France for demolishing all Religious Houses and other Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry Under which name all the Cathedrals were interpreted to be contained and by that means involved in the general ruine onely the Church at Glasco did escape that storm and remained till this time undefaced in its former glory But now becomes a very great eye-sore to Andrew Melvin by whose practices and sollicitations it was agreed unto by some Zealous Magistrates that it should forthwith be demolished that the materials of it should be used for the building of some lesser Churches in that City for the ease of the people and that such Masons Quarriers and other Workmen whose service was requisite thereunto should be in readiness for that purpose at the day appointed The Arguments which he used to perswade those Magistrates to this Act of Ruine were the resorting of some people to that Church for their private Devotions the huge vastness of the Fabrick which made it incommodious in respect of hearing and especially the removing of that old Idolatrous Monument which only was kept up in despite of the Zeal and Piety of their first Reformers But the business was not carried so closely as not to come unto the knowledge of the Crafts of the City who though they were all sufficiently Zealous in the cause of Religion were not so mad as to deprive their City of so great an Ornament And they agreed so well together that when the Work-men were beginning to assemble themselves to speed the business they made a tumult took up Arms and resolutely swore that whosoever pulled down the first stone should be buried under it The Work-men upon this are discharged by the Magistrates and the people complained of to the King for the insurrections The King upon the hearing of it receives the actors in that business into his protection allows the opposition they had made and layes command upon the Ministers who had appeared most eager in the prosecution not to meddle any more in that business or any other of that nature adding withal that too many Churches in that Kingdom were destroyed already and that he would not tolerate any more abuses of such ill example 40. The King for matter of his Book had been committed to the institution of George Buchanan a most fiery and seditious Calvinist to moderate whose heats was added Mr. Peter Young father of the late Dean of Winchester a more temperate and sober man whom he very much esteemed and honoured with Knighthood and afterwards preferred to the Mastership of St. Cross in England But he received his Principles for maâ—ter of State from such of his Council as were most tender of the pubâ—lick interest of their Native Country By whom but most especially by the Earl of Morton he was so well instructed that he was able to distinguish between the Zeal of some in promoting the Reformed Religion and the madness or sollies of some others who practised to introduce their innovations under that pretence Upon which grounds of State and Prudence he gave order to the general Assembly sitting at this time not to make any alteration in the Polity of the Church as then it stood but to suffer things to continue in the state they were till the following Parliament to the end that the determinations of the three Estates might not be any ways prejudged by their conclusions But they neglecting the command look back upon the late proceedings which were held at Stirling where many of the most material points in the Book of Discipline were demurred upon And thereupon it was ordained that nothing should be altered in Form or Matter which in that Book had been concluded by themselves With which the King was so displeased that from that time he gave less countenance to the Ministers then he had done formerly And to the end that they might see what need they had of their Princes favour he suffered divers sentences to be past at the Council Table for the suspending of their Censures and Excommunications when any matter of complaint was heard against them But they go forwards howsoever confirmed and animated by a Discourse of Theodore Beza which came out this year entituled De Triplici Episcopatu In which he takes notice of three sorts of Bishops the Bishop of Divine Institution which he makes to be no other then the ordinary Minister of a particular Congregation the Bishop of humane Constitution that is to say the President or Moderator in the Church-assemblies and last of all the Devils Bishop such as were then placed in a perpetual Authority over a Diocesâ— or Province in most parts of Christendom under which last capacity they beheld their Bishops in the Kirk of Scotland And in the next Assembly held at Dundee in Iuly following it was concluded That the Office of a Bishop as it was then used and commonly taken in that Realm had neither foundation ground nor warrant in the holy Scriptures And thereupon it was decreed That all persons either called unto that Office or which should hereafter be called unto it should be required to renounce the same as an Office unto which they are not warranted by the Word of God But because some more moderate men in the next Assembly held at Glasgow did raise a scruple touching that part of the Decree in which it was affirmed That the calling of Bishops was not warranted by the Word of God it was first declared by the Assembly that they had no other meaning in that Expression then to condemn the estate of Bishops as they then stood in Scotland With which the said moderate men did not seem contented but desired that the conclusion of the matter might be respited to another time by reason of the inconvenience which might ensue They are cryed down by all the rest with great heat and violence insomuch that it was proposed by one Montgomery Minister of Stirling that some Censure might be laid on those who had spoken in defence of that corrupted estate Nay such was the extream hatred to that Sacred Function in the said Assembly at Dundee that they stayed not here They added to the former a Decree more strange inserting That they should desist and cease from Preaching ministring the Sacraments or using in any sort of Office of a Pastor in the Church of Christ till by some General Assembly they were De Novo Authorized and admitted to it no lower Censure then that of Excommunication if they did the contrary As for the Patrimony of the Church which still remained in their hands it was resolved that the next General Assembly should dispose thereof 49. There hapned at this time an unexpected Revolution in the Court of Scotland which possibly might animate them to these high presumptions It had been the great Master-piece of the Earl of Morton in the time of his Regency to fasten his dependance most specially on the Queen of England without which he saw it was impossible to preserve
in point of courage And yet the anger of God did not stay here neither that Plague being carried into England at the return of the Soldiers which raged extreamly both in London and most parts of the Realme beyond the precedent and example of former ages It was on the 17 of Iuly an 1563 that New-haven was yielded to the French that being the last day of the first war which was raised by the Hugonots and raised by them on no other ground but for extorting the free exercise of their Religion by force of Arms according to the doctrine and example of the Mother-City In the pursuit whereof they did not only with their own hands ruinate and deface the beauty of their native Country but gave it over for a prey to the lust of Strangers The calling in of the English to support their faction whom they knew well to be the antient enemies of the Crown of France and putting into their hands the chief strength of Normandy of whose pretensions to that Dukedome they could not be ignorant were two such actions of a disloyal impolitick nature as no pretence of zeal to that which they called the Gospel could either qualifie or excuse Nor was the bringing in of so many thousand German Souldiers of much better condition who though they could pretend no title to the Crown of France nor to any particular Province in it were otherwise more destructive to the peace of that Country and created far more mischief to the people of it then all the forces of the English for being to be maintained on the pay of the Hugonots and the Hugonots not being able to satisfie their exorbitant Arrears they were suffered to waste the Country in all parts where they came and to expose the whole Kingdom from the very borders of it toward Germany to the English Chanell unto spoyle and rapine so that between the Hugonots themselves on the one side and these German Souldiers on the other there was nothing to be seen in most parts of the Kingdom but the destruction of Churches the profanation of Altars the defacing of Images the demolishing of Monasteries the burning of Religious Houses and even the digging up of the bones of the dead despitefully thrown about the fields and unhallowed places 25. But this first was only raked up in the Embers not so extinguished by the Articles of the late agreement but that it broke out shortly into open flames for the Hugonots pressing hard for the performance of the Edict of Ianuary and the Romanists as earnestly insisting on some clauses of the pacification the whole Realm was filled in a manner with such fears and jealousies as carryed some resemblance of a War in the midst of Peace The Hugonots had some thoughts of surprising Lyons but the Plot miscarryed they practised also upon Narbonne a chief City of Languedock and openly attempted the Popes Town of Avignion but were prevented in the one and suppressed in the other A greater diffidence was raised against them by the unseasonable Zeal of the Queen of Navar who not content with setling the reformed Religion in the Country of Berne when she was absolute and supreme suffered the Catholicks to be infested in her own Provinces which she held immediately of the Crown insomuch that at Pamiers the chief City of the Earldom of Foix the Hugonots taking offence at a solemn Procession held upon Corpus Christi day betook themselves presently to Arms and falling upon those whom they found unarmed not onely made a great slaughter amongst the Church-men but in the heat of the same fury burnt down their Houses Which outrage being suffered to pass unpunished gave both encouragement and example to some furious Zealots to commit the like in other places as namely at Montaban Gaelion Rodez Preieux Valence c. being all scituate in those Provinces in which the Hugonots were predominant for power and number But that which most alarmed the Court was a seditious Pamphlet published by a Native of Orleance in which it was maintained according to the Calvinian Doctrines that the people of France were absolved from their Allegiance to the King then Reigning because he was turned an Idolater In which reason it is lawful also to kill him as opportunity should be offered Which Doctrine being very agreeable unto some designs which were then every where in agitation amongst the Hugonots was afterward made use of for the justifying of the following Wars when the opinion grew more general and more openly maintained both from Press and Pulpit 26. The Catholicks on the other side began to put themselves into a posture of Arms without so much as taking notice of those misdemeanors which they seemed willing to connive at not so much out of any inclinations which they had in themselves but because they found it not agreeable to the will of the Court where such dissimulations were esteemed the best arts of Government The Catholick King had sent the Duke of Alva with a puissant Army to reduce the Low Countries to obedience where the Calvinians had committed as great spoils and Rapines as any where in France or Scotland This Army being to pass in a long march near the Borders of France gave a just colour to the King to arm himself for fear lest otherwise the Spaniards might forget their errand and fall with all their Forces into his Dominions To this end he gives order for a Levy of six thousand Switz which he caused to be conducted through the heart off the Kingdom and quartered them in the Isle of France as if they were to serve to a Guard for Paris far enough off from any of those parts and Provinces by which the Spaniards were to pass But this gave such a jealousie to the heads of the Hugonots that they resorted to Chastillion to consult with the Admiral By whose advice it was resolved that they must get the King and Queen into their power and make such use of both their names as the Catholicks had made of them in the former War This to be done upon the sudden before the opening of a War by the raising of Forces should render the surprize impossible and defeat their purposes The King and Queen lay then at Monceux an House of pleasure within the Territory of Byre in Champaigne not fearing any the least danger in a time of peace and having the Switz near enough to secure their persons against any secret Machinations And thereupon it was contrived that as many Horse as they could raise in several places should draw together at Rosay not far from Monceux on the 27 of September that they should first surprize the King the Queen and her younger Sons and then fall in upon the Switz who being quartered in several places and suspecting nothing less then the present danger might very easily be routed and that being done they should possess themselves of Paris and from thence issue out of all Mandates which concerned
in regard the Bishop could not satisfie them in their expectations they are resolved to satisfie themselves out of his Estate and either for his sake or their own to cast off all relation to the Duke of Savoy as their Patron Paramount And though both Lords did afterwards unite against them and besieged the Town yet by the help of those of Berne with whom they joyned themselves in a strict Confederacie they repulsed them both Since which time they have strongly fortified the Town on all sides but most especially on that side which lies toward Savoy and would never since permit the Duke to arm any Boats or Galleys upon the Lake for fear he might make use of them to their disadvantage 5. The power and dominion of that Citie being thus put into the hands of the common people it could not be expected that any Discipline or good Order should be kept in the Church The Common-Council of the Town disposed of all things as they pleased and if any Crime which anciently belonged to the Ecclesiastical Discipline did happen to be committed in it it was punished by order from the Council No Censures Ecclesiastical no Sentence of Excommunication was either thought on at Geneva or at that time in any other of the Popular Churches modelled according to the Form devised by Zuinglius as Beza hath observed in the Life of Calvin The like affirmed by Calvin also in his Letter above-mentioned to those of Zurick who grants it to have been a received opinion with some very grave and learned men that Excommunication was not necessary under Christian Magistrates And so it stood till Calvin's coming to the Citie Anno 1536 who being born at Noyon Noviodunum the chief Town of Picardie was by his father destined to the Civil Laws but his own inclination carried him rather to the studie of Divinity in the pursuit whereof he first began to fancie the Reformed Religion and finding no assurance in the Realm of France resolved to fix himself in Strasburgh or Basil. But taking Geneva in his way upon the importunity of Farellus he condescended to make that place the Scene of his actions and endeavours and his aâ—â—eâ—â— being once made known he was forthwith admitted to be one of their Preachers and in the Month of August chosen their Divinity Reader This done he presently negotiates with them not onely to abjure the Papacie with all obedience to their Bishop forth enime to come but to admit some heads of Doctrine and such a Form of Discipline as he and his colleagues had devised for them And he prevailed in it at the last though with no small difficulty the said Discipline being generally sworn and subscribed unto 20 Iuly 1537. Which Form of Discipline what it was I have nowhere found but sure I am that it had no affinity with the practice of the Primitive Church which Calvin plainly doth acknowledge in his Letter to Sadolet who had objected it against him But the people being proud and headstrong and not willing to be stripped so easily of the precious Liberty which so happily they had acquired became soon weary of the yoke though they disguised it under colour of not giving offence to those of Berne Zurick and the rest of their neighbours whose friendship was most necessary for them in all time of trouble But Calvin being peremptory not to administer the Communion unto any of those who could not quietly without contradiction submit themselves unto the Discipline which themselves had sworn to and having Farellus and Coraldus two of his Associates in conjunction with him together with his two Associates is expelled the Town 6. Three years or thereabouts he continued in his excile being bountifully entertain'd at Strasburgh where by his diligent preaching and laborious writings he grew into a greater reputation then the rest of their Ministers the fame whereof being daily posted to Geneva made them first sensible of the loss that they suffered in him and afterwards procured them to sollicite the Chief Magistrates of the City of Strasburgh to license his return unto them from whence at last with unresistable importunity he was again recalled by that unconstant multitude A desire to which by no means he would hearken unless both they and all their Ministers would take a solemn Oath to admit a compleat Form of Discipline not arbitrary nor changeable but to remain in force for ever after Upon assurance of their conformity herein he returns unto them like another Tully unto Rome and certainly we may say of him as the Historian doth of the other that never man was banished with greater insolence nor welcomed home again with an equal gladness On the 13 day of September 1541 he is received into the Town and on the 20 of November following he confirm'd his Discipline which he had modelled in this manner A standing Ecclesiastical Court to be established perpetual Judges in that Court to be the Ministers others of the people annually chosen twice so many in number to be Judges together with them in the same Court this Court to have care of all mens Manners power of determining all kinde of Ecâ—lesiastical causes and Authority to convent to control and to punish as far as with Excommunication whensoever they should think to have deserved it none either small or great excepted To this device he brought the people to submit without any reluctancie for what cause had they to suspect any yoak or bondage to be intended in that project wherein they had a double Vote to each single Minister and consequently a double number on their side upon all occasions But when the first year was expired and that the Elders of that year were to leave their places they then perceived how much they had inthralled themselves by their own facility And now they began to have some fear that the filling up of the Seats in the Consistory with so geat a number of Lay-men was but to please the mindes of the people to the end they might think themselves of some power therein that their Pastors being men of parts and practised in affairs of that nature would easily over-rule the rest though the greater number that the Lay-elders being onely annual and changed from one year to another might first or last come under the severe lash of their Pastors who were in a perpetuaâ— residencie if they should dare at any time to act against them by their double Vote and that amongst the Ministers themselves one being far in estimation above the rest the rest of the voices are most likely to be given with reference to his will and pleasure which what else were it in effect but to bring in Popery again by another name in setting over them a Supream Pastor or perpetual Residence with power to carry all before him 7. But nothing gave them more offence then the confidence of that vast and unlimited power which was to be put
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the mother-Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
found no place so open to them as the Town of Geneva and none more ready to befriend them then Calvin was whose Letters must be sent to all the Churches of the Switzers and the Neighbouring Germany for raising Contributions and Collections toward their relief which so exasperated the French King that he threatned to make War upon the Town as the fomenter of those discords which embroyled his Kingdom the Receptacle of his Rebels the Delphos as it were of that Sacred Oracle which Soveraignly directed all affairs of moment But of these things and how Beza did co-operate to the common troubles which did so miserably distract the peace of France shall be delivered more particularly in the following Book 49. As for the Town and Territory of Geneva it self it had so far submitted unto their Authority that Calvin wanted nothing of a Bishop in it but the name and title The City of Geneva had been anciently an Episcopal See consisting of many Parishes and Country Villages all subject by the Rules of the Discipline unto one Presbytery of which Calvin for the term of his life had the constant Precedency under the style of Moderator without whom nothing could done which concerned the Church And sitting as chief President in the Court or Consistory he had so great an influence on the Common-council as if he had been made perpetual Dictator also for ordering the affairs of the Common-wealth The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Beza also for the space of ten years or thereabouts after his decease At what time Lambertus Danaeus one of the Ministers of that City thinking himself inferiour to him in no part of Scholarship procured the Presidency in that Church to go by turns that he and others might be capable of their courses in it By which means the Genevians being freed from those powerful Riders would never suffer themselves to be bridled as they had been formerly For thereupon it was concluded by a Decree of the Senate that the Presbytery should have no power to convent any man before them till the Warrant was first signed by one of the Syndicks Besides which curb as the Elders are named by the lesser Council and confirmed by the greater the Ministers advice being first had in the nomination so do they take an Oath at their admission to keep the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Civil Magistrate In which respect their Consistory doth not challenge an exorbitant and unlimited power as the Commissioners of Christ as they did afterwards in Scotland but as Commissioners of the State or Signiory by which they are restrained in the exercise of that Jurisdiction which otherwise they might and would have challenged by their first institution and seemed at first a yoke too insupportable for the necks of the people In reference to their Neighbouring Princes their City was so advantageously seaâ—ed that even their Popish Neighbours were more ready to support and aid them then suffer the Town to fall into the power of the Duke of Savoy And then it is not to be doubted but such States and Kingdoms as were Zealous in the Reformation did liberally contribute their assistance to them The conâ—â—uence of so many of the French as had retired thither in the heat of the Civil Wars had brought a miserable Plague upon them by which their numbers were so lessened and their strength so weakned that the Duke of Savoy took the oppornity to lay Siege unto it In which distress they supplicate by Letters to all their Friends or such as they conceived might wish well unto them in the cause of Religion and amongst others to some Bishops and Noble-men of the Church of England Anno 1582. But Beza having writ to Traverse a most Zealous Puritan to negotiate in it the business sped the worse for the Agents sake no great supply being sent unto them at that time But afterwards when they were distressed by the Savoyard Anno 1589 they were relieved with thirteen thousand Crowns from England twenty four thousand Crowns from the State of Venice from France and Florence with intelligence of the enemies purposes onely the Scots though otherwise most zealous in advancing the Discipline approved themselves to be true Scots or false Brethren to them For having raised great sums of mony under pretence of sending seasonable relief to their friends in Geneva the most part of it was assigned over to the Earl of Bothwel then being in Rebellion against their King and having many ways endeavoured to surprise his person and in fine to take away his life But this prank was not play'd until some years after and therefore falls beyond the time of my design which was and is to draw down the successes of the Presbyterians in their several Countries till the year 1585 and then to take them all together as they related unto England or were co-incident with the Actions and Affairs thereof But we must make our way by France as lying nearest to the practices of the Mother-City though Scotland at a greater distance first took fire upon it and England was as soon attempted as the French themselves The end of the first Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB II. Containing The manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. 1. THe Realm of France having long suffered under the corruptions of the Church of Rome was one of the first Western Kingdoms which openly declared against those abuses Beringarius in the Neighbouring Italy had formerly opposed the Gross and Carnal Doctrines of the Papists in the point of the Sacrament Whose opinions passing into France from one hand to another were at last publickly maintained by Peter Waldo one of the Citizens of Lyons who added thereunto many bitter invectives against the Supremacy of the Pope the Adoration of Images the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Purgatory His Followers from the place of his Habitation were at first called in contempt The poor men of Lyons as afterwards from the name of their Leader they were by the Latines called Waldenses by the French Les Vandoise But Lyons proving no safe place for them they retired into the more desert parts of Languedock and spreading on the banks of the River Alby obtained the name of Albigenses in the Latine Writers and of Les Albigeoise in the French supported by Raymond the Fourth Earl of Tholouse they became so insolent that they murthered Trincanel their Viscount in the City Beziers and dasht out the teeth of their Bishop having taken Sanctuary in St. Magdalens Church one of the Churches of that City For which high outrages and many others of like nature which ensued upon them they were warred upon by Lewis the Ninth of France Sirnamed the Saint and many Noble adventurers who sacrificed many of them in the self-same Church wherein they had spilt the
Kingdom Normandy was in no small danger of being wilfully betrayed into the hands of the English who therefore were to be removed or at the least to be expulsed out of Rouen before the Kings Army was consumed in Actions of inferiour consequence The issue of which War was this That though the English did brave service for defence of the City and made many gallant attempts for relief thereof by their men and shipping from New-haven yet in the end the Town was taken by assault and for two days together made a prey to the Souldiers The joy of the Royalists for the reduction of this great City to the Kings obedience was much abated by the death of the King of Navar who had unfortunately received his deaths wound in the heat of the Seige and dyed in the forty fourth year of his age leaving behind him a young Son called Henry who afterward succeeded in the Crown of France And on the contrary the sorrow for this double loss was much diminished in the Prince of Conde and the rest of his party by the seasonable coming of four thousand Horse and five thousand Foot which Monsieur d' Andelot with great industry had raised in Germany and with as great courage and good fortune had conducted safely to the Prince 22. By the accession of these Forces the Hugonots are incouraged to attempt the surprizing of Paris from which they were disswaded by the Admiral but eagerly inflamed to that undertaking by the continual importunity of such Preachers as they had about them Repulsed from which with loss both of time and honour they were encountred in a set battel near the Câ—ty of Dreux in the neighbouring Province of Le Beausse In which battel their whole Army was overthrown and the Prince of Conde taken prisoner but his captivity sweetned by the like misfortune which befel the Constable took prisoner in the same battel by the hands of the Admiral who having drawn together the remainder of his broken Army retires towards Orleance and leaving there his Brother D' Andelot with the Foot to make good that City takes with him all the German Horse and so goes for Normandy there to receive such Monies as were sent from England But the Monies not coming at the time by reason of cross windes and tempestuous weather the Germans are permitted to spoil and plunder in all the parts of the Country not sparing places either Profane or Sacred and reckoning no distinction either betwixt Friends or Enemies But in short time the Seas grew passable and the Monies came an hundred and fifty thousand Crowns according to the French account together with fourteen pieces of Cannon and a proportionable stock of Ammunition by which supply the Germans were not onely well paid for spoiling the Country but the Admiral was thereby inabled to do some good service from which hâ— had been hindred for want of Cannon In the mean time the Duke of Guise had laid Siege to Orleance and had reduced it in a manner to terms of yeilding where he was villanously murdred by one Poltrot a Gentleman of a good Family and a ready Wit who having lived many years in Spain and afterward imbracing the Calvinian Doctrines grew into great esteem with Beza and the rest of the Consistorians by whom it was thought fit to execute any great Attempt By whom commended to the Admiral and by the Admiral excited to a work of so much merit he puts himself without much scruple on the undertaking entreth on the Kings service and by degrees became well known unto the Duke Into whose favour he so far insinuated that he could have access to him whensoever he pleased and having gained a fit opportunity to effect his purpose dispatched him by the shot of a Musket laden with no fewer then three bullets in the way to his lodging 23. This murder was committed on Feb. 24. an 1562. and being put to the Rack he on the Rack confessed upon what incentives he had done the fact But more particularly he averred that by the Admirall he was promised great rewards and that he was assured by Beza that by taking out of the world such a great persecutor of the Gospel he could not but exceedingly merit at the hands of Almighty God And though both Beza and the Admiral endeavoured by their Manifests and Declarations to wipe off this stain yet the confession of the murtherer who could have no other ends in it then to speak his conscience left most men better satisfied in it then by both their writings But as it is an ill wind which blows no body good so the Assassinate of this great person though very grievous to his friends served for an Introduction to the peace ensuing For he being taken out of the way the Admirall engaged in Normandy the Constable Prisoner in the City and the Prince of Conde in the Camp it was no hard matter for the Queen to conclude a peace upon such terms as might be equall to all parties By which accord it was concluded that all that were free Barons in the Lands and Castles which they were possessed of or held them of no other Lord then the King himself might freely exercise the Reformed Religion in their own jurisdictions and that the other which had not such Dominions might doe the same in their own Houses and Families only provided that they did not the same in Towns and Cities that in every Province certain Cities should be assigned in the Suburbs whereof the Hugonots might have the free exercise of their Religion that in the City of Paris and in all other Towns and places whatsoever where the Court resided no other Religion should be exercised but the Roman Catholick though in those Cities every man might privately enjoy his conscience without molestation that those of the Reformed Religion should observe the Holy Days appointed in the Roman Kalendar and in their Marriages the Rites and Constitutions of the Civil Law and finally that a general pardon should be granted to all manner of persons with a full restitution to their Lands and Liberties their Honors Offices and Estates Which moderation or restriction of the Edict of Ianuary did much displease some zealous Hugonots but their Preachers most who as they loved to exercise their gifts in the greatest Auditories so they abominated nothing more then those observances 24. After this followed the reduction of New-haven to the Crown of France and the expulsion of the English out of Normandy the Prince of Conde and some other leading men of the Hugonot faction contributing both their presence and assistance to it which had not been so easily done had not God fought more against the English then the whole French Armies for by cross winds it did not only hinder all supplyes from coming to them till the surrendry of the Town but hastened the surrender by a grievous Pestilence which had extreamly wasted them in respect of number and miserably dejected them
be admitted to any office charge dignity or magistracy whatever if he did not profess and live conformable in all points to the Roman Religion And for a Preamble hereunto the King was pleased to make a long and distinct Narration of the indulgence he had used to reduce the Hugonots to a right understanding and of the ill requital they had made unto him by the seditions and conspiracies which they raised against him their bringing in of forraign forces and amongst others the most mortal enemies of the French Nation putting into their hands the strongest places and most flourishing parts of the Kingdom to the contempt of his authority the despising of his grace and goodness and the continual disquieting of his Dominions and the destruction of his subjects To counter-poise which terrible Edict the Princes and other Leaders of the Hugonots which were then at Rochel entred into a solemn Covenant or Association by which they bound themselves by Oath to persevere till death in defence of their Religion never to lay down arms or condescend to any agreement without the general consent of all the Commanders and not then neither but upon sufficient security for the preservation of their lives and the enjoying of that Liberty of Conscience for which they first began the war 30. But the Admiral well knowing that the business was not to be carried by Oaths and Manifests and that they wanted mony to proceed by arms advised the Rochellers to send their Navy to the sea which in a time when no such danger was expected might spoyle and pillage all they met with and by that means provide themselves of mony and all other necessaries to maintain the war Which Counsel took such good effect that by this kind of Piracy they were enabled to give a fair beginning to this new Rebellion for the continuance whereof it was thought necessary to sollicite their Friends in Germany to furnish them with fresh recruits of able men and Queen Elizabeth of England for such sums of money as might maintain them in the service And in the first of these designs there appears no difficulty the inclination of the Prince Elector together with the rest of the Calvinian Princes and Imperial Cities were easily intreated to assist their Brethren of the same Religion And the same spirit governed many of the people also but on different grounds they undertaking the imployment upon hope of spoil as Mercenaries serving for their Pay but more for Plunder In England their desires were entertained with less alacrity though eagerly sollicited by Odet Bishop of Beauvais a younger Brother of the Admiral who having formerly been raised to the degree of a Cardinal therefore called most commonly the Cardinal of Chastillon had some years since renounced his Habit and Religion but still kept his Titles By the continual sollicitation of so great an Advocate and the effectual interposing of the Queen of Navar Elizabeth was perswaded to forget their former ingratitude and to remember how conducible it was to her personal interest to keep the French King exercised in perpetual troubles upon which Reason of State she is not onely drawn to accommodate the Hugonots with Ships Corn Arms and Ammunition but to supply them with a hundred thousand Crowns of ready money for the maintaining of their Army consisting of fourteen thousand Germans and almost as many more of the natural French And yet it was to be believed that in all this she had done nothing contrary to the League with France which she had sworn not long before because forsooth the Forces of the Hugonots were raised to no other end but the Kings mere service and the assistance of the Crown against the Enemies of both and the professed Adversaries of the true Religion But neither this great lone of money nor that which they had got by robbing upon the Seas was able to maintainâ— War of so long continuance For maintainance whereof they were resolved to sell the Treasures of the Churches in all such Provinces as they kept under their Command the Queen of Navar ingaging her Estate for their security who should adventure on the purchase 31. I shall not touch on the particulars of this Warâ— which ended with the death of the Prince of Conde in the battel of Iarnar the rigorous proceedings against the Admiral whom the King caused to be condemned for a Rebel his Lands to be confiscatedâ— his Houses plundred and pulled down and himself executed in Effigie the loss of the famous battel of Mont-Contour by the Hugonots party Anno 1569 which forced them to abandon all their strong holds except Rochel Angoulesme and St. Ieanâ—d Angeli and finally to shut themselves up within Rochel onely after which followed such a dissembled reconciliation between the parties as proved more bloudy then the War The sudden and suspected death of the Queen of Navar the Marriage of the Prince her Son with the Lady Margaret one of the Sisters of the King the celebrating of the wedding in the death of the Admiral on St. Bartholomews day 1572 and the slaughter of thirty thousand men within few days after the reduction of the whole Kingdom to the Kings obedience except the Cities of Nismes Montauban and Rochel onely the obstinate standing out of Rochel upon the instigation of such Preachers as fled thither for shelter and the reduction of it by the Duke of Anjon to the last extremity the raising of the Siege and the Peace ensuing on the Election of that Duke to the Crown of Poland the resolution of the Hugonots to renew the War as soon as he had left the Kingdom and their ingaging in the same on the Kings last sickness In all which traverses of State there is nothing memorable in reference to my present purpose but onely the conditions of the Pacification which was made at the Siege of Rochel by which it was accorded between the parties on the 11 of Iuly Anno 1573 that all offences should be pardoned to the said three Cities on their submission to the King and that it should be lawful for them to retain the free Exercise of their Religion the people meeting in the same unarmed and but few in numberâ— that all the inhabitants of the said three Cities should be obliged to observe in all outward matters except Baptism and Matrimony the Rites and Holy-days of the Church that the use of the Catholick Religion should be restored in the said Cities and all other places leaving unto the Clergy and Religious persons their Houses Profits and Revenues that Rochel should receive a Governour of the Kings appointment but without Garrison renounce all correspondencies and confederacies with Forreign Princes and not take part with any of the same Religion against the King and finally that the said three Towns should deliver Hostages for the performance of the Articles of the present Agreement to be changed at the end of every three months if the King so pleased It
Blessed Virgin and that too on the very Festival of her Assumption when the like outrages were committed in other places For not content to jeer and taunt them in the Streets as they passed along they follow them into the principal Church of that City where first they fall to words and from words to blows and from blows to wounds to the great scandal of Religion and the unpardonable prophanation of that holy Place 31. But this was onely an Essay of the following mischief For on the same day Sennight being not onely more numerous but better armed they flocked to the same Church at the Evening-Service which being ended they compel the people to forsake the place and possess themselves of it Having made fast the Doors for fear that some disturbance might break in upon them one of them begins to sing a Psalm in Marots Meter wherein he is followed by the rest that such a holy exercise as they were resolved on might not be undertook without some preparation which fit of Devotion being over they first pulled down a massie Image of the Virgin afterwards the Image of Christ and such other Saints as they found advanced there on their several Pedestals some of them treading them underfoot some thrusting Swords into their sides and others hagling of their Heads with Bills and Axes In which work as many were imployed in most parts of the Church so others got upon the Altars cast down the sacred Plate defaced the Pictures and disfigured the paintings on the Walls whilst some with Ladders climbed the Organs which they broke in pieces and others with like horrible violence destroyed the Images in the Windows or rather brake the Windows in despight of the Images The Consecrated Host they took out of the Pixes and trampled under their feet carouse such Wine as they brought with them in the sacred Chalices and greased their shooes with that Chrysome or anoynting Oyl which was prepared for some Ceremonies to be used at Baptism and in the visiting of the sick And this they did with such dispatch that one of the fairest Churches in Europe richly adorned with Statues and massie Images of Brass and Marble and having in it no fewer then seventy Altars was in the space of four hours defaced so miserably that there was nothing to be seen in it of the former beauties Proud of which fortunate success they brake into all other Churches of that City where they acted over the same spoils and outragious insolencies and afterwards forcing open the doors of Monasteries and Religious Houses they carryed away all their Consecrated Furniture entred their Store-houses seized on their Meat and drank off their Wine and took from them all their Money Plate and Wardrobes both Sacred and Civil not sparing any publick Library wheresoever they came a ruine not to be repaired but with infinite sums the havock which they made in the great Church onely being valued at four hundred thousand Ducates by indifferent rates The like outrages they committed at the same time in Gaunt and Oudenard and all the Villages about them the severalties whereof would make up a Volume let it suffice that in the Province of Flanders onely no fewer then four hundred Consecrated places were in the space of ten days thus defaced and some of them burnt down to the very ground 32. The news of these intolerable outrages being posted one after another to the Court at Brussels occasioned the Governess when it was too late to see her errour in sending back her Spanish Souldiers and yeilding to the improvident dismission of the prudent Cardinal by whose Authority and Counsel she had so happily preserved those Provinces in peace and quiet and then she found that she had good reason to believe all the information which Count Mansfield gave her touching a plot of the Calvinian party in France from whence came most of these new Preachers to imbroyl the Netherlands which till that time she looked on as a groundless jealousie But as it is in some Diseases that when they are easie to be cured they are hard to be known and when they are easie to be known they are hard to be cured so fared it at that time with these distempers in the Belgick Provinces which now were grown unto that height that it was very difficult if not almost impossible to finde out a remedy For having called together the great Council of State and acquainted them with the particulars before remembred she found the Counts of Mansfield Aremberg and Barlamont cheerfully offering their assistance to reduce the people to obedience by force of Arms but Egmont Horne and Orange whose Brother Count Lodowick was suspected for a chief contriver of the present mischief of a contrary judgement so that she could proceed no further and indeed she durst not for presently a secret Rumour was dispersed that if she did not so far gratifie the Covenanters and their adherents that every man might have liberty to go to Sermons and no man be punished for Religion she should immediately see all the Churches in Brussels fired the Priests murthered and her self imprisoned For fear whereof though she took all safe courses for her own security yet she found none so safe as the granting of some of their demands to the Chief Conspirators by which the Provinces for the present did enjoy some quiet But this was onely like an Intermission in the fit of an Ague For presently hereupon she received advertisement that those of the Reformed party were not onely suffered to take unto themselves some Churches in Machlin Antwerp and Tournay which till then had never been permitted but that at Vtrecht they had driven the Catholicks out of their Churches and at the Bosch had forced the Bishop to forsake the City as their holy Fathers in Geneva had done before them And in a word to make up the measure of her sorrows and compleat their insolencies she had intelligence of the like Tumult raised at Amsterdam where some of the Reforming Rabble had broken into a Monastery of the Franciscans defaced all Consecrated things beat and stoned out the Religious persons not without wounding some of the principal Senators who opposed their doings 33. Provoked with these indignities she resolves upon the last remedy which was to bring them to obedience by force of Arms and therein she had no small encouragement from the King himself and good assurance of assistances from such Princes of Germany as still adhered unto the Pope The news whereof so startâ—es the chief of the Covenanters that they enter into consultation of Electing a new Prince or putting themselves under the power of some potent Monarch by whom they might be countenanced against their King and priviledged in the cojoyment of their Religion It was advised also that three thousand Books of Calvinian Doctrine should be sent into Spain and dispersed in the chief Cities of it to the end that whiâ—st the King was busied in looking to his
obedient subjects The Kings escape was made in the end of Iune and in December following he calls a Convention of the Estates in which the subject of his Proclamation was approved and verified the fact declared to be Crimen laesae Majestatis or Treason in the highest degree For which as some were executed and others fled so divers of the Ministers that had been dealers in that matter pretending they were persecuted had retired into England For notwithstanding his Majesties great clemency in pardoning the Conspirators on such easie conditions they preferred rather the pursuing of their wicked purposes then the enjoying of a peaceable and quiet life For whether it were that they presumed on supplies from England of which they had received no inâ—â—obable hopes as afterwards was confessed by the Earl of Gowry or that they built upon the Kirk-Faction to come in to aid them as the General Assembly had required they begin in all places to prepare for some new Commotion but being deceived in all their hopes and expectations they were confined to several Prisons before the Convention of Estates and after it upon a further discovery of their preparations and intentions compelled to quit the Kingdome and betake themselves for their protection unto several Nations Onely the Earl of Gowry staid behind the rest and he paid well for it For being suspected to be hammering some new design he was took Prisoner at Dundee in the April following 1584 thence brought to Edenborough and there condemned and executed as he had deserved In the mean time the Kirk-men were as troublesome as the Lay-Conspirators Dury so often mentioned in a Sermon at Edenborough had justified the fact at Ruthen for which being cited to appear before the Lords of the Council he stood in maintainance of that which he had delivered but afterwards submitting himself unto the King on more sober thoughts he was kept upon his good â—ehaviour without further punishment But Andrew Melvin was a man of another metal who being commanded to attend their Lordships for the like offence declined the judgement of the King and Council as having no cognizance of the cause To make which good he broached this Presbyterian Doctrine That whatsoever was spoken in the Pulpit ought first to be tryed by the Presbyterie and that neither the King nor Council were to meddle with it though the same were treasonable till the Presbyterie had first taken notice of it But finding that the King and Council did resolve to proceed and had entred upon Examination of some Witnesses which were brought against him he told the King whether with greater Confidence or Impudence is hard to say That he preached the Laws both of God and man For which undutiful Expression he was commanded Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness Instead whereof he takes Sanctuary in the Town of Berwick where he remained till way was made for his return the Pulpits in the mean time sounding nothing but that the Light of the Countrey for Learning and Piety was forced for safety of his life to forsake the Kingdom In which Exile he was followed within few moneths after by Palvart Sub-Dean of Glasgow Galloway and Carmichiel two inferior Ministers who being warned to tender their appearance to the King and Council and not appearing at the time were thereupon pronounced Rebels and fled after the other Nor was the General Assembly held at Edenborough of a better temper then these Preachers were in which the Declaration made at the last Convention of Estates was stoutly crossed and encountred The King with the advice of his Estates had resolved the Fact of surprizing His Majesties person to be treasonable But the Brethren in the said Assembly did not onely authorize and avow the same but also esteeming their own judgement to be the Soveraign judgement of the Realm did ordain all them to be excommunicated that would subscribe unto their opinion 61. The King perceiving that there was no other way to deal with these men then to husband the present opportunity to his best advantage resolved to proceed against them in such a way as might disable them from committing the like insolencies for the time to come The chief Incendiaries had been forced to quit the Kingdom or otherwise deserted it of their own accords the better to escape the punishment which their crimes had merited The great Lords on whose strength they had most presumed were either under the like exile in the neighbouring Countries or else so weakned and disanimated that they durst not stir So that the King being clearly Master of the Field his Counsellors in good heart and generally the Lords and Commons in good terms of obedience it was thought fit to call a Parliament and therein to enact such Laws by which the honour of Religion the personal safety of the King the peace and happiness of the Kingdom and the prosperity of the Church might be made secure In which Parliament it was enacted amongst others things the better to encounter the proceedings of the Kirk and most Zealous Kirkmen That none of his Highness Subjects in time coming should presume to take upon them by word or writing to justifie the late treasonable attempt at Ruthen or to keep in register or store any Books approving the same in any sort And in regard the Kirk had so abused his Majesties goodness by which their Presbyterial Sessions the general Assemblies and other meetings of the Kirk were rather connived at then allowed an Act was made to regulate and restrain them for the times ensuing for by that Act it was ordained That from thenceforth none should presume or take upon them to Convocate Convene or assemble themselves together for holding of Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matters of Estate Civil or Ecclesiastical excepting the ordinary judgements without the Kings special commandment 62. In the next place the Kings lawful Authority in causes Ecclesiastical so often before impugned was approved and confirmed and it was made treason for any man to refuse to answer before the King though it were concerning any matter which was Ecclesiastical The third Estate of Parliament that is the Bishops were restored to the ancient dignity and it was made treason for any man after that time to procure the innovation or diminution of the Power and Authority of any of the three Estates And for as much as through the wicked licentious publick and private Speeches and untrue calumnies of divers his Highness subjects I speak the very words of the Act to the disdain contempt and reproach of his Majesty his Council and proceedings stirring up his Highness subjects thereby to misliking sedition unquietness to cast off their due oâ—edience to his Majesty Therefore it is ordained that none of his subjects shall presume or take upon them privately or publickly in Sermons Declamations oâ— familiar Conferences to utter any false scandalous and untrue Speeches to the disdain reproach and contempt of
thoughts of restoring Episcopacy by passing over the Church-Lands to the use of the Crown And to make as sure of it as they could because a three-fold Cord is not easily broken they had before called upon the King to reinforce the Band or National Covenant which had been made for their adhaesion to the true Religion and renouncing Popery For so it was that some suspitions had been raised by the Presbyterians That the King was miserably seduced and enclined to Popery and that the Earl of Lenox had been sent from France for no other purpose but to work Him to it And thereupon the King gave order unto Mr. I. Craige being then a Preacher in the Court to form a short Confession of Faith wherein not only all the Corruptions of the Church of Rome in point of Doctrine but even those also which related unto Discipline and Forms of Worship were to be solemnly abjured Which Confession for example to others the King Himself with all His Court and Council did publickly both subscribe and swear Anno 1580. And the next year He required the like Oath and Subscription from all His Subjects for the securing of those Fears and Jealousies which the Kirk had of Him But in regard this general Confession was not found sufficient to hinder the encrease of Popery for want of some strict Combination amongst the Subjects which professed the Reformed Religion it was desired that a Solemn League or Band might be authorized by which they should be bound to stand to one another in defence thereof that is to say both of their Covenant and Religion against all Opponents The Guisian Papists had projected the like League in France to suppress the Gospel and why should they in Scotland be less zealous for the true Religion than the Guisian Papists for the false Upon which ground the King was easily entreated to consent unto it and first subscribed the Band Himself with all His Family An. 1589 which the next year he caused to be subscribed by all sorts of people as the General Assembly had desired 48. Now in this Covenant and Confession they did not only bind themselves to renounce the Pope together with all the Superstitions and Corruptions of the Church of Rome but in particular to continue in obedience to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Kirk of Scotland and to defend the same according to their vocation and power all the days of their lives And though it cannot be conceived that under those general words of Doctrine and Discipline there could be any purpose to abjure the Episcopal Government which was in being when that Confession was first framed and for many years after yet being now received and subscribed unto and their Presbyteries established by Act of Parliament it was interpreted by the Covenanters of succeeding times Anno 1638 to contain in it an express renouncing of Episcopacy as also of such Rites and Ceremonies as had been introduced amongst them by the Synod of Perth Anno 1618. The sad Effects whereof the King foresaw not at the present but He took order to redress them in the time to come For now the Temporal Estates of Bishops being alienated and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament Anno 1587. Episcopacy tacitly abjured by Covenant and that Covenant strengthned by a Band or Association Anno 1590. And finally their Presbyteries setled by like Act of Parliament in this present year Anno 1592. it was not to be thought that ever Bishops or Episcopacy could revive again though it otherwise happened It cannot be denied but that K. IAMES did much despise this Covenant commonly called the Negative Confession when He came into England for taking occasion to speak of it in the Conference of Hampton-Court he lets us know That Mr. Craige the Compiler of it with his renouncings and abhorrings his detestations and abrenounciations did so amaze the simple people that few of them being able to remember all the said particulars some took occasion thereby to fall back to Popery and others to remain in their former ignorance To which he added this short note That if he had been bound to that Form of Craige 's the Confession of his Faith must have been in his Table-Book and not in his Head But what a mean opinion soever K. IAMES had of it the Puritans or Presbyterians of both Kingdoms made it serve their turns for raising a most dangerous Rebellion against his Son and altering the whole Frame of Government both in Church and State which they new-molded at their pleasure and sure I am that at the first entring into this Band the Presbyterians there grew so high and insolent that the King could get no Reason of them in his just demands The King had found by late experience how much they had encroached upon his Royal Prerogative defamed the present Government and reviled his Person And thereupon as he had gratified them in confirming their Discipline so he required them not long after to subscribe these Articles that is to say That the Preacher should yeeld due obedience unto the King's Majesty That they should not pretend any priviledg in their Allegiance That they should not meddle in matters of State That they should not publikely revile His Majesty That they should not draw the people from their due obedience to the King That when they are accused for their Factious Speeches or for refusing to do any thing they should not alledg the inspiration of the Spirit nor feed themselves with colour of Conscience but confess their faults like Men and crave pardon like Subjects But they were well enough they thanked him and were resolved to hold their own Power let Him look to His. AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB IX Containing Their Disloyalty Treasons and Seditions in France the Country of East-Friesland and the Isles of Brittain but more particularly in England Together with the severe Laws made against them and the several Executions in pursuance of them from the year 15â—9 to the year 1595. THus have we brought the Presbyterians to their highest pitch in the Kirk of Scotland when they were almost at their lowest fall in the Church of England these being at the very point of their Crucifixion when the others were chanting their Hosanna's for their good success The English Brethren had lost their principal Support by the death of Leicester though he was thought to have cooled much in his affections towards their Affairs But what they lost in him they studied to repair by the Earl of Essex whose Father's Widow he had married trained him up for the most part under Puritan Tutors and married him at the last to Walsingham's Daughter Upon these hopes they made their applications to him and were chearfully welcomed the Gentleman bâ—ing young ambitious and exceeding popular and therefore apt enough to advance their Interest and by theirs his own And he appeared the rather for them at the first to cry quits
City of Embden and afterwards in all places under his command prohibiting the exercise of all Religion but the Lutheran only Which Prohibition notwithstanding some Anabaptists from the Neighbouring Westphalia found way to plant themselves in Embden where liberty of Trade was freely granted to all comers which allured thither also many Merchants and Artificers with their Wives and Families out of the next-adjoining Provinces of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland then subject to the King of Spain Who being generally Calvinians in point of Doctrine were notwithstanding suffered to plant there also in regard of the great benefit which accrued unto it by their Trade and Manufactures But nothing more encreased the Power and Wealth of that City than the Trade of England removed from Antwerp thither on occasion of the Belgick Troubles and the great fear they had conceived of the Duke of Alva who seemed to breathe nothing but destruction unto their Religion And though the English Trade was removed not long after unto Hambourgh upon the hope of greater Priviledges and Immunities than they had at Embden yet still they kept a Factory in it which added much to the improvement of their Wealth and Power insomuch that the Inhabitants of this Town only are affirmed to have Sixty Ships of One hundred Tun a-piece and Six hundred lesser Barks of their own besides Seven hundred Busses and Fishing Boats maintained for the most part by their Herring-fishing on the Coast of England 44. Having attained unto this Wealth they grew proud withall and easily admitting the Calvinian Doctrines began to introduce also the Genevian Discipline connived at by Ezardus the second the Son of Enno in respect of the profit which redounded by them to his Exchequer though they began to pinch upon him to the diminution of his Power In which condition it remained till his marriage with Catharine the Daughter of Gustavus Ericus King of Sweden who being zealously addicted to the Lutheran Forms and sensible of those great Incroachments which had been made upon the Earl's Temporal Jurisdiction by the Consistorians perswaded him to look better to his own Authority and to regain what he had lost by that Connivence Something was done for the recovering of his Power but it went on slowly hoping to compass that by time and dissimulation which he could not easily obtain by force of Arms. After whose death and the short Government of Enno the second the matter was more stoutly followed by Rodolphus the Nephew of Catharine who did not only curb the Consistorians in the exercise of their Discipline but questioned many of those Priviledges which the unwariness of his Predecessors had indulged unto them The Calvinians had by this time made so strong a Party that they were able to remonstrate against their Prince complaining in the same That the Earl had violated their Priviledges and infringed their Liberties That he had interposed his Power against Right and Reason in matters which concerned the Church and belonged to the Consistory That he assumed unto himself the Power of distributing the Alms or publick Collections by which they use to bind the poor to depend upon them That he prohibited the exercise of all Religions except only the Confession of Ausberg And that he would not stand to the Agreement which was made betwixt them for interdicting all Appeals to the Chamber of Spires Having prepared the way by this Remonstrance they take an opportunity when the Earl was absent arm themselves and seize by force upon his Castle demolished part of it which looks toward the Town and possest themselves of all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition with an intent hereafter to employ them against him And this being done they govern all Affairs in the Name of the Senate without relation to their Prince making themselves a Free-Estate or Commonwealth like their Belgick Neighbours 45. Extreamly moved with this affront and not being able otherwise to reduce them to a sense of their duty he borrows Men and Arms from Lubeck to compel them to it With which assistance he erects a Fort on the further side of the Haven to spoil their Trade and by impoverishing the people to regain the Town The Senate hereupon send abroad their Edicts to the Nobility and Commons of East-Friesland it self requiring them not to aid their own lawful Prince with Men Arms or Money threatning them if they did the contrary to stop the course of all Provisions which they had from their City and by breaking down their Dams and Sluces to let the Ocean in upon them and drown all their Countrey Which done they make their Applications to the States of Holland requiring their assistance in that common Cause to which they had been most encouraged by their Example not doubting of their Favour to a City of their own Religion united to them by a long intercourse of Trade and resemblance of Manners and not to be deserted by them without a manifest betraying of their own Security All this the States had under their consideration But they consider this withall That if they should assist the Embdeners in a publick way the Earl would presently have recourse for some aid from the Spaniard which might draw a Warr upon them on that side where they lay most open Therefore they so contrived the matter with such Art and Cunning that carrying themselves no otherwise than as Arbiters and Umpires between the Parties they discharged some Companies of Soldiers which they had in West-Friesland who presently put themselves into the Pay of the Embdens and thereby caused the Earl to desist from his Intrenchments on the other side of the Haven After which followed nothing but Warrs and Troubles between the City and the Earl till the year 1606. At what time by the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some other Honourable Friends the differences were compromised to this effect That all the Ordnance Arms and Ammunition which were found in the Castle should be restored unto the Earl That he should have to his own use the whole Profit of the Imposts which were laid on Wine and half the benefit of those Amercements or Fines which should be raised upon Delinquents together with the sole Royalties both of Fishing and Hunting And on the other side That the Embdeners should have free Trade with all the Profits and Emoluments belonging to it which should be granted to them by Letters Patents But for admitting him to any part of the Publick Government or making restitution of his House or Castles the ancient Seat of his abode as there was nothing yeelded or agreed on then so could he never get possession of them from that time to this Which said we must cross over again into the Isle of Brittain where we shall find the English Puritans climbing up by some new devices and the Scottish Presbyterians tumbling down from their former height till they were brought almost to as low a fall as their English Brethren AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
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
at first refused to yeeld to these hard Conditions yet in the next year Anno 1606 upon a second Treaty with the Estates of that Kingdom it was agreed upon by the Commissioners on both sides That the free exercise as well of the Reformed as of the Romish Religion should be permitted to all men in the Realm of Hungary as in the time of Maximilian the Father and Ferdinand the Grandfather of the present Emperor Which Articles were more fully ratified in the Pacification made at Vienna on the fourteenth of September then next following In which it was expresly cautioned and capitulated That the Calvinian Religion should from thenceforth be exercised as freely as either the Lutheran or the Romish In managing which Negation between the Parties Matthias the Arch-Duke who hitherto had secretly encouraged the Hungarian Gospellers was not only present but openly gave both countenance and consent unto it 21. The gaining of this point put them upon a hope of obtaining greater even to the abrogating of all Laws and Ordinances for the burning of Hereticks and whatsoever else were contrary to their Religion as also to the nominating of the Palatine or Principal Officers and to the making of Confederacies with their neighbour-Nation During the agitating of which matters Botscay dyes in Cassovia but leaves his Faction so well formed that they are able to go on without their Leader An Assembly of the States of Hungary is called by the Emperor at Presburgh in the middle of August Anno 1607 but nothing done for want of the presence of Arch-Duke Matthias who was appointed by the Emperor to preside therein Which hapned also to the like Assembly of Estates of the Dukedom of Austria and of the whole Empire the next year at the City of Ratisbone Matthias in the mean season had his own Designs apart For at such time as the Assembly of the Estates was held at Ratisbone he makes a journey unto Presburgh convocates thither the Estates of Hungary confirms the Pacification made before at Vienna suffers them to confederate with their Neighbours of Austria and makes himself the Head of that Confederation By vertue whereof he commands the people of both Countreys to put themselves into Arms pretending an Expedition into Moravia but aiming directly against Prague the chief Town of Bohemia where the Emperor RODOLPHVS then resided Whom he so terrified with his coming with an Army of Eighteen thousand that he consented to deliver the Crown of Hungary into the hands of Matthias to yeeld unto him the possession of all that Kingdom and to discharge his Subjects from their former Allegiance upon condition that the Estates of that Realm should chuse no other King but the said Arch-Duke Which Agreement being made the 17 th of Iune 1608 Matthias is accordingly Crowned King of Hungary and Illisachius a profest Calvinian and one of the principal Sticklers in these Agitations is made Palatine of it 22. By this Transaction the whole Dukedom of Austria and so many of the Provinces subordinate to it as were not actually possessed by the Arch-Duke Ferdinand are consigned over to Matthias Many Inhabitants whereof professing the Calvinian Forms and Doctrines which only must be called the Reformed Religion and building on the late Confederation with the Realm of Hungary presumed so far upon the patience of their Prince as to invade some publick Churches for the exercise of it But they soon found themselves deceived For Matthias having somewhat of the States-man in him and being withall exasperated by the Pope's Nuncio interdicts all such publick Meetings He had now served his turn in getting the possession of the Crown of Hungary and was not willing to connive at those Exorbitances in his Austrian Subjects over whom he challenged a more absolute Soveraignty than over any of the rest which he had cherished for self-ends in the Kingdom of Hungary The Austrians on the other side who professed the Reformed Religion refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to him if they might not exercise their Religion in as free a manner as the Hungarians were permitted to do by the Pacification And thereupon they presently give Order to their Tenants and Vassals to put themselves into Arms appoint a general Assembly of the Protestant and Reformed States to be held at Horn and there resolve to extort that by way of Force which they could not hope to gain by Favour Some pains was took by Maximilian the Arch-Duke another of the Emperor's Brothers to accord the difference who offered them in the name of the King to tolerate the free exercise of their Religion without the Cities and that in the bestowing of the publick Offices there should be no exception taken at them in regard of their difference in Religion and withall gave them many Reasons why such a general Liberty as they desired could not be granted by the King with reference to his Honour Conscience or particular safety 23. But this reasonable Offer did not satisfie the Reformed Party for so the Calvinians must be called by whom the Hungarians and Moravians are sollicited to associate with them till they had compassed their desires And upon confidence thereof refused more obstinately to take the Oath than before they did levying new Forces for the Warr and quartering them in great numbers round about the City of Crema the chief City of the Vpper Austria But in the end upon the intervention of the Moravian Ambassadors the new King was content to yeeld to these Conditions following viz. That the Nobility in their Castles or Towns as also in their City-Houses should for themselves and their people have the free exercise of their Religion That the free exercise of Preaching might be used in the three Churches of Iserdorf Trihelcuincel and Horn. That the like freedom of Religion might be also exercised in all those Churches in which they enjoyed the same till the King 's late Edict and that the Councellors of State and other publick Officers should from thenceforth chose promiscuously out of both Religions Upon the granting of which Articles but not before they did not only take the Oath of Allegiance but gave him a Magnificent Reception in the Town of Lintz which hapned on the 17 th of May 1609. 24. No sooner were the Austrians gratified in the point of Religion but the Bohemians take their turn to require the like concerning which we are to look a little backward as far as to the year 1400. About which time we find a strong Party to be raised amongst them against some Superstitions and Corruptions in the Church of Rome occasioned as some say by reading the Works of Wickliff and by the Diligence of Piccardus a Flemming born as is affirmed by some others from whom they had the Name of Piccards cruelly persecuted by their own Kings and publickly condemned in the Council of Constance they continued constant notwithstanding to their own Perswasions Distinguished also from the rest of the Bohemians
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
those out-rages Doubly affronted and provoked the King resolves to right Himself in the way of Arms. But at the instant request of Des Diguiers before remembred who had been hitherto a true Zealot to the Hugonot Cause he was content to give them Four and twenty days of deliberation before he drew into the Field He offered them also very fair and reasonable Canditions not altogether such as their Commissioners had desired for them but far better than those which they were glad to accept at the end of the Warr when all their strengths were taken from them But the Hugonots were not to be told that all the Calvinian Princes and Estates of the Empire had put themselves into a posture of Warr some for defence of the Palatinate and others in pursuance of the Warr of Bohemia Of which they gave themselves more hopes than they had just cause for In which conjuncture some hot spirits then assembled at Rochel blinded with pride or hurried on by the fatality of those Decrees which they maintained to be resolved upon by God before all Eternity reject all offers tending to a Pacification and wilfully run on to their own destruction For presently upon the tendry of the King's Proposals they publish certain Orders for the regulating of their Disobedience as namely That no Agreement should be made with the King but by the consent of a General Convocation of the Chiefs of their Party about the payment of their Soldiers Wages and intercepting the Revenues of the King and Clergie toward the maintenance of the Warr. They also Cantoned the whole Kingdom into seven Divisions assigned to each of those Divisions a Commander in Chief and unto each Commander their particular Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and other Officers with several Limitations and Directions prescribed to each of them for their proceeding in this service 38. This makes it evident that the King did not take up Arms but on great necessities He saw his Regal Authority neglected his especial Edicts wilfully violated his Gracious Offers scornfully slighted his Revenues Feloniously intercepted his whole Realm Cantoned before his face and put into the power of such Commanders as he could not trust So that the Warr being just on his part he had the more reason to expect such an issue of it as was agreeable to the Equity of so good a Cause He had besides all those Advantages both at home and abroad which in all probability might assure him of the End desired The Prince Elector Palatine had been worsted in the Warr of Bohemia and all the Princes of the Union scattered to their several Homes which they were hardly able to defend against so many Enemies so that there was no danger to be feared from them And on the other side the King of Great Britain whom he had most cause to be afraid of had denied assistance to his own Children in the Warr of Bohemia which seemed to have more Justice in it than the Warr of the Hugonots and therefore was not like to engage in behalf of strangers who rather out of wantonness than any unavoidable necessity had took up Arms against their Lawful and Undoubted Soveraign At home the Rochellers were worse befriended than they were abroad I mean the Common-wealth of Rochel as King LEWIS called it The whole Confederacy of the Hugonots there contrived and sworn to they had Cantoned the whole Realm into seven Divisions which they assigned to the Command of the Earl of Chastillon the Marquess De la Force the Duke of Soâ—bize the Duke of Rohan the Duke of Trimoville the Duke Des Diguer and the Duke of Bouillon whom they designed to be the Generalissimo over all their Forces But neither he nor Des Diguers nor the Duke of Trimoville nor Chastillon would act any thing in it or accept any such Commissions as were sent unto them Whether it were that they were terrified with the ill success of the Warr of Bohemia or that the Conscience of their duty did direct them in it I dispute not now So that the Rochellers being deserted both at home and abroad were forced to rely upon the Power and Prudence of the other three and to supply all other wants out of the Magazine of Obstinacy and Perversness with which they were plentifully stored Two instances I shall only touch at and pass over the rest The town of Clerack being summoned the 21 of Iuly 1621 returned this Answer to the King viz. That if he would permit them to enjoy their Liberties withdraw his Armies and leave their Fortifications in the same estate in which he found them they would remain his faithful and obedient Subjects More fully those of Mount Albon on the like occasion That they resolve to live and dye not in obedience to the King as they should have said but in the Vnion of the Churches Most Religious Rebels 39. Next let us look upon the King who being brought to a necessity of taking Arms first made his way unto it by his Declaration of the second of April published in favour of all those of that Religion who would contain themselves in their due obedience In pursuance whereof he caused five persons to be executed in the City of Tours who had tumultuously disturbed the Hugonots whom they found busied at the burial of one of their dead He also signified to the King of Great Britain the Princes of the Empire and the States of the Netherlands That he had not undertook this Warr to suppress the Religion but to chastise the Insolencies of Rebellious Subjects And what he signified in words he made good by his deeds For when the Warr was at the hottest all those of the Religion in the City of Paris lived as securely as before and had their accustomed Meetings at Charenton as in times of peace Which safety and security was enjoyed in all other places even where the King's Armies lodged and quartered Nay such a care was taken of their preservation that when some of the Rascality in the City of Paris upon the first tydings of the death of the Duke of Mayenne who had been slain at the Siege of Mont-albon amongst many others breathed nothing but slaughter and revenge to the Hugonot Party the Duke of Mounbazon being then Governour of the City commanded their Houses and the Streets to be safely guarded so that no hurt was done to their Goods or Persons And when the Rabble being disappointed of their Ends in Paris had run tumultuously the next day to Charenton and burned down their Temple an Order was presently made by the Court of Parliament for the re-edifying it at the King 's sole Charges and that too in a far more beautiful Fabrick than before it had But in the conduct of the Warr he governed not his Counsels with like moderation suffering the Sword too often to range at liberty as if he meant to be as terrible in his Executions as he desired to be accounted just in his Undertakings But
shut them up in Ships whom they exposed to storms and tempests and all the miseries which a wild Sea could give to a languishing stomack And some again they sequestred under colour of scandal imputing to them such notorious and enormous Crimes as would have rendered them uncapable of Life as well as Livings if they had been proved But that which added the most weight to these Oppressions was the publishing of a malicious and unchristian Pamphlet entituled The first Century of Scandalous and Malignant Priests which whether it were more odious in the sight of God or more disgraceful to the Church or offensive to all sober and religious men it is hard to say And as it seems the scandal of it was so great that the Publisher thereof though otherwise of a fiery and implacable nature desisted from the putting forth of a Second Century though he had promised it in the First and was inclinable enough to have kept his word Instructions had been sent before to all Counties in England for bringing in such Informations against their Ministers as might subject them to the danger of a Deprivation But the times were not then so apt for mischief as to serve their turns which made them fall upon these wretched and unchristian courses to effect their purpose By means whereof they purged the Church of almost all Canonical and Orthodox men The greatness of which desolation in all the parts of the Kingdom may be computed by the havock which they made in London and the Parishes thereunto adjoining according as it is presented in the Bill of Mortality hereunto subjoined 29. A General Bill of Mortality of the Clergy of London which have been defunct by reason of the Contagious breath of the Sectaries of that City from the year 1641 to the year 1647 with the several Casualties of the same Or A brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the Learned Grave Religious and Painful Ministers of the City of London who have been imprisoned plundered and barbarously used and deprived of all Livelihood for themselves and their Families for their constancy to the Protestant Religion established in this Kingdom and their Loyalty to their Soveraign THE Cathedral Church of St. Paul The Dean Residentiaries and other Members of that Church sequestred plundered and turned out St. Albans Woodstreet Dr. Wats sequestred plundered his Wife and Children turned out of doors himself forced to flye Alhallows Barking Dr. Layfield persecuted imprisoned in Ely-house and the Ships sequestred and plundered afterwards forced to flye Alhallows Breadstreet Alhallows Great Alhallows Honey-Lane Alhallows Less Alhallows Lumbardstreet Mr. Weston sequestred Alhallows Stainings Alhallows the Wall Alphage Dr. Halsie shamefully abused his Cap pulled off to see if he were not a shaven Priest voted out and forced to flye dead with grief Andrew Hubbard Dr. Chambers sequestred Andrew Vndershaft 1. Mr. Mason through vexation forced to resign 2. Mr. Prichard after that sequestred Andrew Wardrobe Dr. Isaacson sequestred Ann Aldersgate Dr. Clewet sequestred Ann Black-Fryers Antholin's Parish Austin's Parish Mr. Vdal sequestred his Bed-rid Wife turned out of doors and left in the streets Barthol Exchange Dr. Grant sequestred Bennet Fink Mr. Warfeild sequestred Bennet Grace-Church Mr. Guelch sequestred Bennet Paul's Wharf Mr. Adams sequestred Bennet Shere-hog Mr. Morgan dead with grief Botolph Billingsgate Mr. King sequestred and forced to flye Christ Church turned out and dead Christophers Mr. Hanslow Clement Eastcheap Mr. Stone shamefully abused sequestred sent Prisoner to Plymouth and plundered Dionyse Back-Church Mr. Humes sequestred and abused Dunstans East Dr. Chiderly reviled abused and dead Edmonds Lombardstreet Mr. Paget molested silenced and dead Ethelborough Mr. Clark sequestred and imprisoned Faiths Dr. Brown sequestred and dead Fosters Mr. Batty sequestred plundered forced to flye and dead Gabriel Fenchurch Mr. Cook sequestred George Botolphlane Gregory's by Pauls Hellens Mr. Miller turned out and dead Iames Duke-place Mr sequestred Iames Garlickhithe Mr. Freeman plundered and sequestred and Mr. Anthony turned out Iohn Baptist Mr. Weemsly sequequestred Iohn Evangelist Iohn Zachary Mr. Eldlin sequestred forced to flye and plundered Katherine Coleman Dr. Hill and Mr. Ribbuts sequestred Katharine Greechurch Mr. Rush turned out Laurence Iury Mr. Crane sequestred Laurence Poutney Leonard Eastcheap Mr. Calf forced to give up to Mr. Roborow Scribe to the Assembly Leonard Foster-lane Mr. Ward forced to flye plundered sequestred and dead for want of necessaries Margaret Lothbury Mr. Tabor plundered imprisoned in the King's Bench his Wife and Children turned out of doors at midnight and himself sequestred Margaret Moses Margaret New-Fishstreet Mr. Pory forced to flye plundered and sequestred Margaret Pattons Mr. Megs plundered imprisoned in Ely-house and sequestred Mary Abchurch Mr. Stone plundered sent Prisoner by Sea to Plymouth and sequestred Mary Aldermanbury Mary Aldermary Mr. Brown forced to forsake it Mary le Bow Mr. Leech sequestred and dead with grief Mary Bothaw Mr. Proctor forced to flye and sequestred Mary Colechurch Mary Hill 1. Dr. Baker sequestred pursivanted and imprisoned 2. Mr. Woodcock turned out and forced to flye Mary Mounthaw Mr. Thrall sequestred and shamefully abused Mary Sommerset Mr. Cook sequestred Mary Stainings Mary Woolchurch Mr. Tireman forced to forsake it Mary Woolnoth Mr. Shute molested and vext to death and denied a Funeral-Sermon to be preached by Dr. Holdsworth as he desired Martins Ironmonger-lane Mr. Spark sequestred and plundered Martins Ludgate Dr. Iermine sequestred Martins Orgars Dr. Walton assaulted sequestred plundered and forced to flye Martins Outwich Dr. Pierce sequestred and dead Martins Vintry Dr. Ryves sequestred plundered and forced to flye Matthew Friday-street Mr. Chestlin violently assaulted in his House imprisoned in the Counter thence sent to Colchester Gaol in Essex sequestred and plundered Maudlins Milk-street Mr. Iones sequestred Maudlins Old-Fishstreet Dr. Gryffith sequestred plundered imprisoned in Newgate and when let out forced to flye Michael Bassishaw Dr. Gyfford sequestred Michael Cornhil Dr. Brough sequestred plundred Wife and Children turned out of doors and his Wife dead with grief But Mr. Weld his Curate assaulted beaten in the Church and turned out Michael Crooked-lane Michael Queenhithe Mr. Hill sequestred Michà el Quern Mr. Launce sequestred Michael Royal Mr. Proctor sequestred and forced to flye Michael Woodstreet Mildred Breadstreet Mr. Bradshaw sequestred Mildred Poultry Mr. Maden sequestred and gone beyond Sea Nicholas Acons Mr. Bennet sequestred Nicholas Coleabby Mr. Chibbald sequestred Nicholas Olaves Dr. Cheshire molested and forced to resign Olaves Hartstreet Mr. Haines sequestred Olaves Iury Mr. Tuke sequestred plundered and imprisoned Olaves Silver-street Dr. Boobe abused and dead with grief Pancras Soper-lane Mr. Eccop sequestred plundred and forced to flye his Wife and Children turned out of doors Peters Cheap Mr. Votier sequestred and dead with grief Peter's Cornhil Dr. Fairfax sequestred plundred imprisoned in Ely-House and the Ships his Wife and Children turned out of doors Peters Pauls-Wharf Mr. Marbury sequestred Peters Poor Dr. Holdsworth sequestred plundred imprisoned in Ely-House then in the Tower