through their undaunted and resolute valour for the Protestant cause may challenge a right of honour amongst the prime in France their courage being such as their Enemies yielded to them much glory and renown as well as felt the power thereof Amongst the rest also came to Court that famous Commander the Sicur de Guerchy that defended the City Sancere where all miseries were endured and their enemies cruel mercy a place which was driven to such extream wants as no filthy thing was left unfed upon also came the Marquess de Revel the Sieurs de Nove de Collumbiere one Lavardin a famous Commander of Horse with many Noble Lords and gallant young Gentlemen all Protestants in the Bud of their years with a great many more â—f quality and reputation but alas we shall see these poor innocent Gentlemen basely murthered by the Kings command and so deprived of all that Gallantry which their sprightful valour promised to fill the World withal Articles of the Low Countrey war put in writing The Count of Nassaw had with the King concluded on Articles for the Low Country war which Articles were put in writing So that we may say the King used the Count and the Prince of Orange in this War as the Monky did the Cats foot to pull the Chessnuts out of the fire Articles of the mariage And now to the mariage of the Lady Margaret and Prince of Navar the agreement being made That the Prince of Navar should have with the Lady Margaret four hundred thousand Ducats whereof three hundred thousand should be paid by the King and security given by the Queen Mother and the Duke of Anjou the mariage to be in the City of Paris and now Christian Reader the plot begins The King advances a Gentleman of the Admirals to high Honour his name Cavagnes a Gentleman of great Worth and really honorable in himself for excellent parts and no less valour whom the King The Admiral intreated by the K. to come to Court the better to work his Designs sends as Messenger to the Admiral to intreat his presence at Paris in order to honour the King and Court in this mariage as also to consult about the War against the King of Spain assuring him that the King intends his safety in that City as much as his own and that although the Parisians did cordially hate him by reason of their great superstition in that City being with seditious preaching of Moncks and Fryers dayly inflamed to cruelty and bloodshed against the Protestants yet his Majestie would take such care of his person as he should be as safe as the watchfull eye and command of a King would make him A stone Cross pulled down by the K. command at the Admiralls request The King finding a stone cross erected in Paris in a reproachful Triumph against the Protestants in time of the Civil Wars did at the request of the Admiral pul it down in regard it was a publick occasion of offence And thus the King and his Council were hid with the love-hood
and doubtless is a firm pledge of the Kings fidelity what can be done more is not all clear from the least suspition of fraud yet he resolved to depart only waited for a fit opportunity to take leave But the Deputies that were sent from the Reformed Churches complained of the cruelties still committed on the Protestants and understanding of the Admirals intentions to depart they apply themselves with all speed to him and delivering him their books and petitions they earnestly beseech him not to absent from the Court till he had pleaded the cause of the Churches and delivered their petitions to the King and Council Hereupon he resolves like a good Advocate to stay a while and plead their cause But there was another great cause of the Admirals stay for there was on arriers to the Ruttiers of Germany great sums of money for their service under the Admiral during the Wars in which he laboured earnestly to effect But oh I tremble to enter into the ensuing narrative so full of inhumane and cruel bloodshed oh that I could enough bewail the sad fate of these poor innocent souls led as sheep to the slaughter to consider that so many brave Commanders that scorned any other death than like Souldiers must now suffer base murthers and bloody slaughters oh lamentable and to be pittied of all Protestants nay and of ingenuous Papists that so many innocent children and women should suffer for they know not what for we shall shortly see all the Protestants of France in mourning and following the Hearse of their own Ruin in the Papists unparalleled crueltie The Admiral coming from Court with a great train of Nobles and Gentlemen is treacherously shot in both the Arms with a Harqurbuss These businesses being the occasions of the Admiralls stay he did on the 22. day of August repair to the Kings Privy Council to effect his desire which day was the fifth day after the King of Navars marriage but about noon returning from the Council with a great number uf Noblemen and Gentlemen reading a petition as he went was shot thorow both arms with two bullets by a Harquebuzier out of a Window who feeling himself shot shewed no alteration of countenance saying only through yonder window it came what kind of treachery is this It was no news to the King to know his will and command was performed The Admiral speedily sends to the King a Gentleman of his company to give notice of it who being at Tennis with the Duke of Guise shewed such dislike as that in a rage he threw away the Racket that he played withall being exceedingly and outwardly vexed and taking with him his Brother in Law the King of Navar he retires into the Castle of the Lour the King swearing and promising to execute such severe justice upon the offenders Deep hypocrisie that the Admiral and all his Friends should think themselves exceedingly satisfyed The King causes the City gates to be shut pretending lest the Murtherer should escape but indeed was lest the Protestants should escape their cruelty The King therefore to delude the Admiral and Protestants caused all the Gates of the City to be shut except two only which were pretended to be open for bringing in provision yet there was careful watch kept by a strong Guard with a colour of singular care of his Majesty to find out the Murtherer and that if he were in the City he might by no means escape but the truth was lest any of the Protestants should escape this cruel plot laid for their blood by getting out of the City or net of destruction the King swearing and blaspheming that he would not by any means that they should escape which had committed such a horrid act those that durst presume to commit such a hainous crime even at the gates of his Royall Palace The Queen Mother also seems discontented for saies she Who would have thought any ones impudence could arrive so high as this affront to the great prejudice of his Majesty and if ever the King suffer this to go unpunished in the end the next attempt will be on his Royal person But alas alas for a King Queen and Court so to dissemble as if there were no God that could see into their hearts and discover to the World that this was done by the Kings special command and commission as we shall shortly see it was Presently after the Admiral was shot some Gentlemen of his retinue entered by force and violence into the house from whence the shot was where they find only the woman of the House and a Boy that was his lacquey which did the deed finding also a Harquebuss lying upon the Table in the Chamber from whence it was shot but the wretched villain they found not for that he was fled out of the back Gate Fresh horses prepared at several gates to speed away the Murtherer with security and so mounted on a Spanish Gennet which was waiting for him he speedily posted to St. Anthonies Gate where another fresh horse assisted his more swift flight and if he had gon to Marcelles gate there was also another waiting for him Now the King to perswade the Princes Admiral and all the Protestants that he was really sorry and how much it was against his will though God knows to his great satisfaction and inward content he commands sundry to post out into all parts to persue him Set a thief to catch a thief The Admiral shews himself a good Christian and patient sufferer Now the Admiral being safely conveyed to his lodging shewed great piety according to his Godly soul filled with grace and prudence most like a constant and true Christian and faithful holy servant of Christ The Prince of Conde and King of Navar had thought to have departed Paris but the Kings carriage levelled all suspitious thoughts and so turned their resolutions to a longer stay at Court Three Judges to examine the murther At request of the King of Navar and Prince of Conde the King to dissemble with more facility did order three principal men of the Parliament of Paris Thuan Morsant and Viol to examine the business whereupon it was found that the House belonged to one Villimure a Priest and Cannon of St. Germane once the Duke of Guise his Schoolmaster and now a retainer under him That the woman that was in the house being brought before the Judges did acknowledge that a few daies before there came to her one Chally once a Master de Hostel of the Duke of Guises house and now Steward of the Kings houshould commanding her to respect much the man that had done the deed and to lodge him in Villumures own bed-chamber in regard he was his Friend Several speeches there was concerning the person that did it some said it was one Manrevel who in the last Civil War traiterously flew his own Captain a most valiant Commander and Noble Gentleman in the Admirals
their Ruin The Duke of Anjou the Kings Brother commanded Cossin Captain of the Kings Guard to place a band of Souldiers to watch before the Admirals Gate giving strict charge that no Catholicks should enter Now none could be pitched on as the grand Enemy to the Admiral and Protestants and friend to the Guisans than was this Cossin as we shall see by the following narrative The Admirals friends that lay scattered up and down the City were desired under pretence of care and affection to remove their lodging into the same street with the Admiral that they might be sure not to escape Oh! Monstrous and Hellish Plot covered with the Kings care Now the Duke of Anjou as an inheriter of his Brothers Dissimulation strives also to colour his damnable Plot and Treason in the lovingest and highest demonstrations and and care of the Admiral and Protestants and therefore advises that the Admirals friends that now lodged so far distant from his person as the Fauxburgh might have liberty to have their lodgings neerer to him for saies he they being so far assunder they might on any uproar be hurt and no means to prevent it which being neerer one another they might join force to affection and better afford one another their joint aid And so presently commanded the lodgings in that street to be provided Now this was a bait that took off all suspition for alas who could suspect or imagine this to be out of any treacherous intent but rather of care and respect but Oh sad and hellish plot under the vizard of friendship these poor Noblemen Gentlemen and brave Commanders that might have escaped from the calamity are intangled and allured into a narrow street as into a fold or narrow path of destruction no way to escape the fury of their Enemies rage and cruelty All the names of the Protestants and place of abode is taken into a Catalogue against the day of their calamity The next day the Duke of Anjou and Duke of Guise commanded the Undermasters of the streets vulgarly termed Quartermen to take a view of all the Inns and victual-houses from one house to another and to take all the names of the Protestants and so to bring in an Account of their names and places of abode in writing and to deliver them to the Duke of Anjou and Duke of Guise so that presently after the Protestants begun to discover some bloody intentions through the prospect of these preparations Now the King had by this time set a Guard of fifty Harquebuzeirs at the Gate of the Admirals Lodging and great store of Arms were carried into the Loure and about the evening all the people of the City were in arms The Protestants meet advice given to remove from Paris but they still resolve to depend on the K. vows promises Hereupon the chief Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Protestants assemble together again in the Admirals lodging where amongst the rest was the Vidame of Charteres who as before so now advised speedily to try if by any means the Admiral might be forthwith carried out of Paris and that presently the rest should dislodge yet all refused this Counsel resolving to rely on the word of a King sealed with so many Vowes Covenants and Solemn protestations in the presence of God and to the clear witness of all Princes and States The K. and Q. meet and consult of their bloody cutting off the Protestants in a merciless cruelty and devillish massacre In the afternoon the King and Queen Mother walk forth into a Garden named Tegliers accompanied with the Duke of Anjou Gonzague Tavignes and Count de Retz which garden being remote from Resort was thought the fittest place for secrecie and a silent place for privacy and very well fitted for the present conclusion of their last and bloody consultation Here in this bloody Council it was considered of and spoken That the Princes Admiral with the Noblemen and Gentlemen of the Religion were now securely entangled in the Fetters of their own confidence which was so well wedged into their minds as prisons could prove no better instruments to ripen their desires the Admiral he was lying bedsick and could not stir by reason of his wounds the Prince of Conde was fast in the Castle of Loure the City Gates kept shut all night and watched all day those Gentlemen that lodged in the Suburbs were now lodged in the same street with the Admiral and all within the Gates of Paris the rest of the principal Protestants in other Towns were all unarmed and unprepared besides there was not ten Protestants to a thousand Catholicks that the Parisians were in arms and able to make sixty thousand fighting men and that in one hour all might be slain and if these were destroyed they would never make head again in the Kingdom but on the contrary if the Admiral recover such an opportunity would never offer therefore saies the Queen Mother this season must not be lost but taking time by the Foretop all our desires will now come to a period in a success proportionable to all our wishes if we let slip time it withers like a neglected rose on a stalk with a languished head if we shake hands with this golden opportunity our designs will grow under the Sunshine of our desires Thus they lie perdue under the shelter of an unmercifull and bloody Balcony all being resolved to be so swift in execution of the Kings pleasure that no time shall be delayed between his commands and the execution but the moment of performance for now they resolve to take journey from contemplation to action they have learned the Theory of Treachery perjury and cruelty now they come to the practical part of this sad Tragedy But this being a gross and downright murtherous way and no handsome Apology provided to cast over the eyes of peoples understandings it was thought fit to frame some smooth pretext They study a smooth pretext for their bloody cruelty to cosen the vulgar conceptions and honest interpretations But oh who can hide the greatest secrets from Gods searching eye to take off the force and dint of vulgar reports and so to divert the natural current of this tragedy into the illegitimate name of convenient necessity whereupon they order that the common vogue of the peoples tongues should be tipt with this specious pretence that the Duke of Guise and Admirals enmity was the cause of this Massacre They resolve to spare the K. of Navar and Prince of Conde if they will turn Papists Now in this bloody Assembly it was moved whether the King of Navar and Prince of Conde should be destroyed in this Massacre or whether saved the King of Navar in regard of his affinity was concluded to be saved but for the Prince of Conde it was doubtfully carred they considered first whether for his age it were best to spare him or secondly whether to put him to death in revenge of
the rage of these Tygers so the Suburbs also where was nothing but murthering and all sorts of cruelties committed men women and children rich and poor old and young nothing to be heard in Paris and the Subburbs but a horrible and terrible noise of arms horses and harquebuziers with a doleful sad and lamentable howling and crying of poor souls going to the slaughter and knew not wherefore a piteous complaint of such as cryed to the villains for mercy together with the merciless and cruel shouts of murtherers and bloody Hell-hounds crying kill destroy for the King commands it mixed with the sad groans of the dying that it seemed as if heaven and earth had met together as if the Heavens would have rent with thunder Oh! sad Oh! wretched King to stain thy honour with such perfidious breach of promise to water thy Kingdom with the blood of Gods people and so to dissemble with the world as if dissembling were further from thy thoughts than thy heart from reality Streets and Rivers dyed with blood The Pavement Market place and Rivers were died with blood and it was heard say by the murtherers that they had put an end to that quarrel that neither pen paper decrees of Justice nor open War could accomplish in twelve years 10000. protestants murthered in one day by the K. command About ten thousand souls makes this Lords day famous for ever with effusion of their pretious and innocent blood such as no age or time can parallel for there was at this time in Paris sixty thousand men with Pistols Pikes Poinyards Curtelaces Knives and such other bloody Instruments who run up and down swearing and blaspeming the sacred Majesty of God cruelly massacring all they meet the streets being covered with mangled bodies Gates and doors defiled with blood And yet we see but in part what cruelties were committed if we compare what we have read and what we shall read together For now having given thee a sight of such Treachery Poisonings perjuries Cruelties and damnable dissimulations with the many murthers committed on the Admiral and Friends in Paris I shall endeavour in the next chapter to give a tast of such sad Massacres and cruelties as will affright and astonish the heart of any true Protestant and if thou hast any grain of true Christianity in thee thou canst not but be toucht with a fellow-feeling of these sad and unheard of murthers and crueltys CHAP. VIII The Contents THe King labours to turn the King of Navar and Prince of Conde to the Catholick Religion by threatning of death and promises of Life Their answers Many Gallant and Peerless Commanders hewen in peeces at the Loure crying out to the Kings Oaths and Promises in the Kings hearing That brave and unparalleled Commander Monsieur de Piles basely slain crying out aloud to the King protesting against his treacherous cruelty and perjury Two hundred gallant Gentlemen slain Count de Montgomery and Vidame of Charteres escape to England A Plot against Rochel but prevented La Charite surprized and all the Protestants cut off The murther at Paris renewed next day the bodies of the dead thrown into the River Sein In two daies above ten thousand slain whereof five hundred of Noble blood Gentlemen with many Ladies and Gentlewomen that came to the mariage The King sends by Post to command all the Protestants to be cut off following the example of Paris Three Noble Gentlemen in the Court murthered The strange sad and cruel death of a brave Gentleman Monsieur de la Place Peter Ramus that famous Professor of Logick basely slain A sad yet comfortable death of a Godly young Christian A terrible and unheard-of cruelty committed on a Gentlewoman with child Merciless cruelty committed on a poor child The most Cruel Horrid and unheard of butchery at Lyons not to be paralleled in any age the blood running through the streets reeking hot to the terrour of the Catholicks themselves The Bloody Massacre at Meaux The like sad Massacre at Troys The bloody Murthers at Orleans The cruel butcheries at Tholouse The cruel slaughters and bloody murthering of six thousand Protestants at Roan The Murthers at Angiers A Godly Minister that had laid the first foundation of a Church in Paris is murthered by the Kings command WHilst these sad cruelties were executed at the Admirals Lodging and in the City and Suburbs of Paris Let us now behold with pitty a number of brave Commanders murthered in the Kings Castle of the Loure by the Kings commandement and in his sight For the King of Navar and Prince of Conde did lodge in the Loure with many other brave Commanders which came to accompany the King of Navar and Prince of Conde The K. promises pardon to the King of Navar Prince of Conde if they will turn Papists The first thing the King falls on after his bloody Butchery in Paris was to deal with the King of Navar and Prince of Conde to whom he gave command to be brought into his presence The King told them all that was done that he had now cut off all the instruments of the late Civil Wars and he hoped would prove a prevention of future troubles for by his command the Admiral was slain with his Train and that no less was done in other Cities to all the Protestants but saies he by reason of your young and tender years and neer alliance in consanguinity and marriage therefore it is I desire you should be pardoned but we shall see it on sad terms to these poor tender hearts ready to break with grief at their friends death and their own too sad and rigid fate Poor Princes betrayed by the cruelty of a perfidious merciless King The King tells them their Lives depended on the reforming their Judgements and turning to the Catholique Religion for he is resolved never to have any more than one Religion in his Kingdom and if they embraced not this Snake in their bosome they must be stung with his bloody Sword as the deserts of their obstinacy The K. of Navars answer to the K. of France The King of Navar humbly beseeched his Majesty to remember his Promises Engagements and now the near alliance by mariage lately contracted and not to force him in those things which only he must be accountable to God alone for that he would please rather to imprison his body than his soul and not to force him to make shipwrack of a good conscience by a violent assault Now the Prince of Conde like a resolved Christian also The P. of Conde's zealom answer to the King did with much zeal answer the King in this manner That he having given his Oaths and promlses in solemn and publick Protestations to all of the Religion would not he hoped forget the great ty of performance which all men are bound to observe under pain of Gods heavy Judgements and therefore he wondered his Majesty should so soon be perswaded to break
shall shortly in particular be related with all the sad circumstances of their cruelty The Catholicks take Bourges oâ— conditions Now the Kings Army sits down before Burges the 10. of August where they felt the valour and courage of the Protestants by many salies even to their trenches but in regard they had no time to fortifie the place their innate valour was forced to yield to necessity whose law has no bounds and so the Governour Monseiur D'Yvoy began to capitulate and at last on conditions yielded but was out of favour ever after by the Prince of Conde and Admiral the Queen discovers her selfe agrinst Protestants and prcolaims them Robels And now the Queen shews her selfe in her colours casts of her vizard and openly appears what she was inwarly For the Catholick cause and against the Protestants and so moved by her implacable malice and inward hatred she with the consent of the King caused the Principal of the Protestants to be Proclaimed Rebels and thus made way for a more open discovery of her most secret treachery whose close hypocrisie til now was so hid under hatches by deceitfull slights that on all hands her deep dissimulation was esteemed real But we shall shortly perceive that the copy of mens actions are sooner read than the copy of their countenances The Prince of Conde delivers up Roan Deip and Haverdegrace to the Queen of England In this mean while the Protestants had delivered up to the Queen of England the Towns of Roan Haverdegrace and Deip as pledges for her security And now the Kings Army marches towarde Roan and on the five and twentieth of September 1562. the whole Army Lodges at Darnettel two Leagues from the City of Roan where the Count Montgommery was Governour for the Protestants and commander of the City The Kings Army Advances to Roan having with him for defence thereof two thousand English and twelve hundred French foot four troopes of horse and an hundred Gentlemen of quallity whose valour was well known to the Army of the Kings that on all times and upon all occations felt the power of their resolutions whose strength and provision failing together with the Kings taking their principal fort did much trouble and hinder their promised success whereupon they sent to Haverdegrace for such supplies as could possibly be spared which in part was effected although the Kings Army had planted Cannons along the River but their great want could not be supplied with a little although at one time from the English arrived with great difficulty to their greater necessity seven hundred men with monyes and ammunition King of Navar slain And here at this seige was remarkably slain the Apostate King of Navar who felt the reward thereof from a divine hand of puunishment The City taken by storm and for three dayes nobus cruelties and murthers The twenty sixt of October the Kings Army storms the City and with great loss and valor on both sides takes it and for the cruelties they used against the poor Protestants lying at their mercy for the space of three dayes I refer the Reader to peruse in the Massaces at Roan which is fully and shortly related in the following Chapter Count Montgomery saved himself through great danger in a galley passing to Haverdegrace and so for England The Admirals Brother D'Andelot with 11000. horse and foot joyns with the Prince of Conde and Admiral Lewis of Burborn Duke of Montpenseir took from the Protestants severall Towns whose barbarous course of cruelty and treacherie is also contracted into a narrow compass which follows in the next chapter Mean while D'Andelot with five thousand foot and four thousand horse with great policie and and no less danger and toyle marches through the enemies power and at last joyfully and seasonably arrives and joyns with the Prince of Conde and Admiral who with great joy and welcome embrases him as much sorrow presently balances all for the success in another place was differently carried by the like Adventure of a Noble Commander the Baron of Duras who having levied five thousand horse and foot in Gascoin and Provinces adjacent endeavouring to pass through difficulties was obstructed by a sharp encounter by the Kings Horse under Command of Monsieur de Mouluc and Burie and at last was defeated yet with good part he escaped to the assistance of the Prince of Conde and Admiral The Prince and Admiral advance with their Army to the walls of Paris who now all march against Paris the Metropolis of the Nation and in their March taks in Estampes Piviers and Dordane and so marches to Paris where after some skirmishes beat back their enemies with Terrour and Confusion into the City putting them all to a stand in their councils but the Queen by Treaties and often Messengers did so with ther subtilty treat with the Prince and Admiral that by delayes the City was strengthened and their gallant Enterprize suprized for want of quick execution but the truth is the Protestants at all times were ready to embrace peace in the midst of their power and so suffered that convenient opportunity to slip and fall into the hands of the Queens policy which opportunity had the Catholicks ever enjoyed peace had not gone before their cruelties But it falls into course here to let the world take notice of this full demonstration of the Princes and Protestants Declarations That they sought only liberty for â—heir Estates and Lives and therefore would to their own prejudice wait an opportunity to effect their peaceable desires But alas it is to be bewailed that ever the Protestants down-right in their actions and words should ever have to deal with such an enemy whose treachery is their refuge and cruelty their mercy Now when they see their Enemies Designs they begin to remember the loss of their own yet falls on the City by a general Assault shoots many Cannons at last face the City to provoke and incite the Enemy to battel all which not answering their desires the Prince and Admiral draw off their Army The Kings Army advances to the defence of the City and the Prince withdraws and marches towards Normandy And now the Kings Army having by this time gathered a great strength from all parts advances under the command of the Duke of Guise and Constable and so follows the Princes Army who now resolves to march into Normandy to joyn with the Forces and Provisions that Queen Elizabeth of England had then according to covenant promised the Protestants being six thousand men twenty pieces of Cannon much Ammunition and fifteen thousand Ducats This March being resolved on at Beauss on December 14. they advance by the way of Chartres and so for Normandy The Kings Army follows the Protestants swiftly and the Protestant Army being very weary and both Armies very near they were by a manifest necessity driven to a Battel The Kings Army follows and they join battle
The Protestant Army under the command of the Prince of Conde and Admiral lodged about Dreux being a Town twenty six Leagues from Paris and situated on the confines of Normandy in which place on a Plain the 19. of December they joyn Battel The Kings Army was reckoned to be nineteen thousand foot and two thousand Horse The Prince of Conde's Army consisting of twelve thousand Foot and four thousand Horse And now the Battle of Dreux begins where the Admiral of the Protestants with great courage leading the Van fell upon the Kings Cavalry commanded by the Constable and at first onset slew Gabriel de Momorancy and laid dead on the place Count de Rochefort the whole cavalry running away The Constable taken prisoner the Constable himself taken Prisoner and the Duke of Nevers Monsieur de Givry d'Annebault La Bross and his Son with many other Gentlemen and Cavaleirs slain upon the place The Duke of Aumaule Brother to the Duke of Guise and Beauvais were wounded Now the Princes forces being in a too eager pursuit of the Enemy was furiously set upon by the Duke of Guise where after a furious on set and doubtful shock on both sides endured at last the Prince of Conde was taken Prisoner Prince of Conde taken prisoner and on the Kings side was taken Monsieur d'Anvelle being sore wounded which the Admiral perceiving rallies and advances but the former encounter so wearied and weakned his men that after a sharp conflict he was put to the worst and so made an honourable retreat In this encounter was slain on the Catholike party the Marshal de St. Andre The same night all the Army of the Protestants were met together where the Admiral by general consent was chosen General of the Army instead of the Prince of Conde Prisoner Both Armies leave the field the Duke of Guise by the speedy advance of night upon him was forced to lodge upon the Plain at Blainville where the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Guise two mortal enemies both supped and lay in one bed together The next morning after Battle the Admiral presents himself with his Army in the field in Battalia There was in this battle slain seven thousand whereof on the Protestants two thousand foot and one hundred and fifty horse and doubtless it was a dubious engagement for had the Protestants carefully maintained their first encounter in an orderly station they had not been so assailed and foyled at last but Victory had crowned their valour without hazard of doubt but however the Battle proved fatal to the Catholicks and famous to both in that both Generals were taken Prisoners And as the Admiral was chosen General so for the Catholicks was the Duke of Guise General in lieu of the Constable prisoner The Duke of Guise hereupon suddenly marches to lay siege â—o Orleans The Admiral proceeds to the Resolution before determined The Admiral marches for Normandy and keeps his march for Normandy but before their March takes Selles in Bervy St. Aigna Sulli upon Loire and Montrichard and so leaving the care of Orleans to his Brother D'Andelot he advances towards Normandy to meet with Queen Elizabeths supplies and so to come with more strength to annoy the Catholicks and assist his Friends The Duke of Guise with the Kings Army layes siege to Orleans On the fifth day of February the Duke of Guise lays siege to Orleans where the King and Queen Mother came in person D'Andelot was Governour of Orleans who was also assisted with Monsieur de St. Cyr the Sieur de Avaret Bussay Duras and Bouchavanes under whose command were fourteen companies of foot consisting of Germans and Gascoins with five Troops of French Horse that were old Souldiers to whose valour was joined for assistance the unanimous consent of the Citizens to withstand the enemy whose harmonious and joint resolutions for defence of Religion and Liberty did strive to out-vy the Souldiers valour and thus being resolved to dy in pursuit of so good a cause they encourage one another to repulse the enemies assaults The Defects of the Town-walls being supplyed with Resolutions which made weakness impregnable and stood as a Rock against the strongest shock of the enemies force Now the Duke with the whole strength of his Army sets upon a Fauxburg of the City and suddenly surprizes it the first day The Duke of Guise threatens to destroy men women and children in Orleans but is himself cut off which so encouraged the Catholick party and especially the hot spirit of the Duke of Guise whose inveterate malice could not be contained in the bounds of moderation or secresie but openly delivers it by word of mouth and writes by Letters to the King boasting that twenty four hours should not pass so sure as he would in the same compass force the City to his obedience And further declared The day should be made memorable by destroying both men women and children sparing none But behold his hellish rage was confined by a judgement from Heaven whose death was not much unlike our late Duke of Buckingham for the same night there was a young Gentleman descended of a noble family known by the name of John Poltrat Sieur de Merebourn who being mounted on a Spanish Jennet and watching his own opportunity did by his proper and private motion shoot the Duke of Guise into the shoulder with a Pistol laden with three bullets and so this wretched enemy of God and the poor Protestants dyed the four and twentieth of February who by Gods justice was deprived of his unjust and bloody intentions the said Poltrat being afterwards taken and executed did freely declare at his death that what he did in destroying the Duke was to deliver France and especially the City of Orleans from his violent and bloudy threatnings The Admiral returns from Normandy and with his Army enters Orleans This accident in the Kings Army stopt their furious assaults till the seasonable advance of the Admiral from Normandy with Supplies which made a full stop in the siege who after he had greatly annoied the Catholicks in Normandy came to Orleans the 17. day of March and enters the City where was Prisoner the Constable General of the Kings Army taken at the Battle at Dreux and in the Kings Army was the Prince of Conde Prisoner Now the Kings Queen Mother with the Privy Counsellours and Deputies of the Court of Paris were about to arraign the Prince of Conde which being ballanced with a fearful expectation of the like to the Constable they let their resolutions fall A Treaty begun and finished with the Edict of January for liberty granted The Queen Mother at this time fearing the issue of War and seeing success alike to both doubted her desired expectation would fall by reason of the unexpected and constant supplies the Admiral had on all straits she therfore enters on the Old Way Her only way making use of that Proverb VVhere force will
but was a plot to cut them of His Oathes being as carfully broken as solemnly made And that which gave the Protestants too sure grounds of fear least a storm should fall undiscovered till unavoydable was this When Ferdinando Alvares de Tolleda Duke of Alva was marching into the Low Countries with a puissant Army to subdue the Protestants there that embraced the reformed Religion against the King of Spains will and desire the Queen Mother ordered the raysing of six thousand Switzers and brought them into France pretending forsooeh that they went for guarding the fronteirs of the Kingdom against the attempts that might be made by the Duke of Alva's Army But see how the light of Heaven penetrats into the dark designes of Hell Letters are intercepted in their way from Rome Letter intercepted the Plot discovered and Spain wherein was discovered a plot for the Protestants for therein was found That it was decreed in a secret Councell to apprehend the Prince and Admirall to destroy the one and keep the other Prisoner and therefore if the Prince and Admirall escaped this bloody Tragedy prepared for them and should try it by Arms that then on a sudden ere they could Arme or be provided those six thousand Switzers were to arrive at Paris where was to remain two thousand as many into Orleans and the rest into Poictiers and thus was the six thousand Switzers pretended to be raised for defence of the Protestants against the Duke of Alva that was indeed for their utter ruin the King and Queen Mother concluding that if the head were off The wickedness of the Duke of Alva the body would fall to the ground calme the winds and the billows will soon surcease their rage Now this bloody Duke of Alva carried himself against the Protestants in such an unhuman way that he permitted his Soldiers to ravish Virgins and one time at his Table boasted the Prince and Admirall and chief Protestants take Lyons Troys and Tholouse for their defence that besids privat Massacres and what the War had destroyed he had Caused to be put to death by the Hangman Eighteen Thousand in six years time And now the Protestants seeing so clear a Plot in the midst of Peace nay that under pretence of safety lurked ruin and Treacherie They prepare to defend themselves by force and stand on their own ground for their Lives and Estates because they see peace is the direct road to a murderous death resolving rather to die in field like men and Soldiers than be cut off by Plots Oh! that they had continued and never embrased Peace may all true Protestants say ere this History ends they therefore to the aforesaid purposes seize on three principall Towns Lyons Troyes and Tholuse The King of France as the usuall Custom is was then preparing for Meaux the King forced to a disorderly retreat from Meaux to Paris to solemnize the day af St. Michaell the Prince of Conde with five hundred Protestants approach Meaux the King and Queen Mother hearing thereof Retire with great disorder and fearfull hast to Pars with six thousand Switzers and other Horse and thus begins the second War being armed on all sides and a generall rising in the Land Now sundry particulars which happened in this second War for our better proceeding in this Tragicall History and for our present purpose must only be touched at carrying along with us the most observable deeds The King sends to the Prince of Conde and Admirall for a more clear understanding of the whole business that we may go on in som order till we come to the rest The second War thus beginning the King sent an Herald to the Protestants whom the Prince and Admirall received in behalf of the rest to whose message they return this Answer That they were resolved to continue the Kings good subjects and what they did was for the defence of their religion liberty granted by the Edict which the King by Oaths had promised faithfully to keep that they desired nothing more then the security of their Lives and Estates in A peaceable enjoyment of the liberty of their Consciences which might the better enable them to be the more firmly fixt in obedience to his Majesties Command The heads of both sides meet and treats but to no purpose But if they should disband it were the most compendious way to their assured Ruin and a plaine laying of their necks to the block and so offer their throats be to be cut by their merciless enemies the Kingdome being full of Swisses Flemings Italians and Germans Hereupon the heads of both parties meet at St. Denis the Constable desires the Prince and Admirall to relie on the Kings word of whose performance he hoped they need not doubt to what ever he promised Oh! that the poor protestants had found is so then had not forty thousand Innocent souls been slain basely and murthered treacherously The Prince and Admiralls noble answer to the constalle To this answer was returned that it was not now time to trust in the Kings word which how little it was kept was too visibly to be read in the bloody effects of the constant breach thereof An Edict being made and sworn to by the King was by the same King violated which was a manifest signe of treachery and perjurie and so perfidious The Prince and Admiralls noble answer to the Constable as few christian Kings would signe to so that they could no more depend upon the Kings word which had hitherto been a snare a sure trap to catch them in and truly they that run may read that all along this sad History the poore Protestants were never und on but when they took the Kings word which indeed at all times proved but the umbrage or shadow of a promise The Protestants never embraced their ruin but when they trusted to the Kings word in a peace being alwayes made with a resolution never to be kept which at last proved a faithfull paslage to their utter ruin so that now this meeting brought nothing conducing to peace for it is certaine that in such a short tract of time I could never yet hear or read of such a constant practise of covenant breaking which all along in this Kings reigne was so often practised as if it had been reckoned amongst their meritorious works as if there were not a God to punish perjurie or treachery And now the Protestants lay their Army down before Pâ—â—is and shortly after both Armies meet and on the tenth of November gave battle and the Protestants received the worst by reason de Andelot came not into the Princes assistance till midnight The two Armies give Battle after the battle therefore next day they enter the field with their Army shew themselves in battalia ready to fight the enemie and so standing some houses before the great citty of Paris they bury their dead the Constable slain cure
their wounded but the Catholicks in Paris durst not come out to engage in this battel was slain the Constable on the Kings side On the fourteenth day the Prince and Admiral with their Army the Prince of Conde and Admirall with their Army march to joyn with the Prince Casimirs Army of 11. thousand marched to Campagn and so past into the confines of Lorrain to joyn with Prince Caisimir son to the Prince Palatine of Rhine Elector to the Sacred Empire whose royall worth cannot shine through the description of my pen according to the lustre of his native and intrinsick worth who had now for the defence of the Protestants raysed an Army of ten or eleven thousand who in their march took in som towns In this mean while the Duke of Lorrain was created Generall of the Kings Army and the Duke of Anjon Lieutenant Generall now Prince Casimir aforesaid writ to the King protesting that it was not any profit or privat interest of his own that prompted his resolutions Prince Casimirs noble declaraton in behalf of the protestants but only and really to assist those that afflicted and persecuted for the same religion had required his help And further declared That if yet the King would grant them free liberty according to his promise in the last Edict he was ready to retreat A noble and brave resolution of a gallant Prince and a true friend such friendship shall never want it's reward in this or another world Sincerity in affection will endure the touch of affliction But here succeeds a block that must be removed out of the way which the Prince of Conde out of a tender respect to a conscionable performance of his promises did only surmise which was bravely and couragiously performed as follows The Prince of Conde had promised to the Prince of Casimirs Army at their approach to the confines the sum of one hundred thousand crowns the Prince of Condes Brave speech to the Army with Christian resolution to keepe his covenants the present want of which did much perplex the Prince of Conde but calling the Army together he there soberly and wisely related their present condition acquainting them that their generall welfair consisted in their particular assistance and that in outward apearance the Prince of Casimir was the greatest pledg of their hopes and on whose help did depend their future hapiness if God blessed their willing resolutions and therefore it were better to hazzard their private estates for a prosperous Issue then lose life liberties and estates to a bloody cruell and perjured enemie and so excited them freely to contribute what they could and with the price of their present assistance to redeem their lawfull liberty Estates Lives and Families A gallant and free contribution of the Protestants Army with their noble resolutions not to be parralleld So there were two Ministers appointed to receive their free contribution now though nothing could be worse spared yet nothing was more freely given for this brave Comander the Prince of Conde like a pious adventurer with a forward inclination to redeem their liberty though with loss of estates sets them a faire coppy to imitate for he was the first that gave all his monies and plate yet not contented gave the very rings off his fingers and all the valuable riches he had the Admirall chearfully follows this Christian and unparralled example then as willingly follows the chief officers of the Army and so from the gentlemen to the privat soldiers and from them to the footmen and boyes in the Camp There was such joyfull and freewill-offering even to the valew of all they had by which chearfull contribution was made up in monies The Armies of P. Casimir P. Conde joyne foreces Plate chaines of Gold Rings and Jewels to the valew of fourscore thousand Franks which for the present satisfied Prince Casimir's Army who doubtlesse would not let their resolutions stop in a vigorous prosecution of their purposes though they had not had this rare piece of affection and care of their prosperity But it was more the noble prince of Condes care to perform his promis then any promptitude in the Princes Army who wer exceedingly pleased Now all parties being fully satisfied on the eleventh of January 1568. they both joyned in a harmonious conjunction Rochell for the Protestants both of force and affections In the mean while the Pope sends aid to the King of France being four troops of Italian Horse six companies of Italian foot with two French Regiments and four thousand Swisses who were all joyned to the Kings Army under comand of the Duke of Anjou Whilest these things were agitating Rochell declared for the Protestants The Prote stant sn their march beseiged Charteres which proved ever after by the wise and mercifull care of God a good sanctuary for his poor people Now the Prince of Conde with Prince Casimir advance and in their way beseige Charteres which place was now as a store-house for Paris and the parts adjacent for it was a plentifully filled with Corne Now the Kings Army encamped before Sein and was loath to put all to the hazard of a battle which did put Charteres to a great strait The Queen Mother of France her treacherous Speech The Queen Mother perceiving which way the game was like to play falls to trade in her old Treacherous policy the only way for her security who used to say She could make three sheets of paper do more then the power of a whole Army To which purpose she sets on foot a Peace which indeed was no less necessary for the Catholicks then desired by the Protestants which may admit of one necessary observation The protestants in the height of their power yet alwaies ready to embrace the least motion of peace That when the Protestants had the greatest advantage of the King yet the least notice of peace was hearkned too and imbraced though in the full carrier and pursuit of their unresistable power and prevalency Therefore it may safely be concluded That if they had had any other intent in taking arms but for Lives Liberties Estates and Families they would never have laid down arms to embrace a peace which at all times they found as a Snake in their bosomes and did expose them to the greatest cruelty an inraged enemy could inflict So that now the Catholicks disadvantage in power meeting with a peaceable though powerful enemy A peace with full liberty of conscience but oh treason and deceit is the sad effects were the wheels that moved to a conclusion of War and so to sit down under a settlement so that the War having continued about six Moneths a Peace was concluded at Lonianieau with the same liberty allowed to the Protestants as was expressed in the Edict of Pacification granting liberty of Religion That they should Really Fully and Publickly enjoy the liberty and free exercise of the Religion
fill his Gorget the Protestant Army forced to retire and run down his male At last the Protestants Army being worn out with a tedious march was forced to retreat and with the Prince the Count of Nassaw Count Volrade all which without any disorder meet that night at Partenay the K. besieges St. Jean d'Angeli which brav Pilles did keep After this bloody Battel the King Queen Mother and Duke of Anjow sit down before St. Iean d'Angeli which was kept by that famous renouned commander Armand Sieur de Pilles whose same spread it self throughout all France by his stout resistance of the Kings power and valorous keeping of the place for against the continuall assaults of the whole Army His excesding valor his brave Soldiers kept it for two months and one time in this seige a truce was made that if in certain dayes relief came not they should yeeld on conditions Relief by a handsome policy the day comes and St. Severin with forty horse deceives by policy the sentinells and Kings Army and as friends passe all to the relief of the Place After many bloody assaults and great loss to the Kings Army the place not able any longer to continue did at last deliver up on honourable rearms Yields on honourable terms To depart with their Goods Arms Horses and ensignes displaied and for four months should not carry armes in defence of the Protestant religion But as Monseiur de Piles made his seige famous so the Catholicks made themselves infamous But dishonourably kept by the King by his Majesties breach of faith given for as they advance to receive the articles of the Kings promise and their own deserts they are spoyled of Armes Apparell and Monies rob their baggage take away their Horses and spoil their Men. Nay a Regiment quartered at St. Jultan halfe a League off under the command of Sarrien fals on Beats Kills Murthers and destroyes many They are murthered casts some into the River and he that can make a safe escape to Angoulesme is happy though he have nothing else but his shirt Whereupon Mounseiur Piles was freed from his engagement by a non-performance of the Kings promise 10000. men lost at the siege and five thousand canon shot spent The King lost at this seige Sebastian of Luxembourg Duke of Martignes and governour of Brittain five thousand cannons shot spent ten thousand men of War lost twenty five or thirty Commissaries of the artillery which was slain in their charge many crept away from the Army and such hot service insomuch that the Camp decreased eighteen or twenty thousand men The K. disbands the Army In the year 1570 for many reasons and after much consultation had the King did resolve to disband his army which accordingly was don The Princes Army increases Now the Protestants labour to gather Strength by the Industrious pains of the most incomparable Prince of Navar who passing the expectation of his age presently Armes the nobility and others in those partes on whom his father the King of Navar had great influence by reason of their near alliances and neighbour hood whereby the Princes Army was now again got to such a degree of strength That they were masters of the field The K. Armie meets and Marshall de Cosse General The King seeing things go contrary to his desire and expectation summons his Army together and in regard the Duke of Anjou was sick the charge of the Army was delivered to Marshall de Cosse the Armies never came so neer as to give battel but often skirmishing and little likelhiood there was for the King to conquer the Protestants by force which opinion as it was grounded on good reason so was it increased by newes which came to the Court that Prince Casimir was raising new forces for aid of the Protestant Princes which indeed put the Catholicks in a great doubt and fear of any success against them The K. Cabinet Council meet and plot a peace and ruin together Now begins the bloody game for the King Queen Mother Duke of Anjon and Cardinall of Lorrain meets privately together and according to their disposition and custome fall a ploting holding it the best way when they could not mend it to think of accommodation and giving liberty to the Protestants Who might better have enjoyed it by war than by peace as the Issue proved If it had pleased the Lord to discover the inside of their treachery which though fatal to the poor Protestants yet so dishonourable to the King of France and the French Nation that it cannot but draw down Gods just Judgements upon them The secret Council thought this way of peace might be the quickest and safest way to their designs of destroying the Protestants better than by War for if they could cut off the chief supporters of the Protestant cause the rest would follow and so they aim at an opportunity to gain a peaceable though bloody access to their persons which in time of War their Sword could not reach so by this means hoping to cut off the Root the Branches would wither Indeed it had been well if it had fallen out that the branches had naturally withered but ah sad and doleful we shall see a horrid and bloody Tragedy which will astonish any heart but flint to hear and read this sad and miserable story and truly it makes my heart bleed to think of the sad cruelties and unparalleld massacres of Gods people And now they discover their Inclinations to peace which they knew at all times would gladly be embraced and acceptably welcom to the Protestants if covered with Liberty and Lives the things they only desired For if they had delighted in any thing but Allegiance or fought for any thing but liberty they would not now incline to peace in the midst of their unlimitted power but poor souls they had been far more happy if they had dyed like men in Warr than murthered in their Bods like Dogs This third war was sharp and thought the greatest in regard of the Kings unfaithfull dealing in the breach of his promise that he should give a free liberty for religion and engage to keep it binding himself thereto by Oath yet the same King speedily after breaks all oaths and promises declaring that solemn engagement before God to be void and that what he then promised was not so meant by him and therefore proclaimes it death for any man to professe any Religion but the Romish and Catholick Now the Princes and Admirall in the behalf of themselves and Protestanrs did declare in the sincerity of their hearts that they desired nothing more then the performance of the Kings edict and socurity to enjoy their Liberties Lives and Families Thus having given as succinctly as possibly I can the most remarkable passages of this War we shall now come to the last Tragicall part of the most unheard-of treachery and bloody massacre
Bloys where the King and Queen Mother shewed great demonstrations of a joyful welcome and at this time the King in person himself did treat with the Count without the assistance of any of his Council which the rather was done that the Count might see and report that now he acted by the Counsel of his own command that so the Admiral and Princes might see and understand his promises could not be hindred or frustrated by the counsels of their adversaries about him at Court that so also they might receive the better encouragement to come to Court seeing their Enemies was not of his Council At this meeteng of Count Lodowick and the King it was agreed that the War should go forward against the King of Spain The Admirall desired by the K. to come to Court and be Captain General in the War with all possible speed and that the Count should go before to prepare that the Admiral shall go Captain General desiring further of the Count that he would signifie as much to the Admiral and to desire him in his Majesties name to come to Court the better to treat and confer fully thereof whose advise should have as great power with the King as could be expected that he should have allowed for his Guard fifty persons in Arms at Paris The K. very earnest to have the admiral at Court under spetious pretences of favour for safety of his person or should have any other security that might put him out of hazard of his Enemies Attempts and might also bring him into a good opinion of the Kings real intentions Oh! deep dissimulation This being don betwixt the Count of Nassaw and the King the Count returneth to Rochel who poor Prince not seeing this depth of Treacherous deceit used all Rhetorical Art of perswasions to the Princes and Admiral to journey to the Court and indeed he was the only Spur to them and much perswaded them of the Kings real intentions and how joyful the King would be of their Company and Counsel in his affairs The King now returns to Paris and takes his pleasure that the World might see he minded only recreation but God knows plotted his poor subjects ruin who with the Cabinet Council sits close for effecting their bloody desires in the plot laid for their destruction The Dukâ— of Guise Cardinall of Lorrain feign a discontent depart the Court on purpose to allure the Princes Admirall to Court by their absence from it To which purpose the Duke of Guise and Cardinal Lorrain give out the better to draw and allure the Protestants to Court in their absence their high displeasure against the late proceedings of the King in behalf of the Protestants by his favours conferred on them therfore in great disdain and greater Policy the Cardinal of Lorrain departs the French Court and carries with him Cardinal Pelvey Duke of Pontmenseir and the Prince Dauphine pretending to go to the Election of a New Pope but indeed was only to draw the Princes and Admiral to Court by being encouraged with their adversaries absence that they may come to Court with more confidence and less fear but we shall shortly see that though they divide in opinion yet they unite in Counsel and bloody crueltys The Prince of Orange his Fleet takes the Spaniards Ships and sells them as Prizes in Rochel by the Kings permission And that this Treachery might still be more compleatly freed from all suspition and all things seem to be carried on by the Kings mind his Majesty gives leave to the Prince of Orange his fleet to hover about Rochel and by opportunity to set on the Spaniards Ships and Portugalls which might happen to sail along that Coast taking such as they cold which they did and brought them into the Haven of Rochel where they openly sold their prizes which the K of Spain by his Embassadour often complained of But to set the world a fair copy of a Kingly treachery to his poor Subjects to lay the Top-stone of Dissimulation in the fairest pretences of affection and desire of peace the King ushers in one of the handsomest pieces of Hypocrisie that ever carryed the face of Reality for although the thing he pretended was really effected yet the grounds and ends by him proposed which was the only thing pretended by him was clean contrary to his promise and what he did in it was basely to defile his own actions with his ruin And indeed it put all out of doubt of the Kings integrity The King propounds his Sister the Lady Margarite in mariage with the Prince of Navar. The business was this The King sends Mounseir de Byron with propositions to the Queen of Navar that the Lady Margarite the Kings own Sister should be given in mariage to her Son the Prince of Navar that the anticut consanguinity and present peace might be more confirmed and established to the liking of all parties And indeed this did put on a great confidence in all especially the Princes the Queen of Navar and Admiral that the King was now real in what he professed and propounded But Oh the bloody effects it produced shall at last too sadly be related An Embassadour from Rome arrives in the French Court. In the midst of these transactions secretly carried on arrives in the depth of a most sharp winter in the King of France his Court the Cardinal Alexandrio who came from Rome by the advice of Cardinal de Pelve that went from the French Court with Cardinal Lorrain This Pelve was sometimes a Scholar in the College of Montaigue and during his study there was a Servant to the Cardinal of Lorrain and afterwards was grown to be a Scullion but now being advanced to the place of Cardinall was so fitted for any Treason or act of cruelty that nothing though never so horrid would stick in his throat but he was able to swallow down that which was able to damn a World for the sinfulness thereof Now the Instructions that Cardinal Alexandrio brought along with him from the Pope was to perswade the King to enter into the Society of the Council of Trent the first and principal Article whereof was That the Confederation should join their power to make war upon the Turks and Hereticks meaning all Princes that suffered the use of the Protestant Religion The Cardinal was honourably received and welcomed to Court he urged how much it was against the profession of a Christian King to make peace with Hereticks and to war against the King of Spain how it did weaken his Friends and strengthen his Enemies treating in Leagues with Forein Princes that were excommunicated by the Apostolick Sea which negotiation was so mannaged as the result was not published but it was publiquely rumored amongst the Common people that he had not the effects of his desire yet the Cardinal returned cheerfully to the Pope and it was reported that he did say he had such answer
from the King and Queen Mother as was not fit to be published The King for a secure mannagement of the Wars against the King of Spain The Kings strange plot to surprize Rochel gave Commission to Strozzi and the Baron de li Guard to rig forth ships from Burgess and Rochel and to surprize any Vessels that were going through the English Seas to the aid of the Duke of Alva in the Low-Countreys the Spanish Embassadour complains hereof but these two Captains had secretly and privately an underhand Commission to seize on Rochel and by open or secret force to get into their power for his Majesty although all was carried fair on against the Duke of Alva The King also gave command to the Admiral to send Espials into Peru and Island in the New found World which being plentiful of Gold the Spaniard had possessed himself thereof and there to attempt what he could against the King of Spain which business according to his Majesties command the Admiral undertook committing it to one of his Gentlemen who with a certain Portugal skilful in those navigations he had joined in Commission The King heaps unexpressible favours on the Admiral and Friends Now the King heaped unexpressable favours on the Admiral Count Rochfoucault and Theligni with the rest of the principal Protestants and chief Noblemen of the Religion for what ever was taken from any of them in time of the Civil Wars was now most lovingly restored by the Kings command and if any one that the King could learn was a friend to the Admiral to him he did shew singular respect even to the height of an unimaginable dissimulaeion He commanded one time to be given to the Admiral one hundred thousand pounds of his own treasury in recompence of his great losses When the Cardinal of Chastillon formerly fled to England disguised and having great Revenues and Wealth his death being known to the King he did give to the Admiral all the fruits of the whole year with all his rich and costly Houshold-stuff and though all former Admirals in Council and publick Ceremonies had ever given place to the Marshall of France yet for the Admirals greater honour it was the Kings will and pleasure that he should sit next Monseiur de Momorancy who was the first Marshall and above all the rest The K. desires the Duke of Savoy to favour the Protestants The King also writes to the Duke of Savoy that for his sake he would please to be favourable to the Protestants under his Dominion it should ly upon him as an acceptable favor It is not to be thought what kindnesses the King shewed to the Protestants even to the great amazement of the Catholicks and rejoicing of the Protestants The K. so far dissembles that by his shew of respects to the Protestants the Catholicks suspect him who poor souls thought all true that he said but this love proved bitter hatred like Judas kiss nay the King did so carry it that the Catholicks began to surmise and say that the King did not only favour the Protestants but would himself turn one shortly And in regard there was a mighty enmity betwixt the Duke of Guise and the Admiral by reason of a report fixed on the Admiral as if he should be an instrument of his Fathers death The Admiral and Duke of Guise reconciled and the Admiral declared not guilty of the Duke of Guises death the King therefore to make up all breaches and in order to a perfect peace he prescribes a perfect form of Reconciliation the foundations whereof was laid six years ago in the Town of Molins where the King summoning the principal estates of his Kingdom did on consultation and deliberation declare and pronounce the Admiral not guilty of the death of the Duke Guise a thing his Majestie was before bound in conscience to do but now was acted and done as a piece of good policy this block being taken away as an advance for the Admiral to the Court. But as we said before the most solemn bond and ty for a secure peace is the Lady Margarite Sister to the King of France to be given in mariage to the Prince of Navar who was Son to the most virtuous Queen of Navar. who also had all the last civil war been General of the Protestant Cause and couragiously defended it to his Eternal Praise which mariage the King did declare That he did it for the effecting and establishing a durable peace and as a signal testimony of his loyall affections to the Protestants And yet in the mean while the Papists in Roan murthered divers Protestants and grievously beat others as they came from a Sermon Many Protestants murthered in Roan And in regard that it was objected That the King of France his Sister was of the Roman Religion and the Prince of Navar a Protestant it could not well be effected to a good purpose To which the King answered he would free her by a Dispensation from the Pope that no Impediment might stand in the way to so great a good as a sure peace betwixt him and his Subjects nothing being more delightful or desired by him As soon as this was spread to the Courts of Forein Princes it did amaze the Popish Party that ever the King should proceed in behalf of Hereticks But on the contrary it did exceedingly possess the hearts of the Prince The K. plot takes effect and Admiral and all forein Princes of the same Religion with exceeding joy being such a large demonstration of the Kings affection and as a Seal of fidelity to all he promised and did also drive out of their hearts all jealousies of plots or secret Contrivances but the Admiral which had most reason and was most backward to believe all reall yet he at this time was now most forward to believe and most ready to be confirmed not only by this but also by a Letter which the King sent him by his Son Theligni The Admiral at last perswaded and deluded by a Letter from the King under the Kings own hand and Seal assuring the Admiral That whatever he should do in the Business of the war in the Low Countries against the King of Spain should be by his Majesty allowed of and ratified as if done by his special command such was his alluring baits and pretences of good will and trust to the Admiral And thus the poor Protestant Princes are too much perswaded of the Kings faith who intended their ruin without remedy we shall shortly see them come to Paris and embrace the mountains of treacherous pretences of faith and affection and so be swallowed up in their Enemies malitious and unparallel'd cruelty for all the huge promises of the Kings stood but as an Earnest till their plot was ripe and then they are more swift to shed blood than real to what they promise and truly such a piece of Kingly tteachery is not in any age to be
aid of his great Wisdom and therefore was impatient of his delay The Admiral at last is now perswaded and resolved to go to Paris he comes and no sooner arrived but was very honourably and affectionately embraced with a courteous and joyful shew of welcome and so was speedily conducted to the King who under fair pretences of friendly ends with a mouth full of courtesy with well pleased words and a worse tuned heart with courteous expressions baited with Treason he calls the Admiral Father protesting That in all his life he had not enjoyed a day adorned with more variety of content thad this day was The Kings unheard of and devilish dissimulation wherein he assures himself than his real desires of peace and the success thereof shall for the time to come shelter under one Pent-house and lodge under the roof of a sweet tranquillity and that he hopes a period will be put to all his troubles not questioning but all as well as himself were no less glad in this expectation hoping that times to come would reap the future as the times now the present benefit of this blessed day wherein he wished and as much hoped that all former acts of civil dissentions should new be put in one grave of oblivion in remembrance of the sad war past and Commemoration of this Sunshine day present Now what a wonderful thing it is to consider that the King should so perfectly dissemble with one that had so often brought the power of his Crown and Kingdom to so many doubtful hazards as to call him Father and to make the World think his treachery to be sincerity The Queen Mother and her Sons with the rest of the great Courtiers received him with greater demonstrations of joy and love than the Admiral expected The King allows the Admirall 50. of his Friends to guard him The King also allowed him fifty Gentlemen to be about him in Paris armed for the greater security and guard of his person Now the King Queen Mother and Admiral falls on consultation about the Wars of the Low Countreys But however the King was in jest with the King of Spain yet the Count Lodowick of Nassaw was in good earnest who with a resolution according to his Manly spirit he enters the Frontiers of the Low Countries The Count of Nassaw enters the Low Countries and takes in Montz taking with him as Partners and assistants three French Gentlemen Saucourt La Nove and Genlis men of great esteem and account with the Admiral besides many Gentlemen that they gathered to go along in the Expedition which the Admiral hearing advised the Count not to be too rash well assuring him that such strength as was requisite would take forty days to gather but the Count as banished men are being enflamed with the sight and desire of his own Country and desirous not to depend too much on the Kings changeable mind suddenly resolved and as speedily attempted to take in Valentiennes but finding a repulse speedily hasted to Montz and though strong by nature and Art yet took it which comming to the ears of the Court of France and the whole nation did the more confirm the Protestants that the Kings mind was real Now Genlis being from the Count to Paris related the whole progress of the War to the King desiring leave to raise certain bands of footmen and Horsemen to strengthen Montz which being quickly granted he as speedily raised four thousand foot and four hundred horse but in his Martch was set upon by the Duke of Alva and quite overthrown which was wrought by the treacherous advice of the Duke of Guise The treachery of the Duke of Guise by private intelligence to the Duke of Alvaâ— of all that was done which thing was very ill resented by the very Catholicks themselves because many of the Romish religion were flain in the business The King of France is afraid that his war in jest might make the King of Spain war in earnest These things troubled the King very much for fear his counsels might be disclosed to the King of Spain and so might occasion some quarrel to the breaking forth of a War yet he gave order to the Admiral to assist the Prince of Orange in Germany with as many horse and foot as he thought fit which was done and because moneys might be had for their pay the King called for the Treasurer and commanded him to deliver the Admiral so much money as he should desire commanding him that the receipt should not express the cause Great dissimulation by the K. but should run thus Paid such a Sum to the Admiral by the Kings Commandement which is for certain uses the King commands should not be written to which the King subscribes with his own hand the King wrote a Letter also to Monducet to use his best endravour for the release of those taken under the conduct of Genlis by the Duke of Alva To the full effecting of their desire A League with Q. Elizabeth of England and the first Article was the observation of the Edict but it proves a deep plot against the Protestants and ties the hands of the English from all assistance in their greatest need and extremity it was thought convenient to enter into League with Queen Elizabeth of England which the King committed to the Admiral which he did so diligently and industriously handle that by his elaborate pains in a speedy time By faith given by Embassadours sent and by Oaths it was confirmed concerning a further procuring of other Leagues as might most stand for the Low Country War and of those Leagues by the Admirals care the principal Condition was That the Liberty of Religion should be continued according to the Edict and that the King should most solemnly observe and keep his most sacred Oath and Promise so strictly made for Liberty to the Protestants according to the Edict of Pacification And now The Religious Q. of Navar poisoned by the K. Apothecary a sad presage of further treachery Courteous Reader I must give thee a sad Tast of what follows like one of Jobs Messengers for the Queen of Navar being all this while at Court thinking of a joyful Mariage of her hopeful Son it pleased God to permit a sudden sickness and as sudden a death in the fourty third year of her age who being on too good grounds suspected to be poisoned was therefore opened by Physicâ—ans but they would find no figures of poyson but by more narrow search in earnest and by the advice of one A. P. it was found That her brain was poisoned with an invenomed smell of a pair of perfumed Gloves ordered by one Renat an Italian and the Kings Apothecary who kept a shop on St. Michaels bridge in Paris neer to the Palace And it is well known that the same Renat some certain years ago gave a pair of poisoned Pomander Gloves to Lewis Prince of Conde which the Prince
leaving with one La Gross his Chirurgion was by degrees poisoned and swelled so that the wonderfully and narrowly escaped with his life But these Gloves that poisoned this virtuous Queen were ordered in such a secret sort and just proportion that having worn them a while a violent Feaver seized on her which ended her life in four daies And thus died this Noble Queen bewailed exceedingly by all the Protestants for I find her Enemies say The Queen of Navar in part described She was a Lady of a noble Spirit invincible courage many degrees above most of her Sex qualities besides her Chastity and Magnificence worthy Eternal praise She was one that dived into the deep Mysteries of Divinity which raised her illustrious mind to a high pitch of Christianity being also very judicious of a ready wit invincible in adversity absolute in her actions capable of Counsel comprehending things with great vivacity of Spirit delivering her mind with an admirable grace either by word or writing her comprehension of deep things was of a treble magnitude above any of her sex neither can my pen drop her praise but her infinite merits and if it were possible for any pen to erect Trophies of Honour to the peerless challenges of her immortal praise the lustre of her incomparable merits would be the truest guide in the darkest night This noble Queens Death gave way to the Prince her Son to be King of Navar The Q. death intitles her Son the P. to be K. of Navar. to whom the Kingdome came This unhappy death was looked on by many as very ominous portending a sure prognostick of some unfortunate Catastrophe many bing struck with amazement at this sudden treochery and bloody death concluding it to be a sad Fore-runner of some mischief to come But that which made many Protestants cast away all fear was the Kings loving carriage to them insomuch that things at this time looked with a peaceable countenance throughout the Kingdom of France Now the day of marriage between the Lady Margaret and the King of Navar was appointed which was a great day of joyful hopes to all the Protestants and made all things seem more serene and calm on their side in that also the Guisans and the rest of the chief Catholicks shewed great discontent thereat for all good men judged it an assured pledge of the Kings fidelity and of peace in as much as he shewed such outward joy and declared It was not so much for the wedding as that he said it was for a strong knot of Peace and would tend to a general satisfaction of peaceable Spirits and for the Good of the whole Nation August the 17. the King of Navar The K. of Navar and Lady Margarite maried with great joy on both sides but greater sorrow succeeds and the Lady Margaret was maried with great Solemnity before the great Church of Paris on a Scaffold in sight of all the People and there was a certain form of words so ordered as agreed with both parties which by the Kings commandment was pronounced by the Cardinal of Bourbon the King of Navars Uncle and so was this mariage solemnized with the joy of all good men being kept with Banquets dancing and Masques with a strange mixture of Papists and Protestants together Thus the poor Protestants thought with joy to welcome their own comforts but alas their hopes are frustrate in a contrary success of their expectations and the Kings promises After this the Bride with great magnificence accompanied with a great confluence of Gallants was led to the Church to hear mass The Bridegroom misliking these Ceremonies did with Henry Prince of Conde the Admiral and other Noblemen of the Protestants walk and wait without the Church door for the Brides return The Queen Mother Dukes of Anjou Guise plot But the Queen Mother and her bloody Companions with the Dukes of Anjou and Guise consult about the last Tragical act which was to kill the Admiral and to divide the Protestants thus-like moles under ground they drive on their Hellish designs in Secrecy The King to delude the more speaks publickly The K. publickly declares that he gives his Sister in Mariage as a ty of Union and peace The Admiral of the Kings fleet endeavours to surprize Rochel That he gives not his Sister in mariage to the King of Navar only but as it were to the whole Church of the Protestants to join with them in a undissoluble union and as a ty to their peace and safety Oh! painted ruin whither at last will the fury of thy bloody Chariots drive thee Now while these things proceeded thus at Paris Strozzi as aforesaid Admiral of the Kings Fleet rides before Rochel and at select times sends Captains and Souldiers into the Town under pretence of buying necessaries for their Fleet and sometimes did come ashoar himself but the King had given him Commission to seize on the City although as before it was given out that he say to entrap all the supplies going from Spain to the aid of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries The like Treachery was used in another part of France by Gonzague Duke of Nevers with a party of Horse neer to La Charite where a bridge passes the River Loyre which the Protestants then had The protestants at Lyons had their names put in a bloody Book this Gonzague requests Liberty of the Town to muster shewing the K. Letters which indeed he had The Governour of Lyons commanded he names of the Protestants to be written in a Book which in regard of their Horrid cruelties committed and devillish Bucheries committed in this City was justly called the bloody Book The Admiral The Admiral desires to depart Paris but the K. desired his stay which on some other grounds he did but sad complaints and great suspition of treason came to his cars but he believes it not after the mariage being then the time he appointed and desired to return to his own house did move the King about his departure but so great was the Court revellings that the Admiral coul not have private access to his Majesty to deal in State-matters Rochel at this time was in a manner besieged with Souldiers arriving hourly giving out terrible threats against the Town which made the Protestants begin to cry to the Admiral for succour and relief for indeed the Admiral was as a nursing Father to them in other Towns also was heard secret murmurings terrifying the most cleer-sighted Protestants giving too sure cause to think a bloody and terrible spectacle would be shewed beyond present conception which will shortly be seen in a horrible manner The Admiral knew not what to answer to all these sad complaints that uncessantly flowed in as one wave on the back of another and all to get him from the Court He answered to all the King had made us swear before him to be Friends the Lady Margaret is given in mariage
have as firm a guard for his person as he desired Further saying that in his safety consisted his own and that he would defend the Admiral as the hall of his eye having in admiration his fortitude and constancy protesting he did not believe so much valorous courage could reside within the brittle walls of mortallity Thus the King Queen Mother and the rest carried it with great signs of reality returning to the Loure committing the care and custody of the Admiral to the Duke of Anjou one of the conspiracy against him The Admiral and Protestants advised to take leave of the Court and their own ruin but they trust more to the Kings promise than their Friends advice But though the Admiral and Gentlemen about him saw not the ecclipse of the Kings treachery through the deep dissimulation of affection yet the Vidame of Charteres a cleer-sighted and wise man through his foresight of a bloody Comet advised the King of Navar the Prince of Conde and the Admiral with the Nobility Gentlemen and chief of the Protestants presently to take leave of their own ruin in time which was both too certainly and evidently hanging over their innocent thoughts assuring them that blow of the Admirals was but the prologue to a more bloody tragedy which could not but speedily ensue But the King of Navar Prince of Conde the Admiral with the rest of the Nobility and Gentry of the Protestants said That they could not but trust to the Kings solemn Oaths his sacred vows and covenants as a secure harbour from all threatning and ensuing storms besides the late marriage was an evident demonstration of the Kings intentions tying at once both affinity to the Protestant King of Navar and security for his promises CHAP. VII The Contents THe King and Queen Mother by Letters let the world know how the Admirall was hurt to their great grief They order a Guard for the Admiral but is such a one as secured the Admiral or any of his Friends from escaping their ruin The Gentlemen of the Admirals Friends lodged in the same Street where the Admirall lodged which was desired in pretence of their security also but proved their secure destruction The names of the Protestants in Paris with their several Lodgings put into a Catalogue The Nobles and Gentlemen of the Protestants meet in the Admirals Chamber and advises to remove for security from the threatnings of an ensuing storm yet resolve to rely on the Kings Oaths and Promises The King and Queen Mother assembles to take order for the manner and time of the Admirals Murther To colour this plot they order that it must be given out That the occasion was through the difference betwixt the house of Guise and Chastillon On Consultation it was resolved to spare the King of Navar and Prince of Conde if they would turn Papists The Duke of Guise and his bloody Followers force a strong report to be spread throughout all the City of their danger by the Admirall and his Adherents and so complain to the King and depart the Court in shew of discontent but privately lie in Paris to prosecute his hellish Plot and the Kings command two thousand men on Sabbath night are commanded by the King to be in arms The King sends word to the Admirall that he needs not fear for all was done by his command Some Protestant Gentlemen profer to watch all night with the Admiral but were refused the Officers of the City Assemble and are commanded by the King to destroy the Protestants The tokens to distinguish the murtherers from others to be a Napkin about their arms and a cross on their caps Divers Lords guard the King all night The bloody murtherers approach the Admiralls Lodging The Admirall is fearful yet often silenced his suspition by as often reiterating the Kings Oaths Promises Leagues Covenants and Law of Nations c. They enter his Lodging kill all they meet with The Admirall rises goes to prayer and commands his Servants to save their lives by flight They get on the tops of houses but are persued and slain They thrust the Admirall through the body beat him on the head shoot him with a Pistol and wound him the third time whereof he dies his body thrown out of the window the Duke of Guise kicks him on the face with his foot They cry out Kill Kill this is the Kings command The Alarum bell rings to a sad and generall Massacre The Admiralls head cut off and sent to the Pope All in the Admiralls lodging murthered among whom two young children of honourable birth Brave Count Rochfoucault basely murthered The Admiralls Son basely slain his Lieutenant fights gallantly for his life but is slain many brave Noblemen and Gentlemen basely murthered they give the plunder to the Soldiers crying kill this is the Kings command They spare neither young nor old but kill women and children and women with child till the very streets are covered with dead bodies nothing to be heard but sad crys and groans of the dying with cruel shouting of the Murtherers The River dyed with blood ten thousand slain this day WE concluded the last chapter with the great preparations of the King Queen Mother and Councfl ro effect their Plot and yet how they coloured all with a distembling carriage of love too and sorrow for the Admirals condition now in this chapter we shall see the saddest massacre that ever was acted by any Prince or in any Place Thus we leave the Admiral basely cowardly and bloodily wounded and knew not how to have justice The K. and Q. Mother write Letters testifying their sorrow for the Admirals hurt and yet done by the K. cōmand and so lay in his wounds expecting death as the inevitable issue of his Enemies cruelty Now we shall further see the Kings dissimulation and treachery for the very same day the Admiral was thus wounded does the King the more neatly to colour his own act of treachery with smooth pretences write Letters to Embassadours of Forein Princes and Letters also to the Governours of all his Provinces shewing How sadly he resented the Admirals hurt how ready he was to execute justice in the punishment of the a Forgetting himself Agent desiring that all the world might know how much b How much it rejoiced his aeart is no errata it did grieve him to the Soul that any such thing should happen And yet he ptesently after declares openly that he was slain by his Command for treason against his person as by other Letters we shall shew in due place The Queen Mother did also write letters to the same purpose But Christian Reader when thou perusest the whole story then wilt thou be able to judge of this deep Hypocrisie before ehe face of God and as it were against the face of Heaven But to proceed The King orders a Guard that the Protestants might not escape their Guard being their Enemies an intended for
his Fathers protection of the Protestant cause as also in a hatred of his Fathers name the Duke of Guise urged with a pressing forwardness to have both the Prince of Navar and the Prince of Conde to dy amongst the rest but all thought that too abominable if any thing could be so indeed to such bloodthirsty wretches that two young Princes in the flower of their age of the Royal Family the one in the imbraces of his dear Spowse under the protection of such neer friends and late conjunction by mariage that they should be so miserably destroyed so that the opinion of Gonzague was prevalent who pleaded that with fear of death and torment they should be violently turned to the Catholick Religion The plot is committed to the Duke of Guise to put in execution next day And so this Hellish vaux-like Council broke up with firm and fixed Resolutions to act their several parts and so it was appointed that next morning about three or four a cloak it should be put in execution and that all things should be committed to the mannagement and care of the Duke of Guise On Saturday morning it is bruited and noised throughout all the City of Paris A report is spread that the Duke of Guise was in danger of the Admiral and friends that the House of Gâ—ise was in danger of the Admiral and rest of the Protestants by their great threatenings The Dukes of Guise and Aumale speed to the King and complain of their danger and insolent threatnings of the Admiral and Adherents against their lives protesting sorrow to his Majestie that their services were not accepted but their persons slighted and so desired leave of his Majesty to absent from Court and retire to their houses The Kings horrible dissembling for they were ready to depart the King with a frowning countenance saies Go where you please I will have you at all times if you be found guilty of the Admirals Hurt So with a shew of discontent they mount their Horses and bloody resolutions at once but instead of going home they ly in Paris all night Bloody treachery The King sends the Duke of Guise to provide 2000 men in arms on Sabbath day at night All things being resolved on the 24. day of August being Sabbath day at twilight the Duke of Guise with orders from the King comes to President Charron Provost des Marchands the chief head of the People of Paris giving him to understand that by the Kings command he was fotthwith to provide and order in readiness two thousand armed men which accordingly was done The Admiral having word brought thim that there was great noise of armour The Admirall at the noise of armour fears danger and sends to the King Oh! bloody and cruel command of a King They refuse to let any Protestant Gentlemen to watch with the Admiral The Officers assemble and are commanded by the King to destroy the Protestants whom he calls Rebells and great threatnings heard in all parts of the City and preparations of all things in order for a tumult that night presently he sends word to the King who gave answer that the Admiral needed not fear for all was done by his command and that he had appointed in certain places of the Citie a number of men in arms for fear of any tumult This evening some Protestant Gentlemen profer to watch with the Admiral but poor Gentlemen they were refused A sad presage of Treachery my heart relents and bleeds to write the rest When the Duke of Guise saw all things ready he called to him one Marcel charging him a little after midnight to assemble together the Masters of the Streets commonly called Diziners into the Town House for he was to declare from his Majesty and by his command several things they assemble according to the appointed time Charron the Provost des Marchands guarded with Entrague Puygailart and certain other Guisans did there declare that the King had given him in command to destroy all the Rebells meaning the Protestants to cut off root and branch of that Rebellious race letting them understand that the business was so mannaged to their hands that now with great facility his Majesties desire might be accomplished for the Admiral and all the chief were securely under their power being lodged within the walls of the City that it was first intended they should begin with the Admiral and the principal Protestants lodged in that street and then with speedy alacrity to follow on and to cut off the rest in the City and Suburbs and that the like should be done to the Protestants in all parts of the Kingdom which was in the Kings power for his Majestie would take order that it should be speedily effected The token given to be ringing the great Bell and the murtherers to be distinguished with a Napkin on their arms and a cross on their caps and to begin at the Admirals lodging first Orders given to be couragious in shedding blood Divers Lords guard the King The bloody Murthers assaults the Admiralls lodging Now for better order in this bloody undertaking the token given should be with ringing the great Bell of the Palace called Tocksein at break of day which said bell was only rung on great and emergent occasions and that the distinguishing marks should be a white cross on their caps that candles should be lighted at every window that without confusion or disorder they might proceed from house to house to the exact execution of the Kings command Now the Duke of Guise the better to prepare all things acquaints the Captain of the Kings Guard consisting of Gascoins French and Switzers that they would be in readiness to go on with a bold courage exhorting them to be speedy in bloody executions So at midnight the Provost Sheriffs and Captains of each ward in the City had the same commission given them The Duke of Montpenseir and Duke of Nevers with many other Lords of the Court take arms and being accompanied with their Friends guard the Kings person all the Guards being in Arms at the Gates of the Lour At the Prefixt hour the Duke of Guise the Duke of Aumale and Monsieur de Angoulesm Grand Prior of France the Kings bastard Brother with other Commanders to the number of three hundred went to the Admirals house where they found by the Duke of Anjou's order Cossins company with lighted maches placed for a Guard before it and on both sides the Streets Some of the Gentlemen and Commanders of the Protestants that was lodged in this Street awaken with the noise of men running up and down in arms and lighted Torches they presently got up to enquire what was the matter but alas poor Gentlemen it was now too late they were all dead men no way to escape The Admiral is still perswaded of the K. fidelity repeated his Oaths Promises Leagues Publick Faith sacred respect to the Law of Nations and
credit with other Princes By this time the Admiral understood of the noise and though he had but ten persons in his house able to bear arms and in his own chamber but two Chirurgians one Minister and two Servitors yet was he so confident of the K. promise as he could not be made afraid trusting as he often did repeat upon the Kings good will to him testified by so many and ample proofs of assurance having like confidence that if the Parisians did but once know the Kings mind to be against this tumult they would soon cease but especially when they saw Cossin the Kings own Captain waching at the gates for his defence But alas he did little think who they were and by whose command or to what intent all was don these reasons were the Admirals Remora's to stop the passage of any belief of treason hid in the Kings heart and it is commonly found that most suffer Shipwrack on the rocks of crudelity and as one saies it is no heresie to affirm That many have been saved by their infidelity The Admiral recounted the Oath and Edict of Pacification so openly and so often sworn recorded by the King Queen Mother and the rest The late League with Queen Elizabeth of England The Articles covenanted with the Prince of Orange His faith given to the Princes of Germany The mariage of the Lady Margaret his own Sister with the King of Navar being done on no other account as the King publickly declared but to keep his faith and to declare his integrity to all he professed which solemn act was but six days old and which doubrless he would not suffer to be defiled with innocent blood Lastly it would stain the glory of the Nation with Forein Princes and States and of posterity never to be believed more besides the great shame as also honour and constancy of a Prince all which the Admiral said he could not believe would ever be forgot by the King or buried in the grave of cruelty and blood And thus he perswaded himself with the Kings faithfulness to keep his promises and oaths He breathed in no other air than that which might gently fill his Sayls with belief of the Kings integrity setting say I towards the cape of good hope but alas alas he sails by this cape to his own ruin They enter the Admirals lodging kill all they meet As soon as the Duke of Guise and bloody Noblemen drew neer the Admirals lodging Cossin knockt at the Gate which he was to keep a goodly guard for the wolf to keep the Sheep he that opened the Gate was presently stabbed as soon as they enter with a number of armed men they kill all they find within the porch which were a few of the King of Navars Harquebuzeirs only one escaped to the Admirals Chamber crying Sir the Lord calls us to him when the Admiral understood it he caused those that were in his Chamber to lift him out of his bed and casting a night-gown upon him he arose on his feet and with his Minister Mr. Merlin in short ejaculations did commend their souls to God He rises goes to prayer commands his Friends servants to shift for their lives the Admiral commands all his Friends and Servants to save their lives by flight if possible and take no more care for him For that he was willing and ready to surrender his Soul to the Lord calling for his Spirits which for a time was lent for his use saying this violent and unexpected cruelty was not only intended for his destruction alone but for the dishonour of Christ and the bloody persecution of so many poor Saints and Servants of God which at the Petition of all the Godly Protestants and the Lord good Grace he had his heart drawn out to the faithful defence of the Protestant Cause through many hazards and dangers The sincerity whereof he left to the Lord to Judge and that he had no other end Then Mr. Merlin the Minister with the rest got up to the top of the House creeping out of the Windows to the Gutters to hide themselves but alas most of them were sought out and slain in the next house yet through Gods mercy the Minister wounderfully escaped as you may at large see in the reverend Author Mr. Clark his Examples a Book worth the perusal of every Christian Presently ascends up the stairs a Germain named Benvese who maried the Cardinall of Lorrains Daughter with him also Cossin the Gascoin Attin a Piccard a Familiar and Depender on the Duke of Aumale one that not long before sought to murder de Andelot by Treason as also Hamfort an Avernois These bloody Murtherers break into the Admirals chamber and blaspheming God thrust him through knock him on the head shoot him with a Pistol wound him again and so he dies all being prepared and armed with Swords Targets and Shirts of male These break into the Admirals Chamber who being no so sooner entred but Benvese advances towards him and bending his drawn Sword at his Breast said Art thou the Admiral who with a Christian countenance full of constancy and quiet satisfaction in Gods good pleasure answered I am so called and withall said young man thou oughtest to consider my age and the weak case I am now in but do what thou wilt for thou canst shorten my life but a very little But he blaspheming God thrust him through the Breast and after strook him on the head then Attin shot him with a pistol in the breast the Admiral was not with these wounds quite dead therefore Benvese gave him the third wound upon the thigh and he presently fell for dead so lying gasping death freeing him from misery wafting him with speed to the Haven of rest and happiness where all tears are wiped from his eyes His body thrown out of the window the D. of Guise with his foot kicks him on the face Now the Duke of Guise and rest of the Noblemen staied below in the Court to hear how things went the Duke of Guise with a lowd voice cryed Hast thou done Benvese who replied I have done the Duke replied our Chevalier the Kings bestard Brother will not believe it unless he see it throw him out of the Window So Benvese with the help of the rest did lift his body to the window who yet breathing laid hold with his hand on the window but these butcherly blood-hounds and cruel Murtherers whom a hundred at once durst not in his life venture to face in the field violently thrust him out of the window into the Court the Duke of Guise presently draws nigh and because his face was bloody and dirty he kneeled down the berter to know him and with a napkin wiped his face saying now I know it is him and so kicked him on the face with his Feet whom all the Murtherers in France feared so much when he was alive They proceed crying kill this is che K.
off the edge of suspition hapning in a manner saies he by chance and not by any plotted contrivance This Speech of the Kings was by himself and the Parliament commanded to be written and entered into the Records of Parliament proclaimed by Heraulds and published in print a Book also was published by the Kings commandment which because it is within four daies of the same date of that Letter wherein he laies the blame of the Admirals death c. on the Duke of Guise and here takes it to himself therefore I say I thought fit to insert that printed Book by way of Declaration which is as followeth A Declaration of the King concerning the occasion of the Admirals death and his Adherents and Complices hapned in the City of Paris August 24. 1572. By the King HIs Majesty desiring to have all Seigniours Gentlemen and other Subjects understand the cause of the Murther of the Admiral and his Adherents and Complices which lately happened in the City of Paris the four and twentieth day of this present month of August lest the said deed should be otherwise disguised and reported than it was indeed His Majesty therefore declareth that which was done was by his express commandment and for no cause of Religion nor breaking his Edicts of Pacification which he alwaies intended and still mindeth and intendeth to observe and keep yea it was rather done to withstand and prevent a most detestable and cursed conspiracy begun by the said Admiral the chief Captain thereof and his said Adherents and Complices against the Kings person his Estate the Q. his Mother and the Princes his Brethren the King of Navar and other Lords about him wherefore his Majesty by this Declaration and Ordinance giveth to understand to all Gentlemen and others of the Religion which they pretend Reformed that he mindeth and purposeth that they live under his Protection with their wives and children in their houses in as much safeguard as they did before following the benefit of the former Edicts of Pacification most expresly commanding and ordaining that all Governours and Lieutenants General in every of his Countreys and Provinces and other Justices and Officers to whom it appertaineth do not attempt nor suffer to be attempted any thing in what sort soever upon the persons and goods of them of the Religion their wives children and families on pain of death to be inflicted on those that shall be found faulty and culpable in this behalf And nevertheless to withstand the troubles slanders suspitions and defiances that may come by Sermons and Assemblies as well in the houses of the said Gentlemen as in other places as it is suffered by the said Edicts of Pacification it is expresly forbidden and inhibited by his Majesty to all Gentlemen and others of the said Religion to have no assemblies for any cause at all till his Majesty hath provided and appointed otherwise for the Tranquillity of his Realm upon pain of disobedience and confiscation of body and goods It is also expresly forbidden under the pain aforesaid that for the aforesaid accasions none shall take or retain any Prisoners or take ransome of them and that incontinently they certifie the Governours of every Province and the Lieutenant General of the name and quality of every such Prisoner whom his Majesty hath appointed shall be released and set at liberty except they be of the late Conspiracy or such as have made some practice or device for them or had intelligence of and they shall advertise his Majesty of such ro know his further pleasure It is also ordained that from henceforth none shall take or arrest any Prisoner for that cause without his Majesties commandment or his Officers nor that none be suffered to roave abroad in the Fields to take up Dogs Cattel Beefs Kine or other Beasts Goods Fruits Grain or any thing else nor to hurt the Labourers by word or deed but to let them alone about their work or calling in peace and safety At Paris August 28. 1572. signed Charls and underneath Fizes Imprinted at Paris by Iohn Dalleir Stationer dwelling on Saints Michaels Bridge at the sign of the White Rose by the Kings Licence There was Letters also writ by the King to the Officers of Burghs also remembrances sent to the General Lieutenant of Burgundy which being to the same purpose is omitted for brevity The Kings Oration in the great Assembly aforesaid being ended before this Assembly broke up one Christopher Thuane the President of this Assembly in Parliament being one of a high Spirit and subject to admire his own parts and actions ready to wonder what a fool he could make of Solomon being a man reported to be notable for his light brain and cruel heart who trusting more to a slipery tongue than a sound cause congratulated the King for his wise Policy and good success in a speedy conquest over his Enemies But alas how did he conquer Only by wearing the vest of the Innocent to conceal and cover the deformed ugliness of his perfidious perjury But the Advocate of the Finanees succinctly delivered his mind to this purpose That though his Majesty had just cause to punish Delinquents yet it were more becoming the justice of a Prince to proceed according to the Lawes by himself decreed and established and so more fit for his Majesty to command a speedy cessation of such violent slaughters and to enter upon a judicial proceeding according to the Laws which was well known to be the proper and peaceable establishment of Empires and Kingdoms This advice takes well for now the King begins to do unjustly in the name of Justice so he proceeds to dissemble a Legality for all his future Butcheries unwilling to murther any more without a statute and pretence of Justice for it This being a brave principle of a Tyrant and that whereas the Laws at first were known to be the legitimate daughter of judgement it must now be made the adopted daughter of Tyranny Now is an arrest of Parliament with his Royall assent so that immediately Heraulds went about the City and an Edict was proclaimed in the Kings name That all murthers should cease but those that he intended more immediately to have a hand in himself by sitting in judgement and quallifying his cruelty and bloodshed with the name of Justice And first let us see a little of this new Justice of the Kings which now must be exercised on the dead Admiral which being as aforesaid hung by the heels on the common gallows of Paris the people by flocks and multitudes gathered to see it The Queen Mother to delight her self with that sad vâ—ew of her Sons and her own bloody cruelty she takes the King and his Brethren and so advances towards this sad sight but his body was in the night conveyed away by two of the Marshall de Momorancies Servants and was secretly buried at Chantilly whose faithfulness and adventure is beyond a terrene Reward And now the King begins
attempt what they pretend which reasons for general satisfaction I shall gather together because it is declared by the King that it was for a Plot against him and the Court although it is clear that it was resolved on by the King Queen Mother and Cabinet Council to destroy the Admiral and his Friends which by the Kings Commandment is lamentably and wofully effected to the great dishonour of the King and the whole French Nation and cannot but ly as a blot to after ages and a time there must be to satisfy God and the World for it Now who can imagine that the Admiral should think with a few Gentlemen allowed for his Guard to attempt any thing against the King within Paris there being in the Court constant watch and at the entrance to the Castle a strong Guard of Scots Switzers and Gaseoins and was then more strictly kept in regard of the number of Lords Noble-men and Gentlemen met to solemnize the mariage of the King of Navar and the Lady Margaret and that it is well known that in three hours space may be ready at command sixty thousand men in arms Besides all these Reasons the young Noblemen and Gentlemen that came with the King of Navar and Prince of Conde had no other arms than their Swords and Innocency which latter in the greatest danger would defend them best And yet further to clear all doubts the Princes and Noblemen of the Protestants for a Pledge and Testimony for a Solemn Engagement of their innocency they brought with them their Wives Sisters Children and Kinswomen having no thoughts of any thing but Triumph and Recreation The Nobles and Gentlemen intending to shew their expert skill at the Tilt and Tourney Now if it be said it was after the Admirals Hurt that he studied to be revenged It is answered With what probability can any sober mind imagine or conceive that the Admiral lying wounded on both arms tyed up and hourly waiting when one Arm should be cut off by the Doctors advise that the Admiral I say being Guarded by the Kings own Guard should attempt with three hundred Gentlemen of his Guard to surprize the King c. being so sick as few daies was expected to pass over till God would call him to himself that any should think three hundred so resolute as to set upon a City wherein was sixty thousond in Armes by the first Alarum But doubtless had such a thing been known or suspected he would have been secured by Cossin and his men who had by the Kings commandment environed and beset him how soon might the sick Admiral been apprehended as well as murthered There was never any thing laid to his charge which could be proved by the least witness nor what they laid to his charge had the least mention of time place adherents means or witness so that if it had been proved or suspected the King should have proceeded according to Law and Justice which are well known to be the props and Pillars on which a Kingdoms happiness stands secure But suppose we that all these things had been really true and that the manner of the Admirals death and his Complices had been allowable by all nations yet let us consider a little and demand a reason of the insolent cruelty infamous barbarism and unheard-of bloodshed of those that were thought by themselves altogether innocent of any plot being antient Matrons many Noble young Ladies and Gentlewomen in the flour of their Age cut off so basely and barbarously a number of women great with child against the Law of nature were cast into Rivers before the time of their Delivery many aged persons also which lay sick in Bed Many Counsellours Advocates Proctors Physicians c. that consulted only with their books and the rest sequestered from the conference of any Counsel by the Sex and degrees Why was there also so many learned Teachers and Professors of the Arts and Sciences amongst whom was Peter Ramus that famous man for learning through out the world who stands in the memory of the truly learned as really as these bloody actours render France infamous How many young Students without hearing or pleading their cause were here destroyed by this sad Decree of the King and Council Lastly what Armour was found what weapons was found in any of the Protestants houses by which means suspition might grow to proof Or why was the Kings Letters sent to command the like murthers at Meaux Lyons Troys Tholouse and all over his Dominions such slaughters were committed till the very blood of Gods saints made the Rivers swell and streamed through the streets reaking hot that at least 40000. were slain by his bloody command Thus has this King and Court imbrewed their hands in the blood of so many thousand innocent souls even to the great expectation of some vengeance which in Gods due time must needs break out on that land to the third and fourth Generation if a General repentance do not expiate this deserved punishment Now Christian Reader to bring this Kings reign to a close I shall only abstract the most notable passages together which hapned after this sad Massacre CHAP. XI The Contents THe Protestants that escaped this sad Massacre fled to many Places Some set forth Books of this perjury and bloody cruelty Others flie to divers Towns and Cities and fortifie them Rochel strongly fortified Fourty seven Ministers fly to Rochel and escape The King and Court keep a day of Thanksgiving for this Victory The Rochelois refuse a Garrison sent by the King The French King lets the King of Spain know the War against him was in jeast as well as his Oaths and Promises The Counts Army routed and spoyled by Treachery Monsieur de la Nove turns to the Protestants The unparallel'd Siege of Sancerre yet yielded on honourable terms The unheard-of siege of Rochel Yet had honourable Conditions granted The Protestants fortifye and resolve to sell their Lives at a Dear Rate The King takes Villars and performs not Covenant The Protestants take in sundry Towns The King besieges Sommiers and with great loss leaves it and they besiege it again and take it on terms The King besieges Caussade and with great loss retires the Protestants are encouraged by their good Success They Protest against the Kings last Edict contrary to the Edict of Pacification Their Noble and gallant Declaration Their demands of the King and desire of Peace The King terrified with their Resolutions The King recovers of a desperate sickness A Parliament called and the Protestant Deputies resolve to meee them but no good done A new Plot discoverod Count Montgomery with his Fleet from England is besieged at St. Lo he escapes in person and is besieged at Danfront he yields on terms of life but the King breaks Engagement and basely beheaded him in Paris The Conclusion of this sad History The King dies wallowing and rowling himself in his own blood The Duke of Anjou succeeds to
reformed and that it should be executed according to the tenure of the Edict notwithstanding all Restrictions and Interpretations to the contrary And thus this second war was peaceably ended by the Protestants and no less treacherously intended by the Catholicks The peace begins and ends in treason by the papists Now I shall shew you the Treachery therof and the sad effects for alas it is not to be imagined what treason is hid under this fair vizzard of Peace To see what a foul sin they make of such a fair virtue they pretend nothing more then a firm and durable peace and intend nothing less But ah poor Protestants that you had foreseen this Foxes Snare this storm of bloody cruelty intended but truly their laying wait for innocent blood could not be descerned nor penetrated into unless by the deep wisdom and narrow search of a divine eye so dark and so deeply laid was there hellish Treason for a few daies discovered their intentions to be full of deceitful treachery and that they put onely the name of peace on their most horrid and bloody designs taking Gods holy name in vain by all their promises void of performances But the poor Protestants saw not their intentions The protestants dismiss their Armies no sooner deliver up their Holds to the K. but they are filled So that the Princes and Admiral dismisse their Armies and the Strangers are safely conducted into Lorrain and all the Towns that the Protestants did deliver up to the King were presently by his command possessed and strengthened with Garrison Souldiers Rochel only excepted which place enjoyed the benefit of an antient condition granted two hundred years before between the King and them viz. Never to have a Garrison put into the Town against their desires The Protestants had also by the Edict of peace these three under their command Mentaubon Cognac and La Charite to be held full two years and no more in the Prince of Conde's name The King not trusting to his Court counsel picks a choice crew fit for his purpose and calls them a Cabinet Council Now the King and Queen Mother not trusting to their present Council some whereof being supposed to have too tender consciences to swallow the bloody plot intended therefore erect a choice Council pickt on purpose which his Majesty calls a Cabinet Council consisting of such as would contrive and carrie on any bloâ—dy design whatsoever Insomuch that those which by their Birth and place might challenge a room in the most privy Councils were now utterly excluded and exempted as men not fit to impart unto the secrets of the Kings and Q. Mothers Intentions A Hellish plot by the Cabinet Council And now let us see a little what this Brave Cabinet Council will act what a brat of bloudy resolutions they can creat out of their hellish Breasts They at last conclude that force of arms is not the direct road to travel in for subduing of their Enemies but Macbevil must be called to Council and his politicks put in practice resolved they are to try what plots the attendants of the Devils Councils and the Legitimate son of Hellish production will do so at last they conclude and vote it to be enacted as that which must be put in practice viz. the death of the Prince of Conde and Admiral and so to cut off all future fears of their attempts as also hopes from the Protestants so that no troubles for Religion might after arise But the fear of God is not before their eyes they run swiftly to shed bloud not considering that Gods vengeance can persue them more swiftly This design they commit rather to secrecie than strength and therefore that they might have one fit for their designs they chuse one Cavagnes to whom they impart the business who being a man fit for bloud and cruelty was ordered to take the charge upon him as one that could drink deep draughts of innocent bloud without any regret and with full delight who could be full of cruelty without the least pitty now all was thought so sure that if the Prince and Admiral did not escape they should inevitably fall into the cruelty of their adversaries The plot discovered to the Prince and Admirall Thus the plot being laid they forgot that God could see and as the Psalmist saies He shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence and precious shall their blood be in his sight And so it pleased the Lord of his good grace mercy to discover their deceit intentions of Bloud for it was no sooner contrived in dark but discovered in light by one that speedily posted to the Prince and Admiral and revealed the Plot yet the Kings Army was so quick that ere the Prince and Admiral removed from their quarters They are surrounded yet by Gods mercy escape with their families to Rochel they were by orders of the King Queen Mother and the rest of the Cabinet Council surrounded in Noyers a Town situated on the confines of Burgundy which they had so cunningly ordered to avoid suspition that lifting and removing under pretence of fresh quarters they came at last to quarter at a small distance from them and doubtless they had been taken and destroyed if GOD had not surrounded them in mercy from the purposes of the Kings treachery The Prince and Admiral knowing the scope and drift of their Serpentine windings and turnings speedily advance towards Rochel with wives children Servants and two hundred Horses where at last they safely through many dangers arrive and were joyfully entertained by the Rochelois The Queen of Navar also comes to this Rendezvous at Rochel Q. of Navar joins with the protestants accompanied with a considerable number of horse and foot The Cardinal of Chastillon who lived at Beauvois far remote from Rochel did with great hazard travel in a Seamans habit to the Sea-coast The Cardinall of Chastillon escapes to England and so by Gods good Providence embarqued and safely arrived in England where in Queen Elizabeths Court he was freely welcome and there he did faithfully negotiate with the Queen in behalf of his fellow Protestants in France The Prince and Admirall with the chief protestants publish a Manifesto to all Christian Princes The Prince and Admiral seeing their past danger and present safety solved now to defend themselves and secure their Religion Lives and liberty by Power which could not be allowed nor obtained by peace To which purpose they publish a Manifesto to all Christian Princes in the world wherein they briefly declare That in the integrity of their hearts and cleer witnesses of their consciences they had many waies peaceably endeavoured to enjoy their libertie and lives under a loyal obedience and subjection to the Kings commands and that the world could not but take notice how little conditions of peace was observed by the King that in the midst of Peace it was not to be recounted what
take charge of Anglolesm Ienlis commands with a strong garrison in Londun and Monsieur d' Aciere with seven thousand foot and six thousand horse remains at Cognac where the late Battel was fought The K. besieges Cognac is forced to leave it Mucidan taken and all put to the Sword Hereupon the Kings Army under command of the Duke of Anjou attempted to sit down before Cognac but the continud valor in their often sallies amaz'd the enemy to a retreat The Army thus forced to leave Cognac layes siege to Mucidan where the Count of Brisac on the Kings side was slain yet the Town was taken and not only Souldiers but all Inhabitants suffered the rage of a bloody Sword and inveterate Enemy The Noble protestant Duke of Deux-Ponts with fourteen thousand joins with the Princes Army be dies in his March To the assistance of the Princes and Admiral advances the Duke of Deux-Ponts with an Army of fourteen thousand in which Army my was VVilliam of Nassaw Prince of Orange with Lewis and Henry his Brothers in their march it pleases God the Duke the General died by the way and so the Charge of the Army was committed to the Lieutenant General Count Volrade of Mansfield Three daies after the Armies meet with great joy on both sides The Pope mean while assists the Catholicks with four thousand foot and eight hundred horse The Pope and others aid the K. commanded by Paulo Sforza the Duke of Tuscany sent also to their assistance a thousand foot and two hundred horse The Duke of Alva sends three thousand VValloons and three hundred Flemish but Gods just judgments followed their insolent carriages for such Miseries wants and sicknesses followed them that by the way abundance died On the 23. day of June 2569. both Armies approach neer together The Armies engage and next morning by break of day the Princes fell on Strozzi's quarter who was Col General of the Infantry who were all routed and he taken Prisoner there was slain S. Loup and Rogucleauz Lieutenants to Strozzi twenty two Captains and 350 of their best Souldiers on the Protestants side was slain in all 150. The Noble Princes of Navar charges in the head of the Army The Prince of Navar commanded the other part of the Army and charged the Enemy to their quarter with a great deal of manly courage beyond expectation himself charging in the front of his Army Which was so much the more remarkable in regard danger at first seems most terrible so that they that beheld this valour had their senses lifted up with admination and the whole Army puffed up with expectation that the world would be filled with the renown of his actions The Kings Army draws into Garrisons And so after a little skirmishing they both withdrew Hereupon the Duke of Anjou seeing little hopes of overcoming the Invincible manhood and great power of the Protestants he dismisses the Nobility and settles most part of the Army in Garrisons till the first of October against which time all was ordered to be in readiness to appear The Protestants take in Chastelrault The Prince and Admiral advance with their Army and take in the Town of Castelrault and enter in the King of Navars name by whose authority as first Prince of the Blood all things were dispatched The Town and Castle of Lusignan taken They speedily advance to Lusignan and taking the Town laie siege to the Castle which though impregnable for strength yet could not withstand the battering assaults of their valour so was forced to yield on conditions marching with flying colours The Articles being as faithfully performed as promised which though according to Justice yet contrary to the Catholiques constant practice which was a great dishonor to their Army and whole nation The Strong City of Poictiers beseiged but left Speedily after they march and lay siege to the Strong City of Poictiers a City of the greatest Circuit of any in France except Paris being the Head of the adjoining Provinces and where all the wealth and treasure of the Catholiques in the Country was brought for security The Duke of Guise enters with a party to defend the City and after strong assaults and much loss on both sides the Admiral falls sick with continual care and pains to prosecute the siege to a conquest so they rise with their Army and leave the place The catholicks besiege La Charite but are forced away with great loss Now the Kings forces under the command of Monsieur de Sansat laie siege to La Charite and after a sharp assault and stout resistance with the loss of many gallant Gentlemen they were forced to leave it being kept by a resolute and valiant commander Monsciur de Guerchy Cornet to the Admirals own company of Gens d' Arms whom we shall afterwards find basely murthered The catholiques besiege Castelrault but leave it The Duke of Anjou not able to raise the siege of Poictiers did in the mean while lay siege to Chastelrault a place but lately taken by the Protestants but finding a stiff resistance by their valour were forced to tetire with the loss of Fabiano del Monte commander of the Tuscan Forces with two hundred fifty Souldiers and many Gentlemen The Admiral advancing to their relief the Duke was forced next day to march away and lodge his Army at Sello The Duke of Guise admitted to his Fathers place and Cabinet Council The Duke of Guise about this time goes to Court and for his faithfullnesse to the Catholick cause was admitted to his fathers place and to the Cabinet councill this Councill now meets again to consult of the affaires of the Kingdome at last concludes to draw their forces together and fight the Princes Army which although the Prince was on disadvantage yet they resolved unanimously the fight the Catholicks The Armies engage in a bloody and furious battel After sundry skirmishes and sharp encounters the Armies both meet the beginning of October when first the Prince of Navar with ample and Christian Speeches recommended to them all the cause of Religion and Liberty now they engage first with terrible thundering of Cannons and much slaughter but they presently close and fall on with wonderfull fury the horse and foot being strangely mixed together in the heat of the Battle nay such was the heat of their valour on both sides that the very common attendants of the Armies such as Sucklers Boyes Pioneers were deeply engaged for either party And herein the Admirall acted so much of his wonted valour that he shewed himself a valiant Soldier and couragious Conductor for with a furious assault and fixed resolution in the head of his cavalry he charges the Rein-grave and though the Admirall had received a shot in the cheek with a Pistoll yet discharged his Pistoll in the Rein-graves face and there layes him dead on the place and fought valiantly allthough the blood from his wound did
and so stood ready to embrace a peace to which purpose was sent Beavois and Teligni the Admirals Son and with them Monsieur de la Chossetire the Prince of Navars Secretary and so on the eleventh day of August 1570. was a peace concluded according to the Edict of Pacification in January A peace concluded with free Liberty That every one should have free liberty of conscience to use and profess the Reformed Religion Rochel and Montauban was to be held in the Princes name for the space of two years by the Protestants The Articles of Peace were afterwards published and Registâ—ed in the Parliament But alas we shall see that this Sun-shine of Peace like the poor Traveller in the sable sooner makes the Protestants cast off the cloak of their security than all the blustering storms of the Kings Warlike forces could For by embracing a peace they hug in their bosoms and nourish in their hearts their own calamities and know it not by reason it is printed and gilded with the name of peace Several Protestant princes sends Embassadours to congratulate with the King and his peoples tranquillity in the peace concluded The King olemnly gives his faith for ever to observe the Edict Not long after this peace thus concluded several Princes of Germany that had respect to the Protestant Religion among whom was the three Electors the Palsgrave the Duke of Saxony and the Marquess of Brandenburgh all sent their several Ambassadors to the French King to congratulate this happy peace and to shew their joyful resentment of the same promising that if any new commotion should arise they would assist him to the uttermost against the Contrivers and authors thereof To this Embassage the King replies by words and afterwards subscribes to a Book with his own hand giving his faith by both That he would for ever most sacredly and faithfully observe the late Edict of Pacification But alas his heart was too many leagues from his mouth his promises are no better than if written in water with ones finger being too far short of truth and intention which is sad to confider that the King should have no way to keep his faith but to break it that oaths and promises which should ty devils fast is the onely way to levell all faith and engagements For now it is to be taken notice of that wheras before the Kings age made his Authority fit only to advise and countenance now he manages affairs with his own Council and command for being now come to the years of 22. he displaies himself on the Theatre of the World in such a splendid equipage that all might see him to be of a fierce resolute nature and above all an absolute dissembler as one of the French nation very well observed and if he did not yet this History will sufficiently evidence The Armies dismissed and the Princes and Admirall go to Rochel Now this peace being thus concluded the Armies are dismissed and the Strangers retire to their own Country after which the Princes retired to Rochel for now to effect the deep and bloody plot nothing wanted but the Art of perswasion to entice the Princes Q. of Navar the Admiral and Principal Protestants Lords to come to Paris nothing more desired for their the trap was laid for their destruction and doubtless this mock-peace had never been embraced if it had pleased God to have given them an insight to the bottome of this unheard-of and unimaginable depth of Treachery and Deceit which being hatcht and brought forth in the Hellish Court of the Cabinet Council we shall too soon see the speedy and sad effects of it the Lord knows it will too soon come to the birth of their bloody hopes and cruel desires for as vengeance persues blood at the heels so a hideous storm of cruelties succeeds this peace The Peace though fully concluded of between the King and Protestants yet was not fully observed in all places according to the Edict So that the Princes and Admiral to give a reason why they stood at such a distance from his Majesty send to Court Theligny Briquemault Beauvais La Nocle and Cavannes They are no sooner come but the King welcomes them to the Court and professes that it is his Royal pleasure that the full Observation of the Edict was no less than he really intended and therefore to scatter all mists of doubt from the Princes and Admiral he desired that they would acquaint him of his real resolutions for their good The King and Cabinet Council plots the ruin of the Protestants being desirous to get the Princes Admiral to Paris and so to cut them off And now they begin their Politick Maxim Parvi sunt Arma foris nisi sit consilium domi That policy is of more force in Military affairs than valour They now to the Trade of Politick treachery the King and his Cabinet Council meets and their Result is With speed and secrecie by Serpentine Labyrinths and enfoldings to bring the principal Protestants into the Not of destructior A Wor being thought too hazardous and weak to effect therefore must the principle of Machevil take place in their judgements and practice i. e. To effect their desires though they swim through a Sea of blood For now they have hopes that their plot might take effect in regard that their private actings were now mannaged by those that were jointly concerned in the effects of their desires and hoped to have some share in eheir bloody success The King by fair carriages intends to slide into the Protestants affections and so draw them to Paris and cut them all off which was the plot laid for them To which purpose a good opinion of the Kings sincere intentions for the Protestants good must be fixed in the minds of the Princes of the blood the Queen of Navar and the Admiral so that all their foul actings might seem so fair as no tincture of suspition should enter into their thoughts he penetrates their hearts with shews of love but his own heart is filled with deceitful plots and treacherous Resolutions endeavouring so to insinuate into their good natures that he might lodge in their hearts good thoughts of his bad intents so that all carriages must be screwed up to the highest pin of affection and love as we shall shortly see conferred on them by an outward confluence of all favours that the least doubt might not have any footing to the prejudice of their bloody aims hoping by this means to have their desires and success to lodge under one roof All their plot being to get them to Paris the Theatre of this most horrid and cruel Tragedy ensuing unarmed and then by further progress to put in execution the practical part of their bloody plot so marshalling their affairs that all the Protestants shall be immediately cut off in the bloodiest war that ever was known Now the plot being laid the Gin being set they fall to
work labouring to bring this bloudy brat to the Birth To which purpose the King and Queen Mother calls to Council the Duke of Anjou the Cardinal of Lorrain the Duke of Guise and Alberti Conde Count de Retz and speedily resolve them of their secret intentions if by any means it could be effected they therefore desire their best aid and assistance together with their approbation which needed not be doubted for they were men ready enough at all times to act the Kings pleasure The King therefore begins sending out strict orders to all the Provinces of his Kingdome Now the King begins to dissemble strictly commanding an observation of the Edict which he intends not should be observed The King outwardly carried it harshly to the Catholicks to more to work the Protestants to their lure to have a high esteem and regard to the late Edict in behalf of his good Subjects the Protestants and that it was his Majesties express command to have it strictly observed and to make their Hearts understand what they heard by the ear the King gives Order to have this message proclaimed at Rochel the Seat of the Princes and Admiral assuring them in particular of the Kings favourable intentions to what he had confirmed with his Royall Hand which should be kept inviolable from all attempts of the strongest perswasion And yet to penetrate more deep to make one act of dissimulation out-vy another to let the world see he was a good proficient in the Art of Treachery and Bloodshed he carries himself outwardly very harsh to the Catholicks telling the Commissioners that the Power of the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Lorrain was not to be feared for that the Government now rested in himself and had no dependency on any of their commands and therefore though they live at Court yet needed not the Princes of the Blood or Admiral fear them as Adversaries for they lived as Subjects not as Masters and that ere long he hoped all acts of forformer hostility and enmity should be by his means buried in eternal forgetfulness and that both parties should be reconciled to the Kings desire and their own good All which did not only peirce the hearts of the common people but wonderfully wrought upon the hearts of the Princes and Admiral with the chief of the Protestants who now begun to believe the Kings intentions real and that being now weary of the bloudy Civil Wars and Distractions and beginning now to govern by himself and not by his Council might at last sincerely desire a firm peace But alas they are too short sighted to espy and too sincere to doubt that such unparalleled deceit should lodge in the hearts of devils much less in a King a Christian King not so much as in his thoughts much less in his intentions and practice but it is the less wonder seeing it is so that not only in publick actions of great men but also in our common intercourse with things of smaller moment we all experience that the greatest hatred and malice is covered with the greatest love and friendship and that there is no greater knavery then that which borrows a cloak of Religion to cover it with some men again make use of friendship as a stepping stone to their own ends as the For being environed with a high Wall and hotly persued by his Enemies was put to great straits for his liberty for he could not leap over the Wall at last espying one by the Wall side stooping for a stone to throw at him he suddenly leaps on the mans back and by that step of advantage leaps over Little did the poor Princes and Admiral with the Queen of Navar and Nobles and Gentlemen of the Religion think their Noble blood to be so neer spilling by such base and unheard-of cruelties covered under so much love who would not pitty to read that so much valor as was in these brave Commanders should be murthered and laid in the bloody grave of a Treacherous death which shortly we shall sadly peruse The first thing the Admiral embraced by these perswasions was the War against the King of Spain which made the way easier to the rest that followed and yet he often said to his Son-in-Law Teligny that he suspected the rowling wit of the Queen Mother whom he was afraid would lead them on in this enterprize and leave them in the midst The Prince of Orange and Count Lodowick his Brother profer their service to the King in the war of the Low Countrys The Count of Nassaw advising with his Brother the Prince of Orange sends word to the King That if it were his Majesties pleasure to War against the King of Spain in the Low Countries they would so order themselves under his commands as that by their service therein his Majesty should find them faithful and useful and perceive their affections to him and the cause in hand to this the King replies in loving Letters commending their resolutions and gave them hearty thanks for their loving Message which tended highly to a free manifestation of their affections to his Service The Emperour mediates between the Prince of Orange and the K. of Spain The King of France encourages the Prince of Orange against the perswasions of the Emperour Now Maximillian the Emperour pretending to pitty the Estate of the Prince of Orange had obtained by Embassadours to the King of Spain that the Prince should have his goods restored conditionally that he should not settle his habitation in the Low Countryes but in some other place and yet nevertheless should enjoy freely all his Revenues As soon as the French King hears hereof and doubting it might be a hindrance to his present design he speedily posts Messengers to the Prince of Orange to perswade him that what the Emperour had done was nothing but to hinder their progress in so good and advantagious a cause and being only a devise to break up his leavies that he had begun in Germany letting him further understand that if he will please to give him credit he should not want assistance sufficient to regain his Estate from the King of Spain These perswasions of the King being not suspected to come from dissimulation and hypocrifie by the Prince of Orange so did he firmly believe all to be real insomuch as he proceeded in his Musters resolving a while to bear the charges thereof whilst all things else fitting for the war were in readiness though the charge at that time was very heavy Count Lodowick disgrised goes to Court and treats with the King and agrees about the War Now Count Lodowick his Brother being of a resolute disposition essayed his own fortunes and by encouragement from the King he secretly journies from Rochel taking with him onely two companions giving out he was going for the Prince of Orange his Brother but in a disguised habit he privately departs and that night arrives at the Court which then was kept at
his most Solemn Vows and Protestations which by the Law of God and Nations he was bound to keep but know saies this noble Prince that for my Religion it is so closely enshrined in a fixed resolution to preserve with my soul that it is beyond the reach of Mortality and I hope by Gods grace am so resolved that loss of life shall not shake my steddy soul to batter my conscience And though your great threatnings peirce my understanding yet shall they not make me lose my hold of that Religion which by Gods grace is planted and by your promises and oaths freely granted to me the free exercise of and as for my body and goods you may use as you please but my unspotted soul is in the hands of God Many Nobles and brave Commanders that waited on the K. of Navar and Prince of Conde by the K. order and in his fight are cut in peices crying out to his Oaths and Promises Brave Monsieur de Piles his sad death lamented and pittied by his enemies yet basely murthered in the K. fight This notable answer of this tender young Prince did so move his raging cruelty that letting loose the reins of his furious indignation he calls him Rebell and the Son of a Rebellious person with horrible threatnings that he should lose his life if within three daies he did not obey his command and without any more ado he assaults him with a furious countenance issuing out these terrible words Mass Death or Bastile But now their poor Friends that waited upon them being many gallant Gentlemen as also their Servitors in their chambers their Schoolmasters and those that had the bringing them up were thrust out one by one among the crowd of Murtherers being the K. Guard of Switzers that stood in two ranks prepared for blood and cruelty These Gentlemen crying out to the Kings Oaths Promises and fidelity were nevertheless by the K. command and in his own sight unmercifully hewen and cut in pieces There did dy of note amongst these in the Loure the Marquess de Rennet with several others of noble blood as also many brave Gentlemen but no mans death was so much bemoaned of many both friends and enemies as brave Monsieur de Piles whose valour though great yet could not be victor over his Religious and Godly zeal whose great courage and greater Christianity fought for Mastery for he had defended as aforesaid the little Town of St. Jean de Angeli against the K. great Army for fourty daies who at last yielded not so much to their valour as their number There this brave Commander got such Renown that of his Enemies who felt his valor he was highly honoured and was thought to be beloved and much esteemed of by the King This brave de Piles I say with Leranne Odou's Son were both lodged by the Kings command all night in a Wardrope next the King of Navars own chamber but this command of the Kings was looked on by the poor Gallant Gentlemen rather to be an act of special favour then base treachery these noble Commanders a little before day hearing a great noise of running of men in Armour with doleful cryings and howlings of the slain for mercy wondered what should be the matter and so arose who were no sooner up but de Naunce approaches their chamber and tells them it was the Kings Commandment that they should come down into the Court leaving their weapons behind them and so to depart out of the Castle He disclaims against the Kings treachery Proclaiming his Trayterous infidelity and cruelty in the Kings hearing Now when this brave Monsieur de Piles saw himself disarmed and thrust out amongst the murthering Souldiers who stood ready to kill him and viewing the sad spectacles of so many of so many of Gods people already slain he cryes out with a loud voice to the peircing of the Kings ear protesting against the Trayterous infidelity of his bloody cruelty that Covenants nor Oaths could not bind his loose hands and cruel heart no more than fetters can ty the raging Ocean but who is deaser than he that will not hear for his words peirced the air but not this Tyrants heart So having a rich Cloak he takes it off and gives it an acquaintance Saying Take here this token of Piles and let posterity know poor Piles most shamefully cowardly and unworthily slain by the perfidious command of a perjured King Oh! my good and noble Monsieur de Piles replyed he I am none of them I thank you for your Cloak but I will not receive it on that condition He is thrust out amongst the Murtherers slain so immediately Monsieur de Piles was thrust through the body with a Partisan by one of the Kings Guard and so was there basely murthered and slain And thus died this most noble and valiant Gentleman pittyed by his Enemies that knew him to be a valiant Commander thus was he haled to a cowardly death that never knew what compulsion meant but when his virtues and valour incited him to good actions so his body was thrown into the quarry with the rest the beholders crying out these are the Traytors that plotted our destruction and would have killed our King Now it pleased God to dispose of Leranne otherwise who being thrust through the Body with a sword escaped by running into the Queen of Navars chamber who preserved him from their cruelty and presently obtained his pardon and also by the assistance of her own Doctor of Physick he recovered and lived 200 Gallant Noblemen and Gentlemen basely slain by the K. command Amongst these Gentlemen and at the same time was also murthered Pontbreton Pluviault Bandine Francourt Chancellour to the King of Navar Pardillan Lavardin and other chief Commanders Gentlemen to the number of two hundred whose cryes no more peirced the Kings cruel heart than an arrow can an Adamantine Rock Count De Montgomery and the Vidam of Charteres with some others escape to England Now it fell out by Gods good providence otherwise with those of the Protestants that lodged in the Fauxburg At St. Germain beyond the Sein amongst whom was the Count de Montgomery and the Vidame of Charteres who presaging some intended mischief having a cleer foresight of this Tempest provided for an escape and so would by no means be drawn to lodge with the Admiral who now hearing the noise and understanding the matter instantly fled but were quickly persued by their grand enemie the Duke of Guise who as soon as the day had relieved the night passed the water with many horse and foot and overtaking the Protestants in their flight found some without shoes some without arms others without Saddles some without bridles all equally unable to make resistance and so were without mercy scattered and cut off the Count De Montgomery and Vidame of Charteres with about ten in company by the good mercy of God saved themselves and after many