from the Venetians and destroy abundance of them together with divers French and Spaniards In 1506 there appeared two Comets the first on April 11. which lasted but five days the second in August following Alexander King of Poland dyes together with the King of Spain and Philip the son of Maximilian the Emperor In 1509 there was a great and terrible Earthquake in Constantinople and the Countreys thereabout by the violence whereof a great part of the Walls of that City with many stately buildings both publick and private were quite overthrown and thirteen thousand People overwhelmed and destroyed therewith The terror thereof was so great that Bajazet the Emperor himself and the People generally forsook their houses and lay abroad in the Fields It continued for a Month together with very little intermission after which ensued a great Plague whereby that City was almost made desolate there dying above an hundred and threescore thousand people Turkish Hist Pag. 476. XXX The next year 1510 there happened a Prodigy which is very strange to relate for in this year saith my Author there fell Twelve Hundred Stones from Heaven some weighing threescore pound others more Nay it is affirmed some of them weighed an Hundred and Twenty Pound which if true serves for a good Argument to prove that some other Stars or Planets may be habitable besides the Earth At this time the Lubeckers wast Denmark King Henry 8. goeth into France and besiegeth Turwiu Bajazet the Great Turk is poysoned The Spaniards take Tripoly and make war in Navar The Lubeckers worst the Danes at Sea the Switzers invade France and do much mischief there In 1512 there appeared a great Comet in Leo Pope Julius 2. and John King of Sweedland dye James 4. King of Scotland is slain at Flodden Field The King of Poland being at war with the Emperor of Muscovia kills forty thousand of his men in a pitcht battle In 1521 three Suns with a Rainbow were seen at Vienna in Germany and suddenly after a great burning Torch was visible in the Heavens which continued a Month A Circle and Cross appears with the Moon and a burning Pillar is seen in Germany Soon after the Venetians aid the Hungarians against the Turks The French lose Millain The English and French quarrel The Emperor invades Picardy in France King Henry 8. writes against the Pope Christian King of Denmark is expelled his Kingdom In 1530 a Blazing Star of wonderful greatness appeared and was visible through all Europe This year four hundred and four Parishes were drowned by a great Inundation of the Sea in Holland with all their People and Cattel the Turks take Buda in Hungary the Great Cardinal Woolsey dyes the English Clergy are fined and pay to the King an Hundred Thousand pound for divers misdemeanours the next year about Fourteen Hundred Houses were overthrown by an Earthquake at Lisbon in Portugal and about six Hundred more so extreamly shattered that they were ready to fall and many of the Churches were thrown to the ground In 1533 a very great Comet was visible in the Heavens this year Pope Clement 7 dyes Alphonsus Duke of Ferrara and the Duke of Millain dye strange factions and seditions are raised about Religion in Hungary A great Plague at Noremburg in Germany In 1538 a fiery Comet appeared in the Sign Pisces with a long tail Charles Duke of Gelderland dyeth This year was made famous for divers things For then the Kingdom of Denmark imbraced the Gospel The Emperor and King of France met together to treat of Peace the Bible was Printed in English at Paris the Overseer of which work was Bishop Bonner The University of Strasburg was erected The Sect of the Antinomians was detected The Duke of Brandenburg imbraced the Augustan Confession The Sea upon the Coasts of the Kingdom of Naples was wholly dry for eight Miles together out of which Fire and Ashes broke forth so abundantly that many places were miserably destroyed thereby This year Alexander Medices who was made by the Pope Duke of Florence was Marryed to Margaret Daughter of the Emperor Charles 5. the Nuptials were celebrated with great Pomp and Military Revels at which time a great part of the body of the Sun was darkened whilst they were at the Feast which much astonished the Guests and the very next year after this Alexander was murthered by his Kinsman Lorenzo Medices who was always very great with him and privy to all his debaucheries Strada Wars Low-Countries XXXI In 1539 a bloody Star and Cross were seen flying in the Air Armed men swords and funerals were visible in the Heavens in Germany there likewise appeared a Blazing Star This year John Duke of Cleve dyeth a great fire happened in Constantinople which burnt the Jayl and consumed seven hundred Prisoners therein John King of Hungary dyes the Irish invade the English and are beaten George Duke of Saxony dyes The People of Gaunt in Flanders mutiny and behead their Magistrates Isabella Empress of Germany dyeth and shortly after Katherine Queen of England is beheaded by King Henry 8. In 1545 a Comet appeared in the West in colour like blood Lodowick Prince Elector dyes Martin Luther dyes and the next year a war in Germany breaks out A bloody French Massacre was now perpetrated King Henry 8. of England and Francis 1. King of France both dye The Earl of Surrey is this year beheaded in England In 1548 November 6 there was a great chasme or opening in the Heavens and in some places fire fell to the Earth and flew up into the Air again This Jasper Crucifiger saw and thereupon much bewailed the great Commotions and Divisions in the Church which he foresaw by this Prodigy and accordingly it came to pass In 1550 it rained Corn from Heaven in Carinthia Three Suns were seen in England an Earthquake and Globes of fire were visible in the Elements Armies of men appeared in the Air in Saxony The Sun seemed to cleave asunder after this followed great troubles in Antwerp and the sweating sickness in England The French make war with the Emperor the Duke of Somerset in England is beheaded the Queen of Sweden dyes the Turkish Pyrates carry six thousand Christians into Captivity out of the Isle of Gaul near Malta The next year a very great multitude of Men and Cattle were drowned by a terrible Tempest the Clouds suddenly dissolving and the waters pouring down with such a stupendious violence that the strong and massy Walls of many Cities with divers Vineyards and fair Houses were destroyed thereby XXXII That may be looked upon as a Prodigy in the highest degree saith Mr. John Gadbury which my worthy friend Captain George Wharton in his Ephemeris for the year 1655 hath transcribed from one Tackius a German Doctor of Physick who likewise takes it out of one Casper That in the year 1554 not far from the City of Harmsted in Transilvania there were observed in fair and legible Characters to be read in
the Heavens the following Letters I. N. R. I. M. D. L. V. I. I. A. R. E. I. N. E. N. D. E. D. I. S. E. S. R. E. I. C. H. S. Nay that Author further affirmeth that at Friburg in Germany the same year on a very fair day Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Iridi insidentem conspectum fuisse Our Lord Jesus Christ was beheld sitting upon a Rainbow as if upon his Tribunal to denounce the Vniversal Judgment In 1558 there was seen a Blazing Star in Spain at first somewhat dim at which time Charles the 5th Emperor and King of Spain sickned but as his disease increased so it grew in bigness at last shooting its fiery streams point blank against the Monastery where he lay in the very hour the Emperor dyed the Comet vanished The same year in the Month of August a Comet in the form of a spit appeared of a pale envious colour denoting a more then ordinary mortality of great Potentates Queen Mary of Hungary and Bohemia and Queen Mary of England both dye Christian the 2. King of Denmark dyes in Prison after 26 years imprisonment Henry 2. King of France is slain by running at Tilt Pope Paul 4. dyes and likewise the Dukes of Venice and Ferrara with fifteen Cardinals besides many other Princes In 1562 an Earthquake happened in Constantinople Clashing of Weapons in the Elements and armed men seen there Much Thunder was heard in England and five Suns seen in Holland After this the English take many Towns in France There was a great Plague in England the Muscovites invade Leiseland and the Danes and Lubeckers Sweden the Polanders beat the Livonians Nine Thousand men were slain at Dreux in Normandy and among them the King of Navar The same year December 19. Mr. John Calvin lying in his bed sick of the Gout it being Sunday and the North Wind having blown strongly for two days together some Friends coming to visit him he said unto them Truly I know not what is the matter but I thought that the last night I heard warlike Drums beating very loud and I could not perswade my self but it was so Let us go to Prayers for surely some great business is at hand And indeed this very day there was a great Battle fought between the Papists and Protestants not far from Paris in France news whereof came to Geneva a few dayes after Clarks Examp. 2 Part Pag. 564. XXXIII In 1568 were many Locusts in France The Heavens seem all on fire in Hungary In England when the true Moon was under the Earth there appears a Moon and a Cross with a refulgent Star at the top thereof Soon after the Third Civil War in France began the King of Sweden is deposed and imprisoned The Prince of Conde is taken and shot to death with a Pistol The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland rebel against Queen Elizabeth Selymus Emperor of the Turks invadeth Cyprus The Polanders and Danes fight at Sea About this time the Duke of Alva came first into the Low-Countreys and the future calamities of his Government were presaged by a boy born at Leige with two heads four legs and as many hands the terror whereof was increased by a fire happening immediately after in the City of Mechlin by a spark falling amongst Gunpowder which took hold of threescore Barrels and caused such an horrid Thunder and Earthquake that in most of the Cities of Flanders the Men and Houses trembled at the dreadful noise Not long after when the Prince of Orange brought an Army against the Duke in the behalf of the Protestants there were seen in divers places on a clear night two Armies in Battalia brandishing their glittering Pikes as if they were ready for a charge The next year a Comet appears at the setting of the Sun near the Planet Jupiter Then followed a Famine in Austria Sweden Bohemia Bavaria Rustia Lithuania Joachimus 2. Elector of Brandenburg dyes and a little after Four Hundred Thousand People are drowned in Flanders and Holland besides Cattel In 1572 there appeared a Comet or New Star in Cassiopeia which continued Six teen Months Soon after which Charles 9. King of France who was the Author of the bloody Massacre in France dyed of extraordinary bleeding which issued from divers parts of his body cursing and swearing in a most dreadful manner saith Mr. Camden in his History of Queen Elizabeth Sigismund King of Poland likewise dyeth The Duke of Norfolk in England is beheaded A great Rebellion in Ireland XXXIV In 1577 Another Blazing Star of great magnitude appeared Sebastian King of Portugal dyed the next year of two wounds which he received in his head in his expedition for Africa In 1579 a fiery Dragon and great Troops of Ravens flew through the Air in Germany A mighty Tempest happened in Bohemia and an Earthquake in Holland Armies are seen in the Heavens at Antwerp Two armed men are visible in the Air in Gelderland That which followed was the Polanders take Livonia and Polotia from the Moscovite The Popish Clergy are expelled out of the City of Antwerp by the People The Emperor forbids the Protestant Religion at Aken In 1585 a Comet appeared for many weeks together and the next year it rained Locusts in Thracia and Ducks and Geese in Croatia as Leonclavius testifies who was an eye-witness thereof The Locusts fell in such multitudes that they devoured all the Countrey and on the contrary the Geese and Ducks fed and nourished many Cluverius Hist World Soon after Osman Emperor of the Turks and Stephen King of Poland both dye In 1593 there was another terrible Earthquake at Lar in Persia which overthrew Three Thousand Houses crushing to death above Three Thousand Persons in their Ruins yea the Castle though built upon the top of a solid Rock groaned in the like affrighting downfall Herberts Travels In 1598 Feb. 25 which was a little before the Earl of Essex went into Ireland the Sun being almost totally Eclipsed it was so dark for the time that the like had never been seen in the Memory of Man XXXV In the year 1602 there was an Earthquake in England a very great Blazing Star appeared Armies of men were seen in the Air in France and warms of Grashoppers are visible in Germany asster this the Spaniards invade Ireland but are beaten thence The Swedes in vain attempt Livonia The Turks loose Alba Regalis and therein Threescore Thousand men Queen Elizabeth of England dyeth In 1607 another Comet appeared There were great Wars between the Swedes and Danes and Charles Duke of Lorrain dyeth In 1610 fiery Darts and Lances were visible in the Heavens Four Crosses appeared in the Air at once in Spain where likewise happened Thunder and a very great Earthquake Now the Danes war against the Swedes The Persians invade Babylon and kill Twenty Thousand Turks Henry 4. â—â—ing of France is murdered the Polanders overcome the Moscovites and Nine Hundred Thousand Meors are banished out of Spain J. G. This
year the strong City of Strignnium in Hungary being besieged by the Turks during the siege there appeared a dreadful fiery Meteor in the Air in fashion much like a Rainbow of a bloody red colour which arising some heigth and continuing for a space of time at length vanished away In 1611 three Suns were seen in the Firmament over Vienna in Germany and three years after the Heavens over the same Town grew so red and soon after so fearfully dark on a sudden that the Inhabitants were much amazed apprehending either the last day was come or that there would follow some horrible effusion of blood In 1616 about the same time which was not many years before Frederick Prince Elector Palatine was chosen King of Bobemia about the midst of October there appeared in the Firmament over the City of Prague a Crown which gave a very great Light and about it Armies of men fighting as if it were who should have it divers Mocksuns were seen in the West of England An Inundation happened in Holland The Shape of an Elephant appeared in the Air in Germany A Lyon was heard as my Author saith to roar in the Air the Venetians at this time make war with Ferdinand of Austria The Hollanders beat the Spaniard in the South Sea The Tartars invade Podolia burning four Cities and four hundred Villages carrying with them thence much booty J. Gad. of Comets XXXVI In 1618 a mighty Blazing Comet appeared in the Heavens it was first seen Novemb. 18. and continued till the Decemb. 16. following taking its compass over most parts of the known world in twenty eight days time and sometimes extending its Blazing Locks forty five degrees in length Towards its Declination December 11 it passed over London and so more Northwards even as far as the Orcades in Scotland What miserable effects of war ruin and devastation followed thereupon over all Europe especially to Germany of which I shall give a more particular account hereafter was obvious to all men There likewise was seen this year in the night over Constantinople a Comet in the form of a crooked sword of a vast bigness at the first appearance it was somewhat whitish but the higher it rose the redder it was even like unto bloud There were also strange sights seen in other places inundations of Rivers and the Ocean Earthquakes monstrous births waters turned into blood unusual and impetuous Winds and Tempests which overthrew several Towers and tore up many Trees by the Roots Pleurs a Town in Rhetia near Switzerland was overwhelmed by an Earthquake a great Hill falling suddenly upon the City and destroyed Fifteen Hundred Persons This year the Emperor Matthias and soon after his Empress together with Anne Q. of England dye J. Gad. of Prodigies XXXVII Mr. Knowls in his Turkish History Page 1348 relates that in the year 1620 there was a strange Apparition or Vision seen by the Turks at Medina where there Prophet Mahomet lyes buried which continued three weeks together and exceedingly terrified the whole Countrey and it was this About September 20 there fell a very great Tempest about midnight attended with dreadful Thunder but when the Clouds were dispersed and the Element clear the People might read in Arabick Characters these words in the Firmament O why will ye believe in Lyes and between two and three a Clock in the Morning there appeared a Woman in white compassed about with the Sun having a cheerful countenance and a Book in her hand and over against her were Armies of Turks Persians Arabians and other Mahometans in battel array ready to fight with her but she keeping her Station only opened the book at the sight whereof the Armies fled away and presently all the Lamps about Mahomets Tomb were put out For as soon as the Vision vanished which was commonly an hour before Sun-rising a murmuring wind was heard unto which they imputed the extinguishing of the Lamps The antient Pilgrims of Mahomets race who after they had visited this place never use to cut their Hair were much amazed because they could not concieve the meaning of this Vision only one of the Dervices or Priests which is a strict Religious Order among the Turks like the Capuchins among the Papists and live in Contemplation stepped up very boldly and made the following Speech to the Company That the World had never but Three true Religions every one of which had a Prophet First God chose the Jews and did wonders for them in Egypt and brought them forth by their Prophet Moses who prescribed them a Law wherein he would have maintained them if they had not been obstinate and rebellious and fallen to Idolatry whereupon he gave them over and scattered them upon the face of the Earth Then presently after God raised a new Prophet who taught the Christian Religion This good man the Jews condemned and Crucified for a Seducer of the People being not moved with the piety of his Life his great miracles nor his Doctrine yet after his death the preaching of a few Fishermen did so move the hearts of men that the Great Monarchs of the world bowed to his very Title and yielded to the commands of his Ministers But it seems they in process of time grew as corrupt as the Jews their Church being disjointed with the Title of Eastern and Western committing Idolatry again by setting up Images with many other idle Ceremonies besides the corruption of their Lives so that God was weary of them too and not only sent divisions among them but forsook them and dispossest them of their chiefest Cities Jerusalem and Constantinople Yet God is still the Governour of the world and himself hath raised up another Prophet and People even our great Mahomet giving way to our Nation so as no doubt we shall be happy for ever if we can serve this God aright and take warning by the fall of others But alas I tremble to speak it we have erred in every point and wilfully broke our first Institutions so that God hath manifested his wrath by evident Signs and Tokens keeping our Prophet from us who prefixed a time to return with all happiness to his People so as there are now forty years past by our account wherefore this strange and fearful vision is a prediction of some great Troubles and Alterations For either the opening of the Book in the womans hand doth foretell our falling off from the first intent of our Law whereat these armed men departed as confounded with the guilt of their own Consciences Or else it signifies some other book wherein we have not yet read and against which no power shall prevail So that I fear our Religion will be proved corrupt and our Prophet an Impostor and then this Christ whom they talk of shall shine like the Sun and set up his Name everlastingly Hitherto the Company was silent but hearing him speak so boldly they were much incensed against him charging him with Blasphemy which their Law makes
and having his Legs bare a Fox pursued him even amidst the Earls Servants and would not forbear biting of his Legs and heels for extream hunger till they gave him a blow on the neck and so took him alive The eyes of the Fox were sunk in his head his bones stuck out and he was so extream lean that his ribs almost clung together they carryed him alive with them in the Coach and after a few days he dyed Another English Gentleman who came about that time through Germany into England by the by-ways thereby to escape the Souldiers reported that Wolves Foxes and other Wild Beasts lay dead for want of Food and that in some Places men lived only upon Robbery and the spoil of Strangers or of one another so that Thievery was the only Trade then practiced among them LXIII Thus much of this tremendous Judgment of Famine In the last place let Pestilence Sickness and Diseases bring up the Bere of this lamentable Scene of sorrow These Distempers are oft-times the Companions or Effects of War it is very rare for a great Army to stay long in a place and not to leave some Infection behind them Beyond the River Dona after the Swedes departure from thence with their Forces the Plague and several unheard of Diseases swept away a multitude of people the like happened in the Palatinate and Bohemia After Mastricht was taken the Town and Countrey were grievously afflicted with Feavers Fluxes and the Pestilence above all and the same year the Armies of the Duke of Lorrain and the Rhinegrave dyed miserably in the like kind in Alsatia The Army of the Prince of Orange having taken Rhineberg left such infection in Brabant that the Inhabitants the year after were afraid to live in their own Houses About the same time General Holck being sent with six thousand men to invade Saxony he plundered the City of Leipswick and committed as great outrages as Tillies Army had done before but such a Plague overtook both him and his Army that most of his Souldiers dyed like rotten sheep and being infected himself he offered six hundred Rix dollars for a Protestant Minister to instruct and comfort him But both he and his Souldiers had so behaved themselves that no Minister was to be found In the mean time all his Friends and Servants forsook him except his Concubine who stayed with him to the last He had been both Protestant and Papist but revolted from both so that being guilty of his own perfideousness and the execrable Murders and Rapines he had occasioned he dyed utterly despairing of future happiness In the City of Basil above Twenty Thousand dyed of the Plague Their Popish Neighbours of the City of Trent rejoyced at their sufferings as being their Enemies in Religion but their Joy was very short for the Winter following the Pestilence raged dreadfully among them and though that City was not great yet above Three Thousand Persons were buried out of it This Plague was extraordinary virulent and altogether incurable Some dyed raging others were killed with their Carbuncles others were swoln and discoloured as if they had taken poyson and some dyed most strangely spotted If any Souldier were but slightly wounded it presently turned to a malignant Ulcer defying all means of Cure when the Infection got into a Kindred it destroyed Parents Children and most times all of the blood which demonstrates that a divine hand was very conspicuous in this woful visitation though the Food and Air might also much conduce to impoyson the Bodies In the Siege of Hannover above twenty two thousand People were buried of the Sickness and had not it pleased God hereby to diminish their numbers they had yielded the Town for want of Victuals In the same Seige Souldiers who went seemingly well and with their Eye-sight upon the Guard came off again in a few hours struck stark blind even Thirty at a time were thus afflicted but the Disease afterward falling into their Legs most of them recovered About this time almost all Germany felt this punishment in a grievous manner In Swaben Tyrol and all along the Rivers of Rhine and Main the Plague raged furiously The King of Hungary was fain to dissolve his Court and send his Servants away to other Cities for their security The Inhabitants of Memingen Campden and Isnen in Swaben were utterly consumed and none left alive In the Countrey thereabout formerly inhabited by above Thirty Thousand men there were not Four hundred Souls to be found In the Confines of Bavaria the living were not sufficient to bury the dead but Rats and Mice devoured their Carcases to the great horror of Passingers Holland and the Low Countreys smarted very sore likewise The University of Leyden buried Thirty Thousand The Countrey Villages and the Hague were miserably afflicted and also Brussels and Antwerp The Cities of Nimegen Emerick Rees Guelders with other places neer were not only visited therewith whereof the Marquess of Avtona the Spanish General and other Commanders dyed but there happened new contagious Diseases among others strange Fluxes and a Pox hitherto unknown The Emperors Army forraging and dispersing themselves all over the Countrey scattered the Contagion from their Quarters at Hailburn to the Land of Wirtenburg and many places became hereby utterly depopulated But after Gallas his taking in the Towns upon the Rhine such an Infection happened through the stink of the dead unburied bodies that in the Bishoprick of Mentz alone there dyed of this and Famine Twenty Four Thousand People In Saxony Brandenburg Pomerania Mecklenburg c. the Pestilence and other Diseases were so Universal that these and the Sword seemed to contend which should be the greatest destroyers It consumed in Saxony no less than Sixteen Thousand Souls in two Months time Thus as by the print of the foot of Hercules you may guess at his stature so by these few particulars of the miseries of some places we may judge of the lamentable Condition of the whole Countrey where these dreadful Judgments have left such wounds as perhaps posterity for some Generations will see the scars of And so I have done with this particular Relation of the Prodigies and Miseries of Germany for several years and shall now proceed more generally according to my former method LIV. In the year 1638. Six Suns were seen at once in Cornwall and several Apparitions of men in the Heavens preparing to fight with each other Also Navys of Ships were visible in the Sky The Scots at this time make an Insurrection the King goes in Person to appease them they renounce the Bishops and Prelacy and set up Presbytery in Scotland In this year 1638. happened a terrible Earthquake in the Island of St. Michael one of the Agores or Tercera's belonging to the Spaniard in the Atlantick Ocean Westward Upon June 26. 〈◊〉 Island began universaly to quake and tremble 〈◊〉 which continued eight days so that the People leaving the Cities Towns and Castles were forced to 〈◊〉