Tumults for in the middle of these heats nine of the Lords not being Officers of State convened together at Breda the principal Seat and most assured hold of the Prince of Orange where they drew up a Form of an Association which they called the Covenant contrived by Philip Marnixius Lord of Aldegand a great admirer of the person and parts of Calvin In the preamble whereof they inveighed bitterly against the Inquisition as that which being contrary to all Laws both Divine and Humane did far exceed the cruelty of all former Tyrants they then declared in the name of themselves and the rest of the Lords that the care of Religion appertained to them as Councellors born and that they entred into this Association for no other reason but to prevent the wicked practices of such men as under colour of the sentences of death and banishment aimed at the Fortunes and destructions of the greatest persons that therefore they had taken an holy Oath not to suffer the said Inquisition to be imposed upon their Country praying therein that as well God as man would utterly forsake them if ever they forsook their Covenant or failed to assist their Brethren which suffered any thing in that Cause and finally calling God to witness that by this Covenant and Agreement amongst themselves they intended nothing but the Glory of God Honour of their King and their Countries peace And to this Covenant as they subscribed before their parting so by their Emissaries they obtained subscription to it over all their Provinces and for the credit of the business they caused the same to be translated into several Languages and published a Report that not onely the Chief Leaders of the Hugonots in France but many of the Princes of Germany had subscribed it also which whether it were true or not certain it is that the Confederacie was subscribed by a considerable number of the Nobility some of the Lords of the Privy-Council and not a few of the Companions of the Golden Fleece 26. Of the nine which first appeared in the designe the principal were Henry Lord of Brederode descended lineally from Sigefride the second Son of Arnold the fourth Earl of Holland Count Lodowick of Nassaw before mentioned and Florence Count of Culemberg a Town of Gueldres but anciently priviledged from all subjection to the Duke thereof Accompanied with two hundred of the principal Covenanters each of them having a case of Pistols at his Saddle-bow Brederode enters Brussels in the beginning of April to which he is welcomed by Count Horne and the Prince of Orange which last had openly appeared for them at the Council-Table when the unlawfulness of the confederacy was in agitation And having taken up their Lodging in Culemberg-house they did not onely once again subscribe the Covenant but bound themselves to stand to one another by a solemn Oath The tenour of which Oath was to this effect That if any of them should be imprisoned either for Religion or for the Covenant immediately the rest all other business laid aside should take up arms for his assistance and defence Marching the next day by two and two till they came to the Court they presented their petition to the Lady Regent by the hands of Brederode who desired her in a short Speech at the tendry of it to believe that they were honest men and propounded nothing to themselves but obedience to the Laws Honour to the King and safety to their Country The sum of the Petition was That the Spanish Inquisition might be abolished the Emperours Edicts repealed and new ones made by the advice of the Estates of the Countries Concerning which we are to know that the Emperour had past several Edicts against the Lutherans the first of which was published in the year 1521 and the second about five years after Anno 1526 by means whereof many well-meaning people had been burnt for Hereticks but that which most extremely gaulled them was the Edict for the bringing in of the Inquisition published upon the 29 of April as before was said Against these Edicts they complained in the said Petition To which upon the morrow she returned such an answer by the consent of the Council as might give them good hopes that the Inquisition should be taken away and the Edicts moderated but that the King must first be made acquainted with all particulars before they passed into an Act. With which answer they returned well satisfied unto Culemberg-house which was prepared for the entertainment of the chief Confederates 27. To this House Brederode invites the rest of his Company bestows a prodigal Feast upon them and in the middle of their Cups it was put to the question by what name their Confederacie should be called Those of their party in France were differenced from the rest by the name of Hugonots and in England much about that time by the name of Puritans nor was it to be thought but that their followers might be as capable of some proper and peculiar appellation as in France or England It happened that at such time as they came to tender their Petition the Governess seemed troubled at so great a number and that Count Barlamont a man of most approved fidelity to his Majesties service advised her not to be discouraged at it telling her in the French tongue betwixt jest and earnest that they were but Gueux or Gheuses as the Dutch pronounced it that is to say men of dissolute lives and broken fortunes or in plain English Rogues and Beggars Upon which ground they animated one another by the name of Gheuses and calling for great bowls of Wine drank an health to the name their Servants and Attendants crying out with loud acclamations Vive les Gueus long live the Gheuses For the confirming of which name Brederode takes a Waâ—let which he spyed in the place and laid it on one of his Shoulders as their Beggars do and out of a Wooden dish brim-full drinks to all the Company thanks them for following him that day with such unanimity and binds himself upon his honour to spend his life if need should be for the generality of the Confederates and for every member of them in particular Which done he gave his Dish and Wallet to the next unto him who in like manner past it round till they had bound themselves by this ridiculous Form of initiation to stand to one another in defence of their Covenant the former acclamation of Long live the Gheuses being doubled and redoubled at every Health The jollity and loud acclamations which they made in the House brought thither the Prince of Orange Count Egmont and Count Horne men of most Power and Reputation with the common people who seemed so far from reprehending the debauchery which they found amongst them that they rather countenanced the same the former Healths and Acclamations being renewed and followed with more heat and drunken bravery then they were a first on which incouragement they take upon themselves
through the lower part thereof over which there is a passage by two fair Bridges one of them the more ancient and the the better fortified belonging heretofore to the old Helvetians but broken down by Iulius Caesar to hinder them from passing that way into Gallia The compass of the whole City not above two Miles the Buildings fair and for the most part of Free-stone the number of the inhabitants about seventeen thousand and the whole Territory not exceeding a Diameter of six Leagues where it is at the largest Brought under the obedience of the Romans by the power of Caesar it continued a member of that Empire till the Burgundians in the time of Honorius possessed themselves of all those Gallick Provinces which lay toward the Alpes In the Division of those Kingdoms by Charles the Bald it was made a part of Burgundie called Transjurana because it lay beyond the Iour and was by him conferred on Conrade a Saxon Prince son of Duke Witibind the third and younger brother of Robert the first Earl of Anjow At the expiring of whose line by which it had been held under several Titles of King Earl and Duke it was by Rodolph the last Prince bestowed on the Emperour Henry sirnamed the Black as his nearest kinsman and by that means united to â—he Germane Empire governed by such Imperial Officers as were appointed by those Emperours to their several Provinces till by the weakness or improvidence of the Lords in Chief Those Officers made themselves Hereditary Princes in their several Territories 3. In which division of the prey the City and Signiory of Geneva which before was governed by Officiary and Titulat Earls accountable to the German Empire was made a Soveraign Estate under its own Proprietary Earls as the sole Lords of it Betwixt these and the Bishâ—ps Susiraâ—ans to the Archbishop of Vienna in Daulphine grew many quarrels for the absolute command thereof In time the Bishops did obtain of the Emperour Frederick the first that they and their Successors should be the sole Princes of Geneva free from all taxes and not accountable to any but the Emperours which notwithstanding the Earl continuing still to molest the Bishops they were fain to call unto their aid the Earl of Savoy who took upon him first as Protector onely but afterwards as Lord in Chief For when the Rights of the Earls of Geneva by the Marriage of Thomas Earl of Savoy with Beatrix a Daughter of the Earls fell into that house then Ame or Amade the first of that name obtain'd of the Emperour Charles the Fourth to be Vicar-General of the Empire in his own Country and in that right Superiour to the Bishop in all Temporal matters and Ame or Amade the first Duke got from Pope Martin to the great prejudice of the Bishops a grant of all the Temporal jurisdictions of it After which time the Bishops were constrained to do homage to the Dukes of Savoy and acknowledge them for their Soveraign Lords the Authority of the Dukes being grown so great notwithstanding that the people were immediately subject unto their Bishop onely that the Money in Geneva was stamped with the Dukes Name and Figure capital offenders were pardoned by him no sentence of Law executed till his Officers first made acquainted nor league contracted by the people of any validity without his privity and allowance and finally the Keys of the Town presented him as often as he should please to lodge there as once for instance to Charles the Third coming thither with Beatrix his Wife Daughter of Portugal But still the City was immediately subject to the Bishops onely who had as well the Civil as the Ecclesiastial jurisdiction over it as is confest by Calvin in a Letter unto Cardinal Sadolet though as he thought extorted fraudulently or by force from the lawful Magistrate which lash he added in defence of the Genevians who had then newly wrested the Supream Authority out of the hands of the Bishop and took it wholly upon themselves it being no Felony as he conceived to rob the Thief or to deprive him of a power to which he could pretend no title but an usurpation 4. In this condition it continued till the year 1528 when those of Berne after a publike Disputation held hâ—d made an Alteration in Religion defacing Images and innovating all things in the Church on the Zuinglian Principles Viretus and Farellus two men exceeding studious of the Reformation had gained some footing in Geneva about that time and laboured with the Bishop to admit of such Alterations as had been newly made in Berne But when they saw no hopes of prevailing with him they practised on the lower part of the People with whom they had gotten most esteem and travelled so effectually with them in it that the Bishop and his Clergie in a popular tumult are expelled the Town never to be restored to their former Power After which they proceeded to reform the Church defacing Images and following in all points the example of Berne as by Viretus and Farellus they had been instructed whose doings in the same were afterwards countenanced and approved by Calvin as himself confesseth Nor did they onely in that Tumult alter every thing which had displeased them in the Church but changed the Government of the Town disclaiming all Allegiance either to their Bishop or their Duke and standing on their own Liberty as a Free Estate governed by a Common Council of 200 persons out of which four are chosen annually by the name of Syndicks who sit as Judges in the Court the Mayors and Bayliffs as it were of the Corporation And for this also they were most indebted to the active counsels of Farellus whom Calvin therefore calls the father of the publike Liberty and saith in an Epistle unto those of Zurick dated 26 Novemb. 1553 that the Genevians did owe themselves wholly to his care and counsels And it appears by Calvin also that the people could have been content to live under their Bishop if the Bishop could have been content to reform Religion and more then so that they had deserved the greatest Censures of the Church if it had been otherwise For thus he writes in his said Letter to Cardinal Sadolet Talem nobis Hierarchiam si exhibeant c. If saith he they could offer to us such a Hierarchy or Episcopal Government wherein the Bishops shall so rule as that they refuse not to submit themselves to Christ that they also depend upon him as their onely head and can be content to refer themselves to him in which they will so keep brotherly society amongst themselves as to be knit together by no other bond then that of Truth then surely if there shall be any that will not submit themselves to that Hierarchy reverently and with the greatest obedience that may be I must confess there is no kinde of Anathema or casting to the devil which they are not worthy of But
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
and safety of the Common-wealth For the French Preachers being more practical and Mercurial then the other were and not well principled in respect of Monarchical Government were looked upon as men more likely to beget commotions and alienate the peoples hearts from their natural Governour And at the first the Prince of Orange enclined most to the Lutheran party whose Forms and Doctrines had been setled by his Father in the County of Nassaw And for the clear manifestation of the good opinion which he harboured of them he Married Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony the greatest of the Lutheran Princes At which when the Dutchess of Parma seemed to be displeased he openly assured her of his Adhesion to the Catholick Cause and caused his Eldest Son which he had of that Marriage to be Baptized according to the Prescript of the Church of Rome but underhand promoted for a time the Lutheran Interest which he had sucked in as it were with his Mothers Milk But it was onely for a time that he so promoted it For finding the Calvinians to be men of another Metal more quick and stirring of themselves more easily exasperated against their Governours and consequently more fit to advance his purposes he made â—imself the great Protector of that faction and spared not to profess himself for such upon all occasions insomuch that being afterwards questioned about his Religion by the Duke of Arescot he discovered to him his bald head and told him plainly thâ—t there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart 17. But to make way for these designes there were two obstacles to be removed without which nothing could be done in pursuance of them King Philip at his going for Spain had left three thousand Spanish Souldiers the onely remainder of those great Armies which had served his Father and himself against the French in Garrison upon the Borders under pretence of shutting up the back-door against the French but generally thought to be left of purpose for a curb to the Natives in case of refractoriness or opposition unto his Commands They must be first removed and the Country cleared of all such rubs as otherwise would have made the way less passable unto private ends For though the King had put those Souldiers under the Command of two Lords of the Netherlands that is to say the Prince of Orange himself and the Count Egmont that they might rather seem to be the natural Militia of the Country then a power of strangers yet that device did little edifie amongst them for the two Lords especially the Prince of Orange expressed such contentment in the trust and honour which was therein conferred upon them that they excited the whole Country both to move the King before his going and the Governess after his departure to dismiss those Souldiers which could not be imposed upon them without breach of their Priviledges To this request the King had given a gratious answer and promised to remove them within four months after his going into Spain but secretly gave order to the Lady Regent to retain them longer till the new Bishops and the Inquisition were confirmed amongst them And she conceived her self so bound to those instructions and their â—etaining there so necessary for his Majesties Service that she delayed time as long as possibly she could Which being observed by those which were of greatest power and credit with the common people it was resolved that no more contribution should be raised on the several Provinces toward the payment of their wages and on the other side the Regent was so constant to her resolution that she took up money upon interest for their satisfaction But being wearied in the end by the importunity of all sorts of people counselled by her Husband the Duke of Parma to give way unto it and authorized at last by the King himself to hearken unto their desires she gives order to have them drawn out of their several Garrisons and Shipt at Flushing from thence to be transported into Spain with the first fair winde 18. The easie removing of this rub incouraged those who managed the designe for innovating in the Church and State to make the like attempt against the Cardinal Granvel whose extraordinary parts and power they were more affraid of then of all the Spaniards in the Country This man being of the â—erenots of Granvel in the Country of Burgundy was trained up by a Father of such large abilities that he was by Charles the Fifth made Chancellor of the German Empire and trusted by him in Affairs of the greatest moment And he declared himself to be such a quick proficient in the Schools of Learning that he became the Master of no fewer then seven Languages in all which he was able to express himself with a fluent eloquence and at twenty four years of age was made Bishop of Arras commended by his Father to the Emperour Charles and by him unto King Philip the Second he served them both with great fidelity and courage and had withall such a dexterity of dispatch in all concernments as if he had been rather born then made a States-man And unto these he added such a moderation in his pleasures such abstinence both from food and sleep when the case required it such extraordinary pains in accommodating all the difficulties which came before him and such a diligent observance of his Princes motions that his greatest Adversaries could not chuse but say that he was a Jewel fit to be owned by none but the greatest Kings By means whereof he so prevailed upon the King whilst he staid amongst them that he did nothing eitheâ— at home or abroad made neither Peace nor League with Kings or Nations concluded no Marriage quieted no Seditions acted nothing that related to Religion or the Church in which the counsels of this mâ—n were not influential The like Authority he held with the Dutchess of Parma not onely out of that report which the King made of him but her own election who found his counsel so applyable to all occasions that seldom any private or publick business came in agitation in which his judgement had not been previously required before it was openly delivered And though his previous resolutions in matters of counsel were carried with all imaginable care and closeness from the eyes of the Courtiers yet no man doubted but that all Affairs were tâ—ansacted by him imputing many things unto him as it often happeneth which he had no hand â—n 19. In the first risings of this man he was dâ—spised for an upstart by the Prince of Orange and some other great men of the Country not fearing any thing from him as an alien born unfurnished of dependants and who by reason of his caâ—ling could make no strong Alliance to preserve his Power But when they found that his Authority increased that all things bended to that point at which he aimed and that some of
Haynalt for the Marquess of Bergen they were compelled in the end to submit to mercie which was so intermixed with justice that thirty six of the principal Incendiaries were beheaded some of their Preachers hanged and some Souldiers executed the Liberties of the City being seized and declared to be forfeit till the King should be pleased to restore them Those of Valenciennes had been animated by the Consistories of some other Cities to make good the Town against Norcarmius as long as they could assuring them that he must shortly raise the Siege to quench the fire that would be kindled in another Province Accordingly it was contrived that some Foot-Companies which lay in Armentieres should waste the Country about Lisle in Flanders Gallicant and that whilst Rassinghen the Governour of Lisle drew out of the City to suppress them the Calvinists of Tournay by the aid of their Brethren within that City should possess themselves of it And so far it succeeded as they had projected that the Armenterians being conducted by one Cornelius who of a Smith became a Preacher and would needs make himself a Commander also acted their part in the designe but easily were subdued by Rassinghen at the first assault The news whereof not onely terrified the Consistorians within Lisle it self but so disheartned those of Tournay who hoped to have made themselves Masters of it that they thought it best for them to retire but being set upon by Norcarmius who had drawn some Forces from his Camp before Valenciennes to perform this service they were utterly routed most of their men amounting to four thousand either killed or taken two Barrels of Powder twenty Field-peeces and nine Colours falling into the hands of the Conquering Army with which Norcarmius marching on directly to the Gates of Tournay commands them in the name of the Governess to receive a Garrison entred the Town disarms the people imprisoned the Incendiaries restored the Bishop and Clergy to their former power and finally imposed such a Governour over them as was like to give a good account of them for the times ensuing 37. The taking of these Towns to mercy the like success in other places and a report that Ferdinand of Toledo Duke of Alva was coming forwards with an Army to make way for the King did so deject the Heads of the Gheuses and the rest of the Covenanters that most of them began to droop whereof the Governess did not need to be advertised and was resolved to make some present use of the Consternation She therefore causes a new Oath or Protestation to be forthwith made and to be taken by all Magistrates and Officers both of Peace and War by which they were to bind themselves without exception to obey any who should be appointed in the Kings name for their Supreme Governour And this she was resolved upon against all disswasions not that she meant to use it for a discrimination by which she might discover how they stood affected to his Majesties Service but that she might with less envy displace all such as wilfully refused the Oath or punish them with death and confiscation if they brake their Faith Being propounded to the Council it was cheerfully approved and subscribed by some and resolutely opposed by others under pretence that they had formerly took the Oath of Allegiance to the King himself and that Oaths were not to be multiplyed without just necessity But none more pertinaciously refused it then the Prince of Orange who devised many plausible reasons in his justification but such as were of little weight when they came to the ballance Count Egmont for a while demurred but at last submitted and took the Oath as others of the Council had done before the falling off of which great man so amazed the rest that every one thought it now high time to provide for himself The Prince of Orange with his Family retireth unto his County of Nassaw but leaves his Ministers behinde him to maintain his Interest Count Brederode departs for Germany where he dyed soon after Count William de la March commonly called the Baron of Lume takes Sanctuary in the Realm of England Bomberg not finding any safety to be had in the Bosch abandoneth it to the Regents Empire by whom it was not onely forced to receive a Garrison but also to redeem their priviledges for a sum of money After which most of the revolted Cities came in so speedily that there was nothing to be seen of the late Rebellion 38. And here the Country might have been resetled in its firm obedience if either the King had gone in person to confirm the Provinces or had imployed a Minister less odious then the Duke of Alva the cruelty of whose nature was both known and feared or rather if the Prince of Orange and the rest of that Faction had not preserved themselves for an aftergaâ—e But the King stays behinde and the Duke comes forward And coming forward with an Army of experienced Souldiers entreth the Provinces assumes the Government imprisoneth many of the Nobility the Counts of Horn and Egmont amongst the rest whom he after executed The news whereof being brought unto Cardinal Granvel he is reported to have said That if one Fish by which he meant the Prince of Orange had escaped the Net the Duke of Alva 's draught would be nothing worth And so it proved in the event for the Prince being strong in Kindred and Alliances in the Higher Germany made use of all his interest in them for the securing of his life and the recovery of his Lands and Honours of which he was judicially deprived by the Duke of Alva who caused the sentence of condemnation to be passed upon him confiscates his Estate proâ—cribes his person placeth a Garrison in Breda entreth on all the rest of his Towns and Lands and finally seizeth upon Philip Earl of Buren his eldest Son whom he seâ—t prisoner into Spain The news whereof gave little trouble to the Prince because it made his taking Arms the more excusable in the sigâ—t of men For now besides the common quarrel of his Country and the cause of Religion he might pretend an unavoidable necessity of fighting for his Life Lands Honours and Posterity unless he would betray them all by a wilful sluggishness Besides he was not without hope that if he should miscarry in the present enterprise his Eldest Son being brought up in the Court of Spain might be restored to those Estates which himself had lost but if he prospered in his work and that the King should still think fit to detain him Prisoner he had another Son by the Daughter of Saxonie who might succeed him as he did in his power and greatness 39. But first he thought it most agreeable to his present condition to employ other hands and heads besides his own to which end he had so contrived it that whilst his brother Lodowick invaded Friesland and Count Hostrat out of Iuliers and the Lower
Palatinate crossed over the Mose an Army of the French Hugonots should fall into Artois to give the Spaniards the more work by this treble invasion But the French Forces being followed at the heels by some Troops of Horse whom the King sent after them were totally defeated neer the Town of St. Vallery their Chief Commanders brought to Paris and there beheaded Count Hostrat with his Forces had the like misfortune first broken and afterwards totally vanquished by Sancho d' Avila one of Alva's Generals Onely Count Lodowick had the honour of a signal Victory but bought it with the death of his brother Adolph whom he lost in the Battail though afterwards encountring with the Duke himself he lost six thousand of his men besides all his Baggage Ordnance and Ammunition hardly escaping with his life And now it is high time for the Prince to enter who having raised an Army of eight and twenty thousand Horse and Foot increased not long after by the addition of three thousand Foot and five hundred Horse which the French Hugonots out of pure Zeal unto the Cause had provided for him takes his way toward Brabant which he had marked out for his Quarters but there he found the Dukes whole Army to be laid in his way whom he could neither pass by nor ingage in fight the Duke well knowing that such great Armies wanting pay would disband themselves and were more safely broken by delay then battail onely he watched their motions and ingaged by parties in which he always had the better And by these Arts so tired the Prince that in the end he was compelled to dissolve his Forces and retire once more into Nassaw But whilst the Duke was thus imployed in securing the passages of the Country which lay next to Germany he left the Ports and Sea-Towns open to the next Invadour Which being observed by William de March Baron of Luma who with few Ships kept himself upon the Seas out of Alva's reach he suddenly seized upon the Brill a Port of Holland where he defaced such Images as he found in their Churches omitting no irreverence unto any thing which was accounted Sacred but otherwise so fortified and intrenched the Town that it proved impregnable This hapned on Palm-Sunday Anno 1570 and on the Sunday following being Easter-day the Spanish Garrison is turned out of Vlushing the chief Port of Zealand by gaining of which two places it might not be unfitly said that they carried the Keys of Holland and Zealand at their Girdles and were inabled by that means to receive succours from all Parts and Nations which lay towards the Sea as they after did 40. The loss of these two Ports drew along with it a defection of most of the strong Towns in Holland which at the instigation of the Baron of Luma put themselves under the command of the Prince of Orange and at his motion took the Oath of fidelity to him from him they received their Garrison Shipping and Arms and to him they permitted the disposing of all places of Government making of Laws and the distributing of the Revenues which belonged to the Clergy To him such multitudes repaired out of France and England besides Auxiliary Scots that within less then four months a Navy of one hundred and fifty Sail lay rigged in Vlushing and from thence spoiled and robbed all Merchants of the Spanish party Nor were the Dukes Affairs in much better order in the parts next France in which Count Lodowick with the help of some French Hugonots had made himself Master of Mons the chief City of Haynalt which seemed the more considerable in the eyes of Alva because the French King openly but for different ends had avowed the Action By whose permission Gasper Colligny the great Admiral of France and one of the chief Leaders of the Hugonot party had raised an Army in the Borders consisting of six or seven thousand men which he put under the command of the Lord of Iâ—nlis who had before conducted the French Succours to the Prince of Orange But Ienlis being defeated by Don Frederick the Dukes Eldest Son and the Prince of Orange wanting power to relieve the besieged the Town was re-delivered into the hands of the Spaniards upon terms of honour and Lodowick retires to Dilemberg the chief Town of Nassaw 41. The Prince of Orange in the mean time animated by the General revolt of almost all the strong Towns in Holland raised a new Army of no fewer then eleven thousand Foot and six thousand Horse with which he entred into Brabant possest himself of some of the principal Towns and suffered others to redeem themselves with great sums of money with which he satisfied his Souldiers for their pains and hazard in the obtaining of the rest Dendermond and Oudenard two strong Towns of Flanders which had made some resistance he both stormed and plundered the Souldiers in all places making spoil of Churches and in some tyrannizing over the dead whose Monuments they robbed and pillaged But none fared worse then the poor Priests whom out of hate to their Religion they did not onely put to death but put to death with tortures and in some places which fell under the power of the Baron of Luma hanged up their mangled Limbs or Quarters as Butchers do their small Meats in a common Shambles which spoils and cruelties so alienated the affections of all the people that his power in those parts was not like to continue long and having failed of his attempt in relieving Mons crossed the Country into Holland as his surest receptacle on whose retreat the Duke recovers all the Towns which he had taken in Brabant and Flanders follows him into Holland and besiegeth Harlem in which the Souldiers to demonstrate of what Sect they were made a meer Pageant of Religion for setting up Altars on the Bulwarks they dressed them with Images and representations of the Saints and being attired in Copes and Vestments they sung Hymns before them as if they were offering Devotions After which mockery they brought out the resemblances of Priests and Religious persons made of straw whipt them and stabbed them into the body and finally cutting off their heads flung them into the Leaguer Sometimes they also placed the Images of Christ and many of the Saints against the mouth of the Cannon with many other Arts of the like impiety for which they were brought to a dear reckoning when the Town was taken at which time most of them were either put to the Sword or hanged or drowned 42. Frederick the Prince Elector Palatine had hitherto ingaged no further in the Belgick troubles then the rest of his Neighbours But now he doth more cordially espouse the quarrel upon some hope of propagating the Calvinian Doctrines which he had lately introduced into his Dominions And being well affected to the House of Nassaw and knowing what encouragements the Calvinian Faction in the Netherlands had received from them cheerfully hearkened to such
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
adds more Fewel to the former flame and he resolves to give the Queen as little comfort of that Crown as if it were a Crown of Thorns as indeed it proved For taking England in his way he applies himself to some of the Lords of the Council to whom he represents the dangers which must needs ensue to Queen Elizabeth if Mary his own Queen were suffered to return into her Country and thereby lay all passages open to the powers of France where she had still a very strong and prevailing party But when he found that she had fortunately escaped the Ships of England that the Subjects from all parts had went away extremely satisfied with her gratious carriage he resolved to make one in the Hosanna as afterwards he was the Chief in the Crucifige he applies himself unto the Queens humour with all art and industry and really performed to her many signal services in gratifying her with the free exercise of her own Religion in which by reason of his great Authority with the Congregation he was best able to oblige both her self and her servants By this means he became so great in the eyes of the Court that the Queen seemed to be governed wholly by him and that he might continue always in so good a posture she first conferred upon him the Earldom of Murray and after married him to a Daughter of Keith Earl-Marshal of Scotland Being thus honoured and allyed his next care was to remove all impediments which he found in the way to his aspiring The Ancient and Potent Family of the Gourdons he suppressed and ruined though after it reflourished in its ancient glory But his main business was to oppress the Hamiltons as the next Heirs unto the Crown in the common opinion the Chief whereof whom the French King had created Duke of Chasteau-Herald a Town in Poictou he had so discountenanced that he was forced to leave the Court and suffer his eldest Son the Earl of Arrane to be kept in prison under pretence of some distemper in his brain When any great Prince sought the Queen in Marriage he used to tell her that the Scots would never brook the power of a stranger and that whensoever that Crown had fallen into the hands of a Daughter as it did to her a Husband was chosen for her by the Estates of the Kingdom of their own Language Laws and Parentage But when this would not serve his turn to break off the Marriage with the young Lord Darnley none seemed more forward then himself to promote that Match which he perceived he could not hinder Besides he knew that the Gentleman was very young of no great insight in business mainly addicted to his pleasures and utterly unexperienced in the affairs of that Kingdom so that he need not fear the weakning of his power by such a King who desired not to take the Government upon him And in this point he agreed well enough with David Risio though on different ends But when he found the Queen so passionately affected to this second Husband that all Graces and Court-favours were to pass by him that he had not the Queens ear so advantagiously as before he had and that she had revoked some Grants which were made to him and others during her minority as against the Law he thought it most expedient to the furthering of his own concernments to peece himself more nearly with the Earls of Morton Glencarne Arguile and Rothes the Lords Ruthen Vchiltry c. whom he knew to be zealously affected to the Reformation and no way pleased with the Queens Marriage to a person of the other Religion By whom it was resolved that Morton and Ruthen should remain in the Court as well to give as to receive intelligence of all proceedings The others were to take up Arms and to raise the people under pretence of the Queens Marriage to a man of the Popish Religion not taking with her the consent of the Queen of England But being too weak to keep the Field they first put themselves into Carlisle and afterwards into New-castle as before was said and being in this manner fled the Kingdom they are all proclaimed Traytors to the Queen a peremptory day appointed to a publick Tryal on which if they appeared not at the Bar of Justice they were to undergo the sentence of a condemnation 4. And now their Agents in the Court begin to bustle the King was soon perceived to be a meer outside-man of no deep reach into Affairs and easily wrought on which first induced the Queen to set the less value on him nor was it long before some of their Court-Females whispered into her ears that she was much neglected by him that he spent more of his time in Hawking and Hunting and perhaps in more unfit divertisements if Knox speak him rightly then he did in her company and therefore that it would be requisite to lure him in before he was too much on the Wing and beyond her call On these suggestions she gave order to her Secretaries and other Officers to place his name last in all publick Acts and in such Coyns as were new stamped to leave it out This happened as they would have wished For hereupon Earl Morton closeth with the King insinuates unto him how unfit it was that he should be subject to his Wife that it was the duty of women to obey and of men to govern and therefore that he might do well to set the Crown on his own head and take that power into his hands which belonged unto him When they perceived that his ears lay open to the like temptations they then began to buz into them the Risio was grown too powerful for him in the Court that he out-vied him in the bravery both of Clothes and Horses and that this could proceed from no other ground then the Queens affection which was suspected by wise men to be somewhat greater then might stand with honour And now the day draws on apace on which Earl Murray and the rest were to make their appearance and therefore somewhat must be done to put the Court into such confusion and the City of Edenborough into such disorder that they might all appear without fear or danger of any legal prosecution to be made against him The day designed for their appearance was the twelfth day of March and on the day before say some or third day before as others the Conspirators go unto the King seemed to accuse him of delay tell him that now or never was the time to revenge his injuries for that he should now finde the fellow in the Queens private Chamber without any force to make resistance So in they rush findâ— David sitting at the Queens Table the Countess of Arguile onely between them Ruthen commands him to arise and to go with him telling him that the place in which he sate did no way beseem him The poor fellow runs unto the Queen for protection and clasps his arms
having concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the States United wanted Employment for his Army and that he might engage that King with the greater confidence he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome and marries the Lady Magdalen Daughter to the Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the German Princes of that Religion which also he established in his own Dominions on the death of his Father This puts the young Marquess to new Counsels who thereupon calls in the Forces of the States Vnited the Warr continuing upon this occasion betwixt them and Spain though the Scene was shifted And that they might more cordially espouse his Quarrel he took to Wife the Sister of Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine and Neece of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange by his youngest Daughter and consequently Cousin-German once removed to Count Maurice of Nassaw Commander-General of the Forces of the Sates Vnited both by Sea and Land This kept the Balance eeven between them the one possessing the Estates of Cleve and Mark and the other the greatest part of Berge and Gulick But so it was that the old Marquess of Brandenbourgh having setled his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia and left the management of the Marquissate to the Prince his Son left him withall unto the Plots and Practises of a subtil Lady Who being throughly instructed in all points of Calvinism and having gotten a great Empire in her Husband's Affections prevailed so far upon him in the first year of their Marriage Anno 1614 that he renounced his own Religion and declared for Her 's which he more cheerfully embraced in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the Higher and the Lower Germany in defence of his Cause as his Competitor of Newbourgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve his Interest 15. Being thus resolved he publisheth an Edict in the Month of February Anno 1615 published in his Father's Name but only in his own Authority and sole Command under pretence of pacifying some distempers about Religion but tending in good earnest to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms for having spent a tedious and impertinent Preamble touching the Animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches between the Lutherans and those of the Calvinian Party he first requires that all unnecessary Disputes be laid aside that so all grounds of strife and disaffection might be also buried Which said he next commands all Ministers within the Marquissate to preach the Word purely and sincerely according to the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles the Four Creeds commonly received amongst which the Te Deum is to go for one and the Confession of Ausberg of the last Correction and that omitting all new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men affecting a Primacy in the Church and a Power in the State they aim at nothing in their Preachings but the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind He commands also That they should abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either were not subject to their Jurisdiction nor were not lawfully convicted of the Crime of Heresie which he resolved not to connive at for the time to come but to proceed unto the punishment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform themselves to his Will and Pleasure After which giving them some good Counsel for following a more moderate course in their Preachings and Writings than they had been accustomed to in the times fore-going and in all points to be obedient to their principal Magistrate he pulls off the Disguise and speaks plainly thus 16. These are saith he the Heads of that Reformation which is to be observed in all the Churches of Brandenbourgh that is to say All Images Statua's and Crosses to be removed out of the place of publick Meetings all Altars as the Relicks of Popery and purposely erected for the Sacrifices of the Popish Mass to be taken away that in their room they should set up a Table of a long square Figure covered at all times with a Carpet of Black and at the time of the Communion with a Linnen Cloth That Wafers should be used instead of the former Hosts which being cut into long pieces should be received and broken by the hands of those who were admitted to communicate at the holy Table That ordinary Cups should be made use of for the future instead of the old Popish Chalice That the Vestments used in the Mass should be forborn no Candles lighted in any of their Churches at noon-day No Napkin to be held to those that received the Sacrament nor any of them to receive it upon their knees as if Christ were corporally present The sign of the Cross to be from thenceforth discontinued The Minister not to turn his back to the people at the Ministration The Prayers and Epistles before the Sermon to be from thenceforth read not sung and the said Prayers not to be muttered with a low voice in the Pulpit or Reading-Pew but pronounced audibly and distinctly Auricular Confession to be laid aside and the Communion not to be administred to sick persons in the time of any common Plague or Contagious Sickness No bowing of their knee at the Name of Iesus Nor Fonts of stone to be retained in their Churches the want whereof may be supplied by a common Bason The Decalogue to be repeated wholly without mutilation and the Catechism in some other points no less erroneous to be corrected and amended The Trinity to be adored but not exprest in any Images either carved or painted The words of Consecration in the holy Supper to be interpreted and understood according unto that Analogy which they held with the Sacrament and other Texts of holy Scripture And finally That the Ministers should not be so tyed to preach upon the Gospels and Epistles that were appointed for the day but that they might make choice of any other Text of Scriptures as best pleased themselves Such was the tenour of this Edict on which I have insisted the more at large to show the difference between the Lutheran and Genevian Churches and the great correspondence of the first with the Church of England But this Calvinian Pill did not work so kindly as not to stirr more Humours than it could remove For the Lutherans being in possession would not deliver up their Churches or desert those Usages to which they had been trained up and in which they were principled according to the Rules of their first Reformation And hereupon some Rupture was like to grow betwixt the young Marquess and his Subjects if by the intervention of some honest Patriots it had not been closed up in this manner or to this effect That the Lutheran Forms only should be used in all the Churches of the Marquissate for the contentation of the people and that the Marquess should have the exercise of his new Religion for Himself his Lady and those of his Opinion in their private Chappels 17. But the
Arch-Duke Leopold Bishop of Passaw and one of the Emperor's younger Brothers Which Invitation he obeyed entred the Countrey with an Army of Twelve thousand men makes himself Master of New Prague and attempts the Old But he found such resistance there that K. Matthias with a powerful Army came time enough to their relief and dislodged the Besiegers Which Aid he brought them at that time not out of love to their Religion or their Persons either but only upon some Advertisement which had been given him of Duke Leopold's purposes of getting that Kingdom to himself as formerly Matthias had extorted the Realm of Hungary in despight of the Emperor But meaning to make sure work of it he prevailed so far that the Emperor resigned unto him that Kingdom also to which he was cheerfully elected by the Estates of the Countrey before the end of this year Anno 1610. And within two years after was raised to the Imperial Dignity on the death of his Brother Advanced unto which Power and Height he governed his Dominions with great Moderation till the year 1617. When being Himself and all his Brothers without hope of Children he cast his eyes upon his Cousin Ferdinand then Duke of Gratzi a Prince wholly acted by the Jesuits whom he adopted for his Son declared him for his Successor in all the Patrimony and Estates belonging to the House of Austria and in the year 1618 put him into the actual possession of the Realms of Hungary and Bohemia but not with any such formality of Election unto either of them as in his own case had been observed 29. This gave encouragement to some of the Catholick Party to take offence at some Churches lately erected by those of the Reformed Religion â—â—d either totally to deface them or to shut them up Complaint hereof is made unto the Emperor but without any remedy So that being doubly injured as they gave it out they called an Assembly of the States that order might be taken for the preservation of Religion and their Civil Rights both equally endangered by these new encroachments The Emperor disallows the Meeting commanding them by Proclamation to dissolve the same Which so exasperated some hot spirits that the Emperor's Secretary and two of his principal Councellors were cast headlong out of the Castle-Windows And though all three miraculously escaped with life yet the Conspirators conceived the Fact to be so unpardonable that they could find no means of doing better but by doing worse For hereupon they set a Guard of Soldiers on the Baron of Sternberge Governour of the Castle and Kingdom they secure Prague displace all the Emperor 's old Councellors and totally clear the Kingdom of all the Jesuits and presently as well by Letters to Matthias himself as by a publick Declaration scattered in all parts of the Kingdom they justifie themselves and their actings in it Which done they nominate Two and thirty persons of their own Perswasion to have a superintendency over all Affairs which concerned that Kingdom whom they called by the name of Directors and enter into a Solemn League or Covenant to defend each other against all persons whatsoever without excepting either King or Emperor For punishing these Insolencies on the one side and preserving the Malefactors on the other from the hands of Justice a terrible Confusion first and afterwards a more terrible Warr breaks out amongst them In the first heats whereof the Emperor Matthias dyes and Ferdinand is lawfully elected to succeed in the Empire To stop the course of whose good Fortunes the Bohemian Confederates renounce all Allegiance to him proclaim him for no King of theirs nor so to be acknowledged by the Princes and Estates of Germany 30. But their new Governours or Directors as they called them being generally worsted in the Warr and fearing to be called to a strict account for these multiplyed Injuries resolve upon the choice of some Potent Prince to take that unfortunate Crown upon him And who more like to carry it with success and honour than Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine the Head of the Calvinian Party Son-in-law to the King of England descended from a Daughter of the Prince of Orange and by his Wife allyed to the King of Denmark the Dukes of Holstein and Brunswick three great Lutheran Princes These were the Motives on their part to invite him to it and they prevailed as much with him to accept the offer to which he was pushed forward by the secret instigation of the States United whose Truce with Spain was now upon the point of exspiration and they thought fit in point of State-craft that he should exercise his Army further off than in their Dominions And unto these it may be added He had before incurred the Emperor's Displeasure on a double account first for projecting the Confederacy of the Chiefs of the Calvinists whom they called the Princes of the Vnion for defence of themselves and their Religion And secondly for demolishing the Fortifications which were raised at Vdenhaine though authorized by the Placart of Matthias himself for which he was impleaded in the Chamber of Spires Upon which Motives and Temptations he first sends forth his Letters to the Estates of Bohemia in which he signified his acceptance of the Honour conferred upon him and then acquaints K. IAMES with the Proposition whose Counsel he desired therein for his better direction But King IAMES was not pleased in the precipitancy of this rash adventure and thought himself unhandsomely handled in having his Advice asked upon the post-fact when all his Counsels to the contrary must have come too late Besides he had a strong Party of Calvinists in his own Dominions who were not to be trusted with a Power of disposing Kingdoms for fear they might be brought to practise that against Himself which he had countenanced in others He knew no Prince could reign in safety or be established on his Throne with Peace and Honour if once Religion should be made a Cloak to disguise Rebellions 31. Upon these grounds of Christian Prudence he did not only disallow the Action in his own particular but gave command that none of his Subjects should from thenceforth own his Son-in-law for the King of Bohemia or pray for him in the Liturgy or before their Sermons by any other Title than the Prince Elector At which the English Calvinists were extreamly vexed who had already fancied to themselves upon this occasion the raising of a Fifth Monarchy in these parts of Christendom even to the dethroning of the Pope the setting up of Calvin in St. Peter's Chair and carrying on the Warr to the Walls of Constantinople No man more zealous in the Cause than Arch-bishop Abbot who pressed to have the News received with Bells and Bonfires the King to be engaged in a Warr for the defence of such a Righteous and Religious Cause and the Jewels of the Crown to be pawned in pursuance of it as appears plainly by his Letters to Sir
Realm of France What was taught afterwards in pursuance of Calvins Doctrines by Hottaman and him that calls himself Eusebius Philadelphos amongst the French by Vrsine and Pareus in the Palatine Churches by Buchanan and Knox amongst the Scots and by some principal Disciplinarians amongst the English we shall hereafter see in their proper places And we shall then see also what was done in point of practice first by the Princes on the House of Bourbon and afterwards by some great Lords of the Hugonot party against Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth Kings of France by William Prince of Orange and other of the Belgick Lords in the final abdication of King Philip the Second by the Hungarians and Bohemians in their revolting from the Princes of the House of Austria by the Rebellious Scots in deposing imprisoning and expelling of their rightful Queen and finally by the Genevian Faction in the Realm of England in their imbroylments of the Nation under Queen Elizabeth and that calamitious War but more calamitous in the issue and conclusion of it against Charles the First All which are built upon no other ground then this Doctrine of Calvin accommodated and applyed to their several purposes as appears plainly by the Answer of the Scots to Queen Elizabeth who justified the deposing of their natural and lawful Queen on those words of Calvin which they relyed on for the sole ground of that horrible Treason and their Indemnity therein of which more hereafter 26. In the mean time I shall content my self with the following passage faithfully gathered out of the Common Places of William Bucan Divinity-Reader in the small University of Lawsanna sâ—ituate on the Lake Lemane in the Canton of Berne and consequently a neer Neighbour to the Town of Geneva who treating in his forty one Chapter of the Duty of Magistrates propounds this question toward the close viz. What a good Christian ought to do if by a cruel Prince he be distressed by some grievous and open injury To which he thus returns his Answer That though Princes and Subjects have relation unto one another yet Subjects in the course of nature were before their Princes and therefore that such Princes if they usurp not a plain Tyranny in their several Kingdoms are not Superiour to the rest by nature in the right of Father hood but are setled by the suffrages and consent of the people on such conditions as originally were agreed between them and that it follows thereupon according unto Buchanans Doctrine that Subjects are not born for the good of their Kings but that all Kings were made to serve for the good of the people that it is lawful to defend Religion by force of Arms not onely against the assaults of such Forreign Nations as have no jurisdiction over us but also against any part of the same Common-wealth the common consent of the Estates being first obtained which doth indeavour to subvert it that no violence is to be offered to the person of the Supreme Magistrate though he play the Tyrant by any private man whatsover except he be warranted thereunto by some extraordinary and express command from the Lord himself but the oppression rather to be born with patience then that God should be offended by such rash attempts that the Protection of the Supreme Magistrate was to be required against the unjust oppressions of inferiour Officers and that in a free Common-wealth the Supreme Magistrate is rather to be questioned in a course of Law then by open Force that Subjects may lawfully take up Arms in defence of their Wives and Children if the Chief Magistrate make any violent assault upon them as Lyons and other brute Creatures sight to defend their young ones this last exemplified by that of Trajan giving the Sword to the Captain of his Guard with these following words Hoc ense pro me justa faciente injusta facienâ—e contra me utaris that is to say That he should use the Sword against him in defence of himself and for the protection of all those who in regard of his Office were subject to him that therefore it was well done by the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of the House had exercised more then ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country that David might lawfully have killed Saul because he gave his Wife to another man expelled him from his native Country murdered the Priests for doing some good Offices to him and pursued him from one place to another with his flying Army but that he did forbear to do it lest he should give an Example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by ambition might be like enough to imitate 27. Such is the Commentary of Buchanus upon Calvins Text by which all Christian Kings are made accountable even in Civil Matters to the three Estates or any other ordinary Officers of their own appointing Which Doctrines being once by him delivered and inforced by others what else could follow thereupon but first an undervaluing of their transcendent Authority afterwards a contempt of their persons and finally a reviling of them with reproachful Language From hence it was that Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine assuring us that all the Devils in Hell were not half so mischievous and that Knox could not finde for her any better titles then that of Iezabel mischievous Mary of the Spaniards blood the professed enemy of God From hence it was that Beza calls Mary Queen of Scots by the names of Medea and Athaliah of which the one was no less infamous in the Sacred then the other was in the Heathen story that the English Puritans compared Queen Elizabeth to an idle slut who swept the middle of the room but left all the dust and filth thereof behind the doors that Didoclavius calls King Iames the greatest and most deadly enemy of the holy Gospel and positively affirms of all Kings in general that they are naturally enemies to the Kingdom of Christ. And finally from hence it was that the seditious Author of the base and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath so bespattered the great Princes of the House of France that he hath made them the most ugly Monsters in their lusts and cruelty which ere Nature produced and could devise no fitter names for Queen Mary of Scotland then those of Medea Clytemnestra Proserpine with that of monstrum Exitiale in the close of all And that the late most mighty Monarch of Great Britain was handled by his Subjects of this Faction with no less scurrility then if he had been raised on high for no other purpose then to be made the mark against which they were to shoot their Arrows even most bitter words the object of all false tongues and calumnious Pens Thus do they deal with Kings and Princes as Pilate in the
blood of others After a long and bloody War which ended in the year 1250 they were almost rooted out of the Country also the residue or remainders of them having betook themselves into the mountainous parts of Daulphine Provence Piemont and Savoy for their greater safety By means whereof becoming neer Neighbours to the Switzers and possibly managing some traffick with the Town of Geneva their Doctrines could neither be unknown to Zuinglius amongst the one nor to many Inhabitants of the other of best note and quality 2. The rest of France had all this while continued in the Popes obedience and held an outward uniformity in all points with the Church of Rome from which it was not much diverted by the Writings of Zuinglius or the more moderate proceedings of the Lutheran Doctors who after the year 1517 had filled many Provinces of Germany with their opinions But in the year 1533 the Lutherans found an opportunity to attempt upon it For Francis the First favouring Learned men and Learning as commonly they do whose Actions are worthy a learned Pen resolved to erect a University at Paris making great offers to the most Learned Scholars of Italy and Germany for their entertainment Luther takes hold of that advantange and sends Bucer and some others of his ablest Followers who by disputing in such a confluence of Learned men might give a strong essay to bring in his Doctrines Nor wanted there some which were taken with the Novelty of them especially because such as were questioned for Religion had recourse into Aquitaine to Margaret of Valois the Kings Sister married to Henry of Albert King of Navar who perhaps out of hatred to the Bishop of Rome by whom her Husbands Father was deprived of that Kingdom might be the more favourable to the Lutherans or rather moved as she confessed before her death with commiseration to those condemned persons that fled to her protection she became earnest with her brother in defence of their persons so that for ten years together she was the chief means of maintaining the Doctrines of Luther in the Realm of France Nor was the King so bent in their Extermination as otherwise he would have been in regard of those many Switz and Germans that served him in his Wars against Charles the Fifth till at last being grievously offended with the contumacie of the men and their continual opposition to the Church of Rome he published many Edicts and Proclamations against them not onely threatning but executing his penal Laws until he had at last almost extinguished the name of Luther in his Kingdom 3. But Calvins stratagem succeeded somewhat better who immediately upon the Death of Francis the First whilst King Henry was ingag'd in the Wars with Charles attempted France by sending his Pamphlets from Geneva writ for the most part in the French Tongue for the better captivating and informing of the common people And as he found many possessed with Luthers opinions so he himself inflamed them with a Zeal to his own the Vulgar being very proud to be made Judges in Religion and pass their Votes upon the abstrusest Controversies of the Christian Faith So that in short time Zuinglius was no more remembred nor the Doctrine of Luther so much followed as it had been formerly The name of Calvin carrying it amongst the French The sudden propagating of whose Opinions both by preaching and writing gave great offence unto the Papists but chiefly to Charles Cardinal of Lorrain and his Brother Francis Duke of Guise then being in great power and favour with King Henry the Second By whose continual sollicitation the King endeavoured by many terrible and severe executions to suppress them utterly and did reduce his Followers at the last to such a condition that they durst neither meet in publick or by open day but secretly in Woods or Private-houses and for the most part in the night to avoid discovery And at this time it was and on this occasion that the name of Hugonots was first given them so called from St. Hugoes Gate in the City of Towrs out of which they were observed to pass to their secret Meetings or from a night-spirit or Hobgobling which they called St. Hugo to which they were resembled for their constant night-walks But neither the disgrace which that name imported nor the severity of the Kings Edicts so prevailed upon them but that they multiplyed more and more in most parts of the Realm especially in the Provinces which either were nearest to Geneva or lay more open towards the Sea to the trade of the English And though the fear of the danger and the Kings displeasure deterred such as lived within the air of the Court from adhering openly unto them yet had they many secret favourers in the Royal Palace and not a few of the Nobility which gave them as much countenance as the times could suffer The certainty whereof appeared immediately on the death of King Henry who left this life at Paris on the tenth of Iuly Anno 1559 leaving the Crown to Francis his Eldest Son then being but fifteen years of age neither in strength of body nor in vigour of Spirit enabled for the managing of so great an Empire 4. This young King in his Fathers life-time had married Mary Queen of Scots Daughter and Heir of Iames the Fifth by Mary of Lorrain a Daughter of the House of Guise and Sister to the two great Favourites before remembred This gave a great improvement to the power and favour which the two brothers had before made greater by uniting themselves to Katherine de Medices the young Kings Mother a Woman of a pestilent Wit and one that studied nothing more then to maintain her own greatness against all opposers By this confederacie the Princes of the House of Bourbon Heirs in Reversion to the Crown if the King and his three brothers should depart without Islue-Male as in fine they did were quite excluded from all office and imployment in the Court or State The principal of which was Anthony Duke of Vendosme and his brother Lewis Prince of Conde men not so near in birth as of different humours the Duke being of an open nature flexible in himself and easily wrought upon by others but on the other side the Prince was observed to be of a more enterprising disposition violent but of a violence mixed with cunning in the carrying on of his designs and one that would not patiently dissemble the smallest injuries These two had drawn unto their side the two Chastilions that is to say Gasper de Collignie Admiral of the Realm of France and Monsieur D' Andilot his brother Commander of the Infantry of that Kingdom to which Offices they had been advanced by the Duke of Montmorency into whose Family they had married during the time of his Authority with the King deceased for whose removal from the Court by the confederacy of the Queen Mother with the House of Guise they were
the conduct of the Cause and had befooled themselves and others with the flattering hopes of gaining the Free exercise of their Religion It cannot be denyed but that they were resolved so to act their parts that Religion might not seem to have any hand in it or at the least might not suffer by it if the plot miscarried To which end they procured the chief Lawyers of France and Germany and many of the reformed Divines of the greatest eminence to publish some Writings to this purpose that is to say that without violating the Majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful Magistrate they might oppose with Arms the violent Domination of the House of Guise who were given out for Enemies to the true Religion hinderers of the course of Justice and in effect no better then the Kings Jaylors as the case then stood But this Mask was quickly taken off and the design appeared bare faced without any vizard For presently upon the routing of the Forces in the Woods of Amboise they caused great tumults to be raised in Poictou Languedock and Provence To which the Preachers of Geneva were forthwith called and they came as willingly their Followers being much increased both in courage and numbers as well by their vehemency in the Pulpit as their private practices In Daulpheny and some parts of Provence they proceeded further seized upon divers of the Churches for the Exercise of their Religion as if all matters had succeeded answerable to their expectation But on the first coming of some Forces from the Duke of Guise they shrunk in again and left the Country in the same condition wherein first they found it Of this particular Calvin gives notice unto Bullenger by his Letters of the 27 of May Anno 1560 complaining much of the extreme rashness and fool-hardiness of some of that party whom no sober counsels could restrain from those ingagements which might have proved so dangerous and destructive to the cause of Religion Which words of his relate not onely to the Action of Daulphine and Provence but to some of the attempts preceding whatsoever they were by him discouraged and disswaded if we may believe him 8. But though we may believe him as I think we may the Pope and Court of France were otherwise perswaded of it Reinadoes going from Geneva to unite the party was as unlikely to be done without his allowance as without his privity But certainly the Ministers of Geneva durst not leave their Flocks to Preach Sedition to the French of Provence and Languedock if he had neither connived at it or advised them to it and such connivings differ but little from commands as we find in Salvian Once it is sure that the Pope suggested to the French King by the Bishop of Viterbo whom he sent in the nature of a Legate that all the mischief which troubled France and the Poyson which infected that Kingdom and the Neighbouring Countries for so I finde in my Authoâ— came from no other Fountain then the Lake of Geneva that by digging at the very Root he might divert a great part of that nourishment by which those mischiefs were fomented and that by prosecuting such a Forraign War he might evacuate those bad humours which distempered his Kingdom and therefore if the King be pleased to engage herein his Holiness would not onely send him some convenient Aids but move the Scotch King and the Duke of Savoy to assist him also But neither the Queen-Mother nor the Guise for the King acted little in his own affairs could approve the motion partly for fear of giving offence unto the Switzers with whom Geneva had confederated thirty years before and partly because none being like to engage in that War but the Catholicks onely the Kingdom would thereby lye open to the adverse party But nothing more diverted the three Princes from concurring in it then the impossibility of complying with their several interesses in the disposing of the Town when it should be taken The Duke of Savoy would not enter into the War before he was assured by the other Princes that he should reap the profit of it that belonging anciently to his jurisdiction But it agreed neither with the interest of France nor Spain to make the Duke greater then he was by so fair an addition as would be made to his Estate were it yeilded to him The Spaniard knew that the French King would never bring him into France or put into his hands such a fortified pass by which he might enter when he pleased As on the other side the Spaniards would not suffer it to fall into the power of the French by reason of its neer Neighbour-hood unto the County of Burgundy which both then was and ever since hath been appendant on the Crown of Spain By reason of which mutual distrusts and jealousies the Pope received no other answer to his motion in the Court of France but that it was impossible to apply themselves to matters abroad when they were exercised at home with so many concernments 9. This answer pinched upon the Pope who found as much confusion in the State of Avignion belonging for some hundreds of years to the See of Rome as the French could reasonably complain in the Bowels of France For lying as it did within the limits of Provence and being visited with such of the French Preachers as had been studied at Geneva the people generally became inclined unto Calvins Doctrines and made profession of the same both in private and publick nay they resolved upon the lawfulness of taking up of Arms against the Pope though their natural Lord partly upon pretence that the Country was unjustly taken from the Earls of Tholouse by the Predecessors of the Pope partly because the present Pope could prove no true Lineal Succession from the first Usurper but chiefly in regard that persons Ecclesiastical were disabled by Christs Commandments from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction over other men Being thus resolved to rebel they put themselves by the perswasion of Alexander Guilatine a professed Civilian into the protection of Charles Count de Mont-brun who had then taken Arms against the King in the Country of Daulphine Mont-brun accepts of the imployment enters the Territory of Avignion with three thousand Foot reduceth the whole Country under his command the Popes Vice-Legate in the City being hardly able for the present to make good the Castle But so it happened that the Cardinal of Tournon whose Niece the Count had married being neer the place prevailed with him after some discourse to withdraw his Forces and to retire unto Geneva assuring him not onely of his Majesties pardon and the restitution of his Goods which had been confiscated but that he should have liberty of Conscience also which he prized far more then both the other By which Action the people were necessitated to return to their old obedience but with so many fears and jealousies on either side that many
which made him afterwards more cordial to the interest of the Church of Rome notwithstanding all the arguments and insinuations used by his Wife a most zealous Hugonot to withdaaw him from it But the Hugonots gave out on the other side that they had made good their Doctrines convinced the Catholick Doctors confounded the Cardinal of Lorrain and gotten License from the King to Preach Which gave such courage to the rest of that Faction that they began of their own Authority to assemble themselves in such places as they thought most convenient and their Ministers to preach in publick and their Preachings followed and frequented by such infinite multitudes as well of the Nobility as the common People that it was thought impossible to suppress and dangerous to disturb their Meetings For so it was that if either the Magistrates molested them in their Congregations or the Catholicks attemped to drive them out of their Temples without respect to any Authority they put themselves into Arms and in the middle of a full Peace was made a shew of a most terrible and destructive War 15. This being observed by those which sate at the Helme and finding that these tempests were occasioned by the Edict of Iuly it was resolved to stere their course by another winde For the Queen being setled in this Maxime of State That she was not to suffer one Faction to destroy the other for fear she should remain a prey to the Victor not onely gave order for conventing all the Parliaments to a Common-Council but earnestly sollicited for a Pacification which gave beginning to the famous Edict of Ianuary whereby it was granted that the Hugonots should have the Free exercise of their Religion that they might assemble to hearing of Sermons in any open place without their Cities but on condition that they went unarmed and that the Officers of the place were there also present Which Edict so offended the chief Heads of the Catholick party that a strict combination and confederacy was concluded on between the King of Navar the Constable and the Duke of Guise for maintenance of the Religion of the Church of Rome And this reduced the Queen-Regent to the like necessity of making a strict union with the Admiral and the Prince of Conde whereby she was assured of the power of the Hugonots and they became as confident of her Protection In which condition they were able to form their Churches to cast them into Provinces Classes and other subdivisions of a less capacity to settle in them their Presbyteries and Synodical Meetings grounded according to their Rules of Calvins Platform in Doctrine Discipline and Worship The Forms whereof being discribed at large in the former Book may there be found without the trouble of a repetition In so much that it was certified to the Fathers in the Council of Trent that the French Hugonots were at that time distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches each of them furnished with their proper and peculiar Preachers according to a just computation which was taken of them which computation was then made to satisfie the Queen-Regent in the strength of that party for which she could not otherwise declare her self unless she were first made acquainted with their power and numbers But being satisfied in those points she began to shew her self much inclined to Calvinism gave ear unto the Discourses of the Ministers in her private Chamber conferred familiarly with the Prince the Admiral and many others in matters which concerned their Churches and finally so disguised her self that the Pope was not able to discover at what port she aimed For sometimes she would write unto him for such a Council as by the Calvinians was desired at other times for a national one to be held in France sometimes desiring that the Communion might be administred under both kindes otherwhile requiring a Dispensation for Priests to Marry now solliciting that Divine Service might be said in the vulgar tongue then proposing such other like things as were wished and preached for by the Hugonots By which dissimulations she amused the World but gave withal so many notable advantages to the Reformation that next to God she was the principal promoter and advancer of it though this prosperity proved the cause of those many miseries which afterwards ensued upon it 16. For by this means the Preachers having free access into the Court became exceedingly respected in the City of Paris where in short time their followers did increase to so great a multitude as put the Prince of Conde into such a confidence that he assumed unto himself the managery of all great affairs Which course so visibly tended to the diminution of the King of Navar that he resolved by strong hand to remove him from Paris And to that end directed both his Messages and his Letters to the Duke of Guise to come in to help him The Duke was then at Iainville in the Province of Champaigne and happened in his way upon a Village called Vassey where the Hugonots were assembled in great numbers to hear a Sermon A scuffle unhappily is begun between some of the Dukes Footmen and not a few of the more unadvised and adventurous Hugonots which the Duke coming to part was hit with a blow of a stone upon one of his Cheeks which forced him with the loss of some blood to retire again Provoked with which indignity his Followers being two Companies of Lances charge in upon them with their Fire-looks kill sixty of them in the place and force the rest for preservation of their lives into several houses This accident is by the Hugonots given out to be a matter of design the execution done upon those sixty persons must be called a Massacre and in revenge thereof the Kingdom shall be filled with Blood and Rapine Altars and Images defaced Monasteries ruined and pulled down and Churches bruitishly polluted The Queen had so long juggled between both parties that now it was not safe for her to declare for either Upon which ground she removed the Court to Fountain-bleau and left them to play their own Games as the Dice should run The presence of the King was looked upon as a matter of great importance and either party laboured to get him into their power The City of Orleance more especially was aimed at by the Prince of Conde as lying in the heart of the Kingdom rich large and populous sufficiently inclined to novelty and innovations and therefore thought the fittest Stage for his future Actings Being thus resolved he first sends D' Andelot with some Forces to possess the Town and posts himself towards Fountain-Bleau with three thousand Horse But the Catholick Confederates had been there before him and brought the King off safely to his City of Paris which being signified to the Prince as he was on his way he diverts toward Orleance and came thither in a luckie hour to relieve his Friends which having seized upon one of the
Gates and thereby got possession of that part of the City was in apparent danger to be utterly broken by the Catholick party if the Prince had not come so opportunely to renew the fight but by his coming they prevailed made themselves Masters of the City and handselled their new Government with the spoil of all the Churches and Religious Houses which either they defaced or laid waste and desolate Amongst which none was used more coursely then the Church of St. Crosse being the Cathedral of that City not so much out of a dislike to all Cathedrals though that had been sufficient to expose it unto Spoil and Rapine as out of hatred to the name Upon which furious piece of Zeal they afterwards destroyed all the little Crosses which they found in the way between Mont-Martyr and St. Denis first raised in memory of Denis the first Bishop of Paris and one that passeth in account for the chief Apostle of the Gallick Nations 17. But to proceed to put some fair colour upon this foul action a Manifest is writ and published in which the Prince and his adherents signifie to all whom it might concern that they had taken arms for no other reason but to restore the King and Queen to their personal liberty kept Prisoners by the power and practice of the Catholick Lords that obedience might be rendred in all places to his Majesties Edicts which by the violence of some men had been infringed and therefore that they were willing to lay down Arms if the Constable the Duke of Guise and the Marshal of St. Andrews should retire from Paris leaving the King and Queen to their own disposing and that liberty of Religion might be equally tolerated and maintained unto all alike These false Colours were wiped off by a like Remonstrance made by the Parliament of Paris In which it was declared amongst other things that the Hugonots had first broke those Edicts by going armed to their Assemblies and without an Officer That they had no pretence to excuse themselves from the crime of Rebellion considering they had openly seized on many Towns raised Souldiers assumed the Munition of the Kingdom cast many pieces of Ordnance and Artillery assumed unto themselves the Coyning of Money and in a word that they have wasted a great part of the publick Revenues robbed all the rich Churches within their power and destroyed the rest to the dishonour of God the scandal of Religion and the impoverishing of the Realm The like answer was made also by the Constable and the Duke of Guise in their own behalf declaring in the same that they were willing to retire and put themselves into voluntary exile upon condition that the Arms taken up against the King might be quite laid down the places kept against him delivered up the Churches which were ruined restored again the Catholick Religion honourably preserved and an intire obedience rendred to the lawful King under the Government of the King of Navar and the Regencie of the Queen his Mother Nor were the King and Queen wanting to make up the breach by publishing that they were free from all restraint and that the Catholick Lords had but done their duty in waiting on them into Paris that since the Catholick Lords were willing to retire from Court the Prince of Conde had no reason to remain at that distance that therefore he and his adherents ought to put themselves together with the places which they had possessed into the obedience of the King which if they did they should not onely have their several and respective Pardons for all matters past but be from thenceforth looked upon as his Loyal Subjects without the least diminution of State or honour 18. These Paper-pellets being thus spent both sides prepare more furiously to charge each other But first the Prince of Conde by the aid of the Hugonots makes himself Master of the great Towns and Câ—ties of chief importance such as were Rouen the Parliamentary City of the Dukedom of Normandy the Ports of Diepe and New-haven the Cities of Angiers Towres Bloise Vendosme Bourges and Poictiers which last were reckoned for the greatest of all the Kingdom except Rouen and Paris after which followed the rich City of Lyons with that of Valence in the Province of Daulphiny together with almost all the strong places in Gascoigne and Languedock Provinces in a manner wholly Hugonot except Tholouse Bourdeaux and perhaps some others But because neither the Contributions which came in from the Hugonots though they were very large nor the spoil and pillage of those Cities which they took by force were of themselves sufficient to maintain the War the Prince of Conde caused all the Gold and Silver in the Churches to be brought unto him which he coyned into Money They made provision of all manner of Artillery and Ammunition which they took from most of the Towns and laid up in Orleance turning the Covent of the Franciscans into a Magazine and there disposing all their stores with great art and industry The Catholicks on the other side drew their Forces together consisting of 4000 Horse and six thousand Foot most of them old experienced Souldiers and trained up in the War against Charles the Fifth The Prince had raised an Army of an equal number that is to say three thousand Horse and seven thousand Foot but for the most part raw and young Souldiers and such as scarcely knew how to stand to their Arms And yet with these weak Forces he was grown so high that nothing would content him but the banishment of the Constable the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise free liberty for the Hugonots to meet together for the Exercise of their Religion in walled Towns Cities and Churches to be publickly appointed for them the holding of the Towns which he was presently possessed of as their absolute Lord till the King were out of his Minority which was to last till he came to the age of two and twenty He required also that the Popes Legate should be presently commanded to leave the Kingdom that the Hugonots should be capable of all Honours and Offices and finally that security should be given by the Emperour the Catholick King the Queen of England the State of Venice the Duke of Savoy and the Republick of the Switzers by which they were to stand obliged that neither the Constable nor the Duke of Guise should return into France till the King was come unto the age before remembred 19. These violent demands so incensed all those which had the Government of the State that the Prince and his Adherents were proclaimed Traytors and as such to be prosecuted in a course of Law if they laid not down their Arms by a day appointed Which did as little benefit them as the proposals of the Prince had pleased the others For thereupon the Hugonots united themselves more strictly into a Confederacie to deliver the King the Queen the Kingdom from the violence of their
opposites to stand to one another in the defence of the Edicts and altogether to submit to the Authority of the Prince of Conde as the head of their Union publishing a tedious Declaration with their wonted confidence touching the motives which induced them to this Combination This more estranged the Queen from them then she was at first and now she is resolved to break them by some means or other but rather to attempt it by Wit then by Force of Arms And to this end she deals so dexterously with the Constable and the Duke of Guise that she prevailed with them to leave the Court and to prefer the common safety of their Country before their own particular and personal greatness which being signified by Letters to the Prince of Conde he frankly offered under his hand that whensoever these great Adversaries of his were retired from the Court which he conceived a matter of impossibility to perswade them to he would not onely lay down Arms but quit the Kingdom But understanding that the Constable and the Duke had really withdrawn themselves to their Country-houses devested of all power boâ—h in Court and Council he stood confounded at the unadvisedness and precipitation of so rash a promise as he had made unto the Queen For it appeared dishonourable to him not to keep his word more dangerous to relinquish his command in the Army but most destructive to himself and his party to dissolve their Forces and put himself into a voluntary exile not knowing whither to retreat At which dead lift he is refreshed by some of his Calvinian Preachers with a Cordial comfort By which learned Casuists it was resolved for good Divinity that the Prince having undertaken the maintenance of those who had imbraced the purity of Religion and made himself by Oath Protector of the Word of God no following obligation could be of force to make him violate the first In which determining of the Case they seemed to have been guided by that Note in the English Bibles translated and printed at Geneva where in the Margine to the second Chapter of St. Matthews Gospel it is thus advertised viz. That promise ought not to be kept when Gods honour and the preaching of the Truth is hindred or else it ought not to be broken They added to make sure work of it at the least they thought so that the Queen had broken a former promise to the Prince in not bringing the King over to his party as she once assured him and therefore that he was not bound to keep faith with her who had broke her own 20. But this Divinity did not seem sufficient to preserve his honour another temperament was found by some wiser heads by which he might both keep his promise and not leave his Army By whose advice it was resolved that he should put himself into the power of the Queen who was come within six Miles of him with a small reâ—inue onely of purpose to recâ—ive him that having done his duty to her he should express his readiness to forsake the Kingdom as soon as some Accord was settled and that the Admiral D' Andelot and some other of the principal Leaders should on the sudden shew themselves forcibly mount him on his Horse and bring him back into the Army Which Lay-device whether it had more cunning or less honesty then that of the Cabal of Divines it is hard to say But sure it is that it was put in execution accordingly the Queen thereby deluded and all the hopes of Peace and Accommodation made void and frustrate But then a greater difficulty seized upon them The King had re-inforced his Army by the accession of ten Cornets of German Horse and six thousand Switz The Princes Army rather diminished then increased and which was worse he wanted Money to maintain those Forces which he had about him so that being neither able to keep the Field for want of men nor keep his men together for want of Money it was resolved that he must keep his men upon free-quarter in such Towns and Cities as followed the Fortune of his side till he was seconded by some strength from England or their Friends in Germany The Queen of England had been dealt with but she resolved not to engage on their behalf except the Port of Havre-de-grace together with the Town of Diepe were put into her hands and that she might have leave to put a Garrison of English into Rouen it self Which Proposition seemed no other to most knowing men then in effect to put into her power the whole Dukedom of Normandy by giving her possession of the principal City and hanging at her Girdle the two Keys of the Province by which she might enter when she pleased with all the rest of her Forces But then the Ministers being advised with who in all publick Consultations were of great Authority especially when they related unto Cases of Conscience it was by them declared for sound Doctrine That no consideration was to be had of worldly things when the maintenance of Coelestial Truths and the propagation of the Gospel was brought in question and therefore that all other things were to be contemned in reference to the establishment of true Religion and the freedom of Conscience According to which notable determination the Seneschal of Rouen and the young Visdame of Chartres are dispatched to England with whom it was accorded by the Queens Commissioners that the Queen should presently supply the Prince and his Confederates with Monies Arms and Ammunition that she should aid him with an Army of eight thousand Foot to be maintained at her own pay for defence of Normandy and that for her security in the way of caution the Town of New haven which the French call Havre-de-grace as is before said should be forthwith put into her hands under a Governour or Commander of the English Nation that she should place a Garrison of two thousand English in the City of Rouen and a proportionable number in the Town of Diepe but the Chief Governours of each to be natural French Which Covenants were accordingly performed on both sides to the dishonour of the French and the great damage and reproach of the Realm of England as it after proved For so it was that the Prince of Conde being forced to disperse his Souldiers and to dispose of them in such manner as before was noted the King being Master of the Field carryed the War from Town to Town and from place to place and in that course he speeds so well as to take in the Cities of Angiers Tours Bloise Poictiers and Bourges with divers others of less note some of which were surrended upon composition some taken by assault and exposed to spoil And now all passages being cleared and all rubs removed they were upon the point of laying Siege to the City of Orleance when at the Queens earnest sollicitation they changed that purpose for the more profitable expedition to the King and
Tyrants of preceding times which comes up close to those irreverent and lewd expressions which frequently occur in Calvin Beza Knox c. in reference to the two Mary's Queens of England and Scotland and other Princes of that age which have been formerly recited in their proper places 35. The Royal Family being thus wretchedly exposed to the publick hatred he next applyes himself to stir up all the world against them both at home and abroad And first he laboureth to excite some desperate Zealot to commit the like assassinate on the King then Reigning as one Bodillus is reported in some French Histories to have committed on the person of Chilprick one of the last Kings of the Merovignians which he commemorates for a Noble and Heroick action and sets it out for an example and encouragement to some gallant French-man for the delivery of his Country from the Tyranny of the House of Valois the ruine whereof he mainly drives at in his whole designe And though he seem to make no doubt of prevailing in it yet he resolves to try his Fortune otherwise if that should fail And first beginning with their next neighbour the King of Spain he he puts them in remembrance of those many injuries which he and his Ancestors had received from the House of Valois acquaints him with the present opportunity which was offered to him of revenging of thoâ—e wrongs and making himself Master of the Realm of France and chalks him out a way how he might effect it that is to say by coming to a present Accord with the Prince of Orange indulging Liberty of Conscience to the Belgick Provinces and thereby drawing all the Hugonots to adhere unto him which counsel if he did not like he might then make the same use of the Duke of Savoy for whom the Hugonots in France had no small affection and by bestowing on him the adjoyning Regions of Lyonoise Dâ—ulphine and Provence might make himself Lord of all the rest without any great trouble The like temptation must be given to the Queen of England by putting her in minde of her pretences to the Crown it self and shewing how easie a thing it might be for her to acquire those Countries whose Arms and Titles she assumed with like disloyalty he excites the Princes of the Empire to husband the advantage which was offered to them for the recovering of Metz Toule and Verdun three Imperial Cities by this Kings Father wrested betwixt fraud and force from Charles the Fifth and ever since incorporated with the Realm of France If all which failed he is resolved to cast himself on the Duke of Guise though the most mortal and implacable enemy of the Hugonot Faction and makes a full address to him in a second Epistle prefixt before the Book it self in which he puts him in remembrance of his old pretensions to the Crown of France extorted by Hugh Capet from his Ancestors of the House of Loraigne offereth him the assistance of the Hugonot party for the recovery of his Rights and finally beseeches him to take compassion of his ruined Country cheerfully to accept the Crown and free the Kingdom from the spoil and tyranny of Boyes and Women together with that infinite train of Strangers Bawdes and Leachers which depend on them which was as great a Master-piece in the art of mischief as the wit of malice could devise 36. As for his Doctrines in reference to the common duties between Kings and Subjects we may reduce them to these heads that is to say 1. That the Authority of Kings and Supreme Magistrates is circumscribed and limited by certain bounds which if they pass their Subjects are no longer tyed unto their obedience that Magistrates do exceed those bounds when either they command such things as God forbiddeth or prohibit that which he commands that therefore they are no longer to be obeyed if their Commands are contrary to the Rules of Piety or Christian Charity of which the Subjects must be thought the most competent Judges 2. That there were companies and societies of men before any Magistrates were set over them which Magistrates were no otherwise set over them then by common consent that every Magistrate so appointed was bound by certain Articles and Conditions agreed between them which he was tyed by Oath to preserve inviolable that the chief end for which the people chose a Superiour Magistrate was that they might remain in safety under his protection and therefore if such Magistrates either did neglect that end or otherwise infringe the Articles of their first Agreement the Subjects were then discharged from the bond of obedience and that being so discharged from the bond of obedience it was as lawful for them to take up Arms against their King in maintainance of their Religion Laws and Liberties if indangered by him as for a Traveller to defend himself by force of Arms against Thieves and Robbers 3. That no Government can be rightly constituted in which the Grandeur of the Prince is more consulted then the weal of the People that to prevent all such incroachments on the Common Liberty the people did reserve a power of putting a curb upon their Prince or Supreme Magistrates to hold them in such as the Tribunes were in Rome to the Senate and Consuls and the Ephori to the Kings of Sparta that such a power as that of the Spartan Ephori is vested in the seven Electors of the German Empire which gives them an Authority to depose the Emperour if they see cause for it and that the like may be affirmed of the English Parliaments who oftentimes have condemned their Kings but he knows not whom 4. That by the first constitutions of the Realm of France the Supreme power was not entrusted to the King but the three Estates so that it was not lawful for the King to proclaim a War or to lay Taxes on the people but by their consent that these Estates assembled in a Common Council did serve instead of eyes and ears to a prudent Prince but to a wicked and ungoverned for Bit or Bridle and that according to this power they dethroned many of their Kings for their Lusts Luxuries Cruelty Slothfulness Avarice c. that if they proceeded not in like manner with the King then Reigning it was because they had an high esteem with scorn and insolence enough of his eminent Vertues his Piety Justice and Fidelity and the great commendations which was given of his Mothers Chastity and therefore finally which was the matter to be proved by those Factious Principles that it was altogether as lawful for the French to defend themselves their Laws and Liberties against the violent assault of a furious Tyrant so he calls their King as a Traveller by Thieves and Robbers Which Aphorisms he that listeth to consult in the Author may finde them from pag. 57. to 66. of the second Dialogue and part 1. pag. 8. 37. But notwithstanding these indignities
was the ruine of their Party and that they could not otherwise preserve their power then by open War The Prince of Conde seizeth on La Fere in Picardy and the King of Navar makes himself Master by strong hand on the City of Cahors which draws the King again from his Meditations under which must be covered his retirement from all publick business But La Fere being regained from the Prince of Conde the sacking of Cahors was connived at and the breach made up that so the Hugonots might be tempted to consume their Forces in the Wars of Flanders to which they were invited by their Brethren of the Belgick Provinces who had called in the Duke of Anjou against their King And so long France remained in quiet as that War continued But when the Duke returned after two or three years and that there was no hopes of his reverting to so great a charge the Hugonots wanting work abroad were furnished with this occasion to break out at home The Catholick League had now layn dormant for some years none seeming more Zealous then the King in the Cause of Rome But when it was considered by the Duke of Guise and the rest of the League that the Duke of Anjou being dead and the King without any hope of Issue the Crown must fall at last to the King of Navar it was resolved to try all means by which he might be totally excluded from the right of Succession For what hope could they give themselves to preserve Religion when the Crown should fall upon the head of an Heretick an Heretick relapsed and therefore made uncapable of the Royal Dignity by the Canon-Laws Of these Discourses and Designes of the Guisian Faction the King of Navar takes speedy notice and prepares accordingly thinking it best to be before-hand and not to be taken unprovided when they should come And to that end having first cleared himself by a Declaration from the crime of Heresie and now particularly from being a relapsed Heretick with many foul recriminations on the House of Guise he sends his Agents to sollicite the German Princes to come in to aid him against the oppressions of the League which seemed to aim at nothing but the ruine of the Realm of France which so exasperated those of the Guisian Faction that they prevailed by their Emissaries with Pope Sixtus the Fifth to Excommunicate the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde and to declare them both uncapable of the Royal Succession as relapsed Hereticks Which he performed in open Consistory on the ninth of September 1585 and published the sentence by a special Bull within three dayes after 41. The French King in the mean time findes himself so intangled in the Snares of the League and such a general defection from him in most parts of the Kingdom that he was forced by his Edict of the ninth of Iuly to revoke all former grants and capitulations which had been made in favour of the Hugonot party After which followed a new War in which the Switz and Germans raise great Levies for the aid of the Hugonots sollicited thereunto amongst many others by Theodore Beza who by his great Eloquence and extraordinary diligence did prevail so far that the Princes Palatine the Count Wirtemberge the Count of Montbelguard and the Protestant Cantons of the Switz agreed to give them their assistance Amongst whom with the helps which they received from the King of Denmark and the Duke of Saxony a mighty Army was advanced consisting of thirty two thousand Horse and Foot that is to say twelve thousand German Horse four thousand Foot and no fewer then sixteen thousand Switz For whose advance besides a general contribution made on all the Churches of France the sum of sixty thousand Crowns was levyed by the Queen of England and put into the hands of Prince Casimire before remembred who was to have the Chief Command of these Forreign Forces These Forreign Forces made much greater by the accession of eight thousand French which joyned unto them when they first shewed themselves upon the Borders Of which two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot were raised by the Signory of Geneva But before this vast Army could come up to the King of Navar the Duke of Ioyeuse gives him battel near a place called Coutrasse at which time his whole Forces were reduced to four thousand Foot and about two thousand five hundred Horse with which small Army encountred a great power of the Duke of Ioyeuse and obtained a very signal Victory there being slain upon the place no fewer then three thousand men of which the Duke of Ioyeuse himself was one more then three thousand taken prisoners together with all the Baggage Arms and Ammunition which belonged to the Enemy After which followed the defeat of the Germans by the Duke of Guise and the violent proceedings of the Leaguers against the King which brought him to a necessity of joyning with the King of Navar and craving the assistance of his Hugonot Subjects whose Arms are now legitimated and made acts of Duty In which condition I shall leave them to their better Fortunes first taking a survey of the proceedings of the Calvinists in the neighbouring Germany passing from thence to the Low Countries and after crossing over to the Isles of Britain The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration of the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformation begun by Luther and pursued by Zuinglius was entertained in many Provinces of the Higher Germany according as they stood affected to either party or were transported by the ends and passions of their several Princes But generally at the first they inclined to Luther whose way of Reformation seemed less odious to the Church of Rome and had the greatest approbation from the States of the Empire the Duke of Saxony adhered unto him at his first beginning as also did the Marquess of Brandenbourg the Dukes of Holsteine the two Northern Kings and by degrees the rest of the German Princes of most power and value except onely those of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria the three Elector Bishops the Duke of Cleve the Marquess of Baden and generally all the Ecclesiasticks which were not under the Command of the Lutheran States The Prince Electoâ— Palatine came not in to the party till the year 1546. At which time Frederick the Second though scarce warm in his own Estate on which he entred Anno 154â— took the advantage of the time to reform his Churches the Emperour being then brought low by the change of Fortune and forced not long after to abandon Germany Upon the 1â— of Ianuary he caused Divine Offices to be celebrated in the Mother-tongue in
the chief Church of Heidelberg the principal City of the lower Palatinate and the chief Seat of his 〈◊〉 The news whereof encouraged all the rest of the Protestant Princes to congratulate with him and to desire him to embrace the Confession of Ausberge to which he readâ—ly accorded and setled all things in his Countries by the Lutheran Model as well for Government and Doctrine as for Forms of Worship In which condition it continued during the residue of his life and the short Government of Otho-Henry who succeeded him in those Estates and was the last of the direct Line of the House of Bavaria After whose death Anno 1559 succeeded Frederick Duke of Simmeren descended from Steven Palatine of Zuidbrook or Bipont younger son of the Emperour Rupert From whom the Princes of the other House had delivered their Pedigree Which Prince succeeding by the name of Frederick the Third appeared more favourable to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Forms animated thereunto by some â—eedy Courtiers in hope to make a prey of â—lebe and Tythes and other poor remainders of the Churches Patrimony 2. For the advancing of this Work Gualâ—er a very moderate and learned man is desired from Zurick and cheerfully undertakes the Service in which he prospered so well that he took off most of the Princes from their former opinions and brought them to conform their judgements in all points of Doctrine to the Confession of the Switzer or Helvetian Churches The Discipline of which Churches differed at that time from Calâ—ins Platform as appears clearly by some passages in a Letter of Bullingers bearing date Decemb. 13. 1553 when Calvin was necessitated to beg some tolerable approbation of his new Device For there it is expresly said that though their Discipline at Zurick and the rest of the Cantons agreed not in all points with that of the Consistory which had been setled at Geneva but was accommodated to the temper of their own Dominions yet they desired not the subversion of Calvins Model which seemed so necessary at that time for the Town of Geneva that they advised not to have it altered But more particularly it appears by Beza in the life of Calvin and by the Letter of Ligerus before remembred that Excommunications were not used in any of the Reformed Churches whether they were of Lutheran or Zuinglian judgement But scarce had Gualter so setled Zuinglianism in the Church of Heidelberg and those which did depend upon it when a bold Challenger from Geneva deâ—ies them all and undertakes to prove this Proposition in the publick Schools That to a Minister assisted with the help of his Eldership doth appertain the power of Excommunication by the Law of God Hereupon followed that famous Disputation in the Schools of Heidelberg the substance whereof we finde drawn up in Vrsines Catechism from pag. 835. to pag. 847. of the English Edition By which it doth appear that the name of the Respondent was George Withers a Native of England and that one Peter Boquine was the Moderator and therefore Withers must be taken to have made the Challenge The Theses then maintained by Withers were these two that follow viz That to the sincere preaching of the Word and the lawful administration of the Sacraments is required an Office or Power of Government in the Church 2. That a Minister with his Eldership ought to enjoy and exercise a Power of Convicting Reproving Excommunicating and Executing any part of Ecclesiastical Discipline or any Offenders whatsoever even on Princes themselves 3. The Arguments by which the Respondent was assaulted together with the answers which were made unto them were taken by the pen of Vrsine a Divine of Heidelberg who was present at the Disputation and by his means transmitted to the use of the Church the Title of his Abstract this viz. 〈◊〉 Arguments assoyled whereby some in a publiâ—k Disputation held in Heidelberg 1568 June 10. Dr. Peter Boquine being Moderator and Mr. George Withers English man Respondent endeavoured to abolish Ecclesiastical Discipline Which Arguments and their solutions were taken word for word from the mouth of Dr. Ursine at the repetition of this disputation on the next day privately made in Colleg. Sapient For further satisfaction I refer the Reader to the Book it self and shall now onely add this note viz. that as the Arguments were not found sufficient to beat down that power which Christ had left unto his Church for excommunicating scandalous and notoriâ—us sinners so neither were the Answers strong enough to preserve Lay-elders in the possession of a power that belonged not to them Which was in time the issue of the disputation which afterwards was so hotly followed between Theodore Beza on the one side and Dr. Thomas Erastus whom Calvin mentioneth in his Epistle to Olerianus Doctor of Physick on the other Beza evincing the necessity of Excommunication in the Church of Christ and Erastus proving nothing to the contrary but that Lay-elders were not necessary to the exercise of it Which disputation lasted long and effected little managed on both sides in Printed Tractates the last of which was that of Beza first published at Geneva reprinted afterwards at London An. 1590. But in the mean time the Genevian Discipline was admitted in both Palatinates the Country divided into Classes and Synodical meetings those Classes subdivided into their Presbyteries and each Presbytery furnished with a power of Excommunication and exercising such Church-censures as the Fact required But then we are to know withal that those wise Princes being loath to leave too much Authority in the hands of the Elderships with whose encroachments on the power of the Civil Magistrate they were well acquainted appointed some Superiour Officers of their own nomination to sit as Chief amongst them without whom nothing could be done and they were sure that by them nothing would be done which either might intrench upon their Authority or their people's Liberty A temperament for which they were beholden to the said Erastus who being a Doctor of Physick as before was noted devised this Pill to purge Presbytery of some Popish humours which secretly lay hid in the body of it 4. The like alloy was mixed with the Genevian Discipline in the Churches of Hassia Nassaw and those other petite Estates and Signories which make up the Confederacie of the Wetterâ—vians Which having once received the Doctrine of Zuinglius did shortly after entertain the Calvinian Elderships but moderated and restrained in those Exorbitancies which the Presbyterians actually committed in the Realm of Scotland and in most places else subjected unto their Authority But in regard the Palatine Churches are esteemed as a Rule to the rest the rest of Germany I mean in all points of Doctrine and that the publick Catechism thereof is generally reckoneâ— for Authentick not onely in the Churches of the Higher Germany but in the Netherland-Churches also it will not be amiss to take notice of them in such Doctrinal Points
of all men that malice it self could make no just exception against the persons A quarrel therefore must be picked against the Form and Manner of their indowment which was by founding them in such wealthy Monasteries as were best able to maintain them the Patrimony which anciently was allotted to the use of the Abbot being to be inverted after the death of the incumbent to the use of the Bishop This was presented to the Monks as a great disfranchisement a plain devesting of them of their Native Priviledges not onely by depriving them of the choice of their Governour but by placing over them an imperious Lord instead of an indulgent Father The Magistrates and people of such of the Cities as were designed for the Sees of the several Bishops were practised on to protest against their admission by whose establishment the common people must be subject to more Masters then before they were and the Magistrates must grow less in power and reputation then they had been formerly They represented to the Merchants that without liberty of Conscience it was not possible there could be liberty of Trade the want whereof must needs bring with it their impoverishing a sensible decay of all sorts of Manufactures and consequently an exposing of the common people to extremest beggery Which consideration as appeared soon after was alone sufficient not onely to ingage the Merchants but to draw after them that huge rabble of Mechanical people which commonly make up the greatest part of all populous Cities that depended on them But nothing better pleased the discontented Nobility then their Invectives against Granvel against whom and such of the Court-Lords as adhered unto him they fastened their most scandalous and infamous Libels upon every post not sparing through his sides to wound the honour of the King and reproach the Government which by this means they made distasteful to the common subjects 23. By these devices and some others of like dangerous nature they gained not onely many of the common people but divers of the greatest Lords some also of the principal Cities and not a few of the Regulars or Monastick Clergy By means whereof their Friends and Factors grew so powerful as to oppose such motions both in Court and Council as tended to the prejudice of the Reformation insomuch that when King Philip had given order to the Dutchess of Parma to send two thousand Hoâ—se to the aid of Charles the French King against the Hugonots the Prince of Orange and his party did openly oppose and finally over-rule it at the Council-Table This gave incouragement to the Calvinists to try their Fortune once again not in Valenciennes as before but in the principal Cities of Brabant and Flanders At Rupelmond a chief Town of Flanders a Priest which had been gained unto their opinions and was imprisoned for the same fell on a desperate design of â—iâ—ing the next room unto him wherein were kept the Monuments and Records of the Prince to the end that while the Guards were busied in preserving things that concerned the publick he might finde a handsome oportunity to get out of their hands But the fire being sooner quenched then he had imagined both he and his Accomplices which were nine in number were brought unto the place of Execution and there justly suffered the Priest himself declaiming bitterly against Calvin at his Execution and charging all his sufferings upon upon that account At Antwerp one Fabricius once a Carmelite Fryar but now a great promoter of Calvins Doctrines had gained much people to that side for which being apprehended he had judgement of death But being brought unto the Stake such a shower of Stones was seen to fall upon the head of the Hang-man that not daring to abide the storm till the fire had done he drew his Sword and sheathed it in the Prisoners body and after saved himself by seeming to make one in the Tumult And the next day they caused some Verses writ in bloud to be posted up in which was signified that there were some in Antwerp who had vowed revenge for the death of Fabricius though afterwards they surceased upon the executing of one of the Mutineers and entertained more sober and religious counsels But the distemper seemed much greater in the Town of Bruges where the Inquisitors Deputy had sent a man to prison on a suspition of Heresie with a Guard of three Officers to attend him at which the Senate was so moved that they commanded the Officers to be seized upon to be committed close prisoners and to be fed with nothing but bread and water the party in the mean time being set at liberty 24. Startled with Tumult after Tumult but more with the unhandsome carriage of the Senate of Bruges the King gives order to his Sister the Lady Governess to see his Fathers Edicts severely executed and more particularly to take special care that the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent be presently received and obeyed in all the Provinces Against which Orders of the King though many of the great Lords opposed at the Council-Table yet the Governess carried it at the last And thereupon the opposite party incensed the Brabanters against admitting the Edicts or the Tridentine Council as tending manifestly to the violation of their ancient priviledges At which though most of them took fire yet it burned but slowly proceeding onely at the first in the way of Remonstrance which for the most part carried more smoke then flame But after the Ministers and Agents of Lodowick Count of Nassaw one of the younger brothers of the Prince of Orange were returned from Heidelberg there appeared a kinde of new spirit amongst the people He had before with certain other Noble-men of his age and quality betook himself unto Geneva either for curiosity or study or for some worse purpose where being wrought upon by the Calvinians which conversed with them and finding their own people to be very inquisitive after new opinions they were not sparing in the commendation of the Religion which they found exercised in that City and seemed to wish for nothing more then that they might have liberty of Conscience to profess the same But knowing that so great a business could not be carried on successfully but by force of Arms he had his Agents in the Court of the Prince Elâ—ctor for getting some assistance if it came to blows or under colour of his name to awe the Governess And it fell out according unto his desire for hereupon the party animated with new hopes renewed their former course of libelling against the present Government with greater acrimony then before dispersing no fewer then five thousand of those scandalous Pamphlets within the compass of a year by which the people were exasperated and fitted for engaging in any action which by the cunning of their Leaders and the insinuations of their Preachers should be offered to them 25. But these were onely the preparatives to the following
in earnest the name of Gheuses and by that name were solemnly proclaimed by that Raskal Rabble at their coming out which name being taken thus upon them as the mark of their Faction was afterwards communicated to all those of the same Religion 28. Returning to their several dwellings they caused a mischievous report to be spread abroad not onely that they had obtained a suspension of the Emperours Edicts and an exemption from the power of the Inquisition but that the Companions of the Order of the Golden Fleece being men of most Authority both in Court and Council had declared for them in the Cause To gain belief to which report a false and counterfeit paper is dispersed amongst them in which it was notified to all that should read the same that the Lords and Companions of the Fleece had sworn by their Order to the Gentlemen chosen by the Estates of the Country to present the desires of the people to the Lady Regent That from thenceforth the Ecclesiastical Inquisitors and other Magistrates should punish no man for his Religion neither by imprisonment exile or death unless it were joyned with a popular tumult and the publick ruine of their Country of which the Covenanters themselves were to be the Iudges And though the Governess took the wisest and most speedy course both to discover and proclaim the danger of so lewd a practice and used all honest ways for the undeceiving of the people in that Particular yet either she obtained no credit to her Anti-Remonstrances or found the Venome too far spread for so weak an Antidote For presently upon the scattering and dispersing of the said Declaration as many of the Reformed parties as had fled the Country returned again unto their Houses and such as had concealed themselves or otherwise dissembled their Religion began more confidently to a vow the profession of it For whose incouragement and increase there was no want of diligence in such of the Ministers as resorted to them out of France first preaching to them in the Fields and afterwards in some of their open Towns but every where bitterly inveighing against the Tyranny of the Pope the pride of Spain and the corruptions of the Clergy but most especially of the Bishops whom they chiefly aimed at By these invectives and their continual preaching up of a popular liberty their followers so exceedingly increased in a very short time that in the Fields near the Citie of Toâ—rnay there were seen no fewer then eight thousand persons at a Sermon a greater multitude then that in the Fields near Lisles and sometimes more then double that number in the fields near Antwerp But in such Parts and Provinces as lay nearest France they took greater liberty and fell from Preaching to the Ministration of the Sacraments and Sacramentals Marrying some and Baptizing others according to the Form devised by Calvin but Sanctifying all by a continual intermixture of Davids Psalms translated into French Meter as before was said Together with these French Preachers and Calvinian Ministers there entred several Emissaries sent from the Admiral Colligni the Prince of Conde and others of the Heads of the Hugonot Faction whose interest it was to imbroyl the Netherlands that they themselves might fear no such danger on that side as formerly they had received And these men play'd their parts so well that a confused Rabble of the common people furnished with Staves Hatchets Hammers and Ropes and armed with some few Swords and Muskets upon the Eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin fell violently into the Towns and Villages about St. Omers one of the chief Cities of Artois forced open all the Doors of Churches and Religious Houses if they found them shut demolished all the Altars and defaced the Shrines and broke the Images in pieces not sparing any thing which in the Piety of their Ancestors was accounted sacred Encouraged by which good success they drive on to Ipres a Town of Flanders where they were sure to finde a party prepared for them by which the Gates of the City were set open to give them entrance no sooner were they entred but they went directly to the Cathedral their multitudes being much increased all the way they came where presently they fell to work some beating down the Images with Staves and Hammers some pulling down the Statues of our Saviour with Ropes and Ladders other defacing Pulpits Altars and the Sacred Ornaments burning the Books and stealing the Consecrated Plate With the same fury they proceeded to the burning of the Bishops Library and the destroying of all Churches and Religious Houses within that City in which they found as little opposition from the hands of that Magistrate as if they had been hired and imployed in that service by the Common Council About the same time that is to say on the morrow after the Assumption another party being of the same affections and taking both example and encouragement from this impunity fall into Menim Commines Vervich and other Towns upon the Lys In all which they committed the like impious out-rages carrying away with them Plate and Vestments and all other consecrated things which were easily portable but burning or destroying what they could not carry The like they would have done also at the Town of Seclin but that the people rose in Arms assaulted them and drove them back not without great slaughter of that mutinous and seditious Rabble and some loss of themselves 30. In Antwerp the chief City of Brabant they found better Fortune They had before attained to so great a confidence that having assembled in the Fields to hear a Sermon according to their usual custom and finding their number to amount unto fifteen thousand they mounted their Preacher on a Horse and brought him triumphantly into the City attended by a strong Guard both of Horse and Foot to the great terrour and affrightment of the principal Magistrates For remedy of which disorders the Governess sent thither the Count of Megen and afterwards the Prince of Orange with some slender Forces on the approaching of which last for the first was presently recalled as a man less popular infinite multitudes of the people went out to meet him entertained him with the accustomed acclamation of Vive les Gueux and cryed him up for the great Patron and Protector of the Belgick Liberty At which though he seemed outwardly to be somewhat offended yet it was easie to be seen that he received a secret contentment in it and therefore acted nothing whilst he stayed amongst them by which he might become less gracious in the eye of that Faction then he was before Encouraged by which remisness and being privately excited by some of his Followers they abate little or nothing of their former insolencies which they discovered not long after his departure to the Court of Brussels by their violent disturbance of a solemn Procession made by the Clergy of that City in honour of their supposed Patroness the
own peace at home he might the less regard the Tumults which were raised in the Netherlands and yet for fear that Project might not take effect it was agreed upon that a combination should be made between the heads of the Covenanters and the principal Merchants between whom it was finally concluded and the conclusion ratified by a solemn taking of the Sacrament on either side that the Covenanters should protect the Merchants against all men whatsoever who laboured to restrain them in the freedom of Conscience and that the Merchants should supply the Covenanters with such sums of money as might enable them to go through with the Work begun It also was agreed upon that the Calvinian party for a time should suppress their own and make profession of conformity to the Lutheran Doctrines contained in the Confession of Ausberg in hope thereby of having succour and relief from the Lutheran Princes if the King should seek to force them in the way of Arms which was accordingly performed And that being done they cast themselves into a separate and distinct Republick from that of the State erect a Supreme Consistory in the City of Antwerp and some inferiour Judicatories in the other Cities but all subordinate unto that of Antwerp in which they take upon them the choice of Magistrates for managing and directing all Affairs which concerned the Faction 34. Of all these Plots and Consultations the King is punctually informed by the vigilant Governess and thereupon caused a report to be dispersed that he intended to bestow a Royal visit on his Belgick Provinces but first to smooth the way before him by a puissant Army On this advertisement the Governess resumes her courage complains how much the Covenanters had abused her favours and publickly declares that she had onely given them leave to meet together for hearing Sermons of their own but that their Ministers had took upon them to Baptize and Marry and perform all other Sacred Offices in a different manner from that allowed of by the Church That they had set up divers Consistories and new Forms of Government not warranted by the Laws of the several Provinces That they had opened divers Schools for training up their Children in Heretical Principles That they had raised great sums of Money under pretence of purchasing a toleration of the King whose Piety was too well known to be so corrupted but in plain truth to levy Souldiers for a War against him That therefore she commands all Governours and Deputy-Governours in their several Provinces not onely to dissolve Heretical Meetings otherwise then for Sermons onely in the time to come but to put Garrisons into such of the Towns and Cities as were held suspected or were most likely to be seized on to the Kings disservice By this Remonstrance seconded with the news of the Kings intention the leading Covenanters were so startled that they resolved on the beginning of the War and were accordingly in Arms before the Governess had either raised Horse or Foot more then the ordinary Train bands which were to be maintained in continual readiness by the Rules of that Government But first they thought it most agreeable to the State of Affairs to possess themselves of such strong Towns as either stood convenient for the letting in of Forreign Succours or otherwise for commanding the adjoyning Territories In which designe they speed so well that many great Towns declare for them of their own accord some were surprised by such of the Calvinian Leaders as had friends amongst them and some were willing to stand neutral till they saw more of it But none fared better at the first then Anthony of Bomberg one of the Calvinists of Antwerp who having formerly served the Hugonot Princes in the Wars of France had put himself into the Bosch from whence the Faction had not long before expelled their Bishop And there he played his game with such fraud and cunning that he put the people into Arms made himself Master of the Town and turned the Cannon upon Count Meghen who was Commissionated by the Governess amongst other things to plant a Garrison in the same 35. This good success encouraged many of the rest to the like attempts but few of them with so good Fortune The Count of Brederode having Fortified his own Town of Viana a small Town of Holland stretcheth his Arms from thence to imbrace the rest and takes in Amsterdam it self without opposition but having the like aim on Vtrecht he found his hopes defeated by the Count of Meghen who got in before him Worse fared â—t with Philip de Marnix Lord of Tholouse another of the Antwerpian Calvinists of greater power then Bomberg but of less dexterity holding intelligence with the Provost of Middleberg he entertained a design of surprising Vlushing and therewith the whole Isle of Walcheren and the rest of Zealand To which end he embarks his men and sails down the Scheldt not without some good hope of effecting his enterprize before any discovery was made of it But the Governess knew of what importance the said Island was and was there before him in her Forces though not in her person Repulsed from thence he marcheth back again towards Antwerp takes up his Quarters in the Borough of Ostervill the Southwark as it were of Antwerp and from thence so named where he is set upon by Lanoy another of the Regents Captains the Borough fired about his ears himself burned in a Barn fifteen thousand of his Souldiers killed in the flight three hundred of them taken and then put to the Sword Which execution was thought necessary as the case then stood for fear the Calvinists in the City might renew the fight and put him worse to it then before Nor were they wanting to their Friends in that desperate exigent whose slaughter they beheld from the Walls of the City But when they thought to pass the Bridge they found no Bridge at all to give them passage the Prince of Orange being then at Antwerp had caused it to be broken down the day before not out of any designe to prevent the Calvinists from assisting their Brethren but rather to hinder the Victorious Catholicks if it should so happen from making any use of it to possess the City But the Calvinists not knowing of his secret purposes tumultuously assembled to the number of fourteen thousand men fell foul upon him in the Streets reviled him by the name of Traytor and clapped a Pistol to his Breast and questionless had proceeded to some greater outrage if the Lutherans hating the Calvinists and as hateful to them had not joyned with the Papists and thereby over-powered them both in strength and numbers 36. But none fared worse then the Calvinians of Tournay and Valenciennes though they were both stronger and more numerous then in other places Those of Valenciennâ—s had refused to admit a Garrison encouraged by their French Preachers to that disobedience But being besieged by Norcarmius Deputy-Governour of
propositions as were made to him at the first by Count Lodowick his Ministers and alter by the Agent of the Prince himself He had sent some aid not long before to support the Hugonots But now his Souldiers being returned from France and grown burdensome to him are drawn together into a body and with the help of some others out of France and Germany compound an Army of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sends Prince Christopher a younger son under the conduct of Count Lodowick and his Brother Henry But they had scarce entred within the Borders of Gelderland where they expected an addition of fresh Forces from the Prince of Orange when they were set upon by Sanchio d' Avila before mentioned and routed with so great a slaughter that almost all the whole Army were either taken prisoners remedilesly wounded or slain outright and as for their three Generals Lodowick of Nassaw Grave Henry and the young Prince Christopher they were either slain fighting in the battail or trampled under the Horses Feet or finally stisled in the flight as they crossed the Fens the last more probable because their bodies were not to be found on the strictest search 43. But not withstanding this misfortune neither the Prince Elector nor the Prince of Orange could be moved to desert the Cause which by the temptation of revenge was grown dearer to them For after this we finde Prince Casimir another of the Palatine Princes in the Head of an Army raised for assisting the Confederates in the Belgick Provinces by which name they began to be commonly called after the death of Requesenes who had succeeded Alva in the publick Government but wanting time before his death to settle the command in some trusty hands till some Supreme Officer might be sent unto them from the Court of Spain the Government devolved for the present on the Council of State and was invaded afterwards by the States themselves whose Deputies assembling in the Council-house or Court of Brussels made up the body of that Council which governed all Affairs both of Peace and War But great contentions growing betwixt them and the Souldiers and those contentions followed on either side with great animosities the Prince of Orange had a most excellent opportunity for the establishing of his new Dictatorship over Holland and Zealand and some of the adjoyning Provinces of less name and note But being weary at the last of their own confusions and more impatient of the insupportable insolencies of the Spanish Souldiers an Association is first made in the Provinces of Brabant Flanders Artois and Haynalt By which it was agreed in Writing and confirmed by Oath that they should mutually assist each other against the Spaniards till they had cleared the Country of them And with these Provinces consisting for the most part of such as were counted Catholicks Holland and Zealand with the rest though esteemed heretical did associate also which Union is called commonly the Pacification of Gaunt because agreed on in that City and was so much insisted on by the Heads of the Leaguers that it was counselled by the Prince not to admit of Don Iohn for their Supreme Governour till he had ratified and confirmed that Association 44. But because there was no mention of maintaining the Kings Authority or preserving the Catholick Religion in the Originals of the League it was found necessary to provide for both by some explication to take away the envy and suspition of that great disloyalty which otherwise must have fallen upon them And by that explication it was thus declared viz. that they would faithfully from thenceforth maintain the League for the conservation of their most Sacred Faith and the Roman Catholick Religion for preserving the Pacification made at Gaunt for the expulsion of the Spaniards and their adherents their due obedience to the Kings most excellent Majesty being always tendered According to which explication it was confirmed by Don Iohn under the name of the perpetual Edict with the Kings consent who thought his own Authority and the Roman Religion to be thereby sufficiently provided for but he found the contrary For when the Prince of Orange was required to subscribe to the Pacification with the addition of two Clauses for constancie in this Religion and the Kings obedience he refused it absolutely assuring such as moved it to him that the Provinces under his command or consederacie with him were barred in Conscience from subscribing to the preservation of the Romish Faith And at this time it was that he merrily told the Duke of Arescot who was one of the Delegates that there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart He well foresaw that the agreement betwixt Don Iohn and the Estates of the Country would not long continue and he resolved to make some advantage of the breach whensoever it hapned Nor was he any thing mistaken in the one or the other for discontents and jealousies encreasing mutually between the parties Don Iohn leaves Brussels and betakes himself to the Castle of Namure for fear of an Assassinate as it was given out which was intended on his person which so incensed the Estates that by a general consent a Dictatorian or Soveraign power was put into the hands of the Prince of Orange by the name Ruart according to the priviledge and practice of the Brabanters in extreme necessities Invested with which power he instituteth a new face of Government both in Brussels it self and many of the Towns adjoyning modelled after the Example of Holland and Zealand He demolished also the great Fort at Antwerp which had been raised with so great Pride and Ostentation by the Duke of Alva The like done also in demolishing the Castles of Gant Vtrecht Lisle Valenciennes and some other places performed by such alacrity by them that did it as if they had shaken off the Yoke of some Forreign servitude An Oath was also framed for renouncing all obedience to Don Iohn their Governour and people of all sorts compelled to take it for the refusal whereof by the Iesuits of Antwerp a Rabble of Calvinian Zealots on the day of Pentecost forced open the doors of that Society plundred their houses of all things Sacred and Prophane and set the Father on board a Ship of the Hollanders with great scorn and insolencie to be landed in some other Country 45. The like done also to the Fathers of Tournay Bruges and Maestricht banished on the same account from their several Cities with whom were also exiled in some places Franciscan Fryars in others many secular Priests who would not easily be perswaded to abjure their Loyalty By whose departure divers Churches were left destitute and unprovided of incumbents to instruct the people which so increased the confidence and hopes of the Calvinians that they not onely petitioned the Estates for liberty of Conscience but for the publick use of Churches in their several Territories but being refused in their
desires though the Prince of Orange openly appeared for them they were resolved no longer to expect the lazie temper of Authority but actually took possession of some of the Churches in Brabant Gelderland and Flanders and openly exercised that Religion which till then they had professed in secret nor durst the Estates do any thing in vindication of their own Authority considering what necessary use they might have of them in the present War against Don Iohn and from how great a person they received incouragement But in the midst of this career they received a stop for the Confederates being vanquished by Don Iohn at the battail of Gemblack Brussels and all the Towns of Brabant submitted themselves one after another to the power of the conquerour Philipivil a strong Town of Haynalt Limburg and Dalem with some others not so easily yeilding were either forced by long siege or some violent storming or otherwise surrended upon capitulations During which Sieges and Surrendries the Prince of Orange who had escaped with safety from the battail of Gemblack was busied in establishing his Dominion on the Coast of Holland In which designe he found no opposition but at Amsterdam constant at that time even to miracle both to their old Religion and their old Obedience But being besieged on all sides both by Sea and Land they yeilded on condition of enjoying the free exercise of their former Faith and of the like Freedom from all Garrisons but of Native Citizens But when they had yeilded up the Town they were not onely forced to admit a Garrison but to behold their Churches spoil'd their Priests ejected and such new Teachers thrust upon them as they most abominated But liberty of Religion being first admitted a confused liberty of opinions followed shortly after till in the end that Town became the common Sink of all Sects and Sectaries which hitherto have disturbed the Church and proved the greatest scandal and dishonor of the Reformation 46. Holland had lately been too fruitful of this viperous brood but never more unfortunate then in producing David George of Delfe and Henry Nicholas of Leiden the two great Monsters of that age but the impieties of the first were too gross and horrid to finde any followers the latter was so smoothed over as to gain on many whom the Impostor had seduced The Anabaptists out of Westphalia had found shelter here in the beginning of the Tumults and possibly might contribute both their hearts and hands to the committing of those spoils and outrages before remembred In imitation of whose counterfeit piety and pretended singleness of heart there started up another Sect as dangerous and destructive to humane Society as the former were for by insinuating themselves into the heart of the ignorant multitude under a shew of singular Sanctity and Integrity did afterwards infect their mindes with damnable Heresies openly repugnant to the Christian Faith In ordinary Speech they used new and monstrous kindes of expressions to which the ears of men brought up in the Christian Church had not been accustomed and all men rather wondered at then understood To difference themselves from the rest of mankinde they called their Sect by the name of the Family of Love and laboured to perswade their hearers that those onely were elected unto life Eternal which were by them adopted Children of that Holy Family and that all others were but Reprobates and Damned persons One of their Paradoxes was and a safe one too that it was lawful for them to deny upon oath whatsoever they pleased before any Magistrate or any other whomsoever that was not of the same Family or Society with them Some Books they had in which their dotages were contained and propagated first writ in Dutch and afterwards translated into other Languages as tended most to their advantage that is to say The Gospel of the Kingdom The Lords Sentences The Prophesie of the Spirit of the Lord The publication of peace upon earth by the Author H. N. But who this H. N. was those of the Family could by no fair means be induced or inforced by threatnings to reveal But after it was found to be this Henry Nicholas of Leiden whom before we spake of Who being emulous of the Glories of King Iohn of Leiden that most infamous Botcher had most blasphemously preached unto all his followers that he was partaker of the Divinity of God as God was of his humane nature How afterwards they past over into England and what reception they found there may be told hereafter 50. By giving freedom of Conscience to all Sects and Sectaries and amongst others to these also the Prince of Orange had provided himself of so strong a party in this Province that he was able to maintain a defensive War against all his opposites especially after he had gained the Ports of Brill and Vlushing which opened a fair entrance unto all adventurers out of England and Scotland For on the Rumour of this War the Scots in hope of prey and plunder the English in pursuit of Honour and the use of Arms resorted to the aid of their Belgick Neighbours whose absolute subjugation to the King of Spain was looked on as a thing of dangerous consequence unto either Nation And at the first they went no otherwise then as Voluntiers of their own accord rather connived at then permitted by their several Princes But when the Government was taken into the hands of the States and that the War was ready to break out betwixt them and Don Iohn the Queen of England did not onely furnish them with large sums of money but entred into a League or Confederation by which it was agreed That the Queen should send unto their aid one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot that they should conclude nothing respecting either Peace or War without her consent and approbation that they should not enter into League with any person or persons but with her allowance and she if she thought good to be comprehended in the same that the States should send the like aid unto the Queen if any Prince attempted any act of Hostility against her or her Kingdoms and that they should furnish her with forty Ships of sufficient burthen to serve at her pay under the Lord Admiral of England whensoever she had any necessary occasion to set forth a Navy and finally not to insist upon the rest that if any difference should arise amongst themselves it was to be referred and offered unto her Arbitrament And to this League she was the rather induced to grant her Royal assent because she had been certainly advertised by the Prince of Orange that Don Iohn was then negotiating a marriage with the Queen of Scots that under colour of her Title he might advance himself to the Crown of England And yet she ventured neither men nor money but on very good terms receiving in the way of pawn the greatest part of the rich Jewels and massie Ornaments of Plate which anciently
belonged unto the Princes of the House of Burgundy 51. This League exceedingly increased the reputation of the new Confederacy and made the States appear considerable in the eye of the world And more it might have been if either Don Iohn's improsperous Government had continued longer or if the Prince of Orange had not entertained some designs apart for himself But Don Iohn dyes in the year 1578 and leaves his Forces in the power of Alexander Farneze Prince of Parma Son to that Dutchess whom we have so often mentioned in this part of our History A Prince he was of no less parts and Military Prowess then any of his Predecessors but of a better and more equal temper then the best amongst them whereof he gave sufficient testimony in his following Government in which he was confirmed after the Kings occasioned lingrings with great state and honour For having regained from the States some of the best Towns of which they had possessed themselves before the arrival of Don Iohn he forced them to a necessity of some better counsels then those by which they steered their course since they came to the Helm And of all counsels none seemed better to the Prince of Orange then that the Country should be so cantoned amongst several Princes that every one being ingaged to defend his own the whole might be preserved from the power of the Spaniards To this end it had been advised that Flanders and Artois should return to the Crown of France of which they were holden and to the Kings whereof the Earls of both did homage in the times foregoing The Queen of England was to have been gratified with the Isles of Zealand the Dukedom of Gueldres to divert to the next Heirs of it Groning and Deventer to be incorporated with the Hans Holland and Friesland together with the districht of Vtrecht to be appropriated wholly to the Prince of Orange as the reward of his deservings the Brabanters to a new Election according to their native rights the rest of the Provinces to remain to the German Empire of which they had anciently Eleired 52. This distribution I confess had some cunning in it and must have quickly brought the Spanish pride to a very low ebb if he that laid the plot could have given the possession It is reported that when the Pope offered the Realms of Naples and Sicily to King Henry the Third for Edmond Earl of Lancaster his youngest Son he offered them on such hard conditions and so impossible in a manner to be performed that the Kings Embassadors merrily told him he might as well create a Kingdom in the Moon and bid his Master climb up to it for it should be his And such a Lunary conceit was that of the division and subdivision of the Belgick Provinces in what Calvinian head soever it was forged and hammered For being that each of the Donces was to conquer his part before he could receive any benefit from it the device was not like to procure much profit but onely to the Prince of Orange who was already in possession and could not better fortifie and assure himself in his new Dominion then by cutting out so much work for the King of Spain as probably might keep him exercised to the end of the world But this device not being likely to succeed it seemed better to the Prince of Orange to unite the Provinces under his command into a Solemn League and Association to be from thenceforth called the Perpetual Vnion Which League Association or perpetual Union bears date at Vtrecht on the 23 of Ianuary 1578 and was then made between the Provinces of Holland Zealand Guelders Zutphen Vtrecht Friesland and Overyssel with their Associates called ever since that time the Vnited Provinces In the first making of which League or perpetual Union it was provided in the first place that they should inseparably joyn together for defence of themselves their Liberty and Religion against the power of the Spaniard But it was cautioned in the second that this Association should be made without any diminution or alteration of the particular Priviledges Rights Freedoms Exemptions Statutes Customs Uses Preheminencies which any of the said Towns Provinces Members or Inhabitants at that time enjoyed Liberty of Religion to be left to those of Holland and Zealand in which they might govern themselves as to them seemed good and such a Freedom left to those of other Provinces as was agreed on at the Pacification made at Gaunt by which it was not lawful to molest those of the Church of Rome in any manner whatsoever 53. But more particularly it was provided and agreed on that such Controversies as should grow between the said Provinces Towns or Members of this Union touching their Priviledges Customs Freedoms c. should be decided by the ordinary course of Justice or by some amicable and friendly composition amongst themselves and that no other Countries Provinces Members or Towns whom those Countries did no way concern shall in any part meddle by way of friendly intermission tending to an accord Which caution I the rather note in this place and time because we may perhaps look back upon it in the case of Barnevelt when they had freed themselves from the power of the Spaniards and were at leisure to infringe the publick Liberties in the pursuit of their particular Animosities against one another But to proceed this Union as it was more advantagious unto Queen Elizabeth then the general League so was it afterwards more cordially affected by her when their necessities inforced them to cast themselves and their Estates upon her protection But these proceedings so exasperated the King of Spain that he proscribed the Prince of Orange by his publick Edict bearing date Iune 18. 1581. And on the other side the Prince prevailed so far upon those of the Union as to declare by publick Instrument that the King of Spain by reason of his many violations of their Rights and Liberties had forfeited his Estate and Interest in the several Provinces and therefore that they did renounce all manner of fidelity and obedience to him Which Instrument bears date on the twenty sixth of Iuly then next following Upon the publishing whereof they brake in pieces all the Seals Signets and Counter-signets of the King of Spain appointed others to be made by the States General for dispatch of such business as concerned the Vnion or Confederation requiring all subjects to renounce their Oaths to the said King of Spain and to take a new Oath of Fidelity to the general Estates against the said King and his adherents the like done also by all Governours Superintendents Chancellors Councellors and other Officers c. They had before drawn the Sword against him and now they throw away the Scabberd For to what end could this action aim at but to make the breach irreparable between them and the King to swell the injury so high as not to be within the compass of future
Pastimes and that the afternoon was spent in such imployment as was most suitable to the condition of each several man Nor was the morning so devoted to Religious uses but that in some of their good Towns they kept upon that day the ordinary Fairs and Markets Kirk-Masses as they commonly called them which must needs draw away a great part of the people to attend those businesses to which their several Trades and Occupations did most especially oblige them What alterations hapned in the change of times we shall see hereafter 64. Nor was that portion of the day which they were pleased to set apart for Religious Duties observed with much more reverence by those in the Church then it was by others in the Market the head uncovered very seldom and the knee so little used to kneeling as if God had created it for no such purpose And whereas once Tertullian did upbraid the Gentiles for their irreverence in sitting before some of those Gods whom they pretended to adore so might this people be reproached for using the same posture in all acts of Worship but that they do it purposely to avoid all outward signes of Adoration even in the Sacrament of the Supper in which it cannot be denyed but that our Saviour is more eminently present then in any other Divine Ordinance of what name soever they are so fearful of relapsing to their old Idolatries if by that name they may be called that they chuse rather to receive it in any posture sitting or standing yea or walking then reverently upon their knees For so they have ordained it in another Synod mentioned by Daniel Angelocratur in his Epitome Consiliorum By the decrees whereof it was left at liberty to receive that Sacrament standing sitting or walking but by no means kneeling And kneeling was prohibited Ob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 periculum for fear of falling into a new kinde of Idolatry which was never thought of in the world till they found it out that is to say Bread-worship or the Adoration of Bread it self The Conference at Hampton-Court hath told us somewhat but obscurely of these Ambling-Communions but I never understood them rightly till I saw this Canon For Canon they will have it called though most uncanonical More of the like stuff might be produced from the Acts of their Synods but that this little is too much to inform the Reader how different they are both in their Discipline and Doctrine in point of speculation and matter of practice from that which was most countenanced by the piety of the Primitive times and recommended to them by the constant and uniform tradition of the ages following 65. As is their work such is the wages they received and as the reverence is which they give to Christ in his holy Sacrament such is the honour which is paid them by the common people They had abolished the daily Sacrifice of Praise and Prayer which might have been continued though the Mass was abrogated disclaimed the hearing of Confessions the visitation of the Sick and Sacerdotal Absolution as inconsistent with the purity of their Profession took away all the annual Festivals with their Eves and Vigils and in a word reduced the whole Service of their Ministry to the Sunday-Morning Which hardly taking up the tenth part of time expended formerly by the Priests on Religious Offices they were so conscientious as to rest contented with little more then the tenth part of those yearly profits which by the Priest had been received They had besides so often preached down Tythes as a Iewish maintainance improper and unfit for Ministers of the holy Gospel when they were paid unto the Clergy of the Church of Rome that at the last the people took them at their word believe them to be so indeed and are spurred on the faster to a change of Religion in which they saw some glimmering of a present profit Of these mistakes the Prince of Orange was too wise not to make advantage giving assurance â—o the Land-holders and Country-Villagers that if they stood to him in the Wars against the Spaniard they should from thenceforth pay no Tythes unto their Ministers as before they did The Tythes in the mean time to be brought into the common Treasury toward the charges of the War the Ministers to be maintained by contributions at an easie rate But when the War was come to so fair an issue that they thought to be exempted from the payment of Tythes answer was made that they should pay none to the Ministers as they had done formerly whereby their Ministers in effect were become their Masters but that the Tythes were so considerable a Revenue to the Common-wealth that the State could not possibly subsist without them that therefore they must be content to pay them to the States Commissioners as they had done hitherto and that the State would take due care to maintain a Ministry By means whereof they do not only pay their Tythes as in former times but seeing how much the publick allowance of the State doth come short of a competencie thoughby that name they please to call it they are constrained as it were out of common charity if not compelled thereto by order to contribute over and above with the rest of the people for the improvement and increase of the Ministers maintainance But as they Bake so let them Brew to make good the Proverb And so I leave them for the present till we have traced the Presbyterian practices and positions both in England and Scotlâ—nd but in Scotland first to that point of time to which we have deduced their successes in these Belgick Provinces and then we shall hear further of them as they come in our way The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB IV. Containing Their beginning Progress and Positions their dangerous Practices Insurrections and Conspiracies in the Realm of Scotland from the year 1544 to the year 1566. 1. CRoss we next over into Scotland where the Genevian Principles were first reduced into use and practice In which respect the Presbyterians of that Realm should have had precedencie in the present story not onâ—ly before any of their Brethren in the Belgick Provinces but even before the French themselves though nearest both in scituation and affection to the Mother-City For though the Emissaries â—f Geneva had long been tampering with that active and unquiet people yet such a strict hand was held upon them both by Francis the First and Henry the Second his Successor that they durst not stir till by the death of those two Kings they found the way more free and open to pursue those counsels which by the industry of those men had been put into them before which time the Scots had acted over all those Tumults Riots and Rebellions in which not long after they were followed by the French and Netherlands But howsoever I have purposely reserved them to this time and
to wonder and much more marvelled that the Bishops had not yet suppressed the Puritans some way or other Pandocheus is made to tell him That one of their Preachers had affirmed in the Pulpit That there were One hundred thousand of them in England and that their Number in all places did encrease continually 10. By this last brag about their Numbers and somewhat which escaped from the mouth of Paul touching his hopes of seeing the Consistorian Discipline erected shortly it may be gathered That they had a purpose to proceed in their Innovations out of a hope to terrifie the State to a compliance by the strength of their Party But if that failed they would then do as Penry had advised and threatned that is to say they would present themselves with a Petition to the Houses of Parliament to the delivering whereof One hundred thousand Hands should be drawn together In the mean time it was thought fit to dissemble their purposes and to make tryal of such other means as appeared less dangerous To which end they present with one Hand a Petition to the Convocation in which it was desired That they might be freed from all Subscriptions and with the other publish a seditious Pamphlet entituled A Complaint of the Commons for a Learned Ministry But for the putting of their Counsels in execution they were for the present at a stand The Book of Discipline upon a just examination was not found so perfect but that it needed a review and the review thereof is referred to Traverse By whom being finished after a tedious expectation it was commended to the Brethren and by them approved But the worst was it was not so well liked of in the Houses of Parliament as to pass for current which so incensed those meek-spirited men that they fell presently to threatning and reviling all who opposed them in it They had prepared their way to the Parliament then sitting Anno 1586 by telling them That if the Reformation they desired were not granted they should betray God his Truth and the whole Kingdom that they should declare themselves to be an Assembly wherein the Lords Cause could not be heard wherein the felicity of miserable men could not be respected wherein Truth Religion and Piety could bear no sway an Assembly that willingly called for the Judgments of God upon the whole Realm and finally that not a man of their seed should prosper be a Parliament-man or bear rule in England any more 11. This necessary preparation being thus premised they tender to the Parliament A Book of the form of Common-Prayer by them desired containing also in effect the whole pretended Discipline so revised by Traverse and their Petition in behalf thereof was in these words following viz. May it therefore please your Majesty c. that the Book hereunto annexed c. Entituled A Book of the Form of Common-Prayers and Administration of Sacraments c. and every thing therein contained c. may be from henceforth put in use and practised through all your Majesty's Dominions c. But this so little edified with the Queen or that Grave Assembly that in the drawing up of a General Pardon to be passed in Parliament there was an Exception of all those that committed any offence against the Act for the Uniformity of Common-Prayers or that were Publishers of Seditious Books or Disturbers of Divine Service And to say the truth the Queen had little reason to approve of that Form of Discipline in which there was so little consideration of the Supreme Magistrate in having either vote or place in any of their Synodical Meetings unless he be chosen for an Elder or indicting their Assemblies either Provincial or National or what else soever or insomuch as nominating the particular time or place when and where to hold them or finally in requiring his assent to any of their Constitutions All which they challenge to themselves with far greater arrogancy than ever was exercised by the Pope or any Bishop or inferior Minister under his Command during the times of greatest Darkness But the Brethren not considering what just Reason the Queen had to reject their Bill and yet fearing to fall foul upon her in regard of the danger they let flye at the Parliament in this manner that is to say That they should be in danger of the terrible Mass of God's Wrath both in this life and that to come and that for their not abrogating the Episcopal Government they might well hope for the Favour and Entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law the Favour and loving-Countenance of Jesus Christ they should never see 12. It may seem strange that Queen ELIZABETH should carry such a hard hand on her English Puritans as well by severe Laws and terrible Executions as by excluding them from the benefit of a General Pardon and yet protect and countenance the Presbyterians in all places else But that great Monster in Nature called Reason of State is brought to plead in her defence by which she had been drawn to aid the French Hugonots against their King to supply the Rebel Scots with Men Money Arms and Ammunition upon all occasions and hitherto support those of the Belgick Provinces against the Spaniard Now she receives these last into her protection being reduced at that time unto great Extremities partly by reason of the death of the Prince of Orange and partly in regard of the great Successes of the Prince of Parma In which extremity they offered her the Soveraignty of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland to which they frame for her an unhandsom Title grounded on her descent from Philippa Wife of Edward the third Sister of William the third Earl of Heynalt Holland c. But she not harkning to that offer about the Soveraignty as a thing too invidious and of dangerous consequence cheerfully yeelded to receive them into her protection to raise an Army presently toward their defence consisting of Five thousand Foot and One thousand Horse with Money Ammunition Arms and all other necessaries and finally to put the same Arms so appointed under the Command of some Person of Honour who was to take the charge and trust of so great a Business The Confederates on the other side being very prodigal of that which was none of their own delivered into her hands the Keys of the Countrey that is to say the Towns of Brill and Flushing with the Fort of Ramekins And more then so as soon as the Earl of Leicester came amongst them in the Head of this Army which most ambitiously he affected for some other Ends they put into his hands the absolute Government of these Provinces gave him the Title of His Excellency and generally submitted to him with more outward cheerfulness than ever they had done to the King of Spain It is not to be thought but that the Presbyterian Discipline went on succesfully in those Provinces under this new Governor who having countenanced them in England
as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
Darby being then Governour of that Island as if the Magistrate had intrenched on the Minister's Office and took upon them the administration of the blessed Sacraments Of these particulars and many others of that nature intelligence was given to the late Arch-bishop Dr. Laud who had proceeded thereupon to a Reformation Anno 1637 if the Distraction then arising in the Realm of Scotland had not enforced him to a discontinuance of that Resolution AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB XII Containing Their Tumultuating in the Belgick Provinces their Practises and Insurrections in the Higher Germany the frustrating of their Design on the Churches of Brandenbourgh the Revolts of Transilvania Hungary Austria and Bohemia and the Rebellions of the French from the Year 1610 to the Year 1628. FRom Guernsey we set sail for Holland in which we left the Ministers divided into two main Factiions the one being called the Remonstrants the other taking to themselves the Name of Contra-Remonstrants To put an end to those Disorders a Conference was appointed between the Parties held at the Hague before the General Assembly of Estates of the Belgick Provinces Anno 1610. The Controversiâ— reduced to five Articles only and the Dispute managed by the ablest men who appeared in the Quarrel on either side In which it was conceived that the Remonstrants had the better of the day and came off with Victory But what the Contra-Remonstrants wanted in the strength of Argument they made good by Power For being far the greater number and countenanced by the Prince of Orange as their principal Patron they prosecuted their Opponents in their several Consistories by Suspensions Excommunications and Deprivations the highest Censures of the Church This forced the Remonstrant Party to put themselves under the protection of Iohn Olden Barnevelt an Hollander by birth and one of the most powerful men of all that Nation who fearing that the Prince of Orâ—nge had some secret purpose to make Himself absolute Lord of those Estates received them very cheerfully into his protection not without hope of raising a strong Party by them to oppose the Prince This draws K. IAMES into the Quarrel who being displeased with the Election of Conradus Vorstius to a Divinity-Reader's Place in the Schools of Leiden and not so readily gratified by the Estates in the choice of another published a Declaration against this Vorstius and therein falls exceeding foul upon Iames Van Harmine and all that followed his Opinions in the present Controversies Which notwithstanding Barnevelt gains an Edict from the States of Holland Anno 1613 by which a mutual Toleration was indulged to either Party more to the benefit of the Remonstrants than the contentment of the others An Edict highly magnified by the Learned Grotius in his Pietas Ordinum c. Against which some Answers were returned by Bogerman Sibrandus and some others not without some reflections on the Magistrates for their actings in it 2. This made the breach much wider than it was before King IAMES appearing openly in favour of the Prince of Orange the Spaniard secretly fomenting the Designs of Barnevelt as it was afterwards suggested with what truth I know not But sure it is that as K. IAMES had formerly aspersed the Remonstrant Party in His Declaration against Vorstius before remembred so He continued a most bitter Enemy unto them till he had brought them at the last to an extermination But what induced him thereunto hath been made a question Some think that he was drawn unto it by the powerful perswasions of Arch-bishop Abbot and Bishop Mountague who then much governed his Counsels in all Church-concernments Others impute it to his Education in the Church of Scotland where all the Heterodoxies of Calvin were received as Gospel which might incline him the more strongly to those Opinions which he had sucked in as it were with his Nurse's Milk Some say that he was carried in this business not so much by the clear light of his own understanding as by a transport of affection to the Prince of Orange to whom he had a dear regard and a secret sympathy Others more rationally ascribe it unto Reason of State for the preventing of a dangerous and uncurable Rupture which otherwise was like to follow in the State of the Netherlands He had then a great Stock going amongst them in regard of the two Towns of Brill and Vlushing together with the Fort of Ramekins which had been put into the hands of Queen ELIZABETH for great sums of money In which regard the Governour of the Town of Vlushing and the Ambassador resident for the Crown of England were to have place in all publick Councils which concerned those Provinces on whose Tranquillity and Power he placed a great part of the peace and happiness of his own Dominions He knew that Concord was the strongest Ligament of their Confederation and looked on the Remonstrants as the breakers of that Bond of Unity which formerly had held them so close together 3. Upon this reason he exhorts them in his said Declaration To take heed of such infected persons their own Countrey-men being already divided into Factions upon this occasion which was a matter so opposite to Vnity the only prop and safety of their State next under God as must of necessity by little and little bring them to utter ruin if wisely and in time they did not provide against it And on the same reason he concurred in Counsel and Design with the Prince of Orange for the suppressing of that Party which he conceived to be so dangerous to the common Peace and sending such of his Divines to the Synod of Dort as were most like to be sufficiently active in their condemnation For so it hapned that the Prince of Orange being animated by so great a Monarch suddenly puts himself into the head of his Forces marches from one strong Town to another changeth the Garrisons in some the chief Commanders in the rest and many of the principal Magistrates in most Towns of Holland Vtrecht and the rest of those Provinces Which done he seizeth on the person of Barnevelt as also on Grotius and Leidebrogius and then proclaims a National Synod to be held at Dort in November following to which the Calvinists were invited from all parts of Christendom And yet not thinking themselves strong enough to suppress their Adversaries they first disabled some of them by Ecclesiastical Censures from being chosen Members of it Others who had been lawfully chosen were not permitted to give suffrage with the rest of the Synodists unless they would renounce their Party And finally They took such Order with the rest that they would not suffer them to sit as Judges in the present Controversies but only to appear before them as Parties Criminal All which being condescended to though against all reason they were restrained to such a method in their disputation as carried with it a betraying of their Cause and Interest and for
acquaintance with the English brought them to more sense of Piety And now they took the opportunity to train the people to the Church in the Afternoon by the Authority and Reputation of the present Synod For having entertained the Palatine Catechism in their publick Schools it was resolved that it should be taught in all their Churches on Sunday in the After-noon That the Ministers should be bound to read and expound that Catechism though none were present at the Exercises but those of their own Families only in hope that others might be drawn after their example and that the Civil Magistrate should be employed by the Synod to restrain all Servile Works and other Prophanations of that day wherewith the Afternoons had commonly been spent that so the people might repair to the Catechisings And though some Reformation did ensue upon it in the greater Towns yet in their lesser Villages where men are more intent on their Worldly businesses it remains as formerly 11. As little of the Sabbatarian had the Palatine Churches which in all points adhered tenaciously unto Calvin's Doctrine For in those Churches it was ordinary for the Gentlemen to betake themselves in the After-noon of the Lord's Day unto Hawking and Hunting as the season of the year was fit for either or otherwise in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them As usual it was also with the Husband-man to spend the greatest part of the After-noon in looking over his Grounds ordering his Cattel and following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his Nature and Education no publick Divine Offices being prescribed for any part of that Day but the Morning only And so it stood in the year 1612 At what time the Lady ELIZABETH Daughter to K. Iames and Wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every After-noon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England gave the first hint unto that Prince to cause the like Religious Offices to be celebrated in his part of the Family afterwards by degrees in all the Churches of Heldenbourgh and finally in most other Cities and Towns of his Dominions Had he adventured no further on the confidence of that Power and Greatness which accrued to him by contracting an Alliance with so great a Monarch it had been happy for himself and the Peace of Christendom But being tempted by Scultetus and some other of the Divines about him Not to neglect the opportunity of advancing the Gospel and making himself the principal Patton of it he fell on some Designs destructive to himself and his Who though he were a Prince of a Flegmatick nature and of small Activity yet being prest by the continual sollicitation of some eager Spirits he drew all the Provinces and Princes which profest the Calvinian Doctrines to enter into a strict League or Union amongst themselves under pretence of looking to the Peace and Happiness of the true Religion 12. It much advantaged the Design that the Calvinians in all parts of Germany had began to stir as men resolved to keep the Saddle or to lose the Horse In Aix the Latins call it Aquisgranum an Imperial City they first appeared considerable for their Power and Numbers Anno 1605 at what time they shrewdly shaked the Estate thereof But being thereupon debarred the exercise of their Religion and punished for the Misdemeanor they kept themselves quiet till the year 1614 when in a popular Tumult they surprise the City secure the principal Magistrates of it and eject the Jesuits And though by the Mediation of the French Agents and those of Iulier's a Peace was for the present clapt up between them yet neither Party was resolved to stand longer to it than might serve their turns But whosoever made the reckoning the Calvinists were at last compelled to pay the shot For the Town being proscribed by Matthias the Emperor and the execution of the Ban committed to Arch-Duke Albert he sends the Marquess of Spinola with an Army thither by whom the Town is brought to a surrender the ancient Magistrates restored and the Calvinians either forced to forsake the place or to submit themselves unto Fine and Ransome if they kept their dwellings Nor did they speed much better in the City of Colen where their Party was not strong enough to suppress the Catholicks and therefore they forsook the City and retired to Mulleime which they began to build and fortifie for their habitation But those of Colen fearing that this new Town might in short time overtop that City both in Wealth and Power addrest themselves unto the Emperor Matthias By whose Command the Duke of Newbourgh falls upon it destroys the greatest part thereof and leaves the finishing of that Work to the Marquess Spinola 13. In Hassia their Affairs succeeded with more prosperous Fortune where Lodowick of the second House of the Lantgraves who had the City of Marperge for his Seat and Residence declared himself in favour of their Forms and Doctrines at such time as the Calvinists of Aix before remembred first began to stirr followed therein by George his Brother commonly called the Lantgrave of Darmstad from the place of his dwelling half of which Town belonging to the Patrimony of the Prince Elector had easily made way for Calvinism into all the rest And though this Lodowick was disturbed in his Government or Possession by his Cousin Maurice commonly called the Lantgrave of Cassells from his principal City who seized upon the Town of Marperge Anno 1612 yet was he shortly after restored to his whole Estate by the Palatine-League which for the time carried a great sway in those parts of Germany But of greater consequence were the agitations about Cleve and Gulick occasioned by a difference between the Marquess of Brandenbourgh and the Duke of Newbourgh about the partage of the Patrimony and Estates of the Duke of Cleve For Iohn-William the last Duke of Cleve deceasing without Issue in the year 1610 left his Estates between the Children of his Sisters of which the eldest called Maria Leonora was married to Albert of Brandenbourgh Duke of Prussia whose Daughter Ann being married to Iohn Sigismund the Elector of Brandenbough was Mother of George-William the young Marquess of Brandenbourgh who in her Right pretended to the whole Estate The like pretence was made by Wolfgangus Guilielmus Duke of Newbourgh descended from the Electoral Family of the Princes Palatine whose Mother Magdalen was the second Sister of the said Iohn-William The first of these Pretenders was wholly of a Lutheran Stock and the other as inclinable to the Sect of Calvin though afterwards for the better carrying on of their Affairs they forsook their Parties 14. For so it hapned that the Duke of Newbourgh finding himself too weak for the House of Brandenbourgh put himself under the protection of the Catholick King who
by the Name of Calixtins from the use of the Chalice and Subutraque from communicating in both kinds against all opposers Their Adversaries in the Church of Rome reproached them by the Name of Adamites and sometimes of Piccards imputing to them many Heterodoxies and some filthy Obscenities of which they never proved them guilty In this condition they remained till the preaching of Luther and the receiving of the Augustin Confession in most parts of the Empire which gave them so much confidence as to purge themselves from all former Calumnies by publishing a Declaration of their Faith and Doctrine Which they presented at Vienna to the Arch-Duke Ferdinand about ten years before chosen King of Bohemia together with a large Apology prefixt before it By which Confession it appears that they ascribe no Power to the Civil Magistrate in the Concernments of the Church That they had fallen upon a way of Ordaining Ministers amongst themselves without recourse unto the Bishop or any such Superior Officer as a Super-intendent And finally That they retained the use of Excommunication and other Ecclesiastical Censures for the chastising of irregular and scandalous persons In which last Point and almost all the other Branches of the said Confession though they appeared as sound and Orthodox as any others which had separated from the Church of Rome yet by their symbolizing with Geneva in so many particulars it was no hard matter for the whole Body of Calvinianism to creep in amongst them the growth whereof inflamed them to such desperate courses as they now pursued 25. For this they laid a good Foundation in the former year 1609 when Matthias with his great Army was preparing for Prague they found the Emperor in some fear from which he could not be secured but by their assistance and they resolved to husband the conjuncture for their best advantage In confidence whereof they propose unto him these Conditions viz. That the free exercise of Religion as well according to the Bohemian as the Augustin Confession might be kept inviolable and that they which professed the one should neither scoff or despise the other That all Arch-bishopricks Bishopricks Abbotships and other Spiritual Preferments should be given to the Bohemians only and that Ecclesiastical Offices should be permitted to Protestant Ministers as in former times That it should be lawful for all men in their own Bounds and Territories to build Churches for their own Religion and that the Professors and Patrons of the Vniversity of Prague should be joyned to the Consistory as in former times That all Political Offices should be indifferently permitted unto men of both Religions With many other things of like weight and moment in their Civil Concernments But the Emperor was not yet reduced to that necessity as to consent to all at once He gratified them at the present with a Conformation of their Civil Rights but put off the Demands which concerned Religion to the next Assembly of Estates conniving in the mean time at the exercise of that Religion which he could not tolerate 26. But the Calvinian Calixtins or Confessionists call them which you will perceiving a strong Party of the Catholicks to be made against them appointed a General Assembly to be holden in the City of New Prague the 4 th of May to consult of all such Matters as concerned their Cause protesting publickly according to the common Custom of that kind That this Assembly though not called by the Emperor's Authority aimed at no other End than his Service only and the prosperity of that Kingdom that both the Emperor and the Kingdom too might not through the Perswasions of his Evil Councellors be brought to extream peril and danger This done they send their Letters to the new King of Hungary the Prince Elector Palatine the Dukes of Saxony and Brunswick and other Princes of the Empire beseeching them That by their powerful intercession with His Imperial Majesty they might be suffered to enjoy the exercise of their own Religion which they affirmed to differ in no material Point from the Confession of Ausberg Following their blow they first Remonstrate to the Emperor how much they had been disappointed of their hopes and expectations from one time to another and in fine tells him in plain terms That they will do their best endeavour for the raising of Arms to the end they might be able with their utmost power to defend him their Soveraign together with themselves and the whole Kingdom against the Practises of their Forreign and Domestick Enemies According to which Resolution they forthwith raised a great number both of Horse and Foot whom they ranged under good Commanders and brought them openly into Prague They procured also that Ambassadors were sent from the Elector of Saxony and the Estates of Silesia a Province many years since incorporated with the Realm of Bohemia to intercede in their behalf This gave the Emperor a fair colour to consent to that which nothing but extream necessity could have wrested from him 27. For thereupon he published his Letters of the 14 th of Iuly 1610 by which it was declared That all his Subjects communicating under one or both kinds should live together peaceably and freely and without wronging or reviling one another under the pain and penalty of the Law to be inflicted upon them who should do the contrary That as they who communicated under one kind enjoyed the exercise of their Religion in all points throughout the Kingdom of Bohemia so they which did communicate under both kinds should enjoy the field without the lett or interruption of any and that they should enjoy the same till a general union in Religion and an end of all Controversies should be fully made That they should have the lower Consistory in the City of Prague with Power to conform the same according to their own Confession That they might lawfully make their Priests as well of the Bohemian as of the German Nation and settle them in their several Parishes without lett or molestation of the Arch-bishop of Prague and that besides the Schools and Churches which they had already it might be lawful for them to erect more of either sort as well in Cities as in Towns and Countrey Villages He declared also that all Edicts formerly published against the free exercise of Religion should be void frustrate and of none effect and that no contrary Edict against the States of the Religion should either be published by Himself or any of his Heirs and Successors or if any were should be esteemed of any force or effect in Law and finally That all such of His Majesty's Subjects that should do any thing contrary to these His Letters whether they were Ecclesiastical or Temporal persons should be severely punished as the Troublers of the Common Peace 28. The passing of this Gracious Edict which the Confessionists were not slow of putting into execution exceedingly exasperated all those of the Catholick Party who thereupon called in the
Robert Naunton principal Secretary of Estate Which Letters bearing date on the 12 th of December Anno 1619 are to be found at large in the Printed Cabala p. 169 c. and thither I refer the Reader for his satisfaction But neither the Perswasions of so great a Prelate nor the sollicitations of the Princess and her publick Ministers nor the troublesome interposings of the House of Commons in a following Parliament were able to remove that King from his first Resolution By which though he incurred the high displeasure of the English Puritans and those of the Calvinian Party in other places yet he acquired the Reputation of a Just and and Religious Prince with most men besides and those not only of the Romish but the Lutheran Churches And it is hard to say which of the two were most offended with the Prince Elector for his accepting of that Crown which of them had more ground to fear the ruin of their Cause and Party if he had prevailed and which of them were more impertinently provoked to make Head against him after he had declared his acceptance of it 32. For when he was to be Inaugurated in the Church of Prague he neither would be crowned in the usual Form nor by the hands of the Arch-bishop to whom the performing of that Ceremony did of Right belong but after such a form and manner as was digested by Scultetus his Domestick Chaplain who chiefly governed his Affairs in all Sacred matters Nor would Scultetus undertake the Ceremony of the Coronation though very ambitious of that Honour till he had cleared the Church of all Carved Images and defaced all the Painted also In both respects a-like offensive to the Romish Clergy who found themselves dis-priviledged their Churches Sacrilegiously invaded and further ruin threatned by these Innovations A Massie Crucifix had bin erected on the bridg of Prague which had stood there for many hundred years before neither affronted by the Lutherans nor defaced by the Iews though more averse from Images than all people else Scultetus takes offence at the sight thereof as if the Brazen Serpent were set up and worshipped perswades the King to cause it presently to be demolished or else he never would be reckoned for an Hezekiah in which he found Conformity to his Humour also And thereby did as much offend all sober Lutherans who retain Images in their Churches and other places as he had done the Romish Clergy by his former Follies This gave some new encrease to those former Jealousies which had been given them by that Prince first by endeavouring to suppress the Lutheran Forms in the Churches of Brandenburgh by the Arts and Practises of his Sister And secondly By condemning their Doctrine at the Synod of Dort in which his Ministers were more active than the rest of the Forreigners though in the persons of those men whom they called Arminians But that which gave them greatest cause of offence and fear was his determinarion in a Cause depending between two Sisters at his first coming to the Crown of which the youngest had been married to a Calvinian the eldest to a Lutheran Lord. The place in difference was the Castle and Seignury of Gutscin of which the eldest Sister had took possession as the Seat of her Ancestors But the King passing Sentence for the younger Sister and sending certain Judges and other Officers to put the place into her actual possession they were all blown up with Gun-Powder by the Lutheran Lady not able to concoct the Indignity offered nor to submit unto Judgment which appeared so partial 33. In the mean time whilst the Elector was preparing for his Journey to Prague the Faction of Bohemia not being able to withstand such Forces as the Emperor had poured in upon them invited Bethlem Gabor not long before made Prince of Transylvania by the help of the Turks to repair speedily to their success Which invitation he accepts raiseth an Army of Eighteen thousand men ransacks all Monasteries and Religious Houses wheresoever he came and in short time becomes the Master of the Vpper Hungary and the City of Presburgh the Protestants in all places but most especially the Calvinians submitting readily unto him whom they looked upon as their Deliverer from some present servitude From thence he sends his Forces to the Gates of Vienna and impudently craves that the Provinces of Styria Carinthia and Carniola should be united from thenceforth to the Realm of Hungary the better to enable the Hungarians to resist the Turk And having a design for ruining the House of Austria he doth not only crave protection from the Ottoman Emperor but requires the new King and Estates of Bohemia with the Provinces incorporate to it to send their Ambassadors to Constantinople for entring into a Confederacy with the common Enemy Hereupon followed a great Meeting of Ambassadors from Bohemia Austria Silesia Lusatia Venice â—oland and Turkie All which assembled at Newhasall in the Vpper Hungary where the Turk readily entred into the Association and the Venetian Ambassador undertook the like in the Name of that Seignury Encouraged wherewith the Transylvanian is proclaimed King of Hungary who to make good a Title so unjustly gotten provides an Army of no fewer than Thirty thousand others say Fifty thousand men With which if he had entred into any part of Bohemia before the new King had lost himself in the Battel of Prague it is most probabable that he might have absolutely assured that Kingdom to the Prince Elector acquired the other for himself and parted the Estates of Austria amongst their Confederates 34. But so it hapned that some Lutheran and Popish Princes being both equally jealous of their own Estates and careful to preserve the Interest of their several Parties entred into League with the Emperor FERDINAND for the defence of one another and the recovery of that Kingdom to the House of Austria In prosecution of which League Iohn-George the Duke Elector of Saxony invades Lusatia another of the incorporate Provinces with a puissant Army and in short time reduceth it under his Command And with like puissance Maximilian Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the Catholick Princes falleth into Bohemia and openeth all the way before him to the Walls of Prague Joyning with the Imperial Forces under Count Bucquoy they are said to have made up an Army of Fifty thousand With which they gave battel to the Army of the Prince Elector consisting of Thirty thousand men under the Conduct of the Prince of Anhalt and the Count of Thurne It is reported that the Prince Elector was so good a Husband for the Emperor as to preserve his Treasures in the Castle of Prague without diminishing so much thereof as might pay his Soldiers which made many of them throw away their Arms and refuse to fight But sure it is that the Imperials gained a great and an easie Victory in the pursuit whereof the young Prince of Anhalt together with Count Thurne and
Saxon Weimar were taken Prisoners the Bohemian Ordnance all suprised Prague forced to yeeld unto the Victor the King and Queen compelled to flye into Silesia from whence by many difficult passages and untravelled ways they came at last in safety to the Hague in Holland Nor is it altogether unworthy of our observation That this great Victory was obtained on a Sunday morning being the 8 th of November and the 23 d Sunday after Trinity in the Gospel of which day occurred that memorable passage Reddite Caesari qua sunt Caesaris that is to say Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars Which seemed to judgâ— the Quarrel on the Emperor's side Hereupon followed the most Tragical or rather most Tyranical Execution of the chief Directors who had a hand in the Design the suppressing of the Protestant Reformed Religion in all the Emperor's Estates the falling back of Bethlem Gabor into Transylvania the proscribing of the Prince Elector and his Adherents the transferring of the Electoral Dignity together with the Upper Palatinate on the Duke of Bavaria the Conquest of the lower Palatinate by the King of Spain and the setting up of Popery in all parts of both In which condition they remained till the restoring of Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector to the best part of his Estate by the Treaty of Munster 1648. 35. Such was the miserable end of the Warr of Bohemia raised chiefly by the Pride and Pragmaticalness of Calvin's Followers out of a hope to propagate their Doctrines and advance their Discipline in all parts of the Empire Nor sped the Hugonots much better in the Realm of France where by the countenance and connivance of King HENRY the 4 th who would not see it and during the minority of LEWIS the 13 th who could not help it they possessed themselves of some whole Countreys and near Two hundred strong Towns and fortified places Proud of which Strength they took upon them as a Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom summoned Assemblies for the managing of their own Affairs when and as often as they pleased Gave Audience to the Ministers of Forreign Churches and impowred Agents of their own to negotiate with them At the same Meetings they consulted about Religion made new Laws for Government displaced some of their old Officers and elected new ones the King's consent being never asked to the Alterations In which licentious calling of their own Assemblies they abused their Power to a neglect of the King's Authority and not dissolving those Assemblies when they were commanded they improved that Neglect to a Disobedience Nay sometimes they run cross therein to those very Edicts which they had gained by the effusion of much Christian Blood and the expence of many Hundred thousand Crowns For by the last Edict of Pacification the King had granted the free exercise of both Religions even in such Towns as were assigned for Caution to the Hugonot Party Which liberty being enjoyed for many years was at last interrupted by those very men who with so much difficulty had procured it For in an Assembly of theirs which they held at Loudun Anno 1619 they strictly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuit nor those of any other Order to preach in any of the Towns assigned to them though licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess in due Form of Law And when upon a dislike of their proceedings the King had declared their Meetings to be unlawful and contrary to the Publick Peace and had procured the Declaration to be verified in the Court of Parliament they did not only refuse to separate themselves as they were required but still insisted upon terms of Capitulation even to a plain justifying of their actings in it 36. These carriages gave the King such just offence that he denied them leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Dort to which they had been earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands For being so troublesome and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their Provincial or National Meetings what danger might not be suspected from a general Confluence in which the Heads of all the Faction might be laid together But then to sweeten them a little after this Refusal he gave them leave to hold an Assembly at Charenton four miles from Paris there to debate those points and to agree those differences which in that Synod had been agitated by the rest of their Party Which Liberty they made such use of in the said Assembly that they approved all the Determinations which were made at Dort commanded them to be subscribed and bound themselves and their Successors in the Ministry by a solemn Oath Not only stedfastly and constantly to adhere unto them but to persist in maintenance thereof to the last gasp of their breath But to return to the Assembly at Loudun They would not rise from thence though the King commanded it till they had taken order for another Assembly to be held at Rochel the chief place of their strength and the Metropolis or principal City of their Common-wealth Which General Assembly being called by their own Authority and called at such a time as had given the King some trouble in composing the Affairs of Bearn was by the King so far disliked and by especial Edict so far prohibited that they were all declared to be guilty of Treason who should continue in the same without further Order Which notwithstanding they sate still and very undutifully proceeded in their former purposes Their business was to draw up a Remonstrance of their present Grievances or rather of the Fears and Jealousies which they had conceived on the King's journey into Bearn This they presented to the King by their own Commissioners and thereunto received a fair and plausible Answer sent in a Letter to them by the Duke Des Diguiers by whom they were advised to dissolve the Assembly and submit themselves unto the King Instead whereof they published a Declaration in defence of their former Actions and signified a Resolution not to separate or break up that Meeting until their Grievances were redressed 37. It hapned at the same time that the Lord of Privas a Town in which the Hugonots made the strongest Party married his Daughter and Heir to the Viscount of Cheylane and dying left the same wholly unto his disposal Who being of different perswasions from the greatest part of his Vassals altered the Garrison and placed his own Servants and Dependents in it as by Law he might This moved the Hugonots of the Town and the Neighbouring Villages to put themselves into a posture of Warr to seize upon the places adjoining and thereby to compel the young Noble-man to forsake his Inheritance Which being signified to the King he presently scored this insolence on the account of the Rochellers who standing in defiance of his Authority was thought to have given some animation unto the Town of Privas to commit
as much disquieted and as apt for action as the Princes of the House of Bourbon for the former Reasons Many designs were offered to consideration in their private Meetings but none was more likely to effect their business then to make themselves the Heads of the Hugonot Faction which the two Chastilions had long favoured as far as they durst By whose assistance they might draw all affairs to their own disposing get the Kings person into their power shut the Queen-mother into a Cloyster and force the Guises into Lorrain out of which they came 5. This counsel was the rather followed because it seemed most agreeable to the inclinations of the Queen of Navar Daughter of Henry of Albret and the Lady Margaret before-mentioned and Wife of Anthony Duke of Vendosm who in her Right acquired the title to that Kingdom Which Princess being naturally averse from the Popes of Rome and no less powerfully transported by some flattering hopes for the recovery of her Kingdoms conceived no expedient so effectual to revenge her self upon the one and Inthrone her self in the other as the prosecuting this design to the very utmost Upon which ground she inculcated nothing more into the ears of her Husband then that he must not suffer such an opportunity to slip out of his hands for the recovery of the Crown which belonged unto her that he might make himself the Head of a mighty Faction containing almost half the strength of France that by so doing he might expect assistance from the German Princes of the same Religion from Queen Elizabeth of England and many discontented Lords in the Belgick Provinces besides such of the Catholick party even in France it self as were displeased at the Omni-Regency of the House of Guise that by a strong Conjunction of all these interesses he might not onely get his ends upon the Guises but carry his Army cross the Mountains make himself Master of Navar with all the Rights and Royalties appertaining to it But all this could not so prevail on the Duke her Husband whom we will henceforth call the King of Navar as either openly or under-hand to promote the enterprise which he conceived more like to hinder his affairs then to advance his hopes For the Queen-Mother having some intelligence of these secret practices sends for him to the Court commends unto his care her Daughter the Princess Isabella affianced to Philip the Second King of Spain and puts him chief into Commission for delivering her upon the Borders to such Spanish Ministers as were appointed to receive her All which she did as she assured him for no other ends but out of the great esteem which she had of his person to put him into a fair way for ingratiating himself with the Catholick King and to give him such a hopeful opportunity for solliciting his own affairs with the Grandees of Spain as might much tend to his advantage upon this imployment Which device had so wrought upon him and he had been so finely fitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King that he thought himself in a better way to regain his Kingdom then all the Hugonots in France together with their Friends in Germany and England could chalk out unto him 6. But notwithstanding this great coldness in the King of Navar the business was so hotly followed by the Prince of Conde the Admiral Colligny and his brother D' Andelot that the Hugonots were drawn to unite together under the Princes of that House To which they were spurred on the faster by the practices of Godfrey de la Bar commonly called Renaudie from the name of his Signiory a man of a most mischievous Wit and a dangerous Eloquence who being forced to abandon his own Country for some misdemeanors betook himself unto Geneva where he grew great with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistory and coming back again in the change of times was thought the fittest instrument to promote this service and draw the party to a body Which being industriously pursued was in fine effected many great men who had before concealed themselves in their affections declaring openly in favour of the Reformation when they perceived it countenanced by such Potent Princes To each of these according as they found them qualified for parts and power they assigned their Provinces and Precincts within the limits whereof they were directed to raise Men Arms Money and all other necessaries for carrying on of the design but all things to be done in so close a manner that no discovery should be made till the deed was done By this it was agreed upon that a certain number of them should repair to the King at Bloise and tender a Petition to him in all humble manner for the Free exercise of the Religion which they then professed and for professing which they had been persecuted in the days of his Father But these Petitioners were to be backed with multitudes of armed men gathered together from all parts on the day appointed who on the Kings denyal of so just a suit should violently break into the Court seize on the person of the King surprise the Queen and put the Guises to the Sword And that being done Liberty was to be Proclaimed Free exercise of Religion granted by publick Edict the managery of affairs committed to the Prince of Conde and all the rest of the Confederates gratified with rewards and honours Impossible it was that in a business which required so many hands none should be found to give intelligence to the adverse party which coming to the knowledge of the Queen-Mother and the Duke of Guise they removed the Court from Bloise a weak open Town to the strong Castle of Amboise pretending nothing but the giving of the King some recreation in the Woods adjoyning But being once setled in the Castle the King is made acquainted with the threatned danger the Duke of Guise appointed Lieutenant-General of the Realm of France And by his care the matter was so wisely handled that without making any noise to affright the Confederates the Petitioners were admitted into the Town whilst in the mean time several Troopes of Horse were sent out by him to fall on such of their accomplices as were well armed and ready to have done the mischief if not thus prevented 7. The issue of the business was that Renaudie the chief Actor in it was killed in the fight many of the rest slain and some taken Prisoners the whole body of them being routed and compelled to flee yet such was the clemencie of the King and the diâ—creet temper of the Guises in the course of this business that a general pardon was proclaimed on the 18 of March being the third day after the Execution to all that being moved onely with the Zeal to Religion had entred themselves into the Conspiracie if within twenty four hours they laid down their Arms and retired to their own Houses But this did little edifie with those hot spirits which had