was stript seven times in one day and they bade her go and look for her God and bid him give her cloaths again In Kilkenny they cruelly beat an English woman till they forced her into a ditch where she died then they took her child a girle of about six years old ript her belly and let out her guts One they forced to go to Masse with them yet afterwards wounded him ript his belly took out his guts and so left him alive A Scottish man they stripped and knocked on the head who afterwards coming to himself went into the Town naked Then did they again take him and hewed him all to pieces They also ript up his Wives belly so that a Child dropped out of her womb Many other women great with childe they hung up then ript their bellies and let the Infants fall out Sometimes they gave their children to be devoured of Swine and Dogs One John Stone with his son two sons in law and their wives they took and hung them all up and one of the young women being great with child they ript her belly took forth her child and used such beastly barbarous actions to her as are not fit to be mentioned At the Newry they ript up a womans belly that was great with two children throwing them to be devoured of swine Also another woman being delivered of a childe in the fields they which had formerly killed her Father and Husband killed her also with two of her children and gave the new-born infant to be devoured of Dogs In the County of Armagh they Robbed stripped and murthered abundance of Protestants whereof some they burned some they slew with the sword some they hanged and some they starved to death and meeting Mistris Howard and Mistris Frankland with six of their children and themselves both great with child with their pikes they killed and murthered them all ript open the Gentlewomens bellies took out their children and threw them into a ditch A young Scottish womans child they took by the heeles and dashed the braines out against a tree the like they did to many other children Anne Hill going with a young child on her back and four more by her side these cruel persecutors pulled the child off her back trod on it till it died stripped her self and the other four children starke naked whereby they died of cold Some others they met with hanged them up upon a Windmill and before they were half dead cut them in pieces with their Skeins Many other Protestants especially women and children they pricked and stabbed with their Skeins Forks and Swords slashing cutting and mangling them in their heads faces breasts armes and other parts yet killed them not but left them wallowing in their blood to languish starve and pine to death and when they desired them to kill them out of their paine they refused yet sometimes after a day or two they would dash out their braines with stones or clubs which they accounted as a great favour One goodwife Harvey at Kilkenny was forced to go to Masse yet afterwards together with her children was stripped and one of her daughters had her belly ripped that her intrails fell out and her self was so beaten and wounded that she hardly escaped with life The Castle of Lisgoole being set on fire by these mercilesse Papists a woman leaped out at a window to save her self from burning but they presently murthered her the next morning her child was found sucking at her breast which they murthered also And whereas many Protestants with their wives and children fled into vauls and cellars to hide themselves they were all murthered there One Jane Addis they stabbed and then putting her child of a quarter old to her breast bid it suck English bastard and so left it to perish there One Mary Barlow had her husband hanged before her face and her self with six children were all stript stark naked in frost and snow after which sheltring themselves in a Cave they had nothing to eat for three weeks but two old Calves skins which they beat with stones and so eat them hair and all her children crying to her rather to go out and be killed than to famish there In the cold weather many thousands of Protestants of all ranks ages and sexes being turned out stark naked perished of cold and hunger thousands of others were drowned cast into ditches bogs and turf-pits Multitudes were inclosed in houses which being set on fire they were burnt miserably Some that lay sick of feavors they drew out of their beds and hanged them Some men women and children they drove into boggie pits and if any of them endeavoured to get out they knockt them on the heads Some aged men and women these Barbarians enforced their own children to carry them to the river where they were drowned yea some children were compelled unnaturally to be the Executioners of their own Parents wives were forced to help to hang their own husbands and mothers to cast their own children into the water after all which themselves were murthered In Sligo they forced a young man to kill his own father and then hanged him up In another place they forced a woman to kill her husband then caused her son to kill her and then immediatly hanged the son and this they did that they might destroy both soul and body Yea such was their detestable malice against the English Protestants that they taught their children to kill English children One of these Villains wives was very angry with their souldiers because they did not bring the grease of a fat Gentlewoman whom they had slaine with them for her to make candles of The Irish women that followed the Camp egged on the men to cruelty always crying out kill them all spare neither man woman nor child They took the child of one Tkomas Straton being about twelve years old and boiled him to death in a Cauldron One Goodwife Lin and her daughter were carried into a Wood where they first hanged the mother and then the daughter in the hair of the mothers head Some women and children of the Irish meeting an English woman great with child stript her to her smock then pulled off her smock and so rent and abused her that the poor woman falling into labour both she and her child died under their hands In some places they plucked out the eyes and cut off the hands of the Protestants and so turned them out into the fields to wander up and down till they perished The very women in some places stoned the English women to death together with their children One man they shot through both his thighs then digging a hole in the ground they set him in it upright upon his feet and then filled up the hole leaving out only his head where they left him till he pined and languished to death Of another man they held his feet in the fire till he was
into quarters and gobbets eighteen Scottish infants they hanged upon a clothiers tenterhooks One fat man they murthered and made Candles of his grease of another Scottish man they ript up his belly took one end of his small guts tied it to a tree and forced him round about it till he had drawn them all out of his body saying that they would try whether a dogs or a Scotchmans guts were the longer By the command of Sir Philem O Neale Master James Maxwell was drawn out of his bed being fick of a Feavor and murthered and his wife being in child-birth the child half borne they stript her stark naked drove her about a flights shoot and drowned her in the Blackwater the like or worse they did to another English woman in the same town They took one Master Watson and cutting two collops out of his buttocks they roasted him alive Of a Scottish woman great with child they ript up her belly cut the child out of her womb and so left it crawling on her body Master Starkey Schoolmaster at Armagh being above one hundred years old they stripped stark naked then took two of his daughters being Virgins whom they stripped stark naked also and then forced them to lead their aged father under the armes a quarter of a mile to a turspit where they drowned them all three feeding the lusts of their eyes and cruelty of their hearts with the same object at the same time In some places they shewed the like cruelty to the English beasts which they would not kill out-right but used to cut collops out of them delighting to hear their roaring and so the poor cattel would sometimes live two or three dayes in that torment To one Henry Cowel a gallant Gentleman they profered his life if he would marry one of their base Truls or go to masse but he chose death rather than to consent to either Also to one Robeâ—t Ecklin a child about eleven years old they profered his life if he would go to Masse but he refused saying That he saw nothing in their Religion for which he would change his own Many of the Protestants they buried alive solacing themselves in hearing them speak to them whilst they were digging down old ditches upon them They used also to send their children abroad in troops armed with long wattles and whips wherewith they used to beat dead mens bodies about their privy members till they beat them off and then would return very joyful to their Parents who received them as it were in triumph for their good actions If any women were found dead lying with their faces downwards these bruitish persons used to turn them on their â—acks viewing and censuring every part of them especially those parts that are not fit to be named which also they abused so many ways and so filthily as chast ears would not endure the naming rhereof They brake the back-bone of a young youth and so left him in the fields and some dayes after he was found having like a beast eaten all the grasse round about him yet neither then would they kill him out-right but removed him to a place of better pasture wherein was fulfilled that saying The tender mercies of the wicked are cruelty In the County of Antrim they murthered nine hundred fifty four Protestants in one morning and afterwards about twelve hundred more in that County Near Lisnegarvy they forced above twenty four Protestants into an house and then setting fire on it they burned them all counterfeiting their out-cries in derision to others Sir Philem O Neal boasted that he had slain above six hundred at Garvagh and that he had left neither man woman nor child alive in the Baronry of Munterlong In other places he murthered above two thousand persons in their houses so that many houses were filled with dead bodies Above twelve thousand were slain in the high ways as they fled towards Down Many died of famine many were starved to death for want of clothes being stript of all in a cold season Some thousands were drowned So that in the very Province of Ulster there were about one hundred and fifty thousand murthered by sundry kinds of torments and deaths These bloody Persecutors themselves confessed that the Ghosts of divers of the Protestants which they had drowned at Portendown Bridge were daily and nightly seen to walk upon the river sometimes singing of Psalms sometimes brandishing naked swords sometimes screeching in a most hideous and fearful manner so that many of the Popish Irish which dwelt near thereabouts being affrighted herewith were forced to remove their habitations further off into the Countrey The Popish English were no whit inferiour yea rather exceeded the natural Irish in their cruelty against the Protestants that lived amongst them within the pale being never satisfied with their blood till they had seen the last drop thereof Anne Kinnard testified that fifteen Protestants being imprisoned and their feet in the Stocks a Popish boy being not above fourteen years old slew them all in one night with his skeine Another not above twelve years old killed two women in another place An English Papist woman killed seven men and women of her neighbours in one morning And it was usual for the Papists children to murder the Protestants children and sometimes with their woodden Swords sharp and heavy they would venture upon people of riper years An English woman who was newly delivered of two children some of these villains violently compelled her in her great pain and sicknesse to rise from her bed and took one of the infants that was living and dashed his brains against the stones and then threw him into the River of the Barrow the like they did by many other infants Many others they hanged without all pity The Lord Mont Garret caused divers English Souldiers that he had taken about Kilkenny to be hanged hardly suffering them to pray before their death they dyed very patiently and resolutely in the defence of the Protestant faith and one of them being an Irish man had his life offered if he would turn Papist but he rather chose to dye and so was executed with the rest Some of these Persecutors meeting a poor young Girle that was going to see her friends they first half-hanged her and then buried her quick One Fitz Patrick enticed a rich Merchant that was a Protestant to bring all his goods into his house promising safely to keep them and to redeliver them to him But when he had thus gotten them into his possession he took the Merchant and his Wife and hanged them both the like he did by divers others Some English mens heads that they had cut off they carried to Kilkenny and on the market day set them on the Crosse where many especially the women stab'd cut and slashed them every one accounting themselves happy that could but get a
passing by before he was dead and hearing him implore Gods mercy kickt him on the head saying Is this dog yet living take him and cast him to the hogs Sixtly women were racked so violently that the cords pierced into their arms and legs and being then cast into prison they died there only nine of the handsomest being delievered to the fathers of the Inquisition were never heard off after Many others were delivered to the secular power to be burnt and if any interceded for them he was presently put on the rack as a favourer of Hereticks Pope Pius the fourth sent the Marquesse of Butiane promising that if he would wholly cleare Calabria of these Waldenses he would make his son a Cardinall But he was put to no great pains to do it for the Inquisitors and the Vice-roy of Naples had by sundry deaths killed all the men women and children that they could light of One of their Ministers was famished in prison Another was carried to Rome where he was condemned to be burnt The Pope and his Cardinals would needs see that pleasing spectacle But the Minister spake so many things out of Gods Word against the Pope that the Pope gnashed his teeth for anger wishing that he had been some where else And thus were these godly people wholly rooted out of Calabria CHAP. XXIII The Persecutions of the Waldenses in Provence THese came from Piedmont when their vallies were over-peopled The country of Provence at their first arrival was a desert but within few years by Gods blessing upon their labours it-abounded with Corn Wine Oil Chesnuts and other fruites There Habitations being near to Avignion many times the Popes seat they were exposed to sundry persecutions as Anno 1380. and at other times but the greatest of all began about the year 1360. in the time of King Lewis the twelfth who being informed that in Provence was a certain kind of people that lived not according to the Laws of the Church of Rome but were an accursed people committing all kindes of wickednesse and villanies He gave Commission to his Parliament in Provence to take cognizance of it and to punish them according to their demerits The Court prosecuting this order with rigour and the King hearing that diverse innocent persons were put to death he sent his Master of Requests and Confessor into Provence to finde out what kinde of persons these were who at their return certified him that all the former suggestions were untrue that they were neither Socerers nor Whoremongers but lived honestly did hurt to none caused their children to be Baptized taught them their Belief and the ten Commandments and that they carefully kept the Lords day and had the Word of God purely expounded to them Whereupon the King swore an oath That they were honester then himself and his Catholik subjects Upon this information he sent and staâ—ed the Persecution Then did the Waldenses send two of their Ministers George Morrell and Peter Masson to Oecolampadius Capito Bâ—cer and Haller to confer with them about matters of Religion and to have there advice in many things In their return Masson was apprehended at Dijon where he was condemned and put to death for a Lutheran Morrell escaped with his Letters and Papers and came safe to Provence where he much comforted and confirmed the Churches Yet all this while did the Parliament of Aix apprehend one or other of them condemning some to the fire others to the gibbet they which scaped best returned with marks in their forheads Anno Christi 1540. The inhabitants of Merindoll were summoned and some of the chief appearing for the rest they were all condemned to be burned alive their children and families to be outlawed and that the place of their habitation should be laid waste the woods cut down two hundred paces round about and so left desolate The King being informed of the rigour of this Edict and of the innocency of the people countermanded the execution of it but his Letters were suppressed and the Cardinall of Tournon obtained for a great some of money the revocation of them Anno 1545. The President of Opede proclaimed war against them both at Aix and Marseilles Divers companies of souldiers were listed and five bands of the old souldiers of Piedmont were joyned with them and presently they began to set fire on the Villages of Cabrieres Pepin c. The poor people without any resistance were slain women and their daughters ravished some great with child murthered the breasts of many women were cut off after whose death their poor infants died of famine Opede also proclaimed that on pain of death no man should give any relief or sustenance to them All their habitations were pillaged sacked and burnt and none of their persons spared but such as were reserved for the Gallies Opede comming to Merindol found none there but one simple lad who had yielded himselfe prisoner to a souldier and promised two Crowns for his ransom but Opede paid the money to the souldier and caused the lad to be shot to death then he utterly razed the Town and laid it levell with the ground Then did he march against Cabrieres and with the Cannon battered the wals There was within only about sixty poor sick Pesants who sent him word that he needed not to spend powder to batter the wals for they were ready to open the gates and quit the Country if they might but have leave with their wives and children to go to Geneva or Germany and to leave all their goods behinde them Opede entring the Town caused all the men to be brought into a field and to be cut in pieces the souldiers striving who should shew the best manhood in cutting off heads arms and legs The women he caused to be locked in a barn with much straw and so put fire to it where many women great with childe were burnt One souldier moved with pity opening a hole in the wall that some of them might come out but Opede made them to be beaten back againe into the fire with Pikes and Halberts Some of them that came forth he slew with his own hands ripping open their bellies so that their children came forth whom he trod under his feet many were fled into cellers and caves whom he caused to be dragged out had into the field stripped stark naked and then slain Others were bound by two and two together and slain by the Captains who rejoyced in their bloudy butchery Then did this Tyrant worse then Herod command one of his Captaines to go into Church into which many women children and infants were fled and to kill them all which the Captain at first refused saying that it was a cruelty unbeseeming men of warre Whereat Miniers being displeased charged him upon pain of rebellion against the King to do it The Captain fearing what might be the issue entred with his souldiers and destroyed them all sparing
peaceably in their houses others travelling upon the high wayes all without any manner of provocation given by them were suddenly destroyed In the Castle of Lisgool were about one hundred and fifty men women and children consumed with fire At the Castle of Moneah were one hundred slain altogether At the Castle of Tullah which was delivered to Mac Guire upon composition and faithful promises of faire quarter as soon as he and his entred the Court they began to strip the people and most cruelly put them to the sword murthering them all without mercy At Lissenskeah they hanged and killed above one hundred of the Scottish Protestants shewing them no more favour than they did to the English Yea the County thereabouts being well planted and peopled was in a most horrible manner quite destroyed In the Counties of Armagh and Tyrone where the Protestants were more numerous their murthers were more multiplied and with greater cruelty if it were possible than in other places Mac Guire coming to the Castle of Lissenskeah desired in a friendly manner to speak with Master Middleton who admitting him in as soon as he was entred he first burned the Records of the County which were kept there then he demanded one thousand pounds which was in his custody of Sir William Balâ—ores which as soon as he had he caused Master Middleton to hear Masse and to swear that he would never alter from it and then immediately caused him his wife and children to be hanged up hanging and murthering above one hundred persons besides in that place At Portendown Bridge there were one thousand men women and children carried in several Companies and all unmercifully drowned in the River the Bridge being broken down in the midst and the people driven and forced on till they tumbled down into the water Yea in that Country there were four thousand persons drowned in several places the barbarous Papists driving on the poore soules when they had miserably stripped them unto the places of their sufferings like swine and if any were slack in their pace they pricked them forward with their swords and pikes yea to terrifie the rest they killed and wounded some and when they were cast into the river if any assayed to swimme to the Shore the Rebels stood and shot at them In one place one hundred and fourty English were taken and driven like cattel for many miles together Other companies they carried out under pretence of safe conduct thereby causing them to march chearfully till they had got them to some place fit for execution and then murthered them there One hundred and fifteen men women and children they sent with Sir Philem Onenles Passe till they had brought them to the bridge of Portendowne and then forced them all into the water and such as by swimming or other means sought to escape they either knocked them on the head and after drwowned them or else shot them to death in the water One Mistris Campbel being forced by them to the River and finding no meanes to escape their furie suddenly clasped one of the chief of them in her armes and so both tumbling into the River they were drowned together At another time one hundred and fourty Protestants being thrown in at the same place as any of them swam to the shore the bloody villaines with the butt-ends of their muskets knockt out their brains At Armagh O Cane gat together all the Protestants thereabouts pretending to conduct them to Coleraine but before they were gone a dayes journey they were all murthered and so were many others though they had protections from Sir Phileme O Neale The aged people in Armagh were carried to Charlemount and there murthered Presently after the Town of Armagh was burnt and five hundred persons of all sorts were there murthered and drowned In Killoman were fourty eight families murthered In one house twenty two Protestants were burned In Kilmore all the inhabitants were stript and massacred being two hundred families Some they set in the stocks till they confessed where their monie was and then massacred them The whole County was a common butchery where many thousands perished in a shor time by sword famine fire water and all other cruel manner of deaths that rage and malice could invent To many these bloody Villains shewed so much favour as to dispatch them presently by no means allowing them so much time as to pray Others they imprisoned in filthy Dungeons full of dirt and mire and there clapping bolts on their legs suffered them to perish at leasure One told John Cowder that they would kill him but first bid him say his prayers and when he kneeled down to pray they presently cut off his head When some others upon their knees begged but leave to pray before they were slain they would bid them bequeath their soules to the Divel others would ask them why do you desire to pray your soules are already with the Divel and so would immediately slaughter them At Casel they put all the Protestants into a loathsome Dungeon where they kept them twelve weekes in great misery Some they barbarously mangled and left them langushing upon the high wayes crying out but for so much mercy as to be dispatched out of their paine some they hanged up twice or thrice Others they buried alive Some when they were half-hanged they cast into pits covering them with a little earth where they sent out most lamentable groanes for a good while after In Queenes County an English man his wife five children and a maid were all hanged together then put into a hole the youngest child being not dead put up the hand and cried Mammie Mammie and yet without mercy they buried it alive Thomas Mason in Laugal was extreamly beaten and wounded yet his wife and some others carried him away whereupon these Villaines cruelly hacked slashed and wounded them and then dragged the said Mason into an hole and there threw stones on him with the weight whereof they kept him under there he lay languishing and groaning till his own wife to put him out of paine stopped his breath with her handkerchief At Clownes seventeen men were buried alive yet so as their pitiful cryes were heard afar off Some were deadly wounded and so hanged upon tenter-hooks Some with ropes about their necks were drawn through the water Some with ropes about their middles were drawn through woods and bogs In Castle Cumber one of these cut-throats took two boyes wounded them and hung them upon a butchers tenters Some were hanged up and taken down several times to make them confess their monie which when they had done they presently murthered them Some were hung up by the armes and then with their swords they made experiment how many blowes an English Protestant would endure ere he died Some had their bellies ript up and so were left with their guts running about their heels An ancient woman coming towards Dublin
is the cruelties which were there excuted would exceed the belief of any man were they not so fully proved by the formal attestations of eye witnesses by the wofull crys of so many desolate and poor wretches who have been miserably robb'd of their Relations Houses Lands and all other comforts yea by the formall oath of one of the chief Commanders of the Army that acted these cruelties signed with his own hand in the presence of two authentick witnesses and the voluntary confession of one of the Soldiers who told some of his Comrades that many times during the heat of the Massacre he had surfetted with eating the boiled Brains of the Protestants The Declaration of Monsieur du Petit Bourg first Captain of the Regiment of Gransey subscribed with his own hand at Pignerol Nov. 27. 1655. in the presence of two other Commanders I Sieur du Petit Bourg being commanded by Prince Thomas to go and joyne my self with the Marquesse of Pianessa who was then at La Torre upon my departure I was requested by the Ambassador to speak to the Marquesse and to use my endeavour to accommodate the troubles which were amongst those of the Religion in the Valleys of Piemont which accordingly I did entreating him with much earnestnesse that he would give way thereunto and I doubted not but I should be able to effect it but he refused this my request and that divers times notwithstanding all the endeavours I could possibly use to perswade him thereto and instead of the least mitigation I was witnesse to many great violences and extreme cruelties exercised by the Bandets and souldiers of Piemont upon all sorts of every age sex and condition whom I saw massacred dismembred hanged up burnt and ravished together with many horrid confusions which I beheld with horror and regret and without any distinction of those that resisted and such as resisted not they were used with all sorts of inhumanity their houses burnt their goods plundered and when prisoners were brought before the said Marquesse I saw him give order to give them no quarter at all saying his Highnesse was resolved to have none of the Religion within his Dominions And whereas in his Declaration he protests that there was no hurt done to any but during the fight nor the least outrage committed upon any persons that were not fit to beare Armes I will maintaine that it is not so having seene with my eyes many persons killed in cold blood as also women aged persons and young children miserably murdered c. The attestation of divers persons of honour and integrity who were for the most part eye and eare witnesses of the ensuing barbarous cruelties which were exercised upon diverse members of the Evangelical Churches in the Valleys of Piemont in the late Massacre 1655. Sarah Rastignole des Vignes about sixty years of age being overtaken by divers souldiers was commanded to say her prayers and when she had done they bade her say Jesus Maria which the poor woman refusing one of the souldiers thrust a sickle into the lower part of her belly and ript her up to the navel and then dragged the poor creature upon the ground being half dead till another came and cut off her head the daughter in Law of this poor woman who hid her self in the snow for two dayes after without any succour was an eye-witnesse hereof Martha Constantine of Giovanni after that she had seene several others most cruelly put to death was her self first ravished and afterwards had her Breasts cut off and part of her Privities by some of the souldiers who fried them and set them before some of their Comrades making them believe they were Tripes but when they had eaten a good part they told them what they were which caused a quarrel amongst them and they that had eaten them were so sick that some of them died soon after This was certified by a Papist to one Andrea Javel of Einachia A man of Thrassaniere being taken prisoner received divers stabs in the soles of his feet and in his eares by two of the souldiers who afterwards cut off his privie members and then applied a burning candle to the wound frying it with the flame thereof that so the blood might be stopped and the torments of that miserable creature prolonged Then tore they his nailes off with burning pincers to force him to renounce his Religion But when nothing would do they tyed one of his legs to a Mule and dragged him thorow the streets till he was almost dead and then binding a â—ord about his head they twisted it with a staffe till his eyes and braines dropped out and then cast his carcasse into the River Peter Simond of Angrogna about eighty years of age was tyed neck and heeles together and so violently thrown down a fearful Precipice but by the way falling upon a cragged branch of a Tree he there hung in a most languishing condition for divers days together a most lamentable spectacle to behold being neither able to help himself nor capable of receiving help from others the Precipice being inaccessible Esay Garcino of Angrogna of ninety years old had first his body cut and hacked in small pieces and then his head chopped off The wife of Daniel Armand of La Torre had her body torne and cut in pieces and the parts of it strawed along the high-way and hung upon the hedges Captain Pola of Plancalier took two poor women of La Torre and with his Fauchin ript up their bellies and left them grovling upon the Snow in this sad and lamentable condition till they died The souldiers of Bagnols cut off first the nose then the fingers and lastly the hands of a very old and decrepid woman and so left her languishing in this woful condition not having so much as an hand to feed her self with till she died They took also many little children and tender infants and flung them down the steep Rocks whereby they were dashed to pieces Magdalen Bertino of La Torre they stripped stark-naked tied her head between her legs and threw her down one of the Precipices Mary Reymondeâ— of La Torre a lame woman was found in a Cave with all her flesh sliced off from the bones and chopt as small as herbs to the pot Magdalen Pilot of Villaro being exceeding decrepit and blinde with old age was cut in pieces in a Cave near Castelus Anna daughter to Giovanni Charboniere of La Torre had a long stake thrust into her privities by some of the souldiers who each man in his turne carried her upon their shoulders till they were weary and then stuck the end of the stake into the ground and so left her hanging in the aire A terrible spectacle to every one that passed by Giovanni Andrea Michialin of La Torre being taken Prisoner escaped miraculously having first seen three of his children torn in pieces limb from limb before his eyes and the fourth being about six weeks