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
thousand villanies women and maids were ravished in the open market-place and streets some were beaten and hailed to Masse children were re-baptized others married again houses were pillaged and plundred Some that fled into the field died with hunger and cold Many men women and children were massacred and drowned infants were dashed against the walls and some others were hanged The Executioners running into divers places committed a world of mischief and divers Priests amongst them slew some of the Protestants with their own hands At Troys Bibles and Divinity-books were rent and torn in pieces They of the Religion were murthered and their houses sacked Eighteen men were hanged women were dragged through the streets and cast into the river and Infants were pulled from their Mothers breasts and re-baptized At Bar the Popish enemies entring the Town committed such cruelties as never were seen especially against women and little children Some of their breasts they cut open pulled out their hearts and gnawed them with their teeth rejoycing that they had tasted of an Huguenots heart A young Counsellor they hanged at the request of his own father with most horrible blasphemies they ravished women and girls Mounsieur de St. Esteen with his two brothers were cruelly stabbed by their own Cousin germane their wives were spoiled of all they had and led away prisoners The Pesants in some places committed infinine murthers and mischiefs against those of the Religion Monsieur de Vigney with his wife and servants they massacred in his own house which afterward they pillaged and spoiled In Crant the Pesants entring the Town murthered many one young child together with his father they burnt In Sens one hundred Protestants were cruelly murthered and their naked bodies thrown into the River one hundred houses were plundered the Church where they preached was defaced At Auxerre one Cosson was barbarously massacred a faire young Gentlewoman was stabbed and cast into the River many other outrages and robberies were committed At Nevers the Ministers were cast into prison whereof one perished miserably there Another miraculously escaped Children were re-baptized marriages reiterated and many houses plundred The Popish party entring Chastillon left no kind of cruelty un-exercised neither upon Women nor Children old nor young yea not sparing the women with childe that were ready to be delivered At Guyen they used all the cruelty that possibly could be invented and some Italians in hatred of the Religion cut an infant in two pieces and eat his liver At Montargis there lived the Lady Rene Dutchesse Dowager of Ferrara and daughter to King Lewis the twelfth The Duke of Guise sent thither one Malicorn a Knight of the Order who entring the Town murthered some of the Religion and committed other outrages Then he proceeded so far as to threaten the Lady to batter her Castle with Canon-shot if she would not deliver up those of the Religion which were with her To whom the Princesse bravely answered I charge you look what you enterprize for no man in the Realm can command me but the King only and if you proceed to your battery I will stand in the breach to try whether you dare kill the daughter of a King neither do I want means or power to be revenged on your boldnesse even to the infants of your rebellious race This stout answer made Malicorne to pull in his hornes and depart At Monlius Monsieur de Montare used all extremity against the Protestants and without any form of Law he hanged up two Artificers drave others out and plundred their houses and murthered many At Mans two hundred persons were put to death men women and children the houses of the Protestants were pillaged such as were fled were executed by their pictures their goods confiscated and their children made uncapable of their offices and estates yea of inheriting their Lands Some they beheaded Others they hung up Others they massacred and being half dead threw them into the River Above one hundred and twenty men women and children were murthered in the neighbouring Villages One Captain threw above fifty persons into his fishpond to feed his Pikes and above as many more were thrown into Ditches One godly man a Weaver had his throat cut and his moutastuffed with leaves of a New Testament which they found bouth him At Anger 's they murthered a godly Minister cast many into prison robbed the houses of others and slew such as they found therein In a Merchants house finding many books of the holy Scriptures they openly burnt them in the middle of the Town One fair guilt Bible they hung upon an Halberd and carried it in Procession saying Behold truth hanged the truth of the Huguenots the truth of all the Divels Behold the mighty God behold the everlasting God will speak and when they came to the Bridge they threw it into the River crying louder Behold the truth of all the Divels drowned Above eighty other persons were executed An aged Gentlewoman of the age of seventy years was beaten to death with their pistols then drawn through the dirty streets and thrown into the River terming her the mother of the Divel that preached to the Huguonets A Counsellors wife that lay bed-rid was murthered women and maids were ravished Two young maids were ravished before their Fathers face who was forced to look on the while All that were but suspected to be of the Religion were massacred and their houses pillaged A valiant Captain contrary to their faith given to him they broke upon a Crosse and so they left him hanging in great misery till he died Anno 1562. a Decree was made by the Parliament of Paris commanding all Catholicks presently to rise in Armes to sound the Bells in every place to destroy all those of the Religion without respect of quality sex or age to spoyle their Houses and utterly to root them out This encouraged all sorts of rascals to rise up in Armes forsaking their Vocations and to march against the Protestants In Ligueul they hanged up some put out the Ministers eyes and then burnt him in a small fire In other places they committed infinite villanies One young man they flayed alive The Village of Aze they burnt down and massacred thirty persons therein A godly Minister was drowned called John de Tour at seventy five years old At Tours one hundred and forty were murdered and cast into the River divers others were drowned sparing neither man woman nor child The President being suspected to favour them of the Religion was beaten with staves stript to his shirt hanged up by one foot his head in the water up to the breast and whilst he was yet living they ript up his belly pluck't out his guts and threw them into the River and sticking his heart upon the point of a Lance they carried it about saying It was the heart of
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
in a most cruel manner saying If you come to morrow you shall heare the like Sermon They took the Bible of a Minister called Master Eâ—ward Slack and opening it they laid it in a puddle of water and then stamped upon it saying A plague on it this Bible hath bred all the quarrel and that they hoped within a few weeks all the Bibles in Ireland should be used as that was or worse They did most despitefully upbraid the Profession of the truth to those blessed souls whom neither by threats nor terrours pains nor torments they could draw to forsake their Religion And though some by extreme torments were drawn to professe the change of their Religion yet did they finde no more favour with these hell-hounds who with great scorn used to say That it was fit to send them out of the world whilst they were in a good mood At Claslow a Priest with some others drew about forty or fifty English and Scottish Protestants to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and then he told them that they were in a good faith and for fear they should fall from it and turn Hereticks he with his companions presently cut all their throats John Nicholson and Anne his wife being received into the Protection of one Fitz Patrick he laboured to perswade them to go to Masse and to joyn in the present massacre but they professed that rather than they would forsake their Religion they would die upon the swords point Then he would have had the woman burn her Bible but she told him rather than she would burn her Bible she would die the death whereupon the Sabbath morning after they were both of them cruelly murthered but he that acted the villany was so tormented in conscience and dogged with apparitions of them as he conceived that with inward horror he pined away In the County of Tipperary near the Silver works some of these barbarous Papists met with eleven English men Protestants ten women and some children whom they first stripped off their cloaths and then with stones poleaxes skeins swords c. they most barbarously massacred them all this was done on a Sabbath evening the day having been very fair and clear but just at that time God sent a fearful storme of thunder lightning wind haile and rain so that the murtherers themselves confessed that it was a signe of Gods anger against them for this cruelty yet they persisted in their bloody act hacking hewing flashing and stabbing them so that most of them were cut in pieces then tying wit hs about their necks they threw them into an hole which they made for the purpose yet it pleased God that one Scottish and an English man though they had many grievouous wounds and were left for dead after a while revived and with much difficulty escaped with their lives but as God shewed his great mercy in preserving them so he shewed his just judgment upon Hugh Kennedy the chief of those murtherers who presently fell into a most desperate madnesse and distraction neither resting day nor night till about eight days after he drowned himself In the County of Mayo about sixty Protestants whereof fifteen were Ministers were upon Covenant to be safely conveyed to Galway by one Edmund Burk and his souldiers but by the way this Burk drew his sword teaching thereby the rest of his company to do the like and so they began to massacre these poor Protestants some they shot to death some they stabbed with their skeins some they thrust through with their pikes some they cast into the water and drowned the women they stript stark naked who lying upon their husbands to save them were run through with pikes so that very few of them escaped with life In the town of Sligo fourty Protestants wete stript and locked up in a Cellar and about midnight a Butcher provided for the purpose was sent in amongst them who with his axe knocked them all on the heads In Tirawly thirty or fourty English who had formerly yielded to go to Masse were put to their choyce whether they would die by the sword or be drowned they chose the latter and so being driven to the Sea-side these barbarous villaines with their naked swords forced them into the Sea the mothers with their children in their armes wading to the chin were afterwards overcome by the waves where they all perished But present death was counted too great a favour and therefore of some they twisted wit hs about their foreheads till the blood sprang out at the crown of their heads Others they hanged and let down several times c. The sonne of Master Montgomery a Minister aged about fifteen years met with one of these blood-suckers who formerly had been his schoolmaster who drew his skein at him whereupon the boy said Good Master whip me as much as you will but do not kill me yet this mercilesse Tyger barbarously murthered him without all pitie A Scottish man was first wounded and then buried alive in a ditch In the Towne of Sligo all the Protestants were first stript and robbed of all their estates afterwards they were summoned to go into the Goale and such as refused were carried in and then about midnight they all were stripped stark naked and there most cruelly and barbarously murthered with swords axes skeins c. some of them being women great with child their infants thrust out their armes and legs at their wounds after which execrable murthers they laid the dead naked bodies of the men upon the naked bodies of the women in a most immodest posture where they left them till the next day to be looked upon by the Irish who beheld it with great delight Also Isabel Beard great with childe hearing the lamentable cries of those that were murthered ran forth into the streets where she was barbarously murthered and was found the next day with the childs feet coming out of the wounds in her sides many others were murthered in the houses and streets But by Gods just judgment the river of Sligo which was before very full of fish whereby many were nourished for a long time after it afforded no fish at all A Prior also that had a hand in the murther of Isabel Beard and of casting her into the river presently after fell mad About Dungannon were three hundred and sixteen Protestants in the like barbarous manner murthered About Charlemount above four hunâ—dred about Tyrone two hundred and six One Mac Crew murthered thirty one in one morning Two young Villains murthered one hundred and fourty poor women and children that could make no resistance An Irish woman with her own hands murthered forty five At Portendowne Bridge were drowned above three hundred At Lawgh were drowned above two hundred In another place three hundred were drowned in one day In the parish of Killamen there were murthered one thousand and two hundred Protestants Many young children they cut
Conversion to the true faith and so with admirable patience she suffered Martyrdom Shortly after Basilides being required to give an oath in the behalf of his fellow-souldiers he denied the same plainly affirming that he vvas a Christian and therefore he could not swear by the Idols c. They vvhich heard him thought that he jested at first but when he had constantly affirmed it they had him before the Judge vvho committed him to vvard the Christians vvondring at it vvent to him and enquiring the cause of his Conversion he told them that Potamiena had prayed for him and so he savv a Crovvn put upon his head adding that it should not be long before he received it and accordingly the next day he was beheaded As many suffered death in this persecution so others there were who through Gods providence suffered great torments and yet escaped vvith life of whom there vvas one Alexander vvho for his constant confession and torments suffered vvas afterwards made Bishop of Jerusalem Also Narcissus against vvhom three vvicked persons conspired to accuse him binding their accusations vvith oaths and curses one vvishing to be destroyed vvith fire if it vvere not true another to be consumed vvith a grievous disease the other to lose both his eyes Narcissus being unable to vvith-stand so vvicked an accusation retired himself into a desert In the mean time Gods vengeance follovved these perjured Wretches for the first by a small spark of fire vvas himself vvith all his family and goods burned the second vvas taken vvith a grievous sickness vvhich tormented him from the top to the toe whereof he died the third being vvarned by these Judgements confessed his fault but by reason of his abundant sorrovv and vveeping he lost both his eyes Narcissus being hereby cleared from their false accusation returned home and vvas received into his Congregation again Also one Andoclus vvas sent by Polycarp into France vvho because he spread there the Doctrine of Christ vvas apprehended by the command of Severus and first beaten vvith staves and bats and aftervvards beheaded Asclepiades also aftervvards Bishop of Antioch suffered much in this Persecution Then did Irenaeus and many others vvith him suffer Martyrdom and shortly after Tertullian also Perpetua and Felicitas tvvo godly vvomen vvith Revocatus their brother and Satyrus vvere throvvn to the vvild beasts and devoured by them Saturninus vvas beheaded Secundulus cast into prison where he died all these suffered Martyrdom at Carthage Also Zepherinus and after him Urbanus both Bishops of Rome vvere martyred in this Persecution This Urbanus by preaching and holiness of life converted many heathens unto Christ amongst vvhom vvere Tiburtius and Valerianus tvvo noble men of Rome vvho both suffered Martyrdom Also Cecilia a Virgin vvho vvas espoused to Valerian vvas apprehended carried to the Idols to offer sacrifice vvhich she refusing to do should have been carried to the Judge to receive the sentence of condemnation but the Serjeants and Officers beholding her excellent beauty and prudent behaviour began vvith many persvvasions to solicit her to favour her self c. but she so replied vvith wisedom and godly exhortations that by the grace of Almighty God their hearts began to relent and at length to yield to that Religion which before they persecuted which she perceiving desired leave to go home and sending for Urbanus the Bishop to her house he so grounded and established them in the faith of Christ that about four hundred persons believed and were baptized amongst whom was Gordianus a noble man Afterwards this blessed Martyr was brought before the Judge by whom she was condemned then she was enclosed in an hot bath for twenty four hours yet remaining alive she was there beheaded At Preneste in Italy was one Agapetus of fifteen years old apprehended and because he refused to sacrifice to Idols he was first scourged with whips then hanged up by the feet and had scalding water poured on him then he was cast to the wild beasts but because they would not hurt him he was lastly beheaded Antiochus that executed these torments on him suddenly fell down from his judicial seat crying out that all his bowels burned within him and so he died miserably Calepodius a Minister of Christ in Rome was first dragged thorow the streets and after cast into Tyber Pamachius a Senator of Rome with his wife and Children and other men and women to the number of forty two vvere all beheaded in one day together with another noble man all whose heads vvere hung up over the gates of the City to deter others from the profession of Christianity Also Martina a Christian Virgin having suffered many other bitter torments vvas at last slain vvith the sword CHAP. XII The sixth Primitive Persecution which began Anno Christi 237. THe Emperor Maximinus raised the sixth persecution against the Christians especially against the Teachers and Leaders of the Church thinking that if these Captains were removed out of the way he should the easilier prevail against the rest In the time of this Persecution Origen vvrote his book De Martyrio vvhich being lost the names of most that suffered Martyrdom in those times are buried in oblivion yet were they very many Amongst whom Urbanus Bishop of Rome and Philippus one of his Ministers were banished into Sardinia where they both died About this time one Natalius that had formerly suffered great persecution for the cause of Christ was seduced by Asclepiodotus and Theodorus two Sectaries to be the Bishop of their Sect promising to pay him a hundred and fifty crowns of silver every moneth and so he joined himself to them but the Lord in mercy not intending to lose him that had suffered so much for his sake admonished him by a vision to adjoin himself to the true Church again which the good man for the present blinded with lucre and honour did not regard as he ought to have done The night after he was scourged by Angels whereupon in the morning purting on Sack-cloth with much weeping and lamentation he went to the Christian Congregation praying them for the tender mercies of Christ that he might be received into their Communion again which request was accordingly granted unto him Hippolitus was drawn thorow the fields with wild horses till he died Many others were martyred and buried by sixty in a pit CHAP. XIII The seventh Primitive Persecution which began Anno Christi 250. DEcius the Emperor raised this seventh terrible persecution against the Christians which was first occasioned by reason of the treasures of the Emperor which were committed to Fabian the Bishop of Rome who thereupon by the command of Decius was put to death and moreover his Proclamations were sent into all quarters that all which professed the name of Christ should be slain In the time of this Persecution Origen suffered many and great torments for
nihilo tamen meliorem se Christianis praebens Christi nomen prae se ferens Christum mentiebatur Miletius Bishop of Antioch he banished to Armenia Eusebius Bishop of Samosata to Thrace Pelagius Bishop of Laodicea to Arabia He was exceedingly filled with wrath against the Bishops assembled in the Counsel of Lampsacum because they adhered to the Nicene faith In Constantinople he banished all the Orthodox In Edissa he commanded them all to be slain as they were assembled together in the Church The Lieutenant that had received this charge from him being more mercifull then his Master gave private notice to the Christians that they should not assemble at that time but they neither regarding his advice nor fearing his threats flocked to the Church in great companies and whilst the Lieutenant with many armed souldiers hasted thitherward to fulfill the Emperors command a woman leading a child in her hand all in haste brake the ranks and thrust into the armed troops the Lieutenant being moved therewith called the woman before him saying Thou fond and unfortunate woman whither runnest thou so rashly Thither said she whither others hasten Hast thou not heard said he that the Lieutenant will slay as many as he finds there I heard it said she and therefore I make the more haste to the place But whether said he leadest thou this child That he also said she may be accounted in the number of Martyrs Hereupon the Lieutenant returned back to the Emperor and told him that all the Christians from the highest to the lowest prepared themselves to die in the defence of their faith and withal he shewed him what a rash thing it was to murder so great a multitude c. and so with his reasons perswaded the Emperour that he appeased his wrath and prevented the mischief at that time In Constantinople the Arrians favoured by the Emperor crowed insolently over the Christians they scourged reviled imprisoned amerced and laid upon them all the intollerable burthens they could devise Hereupon eighty godly Ministers in the name of all the rest addressed themselves to the Emperour complaning of the out-rages that were done to them craving some relief But this cruel Tyrant commanded Modestus the General of his Army to embark them all in a ship as if he would have sent them into banishment but secretly he gave direction to the Marriners to set the ship on fire and to retire themselves into a boat and so these holy Martyrs glorified the Name of Christ by patient suffering of a double death burning and drowning In all the Eastern parts he tormented many with sundry sorts of grievous torments put many to death drowned many in the sea and in rivers About this time he consulted with Necromancers to know who should succeed him in the Empire The devil answered ambiguously that his name should begin with Th. Whereupon he put to death as many as were called Theodorus Theodotus Theadosius or Theodulus Athanasius being dead at Alexandria there succeeded him a godly and holy man named Peter but the Emperour presently sent souldiers which clapt him in prison and the rest of the Ministers were banished some to one place some to another After this he sent forth an Edict for the persecuting of all the Orthodox in Egypt Whereupon many were stript of their raiment scourged fettered in prisons crushed in pieces with stones beheaded driven into deserts where they wandred in sheeps-skins and goats-skins destitute of aid and succour Many hid themselves in mountains in dens caves and hollow rocks Terentins and Trajan two worthy Captains used some liberty in admonishing the Emperour to abstain from persecuting of the innocent but the Lord was minded to destroy him and therefore he could receive no wholesome admonition For many of the Goths whom he entertained as souldiers to assist him against his enemies turned against himself so that he fled and was overtaken in a village which the Goths set on fire whereby he died miserably leaving none to succeed him and his name a curse and execration to all ages Collected out of Magd. Hist. Socrates and Theod. The Persecution by the Donatists ABout the year of our Lord 410. there sprang up in Africk the Donatists and Circumcellions who first made a great Schism in the Church and afterwards raised up a great persecution against the Orthodox concerning which St Austine complains in sundry places And in his 50. Epistle to Earl Boniface he thus writes of it In hoc labore multi Catholici maxime Episcopi Clerici horrenda dura perpessi sunt quae commemorare longum eâ—t c. In this disturbance the Orthodox especially the Bishops and Ministers suffered hard and horrible things the particulars whereof are long to recite for some of them had their eies put out Some Bishops had their hands and tongues cut off and some were slain out-right To speak nothing of the cruel slaughter of others that were sound and sincere of the plundering of their houses of the out-ragious burning not only of their private habitations but of their Churches also yea so vile and violent were they that they sticked not to burn the sacred Scriptures Optatus in his second book tells us that when Julian the Apostate came to the Empire the Donatists preferred a petition to him wherein they desired leave to return to their places in Africk from whence formerly they had been banished Julian knowing what furious and turbulent spirits they were of and how prejudicial their Return would be to the Catholick Church easily assented to their petition and so they returned full fraught with malice and revenge and presently imployed all their abilities partly by subtilty to seduce the common people partly by violence to oppress the Orthodox Bishops and Ministers of whom some they thrust out of their Churches others they slew Some of their chief Bishops taking armed souldiers with them went to the Castle of Lemella where finding the Church shut against them they commanded their attendance to get upon it to uncover the roof and so having broken into it they set upon some Deacons whom they found there wounded some and slew two of them outright In all places where they came they profaned all holy things The Sacramentall bread they threw to their dogs but behold the just judgement of God against these profane schismaticks those very dogs shortly after running mad fell upon their own Masters and tore them in pieces Virgins they defloured and wives they defiled So usual a thing it is for those which adulterate the holy truths of God to be given over to corporal uncleanness These furious persons dispersed themselves all over Africk and would not suffer the Orthodox to preach the truth against their Errors By their violent assaults thieveries rapines burnings and murthers they destroyed many and afrighted all c. CHAP. XX. The Persecution of the Church in Africk by
the wilderness Thither came two Arrian Earls and with great subtilty sought to withdraw them from their stedfastness saying What mean you to be so obstinate as not to obey the Kings Laws whereas by complying with him you may be preferred to honour Then did they all cry out We be Christians we be Catholicks we believe and confess the Trinity in Unity Hereupon were they shut up in a grievous prison Many mothers also voluntarily followed their little children much rejoycing that they had born Martyrs Others sought to draw them to rebaptization by the Hereticks but through Gods grace they could not prevail As they passed on the way travelling more by night then by day because of the excessive heat a woman hasted after them leading in her hand a little child encouraging him saying Run Sirra seest thou all the Saints how merrily they go forwards and hasten to their Crown One of the company rebuked her and asked her whether she went To whom she answered Pray for me I go with this little boy my nephew to the place of banishment least the enemies finding him alone should seduce him from the way of truth into the way of Error The enemies being more enraged because of their constancy when they came to their lodgings penned them up in narrow places Then was denied to them all the comfort of access of their friends for permitting whereof formerly their Keepers had been beaten with staves These blessed Saints were tumbled one upon another as grains of corn neither could they have means of stepping aside to ease nature so that the stink of their excrements exceeded their other pain Then were they brought forth their garments heads and faces besmeared with dirt in a pitifull manner and by the clamorous Moors they were hastened forward in their journey yet they went singing with great joy unto the Lord Loe This honour have all his Saints Then came to them the blessed Bishop Cyprian who to their singular consolation comforted every one of them with fatherly affection and with streams of tears was ready to lay down his life for the brethren and would fain have accompanied them if he might have been suffered He bestowed all that he had amongst them for which he afterwards suffered imprisonment and much hard-ship and at last had his hearts desire in being banished There came great multitudes from sundry Countries and Cities to behold these servants of God and many casting their Children at their feet cryed thus To whom will you leave us wretches whilest you go forward to your Crown Who shall baptize our infants instruct and administer the Sacraments to us our hearts serve us well to go with you if we might But now none were suffered any more to go with them for their comfort but they were pressed forwards and made to run When any of the aged or tender Children fainted they were first punched forwards with staves Then were the Moors commanded to tie ropes to the feet of such as were unable to go and to hail them thorow the rough places so that first their garments were rent then their flesh and their heads were dashed against the sharp edges of rocks whereby very many of them died The rest that were stronger came at last to the wilderness where like beasts they had barly given them for their food there were also abundance of venemous serpents and scorpions in that place whose sting was deadly yet thorow Gods great Providence none of these servants of Christ gat any hurt thereby Hunrick in the seventh year of his reign directed his Mandate to Eugenius Bishop of Carthage and told all other Bishops in Africk that they should by such a day meet at Carthage to defend by disputation their faith against the Arrian Bishops but withal by the tenour of the decree they perceived that he would not suffer any of them to live within his dominions which caused great heaviness amongst them Eugenius returned answer that since it was the common cause of all the Christian Churches it was but equal that Bishops out of other Countries should be requested to be there present also and this he did not because they suspected their own abilities to defend the truth but because he knew that strangers might use more liberty of speech then they could and that other Bishops might be witnesses of their sufferings but this request did but more enrage this unreasonable Tyrant The appointed day approaching many Bishops resorted to Carthage worn out with afflictions and sorrows yet for many days after their coming there was no mention of disputing till in the mean time the King had singled out the learnedest and skilfullest of them that by sundry Calumniations he might make them away Amongst whom was Laetus a stout and learned man whom he first imprisoned and then burnt him in the fire that so he might strike a fear into the rest At last the Disputation began and the Orthodox to avoid tumult chose out some to answer for all the rest The Arrians placed themselves upon lofty Thrones whilest the Orthodox stood below upon their feet Whereupon they said Conference is to be taken in hand not where proud superiority of power bears sway but where by common consent the Disputants upon equal tearms debate the controversies that truth may come to light c. Then were all the Catholicks commanded to have an hundred stroaks a piece with a cudgel given them for this speech Whereupon Eugenius said The Lord from heaven behold the violence which we suffer and consider the tribulation which we sustain from our persecutors Then did the Orthodox Bishops desire the Arrians to propound what they intended But the Arrian Bishops seeing them ready to dispute with them sought out tergiversations and declined the dispute Hereupon the Orthodox drew forth a declaration of their faith excellently well penned and exhibited it with this Protestation If you be desirous to know our belief the faith which we hold is herein comprised The Arrians stormed exceedingly at this giving them outragious language and presently by false Calumnies they accused them to the King and so incensed him that by an Edict in one day he caused all the Christians Churches through Africk to be shut up giving to the Arrians all the goods and Churches of the Orthodox Then did he command that all those godly Bishops that were met together at Carthage should be spoiled of all that they had in their lodgings and so driven out of the City-gates having neither servant nor beast nor garment to sâ—ift them in left unto them and all men were forbidden either to harbour them or give them any sustenance the King threatning to burn him and all his family that should relieve them The Bishops being thus turned out lay in the open fields round about the Wals and when the Tyrant went forth to the fish-ponds they met him saying Why are we so
to answer for themselves and all the inhabitants of their valley But they refused saying that they had nothing to say before the Archbishop seeing their cause was now depending before the King and his Council protesting against the Archbishops power and demanding a copy of the Kings Letter But the Archbishop notwithstanding this protestation sent them to the fire without any other indictment Yet the Lord left not this cruelty long unrevenged for shortly after the Archbishop died by the stroak of Gods justice and so ended his Persecution Anno Christi 1487. One villany of the Inquisitor Valeti may not be forgoten which was this When he examined any of the Waldenses Whether he beleeved that the bread in the Sacrament after the consecration was changed into the reall and naturall body of Christ which hung upon the crosse If the Waldenses answered No he set down his answer thus That he beleeved not in God When he asked Whether we ought not to pray to Saints If they answred No he set down That the railed upon and spake evil of the Saints When he enquired Whether we ought not to pray to the Virgin Mary in our necessities If they answered No he set down That they spake blasphemy against the Virgin Mary c. And by Gods providence these Records were kept in the Arch-bishop of Ambruns house till the City and their Records fell into the hands of the Protestants an hundred years after and so God brought all their knavery to light Anno 1488. Pope Innocent the eight sent Albert de capitaneis Arch-Deacon of Cremona against these Waldenses who craved aid of the Kings Lieutenant of Dauphine against them This Lieutenant for his service levied troops of men and at the Arch-Deacons request led them against the Waldenses in the valley of Loyse and to colour his proceedings with a pretence of justice he took a Counsellour of the Court along with him But when they came to the valley they found no inhabitants for they were all retired into their Caves in the high mountains having carried their little children and all their provision of food with them Then did this cruel Lieutenant cause much wood to be laid to the mouths of the caves and set it on fire so that some were choaked with smoak others burnt with the fire others cast themselves headlong from the rocks and were broken in pieces and if any stirred out they were presently slain by the souldiers In this Persecution there were found within the Caves four hundred infants stifâ—ed in their cradles or in the arms of their dead mothers and in all there perished above three thousand men and women at that time so that there were no inhabitants left in all that valley And to prevent the coming of any more of them thither the Lieutenant gave all their goods and possessions to whom he pleased Then did he march against the Waldenses of Pragela and Frassaniere but they providing for their own safety attended him at the passages and narrow straits of their vallies so that he was forced to retire After a while Albert de Capitaneis being called to another place he substituted a Franciscan named Francis Ploieri who Anno 1489. began anew to informe against the Waldenses of Fressaniere citing them to appeare before him at Ambrun and for non-appearing he excommunicated them and condemned them for Hereticks to be delivered to the secular power and there goods to be confiscated and in this judgement their assisted one Ponce a certain Counsellour of Dauphine These men afterwards caught two of their Pastors Francis Gerondin and Peter James who being asked why the Waldenses increased so fast and spread so far they answered Because the Popish Priests live so dissolutly and because the Cardinals are so covetous proud and luxurious it being commonly known that there is neither Pope Cardinall nor Bishop but keeps his whores and few or none but had their youths for Sodomy besides And therefore it is easie for the Waldensian Pastors to perswade the people that their religion could not be good whose fruits were so bad c This Persecution grew exceeding hot the Inquisitor and Councellor sending as many as they could catch to the fire without admitting any appeal and if any interceded for them though the father for the childe or the child for the father he was presently committed to prison and indicted as a favourer of Hereticks Anno 1594. Anthoni Fabri and Christopher de Salience had Comissions sent them from the Pope to commence suit against the Waldenses in Dauphine who apprehending the widow of one Peter Berand they imprisoned and oft examined her and thereby drew from her whatever she knew of the Assemblies of the Waldenses of the persons that frequented them and of the places and times of their meeting which afterwards brought great trouble to the said Churches of Christ and of gain to the Inquisitors King Lewis the twelfth succeeding King Francis Anno 1598. the inhabitants of Frassaniere petitioned him to take some order for the restitution of their goods which by the Inquisitors were deteined from them The King referred it to his Chancelor who procured a Commissary from the Poppe and Commissioner from the King to be sent down to examine the businesse These accordingly having examined divers witnesses against the Waldenses and finding their innocency did at last absolve them the Kings Commissioner publickely professing that he desired to be but as good a Christian as the worst of those of Frassaniere were and returning to the King they made report to him of that which they had done The King thereupon ordered that the goods of the Waldenses should be restored When the Kings order came to Ambrun it was the opinion of most men that seeing most of these goods were in the possession of the Arch-Bishop that therefore he should give a good example in begining to restore them but the Arch-Bishop answered that the goods which he held were annexed to his Arch-Bishoprick and incorporated to his Church and therefore it was out of the Kings jurisdiction and he did not beleeve that the King would meddle therein Yet being willing to please the King he profered to restore them their Vineyards provided that the Lords of Dauphine would restore the goods which they had but there was not one that would restore what they had so unjustly gotten so that the poor people where wholly frustrated of their expectation Then did the summon the Arch-Bishop and those refusers before the King but these great ones having more friends and favour at Court then the poor people had their excuse was admitted which was that they could not restore the goods before the Pope had absolved those of Frassaniere from the sentence of excommunication Anno 1560. The President of Provence made a speech to the assembly of Estates to root out these Waldenses Whereupon they raised an Army for
the effecting of it but as soon as the men were in Arms it pleased God by the death of King Francis to put an end to that design whereby the Waldensian Churches in Dauphine enjoyed peace and were well furnished with godly Pastors who held them in the exercise of religion though they were in continuall danger of being persecuted to the death for the same The Waldenses in Dauphine many years before being multiplyed so that the countrey could not feed them dispersed themselves abroad into divers parts whereof some went into Piedmont who lived in great love with those of Daâ—phine and though they were alwaies oppressed with troubles yet with hearty love and charity they ever-succoured one another not sparing their lives and goods for their mutuall conservation The first Persecution in Piedmont were occasioned by the Preists who complained to the Arch-Bishop of Turin that these people lived not according to the manner and belief of the Church of Rome that they offered not for the dead cared not for Masses Absolutions or to get any of theirs out of the pains of Purgatory c. Hereupon the Arch-Bishop persecuted them complaining of them to their Princes to make them odious But the Prince enquiring of their neighbours heard that they were of a good conversation fearing God without deceit or malice loving plain dealing alwaies ready to serve their Prince with alacrity c. He therefore purposed not to molest them But the Priests and Monks gaining nothing by their belief charged them with an infinite number of calumnies and ever and anon catching one or other of them they delivered them to the Inquisitors and the Inquisitors to the executioners so that there was scarce a Town or City in Piedmont wherein some of them had not been put to death At Turin one of them had his bowels torn out of his belly and put into a bason before his face and then was he cruelly martyred At Revel in the Marquisat of Saluces one Catelin Girard being on the block whereon he should be burnt requested his Executioner to give him two stones which he refused to do fearing least he would throw them at some body but he protesting the contrary at last they gave him two stones which he held in his hands and said When I shall have eaten these stones then shall you see an end of our Religion for â—hich you now put me to death and so he threw them on the ground and died cheerfully Thus they burnt many of them in the fire till Anno 1488. and then they resolved to assault them by open force because they saw that otherwise they should never be able to extirpate them besides their constant sufferings converted many to the faith Hereupon they levied an Army of eighteen thousand men besides many inhabitants of Piedmont who ran to the pillage from all parts These marched all at once to Angrogne Lâ—cerne La Perouse c. They raised also forces in Dauphine where with they over-ran the Valley of Pragela so that they being put to defend themselves could not assist their friends in Piedmont But the enemy by this division of his forces being weakned was every where beaten especially in the Valley of Angrogne where the VValdensians having been informed of the levies of their enemies against them prepared themselves to receive and resist them keeping the strait passages where few men might defend themselves against many They defended themselves with long Targets of wood whereby they covered themselves from the hurt of their enemies arrows Whilst they were thus bickering with their enemies the women and children upon their knees cried out O God help us The enemies made themselves merry with this fight and amongst them one Capt. Saquet who as he was imitating the woman was slain and tumbled down into a very deep valley Another Captain crying out to the women in derision was killed with the shot of an arrow in the throat Hereupon the souldiers betook themselves all to their heels and the greatest part slew themselves by tumbling down from the rocks Another providence of God was this that the enemies approaching to the stongest entrance by nature might their have fortified themselves and so made themselves masters of that Valley But God sent so thick a cloud and dark a fog that they could scarce see one another whereby they wanted opportunity to discover their advantage and therefore departed which the VValdenses seeing couragiously pursued them and by that means the enemy being dispersed and not seeing which waies they went the greatest part fell headlong down the mountains quitting their arms and booty which they had gotten at their first entrance into the Valley by which means the Waldenses recovered it again Then it pleased God to move the Princes heart which was Philip the seventh Duke of Savoy and Lord of Piedmont with pity towards these poor people saying That he would not have that people which had been alwaies true faithfull and obedient to him to be unjustly destroyed by Arms being content that twelve of the Principall should come to him to Pignerol to crave pardon for all the rest for taking arms in their own defence without his authority These he entertained lovingly forgiving all that was past during the warre And having been informed that all their children were born with black throats with foure rows of teeth and all hairy he caused some of them to be brought to him and seeing them fair and perfect creatures he was much displeased with himself for beleeving so easily the reports which were brought to him against them giving command that none should hereafter molest them but that they should enjoy all the priviledges which they rest of his subjects in Piedmont did Notwithstanding which the Monks Inquisitors daily sent out processe against them lay in wait for them and as they could aprehend any of them delievered them over to the secular power This Persecution lasted to Anno. 1532. at which time the Waldenses ordered that there exercises of religion should be performed no more in covert as formerly they had been but in publick that every one might know them and that their Pastors should preach the Gospell openly not fearing any persecution that might happen unto them The prince being advertised hereof was highly offended with them and thereupon caused one of his Commanders to hast with his Troops into the said Vallies which was performed with such diligence that he was entred with five hundred horse and Foot before they were aware ransacking plundering and wasting all before them Then did the Waldenses leave their ploughs putting themselves into passes and with their slings charged their enemies with such multitudes of stones that they were constraned to flie and to abandon their prey many remaining dead upon the ground This news was presently carried to the Prince and withall he was told that these people were not to
gat behinde them over a mountaine so that the poor people seeing themselves environed saved themselves by running through the midst of their enemies and others of them gat into the rocks The enemies being entred Rosa destroyed all with fire and sword The people fled by secret waies toward Luserne wandring all night upon the mountains full of snow laden with their stuff carrying their infants in their arms and leading others by the hand with great pain and travell They of Luserne seeing them ran to them praising God for their deliverance and they all were very chearfull notwithstanding their extremities Shortly after the Lord of Trinity went to Luserne by three waies they which kept the passages resisted their enemies valiantly but when they saw themselves assaulted on every side they fled into the mountains Then did the souldiers sack and burn the houses staying all they could finde When they which were fled to the mountains saw their houses on fire they praised God and gave him thanks that thus accounted them worthy to suffer for his Name Then did the souldiers pursue them to the mountains but after they had called upon God a few of them beat back their enemies whereupon the Army retired They in the meddow of Tour perceiving a company of souldiers burning the rest of the houses in Angrogne they sent six harque-bushiers against them who from the higher ground discharging all their guns together the souldiers ran all away when none pursued them Shortly after as the Watch was hearing a Sermon they spied a company of souldeirs marching up the hill whereupon they ran to encounter them and easily discomfited them But whilest they pursued the chase some cried to them that another company was entred into the meddow whereupon they left the chase or else not one of their enemies had escaped Presently other companies came other waies which the Ministers and people seeing were much discouraged and therefore they fell to prayer and ardently called upon God with sighs and teares untill night And whereas seven spies were sent before the souldiers there went out five of the Waldenses against them and took some and chased the rest Then went out eight more against the whole company and pursued them with an undaunted courage from rock to rock and from hill to hill and then went out twelve more who joining with the other made a great slaughter of their enemies Another company from Luserne having a Minister with them as they used alwaies to have after they had made their prayers to God set upon another company of souldiers whose hearts were so taken from them that they presently fled One of the Waldenses a very young man carried a greate staff in his hand with which he laid so lustily at his enemies that he brake his staff and slew many of them he also brake four of their own swords in pursuing of them Also a boy of eighteen years old slew the Lord of Monteil Master of the Camp which much dismaid the enemies Another threw down Charles Truchet and then leaped upon him and slew him with his own sword upon which all the rest fled and were pursued till night hindred The Minister seeing the great effusion of bloud and the enemies flying cried to the people that it was enough and so exhorted them to praise God They that heard him obeyed and fell to prayer In this battell they gat much armour which was a great advantage to them afterwards Thanks were returned unto God in every place every one saying Who sees not evidently that God fighteth for us Presently after the Lord of Trinity returned to burn the Villages but especially to pursue the poor people in the mountains And one company with many horsemen ascended the mountain of Comb by an unsuspected way where were no Warders but they which were next seeing them called upon God for aid and though they were but thirty in number yet they valiantly beat them back twice many of the enemies were slain and not one of the Waldenses Trinity seeing his men thus beaten back sent out most of his Army to assist them which were about one thousand five hundred men And there came about a hundred to help the Warders The combat was very cruel at last the poor men were fain to retreat with the losse of two of their men at this the enemies exceedingly rejoyced blowing their trumpets and triumphing but the people crying all together to the Lord returned again with greater violence assaulting them with their slings So that the enemies being weary rested themselves and the while the Waldenses betook themselves to prayer which more affrighted their enemies then any thing else Then did the souldiers charge again furiously but by the hands of a few they were driven back yea little children fervently calling upon God threw stones at their enemies as also did the women Such as were unfit for war kneeled on the ground with their faces towards heaven crying Lord help us Then came one running that brought word that the Angrognians were coming to help them which the enemies hearing presently retreated Another party of the Army of an hundred and fourty went another way but by seven men they were strongly resisted and driven back A third party was met by the Angrognians and driven back The Lord of Trinity intending to be revenged upon them in the meddow of Tour assembled all the Gentlemen of the country and an Army of about seven thousand and when the poor people saw them coming glittering in their harnesse and so many in number they were at first astonished but pouring out their prayers unto God to succour them and to have regard to the glory of his Name c. They marched to encounter with their enemies and seasonably by the way they met with some aid that was coming to them from Luserne so that uniting themselves they soon discomfited their enemies The Captain of the enemies had in the morning promised to do great matters that day but in the evening he was carried back weak and wounded and not like to live Whereupon a Papist said to him Monsieur there religion is beter then ours Another part of the Army set upon an house in a passe wherein were but five men yet they lustily defended it drave out their enemies that had entred and kept the place till some of their friends came to relieve them Another half of the Army assaulted another Bulwork on the side of the mountaine And they within suffered them to come very near but then with slings and guns they slew many of them others rouled down great stones which killed divers so that when they had attempted all waies to take it they were forced to retire the Lord of Trinity weeping to see his men slain so fast and at last having lost very many of his men he was forced to retreate many of the Army crying out God fighteth for them and we do them wrong
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
suspected to be of their Religion should be excluded from office bearing that all houses should be pulled downe wherein any of them should be found that all their goods and inheritances should be confiiscated That the like should be done to all that should aid or abett them or that should hinder or not assist the Inquisitors in the execution of their office That whosoever should be suspected of their Heresie should have an oath given him to keep the peace and the Catholike Faith That the houses of such as should be detected of Heresie after their death should be pulled downe That whosoever should refuse to weare the Cross should have his goods seized on c. The same year the Inquisitors were informed that in the territories of Brixia there had lately lived one Guido de Lacha who was much honoured for his austerity and integrity of life but that he dyed out of the communion of the Church of Rome having been infected with Heresie whereupon they ordered his bones to be digged up and burned The Earl of Foix and Comminges and the Prince of Bearne yet remained to be conquered and the Popes Legate thought that the Earl of Tholouse was the fittest person to deale with them whereupon he caused him to write to them to perswade them to embrace the Catholike Faith c. But the Earl of Foix returned answer That he could not forsake his faith in such a time wherein men might think that he did it rather out of feare then from any good grounds and that it was fitter for them to convince him of the truth of their way then to allure him by promises or force him thereto by Armes And that if they brought that world of Pilgrims against him which they threatned he trusted in God that he should make them know the Justice of his cause and repent of the rashnesse of their vow But the Earls subjects fearing that their Lord being aged and without wife and children should leave them to the mercy of the first Conqueror intreated him to come to a composition with the Legat whereupon he began to treat and at last yielded up diverse Castles into the hands of the King of France upon promise that he would rule with justice and equity Anno Christi 1234. the opinions of the Albingenses were much spread abroad in the parts of Spaiâ—â— and other adjacent countries and they had Bishops among them who boldly preached against the Romish errors and especially against Transubstantiation whereupon a Croisado was preached against them and a very great Army of Pilgrims being assembled together were by Pope Gregory sent against them who slew them all with their Bishops seized of their City and plundered them whereby saith Mathew Paris they returned rich and joyfully into their own countries Also about the same time another Army of these Pilgrims went against others of them on the borders of Germany who retiring into a Fenny place for there security were their all slaine But the same yeare the Lord raised up Trancavel the natural son of the Earl of Beziers deceased who was encouraged and assisted by a number of valiant Captaines as Oliver de Fumes Bertrand Hugon de Serrelong Bertrand de villenense Jordaine de Satiat who told him that they would assist him to revenge the outrages done to his father who was deprived of his land betrayed imprisoned and poisoned whereupon he resolved to recover by the sword what was so unjustly taken from him and before the enemies had notice of his designe he took in diverse strong Castles so that the Popes Legate and Bishop of Tholouse were much astonished to see these men stand up for the Albingenses whom they supposed to have been utterly suppressed Then did the Popes agents cause the cross to be preached and the Bishop of Narbonne animated the people of his Diocess to go against them and to make an end of the poor remainder of the Albingenses An army being raised the Popes Legate led it to Tholouse and when the Citizens appeared upon their ramparts he told them that he was come thither for their preservation They thanked him but withall told him that if he did not instantly retire himselfe they would give him the chase And presently came Trancavell who so bravely and valiantly set upon the Legates Troops that he quickly overthrew them and chased them to the very gates of Carcasson and the Legate had much adoe to save himselfe but that which most angered the Legate was that Trancavell found intertainement in some part of Carcasson so that the Pilgrims durst hardly peep out of the City gates and when he heard of any more Pilgrims comming to the Legate he used to meet them to lay Ambushes for them so that usually overthrowing them their designes were marred This man kept the field till the year 1242. and still prevailed against all the crossed souldiers that came against him whereupon Ameline the Popes Legate wrote to the Pope that if he caused not the cross to be preached in many parts of Europe the Church was like to sustain much damage by this enemy For saith he he is more cruell and subtile then any before him But a little before the Bishop of Tholouse was informed of a certain Matron who having her children brethren and friends about her was dying an Heretick whereupon he ran to her and found it even so by the confession of the woman her selfe who desired to die in the faith of the Albingenses and doubted not to be saved then did the Bishop condemne her and delivered her to the secular power who presently carried her forth in the bed wherein she lay sick and burned her Anno Christi 1235. Earl Remund getting from Paris returned into his owne country and forbad the Citizens of Tholouse to company with the Friers predicant and shortly after expelled them the City And the Monastery of Narbonne belonging to the same order of Friers was pulled down by the Albingenses And in June following Pope Gregory the ninth made new Inquisitors against the Albingenses in Arragon and France Anno Christi 1236. King Lewis of France wrote to the Pope that Earl Remund had violated the Covenants which he had made with the Church and had cast the Bishops Clergy and Friers out of Tholouse and brought Hereticks into their roomes whereupon he desired that he might be reduced into order c. And indeed by the power of the Pope and King he was forced to recall the Popish Clergy and to banish the Albingenses and to take upon him the signe of the Cross for the aid of the Holy land by way of Penance for his former deeds The same year many imbracing the faith of the Albingenses be-beyond the Alps Inquisitors were sent against them especially one Frier Robert who caused many of both sexes to be apprehended and when they continued constant in the true faith and would not renounce the same in
children The mouths of some they set wide open with gags and then poured down their throats stinking water urine and other liquid things till they grew sick and their bellies swelled like tuns whereby they died leasurely with greater torment Down the throats of some they violently thrust knotted clouts and then with a string pulled them up again whereby they displaced their bowels and put them to miserable torment insomuch as some were made dumb others deaf others blind and others lame If the Husband intreated for his Wife or the Wife for the Husband they would take the intercessour and torture him in the same manner before the others eyes and when any of these poor creatures in their torments or agonies of death called and cryed unto God for mercy they would command and seek to force them to pray and cry unto the devil Yea their divellishnesse proceeded so far that they studied to find out new and unheard of torments Some they bound hung up and sawed off their leggs Of others they rubbed off the flesh off their leggs to the very bones Of others they tied the armes backwards and so hanged them up by those distorted parts Many they drew through the streets of the Cities stark naked then brake and wounded them with axes and hammers and generally used them with such barbarous cruelty that many begged to be shot or slain instantly rather than to live and be partakers of such miseries In most places they took away all the corn and provision of victuals leaving the places so bare that many of the best Rank for the space of divers dayes after saw not one bit of bread but were glad to live with roots and water In other places they spoiled the inhabitants of their garments exposing them to that nakednesse that neither Man Woman nor Child had clothes to put on Hereby fruitful Countries were totally ruinated Cities Towns and Villages were spoiled and turned into pillars of fire and smoake Churches lay desolate the Woods were cut down the ground lay wast and untilled One reverend aged Divine they stripped bound him backwards upon a Table and set a big Cat upon his naked belley beating and pricking the Cat to make her fix her teeth and claws therein So that both man and Cat with hunger pain and anguish breathed their last The Crabats laboured much to teach their Horses not only to kill men but to eat humane flesh and consulted how to find out more new and exquisite torments than ever were before used At the taking of Magdenburg a godly Minister of great esteem was found in one of the Churches whom they dragged out to his own house where they ravished his Wife and Daughters before his face his tender Infant they snatched from the Mothers breast and stuck it upon the top of a Lance and when his eyes and heart were glutted with this so cruel a spectacle they brought him forth bound into the street and there burned him with his own Books Rapes and Ravishings were committed beyond all humane modesty Maids and Matrons Wives and Widdows they forced and violated without distinction yea and that in the presence of their Parents Husbands and Neighbours yea Women great with child and others in Child-bed Their beastliness was such that no pen can write it no Faith can believe it Chappels and Churches were not freed from their filthy pollutions yea Hospitals and Bedlam-houses were not spared In Hessen land they took divers poor women some mad some dumb some lame and tying up their coats about their ears so used them as a modest pen cannot expresse In Pomeren they took the fairest maids and ravished them before their Parents faces making them sing Psalms the while One beautiful maid being hid by her Parents in a dunghil they found her out had their pleasure of her then cut her in pieces and hung up her quarters in the Church Yea very girles of ten years old and under they ravished till some of them died vertuous and chast women they would threaten to kill to throw their children into the fire if they would not yield to their lusts Divers maids and women to avoid the lusts of these Hell-born furies have leaped into Rivers and Wells and some have otherwise killed themselves and that which was never before heard of they did not only violate sickly and weak maids and women till they died but committed the like filthinesse with the dead corpses The Merchants of Basil returning from Strasburg Mart were set upon by the Imperialists in their lodging and though they craved their lives upon their knees yet they killed ten of them saying they must die for that they were Hereticks the rest leaving their goods and garments escaped by flight stark-naked in the night Two Noble Countesses with their faire Daughters were rifled in their Coaches of all that they had nor sparing the very garments that covered them Neer Friburg these bloody miscreants cut in piecs a Reverend Minister a man of rare learning and piety after whose death the Dogs would not lick his blood nor touch his flesh For the common people they made not so much account of them as of Dogs murthering them upon every trifling occasion neither pitying old nor young men women nor innocent babes whom sometimes most barbarously they used to eat even when other meat might be had yea such inhumane cruelty they used that in some places they scarce left any remaining alive to relate the sufferings of the dead Many times they cut off the Noses and Ears of the living carrying them about in bravery Collected out of a Booke composed by Doctor Vincent a Divine who was an eye-witnesse of many of these things Before this great persecution befell the Church of God in Germany God gave his people warning of it by many and strange prodigies For October the 26. Anno Christi 1618. there appeared a terrible Comet with a great blazing tayle at first of a red afterwards of a pale-red colour which continued for the space of twenty seven dayes and in some places it was seen longer This fearfull and ominous Link or Torch the Lord sent to those who had long despised and sleighted his voice in his sacred Word preached by his vigilant and faithful Ministers to awaken them from their dead sleep of sin and by repentance to bring them to the reformation of their lives or otherwise to assure them that he would come suddenly upon them and plague them with all those evils and miseries which he had denounced against them by his messengers and whereof he gave them warning by this dreadfull sign Anno 1619. At Groningen in the Dukedome of Brunswick was seen a great blazing star and two Armies one in the East and another in the North fighting together till one of them was defeated and slain At Wien in Austria the water in a Dith was seen to be like blood for the space of eight dayes
grace brought to the knowledge of the truth whereupon he went to Geneva where he exercised Printing and sent books abroad Afterwards he was made a Minister and preached at the Town of Alenart in which and in some other places he did much good At last he with his Host a Priest whom he had instructed in the knowledge of the Gospel were apprehended and cast into prison at Bourdeaux and whilst they lay there in came a Priest with his furniture to say Masse but Philbert inflamed with a holy zeal went and plucked the garments from his back and overthrew the Chalice and Candlesticks saying Is it not enough for you to blaspheme God in the Churches but you must also pollute the prison with your idolatry the Jailor seeing this fell upon him and beat him with his staffe and also removed him into a dungeon loading him with irons which made his legs to swell there he lay eight dayes The Priest his Host terrified with the prison and fear of death renounced Christ and his Word and was set at liberty whereupon Philbert said to him O unhappy and more then miserable man Is it possible that you should be so foolish as for to save your life a few dayes you should so start away from and deny the truth Know you therefore that although hereby you have avoided the corporal fire yet your life shall be never the longer for you shall dye before me and yet shall not have the honour to die for the cause of God and you shall be an example to all Apostates Having ended his speech and the Priest going out of Prison he was presently slain by two Gentlemen who formerly had a quarrel to him Philbert hearing of it professed that he knew of no such thing before but spake as it pleased God to guide his tongue Philbert being condemned and had to execution they laboured to drown his voice by sounding of trumpets and so in the midst of the flames praying and exhorting the people he rendred up his soul unto God Anno 1558. Nicholas of Jenvile a young man that had lived at Geneva coming into France to get up some mony that was owing to him was betrayed by a Lady apprehended and condemned and being carried in a Cart to execution his Father met him and would have beaten him with a staffe but the Officers not suffering it were about to have stricken the old man the son seeing it cryed to them to let his father alone saying that he had power over him to do to him what he would At the place of execution he had an iron ball put into his mouth and so he patiently took his Martyrdom at Jenvile About the same time a company of the faithful of about three or four hundred were met together at an house in Paris in the beginning of the night to receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper some Priests getting intelligence of it gathered many of that faction together and came and beset the house making an outcry that the watch might come and apprehend them so that in a short time most of the City of Paris was up in armes supposing that there had been some conspiracy The people following the noise and perceiving that they were Lutherans they grew into a great rage seeking to murther them and thereupon stopped the streets and lanes with Carts and made fires that none might escape them but through Gods mercy before this tumult began the faithful had finished their administration and prayers with as much quiet as ever they had done and now seeing this sudden danger they were somewhat amazed whereupon the Pastors of the Congregation exhorted them and fell to prayer after which considering the cowardliness of the multitude it was resolved that such as had weapons should adventure through the press which being put in practice the admirable power of God appeared in that notwithstanding the fires and stopping of the passages yet they all escaped safe only one was beaten down with stones and slain The rest which wanted weapons being about one hundred and twenty stayed in the house with the women and children some of which leaped into Gardens where they remained till the Magistrates came The women which were all persons of good quality save six or seven perceiving their danger by reason of the fury of the people went up into the windows shewed their innocency and desired that they might be tryed in an ordinary way of Justice yet there they were inclosed by the rabble for six or seven houres At last came the Kings Atturney with many Serjeants and Officers who with much ado appeasing the people entred into the house and their seeing the quality of the persons and their innocency the Atturney much pitied them yet carried them to prison in the little Castle but as they went the furious multitude plucked and haled the Gentlewomen tore their garments pulled their hoods from their heads and all besmeared their faces with dust and dirt In the prison they were used no better for the Villains and Thieves being let out of their holes and stinking Caves these Lambs of Christ were put into their rooms Then followed the cruel and slanderous reports of the Friars who in their Sermons railed upon them told the people that they were assembled to make a banquet in the night after which putting out the candles they went together Jack with Jill after a filthy and beastly manner they charged them also with sedition as if they conspired against the King c. And these cursed defamations were no sooner vented but they were spread abroad farre and wide yea in the Court itself and the Cardinal of Lorraine procured a certain Judge to come to the King who testified that he found in the House divers Couches upon which they intended to commit their whoredomes and adulteries which much enflamed the King against them These things made the enemies to triumph exceedingly and on the contrary the brethren which escaped were full of perplexity and lamentations sorrowing not so much for themselves as for the imprisonment of their friends yet they much comforted themselves in the consideration of ther own wonderful deliverance They upon debate also resolved First that all of them should humble themselves before God in their own families Secondly That they might stop the false rumours to write two Apologies one to the King and another to the People Thirdly to write consolatory letters to their friends in prison The Apology to the King was written and conveyed privily into his Chamber where it was met with and read openly before the King and his Nobles yet this prevailed little for their adversaries suggested to him that all was false and a pretence to hide their wickedness But that to the people did very much good and so did their consolatory letter to their friends in prison The adversaries all this while did bestir themselves to bring them
a young Gentleman named John Poltrot who watching his opportunity shot him with his pistol laden with three bullets whereof he shortly after died and Poltrot declared at his death that he did it to deliver France and especially the City of Orleance from the violence of the Duke of Guise After whose death peace was shortly after concluded between the Queen-mother and the Protestants But before this peace took place those of the Religion suffered much in sundry parts of the Realm In Paris they were persecuted cruelly the Popish people being wholly set upon blood and the Parliament there sparing neither great nor small that fell into their hands either of that City or such as were brought thither upon appeal or summons At Senlis many godly Christians suffered much some were beheaded some murthered in a popular tumult some were whipt some imprisoned some fined and others sent to the Gallies not sparing the simple women Yet through Gods mercy some escaped amongst whom was one Iohn Gardens and his Wife who living with his Wife and child in the fileds at length determined to go back into the City casting themselves upon Gods providence but when they came into the suburbs they met some who bade the souldiers to put them to the sword The woman kneeling down begged of the souldiers that if they must needs dye they would kill her child first saying that so she should die with the more comfort which speech of hers so wrought upon the souldiers that they spared all their lives In Chaalons there was a godly Minister called Fournier apprehended and spoiled of all that he had They stripped him also of his apparel instead whereof they put on him a thredbare cloak and so carried him away in a Cart by reason of an hurt that he had gotten in one of his feet by the way they did nothing but jeere and scoffe at him and every moment he was in danger of his life the rude people also had almost pulled him in pieces but it pleased God that he was preserved by those which had designed him to death When he came to Munchon he was cast into prison and after a while there came a Captain to him with many souldiers who mixing mocks and threatnings together sware that within three houres he should be hewen in pieces After them came in some of the Judges commanding the Jailor to load him with irons saying to him You are no better I am sure then Saint Peter whom they laid in irons but if you have as much faith as he God will then deliver you as he did him by sending an Angel to you I will not said Fournier compare my self with Saint Peter yet it is not twelve years ago since for preaching the same doctrine that Peter did I was imprisoned at Tholouse and there was admirably delivered And though Peter was delivered out of prison yet in the end he glorified God by his death and if I should be counted worthy with him to suffer for the truth may it not be said that I have the like precious Faith with Saint Peter When they were gone the Jailor forbore putting bolts upon him because of his sore legg yet did he put him into a straiter prison Afterwars the Duke of Guise being made Governour in that place he was put to the torture where first they strained his thumbs so hard with a small cord that blood came forth Then turning his armes behind his back they hoisted him up with a rope put between his thumbs twitching him up and letting him down five or six times they tied also great stones to both his great toes and let him hang till his spirits failed then they let him fall with such violence upon his face that he was grievously hurt thereby Then was he thrown into prison and they would not suffer him to have a Chirurgion to cure him of the gashes which the cords had made in his flesh even to the bare bones so that his torment and anguish was very great neither could he lift his hands to his mouth which he was likely to lose the use of But it so fell out by Gods Providence that after he was condemned news coming of the Duke of Guise his death his enemies began to tremble and some of his Judges coming to him in prison asked him if he did not bear them ill will He answered that men of his Profession and Religion ought not to bear malice to any being enjoyned by God to love and pray for those that persecuted them Shewing also that whatsoever troubles had befallen him were none other but such as God had fore-ordained for the setting forth of his own glory for which he esteemed himself most happy yet he warned them to lay to heart the wrong that they had done him lest the vengeance of God did sooner or later overtake them for it The next day Bussi one of his persecutors having received letters from the Constable of France to release him swore that he should be delivered indeed but into the hands of the multitude But it pleased God that just at that time there came by the Prince of Portion with his Germane Souldiers which were for the Protestants who sent word that they would not leave so much as a house standing except they would deliver Fournier This so affrighted his enemies that they released him out of prison protected him from the violence of the multitude and conveyed him in safety to the Prince There he was kindly welcomed and entertained all grieving for the miseries which he had endured and two dayes after he preached before the Prince and his followers and the day after at the instant request of the Protestants of Vitri he went to them to preach and baptize their children and shortly after was called to Ver where he gathered a Congregation and spent some time amongst them with wonderful fruit but by reason he was so extreamly weakned by his strait imprisonment and tortures being above fifty years old he soon after finished his course and quietly resigned up his soul unto God At Amiens all Bibles New Testaments and Psalm-books were sought for and openly burnt as also the Ministers Pulpit Then did the Guisians proceed to killing of the Christians and casting them into the River some they shot to death and others they hanged At Abbevilli they slew the Lord of Haucourt with divers others one Beliart they dragged along the streets with his face downwards and then drowned him in the river At Meaux the Protestants were the stronger Party and therefore continued the free exercise of their Religion for a while but the Parliament of Paris gave judgment against them and exposed them to the spoil of such as would undertake it Then a company of Souldiers entring the Town disarmed the Citizens and slew about foure hundred of the Religion Then Mounsieur de Boisy entring with more Souldiers committed a
the President of the Huguenots Shortly after came thither the Duke de Monpensier who caused gibbets wheels and stakes to be set up whereupon many more especially of the richer sort were murthered to the number of some hundreds when they put any man or woman to death they entred their houses murthered their children and took all their goods A poor woman whose husband was a little before drowned having a young infant sucking at her breasts and a beautiful daughter of about sixteen years old in her hand These bloody villains drew them to the River there the woman on her knees prayed ardently unto God then took her infant and shifting it in the Sun laid it upon the grasse In the mean while this hellish Rabble endeavoured partly by threats partly by fair promises to seduce the young maid and one of them finer then the rest promised to marry her if she would do it so that the poor wench stood in a disway which her mother perceiving who was now ready to be thrown into the River she earnestly exhorted her daughter to persist in the truth the daughter hereupon cryed out I will live and die with my Mother whom I know to be a vertuous woman as for your threats and promises I regard them not do with me what you please The mother was not yet dead when they threw in the daughter after her where making towards her mother they mutually embraced each other and so yielded up their souls into the hands of God Also in the same City there was a godly Matron called Glee who was carried before the Captain where she gave a reason of her Faith and confirmed it by evident testimonies of Scripture She dispuited also with some Friars whom she so silenced that they had nothing to say but that she was in a damnable condition It seems so indeed saith she being in your hands But I have a God that will not faile nor forsake me c. Then was she committed to prison where she was much sollicited to recant but all in vain for she spake her mind freely and comforted the prisoners which were in the same Prison for Religion News being brought her that she was condemned to be hanged when the rope was put about her neck she kneeled down praising and magnifying the name of God in that he shewed her such mercy as by this death to deliver her out of the troubles of this wretched world as also for that it pleased the Lord to honor her so far as to die for his truth and to wear his livery meaning the halter Then she brake her fast with the rest of the company and giving thanks to God she exhorted them to be of good courage and to trust to the end in his free mercy c. As she went to execution a Kinswoman met her with her little children perswading her to recant telling her that thereby she might preserve her life and see those her Babes provided for This meeting wrought so upon her motherly affection as made her shed plenty of tears but presently taking new courage she said I love my children dearly yet neither for love to them nor for any thing else in the world will I renounce my God or his truth God will be a Father to these my children and will provide better for them then I could have done and therefore to his providence and protection I commend and leave them At the place of execution having prayed to and praised God with a chearful heart and voice she quietly resigned up her spirit unto God The Duke de Aumale in Normandy took Pontea de Mer by subtilty where he used all kinds of cruelty especially against the Minister Master Brione Shortly after Roan was besieged and two Forts taken wherein they put all to the sword the Queen-mother in an impudent manner leading the King who was but twelve years old to shew him the naked bodies of the women weltring in their own blood After divers assaults the City of Roan was taken wherein the Kings souldiers used all kinds of monstrous cruelty massacring all they met many English and Scots souldiers were hanged the sick and wounded were cast into the river Divers Ministers were retreated into a strong Tower which they yielded upon promise of safety but contrary therereto they were cast into prison Augustine Marlorat with three Counsellors were condemned to be hanged which was presently executed with many opprobrious speeches against Marlorat The sackage of this Town lasted foure moneths together in which space divers were executed In Valougnes divers persons of good quality were massacred and the houses of the Protestants were filled with souldiers that did what they listed therein Amongst other outrages they slew a godly Minister called Monsieur de Valougnes whose body they stripped naked dragd it up and down his house with many scorns and jears at last bringing it into the chamber where he used to preach to his people they spurned his corpse saying Now pray to God and preach if thou canst The Priests that were present stuffed his mouth and wounds with the leaves of his Bible saying to him Preach the truth of thy God and call upon him now to help thee In Vire as they came from a Sermon some were slain some stoned and a while after many were put to the sword In and about Agen Monluc killed and massacred many two young children were roasted In the Castle of Reime Monluc used great cruelty against those of the Religion sparing none but murthering young children in their mothers armes and then killing the mothers some other women they reserved for their lust which they so abused that saith mine Author I abhorre to write it Above five hundred men were hanged upon gibbets amongst whom was a grave Counsellor in his long gown and square cap. One poor man they cut and mangled in several parts of his body filling all his wounds with salt In the City of Blois there was a godly woman called Nichola at whose house some holy people used to meet to pray and confer together for their mutual edification and comfort The murtherers hearing of it came rushing in thinking to have found a Minister preaching but being disappointed in their expectations they dragged these good women out by the haire of the head loaded them with many stripes and then threw them into the river but behold a singular Providence God so endowed them with strength and skill that they swam safely to an Island yet after a while some watermen finding them there they stript them stark naked and threw them again into the river yet they still sought to save themselves by swimming and coming at last to the Suburbs of Vienne they were there most cruelly knocked on the head by the bloody Papists Monluc having defeated a party of the Protestants under Monsieur Duras he took divers Prisoners most of which he hanged
a most detestable manner The Minister was slain two Gentlemen and sixty others were hanged A widdow of great account redeemed the virginity of her only daughter with a great summe of mony but the villain that promised to defend her ravished her in her Mothers presence and then killed them both Yea after peace was proclaimed fourteen of the Religion coming thither were all slain In Nonnay Monsieur Chaumont having surprised the Town murthered many Protestants spitting out infinite and horrible blasphemies against God himself A Locksmith being commanded to despite and blaspheme God because he refused to do it was presently hewen in pieces for the same cause another was brained with the butt end of a musket A Naylor because he would not give himself to the Divel was drawn about his shop by the ears then being laid on his Anvile they beat his head in pieces with hammers yea all manner of cruelty was used that could be devised Three of the principal in the Town were thrown down from an high Tower many other were thrown down to make sport Some were burnt in their houses others thrown out at windows others stabbed in the streets women and maids were most shamefully handled a young woman that was found hid in an house with her husband was first ravished before her husbands face then forced to hold a Rapier wherewith one thrusting her arme made her kill her own husband In Foix many Protestants were cast into prison of whom some had their armes and legs cut off and then were beheaded Some burnt some hanged and others sent to the Gallies In Aurange they killed the Protestants without distinction of age sex or quality Some they stabbed others they threw upon the points of Halberds Some they hanged others they burnt in the Churches Of some they cut off their privy members sparing neither old nor bedrid nor the diseased in the Hospitals Women and maids were killed others hanged out at windows were harquebushed sucking children massacred at their mothers breasts girls of five or six years old ravished and spoiled the wounds of the dead were filled with leaves torne out of Bibles Those in the Castle yielding upon oath and promise of safety were all stabbed or thrown over the wals being one hundred and ninety of them In Grenoble they slew many of the Religion and others they cast from the Bridge into the River In Cisterno the men that were of the Religion being fled the popish party fell upon the women and children whereof they slew three or foure hundred Some women with child were rip 't up many were buried quick Some had their throats cut like sheep others were drawn through the streets and beaten to death with clubs In Beaune they were bereaved of the exercise of Religion their three Ministers imprisoned many were driven out of the Town to the number of eight hundred persons with women and children their houses were filled with souldiers who made spoile of all such as were found in their houses were vilely abused and some were slain In Mascon the bloody Persecutors having apprehended a godly and learned Minister called Bonnet Bor who was of a very unblameable life having served twenty years in the Ministry and in that time had been put to his ransome three times they carried him along the streets with a thousand scoffs and scorns smiting him with their fists thrusting him up and down and then made a Proclamation That whosoever would hear this holy man preach should come to the slaughter-house at which place they again buffeted and mocked him two hours together Hereupon he requested them that before his death they would permit him to pray to God Then one stepping to him cut off half his nose and one of his ears saying Now pray as long as thou wilt and then we will send thee to all the Divels and so this holy man kneeling down prayed with such fervency of spirit that drew sighs from some of the Murtherers and aftervvards directing his speech to him that had cut off his nose he said Friend I am now ready to suffer what thou hast further to inflict upon me But I intreat thee and thy companions to bethink you well of the outrages committed by you against this poor City for there is a God in heaven before whose Tribunal you must shortly give an account of these your cruelties A Captain passing by cryed send that wretched man to the Divel which one of them hearing took him by the hand pretending to have him to the river to wash off his blood but when he came thither he threw him into it battering him with stones till he was drowned CHAP. XXXV The History of the Massacre at Paris ANNO 1571. After the end of the third Civil War in France great means was used to draw the chief of the Protestants to Paris under pretence of a marriage between the Prince of Navar and the Lady Margaret sister to the King of France but in the mean time the Papists in Roan murthered divers Protestants as they came from a Sermon and grievously beat others this seemed much to displease the King and three or four were executed for the mutiny then were the Articles of marriage agreed upon The place for it Paris and the Admiral sent to by the King to be present at the wedding and to prevent all Jealousies those of the house of Guise were sent away whereat they seemed much discontented The Admiral was allowed to bring with him fifty Gentlemen armed for his greater security When he came to Paris he was honourably received and conducted to the King who calls him his Father protesting that in all his life he had not seen any day more agreeable to his mind than that wherein he assured himself to see the end of all troubles and the beginning of firm peace and quietness in his Realm the Queen-mother and the rest of the great Courtiers received him with greater favour than he expected Then did the King send him one hundred thousand Franks out of his treasury for the losses which he had received in the wars c. The Admiral had divers advertisements of the intended treachery yet God so blinded him at that time though a very prudent man that he gave little heed to them Yea such a general stupidity seized upon the Protestants that their minds were very wavering and few there were that shewed themselves zealously bent to Religion but all both great and small thinking deeply upon worldly matters built them goodly Castles in the aire Then was the Queen of Navar sent for by the King of France to Paris to prepare all things against the wedding but presently after her coming she fell sick of a Feavor made her will in a most Christian manner had much inward joy and comfort and at five dayes end died not without suspition of poison from certain perfumes
head that he received his blood into his own hands and when they had killed him they threw him into the river Two Ministers belonging to the King of Navar were also murthered and thrown into the river God miraculously preserving all the other Ministers in the City A Jeweller being in bed with his wife who at that time had the midwife with her being near the time of her delivery these bloody Villains came knocking at the door and in the Kings name demanded entrance the woman as ill was she was opened the door whereupon rushing in they stabbed her husband in his bed the Midwife seeing that they were bent to murther the woman also earnestly entreated them to tarry at least so long till the infant which would be the twentieth child that God had given her was born but notwithstanding her request they took the woman and thrust a dagger into her fundament up to the hilts the woman finding her self mortally wounded yet desirous to bring forth her fruit fled into a corn-loft whither these tygers persuing her gave her another stob into the belly and so cast her out of the window into the street and upon the fall the childe came forth of her body the head formost gaping and yauning in a pitiful manner One of these murtherers snatching up a little childe in his armes the poor babe began to play with his beard and to smile upon him but instead of being moved to compassion this villain whose heart was harder than the rocks wounded it with his dagger and cast it all gore blood into the river The Kings letters being come to Meaux upon the same Sabbath to Cosset the Kings Atturny there upon the sight of them he presently went about to his cutthroats warning them to come to him armed at seven a clock at night withal causing the gates of the City to be shut up The hour being come he with his Partizans went up and down cruelly murthering the innocent servants of Jesus Christ in which bloody employment they spent all that night The next day they pillaged their houses and took above two hundred Protestants more and shut them up in prison the next day towards evening Cosset with his companions went to the prison where having a Catalogue of the prisoners names Cosset called them out one by one and then they murthered them till they were aweary Then they went to supper that so they might breath and refresh themselves and then filling themselves with wine they went back to glut themselves with blood also They took with them butchers axes that they might dispatch them the more easily with which as they called them forth they knocked them down and murthered them Amongst those that were thus butchered was an Elder of the Reformed Church who praying for his enemies they laughed him to scorn and because he had a Buffe-coat on which they were loth to spoil they opened it before and stabbed him into the breast Another was an ancient man that had been sheriffe of the City him they were not content to kill out-right but first cut off his nose ears and privy members then they gave him several small thrusts into the body tossing him up and down till through losse of blood he fell down calling upon the name of the Lord and so with many wounds he was slain The Kings letters being come to Troys the Protestants were all shut up in prison Then did the Bailiffe send for the common Hangman to murther them but he refused saying That his office was only to execute such as were legally condemned and so went his way Then was the Keeper of the prison sent for who being sick he sent one Martin to know what the businesse was to whom the Bailiffe imparted the matter wishing him to murther all the Prisoners and that their blood might not run out into the street he bade him to make a great trench in the midst of the prison and to cause certain vessels to be set into it to receive the blood This Martin going back with abhorrency of the fact concealed it from the Jailor The next day the Bailiffe came to the prison and smiling asked the Jailor if it was done but he being ignorant of his meaning asked him what should be done Hereupon the Bailiffe was so enraged that he was ready to strike him with his dagger till he promised to perform his Will Then did the Jailor go to the Prisoners who were in the Court recreating themselves and shut them up one by one in their several Cels which made them suspect that they were destinated to slaughter and therefore they betook themselves to prayer The Jailor called his companions about him acquainted them what was given him in charge and caused them to swear to execute it but when they approached to the prisoners they were so surprized with feare that they stood gazing one upon another having not hearts to act so horrid a deed whereupon they returned to the Jailors Lodge and sent for eight quarts of the strongest wine with other things to intoxicate their brains then they took a Catalogue of all their prisoners and gave it to one Martin to call them forth in order The first prisoner being called for presented himself with a cheerful countenance calling upon the name of the Lord then opened his breast to them receiving the mortal stroke whereof he died Another being called forth one of them thrust at him several times with the point of his Halbard wounding but not killing him whereupon the prisoner took the point of the Halbard and set it against his heart saying with a stedfast voice Here souldier here right at the heart right at the heart and so finished his life The rest were all murthered in the like manner after which the murtherers made a great pit in the back-side of the prison into which they cast the bodies one upon another some of them yet breathing yea one of them raised up himself above his fellows whereupon they threw in earth and so smothered him But the Bailiffs order of making a trench being not observed the blood of the slain ran so abundantly out of the prison door that thence through the channel it ran into the river and turned it into the colour of blood which bred an horror in the very Papists themselves which saw it At Orleance the Kings Edict for observing the Treaty of Peace was solemnly published which made those of the Religion very secure whereupon above three hundred of them men women and children met together at a Sermon but the same night came the Kings letters for the massacring of them all Then did the Major and Sheriffs raise the companies in Armes to put it in execution One of these murtherers with some of his companions went to a Noble Counsellors house bidding themselves to supper The Counsellor ignorant of their intents made them good cheere but when supper was ended with
them that in England they had caused the Queens Priests to be hanged before her face and that they held herself under a most severe discipline and that the like cruel Laws should be made against Popery in Ireland c. When their plots were ripe for execution we finde their first proceedings against the English very various some of the Irish only stripping and expelling them others murthering man woman and childe without mercy yet all resolving universally to root out all the Protestants out of Ireland yea so deeply malicious were they against the English Protestants that they would not endure the very sound of that language but would have all such punished as spake English and the names of all English places they would have changed into old Irish. In many places they killed the English Cowes and Sheep meerly because they were English sometimes they cut off their legs or cut out a piece of their buttock and so left them to live in pain yea in some places what they could not devoure they killed and left in great multitudes stinking in the fields The Priests gave the Sacrament unto divers of the Irish upon condition that they should neither spare man woman nor childe of the Protestants saying that it did them a great deale of good to wash their hands in their blood One Halligan a Priest read an excommunication against all those that from thenceforth should relieve or harbour any English Scotch or VVelch man or give them almes at their doores whereby many were famished to death The Friars with tears exhorted them not to spare any of the English they boasted that when they had destroyed them in Ireland they would go over into England and not leave the memorial of an English man under heaven They openly professed that they held it as lawful to kill a Protestant as to kill a sheep or a dog One of their Priests said that it was no more pity or conscience to take their lives or estates from them than to take a bone out of a dogs mouth The day before this Massacre was to begin the Priests gave the people a dismisse at Masse with free liberty to go out and take possession of all their lands which they pretended to be unjustly detained from them by the English As also to strip rob and despoil them of all their goods and cattel the Protestants being as they told them worse than Dogs for they were Divels and served the Divel and therefore the killing of such was a meritorious act and a rare preservative against the pains of Purgatory for that the bodies of such of them as died in this quarrel should not be cold before their soules should ascend up into heaven so that they should not need to feare the paines of Purgatory and this caused some of these Murtherous Cains to boast after they had slain many of the English that they knew that if they should dye presently they should go strait to Heaven The chief Gentlemen of the Irish when this persecution first began perswaded many of their Protestant neighbours that if they would bring their goods and cattel to them they would secure them from the rage of the common people and hereby they got abundance peaceably into their hands whereof they cheated the Protestants refusing to restore them again yet so confident were the Protestants at first of their good dealing in regard of former familiarity that they gave them Inventories of all they had nay digged up such of their best things as they had hidden in the ground and deposited them in their custody They also gat much into their hands by fair promises and deep oaths and engagements that if they would deliver them their goods they would suffer them with their wives and children quietly to depart the Country yet having got what they could they afterwards murthered them Having thus seised upon all their goods and cattel ransack't their houses and gotten their persons under their power the next work was to strip man woman and childe stark-naked and so to turn them out of doors not suffering them so much as to shelter themselves under bushes or in the woods strictly prohibiting all the Irish under great penalties not to give them any relief as they passed in the high wayes and their great designe herein was that they on whom they would not lay their hands and cruelly murther in cold blood might miserably perish through cold nakednesse and want and therefore if any of them gat any old rags to cover their nakednesse with they stripped them again and again sometimes twice or thrice over the Irish women being very active herein yea they taught their very children to do the like yea they would not leave to the women so much as a smock or an hairlace So that many of them being starved fell down dead in the high wayes Others that gat to any English town by reason of famine and cold suffered by the way died so soon as they came thither In the town of Colerain of these miserable people that fled thither for succour many thousands died in two dayes so that the living being not able to bury them laid the Carkasses of those dead persons in great ranks in waste and wide holes piling them so close and thick as if they had packed up herings together One Magdalen Redman deposed that she and divers others Protestants amongst whom were twenty two widows were first robbed and then stripped stark-naked and when they had in an house covered themselves with straw the bloody Papists threw burning straw in amongst them on purpose to burn them Then did they drive them so naked in to the wilde woods in frost and snow so that the snow covered their skins where a long time it lay unmelted and some of their Children died in their armes with the extremity of the cold and whereas some of these poor soules went towards the Burre for shelter the cruel Irish turned them back again saying they should go to Dublin and when they went towards Dublin they beat them back saying they should go to the Burre and so tossed them to and fro that some of them died those which through many difficulties gat to the Burre many of them died there and those that survived lived miserably by reason of their many wants Yet though these bloody Villaines exercised such inhumane cruelties towards the poor Protestants they would commonly boast that these were but the beginnings of their sorrows and indeed they made it good for having disarmed the English robbed them of their goods and cattel stript them of their cloathes and having their persons in their power they furiously broke out into all manner of abominable cruelties horrid massacres and execrable murthers so that it would make any Christians eare to tingle and his heart to ake to hear the mention of them For there were multitudes murthered in cold blood some whilst they were at plough others as they sate
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
burned to death In Munster they hanged up many Ministers in a most barbarous manner One Minister they stripped stark naked and drove him through the town pricking him forwards with darts and rapiers and so pursued him till he fell down dead Neither did all the malice that they bore to these poor Christians end with their lives when they had slain them but extended after death to the denying burial to their carcasses casting some into ditches leaving others to be devoured of ravenous beasts and fouls yea some that had been formerly buried they digged up and left them as dung upon the face of the earth These barbarous Villains vowed that if any Parents digged graves to bury their children in they should be buried therein themselves They stripped one William Loverden naked then killed him before his wife and children cut off his head and held it up for them to gaze at and when his wife had buried hin in his garden they digged him up and threw him into a ditch Divers Ministers bones that had been buried some years before they digged up because they were as they said Patrons of Heresie Poor children that went out into the fields to eate weeds and grasse they killed without all pity And a poor woman whose husband was taken by them went to them with two children at her feet and one at her breast hoping to beg her husband but they slew her and her sucking infant brake the neck of another and the third hardly escaped And which was a great aggravation of their wickednesse they exercised all this cruelty upon the English Protestants who never provoked them thereto yea that had alwayes lived peaceably with them administring help and comfort to them in distresse putting no difference betwixt them and those of their own Nation and cherished them as friends and loving neighbours Notwithstanding all which courtesies they now shewed them no favour or pity Alas who can comprehend the fears terrours anguish bitternesse and perplexity that seized upon the hearts of the poor Protestants finding themselves so suddenly surprized without remedy and inextricably wrapt up in all kind of outward miseries which could possibly by man be inflicted upon humane creatures What sighs and groans trembling and astonishment what shrikes cries and bitter lamentations of wives children servants and friends howling and weeping finding themselves without all hope of deliverance from their present miseries How inexorable were their barbarous tormentors that compassed them in on every side without all bowels of compassion or the least commiseration and pity One Ellen Millington they put into an hole fastning her in with stones and left her there to languish to death bragging how many of them went to see her kick and tosse in the hole Yea they boasted upon their successe that the day was their own and that ere long they would not leave one Protestant Rogue living but would uttery destroy every one that had but a drop of English blood in them their women crying out Slay them all the English are fit meat for dogs and their children are bastards Yea so implacable was their malice that they vowed that they would not have an English beast alive nor any of the breed of them How grievous was it to any Christian heart to hear a base Villain boast that his hands were so weary with killing and knocking down Protestants into a bog that he could not lift up his armes to his head Another boasted that he had been abroad and had killed sixteen of the rogues Others boasted that they had killed so many that the grease and fat which stuck upon their swords might well make an Irish candle Yea two boyes boasted thar at several times they had murthered and drowned thirty six women and children These mercilesse Papists having set a Castle on fire wherein were many Protestants they rejoycingly said amongst themselves O how sweetly do they fry At Kilkenny when they had committed many cruel murthers they brought seven Protestants heads amongst which one was the head of a Reverend Minister all which they set upon the Market-crosse on a Market day triumphing slashing and mangling them and putting a gag into the Ministers mouth they slit up his cheeks to his ears and laying a leaf of a Bible before it they bid him preach for his mouth was wide enough it cannot be imagined with what scorn and derision they acted these things and with what joy and exultation their eyes beheld the sad spectacle of the Protestants miseries what greedy delight they took in their bloody executions An English woman whom they had stripped stark naked gat a little straw which she tied about her middle to cover her nakednesse but these impudent villaines set fire to it boasting what brave sport they had to see how the fire made the English Jade dance At Kilmore they put many Protestants men women and children together into a thatched house and then set fire on it boasting of the lamentations and out-cries that they made whilest they were in burning and how the children gaped when the fire began to burne them taking pride and glorying in imitating those cries They took one Mistris Maxwel being in labour and threw her into a river boasting that the childs arme appeared and that it was half-born when the mother was drowned These bloody Persecutors took great pleasure and delight in their cruelty and to encrease their misery when they butchered them they used to say Thy soul to the Devil One of them coming into an house with his hands and cloaths all bloody made his boasts that it was English blood and that his skeine had pâ—â—cked the cleane white skins of many of them even to the hilt thereof When any of them had killed a Protestant many of them would come one after another each of them stabbing wounding and cutting his body in a most despiteful manner and then leave it naked to be devoured of dogs beasts and fouls and when they had slain any number of them they would boast that they had made the Devil beholding to them in sending so many souls to hell But it s no wonder that they carried themselves so towards these innocent Christians when they spared not to belch out their execrable blasphemies against God and his holy Word In one place they burnt two Protestant Bibles and then said it was hell-fire they burnt Other Bibles they took cut in pieces and then burnt them saying that they would do the like to all Puritane Bibles In the Church at Powerscourt they burnt the Pulpit Pues Chests and Bibles belonging to it Others of them took the Protestants Bibles and wetting them in dirty water did several times dash them on the faces of the Protestants saying I know you love a good lesson here is an excellent one for you come to morrow and you shall have as good a Sermon as this Others they dragged by the hair of the head into the Church there stripped and whipped them
blow at them One of the heads being a Ministers a woman struck so hard with her fist that the same night her hand grew black and blew and so rankled that she was lame of it a quarter of a year after Another woman that looked on those heads with much rejoycing presently after fell so distracted that neither night not day she could rest but cryed out continually that she saw those heads before her eyes One English Protestant saying that he would believe the Divel as soon as the Pope they presently hanged him up in an Apple Tree till he dyed A poor Protestant woman with her two children going to Kilkenny upon businesse these bloody miscreants baited them with Dogs stabbed them with skeins and pulled out the guts of one of the children whereby they dyed and not far off they took divers men women and children and hanged them up and one of the women being great with child they ripped up her belly as she hanged so that the child fell out in the cawle alive Some after they were hanged they drew up and down till their bowels were torn out How many thousands of Protestants were thus inhumanely murthered by sundry kinds of deaths in that one Province of Ulster we have heard before What the number of the slain was in the three other Provinces I find not upon Record but certainly it was very great for I finde these passages in a general Remonstrance of the distressed Protestants in the Province of Munster We may say they compare our woe to the saddest Parallel of any story Our Churches are demolished or which is worse profaned by Sacrifices to Idols our habitations are become ruinous heaps No quality age or sex priviledged from Massacres and lingring deaths by being robbed stript naked and so exposed to cold and famine The famished Infants of murdered Parents swarme in our streets and for want of food perish before our faces c. And all this cruelty that is exercised upon us we know not for what cause offence or seeming provocation its inflicted on us sin excepted saving that we were Protestants c. We can make it manifest that the depopulations in this Province of Munster do well near equal those of the whole Kingdome c. And thus in part we have heard of the mercilesse cruelties which the bloody Papists exercised towards the Protestants Let us now consider at least some of Gods judgements upon the Irish whereby he hath not left the innocent blood of his servants to be altogether unrevenged Some particular instances have been mentioned before as also the apparitions at Portendown Bridge which affrighted them from their habitations concerning which it is further testified that by their own confession the blood of those that were knocked on the head and then thrown into the River at that Bridge remained for a long time upon the stones and could not be washed away as also that ofttimes they saw apparitions sometimes of men sometimes of women rising breast-high above the water which did most extreamly screech and cry out for vengeance against the Irish that had murdered them there Catherine Coke testified upon oath that when the Irish had barbarously drowned one hundred and eighty Protestants men women and children at Portendown Bridge about nine days after she saw the apparition of a man bolt upright in the River standing breast-high with his hands lift up to heaven and continued in that posture from December to the end of Lent at which time some of the English Army passing that way saw it also after which it vanished away Elizabeth Price testified upon oath that she and other women whose husbands and children were drowned in that place hearing of these apparitions went thither one Evening at which time they saw one like a Woman rise out of the River breast-high her haire hanging down which with her skin was as white as snow often crying out Revenge Revenge Revenge which so affrighted them that they went their way Divers Protestants were thrown into the river of Belterbert and when any of them offered to swim to the Land they were knocked on the head with Poles after which their bodies were not seen of six weeks but after the end thereof the murtherers coming again that way the bodies came floating up to the very Bridge where they were Sir Con mac Gennis with his company slew Master Turge Minister of the Newry with divers other Protestants after which the said Mac Gennis was so affrighted with the apprehension of the said Master Turge his being continually in his presence that he commanded his souldiers not to slay any more of them but such as should be slain in battel A young woman being stript almost naked there came a Rogue to her bidding her give him her money or he would run her through with his Sword Her answer was You cannot kill me except God give you leave whereupon he ran three times at her naked body with his drawn Sword and yet never pierced her skin whereat he being confounded went his way and left her This was attested by divers women that were present and saw it But besides these forementioned judgements of God which befel them for their inhumane cruelties we may observe how the hand of God hath been out against them ever since and that in a special manner by emasculating and debasing of their spirits whereby it hath come to passe that ordinarily a few English Souldiers have chased multitudes of them and generally in all the battels and fights that have been betwixt them they have always been beaten though the ods was great of their side And as they made themselves formerly drunk with the innocent blood of the unresisting Protestants so now God hath given them their fill of blood in jealousie and fury Many thousands of them have perished by the Sword of War And how heavy hath the hand of God lain further upon them this present year 1650. in that terrible and universal plague that hath been scattered all over the Nation whereby many thousands more of them have perished and God is still fighting against and probably will continue their destruction till they either shall truly be humbled for their horrid sins or be utterly consumed from the face of the earth Amen Even so come Lord Jesus come quickly These particulars were attested upon Oath by sundry persons before Commissioners appointed to take their Examinations Here place the tenth Figure CHAP. XLI A continuation of the History of the Waldenses from the year 1560. ending with the late persecution in the Valleys in PIEMONT ANNO Christi 1561. the Duke of Savoy published an Edict in favour of the Evangelical Churches in the Vallies of Piemont wherein he granted an indemnitie to the people of the Vallies of Angrognia Bobio Villaro Valguicchiardo Rora Tagliaretto and La Rica di Boneti at the end of La Torre Saint Martino Perosa Roccapiatta and Saint Barthelemo from
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
or her to go and kisse their Privities that they might put alike scorne both upon the living and dead But by reason of the multitude of bullets that were shot thorow them by the souldiers they at last fell to pieces Daniel Rambaut of Villaro having a numerous family was taken â—nd carried to Paysana with divers others of his Neighbours where he was cast into prison and after awhile was importunatly set upon by the Monks and Masse Priests both with promises and threats to pronounce Jesus Maria and when they could not prevail the Tormentors first cut off his fingers one by one and then his hands and lastly gave him a deadly wound in the stomack and then they dragged his carcasse to the Rivers side and left it to be devoured by Dogs and wilde Beasts Peter Chabriolo being taken by the Souldiers they hung a great quantity of Gunpowder about his body and then giving fire to it tore him all to pieces Antony the sonne of Samuel Calieris a dumb and innocent creature was inhumanly butchered as he was sitting by the fire side Peter Moninat and his wife lying both of them extreme sick were murthered by the Souldiers who finding in the same house one of their children a poor infant lame and impotent they cut off its legs and so left it in that miserable plight they had also another poor girle who had been dumb from her cradle which not long after was found starved to death for want of sustenance Daniel Benech of Villaro was taken by the Souldiers who cut off his nose eares and other parts of his body till they had slain him and then they left the mangled pieces upon the hedges and bushes in the same place Two of his children were also stifled in the Snow Mary the Widow of Daniel Pelanchion of Villaro being taken by the Souldiers after they had basely abused her they almost shot her to death and then threw her into the River But this poor woman being not quite dead with much pains and hard shifts got out of the River again hoping to be somewhat revived by the warme Sunne which she laid her down in but some of these bloody Villains spying her they fastened a rope to her feet and dragged her to the Bridge where they hung her up by the legs and so shot her to death afterwards leaving her stark naked upon the Rock Mary the wife of Daniel Monino was taken by the souldiers who having broken her jawes in pieces they gave her a deep cut in the neck so that her head was halfe off and so they left her in that languishing condition till after extreme torments endured for divers dayes together she at last yielded up the Ghost Mary the Widow of David Nigrino a poor beggar of Villaro together with her daughter who was an Innocent were both inhumanly massacred in the Village of Bozza and their dead bodies were thrown into the Woods Susanna the Widow of Samuel Bals of Villaro was by the Souldiers basely abused at their pleasure and afterwards they shut her up between two stone walls where she was miserably pined to death Susanna the wife of Jacob Calvio being sorely wounded by the Souldiers after which flying into a Barne to hide her self the Souldiers perceiving it set fire on the Barne and burnt her to ashes A child of Daniel Bertino who had been dumb and an Innocent from the womb was burnt in a Barne at Balmedaut Paolo Armand being extreme sick and weak was by these Barbarians hacked in pieces Andrea Bertino a very old and lame man had his breasts first cut off and then was cruelly murthered by these bloody villains who to testifie their malice against him for his constancie in Religion after he was dead they cut out his bowels and with their Halberds hacked his body in pieces Daniel the sonne of David Michialino being taken by the Souldiers after much other cruel usage had his tongue pulled out with great violence and torments Constantia Bellione had her body hacked and mangled in most parts thereof and then was shot to death with several bullets in her bowels and after she was dead they cleft her head with a Hanger Judith Mondon was beaten to death in a savage manner with clubs and staves David Paglias and Paolo Genre endeavouring to fly each of them having a little infant in his armes being at last tired and out of breath were overtaken by the Souldiers and both men and infants inhumanly murthered Micheli Genre a young man of Bobio was thrown off the Bridge of La Torre where as he was praying with his hands lifted up to heaven he was partly stoned and partly drowned David Armand was knocked and beaten about the head with an hamer till he died Jacob Baridono being taken prisoner at Villaro and from thence carried to La Torre after the Tormentors had sufficiently and cruelly afflicted him with burning Matches between his fingers his lips and other parts of his body till with intolerable paine he died they caused his dead corps to be carried out by two of his fellow-Prisoners and by them to be thrown into the river Pelice but thinking that too honorable a burying-place for an Heretick they forced them to fetch it out again and to lay it on the rivers brink where after they had exposed the same to all manner of ignominies it was at last eaten up by Dogs Margeret the wife of Joseph Garniero having received a shot in one of her brest as she was giving suck to her little child with the other was yet so couragious that with many pathetical expressions she exhorted her husband to endure the Crosse with patience and to hold out to the end neither did she desire any favour of the murtherers but onely that they would spare the life of her innocent Babe which accordingly they did but withal gave the mother another shot in her body whereof she died and afterwards the infant being found alive in the dead mothers armes was miraculously preserved Isaiah Mondon having a long time hid himself in the cleft of a rock where for many dayes together he had nothing but a few leaves of unwholsome Herbs to eat was at last found out by the Souldiers and most unmercifully handled by them and from thence they drave him towards the Town of Lucerna being almost half dead at last when the poor creature could march no further he fell down upon his knees and beseeched them to dispatch him speedily which accordingly they did for partly with their Swords and partly with their Pistols they put an end to his miserable life crying out in a scoffing manner Kill the Barbet kill the Barbet who refuseth to become a Christian. Giovanni Barrolino and his wife were cast alive into a poole and often plunged and thrust under the water with staves and pitchforks and at last were dispatched with stones and brickbats Mary Revel receiving a shot in her body fell down in a manner dead yet
upon part of the Alps called La Pellas des Jamies May 22. went out in the evening to a place about three leagues off not far from Bubiana where he first sought God by prayer and afterwards being informed of the number and strength of the enemy finding them too many to be attachqued by such a handful of men he turned towards Lucernetta where he was furiously assaulted by the Garison of Lucerna but he couragiously encountred them without the loss of any one man only himself was shot into the leg by a Souldier that had hid himself behinde a tree with a purpose to have slain him but the Captain perceiving whence the shot came lame as he was he made to the place where he quickly dispatched him for his pains Whilst these things were acting the Irish Rebels in the Marquesses Army thinking to make themselves Masters of Babbiana under a pretence of protecting them against the Barbets the Peasants of the place perceiving their drift took occasion to quarrel with them and after drove them out killing a great number of them May the 26. 1655. Captain Gianavel wrote to Captain Jahier and the rest that were retired into Val Lucerna to meet at a Rendezvouz at Angrognia which accordingly they did and the day after they marched together to a place in the Plain called Garcigliana thinking to have entred the Town but they met with a great party of Horse and Foot yet they disputed it with them a long time but being overpowred they were forced to retreat though they got six yoke of Oxen and many other small Cattel and some prisoners and that with the loss of one only man in the retreat May 28. They marched to St. Secondo where having first kneeled down and prayed for a blessing upon their undertaking encouraging one another they attaqued the place with incredible valor and the better to secure themselves against their enemies who had lodged and fortified themselves in houses they got Planks Barrels and such other things as they met with to keep off the bullets which were poured out upon them out of those houses and so quickly made themselves Masters of the doors of those houses to which immediately they set fire and so forced their entrance putting all the Souldiers they found to the sword and no marvel for they had been extreamly provoked to this rigour by the others cruel usage of their Wives and Children Besides every room of those Houses was filled with the plundered goods of the Protestants yet did they not meddle either with Women or Children Then did they set fire on the Town and plundred the Churches which they found full of their own goods and cattel and carried away seven of their Mass-Bells At this time they slew about four hundred and fifty of their enemies and amongst others a whole company of Irish Rebels who chose rather to be burnt than to crave Quarter Of the Protestants there were only seven slaine and six or seven more slightly wounded whereof they soon recovered Munday June the fourth the Captaines Jahier Laurentio Gianavel Genolat Benet and other officers of the Protestants went to Angrognia and having called a Councel of warre they concluded the next day to alarum the enemy at Briqueras and Saint Giovanni and accordingly the Captaines Laurentio and Jahier went by the way of Reccapiatta that by the help of the thick woods wherein they shrouded themselves they might the better approach Briqueras and having gotten upon a little hill near the Town Captaine Laurentio made there a stand to hinder any relief that might be sent them from Saint Secondo and Captaine Jahier marching down set fire on several Houses and Barnes At the sight of this fire they of Briqueras gave notice to those of Cavors Fenile Bubiana Campiglione and other neighbouring places whereupon the enemy quickly advanced towards them and were as soone beaten back again in the mean time there came a party of about twenty Horse and stood at Saint Secondo lest the Reformed party should Salley out that way really believing that they had a designe upon Briqueras But Captaine Jahier marched with his company by the way of Saint Giovanni and Captaine Laurentio went an higher way yet both met at the place appointed where Captaine Gianavel was engaged with the Enemies from Lucerna and La Torre against whom he had defended himself very stoutly Then did Captaine Jahier charge them on the Flanck and Captaine Laurentio on the Front seasonably interposing his company in that place where the enemy had thought to have surrounded Captaine Gianavel so that the Popish party was soone routed leanving one hundred men behinde them besides many that were wounded the Reformed party having but one slaine upon the place June the second three hundred of the Enemies went from La Torre to fetch a Convoy into the Fort of Mirebuc situate between the Frontires of Dauphine and Piemont But Captaine Gianavel being at Malbec though he had but nine souldiers with him fell upon them and fought a great while with them to the great astonishment of his Enemies but at last was forced to retreat without the losse of a man only four were slightly wounded Afterwards Captaine Gianavel with a small party marched to La Palle des Guienets from whence he sent to some that were retired into Villora requiring that all those of the Reformed Religion should within twenty four hours come out of the said place where Masse was celebrated and that upon the paine of being dealt with as enemies and that such as through weaknesse had abjured and would persist in their abjuration should depart thence upon the same penalty Hereupon all the Papists fled presently out of Villaro and the Protestants came in to Captaine Gianavel and such of them as were able to bear Armes followed him chearfully the rest contributed according to their abilities towards the maintenance of him and his Troops Those which through frailty had abjured their Religion went over the Mountain into the Valley of Queires yet not long after they returned like so many wandring Sheep to the true Shepherd of their souls and testifying their repentance were again received into the bosome of the Church After those of Lucerna were retreated the Captaines Jahier and Gianavel with some other Officers called a Councel of Warre wherein they resolved to sally out and if it were possible to surprise those of La Torre most of which were Irish. But the enemie having timely notice was so prepared that they killed some who had passed the Bridge at Angrognia which so encouraged them that they thought to have enclosed all the small body of Protestants and to have cut them all off but after many assaults to no purpose they were forced to retreat to La Torre with the losse of very many of their Souldiers besides many others that were dangerously wounded The next day the Captains Jahier and Gianavel went before La Torre against whom many of the Souldiers came out but
leaving the Foot to the mercy of the Enemy but the Poles followed them so close at heels that two Colours about four hundred men passed through the Suburbs to the very gate and wanted but little of entering the City it self with them had not some good confident fellow ventured to step in between and bar the Gate against them while others of the Citizens sent a showr of Bullets among them and so beat them back So the Poles being glad to stop yea and retire just at Sun-set set fire on the outward parts of the Suburbs and burnt some Granaries and Wind-mills thereby making the whole night light to us while themselves returned through the Wood to Oseczno which the Germans call Storoknest The City being thus filled with fear spent the whole night without sleep the men in watching upon the Walls and the women in gathering themselves together in the Market-places and Church-yards and other open places and there wearying Heaven with Psalms and Prayers to God When the morning came and no enemy appeared the Citizens went forth and fetched in the slain to bury them among whom were found about forty Citizens but above a hundred of the Poles and among them their chief Commander himself Cresky who formerly had taken Pay under the Swedish General Banier and was accounted more expert then the rest In the mean time it was hotly reported that the Administrator of the County and many of his Retinue were wanting and gone whereupon the courage of the Citizens began to fail and they went to the Senate to desire leave to send away their wives children that if the enemy should come again they might be the more couragious in defending themselves not being daunted with the out-cryes and tears of the women Some disswaded them with good reasons saying That those that should be sent forth under pretence of convoying the rest in safety would not return again and so the rest of the Citizens should be left in greater fears That the Spartans of old were wont to take their wives children to the war with them that having them in their eyes they might fight the more stoutly for their safety But all was in vain though the Swedish Commanders also endeavoured to hinder the flight of the richer sort which they could not do being overcome with the cryes of the multitude There were some Ecclesiasticks also who desired leave to depart for a few dayes because that the Antichristian fury was bent chiefly against them But the Senate left it to their consciences whether in such a case they could leave the people then when they would most need instruction and comfort especially if wounded and dying But the others persisted in their importunity and there went out before Noon about three hundred Waggons which were all that could be got in the City After this there followed some quietness with hopes that the Enemy would return no more having found by experience how well able the Lesnians were to defend themselves and theirs and perhaps they had never returned indeed as it was know afterwards had they not been encouraged by that Hight of the Citizens For two dayes after the twenty eight of April there was a Letter delivered to the Consul from the Commanders of the Polish Forces in which they demanded the surrender of the City and gave them hope of good usage but if they would not embrace that offer they then threatned to destroy them with fire and Sword having now such an addition of Foot souldiers that they were able to take the City by storm They added moreover that they had received a Letter from the Lord Treasurer wherein he intreated them to spare his Lesna upon their submission saying that he had already given them a command to set open their Gates If ever there were indeed any such command it must needs have been suppressed by some one so that the Citizens never knew of it otherwise they would have provided a little better for the safety of themselves and their goods But so it must needs be that our sins through others treachery should be brought to punishment This message of the Poles to the Senate did wonderfully daunt the Citizens For these things were not kept secret but before the Consul could call together the Senate and the Commanders of the souldiery the report thereof had run through the whole City as also that there was very little Gun-Powder left and they had not wherewithal to defend themselves so that the Citizens being taken with a pannick fear cast away their weapons and courage together and betook themselves to flight especially when presently after they who were on the Guard discovered the Body of the Enemies coming the same way they came before For they forsaking every man his station hasted home advising their wives children and neighbours to flye themselves leaving their weapons upon the Walls or at the Gates or afterwards casting them away in the fields that they might not be a burden to them When the Swedish souldiers saw the Citizens thus in amaze and running away they also soon mounted not to meet the Enemy as before but to run away too from the face of the Enemy Then followed the Senate in such a trembling fit of fear that every one run out at the Gate that was next him or over the very Forts and Ditches so that in one hours space a most populous City was left destitute of inhabitants Save a company of sick and aged people and a few others that could not so suddenly get away or for some other cause were necessitated to await the issue But all hastened to those Moorish woods by which Poland is parted from Silesia in such confusion that when the nearest passes towards Thorlang and Krosken were not wide enough they tumbled by Troops to other passes Strizwik Prybisch and Hundsloch that were more remote The Swedish Troops went to Fraustad and from thence taking the Garrison along with them towards Meseritz But the passage through the Moors was very difficult in regard that the company crouding one upon another as if the Enemy were just at their heels did not onely many of them stick in the deep Mud in vain crying out for help to those that passed by every one being solicitous only for his own preservation but were also mired and lost Here children lost their parents and parents their children wives their husbands and one friend another so that they could scarce find one another again in two three and four days time The Enemy by a Trumpeter who was sent to Posnania gate enquired what the Citizens meant to do to whom John Kolechen a learned Citizen and well acquainted with many of the Nobility in confidence whereof having sent away his wife he adventured to stay came forth and answered That the Gates stood open the Swedish Enemies were gone and the rest of the Citizens stood to their courtesie and desired their favour A little after that came the illustrious
to the slaughter as well by reason of its being very much frequented and grown famous as also because of the Synod there usually celebrated as likewise a famous University and Printing-house and books frequently published to the world When therefore in the year 1655. the Swedish Army out of Pomerania drew near to the borders of Poland and the Nobility were summoned to Arms according to the custome of the Countrey it came to passe that the Papists brake forth into many furious expressions crying out That the Hereticks had invited the Enemy and therefore they were first of all to be put to the sword and extirpated which reports though most falsly scattered abroad for the searcher of the heart and the reins knoweth that we never so much as dreamt of it yet they easily found credit among the sworn Enemies of the Gospel who sought nothing more than our ruine Hereupon they who first consulted to agree with the Swedish Army being terrified by its power concluded about the surrender of all Great Poland into the Kings protection and namely the Royal Cities of Posen Calissen Meserick c. to which also Lesna was expressely added In a little time after they endeavoured to cast off the Swedish Yoke and turned their Arms not against the Swedes but first against our Evangelical Professors as conspiring with the Swedes upon the account of Religion and none of them scrupled to take revenge upon them They first of all set upon those of Lesna with resolution of putting all to the sword and destroying that Heretical City by fire and they had effected both unlesse God had by sending some persons before who by signifying the coming of the Enemy and with what intent they came had possest the Citizens with a Panick fear so that leaving all their Estates they every man fled and thus within the space of one hour a most populous City abounding with all manner of wealth was left without Inhabitants who in a miserable condition wandered then into the neighbouring Woods and Marishes into Silesia But the Polish Nobility with their Army entring the City did what they pleased slaying a number of decrepit old people and sick persons that were not able to save themselves by flight then the City it self was first plundred and afterwards so destroyed by fire for three dayes together that no part of it remained beside rubbish and ashes In what manner they would have handled the Citizens especially their Pastors they shewed by their heroick actions performed in other places by the most savage slaughtering of divers Ministers of the Church and other faithful Members of Christ of both Sexes for of all that they laid hold on they gave not one man quarter but very cruelly put them to death with most exquisite tortures They endeavoured to force Master Samuel Cardus Pastor of the Church of Czuertzinen to renounce his Religion after they had taken him and miserably handled him with all manner of cruelty but he stoutly resisting they first put out his Eyes and led him about for a spectacle then they pulled off his Fingers-ends with pincers but he not yet condescending to their mad Fury they found out a new kinde of torment poured molten Lead into his mouth and at length while he was yet half alive they clapt his Neck between folding Doors and violently pulling them together severed his Head from his Body They took John Jacobides Pastor of the Church of Dembnick and Alexander Wartens his Colleague and another that was in company with them as they passed through the Toun of LUBIN and hurrying them up and down for divers hours and grievously handling them after the manner of Tyrants then last of all cutting their Throats with a Razor threw them headlong while they were yet breathing into a great pit which had been before-hand prepared for their Martyrs and stifled them by casting down Dung and Dirt upon them They a great while pursued Andrew Oxlitius a young man designed for the Ministery whom after long seeking they at last found in the open field and in the end having taken him they cut off his Head with a Sithe chopping it into smal pieces and the dead carcase also they slasht in a barbarous manner The same fate befell Adam Milta a Citizen of Lesna but they more grievously handled an old man of above seventy whose name was Simon Priten and many others whose names it were too tedious to relate Of that barbarous execution which they did upon the weaker Sex there were besides other examples horrid Trophies of Cruelty erected in the said City of Lesna a pious Matron there who was the mother of three children not being able quick enough to leave the City and being slain in the open street they cut off her hands feet cutting off her childrens heads they laid two of them at her breasts and the third by her side In like manner another woman having her hands and feet cut off and her tongue cut out being inclosed and bound in a Sack lived the space of two dayes making most miserable lamentation Grief forbids us to adde more for they behaved themselves so furiously towards us that there remains not an example of any one man saved of all those that happened to fall into their hands It is notoriously known how that fury of theirs tyrannized also over the dead some they dragg'd out of their graves and cut in pieces as at Zichlin others they exposed naked for a publick Spectacle as at Lesna of which outragious action we had an example even in the dead body of the most Serene Landgrave of Hassia which was drawn out of the grave who was heretofore slain in a most barbarous and tyrannical manner at Koscian but buried by our Friends at Lesna The like was acted also upon the Body of the most Noble Arciszevius heretofore the valiant Admiral of the Hollanders in Brazile which was likewise dragg'd out of the grave and being stript of the grave-clothes was found after the firing of Lesna There are divers other examples which the Christian Reader may finde in the Book Entituled Lesnae Excidium faithfully written and lately set forth in print but they are such examples onely as are commonly known for who is able to relate all things in particular as burning men alive drowning others with stones tied about their necks c. Now Lesna being destroyed the fury of the Enemy proceeded to the persecutions of others they in a short time utterly demolished all our Congegations not onely driving away the Pastors but also either burning or leaving most of the Temples desolate as at Karmin Dembnick Skochy Czriuczin c yea and the Auditories themselves were either slain as in the Town of Skochy where there was a very flourishing Church of the Bohemian Exiles Sixty persons both men and women were cruelly put to death or else they were scattered abroad so that there remained not one place wherein the Worship of God may be celebrated Lo
Providence His delivery His death At Amiens Bibles burnt At Abbevilly At Meaux Abominable villanies At Troys Bibles burnt At Bar. Popish cruelty At Crant At Sens. At Auxerre At Nevers At Chastillon At Guyen At Montargis A brave answer of the Lady Rene. At Monlius At Mans. At Anger 's Bibles burnt Horrible blasphemies Popish perfidiousnesse A bloody Edict In Ligueul John de Tour. At Tours Barbarous cruelties Popish subtilty The Mother and her daughter drowned Glee Vincit veritâ—â— Joy in tribulation Tentation resisted Faith Her Martyrdome Ponteou de Mer Impudence Marliorat hanged At Valougnes Monsieur Valougnes Popish profaneness and blasphemy At Vire At Agen. At Reime At Blâ—is Blasphemy A miracle In Guillac Horrid cruelties Peter Domo Popish perfidiousnesse In Souraize Prodigious villanies Blasphemy Faith and patience Faith A special Providence Peter Roch buried quick Two crowned with thorns Janetta Calvin At Mont de Marson In Tholouse Horrible cruelties Popish perfidiousness Carcasson Popish lies At Limox Abominable villany At Nonnay Blasphemy Barbarous cruelties At Foix. At Aurange Horrible cruelties Perfidiousness At Grenoble At Cisterno At Beaune At Mascon Bonnet Bor a godly Minister Barbarous cruelty Courage and constancy His martyrdome See this more fully in the life of the Admiral at the end of this book Divellish dissimulation Sin the forerunner of persecution The Queen of Navar dieth Dissimulation The K. of Navar married The Admiral shot Dissimulation Good counsel neglected Deep dissimulation The Massacre suspected The Kings Commission shewed for it The Massacre begins Of Merlins miraculous escape see in my book of Examples The Admiral slain His head imbalmed and sent to the Pope Popish cruelty Ten thousand slain in Paris Popish lies The river died red with blood Prince of Conde's zeal and courage Divellish dissimulation Above thirty thousand massacred in three moneths The Lord de la Place hâ—s holy zeal The Lord de la Place murthered Peter Ramus murthered A dutiful and loving son Two Ministers murthered Hellish cruelty An Infant murthered At Meaux Two hundred Protestants murthered At Troys Gods Providence Prodigious wickednesse and cruelty Courage and constancy of Gods people The Massacre at Orleance A Noble Counsellor Monstrous ingratitude Blasphemy A Doctor of the Law An Apothecary A Cook The reward of Apostates The patience of the Saints Gods providence Popish malice and cruelty Three hundred and fifty murthered Francis de Bossu and his two sons The father encourageth his sons to die Prodigious cruelty Their grease is sold. The murtherers absolved At Angiers Hypocrisie A Minister murthered A godly Minister pistolled And his wife murthered At Roan six thousand murthered At Tholouse Popish subtilty And cruelty Three hundred murthered At Bourdeaux A special Providence A bloody Jesuite The Lord of Obiers murthered and a Minister An holy speech Gods providence Gods care of his people A special Providence A terrible Famine Two executed for eating part of their own daughter A remarkable story A wicked oath An admirable Providence Gods judgement on a bloody Persecutor A famine An extraordinary Providence Rochel delivered Gods judgements on Persecutors Gods judgement on the Duke of Aâ—jou see in my book of Examples The Kings sicknesse and death Anger implacable Rochel besieged Anno 1628 A terible famine Margaret Pierrone Tentation She chooses to be burnt rather than to burne her Bible Popish treachery Cruelty A Noble Gentleman murthered Christ preferred before all Protestants murthered at Church At Sondres Popish treachery A special Providence A noble Lady Courage and constancy Faith A special Providence Horrible cruelties Dominico Berto Barbarous cruelty A special providence Theophilus Messino Constancy Tentation resisted Prodigious cruelties A noble Virgin An excellent speech A wicked Edict Popish perfidiousnesse Courage and constancy Patrick Hamilton Zeale Popish subtilty His condemnation Constancy His Martyrdome Gods judgement on a persecutor David Straton Norman Gourlay Stratons conversion His prayer Tentation resisted Thomas Forret Grosse ignorance His martyrdom Jerome Russel Alexander Kennedy Humane infirmity Joy in tribulation Their condemnation and martyrdome Popish cruelty John Rogers His Character His charity A special providence Popisâ— malice A Prophesie He goeth into the West He is opposed by the Bishop The power of the Word His Prohesie accomplished His second coming to Dundee Charity He is in danger of being murthered Gods Providence He preserves the murtherer He goes to Montrosse Meditation Popish malice A Prophesie His fervent Prayer in the night A Prophesie He comes to Leith Faith and Courage Hiâ— departvre from Leith Popish malice A Prophesie He goes to Haddington John Knox See his liâ—e in my first part A Prophesie His apprehension by Bothwell Bothwels promise He is carried to Edenburgh Bothwel falsifies his promise He is carried to St. Andrews His accusation His patience His Prayer Popish subtilty He administreth the Sacrament The Cardinals feare His Prayer at death His exhortation to the People He prayes for his Persecutors A Prophesie The Cardinals pride and carnal confidence The Castle surprized Popish uncleannesse The Cardinal slain Adam Wallace His accusation The Ministers work His Martyrdome Henry Forrest Popish perfidiousnesse His Martyrdome Walter Mill. Popish uncleanness His speech at death His Martyrdome Popish malice Popish lyes The malice against the English Popish malice and cruelty Popish perfidiousnesse Prodigious cruelties Many starved and stripâ— Horrible murthers Popish perfidiousness An Irish Monster Multitudes drowned Popish treachery A just reward Prodigious cruelties They deny them liberty to pray Some buried alive Some were hung upon tenter-hooks Blasphemy Many had their bellies ript Children had their brains dashed out Many burned Some perish by famine Unnatural cruelties Children kill English children Some boiled in Cauldrons Some had their eyes pulled out Prodigious cruelties Bibles burnt Blasphemies Aposttaes murthered Constancy and Courage Gods judgements on Persecutors Popish perfidousnesse Many knocked on the head A boy murthered by his Master Berbarous cruelty and impudence Many drowned They made candles of their grease Prodigious cruelties Popish uncleannesse Their cruelty to the cattel Henry Cowel Constancy Robert Ecklin A childs constancy Childrens beastly cruelty Popish uncleannesse Monstrous câ—ueâ—ty to a boy Many burnt One hundred and fifty thousand murtheâ—red in Ulster Gods judgements on persecutors Boys and women murderers Souldiers hanged Constancy Popish perfidiousnesse Gods judgements on Persecutors Some worried with dogs The Munster Remonstrance Gods judgements on Persecutors Apparitions at Portendown Bâ—idge A Miracle An Edict in favour of the Protestants A cruel Edict The Elector Palatine intercedes for them They are cruelâ—y dealt with Gods Providence for them King of France intercede for them Popish malice Gods mercy The Duke favours them Satans malicâ— Popish subtilty prevented Courage and Constancy They are favoured but again molested They are encouraged Their prudence Satans policy Dissembling Hypocrites They are confuted Popish policy Persecution renewed Gods Providence Gods mercy The massacre of Paris A special providence The Dukes letter to draw them to Popery Their answer A cruel Edict Popish subtâ—â—ty Courage and constancy They are banished Popish subtilty They are forced to flie They are forced to flie Popish subtilty Popish subtilty Humane frailty Repentance Reason why they persecuted the Protestants A bloody Order Popish cruelty They go into banishment Constancy Popish cruelty Popish dissimulation Popish injustice Popish subtilty Popish cruelty The Protestants defend themselves Popish subtilty Barbarous cruelty Women tipt up Base cruelty Horrid cruelty Courage and Constancy Popish subtilty and perfidiousnesse A special Providence Gods Judgements on persecutors Many Irish slaine A special Providence His Charactea A special Providence