then it was the custom of the French Kings not to eat alone and seeth twelve poor men ill-apparelled sitting by upon the ground near to the Table of the Noblemen He demanded what those poor miserable Creatures were that did feed apart One answered They were the Messengers and Servants of God He then said Their God was of small account seeing his Messengers and Servants were so miserable and contemptible and thereupon retired himself having by this Treaty qualified the Force of Charles viewed his Train and made shew of his Courage even without an Ambassadour Charles Resolved to avenge this affront of the Saracen He raiseth an Army of an hundred and thirty thousand men He returneth into Spain at the first encounter he defeated Agoiland's Army near to Pampelona and for a seal of his Victory carrieth away the Head of Agoiland slain by the hand of Arnold of Belange a Noble and Valiant Knight Charles wrote divers Books He began a Grammar of the German Language but ended it not He changed the names of the Winds and Months from the Heathenish manner In the Epistle to Alcuinus before his Books De Divinis Officiis he saith when Christ was at supper with his Disciples he brake the bread and gave the cup to them in figure of his body and blood and left a great Sacrament which is profitable unto us Lib. 1. cap. 15. He saith elsewhere The Miracles which they say have appeared in Images if they did not appear truly as no Authentick History sheweth were but lies If by some imaginary over-shadowing they did appear to deceive mens minds it is most dangerous lest that Old Enemy by his subtilty through shew of wonders perswade to do unlawfull things But if these things did verily appear we should understand that when many wondrous things are done at the pleasure of God by some Creatures Lib. 3. cap. 25. or in whatsoever Creatures they be done yet these things are not to be worshipped by which or in which these wonders are made because God who sheweth many signs unto men by visible and palpable things to mollifie the hardness of mens hearts by these visible things worketh not these signs to confirm the worship of any Creature for he hath commanded to worship himself alone Because God spake out of a bush to Moses should the bush therefore be worshipped Because a Woman was healed by touching the hem of Christ's garment should hems therefore be worshipped The Catholick Church professeth to serve God not by Images not by men nor ethereal powers but by Christ our Lord. Charles the Emperour made many Laws and Ecclesiastical Constitutions which Angisus Abbot of Lobien and then Arch-Bishop of Senon gathered together with the Constitutions of his Son Lewis and divided them into seven Books Sinderus testifieth that they were in the Abby of St. Gallus and were not long since printed at Paris Alcuin cont Elipant Alcuinus saith thus of him Charles was a King in Power a Catholick in Faith an High-Priest in Teaching a Judge in Equity a Philosopher in Liberal Studies famous in Manners and excellent in all Honesty He was never served at Table with more than four dishes at once his Recreations were hunting and reading of Histories He died in February Pedro Mexia Hist Anno 814 and was interred at Aix la Chapelle where he was born and his Memory honoured with a goodly Epitaph The greatness of his Monarchy is admirable for he quietly enjoyed all France Germany and the greatest part of Hungary all Italy and a part of Spain He left his Son Lewes sole Heir of his great Kingdoms who was the weakest of all his Sons The French Monarchy being come to the height of it's Greatness not long after the death of Charlemagne it began to decline The foolish lenity of Lewes was the beginning the which was continued by the disordered confusions of his Successors who in spite one to another hastened the ruine of their House making way thereunto by their Vices and Misfortunes Lewes more fit to be a Monk than a King was so given to Devotion and of so soft a spirit that he made his Authority contemptible both within and without the Realm This made divers Nations subject to the Crown to fall from their obedience Bernard King of Italy an ambitious young man was perswaded by the Bishops of Orleans and Milan to seize upon the Realm of France But being in field to go into France against his Unckle with an imaginary favour of the French to be proclaimed King both he and all his Counsellours were taken by Lewes his Subjects Lewes having both his Nephew and Counsellors in his Power despoils him of all his Realm of Italy confines him to perpetual prison and puts out his eyes the like he doth to all the Bishops and Noble Men he could get and after a few dayes causeth them to be beheaded This act from Lewes and committed against such persons began to breed a general dislike the which was aggravated by a domestical dissention After the death of Bernard Lewes gave Italy to his eldest Son Lotharius and associated him in the Empire To his Son Pepin he gave Aquitain to Lewes Bavaria and would have them all bear the name of Kings Lewes had a Son by Judith his second Wife an ambitious Woman called Charles This Woman play'd the Empress and Queen over all which caused Lewes to be hated and contemned His Sons Lotharius Pepin and Lewes by the Advice of the Bishops who were incensed against the Emperour by reason of the death of those Church-men resolve to seize upon their Father Mother and younger Brother to dispossess them of all Authority and then to govern the States after their own wills wherein they must use force and a publick consent Lotharius lieves a great Army and calleth a National Council of the French Church at Lions supposing sooner to suppress Lewes by this means than by a Parliament Lewes appeareth and yieldeth to the censure of the Prelates which was to retire himself into a Monastery there to attend his Devotion and to resign the Empire and the Realm to his Children So Lewes was conveyed to Soissons to the Monastery of St. Medard his Wife and her Son Charles were committed to other places and the whole Government committed to Lotharius and his Brethren And the greatest of the Church-men were guilty of this Out-rage seeking to maintain their Decrees Lewes continued in prison five years viz. from the year 829 unto the year 834. Then Lotharius being forced to yield to his Father goes to field takes him prisoner again and leads him back to the Convent at Soissons where he stayed not long for the French did bandy openly against Lotharius and his Brethren abandoned him so as he was forced to yield unto his Father and to crave pardon Then Lewes gives portions to his Children to Lotharius he leaves the Realm of Austrasia from the River of Mens unto Hungary with the Title
the Council of Constance He was counted a subtle disputer and profound School-Doctor One calleth him the learned and devout Chancellour of Paris He was much acquainted with Temptations and wrote a Book de variis Diaboli tentationibus He was sirnamed Doctor Christianissimus His works are Printed in four Volumes his French works are mentioned by Antoine du Verdier in his Bibliotheque Gerson de defect Viror Eccles ca. 52. In his Treatise de defectu virorum Ecclesiasticorum he sets down such things as ought to be reformed in the Church and among others mentions this That known Men and such as are most fitting be Elected out of the same Countrey that strangers in manners language and education be not sent and set over Churches And in his Book of Ecclesiastical power Gerson lib. de Eccles potest after he hath spoken of the divers abuses of the Popes he addeth What shall we think is to be said of an infinite number of such like things that are done casting aside all care and regard of all Spiritual and Divine matters which concern the Christian Faith and Religion What think you What shall we say for the present of that so easie a dispensation as they speak of granted by the Pope and the Prelates over lawful Oaths reasonable Vows for the excessive plurality of Benefices the general non obstantes of Councils the privileges and exemptions against common right Who can number all the ways whereby the force of Ecclesiastical yea of Evangelical Discipline is enfeebled consumed and quite annihilated He addeth the cunning and glozing flattery of Vp-starts whispering the Clergy but especially the Pope in the Ear. Oh how great is the height of your Ecclesiastical power O sacred Clergy all secular Authority is but a Toy in comparison of thine seeing that as all power is given to Christ both in Heaven and Earth so Christ hath bequeathed all to St. Peter and his Successours So that Constantine gave nothing to Pope Silvester which was not originally his own but only restored unto him what he unjustly detained from him Again as there is no power but is of God so there is nothing Temporal or Spiritual Imperial or Regal which is not of the Pope upon whose Thigh God hath Writ King of Kings and Lord of Lords So as to dispute his power is a kind of Sacrilege To whom no Man may say why do you so Although he should exchange purloin or sell all the Temporals the Goods Lands and Lordships of the Church Let me be a Lyar if all these things be not written by such as seem to be wise men in their eyes and if they have not been believed also by some Popes Stephanus Paschasius in his Icones hath these Verses of Gerson Quid potuit Sorbona doces meritissimè Gerso Tu magni Gerso luxque decusque Chori At the same time flourished Nicholas de Clemangiis a Master of Paris and Arch-Deacon of Baion a man pious and Learned one calls him one of the most Learned and Eloquent Divines of his time He wrote a Book of the ruine and reparation of the Church Nic. de Clemang de ruin repar Eccles Of which I shall set down some passages in general terms First saith he let us speak of the Head upon whom all the rest depends He afterwards addeth For the supream Bishops who by how much they see themselves ranked above others in greatness and Authority by so much they labour the more to overthrow them out of a domineering humour for the enlarging of their primacy and supreme power considering that the commodities of the Bishoprick of Rome which is very large and above any Kingdom though it hath been sufficiently curtail'd by their negligence can no way suffice to maintain the greatness of their State which they have purposed to raise high enough above all the Kings and Emperours in the World have cast themselves into those flocks of others that abound in breeding in Wool and Milk He afterwards specifies the looseness the luxury vanities worldliness Clemang lib. de lapsu reparat justit p. 10. rapines vexations usurpations oppressions and other such like abuses and vices of the Popes and their Courts In another Book of his he sheweth that the Court of Rome hath infected France by coming there specifying all the vices and blemishes that are communicated unto it and those not a few There was a time saith he when the Apostolick Bishop being vexed with the Tyranny of the Italians made choice of France for his seat and for all the Court of Rome supposing he could not find assured refuge else-where to whom I could with saith he the strength of France had not proved a Staff of a Reed as it was a long time before fore-told that it should What was it else that brought France upon the sudden into these miseries making her fall away from eminent glory which made her flourish above all other Nations but that degenerating from those Ancient vertues which adorned her with such an excellency of Honour she is changed from Valour to cowardise from diligence to sloath from honesty to ignominy from gravity to a wanton lightness from temperance to luxury from courage to presumption from liberality to covetousness and unrestrained spoiling from order to confusion from zeal of the publick good to private gains from correction and discipline to a general impunity and license of all wickedness and mis-demeanours and from Justice to all iniquity And elsewhere he complaineth thus So the Church which Christ hath taken for his Spouse without blemish disfigured by this horrible villany Tract de praesul p. 66. is now the shop of all Pride of all Trading filching and stealing where the Sacraments are hung out for a shew and all the orders even the Priesthood it self where favours are sold for silver dispensations for not preaching licenses for non-residence Where all Offices and Benefices yea even sins are bought and sold Lastly where Masses and Administration of the Lord's body are set to sale Would any Man have a Bishoprick let him provide his Money and that no small sum but a great one for so great a Title and let him not stand upon emptying his purse for the purchase of such a Dignity seeing he will quickly fill it again and that more soundly than he could do by many sorts of Merchandize Doth any desire a Prebend a Provost's place or some other dignity it is no matter for knowing his deserts his Life and Conversation but so many Crowns as he hath in his Chest such hopes may he conceive of compassing his desire For what should I speak of poor folks who are accounted unprofitable in all things and unworthy of all charge or government and who have no other hopes but to wax old and pine away in misery disrespected and despised What should a poor Man go to Market for with an empty pouch when he hath nothing to buy the Wares with And in
Sorcerers in the first third fourth and fifth Canons whereby it appeareth that Sorcery hath been in frequent use in France Many superstitious Constitutions were set down in this Synod concerning the number of Masses prohibition of tasting meat before Mass concerning burial prohibition of Baptism before the Festivity of Easter except upon necessity and fear of approaching death prohibition of Matrimonial copulation with their own Wives to Presbyters and Deacons after their Blessing and Consecration with prohibition of Marriage also to the Widows of the defunct Presbyters Deacons or Sub-deacons Brothers and Sisters Children are forbidden to marry They Ordained that it is not lawful for a Presbyter to sit in judgement when any man is condemned to death That it is not lawful for a Clergy-man to cite another of the Clergy before a Secular Judge That it is not lawful for a Woman with a naked hand to touch the Holy Eucharist That it is not lawful to take refreshment of meat with an excommunicate person If any of the Clergy receive an excommunicate person without the knowledge of him who did excommunicate him he shall receive the like sentence that is he shall be likewise excommunicated That it is not lawful for a Presbyter in Banquetting-time to sing or dance Many Canons to the number of 45 were concluded in this Council But I shall not trouble you with an heap of unprofitable unnecessary and superstitious Canons Another Council was afterwards called at Cabillon vulgarly called Chalon which is a Town in Burgundy not far distant from Matiscon In this Town by the Commandment of Clovis King of France convened 44 Bishops Gandericus Bishop of Lions was President and Landilenus Bishop of Vienna Theodorus Bishop of Arles because he refused to appear before the Council was suspended from his Office until the next Council In this Synod the Canons of the Council of Nice had great allowance It was forbidden that two Bishops should be Ordained in one Town that no man should sell a Christian Servant to a Jew and that two Abbots should not be chosen to govern one Monastery That no labouring of the ground or other secular work shall be done on the Lord's day with many other Canons coincident with the Canons of other Councils Clovis the second married a Gentlewoman of Saxony named Baudour a Lady of good life and much given to Devotion as the Abby of Shelles St. Baudour with other Foundations do witness Whilst she busied her self in her Devotion and to build Monasteries Clovis addicted himself to sensuality Yet one memorable thing is recorded of him In a time of great dearth to relieve the poor people he suffered them to take the Silver wherewith the Temple of St. Denis had been covered by Dagobert Aimo saith that two years after a famous Assembly of Bishops being had he appointed the Monastery of Dionysius which his Father had built nigh unto the City to be free from the Jurisdiction of all Bishops Landerick the Chief Ruler of Paris agreeing to it Clovis died Anno 660. of his Reign 17. At the same time Erchenwald Major of the Palace dying Ebruin succeedeth him From which time the French Kings being let loose into sloth and riot the Government of the Affairs of State came to the Majors of the Palace The Kings being contented only with the Name or Title contained themselves in their Palace neither came they but once every year viz. in the Kalends of May into open view of the people Clotharius the eldest Son of Clovis succeeded his Father but having Reigned four years he died Anno 664. Theodorick his Brother for a short space was Chief but the French being weary of this man shut up Theodorick in a Monastery being shaven at St. Denis in Paris and Ebruin at Luxovien Then Childerick was made King who after three years Reign was slain by Bodille a Noble French man whom he had commanded being bound to the stump of a tree to be whipped with rods His Queen also being great with Child was killed by the same Bodille Ebruin secretly breaking out of the Monastery Petav. Hist Lib. 8. again invadeth the Lieutenantship of the Palace and killeth Leudesius the Son of Erchenwald Major of the Palace and Leodegar Chief Ruler of Augustodunum whom after he had been tortured with divers torments and in an Assembly of Bishops spoiled of his Dignity he commanded to be smitten with a sword In those times there were many in France flourishing in Holiness among whom Eligius Bishop of Noviomum and Audoenus Bishop of Roven are mentioned Eligius died in the seventieth year of his Age. Audoenus died being ninety years old in the 44 year of his Bishoprick Private persons also graced France with an exact holiness of Life viz. Furseus Foillanus Vltan who having come out of Ireland built Monasteries in France Thierri the first is now made King of France a King in shew who is a spectator of divers Tragedies Thierri dieth having reigned 19 years Ebruin in the third year after the death of Leodegar was thrust thorow by Hermenfrid then Pepin governeth the Kingdom Clovis the third the eldest Son of Thierri reigned four years and dieth without Children His Brother Childebert the second succeedeth him Century VIII CHildebert Reigned 17 years and died Anno 711. having left two Sons Dagobert and Clothaire Pepin made great shew of love to Religion and for this cause makes war against Robod Duke of Frisia a Pagan whom he conquered and forced to receive the Christian Religion with all his Subjects He restored Lambert Bishop of Traict to his Dignity being expelled by Ebruin and confined unto a Monastery and one of his chiefest cares was to advance them that had charge over the Church He commanded absolutely being armed with the Authority of his Soveraign neither was there any appeal from him to the King Yet Pepin besides his Lawful Wife called Plectrude held a woman named Alpaid for the which the forenamed Lambert reproved him Of this Alpaid he had a Son whom he named Charles which Charles was after sirnamed Martel and was very profitable to the Realm of France Alpaid caused Bishop Lambert to be slain by her Brother Dodon who soon after felt the punishment of this blood for being diseased with Worms not able to endure his own stench he cast himself headlong into the River Meuze Pepin upon his death-bed Ordained Charles his Bastard to succeed him in the Government of the Realm But Plectrude after the death of Pepin causeth Charles to be imprisoned at Colen and advanceth Thibauld to the Government although in effect She under his Name governed all the Affairs of State Dagobert dying at this time the French took a Prince of the blood called Daniel out of a Cloyster Him they called King under the Name of Chilperic the second and they give him a Noble Man of France called Rainfroy to be his Major who having leavied an Army De Serres hist defeated Thibauld and his Grandmother Plectrude in
Brother Eudes They caused Charles to quit the Crown discharging him with the name of simple or foolish and declaring him incapable of so great a charge Robert arms boldly against Charles to dispossess him of his Estate Charles flees to Henry the third Emperour and laboureth to calm this storm At the approach of their Armies Robert to have some Title to make a War causeth himself to be Crowned King at Rhemes by Herve the Arch-Bishop who died three days after this unlawful Coronation As the Armies approach near Soissons striving in the view of Paris they joyn the combate is cruel but Robert fighting in the Front is slain leaving for that time the victory to King Charles who seeks a Treaty of Peace out of an unseasonable fear Hebert Earl of Vermandois Son-in-law to Robert beseecheth Charles to come to St. Quintins to confer together Charles cometh thither without Hostages Hebert there takes him Prisoner and conveys him to Soissons where he had assembled the chief of the Realm chosen after his own humour where he makes him to resign the Crown to Raoul his God-son the first Prince of the Blood by his Mother Hermingrade Daughter to Lewes and Wife of Boson King of Burgundy So this poor Prince is led from Prison to Prison for five years and dyeth of a languishing melancholy He had by his Wife Ogin a the Daughter of Edward King of England a Son named Lewes She takes her Son Lewes and flees into England to her Brother Athelstan who then Reigned But the Reign of Raoul was unfortunate who Reigned thirteen years during Charles his imprisonment and after his Death But Raoul after many broils dyeth at Compiegne Anno 936. Now are great confusions in France there is nothing sacred all is violated for Rule all respect is laid aside every one plays the King within himself for one King there are many and where there are many Masters there are none at all In this confusion there were many Kings Dukes and Earls although these Titles were but temporary having no other Title but the Sword There was no Governour of any Province throughout the Realm which held not proper to himself and his Heirs those things which were given to them but as Offices From hence sprang so many Dukedoms Earldoms Baronies and Seignories which for the most part are returned to their beginnings Italy given to an Infant of France was now possessed by divers Princes Germany withdrawn from the Crown was banded into divers factions so as the Empire of the West confirmed in the person of Charlemaigne continued scarce one hundred years in his Race for Lewes the Son of Arnulph was the last Emperour of this Blood In his place the Germans erected Conrade Duke of East Franconia Anno 920. the Empire being then very weak After Conrade was chosen Henry the Fowler Duke of Saxony and after him his Son Otho Princes adorned with singular virtues fit for the time to preserve the West For the Emperours of the East did run headlong to their ruine who were men either of no valour or altogether wicked attending the last blow by the hand of the Mahumetans whose power they strengthned by their vitious lives until they had lodged them upon their own heads In these confusions of State the power of the Pope of Rome encreased daily by the ruines of the Empire The design of the Popes was to erect a Monarchy in the Church by Power and Authority Seignories civil Dissentions Arms Revenues and Treason And soon after they grew to that greatness as they sought to prescribe Laws to Emperours and Kings who refusing it and disputing this primacy many dissentions arose and were dispersed among the people After the Death of Raoul Athelstan King of England having drawn unto him William Duke of Normandy sends an honourable Ambassage to the States of France entreating them to restore his Nephew Lewes to his lawful and Hereditary Dignity The French consent to it So Lewes the Son of Charles is called home by the Estates of France being accompanied with a great Troop of English-men and Normans Lewes hegan to Reign Anno 935 and Reigned 27 years About this time Ambrose Ansbert a French-man wrote Commentaries on the Psalms and Canticles and part of the Revelation In this tenth Century there was little study of liberal Sciences the Schools were few and empty of Languages The Popish Priests and Clergy having forsaken their old Discipline were given to filthy lucre nor were they respected by their flocks only Monks were noted to have some Eloquence And such was the corruption of the times that none durst scarce speak of the Corruptions Idolatries Superstitions and wickednesses of that Age which at that time were so luxuriant Divers Signs were seen in Heaven and great changes happened almost in every Kingdom The Hungarians oppress Italy and Germany besides many other broils in both those Nations France will shortly have another Race of Kings great were the Wars in Spain between the Moors and the old Inhabitants and the Saracens suffered neither Greece nor Asia to rest in peace Bellarmine speaking of this Century saith Behold an unhappy Age Bellarm. in Chronol in which are no famous Writers few or no Councils bad Emperours and no good Popes Baronius on the beginning of this Century saith Baron ad Anno 900. Sect. 1. A new Age beginneth which for rudeness and barrenness of goodness may be called The Iron Age and for deformity of evil abounding The Leaden Age and for want of Writers is called The Dark Age. Under the Reign of Charles the Simple King of France a Council was called at Rhemes for correcting the abuse of Church-rents for Noble-men in Court such as Hugo and his Brother Robert Master of the King 's Horses and Vincmarius with divers others under pretence of sustaining the King 's Honourable Estate and paying wages to Souldiers had converted to their own use a great part of Church-rents especially belonging to Abbeys Fulco Arch-Bishop of Rhemes uttered his mind freely in the Council Vincmarius one of the notable oppressours in the Court defiled the Council with Blood and killed Fulco Bishop of Rhemes The Fathers of the Council returned unto their own Churches with great fear for the like of this was not heard since the second Council of Ephesus in which Flavianus Bishop of Constantinople was slain Du. Haillan in vit Caroli Simpl. A Council also was held in France in which it was permitted Priests to marry Virgins At this time there was a great Famine in France The People had been much given to Gluttony and Drunkenness and God punished them with penury and scarcity of Victuals Lewes dyeth Anno 955. at Rhemes hated of the French leaving to Lothair his Son a Crown near the ruine and to Charles the youngest the favour of his eldest Brother Lothair detested of all men died Anno 964. leaving behind him an execrable memory of his actions and Lewes his Son for a final conclusion of
with such an enemy as never bare Arms nor came into the field it is reported that he said he never dealt with any enemy which used so little armour and put him to so much trouble For King Charles after he came to the Crown never put on Armour himself but managing all his affairs by Wisdom and policy committed the execution thereof to his Brothers In the time of Charles V. a Book was written in France called The Vergers Dream Review of the Counc of Trent lib. 6. ca. 6. first in Latin then translated in French by his command In the seventh and eighth Chapter whereof the Clergy-man and the Knight confer together on this wise I call saith the Clerk and account the Decrees and Decretals of the Holy Fathers of Rome to be good Law which oblige every true Christian as a Subject and Son of a Holy Church our Mother To whom the Knight replyeth If the terms of Rome be Decrees or Decretals Ordinals or Constitutions touching the Temporal affairs of Kings Princes or other Secular Lords you Clerks among your selves shall call and account them Law if you please But the truth is That no Man can establish or ordain any thing where he hath no power nor Authority So as the King of France hath no power to make a Law or Ordinance to bind or tye the Empire so neither can the Laws of the Emperour bind the King of France and his Subjects And a little after I hold it therefore a frivolous thing and very ridiculous that the Holy Father should make any Decree Decretal or constitution about Temporal matters In the thirteenth years of the aforesaid Charles V. Charles IV. Emperour of Germany came into France by Cambray to do certain pilgrimages at St. Denis and elsewhere and so was conveyed with honourable men unto St. Quintin and from thence to Paris Mathias a Bohemian abode a long time in Paris and was called Pariensis he wrote a large Treatise of Antichrist in which he proveth that the Pope is the Antichrist He inveigheth against the Clergy for negligence in their callings and calleth them the Locusts mentioned in the Revelation He complains that every City and almost each man had his proper Saint or Saviour besides Christ the Images and Reliques that are set up in Churches to be adored he calleth the Invention of Antichrist He saith the worship of God is not tyed to persons places nor times he rebuketh the Cloysterers for contemning the Lay-men and calling themselves the only Religious he refuteth the merit of works and calleth them the cause of salvation sine quâ non In the end he prophesied Catal. Test Verit That God will once again send Godly preachers who in the zeal of Elias will openly disclose Antichrist unto the eyes of all the world After the death of Pope Gregory the Church began to be miserably torn with new schismes which began to arise betwixt the French and Italian Cardinals each Nation choosing it's own Pope and in it's own manner The French not able to digest the affront they received from Gregory in transporting the See from France into Italy departing privately from Rome they removed to Fondi and being arrived there they used many invectives and Satyrs against Vrban VI. whom they had already with the Italian Cardinals elected in Rome They pretended that they were forced to it by the people of Rome otherwise it was never their intention to make an Italian Pope For these reasons the Chair in their Judgements being vacant by the favour of Joan Queen of Sicily who was their friend Il. Cardinalismo part 3. lib. 1. they chose another Pope one Roberto a Cardinal with the Title of the Holy Apostles He was of Geneva and particularly of the Antient Family of the Conti in that City he took upon him the name of Clement VII From Fondi Clement removed with his Cardinals to Avignon where he was obeyed by the French and Spaniard These disputes lasted long the Legitimate Pope at Rome and and the Anti-Pope at Avignon firing their Bulls upon one another and sending them forth into all parts of the World The adherents of both sides set forth several defamatory Libels calling one another Schismatick Heretick Tyrant Thief Traytor Wicked Sower of Sedition Son of Belial and such like Stuff of which there are two Treatises extant at this day one of them written by Dr. John de Ligni in favour of Vrban against Clement and the other by the Abbot of St. Vast in favour of Clement against Vrban Whilst Clement was contriving which way to remove the Pope who resided in Rome he dyed Anno 1392. and was buried in Avignon He being dead Boniface IX who was Pope at that time in Rome writ a Fatherly Letter to the French Cardinals exhorting them to desist from their Schism and return to their obedience to the Holy Mother the Church of which he was he said the lawful Head But the French laughing as it were at such perswasions chose a successour to Clement which was Pietro della Luna who took the name of Benedict XIII who had argued very much in Clement's justification and that was the principal point upon which he was chosen by the Cardinals who concluded that he who defended another's cause with such ardour would doubtless more vehemently defend his own Whilst this Anti-Pope had his residence in Catalonia in the Castle of Paniscola administring the Sacramentss and conferring of dignities He was condemned together with the Cardinals which elected him by the Authority of a general Council Afterwards he assembled a Council at Perpignan where he created several Cardinals and commanded them after his death to follow his orders which were to choose another Pope without losing of time which they did For this Anti-Pope being dead at Paniscola the Cardinals chose one Giles Mungot a Chanon of Barcelona in his place calling him Clement IX who at the Instance of King Alphonso created Cardinals forthwith and began to Act in every thing as the true Popes use to do But afterwards upon Pope Martin the fifth's accomodation with King Alphonso Giles being commanded renounced the rights of the Papacy and was declared Bishop of Majorca and the Cardinals which he had created were likewise forced to renounce their Cardinalitial dignity Charles VI. succeeded his Father in the Kingdom of France at the Age of 12 years he was crowned in the year 1380. married in 1384. he falls into a Phrensie Anno 1393. and dyes Anno 1422. Charles the Wise left two Sons viz. this Charles VI. and Lewes Duke of Orleans And Charles VI. had three Sons Lewes John and Charles and one Daughter named Katherine These three Sons were Daulphins one after another in their Father's Life And Katherine was married to Henry V. afterwards King of England a mournful gage of an horrible confusion for this Realm Century XV. CHarles VI. having called a Council at Paris to consult about the schism which then was in the Popedom
cared not for the talk of the people nor for challenges And to get out of that mire he moved a question to Du Moulin whether he could tell after what manner of Creation the Angels were created Du Moulin knowing that this was their last meeting answered that the Question in hand was only of subscribing the Acts. But Cayer refusing turned his back and said you shall hear of me and so went away to the great scandal of the Romanists there present A Protestant made the company laugh saying that Cayer was not yet of Age to sign Thus was the Conference broken to the great satisfaction of many faithful souls and the instruction of many ignorant Papists who since gave glory to God by an open Profession of the truth The Acts of the Conference are extant published by Archibald Adaire a Reverend Bishop of Scotland The Doctors of the Faculty of Sorbon stung with the ill success of this Conference provoked him to another in which the body of the University took interest They were to oppose three daies upon what points they thought best and Du Moulin was to oppose three daies also and choose what points he pleased He was then Respondent for three daies and found in the Dispute that blessing of God which never was wanting to him in the defence of his truth After the Dispute of the third day he being returned home and retired to his study a man in a Priest's habit came in the dark evening up the stairs and knockt at his Study door When Du Moulin had opened it the man thrust the door with all his strength to have rusht in and Du Moulin with all his strength in which he was inferiour to few men of his size kept him out and called for help The man hearing some stirring below ran hastily down the stairs and so into the Street It is supposed upon probable ground that the man was come to kill him before he presented himself to be opponent according to the Covenants of the Conference But on the next morrow he met with a Prohibition from the King to continue that Conference any longer These passages raised his reputation very high whereby God was glorified his Truth confirmed and his Church edified and increased with many Converts The last sickness of the King's Sister gave a great exercise to his zeal and industry whereby he did faithfully and constantly assist her in that extremity Du Perron did his utmost to pervert her and to fright him away When she drew near to her end Du Moulin standing by her Bed side Du Perron came and said he was sent by the King and would remove him by plain force But Du Moulin held fast the Bed-post And when Du Perron told him he was to take place of him in all Companies Du Moulin answered that his place was before Du Perron's at the Princesses Beds side and in that service He added that he believed not that the King would offer violence to his Sisters Conscience appealing to her self and beseeching her Highness to declare her pleasure She declared that she would die in the Reformed Religion and that she would have Du Moulin to stay by her Whereupon Du Perron withdrew and the good Princess persevered in God's truth to her last breath The King wisht she had died in the Roman Profession and did all he could without violence to pleasure the Court of Rome in that point A little before there was a Conference between the Bishop of Eureux and Philip de Mornay Lord of Plessis Marly Governour of Saumur in the presence of the King Princes and Officers of his Crown Counsellours of State and other Noblemen of Mark. It was touching a Book which Monsieur du Plessis had published of the Institution of the Lords Supper and against the Mass wherein the Bishop did tax him to have falsified many Authorities Whereupon Du Plessis presented a Petition unto the King that his Majesty would be pleased to appoint Commissioners to examine every passage of Scripture cited in his Book The King yielded to this Conference referring the care thereof to his Chancellour The Commissioners appointed for the Catholicks were Augustus Thuanus President of the Court of Parliament at Paris Pithou Advocate in the Court and Fleure Schoolmaster to the Prince of Conde in whose absence came Martin the King's Physitian And for the other the President of Calignon Chancellour of Navarre in whose place entred De Fresnes Gavay President of the Chamber of Languedoc and Isaac Casaubon his Majesties Reader for the Greek Tongue All men of great Learning and well skilled in the Tongues This Conference began on May 4. in the Hall at Fountainbleau De Serres Hist in Henry IV. in the midst whereof was a Table of a reasonable length At the one end sat the King on his right hand the Bishop of Eureux and on the left right against him Du Plessis Pasquier Vassaut and Mercier Secretaries of the Conference were at the lower end of the same Table Somewhat higher on the right hand sate the Chancellour and the Commissioners Behind the King stood the Archbishop of Lions and the Bishops of Nevers Beauvais and Chastres On the King 's left hand were the four Secretaries of State Behind them which conferred were the Dukes of Vaudemont of Nemours of Mercoeur of Mayenne of Nevers of Elbeuf of Aiguillon and of Janville the Officers of the Crown Counsellours of State and other Noblemen of quality All were commanded to keep silence The King said that the Dispute was not betwixt party and party but particular betwixt the two Conferents not for any question of Right and Doctrine but for the literal truth of some passages He desired they would treat with all mildness and moderation without any bitterness or passion but that of the truth Declaring moreover that he did not mean that this Dispute should in any thing alter or disquiet the peace of his Subjects as the Chancellour did then Declare unto them at large by the King's Commandment After the first daies Conference M. Du Plessis fell very sick so as they could proceed no further The King did write the same day unto the Duke of Espernon what had past in the Conference and shewed by his Letter what his judgement was My friend the Diocess of Eureux hath vanquished that of Saumur Wherewith Du Plessis was discontented so that in a Discourse Printed soon after touching this Conference he termed this Letter A spark of fire and said That the Bishop of Eureux Fly was made an Elephant Some Months after Canay one of the Commissioners and President in the Chamber of the Edict at Castres a man learned in Philosophy and the Tongues and well read in the Church History left his Profession of the Reformed Religion and became a Romish Catholick Philip Mornay Lord of Plessis his work concerning the truth of Christian Religion was written in French against Atheists Epicures Paynims Jews Mahumetists and other Infidels began to be translated
by the Parliament he disswaded them from it as much as he could both by Letters and Sermons And unto him the Court was obliged that all the Protestant Tows on this side the Loire kept in the King's obedience He shewed that he did it not to serve the times but to serve God The declaring of the Politick Assembly of the Protestants for the Prince of Conde in the year 1616. was the greatest error that ever they committed and they smarted for it as soon as the young King had got more Age and vigour In the mean time Du Plessis laboured much in procuring the peace of the Protestant Churches endeavouring to keep a good correspondence between the King and them which was continually ready to be interrupted in which business he carried himself with so much prudence and fidelity in all occurences between them that he was admired and praised by all Yea even Cardinal Du Perron himself heretofore one of his greatest enemies shewed him great respect in the Assembly of States held at Roven Anno 1617. Speaking of him in all companies with an excess of Praises and telling the King himself that those men had done him wrong who had kept off Monsieur Du Plessis from having a greater Power in the management of his affairs And that his Religion ought not to render him unprofitable in the exercise of those graces which God had given him and that his Majesty ought to keep him near his person so long as he should live After the return of Dr. Du Moulin out of England the Jesuite Arnoux a Court Preacher sent a challenge to the Ministers of Paris to appear before the Queen-Mother to give account of their Religion preacht fire and sword against them before their Majesties and sent them a Pamplet full of heavy accusations The Doctor was charged by his Colleagues to make an answer to it which he did and addressed it to the King In that answer by way of just recrimination he affirmed that he had seen in the Colledge of the Jesuites at la Fleshe a Picture of the Martyrs of their Order and in that rank some Traytors who had been executed for conspiring against the Life of their Kings That the maxims of the Jesuites were pernicious to Kings whereas the Doctrine of the Protestants maintained their Life their Authority nad their States And the Pastours of the Reformed Churches taught their people fidelity and obedience to the King Then he represented the many Perils and Combates which the Protestants had sustained for the defence of King Henry IV. till they had brought him to the Crown Of which services they that had been the King's enemies received the reward This answer of the Ministers was presented to the King by the Duke of Rohan See the Life of Dr. Du Moulin This bold address to the King irritated the great Officers of the Crown of whom not a few or their Fathers had been of the party of the League The Jesuites therefore letting their challenge fall indicted the Ministers of Treason although all the ground they could find for it was that the Ministers called the Reformed Churches their people as if they had pretended some Soveraignty over them The Ministers being summoned before the Council the indictment of Treason was not much urged as being but a Cavil After grave Admonitions and high threatnings by Chancellour Bruslart they dismissed them That challenge of Arnoux and a Pamphlet of his against the confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches in France occasioned the Doctor to write his Buckler of Faith A Jesuite came to the Doctors Study to dispute with him Monsieur de Monginot a famous Physitian was present at the Conference whereby he was converted and set out an excellent Book of the reasons why he abjured Popery He had many encounters and to relate all his Conferences migh◠fill a great Volume Scarce was he a week without one while he lived in Paris and some of them were very long He was the object of the publick hatred of the Romanists His name was the general Theme of Libels cryed up in the Streets of railing Sermons in all Pulpits and of the curses of ignorant Zealots The Popish Clergy in the year 1617. being assembled at the house of Austin-Friers in Paris as every two years they used to do being to take their leaves of the King elected the Bishop of Aire to be their Spokes-man and to certifie his Majesty of their grievances In performing which business the principal thing of which he spake was to this purpose That whereas his Majesty was bound to give them Fathers he gave them Children That the name of Abbot signifies a Father and the Function of a Bishop was full of Fatherly authority yet France notwithstanding was now filled with Bishops and Abbots which are yet in their Nurses arms or else under their Regents in Colledges Nay more that the abuse goeth before the Being Children being commonly design'd to Bishopricks and Abbacies before they were born He also made another complaint that the Soveraign Courts by their Decrees had attempted upon the Authority which was Committed to the Clergy even in that which concerned meerly Ecclesiastical Discipline and Government of the Church To these complaints he gave them indeed a very gracious hearing but it never went further than a hearing being never followed by redress The Court of Parliament knew too well the strength of their own Authority and the King was loth to take from himself those excellent advantages of binding to himself his Nobility by the speedy preferring of their Children So the Clergy departed with a great deal of envy and a little of satisfaction In the same year the States of the United Provinces desired the Churches of England Germany France c. to send some able Divines to the Synod of Dort whereupon the Churches of France named four viz. Dr. Du Moulin Chamier Rivet and Chaune But when the Doctor was making ready for his journey he was forbidden by a messenger of the Council of State of France to go out of the Kingdom upon pain of death The like prohibition was made to the three other Divines Andrew Rivet was a Godly and Learned French Divine He hath very well expounded Genesis Exodus the Prophetical Psalms and Hosea and wrote Learnedly against the Papists in his Catholicus Orthodoxus and against Grotius Criticus sacer seu censura Patrum Isagoge in S. Scripturam Synopsis doctrinae de naturâ gratiâ He hath published other Learned Treatises in French and Latin William Rivet his Brother hath also published a Learned Treatise De Justificatione an exact French Treatise De invocatione adoratione Sanctorum defunctorum Epist Apologet. Daniel Chamier was also a Learned French man who in his Panstratiae Catholicae hath so Learnedly refuted the Papists that none of them hath made any answer to it His Epistolae Jesuiticae and Corpus Theologiae also shew his great abilities There is also a Work of his in French
entitled La confusion des Disputes Papistes Par Daniel Chamier And another in answer to some questions of Cotton the Jesuite He was killed at Montaubon with a Canon Bullet which had a C. on it on the Lords day Being asked by one before whether he Preached on that day he said it was his day of repose or rest and so it proved though he meant it in another sense In the year 1618. the Lords States and the Curators of the University of Leyden renewed a former demand of theirs concerning Dr. Du Moulin to be their Divinity Reader The Learned Erpenius was sent twice into France on that errand And when he could not be obtained from the Church of Paris they demanded by the same Erpenius the famous Rivet and had him The Queen-Mother makes an escape from the place of her confinement and is received by the Duke of Espernon Anno 1619. And being arrived at Loches she endeavours to justifie her escape Cardinal Du Perron died Anno 1618. charging his friends upon his death-bed then about him to send a solemn Farewel by him to Monsieur Du Plessis and to manifest his sorrow for not having made a stricter League of friendship with him having so high an esteem of his Conscience and integrity The Queens affairs having ill success all those who had engaged in her party were abandoned to the King's mercy but as for her self she was permitted to come to Court The Duke of Espernon layes down his Arms and the Marquess de Valette by the Command of the Duke his Father The Duke of Mayenne refuseth to accept the Peace and endeavours to engage the Duke of Espernon in his discontents but he refuseth to stir In the year 1620. a National Synod of the Protestants being called at Alais in Languedoc Dr. Du Moulin was sent Deputy to it and he made account in his return to go out of the way to see Rochel A little before he took that journey the Lord Herbert of Cherbury then Ambassadour of England in France urged him to write to the King his Master to exhort him to undertake vigorously the defence of his Son in Law the King of Bohemia So the Doctor writ to the King and delivâ—red his Letters to the Lord Ambassadour's Secretary then immediately he went to Alais where he was chosen President of the Synod In the mean while his Letters to King James were delivered to the Council of State in France how or by whom the Doctor could never learn Scarce was he in Languedoc when it was concluded at Paris in the ouncil of State that he should be apprehended and committed Prisoner for exhorting a foreign King to take Arms for the defence of the Protestant Churches And because the Council was informed that the Doctor would return by Rochel a place which then gave great jealousies to the Court they wouid not take him before he had been there the informers against him intending to make his going to Rochel an Article of his indictment The affairs of Bearn were now of such a nature as that the King's presence seemed to be very necessary there therefore he determines to move that way and goes to Xantonge and from thence passeth over into Guienne He is magnificently entertained by the Duke of Espernon two daies at Cadillac and departs from thence to go into Bearn He was made believe that the Council of this little Country would submit to his Royal pleasure without obliging him to perform that voyage but the King must undergo that trouble He went thither where his presence produced the same effect it had done in other places He over-ran all this little Province seizing as he passed on Navarrens the strongest place in it as he did also of Ortez and Olleron Principal Cities of that Country He subverted all their antient Customes restor'd the Bishop and other Ecclesiasticks to their Estates and Dignities took away the Administration of affairs of the Country from those of the Reformed Religion and re-established his own Authority but he left the Government of the Province in the hands of the Marquess de la Force since Mareschal of France who impatient to see his Authority cut so short by these alterations could hardly forbear till the King was got back to Paris from reducing things again to the same posture they were in before He therefore laboured all the Winter to drive out the Garrisons of Ortez and Olleron so that excepting Navarrens which was kept by the Marquess of Poianne whom the King had left Governour there he overthrew whatever his Majesty had done shuffling all things again into their former confusion During the Reign of Henry IV. who would not see it and the troublesom minority of Lewes XIII who could not molest them the Protestants had made themselves Masters of Ninety nine Towns well fortified and enabled for a siege In the opinion of their Potency they call Assemblies Parliaments as it were when and as often as they pleased There they consulted of the Common affairs of Religion made new Laws of Government removed and exchanged their general Officers the King's leave all this while never so much as formally asked In this licentious calling of Assemblies they abused their Power into a neglect and in not dissolving them at his Majesties commandment they encreased their neglect into a disobedience The Assembly which principally caused the War and their ruine was that of Rochel called by the Protestants presently upon the King's journey into Bearn This general meeting the King prohibited by his special Edicts declaring all them to be guilty of Treason which notwithstanding they would not hearken unto but resolutely went on in their purposes Being Assembled they sent the King a Remonstrance of their grievances to which the Duke L' Esdeguiers in a Letter to them written gives them a very fair and plausible answer wherein also he entreats them to obey the King's Edict and break off the Assembly Upon the receipt of this Letter those of the Assembly published a Declaration wherein they verified the meeting to be Lawful and their purpose not to dismiss themselves till their desires were granted This affront done to the King made him gather together his Forces yet at the Duke of Lesdiguier's request he allowed them twenty four daies respite before his Army should march towards them He offered them also very fair and reasonable Conditions such almost as their Deputies had solicited but far better than those which they were glad to accept when all the Towns were taken from them In their Assembly they made Laws and Orders that no peace should be made without the consent of the general Convocation about paying of the Souldiers wages for the detaining of the Revenues of the King and the Clergy and the like The Synod at Alais being ended Doctor Du Moulin hearing how the the Protestants would keep a Politick Assembly at Rochel against the King's will judged that it was an ill conjuncture of time for him to go to
one of his Vicars to absolve the Sieur Guillet and to licence the going on of the Fortifications In the year 1627. those of Rochel could not endure to see the Articles of Peace which the King had accorded to them put in execution they could not permit that the Rules of Commerce observed over all France should be taken notice of among them The cutting off of that absolute authority which they had made use of in the Isles of Reé and Olleron and other places bordering upon their City was looked on as an outrage The exercise of the Catholick Religion amongst them was esteemed as a great slavery and a rigorous constraint imposed upon that whereof they made Profession They complained of those Souldiers in Fort Lewes and the Isles of Reé and Olleron left there only to prevent their relapsing into their former insolencies as a most unsufferable Tyranny They resented his Majestie 's Commissaries Acts in order to the execution of the Treaty as so many unjust attempts upon their Liberties With these complaints they filled their Manifests They made use of these Motives to perswade the rest of the Hugonot Towns to revolt to form themselves into a Common-wealth and to obtain that by force from the King which with justice they could not expect The Duke of Rohan discontented for that he had made no advantage by the Peace did not a little foment those Mutinies of the Rochellers to which end he under-hand sowed divisions among the Consuls of the chief Hugonot Towns in Languedoc and some he made for his own Party but his design took little effect in those parts The French King animated by the sage Counsels of Cardinal Richlieu resolves on the siege of Rochel and from that time forwards preparations were made in all the adjacent Provinces of Warlike Ammunitions great store of Cannon were sent before-hand towards the place that they might be in readiness when time should serve Divers means were thought on to block up the Channel and to begin with those of less charge to prevent greater expences in case they might do the work Private Computation was made of what Horse and Foot would be requisite to invest the place and secure the neighbouring Isles And every thing was disposed to the best advantage for the carrying on of the siege The Duke of Lorrain comes to the King at Paris to complain of his Majesties actions towards the Bishop of Verdun his Kinsman He was answered that Bishops being his Majestie 's Subjects owe respect and obedience to him That when they fall off from their duties it is the more just to punish their faults That enjoying their Temporal States only in order to the Oath of Allegiance which they all swear to his Majesty they do most especially deserve to be deprived of them when they break their said Oath That his Majesty was more especially concern'd to maintain his right in Verdun which was a Frontier Town and likewise because the Bishop had attempted against his Royal Authority in hindering the building of the Citadel though it were a thing only relating to the Soveraignty and in which he was not at all concerned But this was not the chief end of his journey He pretended to do homage in his own name to the King for the Dutchy of Bar as appertaining to him in Fee and not in right of his Wife But he therein met with greater obstacles than in that of the Bishop of Verdun The Duke obtained his request for the Bishop upon condition he should revoke the Censures against the King's Officers and for the future should comport himself with more moderation The Duke willingly became bound for his performance and the King discharged the seizures and setled all things in their former state The English and others endeavour now to divert the French King from his resolution against Rochel On July 28. 1627. the English Fleet arriveth before Reé They Landed ten thousand men The Sieur de Thoyras was then Governour of the Citadel St. Martin in the Isle of Reé Rostaincler the Baron of Chautail Navailles and divers other Gentlemen and light Horse and about one hundred and fifty French Souldiers resisting the English were slain in the encounter most part of the Officers being wounded Fifteen Officers of the English Army were said also to be killed besides divers Lieutenants and Ensigns They likewise lost one of their Colours and had five or six hundred killed and wounded The Duke of Buckingham stormeth the Citadel of St. Martin but could not take it The Cardinal sent to Bayonne for fifteen flat Vessels called Primaces built both to sail and row withal and very fleet and able to endure a storm In the end of August Captain Baslin who Commanded these Primaces came with them to the Sands of Olonne where the Abbot of Marsillac received him joyfully and his Vessels being well stored with Victuals and Ammunition he lent him Sixscore men of the Regiment de Champany with some Voluntiers On September 5. he set sail in the head of his little Fleet about six a clock at night Soon after he knew that he was near the English Fleet he spread abroad his great Sails and was easily discovered But the Primaces going very swift could not be stopped by the English Vessels They went without loss only some Sails and one or two Masts were shattered and one shot through with a Bullet Baslin having thus passed the English fell upon the Barricado which they had made to hinder Relief which consisted of great masts linked together with Iron Chains and tied with Cables fastned to great Anchors But many of the Primaces by reason of their lightness and swifness passed over the rest lighted on a certain place where the foregoing night a Tempest had broken part of their Barricado through which they passed without difficulty so that about two in the night they ran a shore near one of the Bastilions of the Citadel a place where the English could not hurt them The Relief was great both for their reputation and assistance Ten other Pinnaces were got from Bayonne which the Count de Grant-mont rigged out and sent under the Command of Captain Audum October 4. they came on the Sands of Olonne They were soon laden and accompanied with twenty five other little Vessels Three hundred Souldiers went aboard them and sixty choice Gentlemen Upon October 6. they put off Two daies past the wind changing before they came to Reé and that by day too The English Fleet engaged them in a rough Fight But their courage surmounting their danger twenty nine of the Vessels got clear to the Citadel where they ran ashore on Friday morning October 8. five of their Vessels were forced to give back One only in which were the Sieurs de Beaulieu and Razilly was taken by the English Who were so incensed at it that they made in twenty four hours above two thousand great shot upon the Port Saint Martin so that there were only five
Jurisdiction nor Domination of the Bishop of Rome over the Churches of France Hilary called himself Primate of the Churches of Gauls subject to the Roman Empire that is of Provence and Daulphine for the rest of the Gauls was then held by the Visigoths and by the Francks The quarrel was that Hilary conferred the degree of Bishop in his Diocess not expecting the consent and approbation of the Bishop of Rome but Leo would oblige him to acquaint the Roman See with it and to get his approbation Upon that Leo sends Letters to the Bishops of Daulphine where after he haâ—◠〈◊〉 swe ling words exalted the Dignity of the Roman See he addâ—â—h Hillary To trouble the State of the Church Leon. Epist 87. ad Episcop per Viennensem provinciam constitutos and the Concord of Bishops by new presumptions hath exceeded measure desiring so to subject you to his power that he will not suffer you to be subject to the blessed Apostle Peter challenging to himself the Ordination of all the Churches in Gauls But Hilary came to Rome not regarding the Anathema's of Leo and to his face affirmed that neither did Christ appoint Peter to be Head of the rest of the Apostles neither had the Bishop of Rome a Sovereignty over the Churches of France In that strife Leo according to his custom had his recourse to Valentinian who presently without hearing what Hilary could say for himself gave sentence for Leo and made a Law which is extant in the Theodosian Code among the Novel Constitutions in the 24th Title the Law runs in these words Whereas the merit of Peter who is the Prince of the Episcopal Society and the Dignity of the Roman City and Authority of the Sacred Synod have established the Primacy of the Apostolick See let not presumption attempt any lawful thing against the Authority of that See for then shall the peace of the Churches be maintained every where if the Vniversality do acknowledge their Governour In which words we may observe by the way that Valentinian doth not ground the Popes Primacy upon the Word of God He addeth We Decree by a perpetual Ordinance That it be not lawful either to the Bishops of Gauls or to those other Provinces to attempt any thing against the venerable Pope c. but that to them and to all whatsoever the Authority of the Apostolick See hath decreed or shall decree may be a Law so that what Bishop soever being evocated to the judgement of the Roman Prelate shall neglect to appear he be constrained by the Governour of the Province to make his appearance But Valentinian being deprived of Africa by the Vandals of Africa and of Spain and Guienne by the Gothes and of most part of Gauls by the Franks nothing remaining to him but Italy Sicily Provence and Daulphine all the East being in the power of Theodosius that Law was but of little force How much that Law was despised in the Empire of the East it is easie to see for in the Year 472. that is about 22 or 23 years after that Law of Valentinian a contrary Law was established by the Emperour Leo which is the 16th Law in the Code De Sacrosanctis Ecclesiis The words of the Law are these Whereby the Emperour decreeth that the Church of Constantinople be the first of all Churches and the Bishop of Constantinople be the first of all Bishops We judge and decree that the most holy Church of this Town which is Mother of our Piety and of all Christians of the Orthodox Religion and the most holy See of the same most Religious City have all the privileges and honours concerning the Creation of Bishops and the right of sitting before others c. Baronius declaimeth against that Law of Leo and saith It proceeded from him who is the Head over all the Sons of pride Baron Annal. ad Ann. 472. Then lived Sidonius Apollinaris Bishop of Clermont in Auvergn whose Epistles are extant great part of which are written to the Bishops of France his Colleagues but in none of them is there any trace of subjection to the Roman See or of communication with the Bishop of Rome The same Sidonius calls Lupus Bishop of Troyes Bishop of Bishops and the first Bishop of the world and saith That he is sitting in the Apostolick See This Man wrote all his Epistles in Latin and Preached also in Latin In the tenth Epistle of the second Book he complaineth That in his time among the Vulgar the purity and property of the Latin Tongue decayed and degenerated into barbarousness And in the Epistle to Pope Perpetuus for then all the Bishops that were a little more respected than the ordinary Bishops were called Popes there is a Latin Sermon made by the said Sidonius unto the people of Bourges a certain proof that the people of Bourges understood Latin About this time flourished Prosper of Aquitain so called from his Countrey not the place of his Bishoprick as Baronius saith He wrote De Vitâ Contemplativâ Of a Contemplative Life In his first Book Chap. 23. he prescribeth That the Preacher's Language be simple and plain though it be not very good Latin yet that it be orderly and grave Usser de Britan. Eccles Primord Cap. 8. that it may hinder no body though ignorant to understand it He wrote a Book De Ingratis by which name he alway marketh out the Pelagians that sprung out of the ashes of that Arch-Heretick Pelagius Regiensem Episcopum fuisse recentiores commemorant In sententias quasdam Augustini Epigrammata varia conscripsit Catal. Test Verit. He wrote many excellent things in defence of the Grace of Christ against the Pelagians and sheweth himself to be a Disciple and vehement defender of St. Augustine saith Bellarmine Salvianus Bishop of Marseilles lived then when the Nation of the Goths oppressed France and many began to doubt of the Providence of God in regard that those wicked wretches had got the upper hand and prospered so much in the world therefore he wrote an excellent Treatise De Judicio Providentia Dei to Salonius Bishop of Vienna One entitleleth him Gallicae Gentis Episcoporum Magistrum The Master of the Bishops of the French Nation Salonius wrote upon the Books of the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes Claudianus Mammertus Bishop of Vienna is praised by Sidonius with excessive commendations as if all the Graces of Jerome Augustine Patr. Syms Eccles Hist Basil Nazianzen and many other Fathers had been incorporated in him He wrote three Books De Statu Animae Of the State of the Soul to the same Sidonius with two Epistles How much the Popish Bishops differ from those Famous Bishops that flourished in those dayes the Reader may understand by this following Epitaph of Claudianus Mammertus made by Sidonius Hoc dat cespite membra Claudianus Triplex Bibliotheca quo Magistro Romana Attica Christiana fulsit Quam totam Monachus virente in aevo Secreta bibit instructione
heap of Constitutions about the keeping of Lent and Easter about the prohibition of Marriage betwixt Christians and unconverted Jews about Servants not to be admitted to Ecclesiastical Orders about Assemblies to be at the least yearly Convocated by Bishops about Ecclesiastical Rents not to be dilapidated Under the Reign of Theodebert King of Lorain Burgundy and Turinge the Fathers who were present at the Councils of Orleans convened also in the Council of Overnie and ordained that no man should arrive to the Office of a Bishop by the favour of men in Authority but by the merits of an honest and unreprovable life That the dead body of a Bishop in time of his Funeral should not be covered with the Pall otherwise called Opertorium Dominici corporis lest the honour done to the body should be a polluting of the Altar with many other Constitutions Under the Reign of Cherebert King of France a Council was Assembled at Tours In this Council it was Ordained that the Clergy and People in every Congregation should provide relief for their own poor and not permit them to wander up and down It was also Ordained that a Bishop should count his Wife as his Sister and that he should no manner of way company with her and for this cause should have Presbyters and Deacons so familiarly conversant with him that they might bear testimony of his honest behaviour viz. that he never companied with his Wife The Papists themselves could not overpass this Canon without a censure Moreover it was Ordained That no Priest or Monk should receive in bed with him another Priest or Monk to the end they might be so unreprovable that they would abstain from all appearance of evil In this Council were set down very strict prohibitions that no man should oppress the Church and convert to his own use any thing duly belonging to them lest he incurr the malediction of Judas who was a Thief and kept the bag and converted to his own use a part of that mony which belonged to the poor A Council likewise was holden at Paris wherein order was taken concerning admitting of Bishops to their Offices That no man should be admitted Bishop without the full consent of Clergy and People and that no man should presume by favour of Princes only without the consents aforesaid to become Bishop in any place Now Clotaire remained alone King of France his Brethren being dead their Children also were dead and Childebert the eldest died without Issue The Reign of Clotaire was short and wretched He sought to extort the thirds of all Ecclesiastical Things to his private Affairs but the Clergy opposed themselves against him so as threats prevailed not He dies Anno 567. Before that he Rules as King alone he Erected the little Realm of Yvetot upon this occasion Upon good Fryday he slew Gawter of Yvetot his Servant in the Chappel where he heard Service It is said that the King had ravished his Wife lodging in his house so as he that was beaten suffered the punishment Pope Eugenius displeased with this infamous murther condemned him to repair the fault upon pain of Excommunication Clotaire for satisfaction Ordaineth That from thenceforth the Lords of Yvetot should be free from all homage service and obedience to the King for the Land of Yvetot in the Countrey of Normandy And so this small seigneury hath continued long with the Title and Prerogative of a Realm until that this Title of a Realm was changed into a Principality the which the house of Bellay doth now enjoy Clotaire had by two Wives five Sons and one Daughter four survived him viz. Cherebert Chilperic Sigebert Gonthran and Closinde his Daughter Cherebert was King of France Chilperic King of Soissons Gonthran King of Orleans Sigibert King of Metz or Lorain although each of them called himself King of France and commanded absolutely over the Countries under their obedience All of them Reigned together fifteen years The second Council of Matiscon was convened in the twenty fourth year of King Gunthran In it complaint was made that Baptism usually was ministred on every holy day insomuch that upon Easter day scarce were two or three found to be presented to Baptism This they Ordained to be amended and that no man except upon occasion of infirmity presume to present his Child to Baptism but to attend upon the Festival dayes prescribed of old that is Easter and Whitsunday Also it was Appointed and Ordained that the Sacrament of the Altar should be Administred before any of the Communicants had tasted of meat or drink That no person who fleeth to the Church as to a City of Refuge should be drawn back again by violence from the bosome of the Church or be harmed in that holy place That a Bishop shall not be attached before a Secular Judge That the Houses of Bishops shall be kept holy with exercises of prayer and singing of Psalms and shall not be defiled with the barking of dogs and muting of Hawks That Secular men shall do reverence to those of the Clergy even unto the lowest degree of them in such sort that if the Secular Man do meet any of the Clergy walking on foot he shall honour him by uncovering his head But if the Secular man be riding on horseback and the Clergy-man on foot then the Secular man shall light down from his horse and shall do reverence to the Church-man In the third Council at Matiscon we read of nothing but a contentious disputation between two Bishops Palladius and Bertram and foolish questions scarce fit to be disputed in Grammar-Schools Chilperic a crafty man seizeth on his Father's Treasure and laboureth to become Master of the City of Paris but was not able to effect it Cherebert having cast off his Lawful Wife and being Excommunicated by German Bishop of Paris dieth at Blavia in Sancton in the ninth year of his Kingdom about the year 570 whose Kingdom his Brothers divide among themselves Chilperic and Sigebert waged War one against the other Chilperic enters the Countrey of Sigebert and takes from him the City of Rhemes Hereupon Sigebert pursues his Revenge and takes from Chilperic Soissons the Capital City of his Realm with his Son Theodobert forcing him to retire to Tournay Sigebert comes a Conquerour to Paris where he is received by common consent and so all the Cities belonging unto Cherebert yield him obedience But as he thought himself settled behold two young soldiers suborned by Fredegund an harlot of Chilperic's came to his Court enter freely into his Hall and getting near unto him each of them stabs him with his dagger and he falls down dead in the place These murtherers were suddenly torn in pieces so as they could not be known nor declare by whose instigation they had committed this murther Yet was it generally thought it was the practice of Fredegund to free Chilperic and to make her way the more smooth by the death of Sigebert who crossed her most Now is
they are circumcised and in Qu. 5. he saith They call themselves Christians of the first Conversion Phocas a mean Captain in Thracia in a sedition of the people did kill his Soveraign Mauritius the Emperour usurped the Crown and held the Empire seven years He gave unto Pope Boniface the Title of Universal Bishop which Title Gregory his Predecessour had disclaimed Gregory devised many new Rites yet tied not others to follow them For when Augustine whom he sent into Britain demanded of him seeing the Faith is one why are the customes of the Church divers and why is one sort of Mass in Rome and another in France Gregory answereth Thy Brotherhood knows the custome of the Roman Church in which thou hast been nourished but it pleaseth me whether in the Church of Rome or of France or in any other thou hast seen any thing that may please the Almighty God that thou diligently follow it In France the two Sons of Childebert Teodorick and Theodebert their Grandmother Brunehault working that thing reigned with perpetual disagreement among themselves and with Clotharius Theodebert being overcome by his Brother in Battel Anno 612. is slain by his own Soldiers at Colonia Theodorick dieth the year following Brunehault being hated of the French Anno 613. Clotharius having obtained the whole Kingdom of the French bound Brunehault with a Cable rope led her about with wild Horses and tare her to pieces Thus by God's judgement She died most justly who had cruelly caused many others to die Thus died Brunehault only commended in Histories to have built many Temples and given great revenues for the maintenance thereof De Serres Hist whilst she wallowed in her pleasures St. Gregory hath set down certain Letters of his to Brunehault wherein he commends her highly though basely flattering her for her Piety and singular Wisdom Clotharius seeing himself King of so great a Monarchy after a long and horrible confusion of intestine wars used all diligence to pacifie the Realm He augmented the great Authority of the Maires of the Palace who controlled Kings and in the end usurped the Royalty whereas they were before but Controllers of the King's House not of the Realm He had one only Son whose name was Dagobert He committed him to Arnulph Bishop of Metz a learned and good man to be instructed by him Petries Church-Hist in Cent. 7. Agrestin who had been Clerk to King Theodorick entred the Abby Lexovien with all his wealth but he soon became weary of the superstitious Rites and left the Abby Then went he to Aquileia which then was not under the Romish yoke and from thence he wrote unto Eustasius Abbot of Lexovien against the Rites of the Monks exhorting him to reject those Rites Eustasius and his Convent exclude him out of their Society For removing this Controversie was Assembled the fourth Council at Matiscon in Burgundy there Agrestin accuseth Eustasius of many superstitious Ceremonies contrary to Canonical Institution viz. That they did use to lick a Cockle marked with a Cross and used Hallowings when they went in or out of an house Catal. Test Verit Lib. 7. Ex Vit. Eustas Abb. they multiplied Prayers and Collects in the Mass they ridiculously cut off their hair and abstained from the company of men but the Bishops condemned Agrestin Hence we see that some persons did not allow the Rites creeping in and the Inventers of them were but private persons and the Abetters were pleased with the least shadow of Reason Clotharius dieth in the year 631. having Governed 44 years from his cradle and passed happily through many perillous difficulties He left his Son Dagobert for his Successour Dagobert at his coming to the Crown found great difficulties among his Subjects being bred up without Justice under the long licentiousness of Civil Wars and the lenity of Clothaire whereto he provided wisely reducing Justice fortifying it by his Authority with so good a moderation as no man was offended at his severity neither durst any man attempt any thing against the Laws seeing both the reign and the rod in the hands of their Lawful Prince To this good Order he professed to love holy things and the better to confirm this Opinion in the minds of his Subjects he built and enriched many Temples especialy that of St. Denis the which hath since been the Sepulchre of the French Kings This King was much ruled by the forenamed Arnulph Bishop of Metz and by Pepin Major of the King's Palace This Pepin was Grandfather to that Pepin who was the first King of the second Race of the French Kings Fabian's Chron. Part. 5. and began to deal absolutely in the Government of the Realm Dagobert and all his Realm were in great honour and tranquillity till the death of Arnulph after which the King began to change his conditions to the hurt of his whole Realm There were at this time great numbers of Jews in France the which were hurtful to the Realm Dagobert banished them by a perpetual Edict out of the Territories under his obedience But this Zeal of Religion was blemished with the soul blot of Adultery which made him infamous both to his Subjects and to Strangers Amandus Bishop of Paris reproved him for his fault but Dagobert impatient thereof banished him Yet by the earnest perswasion of Pepin he yielded to Reason and having dismissed many of his lewd followers he calleth home Amandus again from banishment Amandus was a man famous for Holiness in those dayes At that time Austregesil was Bishop of Bitures Lupus Bishop of Sens Bavo was converted from a robber by Amandus Columban likewise being much vexed by Brunehault lived under Clotharius and his Scholar Gallus Projectus was a Martyr in Aquitain he was successour to Serenus Bishop of Marseilles Dagobert having Assembled the Estates of France in great solemnity at Byguage he made his Testament and Ordained that he made his younger Son Clovis King of France Fabian's Chronic and his elder Son Sigebert King of Austrasia or Lorain His Testament he had caused before to be written in four sundry skins endented to be read and then sealed with certain seals whereof the one he willed to be kept in the Treasury of St. Denis the second in the Treasury of the City of Lions the third in the Treasury of Metz in Lorain and the fourth in the Kings Treasury Dagobert died having Reigned fourteen years and was buried in the foresaid Monastery To maintain the invocation of Saints the Papists say that at that time the soul of Dagobert King of France was delivered out of the hands of the Devil by Dionysius and Maurice Martyrs and Martin the Confessor whom Dagobert had Adored A Council was Assembled in a Town of France Symson's Church-Hist Lib. 4. Cent. 7. called in Latin Altissidorum vulgarly Auxerre in which were met a number of Abbots and Presbyters with one Bishop and three Deacons In this Council they condemned Sorcery and the consulting with
battel But Charles Martel getting out of prison assisteth Plectrude gathereth Forces and overcometh the new King and Rainfroy Charles is now received and installed Major of France and having assured himself of the Children of King Dagobert he caused them to be gently brought up in a Monastery At Colen he seizeth on Plectrude and Thibauld and inflicts no other punishment upon them but enjoyns them to live quiet and to attempt nothing without his liking He pardons Rainfroy and gives him the Government of Anjou He degradeth Chilperic being advanced against Law and causeth the eldest Son of Dagobert to be chosen King named Chilperic the third Chilperic dies having reigned five years and in his place his Brother Thierri was crowned King He reigned ten years and dying left his Son Childerick the last King of this first race of the Merovingiens Charles Martel from Major of the Palace is chosen Duke or Prince of the French Eudo Prince of the Gascoigus to whom Rainfroy joyned himself called in the Saracens with their King Abdiram out of Spain Anno 725. whom Charles met and killed them with an universal slaughter there were slain in one day three hundred seventy and five thousand and of the French fifteen hundred among which were many of the Nobility and men of Note And having recovered Burgundy and Lions in the year following Eudo dying he invaded Aquitain and overthrew the Saracens in great numbers invading France in the year 731 and regained Avignon taken by them and forceth them to abandon Narbon and the whole Country to his mercy At that time divers devout Monks lived in France viz. Vandegrisil of Fontinel a builder of Monasteries of whom Sigebert makes mention Vrsmar of Lobia a Founder of a Monastery Bertine Abbot of Sithiena and holy Aegidius Childeric was King in shew nine years Anno 744. Pepin in the time of King Childeric called a Council at Soissons where he assisted in person together with the greatest Peers of the Land five under the Authority of Charles Martel and four under Pepin the Son of Charles who dispossessed him Charles Martel having governed the Kingdom five and twenty years dieth He had four Sons Carloman Pepin Giles and Grypho Giles was made Bishop of Rhotomagum and left his Government assigned him by his Father unto Carloman and Pepin and they two divide the Kingdom and Govern each one his own part under the Title of their Father as is apparent by the first words of the Council under Carloman In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ I Carloman Duke and Prince of the French in the year from the incarnation of Christ 742. on the 11th of the Kalends of March by the advice of the servants of God and of my Nobes I have Assembled the Bishops in my Kingdom c. Within seven years after this Synod he laid aside his Princely Authority saith Bellarmine and entred into a Cloyster becomes a Monk and so dieth at Vienna and then all the Authority was in Pepin alone Grypho had rebelled against Carloman but at last Pepin took him in Italy and caused him to be beheaded Anno 753. Pepin having the Government alone aimed at an higher Title Blondus and others who have written the Acts of the French Blond dec 14. Lib. 10. say that the Nobility and Commonalty of that Nation duly considering the worthiness of Pepin and sottishness of Childeric consulted with Zachary Bishop of Rome whether they should tolerate so foolish a King any longer and defraud Pepin of his deserved Princely honour And when the Pope answered That he was most worthy to be a King who could best discharge the Office of a King Petrie's Church-Hist Cent. 8. the French with the publick consent of the whole Nation did pronounce Pepin for their King and Childerick was shaven and made a Monk Then the Pope wrote unto Boniface Bishop of Mentz to Anoint Pepin King of France and declare all his Subjects free from their Oath of Allegiance unto their lazy Soveraign The Pope was chiefly moved hereunto with hope to draw help from Pepin against the Lumbards Concil apud Palat Vernes his mortal enemies Pepin Anno 755. called almost all the Gallican Bishops to meet at the Council of Vernes the Palace About this time Aponius a French man wrote several Books In the Council called by Carloman of which I hinted before he beginneth thus I Carloman c. have Assembled the Bishops which are in my Kingdom with the Priests into a Council and Synod These are Boniface Arch-Bishop of Mentz Burchard of Wirtzburg Reginfrid Guntharius with the rest of the Bishops and their Priests That they should give me Counsel how the Law of God and Religion of the Church may be restored which in the dayes of former Princes hath been shattered and fallen and how Christian People may attain the salvation of their souls and not perish being deceived by false Priests And by the advice of my Priests and Nobles We have Ordained Bishops through Cities and set over them the Arch-Bishop Boniface who is the Legate of St. Peter And we have Ordained that Synods should be called every year Concil Tom. 2. Edit Crab. that in our presence the Decrees of Canons Rites and Laws of the Church may be restored And we restore unto the Churches the Monies that have been taken from them We have also discharged all the Servants of God from hunting and wandring in woods with Dogs and that they have no Hawks nor Faulcons We have also Decreed according to the Holy Canons That each Presbyter dwelling in a Parish be subject unto the Bishop where he dwelleth and that alwayes in Lent he give an account of his Ministry whether of Baptism or Catholick Faith and prayers and order of Masses Then he forbiddeth sacrifice to the dead and other profane Rites of the Heathen He appointeth punishments against the Fornications and Adulteries of Monks It was also decreed that Monks and Nuns should live within their Abbies and Cloysters according to the Rule of their Father Benedict Pope Stephen confirmed Pepin and his Heirs for Kings of France and of him asked aid to withstand the Power of Aistulphus then King of Lombardy who then had exacted Tribute from certain Lands belonging to the Bishop of Rome and because it was refused took up Arms. The Pope wrote a Letter directed to the Kings of France and to all Bishops Abbots Priests and Monks and to the Glorious Dukes and Counts and unto the whole Army of the Kingdom of France Stephen Pope and all the Bishops Priests and Deacons Dukes Counts People and Army of the Romans all being in anguish with how doleful and bitter grief we are encompassed on every side with how great perplexity and doubtfulness we are distressed and how many tears our eyes do shed because of the continual troubles which are multiplyed upon us we think that the smallest part of all the elements do declare for who beholding our
Learning and learned men Paul of Pisa instructed him in the Greek and Latin Tongues and Aimon in Philosophy and the Mathematickes He delighted in Poetry but especially in History in which he was well read The University of Paris built or enriched by him doth witness the love and honour he bare to learning A valiant man none commanded with more obedience nor performed any thing with greater fortune nor used his Victories with more mildness and judgement Never did King reign with more Authority nor was more reverently obeyed than Charlemagne About the Year 786 Charles King of France made a league with Archaius King of Scots Archaius sent unto him Albinus or Alcuinus John Melrose so named from the Abby Melrose Claudius Clemens and Anthony all very devout and learned men John Melrose became Abbot of the Augustinians at Ticino Bale in Cent. 14. and Claudius was Bishop of Auxerre They wrote several works as John Bale sheweth Alcuinus had good knowledge of the Latin and Greek Languages Biblioth de la Bigne Tom. 3. Charles calleth him his Master in an Epistle written unto him De Septuages Sexages He hath many excellent things in divers of his Books and Writings Desiderius began to make War first against the City of Ravenna and the Marches thereof and took the Cities of Ferrara Faventia and other Towns The Pope sent to Charles the Great for aid who came into Italy with great Forces Desiderius fled to Pavia and was there besieged Charles leaving an Unkle of his at the siege of Pavia went against Verona which he took without any great difficulty From thence he went to Rome to kiss the Pope's Foot and to hold the Feast of Easter where he was received with great Solemnity After this his coming thither he confirmed to the Church and Popes of Rome the Donation which his Father Pepin had made of Ravenna and other Lands and made another of many other places among which is reckoned the Isle of Corsica and all the Coast of Genoua with the Cities of Parma Ancona Vrbin and many other Towns besides Rome and the Territories thereof which the Popes had already in possession so as to the Emperours remained only that part of Italy which is part of Calabria and of Puglia and a great part of that which now is the Kingdom of Naples Charles having been only eight dayes in Rome returned against Desiderius who after six moneths besieging in Pavia yielded upon composition and Charles carried him with him and banished both him and his Sons into a certain Island and then took Milan and all the other Cities in Lombardy which is the Ancient Gallia Cisalpina where he placed French men for Dukes and Governours So Italy remained in his Obedience excepting those Lands and Provinces which were left to the Church of Rome so ended the Kingdom of the Lombards which had continued 204 years in Italy Rhegno Sub. Annum 787. In the Year 787 Charles being departed from Rome to come into France as soon as he was arrived at Wormes saith Rhegno he called a Synod and declared the Reasons of his journey to the Clergy and Princes of his Realm We find the French Synods in those dayes oftentimes to have consisted both of Lay-men and Clergy-men joyntly to determine of matters as well Ecclesiastical as Civil Charles the Great did the like in the Council of Franckford where he discoursed points of Faith and made them deliver their Opinions upon such as himself proposed The Canons and Decrees also run in his Name the Emperour saith he hath Ordained with the consent of the Synod c. Vide Acta Concil Francf in libello sacro Tom. 3. Concil pag. 635. In the Year 794 Charles Assembled this Council at Franckford partly in regard of the Heretick Foelix who called Christ The Adoptive Son of God in humane nature and was condemned in a Council Assembled at Ratisbon But he was returned to his vomit again and therefore was now again condemned as a notable Heretick in the Council of Franckford partly also in respect of the great contention which arose every where concerning the worshipping of Images disallowed in the Council of Constantinople and allowed in the second Council of Nice Not only the Bishops of France but also of Germany and Lombardy as Provinces subject to the King of France were present at this Council The Pope sent his Ambassadors Theophilact and Stephanus to the Council King Charles himself also was present thereat Alcuinus wrote against the Heresie of Foelix Alcuin contr Foelic Lib. 2. and Elipandrus Bishop of Toledo and in his second Book saith Shew us any Nation Town or Church either Roman or Constantinopolitan or of Jerusalem which was Dedicated by the presence of the Lord himself or of Antioch where first the Name of Christianity is read to have been or of Alexandria or of any other Church either in Italy or Germany or in France or in Aquitain or in Britain which agreeth with you in your assertion Here he acknowledgeth all these to be true Churches at that time and distinguisheth them one from another Foelix continued in his errour till Alcuinus wrote against him and then he became Zealous of the Truth and wrote a Recantation unto the Presbyters and Deacons of his Church That as he had been a scandal unto them so by his means they may be brought again from Errour unto the Truth as he himself writeth And this Recantation is printed among the Works of Alcuinus But Elipant Arch-Bishop of Toledo having read the seven Books of Alcuinus wrote very sharply for maintaining the same Errour R. Hoveden writeth R. Hoveden in continuat Bedae that Charles the Great sent over into England the Acts of a Synod sent him from Constantinople for the Adoration of Images Against this Adoration saith he Alcuinus wrote an Epistle well-grounded on Divine Scriptures and carried it with some Synodical Acts in the names of the English Princes and Bishops to the King of France All Italy being now in peace under the protection of King Charles two Cardinal Priests of great account called Pascal and Capulus conspired against Pope Leo who with their complices apprehended him on a day as he was going in Procession Some say they put out his eyes and cut out his tongue committing him prisoner to the Monastery of St. Erasmus publishing abroad that they did it for the crimes by him committed and the Errours by him maintained Some Authors affirm that he was miraculously restored to his sight and speech Hereupon King Charles cometh to Rome accompanied with many great Dukes and other Princes his Subjects To him came out of Italy and from many other parts many Bishops and Prelates After eight dayes abode there he commanded all the Princes and Prelates which then were in the City to be Assembled and the Pope himself and all the rest being together there were some that accused the Pope to the Emperour Then the Emperour
of Emperour unto Lewes Bavaria and unto Chrarles France Pepin enjoyed Aquitain without contradiction Lewes not content with Bavaria levies an Army and passeth the Rhine The miserable Father prepares an Army to go against him but he falls sick and dieth Anno 840. There was a Council held at Paris by the Command of Lewes and his Son Lotharius Anno 829 and three others at the same time in other places as is collected from the Preface It was Ordained that Synods should then be Assembled in four several places of their Empire In his Reign in France was used of Priests and Church-men precious and shining Vestures and golden and rich staring Girdles with Rings and other Ornaments of Gold Fabian's Chron. Wherefore the said Lewes procured of the Pope a correction for all such as used such strange apparel causing them to wear brown and sad colours After the death of the Emperour Lewes Lotharius his eldest Son and Emperour by his Fathers Testament would force his Brethren to a new division He quarrelleth with Charles King of France and Lewes Duke of Bavaria but the two Brethren unite together and joyn their Forces to oppose Lotharius Lotharius finding himself the stronger refuseth the Conditions of Peace offered by his Brethren Then Lewes and Charles charging the Army of Lotharius overthrew it with a notable slaughter Lotharius after this defeat changeth his humour with his estate he enjoyed the titulary mask of the Empire with Austrasia yet much curtailed and divided to his three Sons Lewes Charles and Lotharius Then Lotharius having remorse of Conscience for attempting against his Father and Brethren professeth himself a Monk in the Abby of Pluviers and dies a Monk in the Year 855. Charles and Lewes after the Victory call the Bishops to take their Advice upon Occurrents who being solemnly Assembled exhort them to Concord They hearken to them make an Alliance and come to the dividing of their parts Charles remains the sole King of France Daulphine and Provence were left to Lewes in his partage for the commodity of Italy which was given him notwithstanding the pretensions of Bernard's Children But he died soon after without any Issue-male leaving one only Daughter called Hermingrade Heir of all his great Estates Charles married his Neece Hermingrade to Boson Earl of Ardennes Concil Meldens Cap. 78. Tom. 3. brother to his Wife Richilde who called himself King of Arles At the Council at Meaux held about this time it was Decreed that the Capitular Laws concerning the Church made by Charlemagne and his Son Lewes should be strictly observed The same Council entreats King Charles the Younger to grant the Bishops a freer liberty for the execution of their Ministeries in their Parishes Charles called the Bald began his Reign Anno 841. King Charles was present at the Council holden at Pistis upon Sein Anno 963. He is named first the Decrees are conceived in his name He caused himself to be proclaimed Emperour after the death of Lewes who survived Lotharius without contradiction He went to Rome and was Crowned Emperour by the Pope with the Imperial Diadem then raising his Spirit very high after the custom of the Grecians he walketh with a Surplice This King Charles the Bald relying on the Popes help favoured the Pope with all his Power and brought the French Clergy to the subjection of the Roman See as much as he could Then began the Popes Legates to come to the Councils of France and there to preside Then also the French Kings began to tremble under the thunderbolts of the Vatican and to fear the Excommunications of the Pope The first Pope that made tryal of his Excommunications against them was Pope Nicholas the first who threatned Lothary to Excommunicate him unless he recalled Tietberga his Wife whom he had put away to take Waldrada whom he loved which also this Pope did Excommunicate Whereupon there was great murmuring of the Prelates and People of France against the Pope being displeased both at the Pope's Usurpations and the pusillanimity of their Kings These things happened from the Year 863 to 866. After that Nicholas came Adrian the second who favouring Lewes Du Moulin cont Perron lib. 3. c. 9. Grand-child to Lewes the Gentle against Charles the Bald his Unckle sent peremptory Letters into France whereby he declared That if any presumed to make an enterprize upon the Kingdom of Lewes not only he would make void by his Authority all that he should do but also that such a man being bound with the bonds of Anathema and deprived of the name of Christian should be lodged altogether with the Devil * Pope John the 8. having excommunicated Count Lambert and Count Adalbert and some others which had ill entreated him in Italy came into France Anno 870 where he called a Synod at Troyes consisting of the Bishops of that Kingdom to desire their Consent to that Excommunication which they accordingly granted him This is seen in the Epistle which Hinomarus Arch-Bishop of Rhemes writes to the said Adrian upon the said subject where he saith That both Ecclesiastical and Secular men being Assembled at Rhemes would say in a reproachful way That never any such Mandate was sent from that See to any of the Kings Predecessors Adding That the Bishops of Rome had never withdrawn themselves from the obedience of Heretical Emperours Wherefore said they we will not believe that we cannot otherwise attain to the Kingdom of Heaven but by receiving him for a Temporal King whom this Apostolical Lord recommendeth to us It was in this ninth Age that the Decretals were forged by Riculphus Bishop of Mentz as is supposed who published them under a false Title And at that time and a long time after the arch-Arch-Bishops of Mentz were the first promoters of Papal Authority in Germany And nothing hath helped more to the establishment of the Papal Empire than these Epistles which have for a long time been held for Oracles in the West by them the Father of lies hath wrought very powerfully These Decretals were forged under the Reign of Charlemagne and of his Son Lewes the Gentle being unknown before and never mentioned in all Antiquity bearing on the front the name of Isidorus Peccator and in some Copies Isidorus Mercator a man unknown and a name forged at will That Collection of Decretals began to go about in France in the beginning of the Reign of Charles the Bald. The first that used them was Hinckmar Bishop of Laon upon this occasion Hinckmar Arch-Bishop of Rhemes had promoted to the Bishoprick of Laon another Hinckmar his Nephew who having excommunicated his Clergy and hindered the Divine Service and the Baptism of Children in his own Bishoprick and committed divers crimes and excesses was cited to appear before his Unckle who was his Metropolitan But he would not obey nor appear Upon that Hinckmar of Rhemes disanulled all the Acts of Hinckmar of Laon and would synodically proceed against him
Hereupon Charles the Bald Convocated a Council in France at Acciniacum consisting of ten Bishops the Bishops of Lions Vason and Triers were Chief Presidents in the Council Hinckmarus Bishop of Rhemes proposed unto the Council fifty Canons which he desired to be read in the Synod Hinckmar of Laon to defend himself brought forth the Collection of the Decretals of the ancient Popes made by Isidorus where by the Popes Decrees such causes are reserved to the Apostolick See Hinckmar of Rhemes being not learned enough to know the forgery of the Author of these Decretals and not daring to reject them openly brought divers things to invalid their Authority He said that Hinckmar of Laon was mistaken if he thought that he was the only man that had those Epistles that the Countrey was full of them and that Riculfus Bishop of Mentz had published the Book of Epistles collected by Isidorus which was brought to him out of Spain Hinckmar also to defend himself against those Epistles said that they had been good in their time but that the Fathers Assembled in Council had altered those things and made Canons of greater Authority which are to remain perpetually and that those Decretals were never put in among the Canons of the Church That strife between the two Hinckmars happened Anno 870. The Synod forenamed accused Hinckmar Bishop of Laon of petulancy and compelled him to subscribe obedience to King Charles and to his Metropolitan He was also deprived of his Office and both his eyes were thrust out But Pope John IX Hist Magdeb. Cent. 9. cap. 9. under the Reign of Charles the Gross restored him to his Office again being the more affectioned to him because he had appealed from his own Bishop and from a Decree of a Synod in his own Countrey to be judged by the Chair of Rome Pope Nicholas bestirred himself with violence against Hinckmar of Rhemes complaining that he despised the Decretals collected by Isidorus Hinckmar resisted him stifly neither did he ever suffer the causes which he had judged to be revised at Rome nor any man that had been deposed by the Synods of France to be restored by the Pope And all his life time he maintained with great constancy so much liberty as remained to the Gallican Church which liberty suffered by his death a great diminution The Popes durst not touch him because he was the King's Unckle Baronius writing of this Hinckmar of Rhemes notably abuseth him for he saith That upon the testimony of Fredoard Hinckmar had obtained of Pope Leo IV by the mediation of the Emperour Lothary a Pallium or Archiepiscopal Cloak with a privilege to use it every day But Hinckmar himself in the Book of the fifty five Chapters saith the contrary speaking in this manner Leo IV and Benedictus did confer upon me some privileges which I did not ask for For the privileges which are conferred upon every Metropolitan by the sacred Canons are sufficient for me It was a generous part of Hinckmar to declare that he had no need of the Pope's privileges and that he held his dignity from the Canons not from the Roman Prelate As for the writings of this Hinckmar there are his Opuscula Epistolae Admonitio de potestate Regia Pontificia We find this character given of him Fuit vir doctus pietatis studiosus sub Carolo secundo Lu◠vici pii filio circa 870 Domini annum tametsi magni Caroli tempora adolescens attigerit Is dum corrigere vitia morbosque Clericorum conatus est multum molestiarum a perditae vitae Clero eorumque ad Papam appellationibus imo à Papis ipsis sustinuit Illyr Catal. Test verit lib. 9. In this Century Claudius Bishop of Turin was defamed as an Heretick by Theodomire an Abbot Petries Church-Hist Cent. 9. who did accuse him unto the Pope He wrote his own Apology that it might appear wherefore he was accused and to shew how Godly men have been traduced from time to time Agobard Bishop of Lions took part with Lotharius against Lewes his Father and therefore was deposed after their reconciliation he was restored and being a man of wisdom and knowledge was employed about the great Affairs of the Kingdom His Works were printed at Paris Anno 1605. from which Impression these passages are extracted pag. 52. There is one immovable Foundation one Rock of Faith which Peter confesseth Thou art the Son of the Living God And pag. 128 The uncleanness of our time deserves a fountain of tears when so ungodly a custom is become so frequent that there is none almost aspiring to temporal honour who hath not a Priest at home not whom he obeyeth but of whom he exacteth all manner of obedience incessently not in Divine but in worldly things so that many of them do serve at Table or mix wine and lead dogs feed horses or attend Husbandry neither regard they what manner of Clerks these be but only that they may have Priests of their own and so they leave Churches and Sermons and publick Service it is clear that they seek them not for honour of Religion because they have them not in honour and speak disdainfully of them He is large against the worship of Images Bellarm. de scriptorib Eccles Sect. 9. Bellarmine saith that Jonas and other Bishops of France in that Age were overtaken with Agobard's errour By the Jesuites confession then many Bishops of France were against the present errours of Rome Catal. Test verit Lib. 10. Then Angelom a Monk of Luxovia a man of great reading at the entreaty of Drogo wrote many Books Druthmarus of Aquitain wrote some things upon the Evangelists Then Raban Magnentius otherwise sirnamed Maurus was famous in the University of Paris Trithem Catal. illustr viror for Poesie Rhetorick Astronomy Philosophy and Theology unto whom neither Germany nor Italy brought forth an equal saith Trithemius He became Abbot of Fulda where he was born and there he wrote Commentaries on all the Books of the Bible He was sometime Scholar to Alcuinus His Monks were offended that he did so much study the Scriptures and did no better attend their Revenues therefore after 24 years he left the Abby they besought him to return but he would not He abode with Lewes the Emperour until Orgar Bishop of Mentz died and then succeeded Thomas Walden in the Acts of Pope Martin V. reckoned him and Herebald or Reginbald Bishop of Auxerre among Hereticks because they favoured Bertram At that time there was much debate about the Doctrine of Predestination Gotteschalk by birth a Franck or Belgick Avent Lib. 4. Annal. Bojor as Aventinus calleth him was Ordained a Priest by Rigbold Chorepiscopus in the vacancy of the See of Rhemes The forenamed Hinckmar writeth that he held these five Articles 1. God did before all Ages and e're he made any thing Hinckmar in Epist ad Eccles Lugdun predestinate unto salvation whom he would and
also unto destruction whom he would 2. That they who are predestinated unto destruction cannot be saved 3. That whereas the Apostle saith God willeth that all men be saved he meaneth only all them who shall be saved 4. That Christ came not to save all men nor did he suffer for all men but only for them who shall be saved by the mystery of his passion 5. Since the first man fell of his Free-will none of us can use Free-will to do good but only to do evil Remigius Bishop of Lions in the name of the Church of Lions defended these five Articles whereupon Hinckmar wrote unto Pope Nicholas against Gotteschalk and calleth these Articles the heresie of the Predestinarians which was overthrown in Africk and afterwards in France by Authority of Pope Celestine When Gotteschalk returned from Italy Raban Bishop of Mentz summoned him to a Synod and when he could not perswade him to change his mind he wrote unto Hinckmar and others Hinckmar summoned Gotteschalk unto a Synod of twelve Bishops and some Priests and Abbots in Carisiac on Isara where four Articles were enacted against him He was condemned of Heresie and contumacy he was whipt with rods Vid. Petries Ch. Hist Cent. 9. and cast into prison The Church of Lions after sight of these four Articles sent forth their censure of them Remigius was a man of a most holy Conversation and very learned as appeareth by the Comments which he wrote upon the Old and New Testaments At this time was published a Commentary on the thirteen Epistles of the Apostle St. Paul which was lately printed at Rome under the name of Remigius of Rhemes Lupus Abbot of the Monastery of Ferraria by the water Lupa running into Sein at the same time wrote several Epistles unto King Lewes and to Hinckmar which were printed at Paris Anno 1588. He comforteth his Master Einhard after the death of his Wife He speaks honourably of Marriage and comfortably of the estate of the Godly after this life without any mention of purgatory or Mass for the defunct At the same time also was a question of the presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament Charles the Bald King of France commanded Bertram a Priest at Corbey to search and write what was the Doctrine of the Fathers and Ancient Church in this Article Trithemius saith Bertram was singularly learned of an excellent eloquence and utterance pregnant in judgement and no less famous for holiness of life and wrote many excellent Treatises In obedience unto King Charles he compiled a Treatise De corpore sanguine Domini which is all inserted in Catal. Test verit lib. 10. This Book was forbidden to be read by order from the Roman Inquisition confirmed afterward by the Council of Trent Usher's Answ to the Jesuites challenge The Divines of Doway perceiving that the forbidding of that Book did not keep men from reading it but gave them rather occasion to seek more earnestly after it thought it better Bertram should be suffered to go abroad but handled in such sort as other ancient Writers that made against them were wont to be Bishop Ridley highly commends this Bertram Ridl Pres at coen Dom. Paschasius Rathbert Abbot of Corbey at the same time wrote a Book of the Eucharist Remigius Bishop of Auxerre flourished about the year 880 he wrote many Books He was called Doctor Sententiosus Charles the Bald died at Mantua Anno 879 being poisoned by Sedecias the Jew whom he employed for one of his Physicians leaving the Realm to his Son Lewes the second called the Stuttering Lewes King of Germany had vowed that he would take both Empire and Kingdom from Charles the Bald but was arrested with sickness at Frankford There he divided his Kingdom among his three Sons to Lewes he gave Saxony Turingia Frisia and the Provinces within them with the Title of East-France to Carloman he gave Bojaria Austria Bohemia and Moravia with the Title of King of Bavaria To Charles his third Son he gave Suevia Franconia with some parts of Lorain which he had taken after the death of Lotharius with the Title of King of Germany De Serres Hist Charles the Fat King of Germany strove for the Empire and was Crowned by the Romans Pope John would not consent and therefore was imprisoned he escaping goes into France and confirmeth Lewes the Stutterer He was courteously received by Lewes stays in France a whole year and there holds a Council at Troyes in Champagne The Pope was scarce gone but Lewes dieth having reigned only two years He had no lawful Children but two Bastards he left his Wife with Child The Queen was afterward delivered of a Son which was saluted King and called Charles During the minority of Charles Lewes and Carloman Brothers the two Bastards of Lewes the Stutterer are chosen by the States to Govern the Realm of France Lewes was defeated by the Normans and dies for grief Soon after his Death it is said that Carloman fell down and brake his neck Another Lewes succeedeth to these two Brethren but he quickly dyed Then the States called Charles the Gross King of Bavaria to this high Dignity He began his reign Anno 885 and reigned nine years His entrance was goodly but his end Tragical He was crowned King with promise to restore the Crown to the lawful Heir and to govern according to the will of the States He was Son to Lewes called Germanicus Son to Lewes the Gentle Being defeated by the Normans he yieldeth to a prejudicial peace and is much hated of the French At length the French and the Grrmans resolve to dispossess him The Germans made choice for their Emperour of Arnulph Son to Carloman the Son of Lewes the Gentle The French likewise reject this miserable Charles from the Regency of the Realm and call Eudes of Odon Duke of Anger 's named by the will of Lewes the Stutterer So this poor Prince is cast out both from Realm and Empire and remains naked without an house to shrowd himself in from this disgrace being banished from Court and driven into a poor Village of Suevia where he lived some days in extreme want without any means of his own or relief from any Man in the end he dyed neither pitied nor lamented of any in a corner unknown but to have been the Theatre of so extraordinary a Tragedy that one of the greatest Monarchs in the World should dye without House without Bread without Mourning and without Memory but the note of this end so prodigiously memorable Century X. CHarles the Third called the Simple was Crowned in the Year 902. Eudes governing with him eight Years from his Coronation Charles remaining alone after the Death of his Regent Reigned 27 Years His Reign was miserable throughout Now begins a notable league against the King Robert Duke of Anjou becomes the Head of this League accompanied with many great Men of France This Robert was Governour by the Death of his
his race as an out-cast of great Charlemagne Lewes V. reigned one year only and dyed without Heir leaving his place void in troubles of State and confusion of times horribly corrupted unto the House of Hugh le grand Earl of Paris God had prepared the means both for the Father to lay the foundation and for his Son Hugh Capet appointed for the Regal Dignity to finish this goodly building Now cometh in the third race of the Kings of France called Capets of the name of Hugh Capet Charles Duke of Lorrain was first Prince of the Blood-royal he was Son to Lewes IV. Brother to Lothair Unckle to Lewes V. the last King to whom the fundamental Laws of France did adjudge the Crown But Hugh Capet was chosen King by the French assembled in Parliament and Charles Duke of Lorrain was rejected from the Crown This change happened in July Anno 987. This new King was sirnamed Capet or Capitosus either for that he had a great Head or that being young he was accustomed to catch at his Companions caps as a presage of that he should do unto Kings Otho and Henry two other Sons of Hugh le grand were Dukes of Burgundy one after another his other Sons were advanced to Ecclesiastical Dignities the one Arch-Bishop of Tholouse the other of Rovan and another dyed young Charles of Lorrain gathered an Army and entring France came to the City of Laon within which City he by the Treason of Anselm the Bishop of that City was taken and delivered with his Wife and Children into the hands of his Enemies Hugh being crowned King causeth his Son Robert to be crowned King at Rhemes Anno 990. three years after his Father's election Hugh decreeth that the elder Son should reign alone among his Brethren and suppresseth the Majors of the Palace He likewise decreed that hereafter Bastards should not be only rejected from the Crown but also from the sir-name of France the which before was allowed them To him likewise are due the goodly Ordinances of Justice Paris was the chief place of Hugh's residence which City was greatly augmented and beautified in his Reign Arnulph Bastard to Lothair was the only Man which had favoured Charles of Lorrain against Hugh Capet This Man was both perverse and disloyal having deceived both Charles of Lorrain and Hugh Capet who had given him the Arch-bishoprick of Rovan in recompence of the service he promised him against Charles to whom notwithstanding contrary to his Faith he gave means to seize upon the Cities of Rhemes Laon and Soissons Hugh therefore resolves to suppress Arnulph but respecting his quality he assembled a National Council of the French Church in the City of Rhemes This Assembly deposed Arnulph as guilty of Treachery and a troubler of the publick quiet and they substitute Gilbert in his place who had been School-master unto Robert Afterwards Hugh confines him to Orleans with Charles of Lorrain there to end his days in rest The Prelates of France in this Synod made a Declaration that the Popes have nothing to do to usurp the power and authority of Kings Arnalt Bishop of Orleans maintained in that Synod that the Popes have no power at all over the Bishops of France so as to have any cognizance of Cases belonging to them and he declaimed most stoutly against the avarice and corruption of the Court of Rome Seguin Arch-Bishop of Sens was sent also to Orleans to be imprisoned because he consented not freely to the deposition of Arnulph Pope John 12. being displeased with Hugh for that he had not appealed to him for his confirmation in this new Royalty disanulleth this Decree of the Council of Rhemes excommunicates the Bishops which had assisted restores Arnulph and deprives Gilbert of the Arch-bishoprick of Rovan and to temper this sharp and rough proceeding with some lenity he doth invest Gilbert with the Arch-bishoprick of Ravenna And this was a means to raise him to the dignity of Pope Acta Synodi Rhemensis Anno 990. The Acts of this Council of Rhemes under Hugh Capet have these words Poor Rome What clear lights of Fathers hast thou brought forth in the time of our Predecessors What horrible darkness hast thou poured out upon our times which will redound to our shame and dishonour in future Ages The Pope threatens his curse against Hugh and his Son Robert The King returned Answer that he had done nothing in contempt but that he was willing to justifie what He or his Bishops had done if it pleased the Pope to meet him at Gratianople on the Frontiers of Italy and France or if rather he would come into France he promised to receive him with the highest honour The Pope sent his Legates into France Gerebert Arch-Bishop of Rhemes sent an Epistle unto Seguin forementioned who was said to favour the deposed Arnulph the tenour whereof is Morn in Myst iniqu It became your worthiness to eschew the craftiness of deceitful men and to hear the voice of the Lord saying Here is Christ Hist Magdeb. in Actis Synodi or there is Christ follow not One is said to be in Rome who justifieth those things which ye condemn and condemneth those things which ye think just God saith If thy Brother offend against thee go and rebuke him How then say some that in the deposition of Arnulph we should have waited the determination of the Romish Bishop can they say that the Judgement of the Bishop of Rome is greater than the Judgement of God But the Prince of the Apostles saith We must obey God rather than Man St. Paul also cryeth If any Man Preach unto you otherwise than what you have received although he were an Angel from Heaven let him be accursed Because Pope Marcellinus offered Incense unto Idols should therefore all Bishops offer Incense I say boldly that if the Bishop of Rome himself sin against a Brother and being often admonished will not hear the Church even the Roman Bishop according to the command of Christ should be esteemed as an Heathen and a Publican for the highest rise hath the lowest fall And if he think us unworthy of him because none of us assenteth to him when he judgeth contrary to the Gospel he cannot therefore separate us from the Communion of Christ seeing even a Presbyter unless he confess or be convict should not be removed from his Office c. The Priviledges of St. Peter saith Leo the Great are not where Judgement is not exercised according to Righteousness Wherefore occasion should not be given unto these our envyers that the Priesthood which is one every where as the Catholick Church is one should be subject unto one Man that if he be corrupt with Money favour fear or ignorance none can be a Priest except whom these virtues recommend unto him Let the Law of the Catholick Church be common Farewel and suspend not your selves from the sacred Mysteries Pope John had intelligence of this Letter and summoned the
that all Christians should shun the company of those accursed persons Hildebert Arch-Bishop of Tours lived under Philip the first King of France At that time the Kings of France furnished the Churches with Pastors after the death of the Incumbent Then Hildebert approved the presentation made by the King to a certain Bishoprick of his Realm commending him in this manner I congratulate with vertue Review of the Counc of Trent p 295. that hath her reward under our King He hath found that the power of a King shines more bright by gifts and liberality than by the Scepter and that it is not sufficient for a Prince to stir up his Subjects to well-doing by Examples unless they be also provoked by rewards Hence it is that your good manners were honoured by a great Priesthood The disposition of the King was sound and prudent considering it could not better provide for the Church than by placing you in it At this time Ivo Arch-Bishop of Chartres in France after he was elected by the Clergy was presented to the same King Philip the first and received his Investiture and pastoral staff from him upon the refusal of the Arch-Bishop of Sens he was consecrated by the Pope whereat the said Arch-Bishop was highly offended insomuch that He with other Bishops at the Synod of Estampes were upon the point of revoking the said consecration made by the Pope as prejudicial to the King 's Authority See here what the same Bishop saith of it in a Letter unto Pope Vrban Moreover I give your Holiness to wit Ivo Epist 12. that the Arch-Bishop of Sens being infatuated by the Counsel of the Bishop of Paris having summoned the said Bishop of Paris and two others of the same humour viz. he of Meaux and He of Troyes did very indiscreetly accuse me this present Year because of the consecration which I had received from you saying that I had offended against the King's Majesty by attempting to receive my consecration from the See Apostolick This Vrban the second Ivo Epist 134. forbade the Bishops of France to Crown King Philip whom he had excommunicated but they were readier to obey their King 's commands than his prohibition In the Council of Clermont in France saith Matthew Paris held Anno 1094. Math. Paris in Will 2. Pope Vrban excommunicated Philip King of France And another English Authour saith Will. Malmsb. li. 4. In this Council the Pope excommunicated King Philip of France and all such as should call him their King or their Lord and which should obey him or speak unto him In like manner Ivo Bishop of Chartres speaks of them both By reason of this accusation King Philip was excommunicated by Pope Vrban at the Council of Clermont and having resumed the same Wife after he was divorsed from her he was afterwards excommunicated at the Council of Poictiers by the two Cardinals John and Bennet Notwithstanding which Excommunication he was Crowned by the Arch-Bishop of Tours in a full Assembly of other Bishops Know you therefore saith the same Bishop of Chartres in a Letter of his to Pope Vrban that contrary to the prohibition of your Legate Ivo Epist 28. ad Urban secund the Arch-Bishop of Tours hath set the Crown upon the Head of the King He speaks afterwards of the Election of a Bishop made at the same time by those who were assembled with the said Arch-Bishop In another Epistle written to the same Vrban he sheweth him how Philip had sent Ambassadours unto him with prayers in one hand and threats in the other such as these That the King and Kingdom would relinquish their obedience to him unless he did restore the King unto his Crown and absolve him from the sentence of Excommunication And afterwards he advertiseth him How the Arch-Bishop of Rhemes Sens and Tours had by injunction from the King appointed their suffragan Bishops to meet at Troyes the first Sunday after All-Saints day after he should have returned his Answer Whence we collect two things 1. That the Bishops of France did not cease to acknowledge their King nor to obey him and communicate with him notwithstanding the prohibition from the Council of Clermont 2. That they were very ready to put in Execution those threats which the Ambassadours went to make unto the Pope in case he did not condescend unto the King's pleasure The same Ivo complains of the Pope's Legate because he had chosen the City of Bloyes there to decide the cause of the Clergy of Chartres who could not repair thither with safety by reason of the populousness of that City The same Bishop having a controversie with some of his Clergy depending before the Arch-Bishop of Sens his Metropolitan intreats him to appoint a place for Judgement whither they might go and come in safety The Legate fore-mentioned having appointed a Council consisting of French Bishops to meet at Sens for the absolution of King Philip the first from the Excommunication which was darted out against him by the Pope by reason of his unlawful marriage he gives him notice that he might have done better to have proceeded to that absolution in another place than Sens Ivo Epist 166. that so every one might have had means to speak his opinion freely Idem Epist 116. The same Bishop of Chartres continuing his devotion to Pope Vrban upon the Election of an Arch-Bishop of Rhemes assureth the Pope that one was chosen who was very zealous for the See Apostolick adding afterwards No whow necessary is it for the Church of Rome to place in that See a Minister which is devout and affectionate unto her it is not for me to inform your Wisdom which knows very well that this See wears the Royal Diadem and serves for a pattern to all other Churches of France either of Ruine or Resurrection This Ivo of Chartres although he had received his Investiture from King Philip yet inasmuch as he had gotten his confirmation from Pope Vrban he was always affectionate to him and the Roman See even to the prejudice of the King and Kingdom as may be collected from some of his Epistles Lup. Epist 40. On the contrary because Lupus had gotten the Abbey of St. Peter de Ferriers in the Diocess of Sens by the donation of Charles the bald he was always loyal and even brags of it in one of his Epistles It happened that there came a French Pilgrim to Jerusalem called Peter an Hermit Tho. Fuller Hist of the holy War lib. 1. ca. 8. born at Amiens in France one of a contemptible person yet a man of a quick apprehension and eloquent Tongue and one that was counted very Religious With him Simon the Patriarch of Jerusalem often treated concerning the present miseries of the Christians under the Turks what hope of amendment and how the matter might be secretly contrived that the Princes in Europe might assist and relieve them Peter moved with the Patriarch 's perswasions the
Engine had his Head parted from his body Some conceived they saw God's finger in the Womans hand that because the greater part of his cruelty lighted on the weaker Sex for he had buried the Lady La Vaur alive respecting neither her Sex nor Nobility a Woman was chosen out to be his Executioner He dyed even then when the Pope and three Councils of Vaur Lateran and Montpelier had pronounced him Son Servant favourite of the Faith the invincible defender thereof Among other of his stiles he was Earl of Leicester in England and Father to Simon Montfort the Cataline of this Kingdom See Camden in Leicester-shire also in Worcester-shire who under pretence of curing this Land of some grievances had killed it with his Physick had he not been killed himself in the battle of Evesham in the Reign of King Henry the third Here ended the storm of open War against the Albigenses though some great drops fell afterward And the Pope grew sensible of many mischiefs in prosecuting this people with the Holy War Perin de Albigensib li. 2. ca. 4. Three hundred thousand of these croised Pilgrims lost their lives in this expedition within the space of fifteen years so that there was neither City nor Village in France but by reason hereof had Widows and Orphans cursing this expedition The Pope therefore now resolves upon a privater way namely to prosecute them by way of Inquisition The chief promoter of that War was Dominick the Authour of the Order of the Dominicans His Mother being with child of him dreamed that she had a dog vomiting fire in her Womb. Du. Moul. Contr Perron l. 7. This ignivomus Cur as one calleth him did bark at and deeply bite the poor Albigenses who put above two hundred thousand of them to death Almerick for his laziness was deposed by the Pope and John Bren was made King of Jerusalem In the beginning of his Reign this accident fell out In France a Boy for his years went about singing in his own Tongue Jesus Lord repair our loss Restore to us thy Holy Cross Numberless Children ran after him and followed the same tune their Captain and chanter did set them No bolts no bars no fear of Fathers nor love of Mothers could hold them back but they would to the Holy Land to work wonders there but this merry musick had a sad close all either perishing on Land Math. Paris p. 324. or being drown'd by Sea Mathew Paris saith it was done by the instinct of the Devil King Lewes VIII having compounded with Almery the Son of Simon Earl of Montfort for Languedoc resolves to unite this rich Province to the Crown To this end he levies a great Army fortified with cruel Edicts against the Albigenses as Hereticks and Rebels Count Reymund submits himself to Pope Honorius and yieldeth to Lewes and perswades the Earl of Cominges to the like obedience Thus both of them abandon the people and go to Rome leaving the poor Albigenses to the mercy of Lewes who presently subdues all Languedoc and Provence The House of Montlor one of the greatest in the County of Vivaret having followed the Albigenses party makes his peace by means of the Town of Argentiere given to the Bishop of Viviers who enjoyeth it to this day Many Families were made desolate These poor miserable people were dispersed here and there and such as remained in the Country were forced to acknowledge the Pope's Authority Lewes ordered the Marshal Foy of the house of Mirepois to command his Forces leaving the Lord of Beaujeu for Governour and Lieutenant-General of Languedoc All this mischief was contrived by the Pope who had sent his Legat into France Fox Act. monum Vol. 1. to summon a Council at Biture whither the King with six Arch-Bishops and the Bishops and Suffragans of nine Provinces repaired to the number of an hundred besides the Abbots Priors and Proctors of all the Covents of France Having dispatch'd the business of Earl Reymund and the Albigenses the event whereof hath been before declared Romanus the Pope's Legate gave leave to all Proctors of Covents and Chapters to return home only retaining with him the Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots to whom he opened another part of his Commission which was to obtain of every Cathedral Church two Prebend-ships one for the Bishop the other for the Chapter And in Monasteries also after the like sort where the Abbot and Covent had divers and several portions to require two Churches one for the Abbot the other for the Covent keeping this proportion that how much should suffice for the living of one Monk so much the whole Covent should find for their part and as much the Abbot for his likewise The Clergy of France answered that the thing he enterprized could not be brought to effect without great offence taken and inestimable damage to the Church of France In conclusion when the matter came to debating with the Legat the objections of the inferiour Clergy were these following 1. They alledged the great damages and expences Math. Paris which they were like to sustain thereby by reason of the continual procurators of the Pope which in every Diocess must live not of their own but must be sustained upon the charges of the Cathredral Churches and other Churches also and many times they being but procurators will be found as Legats 2. By that means they said great perturbations might ensue to the Covents and Chapters of Cathedral Churches in their elections Forasmuch as the Pope's Agents and Factors being in every Cathedral Church and Chapter-house perchance the Pope would command him in his person to be present at their elections and so might trouble the same by delaying and deferring till it might fall to the Court of Rome to give and so should be placed more of the Pope's Clientele in the Churches of France than of the proper Inhabitants of the Land 3. By this means they affirmed that all they in the Court of Rome should be richer and receive more for their proportion than the King of the Realm by means whereof the Court of Rome would delay and drive off great suits and would scarce take any pains with small causes Thus would Justice be turned aside and poor suitors should dye at the gates of Rome and for the better speeding of their causes they thought seeing it was meet they should have friends in the Court of Rome by keeping them needy their gifts might be the sweeter and their causes sooner dispatched 4. Seeing it is impossible that the Fountain of greedy desires should be stopped it was to be feared that either they would do that by others which they were wont to do by themselves or else they should be enforced to give greater rewards than before for small gifts with great Rich Men are little regarded 5. Whereas the removing away the slander was alledged which goeth on the Court of Rome by this means rather the contrary were to be
and gave courage to their Commanders Philip seeing his Errour raiseth another Army of 40000 men and puts them under the command of Robert Earl of Artois accompanied with the Constable of France and many other great Personages Century XIV THe Armies forementioned meet near unto the Town of Courtray in a place called Groeming The French were defeated Of this great Army there hardly escaped three hundred not one Commander escaped and very few Noble-men There were taken Robert Earl of Artois General of the Army the Constable of France James of Chastillon Governour of Flanders John King of Majorca Godfrey of Brabant and his Son the Lord of Viezon the Earls of Ewe la March Damartin Aumale Auge Tankerville and many other great Personages Twelve hundred Gentlemen were slain by this enraged Multitude All Flanders now revolted from the French This happened in the Year 1302. on July 11. John of Namour is their Governour in the absence of their imprisoned Earl All the threats of the King of England and the Emperour now vanished away only Pope Boniface had Excommunicated King Philip and interdicted his Realm in the hottest of these Flemmish affairs upon this occasion The Christians Estate was lamentable in the East the Tartarians encreased daily The Pope Anno 1301. sent Boniface Bishop of Apamea unto King Philip requiring him to go into the Holy Land When the Bishop saw no appearance of obedience he threatned the King that the Pope would deprive him of his Kingdom Whereupon the Bishop being charged of Arrogancy and Treason and cast into Prison the Pope sends to him again one Peter a Roman born Arch-Bishop of Narbon commanding him to set the Bishop at liberty and to take a Voyage against the Infidels and not to meddle with the Tenths of the Clergy Philip answered his troubles at home hindred him from going into the East and constrained him to impose a Subsidy upon the Clergy and he was willing to dismiss the Bishop The Arch-Bishop replyed that he was ignorant of the Pope's Authority who was not only the Father of Christian Souls but also Soveraign Lord in Temporal things And therefore by that Authority he did excommunicate him declaring him unworthy to reign and his Realm forfeited to the Pope to invest whom he pleased Moreover he brought another Bull directed to the Prelates and Noblemen of France whereby he acquitted all French-men and dispensed with them as to their Oath of Allegiance to Philip. And cited all the Prelates and Divines of the French Church to appear before him at Rome disanulling all indulgences and priviledges granted to the French by any Popes his predecessours The Earl of Artois disdaining this affront takes the Bull and casts it into the fire Philip was so born out by the Peers of France that when he demanded their advice how he should demean himself and whether he should put up that wrong they answered That they were ready not only to spend their goods which they there wholly offered unto him for that end but also to expose their persons even to death for him not refusing any torments Adding further and that more plainly by word of mouth That if the King which God forbid would suffer it or connive at it yet for their parts they would never endure it Mr. John Tillet Bishop of Paris speaking of this Fact in his French Chronicle The impudence of this man saith he of Boniface was wonderful who durst affirm that the Realm of France was a Benefice of the Papal Majesty But I think them saith he the greater fools who dispute the point whether the Pope hath this power or no he put our France under an Interdict for the time but the Bishops took the King's part King Philip appealed from the usurpations and insolencies of Boniface VIII to the See Apostolick then vacant as he said and to a future Council as Platina saith in his Life Platina in Bonifac 8. The States of France disanulled Boniface's excommunication Boniface by a glosing Letter of his written unto the Bishops endeavoureth to make them approve his unjust proceedings against King Philip where he saith among other things Those who hold that Temporal matters are not subject to spiritual do not they go about to make two Princes He complains also of the Parliament holden at Paris where it was enacted saith he by under-hand and begged voices that none should appear before him upon the summons of the See Apostolick Math. Westm li. 2. sub Ann. 301. He complains also of the Report which was made to that Assembly by Mr. Peter Flotte whom he calleth Belial half blind in body and quite in understanding This was the man who being sent in Embassage to him by King Philip to that saying of his we have both the one power and the other made this reply in behalf of his Master yours is verbal but ours is real This Pope will have it necessary to salvation to believe that all the faithful people of Christ are subject to the Pope of Rome and that he hath both the swords and that he judgeth all men and is judged of none This Boniface was the Authour of the sixth book of the Decretals King Philip sends back the Pope's two Nuncio's to Rome and forbids the Prelates of France to go or send any Money to Rome This being done Philip raiseth new forces to return into Flanders and subdueth the Flemmings but by the instance of John Duke of Brabant he makes peace with them upon strict conditions During this Treaty Guy Earl of Flanders and his Daughter do both dye Robert William and Guy Brethren the Sons of the Earl Guy of Flanders were freed with all the Prisoners Isabel the Daughter of Philip is married to Edward the second King of England This War of Flanders had wasted above three hundred thousand French-men in eleven years during the which it continued Adolph was deposed from the Empire by a Decree of the Electors and Albert of Austria was seated in his place who pursuing him with War slew him with his own hand in an encounter near unto Spire Albert being chosen and installed Emperour Boniface presently seeks to win him against King Philip. He proclaims him Emperour and invests him King of the Realm of France giving him both the Title and Arms and taking occasion to sow division in the heart of the Realm by means of the Clergy who by reason of their Revenues had great power in the State He also wrote Letters to Philip in this manner Boniface Bishop Servant of the Servants of God to Philip King of French-men Fear God and observe his Commandmens We Will thee to understand that thou art subject unto us both in Spiritual things and in Temporal and that it belongeth not to Thee to give any Prebend or Benefice If thou hast the keeping of any of them being vacant thou must reserve the profits of them to the Successours If Thou hast given any we judge thy gift to be void and do revoke
was a great lover of the King of France he was chosen by common consent and a Courier sent post to him who was then at his Bishoprick to know what name he would carry he replyed he would not change the name he was baptized with which was Clement and so he was published accordingly to the people and called Clement the fifth After publication in the usual place the Cardinals dispatched several messengers to the new Pope to entreat him to hasten his Journey into Italy Il. Cardinalismo p. 234. But the Pope being instructed by the King of France made answer that the Flock was to follow the Shepherd and not the Shepherd the Flock commanding the Cardinals immediately to repair to him in France and particularly in the City of Poictiers as they also did This Clement was the first of seven French Popes which held the See one after another unto Vrban VI. under whom the Italians recovered it again with much trouble These seven Popes were Clement V. John XXII Benedict XII Clement VI. Innocent VI. Vrban V. Gregory XI Clement V. being chosen Pope he came to Lyons where King Philip received him accompanied with the Kings of England and Arragon in great pomp The Pope was on Horseback and the King with his two Brethren on Foot holding the Reigns of his Horse He was crowned in the Temple of St. Justus where they had built a great Theatre for so goodly a spectacle But the press of people was so great that the Scaffold brake so that the multitude sell one upon another The Pope King Princes and Noble-men were all on an heap and the Scaffold fastned to an old Wall pulled it down The King was hurt in the Head the Pope in the Foot and the Duke of Britain slain with many Noble-men and multitudes of the common people that were smothered under these ruines The Pope's Crown fell from his Head into the press where he lost a Carbuncle valued at six thousand florins of Gold Thus this feast gave no cause of joy but was famous to posterity by this notable accident and by the translation of the Pope's seat from Rome to Avignon Anno 1305. unto the year 1379. under Vrban VI. viz. the space of seventy four years This unlucky pomp being ended Clement created many French Cardinals and not one Italian and removed the Court presently to Avignon He avouched openly to keep a Concubine the Daughter of Count de Fuxa he sent three Cardinals with Senatorial power to govern Rome and Italy He ordained that none should use the Title or exercise the power of Emperour until he were confirmed by the Pope In the year 1307. a Parliament was summoned against Pope Clement by King Philip touching temporal jurisdiction belonging to Princes and Ecclesiastical belonging to the Church Forasmuch as Pope Clement V. extolled himself above all Princes as in other Countries so also in France he extended his usurped jurisdiction above the Princely Authority of the King claiming to himself full government of both the States as well Secular as Ecclesiastical the King therefore directeth his Letters mandatory to the Prelates and Barons of the Realm of France to assemble themselves together at Paris in the Year afore-mentioned in the beginning of December At the day specified in those Letters the Prelates and Clergy assembled themselves before the King at his palace in Paris Fox Act Monum li. 2. p. 461. 462. where after due reverence done unto the King there sitting in his own person with his Barons and Council about him a certain wise and noble Lord Peter de Cugneriis one of the King's Council stands up and makes an Oration before the Parliament in the King's behalf His Oration is divided into two parts 1. He sheweth that obedience and reverence is due unto the King 2. That there ought to be a difference betwixt the jurisdiction of the Clergy and Laity so that spiritual matters should be defined and ordered by the Prelates and spiritual men and Temporal causes ruled and determined by the King his Barons and Temporal men All which he proved by many reasons both of Fact and Law Articles against the Clergy of France His Oration being ended he repeated certain words in the French Tongue which imported that the King's Will and pleasure was in some points to renew the Temporal State and jurisdiction and therewith he exhibited a certain Bill in French whereof also he gave a Copy to the Prelates containing sixty five Articles which may be read at large in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Vol. 1. p. 462. 463. 464. 465. After he had spoken the Prelates required to have time to answer thereunto whereupon the Friday next ensuing was appointed for the same on the which day the Bishop Edven and the Arch-Bishop of Senon Elect in the name of the whole Clergy answered for them all be-before the King holding his Parliament on that day at Vicenas They endeavour to prove that both the Temporal and Spiritual jurisdictions are compatible notwithstanding the distinction of them one from the other Then they proâ—â—â—d to prove that a person Ecclesiastical which hath Jurisdiction Spiritual may also have Temporal jurisdiction and that the Jurisdictioâ— Temporal may be in an Ecclesiastical person they alledge for this the example of Melchisedeck who was both King and Priest and of Samuel who was both Priest and Prophet and for a long time appointed Judge over the people in Temporal matters They assert also that Christ by his humane nature had both powers shewing that he was a Priest after the order of Melchisedeck and that he had both in his vesture and on his Thigh written King of Kings and Lord of Lords Many other places they cite out of the new Testament Then they offer to prove it by the Civil Law and by reason and many places in the Canon Law they shew what priviledges of this nature had been granted to the Clergy by Charles the Great King of France by Lewes the second and by other Kings of France which priviledges they offered to shew Moreover they assert that whatsoever things be offered up to the Church and are converted to the dominion and property of the same be God's and appertain unto him forasmuch as they be said to be dedicated and sanctified by him But this jurisdiction which is diversly converted to the Dominion and property of the French Church is God's and therefore to be reserved to and for him They urge the King to consider that at what time he was crowned he sware only these things following 1. That he would defend and maintain the Canonical Law priviledge and Justice granted to the Bishops and the Church and as much as in him lay to enlarge and amplifie the same 2. Also that by his Arbitriment all Christian people at all times should keep the true peace of God and his Church 3. That he should forbid to all Nations all kinds of sacriledges spoilings and iniquities and that in
all kind of Judgements he should will and command equity and mercy 4. That throughout his whole Territory and jurisdiction he should labour to exterminate and cut off from the Church the noted Hereticks They argue also that by the possessions of the Church many Brethren and Kinsmen of the French Nobility be maintained Ergo such possessions are not to be grudged at And because a Bill of many Articles was exhibited whereof part did infringe the whole Ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the defence thereof they said they would stand to the death On the next Friday following being Decemb. 29. the Prelates assembled themselves again together at the King's Palace in Paris where the Lord Peter Bertrand Bishop of Eduen spake openly before the King sitting with his Counsellours and Barons about him In his speech he extolled the King's person and his miraculous attaining to the Crown of France adding that he ought to be the Champion and Defender of the Faith all which he proved in few words by many reasons and Authorities Afterwards he touched those propositions which were propounded by the aforesaid Lord Peter de Cugneriis He besought the King for his Souls health to maintain the rights and liberties of the Church desiring him to consider what commodities he daily receiveth by the Church and that his Church never failed him yet when he had need of the Laity shewing the dangers and examples of them who did to the contrary Further he entreated the King to weigh how entirely his Lord the Pope doth love his person and Realm After this in the said Session the aforesaid Bishop of Edven answered particularly to the Articles exhibited by the Lord Peter in writing to the King and Parliament Which because they touch more the subtilty of the Law and stiles of the Courts than are necessary to this our History and because I would not burthen this Treatise with them little profit being contained in them I have here purposely for brevities sake omitted them The next Friday after this the Prelates assembled at Vicenas before the King to hear their answer Where the aforesaid Peter de Cugneriis being Prolucutor for the King said that their King was to keep the rights of the Church and Prelates which they had by Law and by good aâ—d reasonable custom where between the first and second conclusion he went about to prove that the cognition of civil causes ought not to appertain to the Church for that such things were Temporal and ought to pertain to the Temporalty as Spiritual things to the Spiritualty And besides his other reasons he alledged the 86. Distinct declaring that for this intent the Clerks Crowns were first shaven in sign that they should be free from all worldliness and forsake all Temporal things He added that their Lord and King was ready to hear them who would instruct him of any custom and those customs which were good and reasonable he would observe The Bishop Edven answered for all the Prelates saying that the words of the Lord Peter engendred darkness and obscurity and might give occasion to the Temporal Lords to break and infringe the Rites and Customs of the Church As to that which was spoken concerning the shaving of the crown it was answered that the crown did betoken rule and excellency and the shaving did signifie that they ought not to heap up Temporal things so as to apply their hearts thereunto but that the Temporal things ought to be subject to them and not they to the Temporalty After divers other speeches the said Bishop concluded and besought the King that it would please his Grace to give them a more plain and comfortable Answer and that they might not go away sad and pensive out of his presence whereby occasion might be given to the Laity to impugn the Rites and Liberties of the Church In the end it was answered to them in the behalf of the King that his mind and intent was not to impugn the Customs of the Church The Sunday following the Bishops assembled themselves again before the King at Vicenas where the Bishop of Senon in the name of all the Prelates gave humble thanks for it and he besought that such Proclamations as were made to the prejudice of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction might be revoked and repealed Hereunto the King himself answered with his own mouth that they were not published at his commandement neither did he know of them nor ratifie them Moreover the Bishop proposed that those abuses which the Temporalty complained of should be so ordered and reformed that every man should be content therewith Finally he besought the King that he would give them a fuller and more comfortable answer Then answered the Lord Peter in the name of the King That if the Prelates and Bishops would see reformation of those things which were to be amended about which he would take respite betwixt this and Christmas next following his Majesty would innovate nothing in the mean time And if in the aforesaid space they would not correct and reform what was amiss his Majesty would appoint such order and remedy that should be acceptable both to God and his Subjects Then the Prelates had leave of the King to depart and went hoâ—â—e A brief recapitulation of Bishop Edven's answer with certain notes in answer to his Popish reasons may be read in the Acts and Monuments of the Church p. 476. 477. The Ecclesiastical Judges have since that time attempted to usurp this jurisdiction over the Laity in case of Adultery c. but the complaint which was made of it by Peter de Cugneriis In Libr. compos super facto Praelator on the behalf of the King's Judges which we may read at this day extant did put an end to that trouble And always whatsoever the Clergy attempted to meddle in such matters they have been prohibited by the Parliaments upon Appeals as from abuses which have been put in against their decrees Pope Clement had promised unto King Philip to abolish the memory of Pope Boniface VIII and to anull all his Acts but by advice of Cardinal Pratensis he delayed unto a general Council and this he summoned to be held at Vienna in France Naucler p. 872. and 878. where the King required from the Pope the performance of his promise The Council did acknowledge Boniface to have been a lawful Pope but they did declare all his Acts against the King to have been unjust and that none of them should be prejudicial to the King or to his Successours In this Council the Pope propounded the aid of the Christians in Syria the punishment of the Templars and the reformation of the Church Wars were proclaimed and Indulgences were offered in these words We Will that the punishment of Hell be no way laid upon him who is signed with the Cross granting also unto every signed person power to pull three or four Souls out of Purgatory at their pleasure Hereat the Divines of Paris were offended because it
that Council Witness the Bishop of Panormo in his advice touching the Council of Basil This decree concerneth the general Estate of the Church and the matters belong to a general Reformation which may be hindred by a dissolution as it was by the dissolution of the Council of Vienne Durand further said in that Council that the Court of Rome and the Colledge of Cardinals together with the Pope would have a certain allowance of all Bishops that are preferred there it seems very requisite that this were taken order with For this errour doth much corrupt the Catholick Church and the common people and the remedies which have been applyed hitherto are quite disregarded inasmuch as the contrary is usually practised in the Court of Rome as if it were no sin at all to commit Simony or as if it were not all one to give first and then take as first to take and then to give The thing was taken into consideration at the Council of Vienne so as they were once advised Joann Andr. in Ca. inter coer de offic ordinar to allow the twentyeth part of all livings in Christendom to the Pope and his Cardinals but at last it was shifted off without resolving upon any thing A Doctor of the Canon Law saith it was better for that because their covetousness is so unsatiable that if that had been resolved upon they would have taken both This Bishop of Mende mentioned another abuse fit to be reformed For after he had said that every Bishop's jurisdiction ought to be preserved entire to himself he addeth That Ecclesiastical Benefices which belong to the collation and disposal of Bishops are bestowed by the See Apostolick and others even before they be void and that not only in the Court of Rome but out of it howbeit the Bishops must give account of the cure and of those that execute them whose Consciences they are utterly ignorant of inasmuch as they are none of their preferring He would never have demanded the reformation hereof unless the abuse had been notorious Durand also perswaded the abolition of Fraternities for two reasons for their dissoluteness and for their conspiracy against superiours It would be also useful saith he that Fraternities Durand de modo celebr concilii part 2. tit 35. wherein both Clergy and Laity do nothing but pamper themselves with delicates live in dissoluteness and drunkenness and busie themselves in divers plots against their superiours were abolished Then speaking of dispensations he saith That the very Nerves of the Canons and decrees are broken by the dispensations which are made according to the stile of the Court of Rome Durand de modo celebr concil Tit. 4. part 1. that they are against the common good And citing the Authority of St. Hierom writing to Rusticus Bishop of Narbon he saith Since Avarice is increased in Churches as well as in the Roman Empire the Law is departed from the Priests and seeing from the Prophets He gives us the definition of a dispensation according to the Lawyers which he saith is a provident relaxation of the general Law countervailed by commodity or necessity that if it be otherwise used it is not a dispensation but a dissipation that the question is now about the staining of the state of the Church that those who dispense upon unnecessary causes do err Lastly for matter of dispensation he would have that observed which Pope Leo said viz. That there are some things which cannot be altered upon any occasion others which may be tempered in regard of the necessity of the times or consideration of Mens Ages but always with this Resolution when there is any doubt or obscurity to follow that which is not contrary to the Gospel nor repugnant to the Decrees of Holy Fathers Concerning Exemptions he further declareth in that Council That they give occasion to the persons exempted to live more dissolutely and more at their liberty That they take away the reverence and obedience which the exempted owe unto their Prelates and Ordinaries Durand de modo celebr concil general Tit. 5. part 1. and make them think themselves as good men as the Bishops and other their superiours That the correction and punishing of faults and excesses is hereby hindred and brought to nothing That they are prejudicial to the whole Church Catholick inasmuch as the exempted cannot be judged but by the Pope and he cannot do it by reason of his remoteness from them That they rob men of the means of doing many good works in Religion That they are cause of many scandals That those to whom they are granted abuse their priviledges That they draw after them the ruine of Monasteries being rather a burthen than an honour or profit to them The same Durand maintaineth that the Pope hath no power to grant such exemptions considering that they overthrow the general order of the Catholick Church which proceeds from God the Apostles the Holy Fathers and general Councils and which was approved and confirmed by Popes That by this order all the Monasteries Religious places Abbots Abbesses Monks and Nuns and all other Religious and Ecclesiastical persons are immediately subject to the government and guidance of Bishops within their Cities and Diocesses as unto their Superiours the Apostles Successours and such as have power and Authority over them Pasquier saith there were these remarkable excellencies in William Durand he was a great Divine a great Lawyer Pasqu Recherch de la France li. 9. ca. 35. Leigh's Treat of Relig. and Learning and an excellent Poet He put out a Book entituled Speculum Juris divided into three great Tomes As Lumbard among Divines is not usually quoted by his own name but by that of Master of the Sentences so among the Lawyers he is not quoted by the name of William Durand but he is stiled Speculator He delivered this Sentence about the Sacrament Verbum audimus modum Sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus I find this given as his Character Gulielmus Durandus omnis Divini Humanique juris Consultissimus Natione Vasco Gallus Episcopus Mimatensis Scripsit Speculum juris undè speculator est dictus Multa profectò utilia author monuit praecipuè de Reformatione Papae Cleri Illyr Catal. Test verit lib. 16. Lewes Hutin called Lewes X. began to reign over France Anno 1315. and dyed Anno 1316. He left his Wife with child who was delivered of a Son which lived but eight days Lewes left one Daughter named Jane which was Queen of Navarr and Countess Palatine of Brie and Champagn Philip V. called the long succeeded his Brother Lewes Anno 1316. He dyed in the sixth year of his Reign viz. Anno 1322. Pope Clement V. dyed Anno 1314. after whose death the Papacy stood void two years and three months The Cardinals at last did yield all their suffrages unto Jacob de Ossa Cardurcensis who afterwards went up into the Papal Chair and said I am Pope This
wont to be in Battles with the sound of Trumpets and noise of Horsemen When two Armies joyn some cursing that which Panormitan went about others allowing the same Then Nicholas Amici a Divine of Paris said Panormitan I appeal from this your conclusion to the judgement of the Council here present neither do I affirm any thing to be ratified which you have done as I am ready to prove if it shall seem good Many grave and Antient men exhorted Panormitan to give over his conclusion But neither the Fathers of the Council were determined to depart without a conclusion neither was Panormitan minded to alter his intent and purpose Then Thomas Rhedon a French Carmelite was a famous Preacher he preached in England France and Italy and in his Sermons said Rome is the mother of Abominations the Church hath great need of reformation Prelates should leave their pride and luxury and follow the example of Christ and his Apostles For such preaching he was burnt at Rome by the command of Pope Eugenius Mantuan de vit beat ca. ult Baptista Mantuan speaking of this man's Death saith Ah mad envy what doest thou Thou hast not killed him for his Soul cannot dye but by hurting his Earthy body he is the sooner partaker of Eternal Life Stephen Brulifer a Doctor of Sorbon and a Franciscan taught in his Lectures and maintained in disputes that neither the Pope nor Council can make any Statute or Article to bind the Conscience of a Christian Fascicul rerum expet fol. 164. that all their Authority consists in urging of obedience unto God's word in preaching it and administring the Sacraments which he hath instituted so that they bring nothing without his command He called justification by merits a devilish Doctrine since the Lamb of God was sacrificed and hath satisfied God's Justice for us The Doctors of Sorbon would not suffer him among them But he went to Diether Bishop of Mentz which had been deposed for speaking against the Avarice of Rome and was restored Antonius de Rosellis was a famous Reader of the Laws at that time and writ several Treatises against the Pope About this time lived also Wesselus Gantsfort a Master in the University of Paris Petries Church Hist Cent. 15. who for his free speaking and writing was forced to return to Groning his Native Countrey Then he lived in the Monastery of St. Agnes Hill near Swol where he taught many young men and had correspondence with sundry Learned men Charles VII dyed July 22. Anno 1461. Lewes XI his eldest Son succeedeth him in the Kingdom The late King Charles willing to follow the Council of Basil had summoned a Parliament at Bitures where by the full consent of all the States in France both Spiritual and Temporal a certain constitution was decreed and published called the Pragmatick Sanction wherein was comprehended briefly the pith of all the Canons and Decrees concluded in the Council of Basil of which constitution I hinted before The same the said King Charles commanded to be observed and ratified inviolably throughout all his Realm for the Honour and increase of Christian Religion for ever Now King Lewes XI successour to Charles had promised before being Daulphin unto Pope Pius the second called before Aeneas Sylvius that if ever he came to the Crown the aforesaid Pragmatick Sanction should be abolished Pope Pius hearing him to be crowned sent unto him John Balveus a Cardinal with his Letters Patent willing him to be mindful of his former promise The King hereupon directed the Pope's Letters Patent with the said Cardinal to the Council of Paris requiring them to consult upon the cause The matter being proposed in the Parliament-house the King's Attorney named Joannes Romanus a learned and eloquent Man proved the said Sanction to be profitable good and necessary for the wealth of the Realm and in no case to be abolished Unto whose sentence the University of Paris adjoyning their consent Du. Tillet en son advis sur les libertez de l'Eglise Gallic did appeal from the attempts of the Pope to the next general Council The Cardinal fretting thereat returned to the King his purpose being not obtained And the same King Lewes Anno 1463. to secure himself from the censures of the said Pope with the advice of his Parliament ordained an Arrest that the Cardinal of Constance should be punished because he had resisted the Rights and Authorities of the King saith Mr. John du Tillet King Lewes XI caused a Council of the Gallican Church and all the Universities to be assembled in the City of Orleans to be more fully informed in the business of the Pragmatick Sanction at which Peter Duke of Burbon Lord of Beaview presided instead of the King And the Court of Parliament in those Remonstrances which they made unto King Lewes among other inconveniences which they urged would follow upon the abrogation of the Pragmatick Sanction say By this means Strangers would be preferred by the Pope and not the Natives of the Countrey wherein the Benefices lye not of the same qualities and conditions with the Countrey Whereupon would ensue questions and controversies betwixt the Church-men or Seculars to the great hinderance of salvation of Souls and irreverence of the blessed Sacraments The Parliament of Paris in the Remonstrance made by Lewes XI touching the defence of the Pragmatick Sanction hath inserted this Article Item It belongeth to our Soveraign Lord the King who is the principal Founder Guardian Protector of the Liberties of the Gallican Church when she suffers in her Liberties Remonstr de la cour de Parlem de Paris Art 3. to assemble and call together the Prelates and other Clergy-men as well within this Realm as of Daulphinè and in the same Assembly and Congregation of the Gallican Church so called together there to preside and provide a remedy against such attempts as may be prejudicial to the said Liberties We find an Ordinance made relating to Abbeys Bishopricks and Benefices by the same King Anno 1464. which runs in this strain Howbeit that by Priviledges Express and Ordinances Royal no Man can have any Elective Benefice within our said Kingdom and Daulphinè it concerns us much that the Bishopricks Abbeys and other Dignities and elective benefices be furnished with able and known Men such as will comply with us and be firm and sure for us especially such as hold the said Benefices and by reason of them divers places and Fortresses for which divers duties and services belong unto us from them Yet notwithstanding our late pious Father granted the said favour and Patents so plentifully and to all manner of Persons of what Nation Kingdom or Religion soever they were without distinction that many under shadow and pretence of these Licences and Patents have insinuated and intruded themselves into the said Dignities and elective Benefices of our said Kingdom and do hold them Howbeit many of them are Strangers unknown and not to be
this our Request which it most just and reasonable but will obey it especially considering that our said Chancellour Presidents Masters of Requests c. are employed daily and in continual trouble about the maintenance and defence of the Rights and priviledges of the Churches of our said Realm and the administration of Justice to our said Subjects signifying unto you that you shall herein do us such an acceptable favour as nothing more by means whereof we take you and your affairs into special recommendation Given at Mascon August 18. in the sixth year of our Reign thus subscribed By the King In the presence of my Lord Cardinal D' Amboise Legat in France and others Robertet Sealed with yellow Wax with the King 's broad Seal There is in the same Book an exemplification of the privy Letters which the Court of Parliament writ to the Prelates about these nominations the Tenour whereof is this Reverend Father in God We send greeting to you It hath pleased the King to grant unto the Presidents Counsellours and other Officers of this Court his Letters and nomination to some Benefices which are in the hands of some Collatours and Patrons of this Realm and among others to our Brother such a Counsellour of our said Soveraign in this Court to the Benefices which are in your gift and disposal Wherefore we earnestly beseech you that in obedience to the said Letters and in consideration of the deserts of our said Brother you would bestow upon him the first Benefice that falls in your gift being by him required thereunto And in so doing you shall do us a most acceptable courtesie for which we shall take your affairs into special Recommendation Reverend Father in God we beseech the blessed Son of God to grant you your desire Written at Paris in the Parliament under the Seal thereof Septemb. 7. The Men celebrating the Parliament And this Annotation is written in the Margin Antiquitùs fiebant alitèr Voyez le recueil Du Fontan les grand ordonnances Tom. 4. Tit. ◠cap. 1. The said King Lewes XI in an Ordinance of January 8. 1475. makes this Narration When any Questions or differences come upon us as well concerning the state of the Church of our Kingdom as other our affairs we that ought to have recourse to them cannot be assisted aided or advised therein by reason of their absence where we and the Common-wealth are oftentimes much interessed Then after this he ordains in this manner We Will Ordain and declare by these Presents that all Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Prelates and others that hold any Dignities within our Kingdom and do reside out of the bounds thereof and out of our Obedience Do Return and Repair within five months after the publication of these Presents unto their Benefices within our sald Realm or unto some one of them if they have any more and there make continual Residence there to celebrate and continue divine Service as belongs unto them and as they are bound to do As also to the end that they may serve and assist us in our Councils and otherwise to the behoof of us and the Common-wealth of our said Kingdom when need shall be And this upon pain of being deprived of the Temporals of their said Benefices Fabian's chroni King Lewes falling into a long and and grievous sickness gave much Alms and in the Church of St. John Baptist in Paris he founded certain Priests to sing Masses for him perpetually for whose maintenance he gave of yearly Rent a thousand pounds of Paris Money So he remained in a languishing condition three years before he dyed He dyed August 30. 1483. and his Son Charles VIII succeeded him in the Kingdom Charles being crowned at Rhemes was from thence with pomp brought to Paris A general Parliament was held at Tours where the Pragmatick Sanction was restored to use it as they had accustomed In the year 1494. this King Charles VIII carried an Army of fifty thousand of Foot and Horse out of France into Italy and in two months space he became Lord of the whole Kingdom of Naples except some little Towns on the Sea-side which held for King Ferdinand The Pope seeing the success of King Charles makes a League with the Emperour Maximilian and the Venetians Into this League also entred Lewes Duke of Milan notwithstanding that by his procurement King Charles took occasion to come into Italy King Charles having Intelligence of this League resolves to leave such forces in the Kingdom of Naples as might be sufficient for the defence thereof and with the rest of his Army to return into France and marching toward Rome he gave the Pope to understand that he came to do his duty to his Holiness Pope Alexander not daring to abide his coming departed from Rome wherein and in other of the Pope's Towns the King's Troops did much harm The French King departing from Rome continueth his journey toward France Coming near to Parma passing the River Tarro he met a great Army of his Enemies whereof Francis Gonzaga Marquess of Mantua was General with whom they came to a Battle in which there dyed a thousand Men of both sides Anno 1495. But after some Treaties between the two Armies the French in a night went toward Astè where the King remained certain days and a Peace was concluded between him and the Duke of Milan and Lewes Duke of Orleans rendring Novarra King Charles returned into France and Ferdinand King of Naples recovered that Kingdom Concerning the abuses of the Court of Rome among the Statutes of this King Charles VIII I find in a Statute of February 18. 1496. this complaint Some years ago the Popes of Rome in despight and contempt of the Decrees of Antient Fathers and General Councils have brought all Ecclesiastical Dignities Cathedral and Collegiate under their disposal and all other of greatest value next after Bishopricks Review of the Counc Trident. li. 2. ca. 6. they have granted Livings in reversions upon the Vacancy to any that would sue for them which hath been the occasion for one to thirst after the death of another They have invented abundance of tricks whereby they have utterly annihilated the power and Authority of the Bishops Chapters and Colledges insomuch that there is none now that hath the power to present to a living In the Year 1498. King Charles VIII dyed of an Apoplexy at Amboise In him failed the direct Line of the Kings of France descended from Philip of Valois and the Crown fell to the collateral Line of the which the nearest Prince of the Blood was Lewes Duke of Orleans and Valois who succeeded in the Kingdom of France He was an excellent Prince of a liberal Nature affable temperate and of great moderation and was happy in his Reign Who subdued under his obedience Milan with Lombardy and Genoa with her two Rivers East and West together with the Islands of Corsica and Chio reconquered and divided the Realm of
Naples with the King of Spain but in the end lost it by his Treachery suppressed the Pope's insolency and defeated the Venetians He was crowned in the Abbey of Saint Denis in France on the first of July following and on the next day made his triumphant entry into Paris Century XVI LEwes XII after he had worthily performed the Funerals of his Predecessour he first purchased the love of the Noble-men of his Court maintaining every man in his State and Dignity and the Magistrates in their Office He sought to cut off the tediousness of Suits he freed his Subjects from the third part of the Subsidies which oppressed them he put the Men at Arms into Garrisons reducing them to the Antient Discipline of War He made many good Laws against the abusive charges in the pursuit of Justice neither did he ever publish any Edict before it was confirmed by the Judgement of Soveraign Courts De Serres Hist in vit Ludovici XII His Decrees contained some limitation of the priviledges granted in old time to Universities the which they abused to the oppression of the people The University of Paris opposeth against the publication thereof and many infamous Libels were published against the King and the Chancellour of Rochefort The Scholars flock together resolving to abandon both study and the exercise of Learning John Cave being Rector forbids the Regents to read any more and the Preachers to preach until the University had recovered her Antient priviledges The King hereupon draws many Men at Arms into Paris and in Parliament confirms the abovenamed ordinances by an Edict The Rector fearing a check keeps all the Scholars within their Lodgings and revokes the commandement he had given John Standon a Doctor of Divinity one of the chief of the Faction was banished the Realm Thomas Warnet of Cambray who in preaching had railed against the King's Authority banished himself All things being thus settled Lewes takes upon him the Title of Duke of Milan He puts away Joan his Wife and marries with Ann the Widdow of the late King Charles Our Ladies Bridge at Paris fell threescore houses were ruined with it and a great number of persons were swallowed up in the River As touching the priviledges of the Kings of France we find when the Parliament of Paris gave their opinion and all the Chambers met together about receiving the Cardinal of Amboise and the qualifications that should be put to his faculties which was on Decemb. 11. 1501. the Laws of the Land and the Liberties of the Gallican Church were represented at large among which this was one That the King of France cannot be excommunicated that his Kingdom cannot be put under an Interdict as is collected out of the Antient Registers In the beginning of this Century Mr. John le Maire one of the French Historians wrote his Book of Schism and therein gives us to understand that there were endeavours then for the Reformation of the Church Every good Christian saith he ought to pray to God that the two last Councils of the Gallican Church may engender one great Universal and general Council of all the Latin Church to reform that Church as well in the Head as the Members so as the general Councils use to do And that if it be not kept at Lyons it may be kept in some other place most expedient and necessary for the publick good which may be very well done at this present considering the great peace amity and union which is betwixt the two greatest Potentates in Christendom the Emperour and the King together with a third confederate in the League the Catholick King Ferdinand of Arragon who ought altogether to reform the abuses of the Church of Rome Which Reformation must of necessity be made Thus he speaks of the aforementioned Pragmatick Sanction Forasmuch saith he as the Pope's are not content that the Pragmatick Sanction be in force although it be founded upon the Holy Canons Le Maire en la 2 part de la differ de schismes and Authorized by the Council of Basil but it derogates from the unsatiable covetousness of the Court of Rome therefore they say it is a pure Heresie In the time of this King Lewes XII lived Robert Gagwin who wrote the French History Erasmus his intimate Friend calls him a most discreet Historiographer he compares him to Salust and Livy Auâ—erti Miroel Elog. Belg. for purity of speech and composition of his History He was also a good Poet and an excellent Oratour and a Man well skilled in all polite Learning He was sent Ambassadour by the King of France into England Italy and Germany About this time flourished Jacobus Faber skilled in all Learning and especially in Divinity Farel and Calvin were his Scholars Illyr Catal. Test verit Sleidan saith he suffered great persecution for the truth from the Masters at Paris He was very low of a modest countenance and a sweet disposition his mind wholly estranged from all injustice I find him thus characterized Celeberrimus nostri seculi Philosophus Belg. quinimò totius Galliae unum decus Primus apud Gallos ut Cicero apud Romanos Philosophiam rudem impolitam cum eloquentiâ junxit Est in dicendo sublimis in sententiis gravis in attentione exquisitus in compositione diligens ac curiosus Trithem de Viris Illustrib Jodocus Clichtoveus a most learned Man of Paris was contemporary with Jacobus Faber De Serres Hist in vit Ludov. XII King Lewes and the Emperour being at variance a Treaty was agreed on and for this Treaty the Cardinal of Amboise Lieutenant-General for his Majesty at Milan went to the Emperour to Trent where first they Treated of the marriage of Charles the eldest Son to the Arch-Duke Philip of Austria with Claude the only Daughter of Lewes XII then about the calling a General Council to reform the Church not only in the members but even in the Head doubtless there is small assurance in the friendship of Princes who thirst after nothing but their own greatness Moreover seldom shall we see any thing succeed well with them who have coloured their passions with the name of the Church and the Reformation thereof which they did not really intend And likewise all the malitious practices and School-tricks of a Cardinal whose ambitious spirit gaped after the Popedom what could they produce but smoak for France and combustion for Italy The Arch-Duke Philip with his Wife Daughter to Ferdinand King of Arragon and Isabel Queen of Castile passed through Paris Novemb. 25. and from thence to Blois where the King and Queen remained where they concluded the marriage of their children But Man purposeth and God disposeth The Duke of Milan was soon after made Prisoner by the Treachery of the Suissers Cardinal Ascanius leaves Milan abandoned but he is betraid and led prisoner to Venice but the French King sent for him to Venice and not only the person of the Cardinal was delivered to him
forth Anno 1551. At this time a War was denounced against King Henry the second by the Pope and the Emperour and that upon an unjust quarrel He gave some hopes saith Onuphrius of composing the differences in Religion Onuphr in Julio 3. when at the request of the Emperour he declared by his Bull in the first year of his Popedom that the Council should be continued at Trent at the beginning of the next May. And presently after he addeth he unwittingly put himself upon the War of Parma and thereby set all Italy nay all Europe on fire The first Session of the Council on May 1. 1551. and the second upon the first of September were only for Ladies for there was nothing done King Henry II. set forth an Edict at the same time dated the third day of September the same year containing a restraint of transporting Gold and Silver to Rome where he sets down at large the occasions of the War of Parma begun by the Pope And among other things he saith Which holy Father upon a sudden fit of Choler had caused a certain company of Men of War both Horse and Foot to be levied and set forth and also enticed and perswaded the Emperour with whom we were in good Terms of Peace and Amity to take Arms to aid his forces in the design of the recovery of Parma And after he had harassed and laid wast all things whatsoever he pleased in the Countrey of Parma Edict du Roy Henric. 2. imprime a Paris l'ann 1551. he caused his said Forces to march toward the Territories of Mirandula which hath for a long time even during the Life of our late most Honoured Lord and Father been in the known protection of the Crown of France which he beleagured using most incredible and inhumane cruelties towards the Inhabitants of the said Territory yea such as Barbarians and Infidels would not have used the like giving the World to know very stoutly that he meant them to us who have not deserved any such things at his hands or the Holy See There were six Sessions holden in the time of that War those two forementioned and four more in two whereof the most material points of Faith of Manners and Church Discipline were discussed and determined as those of the Sacrament of the Eucharist Transubstantiation Penance and extreme Unction as also about the Jurisdiction of Bishops where many blows were struck at the Liberties of the French Church and the rights of the Crown Another Edict of King Henry II. was made at the Camp near Weldenaggbes May 21. 1552. and Printed at Paris the same year From this time till the beginning of the year 1560. the Council of Trent did nothing What time Pope Pius IV. as soon as he got into the Chair sent forth a Declaration for the continuation of it against Easter-day the next year The French King makes preparation for a National Council and protesteth against the Council then assembled in Trent Jacobus Amiotus Hist Concil Trident. li. 4. Abbot of Bellosana appeared in the name of the French King with Letters of his Majesty which he presented to the Legate desiring they might be read and his credency heard The Legate receiving them gave them to the Secretary to be read The Superscription was Sanctissimis in Christo Patribus Conventûs Tridentini Much fault was found with the word Conventûs The Bishop of Mentz said if they would not receive a Letter from the King of France who called them Sanctissimus Conventus how would they hearken to the Protestants who called them Conventus Malignantium Then the King's Letter was opened and read The French King dismisseth the Pope's Nuncio but fearing that by his dissention with the Pope those that desired change of Religion would make some innovation or that himself might come into the bad opinion of his people as if his mind were averse from the Catholick Faith and perhaps to open a way for reconciliation with Rome he made a most severe Edict against the Protestants confirming all the other which he had published before adding greater punishments more ways to discover the guilty and greater rewards to the promoters Hereupon many were apprehended condemned and burnt as I have shewed before in the Table of French Martyrs concluding it at the year 1557. On the fifth of September 1557. in Paris at night about two hundred persons were assembled in an house to celebrate the Communion which being discovered by the common people the house was assaulted and some fled but the women and weaker sort were taken and seven were burnt and the greater part of the others reserved for the same punishment to be inflicted when the complices were found out The Suisses made intercession for these and the King gave order that the proceeding against them should be moderate but the Pope is angry with the French King for using any moderation But the number of the Protestants being now increased in France thâ—ir courage increased also And there being a custom among the people of Paris in the Summer Evenings to go out of the Subburbs of St. German in great multitudes to take the Fresco and to solace themselves with divers kinds of sports those of the new Religion instead of doing so began to sing the Psalms of David in French Verses 〈…〉 The multitude first laughed at the Novity then leaving the sports joyned themselves unto the singers And the number of those who came to that place began to increase more than usually The Pope's Nuncio told the King of this Novity as of a thing pernicious and dangerous because said he the Ministeries of Religion usually celebrated in the Church in the Latin Tongue by Religious men only were put into the mouth of the common people in the vulgar Language which was an invention said he of the Lutherans telling him that if he did not resist the beginnings all Paris would be Lutheran The King gave order that the principal Authours should be proceeded against wherein they went not very far having found Anthony King of Navar and his Wife in that number But for hereafter it was forbid upon pain of death The King now understanding that some of the Parliament were Protestants in a Mercurial so they call the Judicature instituted to examine and correct the actions of the Counsellours of Parliament and Judges of the King held in Paris June 15. 1558. where they were to treat of Religion after the congregation was assembled entred in person And having commanded them to prosecute the things begun Claude Viole one of them spake much against the manners of the Court of Rome and the bad customs grown to be pernicious errours which have caused the new Sects Therefore it was necessary to mitigate the severe punishments until the differences of Religion were removed and the Ecclesiastical Discipline amended by Authority of a General Council the only remedy for these evils as the Councils of Constance and Basil have judged
are granted only to the Brothers and Sisters of the said Fraternity which shall upon the days aforesaid every year visit the said Altar in the said Church of St. Hilary of Chartres in France upon which the blessed Sacrament and precious body of Jesus Christ is placed Medard Thiersault Priest Licentiat in the Laws Chanon of Chartres Official and Vicar-General both in the Spiritualty and Temporalty of the Reverend Father in God Monsieur Lewes by the Grace of God Bishop of Chartres To all and singular the Parsons and Vicars of the Churches within the City of Chartres sendeth greeting c. Pope Paul the third did heretofore of his own proper motion for the honour of the blessed Sacrament grant unto the Brothers of the Fraternity of the blessed Body of Jesus Christ in the Minerva of Rome certain Indulgences plenary remission of sins and other graces the good devotion and upon petition of the faithful Christian Brothers Which Indulgences and plenary remission of Sins our holy Father Julius III. Pope to the end that all Christians might come devoutly and honour the blessed Sacrament of his own Authority hath willed and decreed that they be of perpetual force and efficacy And these Indulgences and other graces aforesaid at the instance of the most noble Personage Mr. Christopher de Herovard the Lieutenant General of the Most Christian King within the Bailiwick of Chartres hath granted them to the Brothers and Sisters of the Fraternity of the blessed Body of Jesus Christ heretofore erected and instituted in the Church of St. Hilary of Chartres always provided that like grace and gift was not formerly granted to any other Church of the said City of Chartres And forasmuch as we have viewed the contents of the said Indulgence in the publick Instrument out of the Copy of Dominick Bishop of Hostia Cardinal of the hâ—ly Church of Rome by Title Traven Dean of the sacred Apostolical Colâ—ege Protectour and Patron of the Fraternity of the blessed Body of our Saviour founded in the Church of our Lady of Minerva of the order of Fryars Predicants in the City of Rome in manner of an exemplification published drawn signed and sealed by Genese Bulter Secretary to the said Fraternity Given at Rome May 6. 1550. And furthermore whereas by a certain declaration made unto the Court of Rome by the command and with the leave of the Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Chartres and as it seems to us truly and lawfulâ—y made that 't is certain the like grace was never granted to any other Church in the City of Chartres Wherefore we command you to publish and cause to be published in your Churches the said Indulgences and the exemplifications of the Letters aforesaid according to their form and tenure Giving leave to the said Christopher de Herovard to cause the said graces and Indulgences to be published within the City and Church of Chartres whether by Siguis's or otherwise the same Herovard shall think good Given at Chartres under the seal of the Chamber of the said Bishop of Chartres Anno 1550. July 31. Subscribed P. le Seneux Pope Pius IV. in his Bull of the publication of the Council of Trent which was for the continuation of it bearing date December 30. 1560. sheweth in effect that it was begun continued and ended among the troubles in France and Germany And as Sleidan saith Sleidan l. 16. as soon as new broils were raised in the neighbouring parts of Germany and a great war was kindled in Italy and France the Council was afterwards suspended and adjourned After the suppression of the Conspirators forementioned in a secret Council held in the Kings chamber it is resolved to punish the favourers of the Conspiracy And to get the Favourers of the Hugonots into their power it was resolved to call an Assembly of the States at which among others the Princes of the Blood are to assist But the Queen-Mother and the Guises doubting more than ever new Insurrections the Prince of Conde who was as a prisoner is discharged of his Guard and set at liberty He presently departed from Court and went into Bearn to the King of Navarre The Constable the Admiral of France and the rest were entertained with kind Letters and Commissions and Charges of trust The dissensions and suspicions of the Grandees in France encreasing on the 21. of August the King called a very great Assembly at Fountainbleau The Assembly at Fountainbleau in which the necessities of the Kingdom were declared by the Chancellour which he compared to a man sick of an unknown disease Afterwards Jasper Coligni gave the King some Petitions which he said were delivered to him by a multitude of people when he was in Normandy The summ of them was That the faithful Christians dispersed throughout the whole Kingdom did pray his Majesty to look on them with a favourable eye that they desired a moderation of their punishments until their cause were heard and that they might make publick profession of their Religion to avoid suspicion by private Assemblies Then John Monluc Bishop of Valence shewed That the principal remedy of these distempers was to flie unto God to assemble godly men out of the whole Kingdom to find a way to root out the vices of the Clergy to forbid infamous and immodest Songs and instead of them to command the singing of Psalms and holy hymns in the vulgar tongue and if the common interpretation be not good to take away the errours suffering that which is good to be used by all Another remedy was the General Council alwaies used to compose such differences saying That if a General Council could not be obtained they were to assemble a National that they did grievously err who troubled the publick quiet with Arms upon pretence of Religion that their errour was as great who condemned to death those who adhered to the new Doctrine only for the opinion of piety who dying constantly and contemning the loss of their goods stir up the minds of the multitude and make them desirous to know what Faith that is for which they endure so great punishment Charles Marillac Bishop of Vienna spake in the same manner adding That the disease of France was so sharp that there was no time to call a Physician from far therefore they were to call a National Council Coligni added that requiring those who gave him the Petitions to subscribe them he was answered That five thousand men would subscribe if there were occasion Francis of Guise concerning the point of Religion said he referred himself unto the judgement of learned men but protested that no Council should make him decline one jot from the old belief The Cardinal of Lorain said That the Petitions presented were most proud and that to grant the Orators publick Exercise were to approve their Doctrine he said that the greater part used Religion for a pretence and therefore his opinion was they should be proceeded against with more
be enjoyned to bestow them not upon such as seek after them but on those that are worthy of them and avoid them and for certain proof of their Merits to make them Preach sometimes and those such as have taken some Degree in the Universities upon whom only Livings might be conferred by the consent of the Bishop and people Augustine Marlorat one of the Ministers of the Reformed Church at Rhoan in France was taken by the Guisians and hanged upon a Gibbet there before our Ladies Church He was a man excellently learned and of an unblameable Life who had the testimony even of the Papists themselves that in his Sermons he never uttered ought tending to Sedition or Rebellion He hath written upon Genesis Isaiah and the Psalms and an Ecclesiastical Exposition upon the New Testament which hath been well esteem'd of Clement Marot was a famous French Poet. Pasqu Recherch de la France li. 7. ca. 5. He turned fifty of Davids Psalms into French Metre which are read with admiration of his excellent Wit He set them forth at Geneva for he might not safely longer abide in France for suspicion of Lutheranism Marcus Antonius Muretus was a very eloquent and diligent Writer Scarce hath he passed by any Latine Authour either Historian Oratour or Poet which he hath not explained amended and restored to his purity either with his Commentaries Scholia or Notes Terence Petronius Tibullus Catullus Propertius Seneca Salust Tacitus His Book of divers readings sheweth how Learned he was His excellent Orations shew his great Eloquence Gesner mentions his Latine works and Antoine du Verdier his French Thuanus styles him Magnum non solum Galliae nostrae sed ipsius Romae lumen not only a great light of our France but also of Rome it self About this time Father Edmond in a Book of his Printed at Paris by Sebastian Nivelle and by him dedicated to King Charles IX with this Inscription The Pedagogue of Arms Le Pedagogue d'Armes ca. 8 9. to instruct a Christian Prince to undertake a good War well and accomplish it with success to be Victorious over all the Enemies of his State and of the Catholick Church gives such Rules as these That Wars have been alwaies accounted not only profitable but necessary That the Pope is bound to take Arms against Hereticks That to a Monarch undertaking such a War a man cannot urge any of his former Edicts or Ordinances That no man how Potent soever he be can Contract with an Infidel or one that hath revolted from his Conscience He gives this reason For what King is there how redoubted soever he be that can without falsifying his Oath made to God permit and give lieve to the Enemies of all truth and condemn'd by the general sentence of all the world to sow heresies in his Countries and allure souls He adds further That what conditions of Peace soever he can grant unto his Rebels in this case will not endure long But it will behove him not to awake such strong and Potent Enemies That to make a Peace with them at last he must resolve to make a good War And anon As oft as by the Articles of Peace licence is granted to every man to adhere to which of the two opposite Parties he please without being offended at it it is all one in my opinion as if one should cast a man into the fire and forbid him to burn himself In the seventh Chapter he saith If such persons were Infidels or hereticks I would never excuse the Monarch that having sufficient means in his own hands should not assay by all waies even of fact to reclaim such a Kennel or drive them far out of his Country out of the Territories of Catholicks And so much the more roughly ought he to proceed against them as he knows them perverse in all respects and of the Hugonote stamp which should be accounted the most pernicious most devilish upholders of lies that ever rose up against the Church Thus he Waseri Comment ad Mithrid Gesneri In this Age flourished Gulielmus Sallustius Bartassius and excellent French Poet. Ille Poetarum Gallicorum Coryphaeus Sallustius Barthasii Dominus cujus Poemata apud exteros etiam in laude sunt He is translated into many Languages He may be read in Latine French Italian English Dutch Pasquier sheweth that the French Poets imitating the Latine have often equalled and sometimes exceeded them Antoine du Verdier and Thuanus do commend him Near this time also lived Guido de Bres a holy Martyr He hath written against the Anabaptists in French of the Authority of the Magistrate and the immortality of the Soul Johannes Quiquarboreus was Professour of Hebrew and Chaldee to the French King in Paris There is his Chaldee Paraphrase with Scholia upon Ruth Lamentations Hosea Joel Amos. Franciscus Rabeloesus was a witty but Atheistical French writer and Doctor of Physick Robert Constantine was Beza's great friend he was saith Thuanus trium linguarum peritissimus most skilful in three Languages especially in Greek and Latine He lived till he was a hundred and three years old his Senses of Body and Mind being perfect and his Memory strong These are his Works Nomenclator insignium Scriptorum Dictionarium abstrusorum vocabulorum Lexicon Graeco-Latinum John Croy was a learned French Divine He hath written a Treatise entitled Observationes Sacrae Historicae in novum Testamentum That Bâ—â—k and his Specimen conjecturarum observationum in quaedam loca Origenis Irenaei Tertulliani Epiphanij c. and his French Book entitled La verite de la Religion Reformee declare him to be a good Linguist and a General Scholar He hath written a Book against Morinus not yet published but commended and quoted by those who have perused it John Morinus was a learned Papist There are his Exercitationes Biblicae de Hebraeo Graecoque Textu Exercit. Ecclesiasticae In the late Progress of King Charles IX was discharged all Preaching and exercising of the Reformed Religion in the Towns of France wherein it should happen the King to be during the time of his Progress Many new interpretations of the Edict of March were invented whereby the liberty granted to the Protestants was utterly infringed The Prince of Conde having heard that the Kings of France and Spain had made a League for the rooting out of the Protestants addresseth himself to the King on the behalf of the Protestants Symson Eccles Hist li. 1. Cent. 16. complaining that contrary to the Edict of March they were injured and cruelly slain demanding redress for the foresaid injuries and that they might have liberty to enjoy their Religion without molestation The King hearing of the Prince's coming being with four hundred Armed men with all expedition in great fear hastens to Paris and caused the Parisians to give thanks to God as if he had been delivered from a great peril and imminent danger After this the second War for Religion
brake forth The Prince of Conde approached with an Army to Paris and distressed it for want of food The Parisians under the Conduct of the Constable sally out of the Town and come to Saint Denis where the Prince of Conde's Army lay There the Admiral put the Parisian Souldiers to flight and the Constable was shot by a Scotish Souldier of which wound he died shortly after After the Battel the Prince of Conde marched toward Lorain to joyn with the German Army Which was to be sent for his succour from the Count Palatine of the Rheine under the Conduct of Cassimire's Son This German Army joyned with the Forces of the Prince of Conde at Pontamonsou a Town in Lorain on the River Mosel Being thus conjoyned they march to Chartres and besiege it The danger of Chartres brings on a new Treatise of Peace which at last is concluded The Armies are disbanded and the Towns by him subdued are delivered into the King's hand the German Souldiers were dismissed and every man returned to his own house But this pacification was but a subtil snare to entangle the Protestants withal for the Protestants were compelled to lay down their Armour when they entred into the Towns where they dwelt and strictly commanded to remain in thei◠houses being not permitted to visit one another In all the parts of the Country great cruelty was used and many cruelly butchered so that within the space of three months moe than three thousand were slain by the Sword All means also were sought to intercept the Prince of Conde the Admiral Andelot and other principal Personages The Prince of Conde and the Admiral flie with their Wives and young children to Rochel God's Providence so conducted them that albeit all the Bridges and Passages were strictly kept yet God provided a Foord in the River Loyre near unto Sanser which was unknown before neither was any passage found to be there two daies after By this way they passed safely to Rochel The Prince of Conde had sent letters to the King greatly complaining of the Cardinal of Lorain who abused the King's Name and Authority and so maliciously sought the lives of the King 's innocent Subjects for their Religion expresly against the King's Edict of Pacification which had been sealed with the King 's own hand-writ and ratified with his Oath To those Letters no answer was given but all the Country was in Arms and the Duke of Anjou Brother to the King was made General Commander of the Army The Queen of Navarre on the other part adjoyned herself and her Forces to the Prince of Conde and from Britany came Andelot and his Forces who passed the Loyre by a certain Foord not known before and unpassable afterward no less miraculously than the Prince of Conde and his Family had done in another place of the same River before After whose coming Angolesme was besieged and taken by the Prince of Conde Likewise Acierius brought with him to the Prince out of Dolphinè Provence and Languedoc twenty three thousand men The Duke of Anjou was come with his Army to Poictou and pitched his Camp at Castellerault near to the River Vienna The Prince of Conde and the Admiral daily provoke him to fight but he politickly delayeth The Duke of Anjou receiving ayd from Germany forceth the Protestants to fight A Battle was fought at Blansac wherein the Prince of Conde was taken and slain and two hundred more of the Protestants and forty taken Prisoners The Admiral led the rest of the Army back to Saint Jande-Angeli Soon after Andelot died at Sainetes to the great grief of all the Army his body being opened was found to be poisoned The Queen of Navarre comforted the Army of the Protestants And her Son the young King of Navarre with the Prince of Conde's Son took upon them the Government of the Army and sent Count Montgomery to relieve the Town of Angolesme which was then besieged by the Duke's forces at whose coming the siege was raised Then the Duke of Bipont cometh from Germany to ayd the Protestants and takes the Town of la-Charity in Burgundy and dieth within two daies after having appointed Wolrod Count of Mansfelt to be General in his room In this Army were seven thousand and five hundred horse-mem and six thousand foot-men besides two thousand French horse-men who came in their company and ten Ensigns of foot-men The Prince of Orange with his Brothers Lodowick and Henry were also in this Army In the Country of Poictou the Princes had taken many Towns and Poictiers was besieged by them but they were forced to raise the siege At length both Armies met and joyned in a Battel near Montconvire where the Duke of Anjou had the Victory Hereupon all the Towns which the Protestants had taken in Poictou were recovered by their Enemies St. Jan-Dangely was also besieged and surrendered At the siege of this Town Martiques Governour of Britany was slain This Martiques perswaded la Matpinolis to yield the Town to the King and desired the Town to remember the Battel of Montconvire wherein their strong God had forsaken them and said it was time for them to sing Help us now O God for it is time Not long after this proud Blasphemer felt that this strong God was living able to help the weak and confound the proud The Princes now resolve to make Languedoc the seat of War because the Town of Nimes was lately surprized by the Protestants and many Towns in that Country favoured their Religion This occasioneth a new Edict of Pacification to be set forth granting liberty of Religion to the Protestants again and for their further security the keeping of four Towns during the space of two years viz. Rochel Cognack Montallan and Caritea Thus was an end put to the third Civil war in France About this time was a notable Suit of those who with a presumptuous and partial Title termed themselves of the society of Jesus decided in the Court of Parliament Steph. Pasquier pleading against them for the University of Paris a most grave Advocate of so rare a Cause and M. Peter Versoris for their Company Their pleadings are read and their beginnings and first entry into France their advancement and all that concerns their Sect is so learnedly expressed in an Epistle of the fourth Book of the said Pasquier and in his pleading as it is needless to insert here Then the King offereth his Sister in Marriage to the King of Navarre and passing to Bloyes sent for the Queen of Navarre whom he received so courteously that the Queen was fully perswaded that this Marriage would be a more sure pledge and bond of constant peace The Admiral also was sent for and met the King at Bloyes whom the King seemed highly to honour The Admiral and other Nobles are sollicited to be present at the Marriage The Queen of Navarre as she was busied in making preparation for the Marriage died hastily by the scent of empoisoned Gloves
Crowned King of France Michael Hospitalius Chancellour of France under Charles IX Thuan. Tom. 3. lib. 56. was removed from the Court and made a Prisoner as it were only because he opposed those wicked Counsels against the Protestants in the Massacre at Paris Beza mentions him in his Icones illustrium virorum And Grotius stiles him Grot. Praef. ad Poem Vnicum aevi nostri decus the only ornament of our Age. There are these of his Works published Six Books of Epistles in Latine Verse De Caleto expugnato Epistola carmen cum aliis In the Preface to his Epistle one saith it appeared by a most Ancient Coyn that he much resembled Aristotle Summum illum omnium Philosophorum principem Aristotelem sic ore toto retulit ut alterius ex altero Imago expressa videri posset At this time flourished Michael Montanus or Michael de Montaigne Knight of the Noble Order of St. Michael and one of the Gentlemen in Ordinary to the French King Henry III. his Chamber His elegant Books of Miscellanies written in French are by him modestly styled Essayes or Moral Politick and Military Discourses He hath thereby gotten a great opinion of his Learning and Wisdom and Rome hath chosen and adopted him for one of her Citizens Charles Cardinal of Lorain dieth December 23. 1574. of a Frenzy in the midst of a cruel tempest and violent whirl-wind which uncovered the houses and loosened the bars of Iron in the Carthusians Covent in the Suburbs of Avignon According to the advice of the Queen-Mother the King assaults the Protestant Towns in Provence Languedoc and Dolphiné Lusignan was besieged and yielded upon Composition Pousin is besieged and taken but the Town of Libero in Dolphinè though besieged was not taken In Languedoc D'anville although he was of the Roman Religion yet had joyned himself to the Protestants and took Aques Mortes a Town of great importance in those Parts with many other Towns In Dolphinè Mombrim was chief Commander and had great success in his attempts But in the end being sore wounded he was taken beside â—ia a Town in Dolphinè and by the Commandment of the King and Queen-Mother was carried to Grenoble and there was executed in the sight of the people The Prince of Conde had required help of Casimire the Son of Count Palatine who had also condescended to succour the Protestants The Conditions they agreed on were these That they should not lay down their Arms until that liberty were obtained to the Protestants fully to enjoy their own Religion And likewise that Casimire should have the Towns of Metis Tullion and Verdum in his hands besides other Towns in all the Provinces of France which the Protestants were to require for their further assurance and as pledges of the King's fidelity and faithfulness to them The Army of the Germans and French entered into France under the Prince of Conde and Casimire and came forward to Charossium a Town in Bourbon not far from Molins where Alançon the King's Brother joyned with them and the whole Army conjoyned was found to be of horse-men and foot-men thirty thousand The King of Navarre at the same time departeth from Court and returneth into his own Country The Army draws near to Paris but at length was concluded upon certain Conditions That Casimire should receive from the King a great summ of money instead of those Towns which should have been put in his hands and that liberty should be granted to the Protestants to exercise their own Religion openly and freely without exception of places the Court and the City of Paris with a few leagues about only excepted They were also declared to be capable of places in Parliament and Courts of Justice and all Judgements which were made against them for any enterprize whatsoever were declared void the cruel day of St. Bartholomew disavowed and for better assurance and performance of these conditions they had eight Towns delivered unto them with the Conditions of their Governments Aques Mortes Benecaire Perigneux Le mas de Verdun Nions Yissure La grand tour The Edict of Pacification was Proclaimed May 10. 1576. and an end was put to the fifth Civil War in France for Religion By the Bull of Pope Gregory XIII sent into France Anno 1575. we may see all the Judges Royal both superiour and inferiour utterly despoiled of the Cognisance of criminal Causes The Sixteenth Article is this Vide Collect. diversar constitut Romanor Pontif. in fine Et Eclogam Bullarum motuum propriorum p. 316. We Excommunicate and anathematize all and every one the Magistrates Counsellours Presidents Auditors and other Judges by what name soever they be called the Chancellours Vice-Chancellours Notaries Registers and Executors their servants and others which have any thing to do in what sort or manner soever with Capital or Criminal Causes against Ecclesiastical persons in banishing or arresting them passing or pronouncing sentence against them and putting them in Execution even under pretence of any priviledges granted by the See Apostolick upon what causes and in what tenour and form soever to Kings Dukes Princes Rcpubliques Monarchies Cities and other Potentates by what name and title soever they be called which we will not have to be useful to them in any thing repealing them all from henceforth and declaring them to be nullities The twelfth Article speaks on this sort We Excommunicate all and every the Chancellours Vice-Chancellours Counsellours Ordinary and Extraordinary of all Kings and Princes the Presidents of Chanceries Councils and Parliaments as also the Attorneys General of them and other Secular Princes though they be in Dignity Imperial Royal Ducal or any other by what name soever it be called and other Judges as well Ordinary as by Delegation as also the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Commendatories Vicars and Officers who by themselves or by any other under pretence of Exemptions Letters of Grace or other Apostolical Letters do summon before them our Auditors Commissaries and other Ecclesiastical Judges with the causes concerning Benefices Tithes and other spiritual matters or such as are annexed to them and hinder the course of them by 〈◊〉 authority and interpose themselves to take Cognisance of them in the quality of Judges This is not all for in the following Article he goes yet further striking an heavy blow at the Ordinances of the French Kings Those also which under pretence of their Office or at the Instance of any man whatsoever draw before them to their Bench Audience Chancery Council or Parliament Ecclesiastical persons Chapters Covents and Colledges of all Churches or cause them to be brought in question before them or procure them directly or indirectly under what colour soever beyond the appointment of the Canon Law Those also which ordain and set forth Statutes Ordinances Constitutions Pragmatiques or other Decrees whatsoever in general or in special for any cause or colour whatsoever even under pretence of Apostolical Letters not now in practice or
that should seek to hinder the effect of the precedent Articles To cause Judges to be appointed to examine the crime committed by the Duke of Alançon declaring himself Chief of the Hereticks To cause the said Duke to come to Court with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde and to seize upon the said Duke King and Prince and all their Accomplices That the Captains that should be under the Duke of Guise should put all Protestants and adherents to the Sword both in the Country and in Walled Towns To subdue the revolted Princes To be Masters of the Field To block up the Towns that were opposite and to put all to fire and sword that should make head against them Then to take exemplary punishment of the Duke of Alanâ—on now henceforth to be called the Duke of Anjou and his Complices Then by the Pope's consent to put the King and Queen into a Monastery as King Pipin in former time had done Childeric and in favour of the Roman See to abolish the liberties and priviledges of the French Church These high projects were hearkened unto received and favoured in the Court of Rome The Articles of this Association were first drawn at Peronne in Picardy but disguised with goodly shews to blind them that would examine them more exactly which were To maintain the Law of God to restore the holy service thereof To preserve the King and his Successours in the Estate Dignity Service and Obedience due unto him by his Subjects To restore unto the Estates of the Realm their Rights Preheminencies and Ancient Liberties And for the execution of these Articles a certain form of Oath was propounded inflicting pains of eternal damnation to the Associates that for any pretext whatsoever should withdraw themselves from this League and a Bond for such should be enrolled to employ their goods persons and lives to punish and by all means to ruine the enemies and perturbers thereof and to punish them that should fail or make any delays by the Authority of the Head as he should think good This being done many Posts went to and fro carrying the news of these designs They cast many Libels through the Streets in many great Towns They murmure that the Protestants are too much supported by the Edict And under this plausible name of the Church the people give ear to such as are ready to thrust them into Mutiny The King was daily advertised of these things But on the other side he hated the Protestants and sought to ruine them by degrees but not by any Instruments without his Authority His Mother likewise hated them to the death She causeth the Duke her Son to come to the Court and the King to be reconciled to him The King calls an Assembly of the States at Bloyes where Peter d'Espinac Arch-Bishop of Lions and the Baron of Senecey are Speakers the one for the Clergy the other for the Nobility and both conclude a publick Exercise of one only Religion in France Peter Versoris Advocate in the Court of Parliament in Paris Oratour for the third Estate insists on the Union of all the Kings Subjects in one Religion but by mild means and without War The King seemed to encline only to alter some Articles in the last Edicts of Pacification and not to abolish it quite But at length the King consenteth to root out all other Religion but the Popish to banish all Ministers Deacons and Overseers of the Reformed Religion and yet to take all his other Subjects of the said Religion into his protection attending that by better instructions they might be brought into the bosome of the Church But the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde the Marshal of Montmorency d'Anville and other Noble-men both of the one and the other Religion refusing to assist at this present Parliament conclude a nullity of all that was Decreed to prejudice the Edict of Pacification protesting to maintain themselves in the Rights Liberties and Freedoms which the last Edict had granted them The King of Navarre beseecheth the Estates by the Duke of Montpensier who was sent unto him not to infringe the Edict of Peace but to suffer the Protestants to enjoy that which had been so formerly granted He desireth time to attend the opinion of an Assembly of those of his Religion and of the Catholick-Associates which was to be shortly made at Montaubon The Prince of Conde answers more sharply That he doth not acknowledge the Assembly at Bloys for the Estates of the Realm but a Conventicle of persons corrupted by the sworn enemies of the Crown who have sollicited the abolition of the Edict to the subversion of the Realm That he hath alwaies honoured the Clergy and Nobility but he pities the people whom this Assembly at Bloys sought to ruine The chief of the Politicks declare that they adhere not to any other Religion than that of their Fathers but they are against the taking from the Protestants the publick Exercise which had been so solemnly allowed them The Duke of Montpensier being returned perswaded to have the Edict confirmed John Bodin a man famous for Learning and experience in State-affairs one of the Deputies of the Commons of Vermandois sheweth to the Assembly how ruinous and fatal the new taking up of Arms would be repeating from the beginning all the dangers and miseries of the late Wars which made a deep impression on the minds of the third Estate But the other Orders being byassed and pre-ingaged it was determined by plurality of voices that request should be made unto the King to establish only the Romish Religion in the Kingdom and to exclude for ever all Communion with the Hugonots Nevertheless Bodin procured certain words to be entred in the Records of the Order of Commons to certifie their desire of unity in Religion without the noise of Arms and the necessity of War This Bodin was a man eminent as well among Protestants as Papists though himself professed the Romish Religion His Learning and skill in Politicks appears in his great Book de Republicâ Thuanus highly commendeth his writings Possevine dislikes his Methodus Historica because he makes such honourable mention of the Protestants there Some commend his Theatrum Naturae for a choice piece a Book full of natural curiosities The King gives notice to his Governours and publisheth by his Letters Patents that he is resolved to grant the Estates their requests touching the Exercise of one only Religion And thus the sixth Civil War begins in Guienne During the Parliament the Deputies of the Low Countries demand succours of the King and the Duke of Anjou for Pfotectour of their Liberties against the insolencies of the Spaniards Anjou is now declared the King's Lieutenant General They deliver him a mighty Army with which contrary to the Oath taken by him in the observation of the accord and promise pass'd with the Prince of Conde and Duke Casimire he besiegeth and taketh La-Charitè by Composition and Ysoire in
formerly done by the States of Bloys and the Clergy convâ—â—â—â—â— at Melun that he would be pleased for proof of his true Piety and Religion to enjoyn the publication of the said Council whereby the maintenance of the Church is well-provided for which is observed to be daily impaired and abated And the Provincial Council of Aix in Provence Anno 1585. Petition the King at the beginning of the Acts That he out of his singular Piety would command the Council of Trent to be published which had so exactly provided against all dangers wherein the Christian Common-wealth was then impugned We must not think that these earnest solicitations which the French Ecclesiasticks here made did proceed so much from them as from the Pope One argument hereof which may be alledged is this that they were not now interessed herein for most of the Decrees which concerned them were admitted and there was no default in the observation of them unless it were on their part and one company of them were inserted in the Edict of Bloys the rest in divers other Provincial Councils holden afterwards in France the Canons whereof are to be seen in Print at Roven 1581. at Bourges 1584. at Tours 1585. and at Aix in Provence the same year The better to countenance the League forementioned it is presented to Pope Gregory XIII that he might bless it The Pope was well-pleased they should attempt any thing against the Protestants but he did not approve those Popular Rebellions which were made against a most Christian King neither would he be the fire-brand of a War which he could not quench and so he sent the Deputies back without any answer The King of Navarre causeth the Deputies of the Protestants to assemble at Montauban to resolve of the means to maintain themselves if the League abusing the King's name and authority should seek to offend them The Duke of Espernon goeth also to the King of Navarre to confer with him privately in the King's name The chief of the League presume That the King means to Arm and to employ the King of Navarre's Forces against them They send forth many Commissions in the King's name that what they did might be thought as done for his Majestie 's service The King in the end of March disavows them and forbids all Leavies of men of War The King made no War but by writing seeking first by gentle means to pacifie them Hedâ—clares the Zeal he hath alwaies born to the Catholick Religion and the necessity that forced him to a Peace Then having promised to restore the Church to her beauty to content the Nobility to ease the people he entreats conjures exhorts and commands all Clergy-men Gentlemen Parliaments and Towns Corporate to abandon all Leagues and Associations and to unite themselves under his obedience The King of Navarre likewise sets forth a Declaration and whereas he was accused of Heresy he answereth That he was born under the toleration of two Religions in France That he will leave that wherein he was bred when by a Lawful Council they shall shew him another truth than that which he believeth He saith he is not relapsed seeing he was not fallen from his first Opinion That he is no enemy to the Catholicks for that when the Edicts had granted Liberty of Conscience he presently laid down Arms. That in all places he maintains his Subjects in the same Liberty as he found them after the decease of his Mother That he hath requested of the King a prolongation of the Towns which he holds for assurance of the last Edict and will deliver them before the time so as the League lay aside Arms and yield unto the King the places they had seized That whereas they declare him uncapable of the Crown it toucheth him very near yet doth he think least of it hoping that God by his bounty will long preserve the King for the good of his Realm and will give him issue to the grief of all his enemies The Queen-Mother accustomed to fish in troubled waters winkt at the Duke of Guise She was contented the Duke should terrifie the King to make him abandon the Protestants and to force him to banish his new Minions from Court who had brought her in disgrace with the King her Son Her ambition moved her hereunto rather than any desire she had to advance the Duke and to bring disorder and confusion into the State and to stand alone in the midst of these furious tempests The Heads of the League march with an Army of 12000. men to Verdun a City upon the Confines of the Duke of Lorain which they take And the Duke of Guise being entred the City drove out the Governour with all his adherents and placed Guittald in his place The City of Thoul drave out the King's Officers and freely gave up it self into the hands of the League The City of Marseilles riseth in favour of the League but the Conspirators are suppressed by the rest of the Citizens They call the Grand-Prior of France Governour of that Province who was then at Aix at whose coming though with but 200 Horse the Fort de la Garde was taken and in it the Consul Daries and Captain Chabanes who the next morning were executed by which severity the City was kept under the King's obedience The same happens at the City of Burdeaux Lions Bourges and many other places in the Kingdom side with the League The King laboureth to disunite the League by drawing many particular men from that party as also the City of Lions but seeing his design succeedeth not to his mind he resolves to Treat an agreement with the Confederates The Queen-Mother goes into Champagne to confer about it with the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Bourbon And after many Negotiations the Peace is concluded The King by his Edict of July 18. revokes all other Edicts in favour of the Protestants he commands their Ministers to depart the Realm and all his Subjects within six Months to make profession of the Romish Religion or to avoid the Country He approves the Leaguers Arms as Levied for his Service allows of their pretexts and by secret Articles concluded at Nemours contents them in all matters only with this condition to leave the League and instantly to lay down Arms. Yet would they have in their power the Towns of Chalon Verdun Thoul S. Disier Reims Soissons the Castle of Dijon Beawne Rue in Picardy Dinan and Coneq in Britain They caused the King to pay one thousand two hundred and six crowns and two third parts for the Strangers which they had Levied They had a discharge for vast summes which they had taken upon the General Receipts They obtained an hundred thousand crowns to build a Citadel at Verdun and entertainment for Guards on horseback for all the Lords of the League This Peace had made a great breach in the King's Authority The King of Navarre seeing this Cloud ready to break upon his party complains that
contained in the writing framed at Nancy with the privity of the Duke of Lorain which had been presented to the King in the beginning of the year That the King should again declare himself Head of the Catholick League he promiseth never to make a Peace nor Truce with the Hugonots nor any Edict in their favour He shall by a publick Edict oblige all Princes Peers of France Lords and Officers of the Crown Towns Colledges Corporations and the whole people to swear the same and bind themselves with a solemn Oath never to suffer any one to reign that was not of the Romish Religion and that for time to come none should be admitted to Offices Places and Dignities in any part of that Kingdom but such as were Catholicks and made profession of their Faith according to the Doctrine of Sorbon and the Belief of the Church of Rome That the Council of Trent should be received and observed through the whole Kingdom upon the conditions and exceptions formerly mentioned the priviledges of the Gallican Church being within three Months to be declared by a Congregation of Prelates and the King's Council with divers other Articles The Articles concluded and confirmed the King presently sent forth his Letters Patents into all Provinces and several Bailages to appoint the Assembly of the States in October following at Blois a place far from Paris where the people were at his devotion far from any commerce or intelligence with the League and near those Towns which were held by the Hugonots The Duke of Guise goeth with the Queen-Mother to Chartres unto the King and is received by him with great demonstrations of honour in appearance The King causeth the Edict of the union to be published in his Council and sworn to by every one and the War against the Hugonots to be openly Proclaimed for the prosecution whereof two several Armies were appointed one in Dauphiné under the Duke of Mayenne the other in Poictou under Ludovico Gonzaga Duke of Nevers The King gives the Duke of Guise the General Command over all the men at Arms of the Realm This though not the name and title yet in effect was the Office and charge of Constable He makes the Cardinal of Guise Legate of Avignon the which he promiseth to obtain for him of the Pope He determined to give the Seal unto Peter of Espinac Archbishop of Lions He declares the Cardinal of Bourbon first Prince of the blood And the King 's late Counsellours are dismissed the Court. But two things trouble the League one iâ— the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armado at Sea by the English the other is that the King will not return to Paris howsoever they importune him Pope Sixtus V. writes congratulatory Letters to the Duke of Guise full of praises comparing him to those holy Macchabees the Defenders of the People of Israel and exhorting him to continue successfully and gloriously to fight for the advancement of the Church and the total extirpation of the Hugonots Which Letters to encrease the Duke's Fame were by his dependants caused to be Printed and divulged in Paris with as much applause in the people as anger and trouble in the King who could not be pleased that another should have more Credit and Authority in his Kingdom than himself The Assembly of the States meet at Blois at the time prefixed viz. on October 16. After dinner all being met in the great Hall of the Castle the King sate down in a Throne raised by many steps from the Earth and covered with a rich cloth of State The Queens Princes Cardinals Peers and Officers of the Crown sate upon Seats fitted for that purpose in two long rowes on the right hand and on the left and between them in the inner part of the Theatre sate the Deputies according to the Ancient preheminence of their degrees and the Duke of Guise as Grand-Mastre with the Staff of Office in his hand sate down upon a Stool at the foot of the State on â—he right hand and on the left sate the Sieur de Monthelon who represented the Person of the High Chancellour of the Kingdom The King begins the Assembly with an elegant Oration wherein attesting the earnest desires of the good of his people and shewing the dangerous condition wherein intestine discords had involved the Crown he exhorted every one to lay aside their passions to forget their enmities to reunite themselves sincerely under his obedience forsaking all novelties condemning all Leagues c. which had disturbed both him their Lawful Sovereign and the peace of the Kingdom For as he pardoned all that was past so for the time to come he would not endure it but account it as an Act of absolute Treason That as he resolved to persecute and tread down Heresie to favour those that were good to restore the splendour and force of justice to advance Religion to uphold the Nobility and to disburden the Common people so he earnestly prayed and conjured every one of them to assist him with their good Counsels and sincere intentions This speech of the King 's stung the Duke of Guise to the quick and all those of his party He caused his Speech to be Printed which served much to excuse those things which followed afterward After the King's Speech followed the Oration of Monthelon who prosecutes and amplifies the King's Speech To which the Archbishop of Bourges answered for the Order of the Clergy the Baron de Seneschay for the Nobility and the Prevost des Merchands of Paris for the third Order of the Commons The Tuesday following the King and the States swear in solemn manner to perform the Edict made before of persevering in the Romish Religion The Archbishop of Bourges shewed the States the greatness and obligation of the Oath which they were to take Beaulieu the new Secretary of State inrolled an Act of that Oath in memory of so solemn an Action After it was done they gave thanks to God publickly in the Church of S. Saveur The Proposition of receiving the Council of Trent made in the Assembly of the States is generally rejected The King is requested to declare the King of Navarre incapable of the Crown and all others suspected to be Hugonots and after much opposition he coldly consents unto it and gives unto the Deputies a Protestation which had been presented unto him from the King of Navarre who having called a Congregation of those of his party at Rochel had caused a writing to be printed wherein he demanded the execution of those Edicts and Grants which had been so often made to those of his party the Convocation of a National or universal Council wherein he might lawfully be instructed in those things that were controverted in matter of Faith and finally he protested to count invalid whatsoever should be determined against him in that Assembly at Blois To which Propositions of the King of Navarre the French King added That if justice requires no man
mean Parents in a Village called Sorbone in the Territory of the City of Sens a young man about twenty two years of age and alwaies thought by his fellow-Friers and others that knew him to be an half-witted fellow and rather a subject of sport than to be feared This fellow resolves to hazard his life to kill the King whom he called by the name of Tyrant and to free that holy City as he said from Sennacheribs violence with which resolution he went to Doctor Burgoine Prior of his Covent and imparted this damnable project to him to Father Commolet to other Jesuites and to the Heads of the League all of them encouraging him to this devilish design with promise of Abbeys and Bishopricks if he escaped and if he died in the action to be made a Martyr and have place in heaven above the Apostles To that end he goes from Paris having gotten a letter of credit from the Count of Brienne who having been taken at S. Ovyn was still Prisoner in the City assuring him that he was to speak with the King about a business of infinite importance Upon the first of August in the morning the Frier being brought in to the King gives him the letter from the Count de Brienne which the King read and having bid him proceed to tell his business he feigned to feel for another paper to present it and whilst the King stood intentively expecting it he having drawn his knife out of his sleeve struck him on the left side of the navel and left all the blade buried in the wound The King feeling the blow King Henry III. is killed by James Clement a Frier drew forth the knife and in drawing of it made the wound wider and presently struck it himself up to the haft in the Frier's forehead who at the same time la Guesle running him thorow with his sword fell down dead and was no sooner fallen but Momperat Lognac and the Marquess de Mirepoix Gentlemen of the King's Chamber who were present at the fact threw him out of the window where by the common Souldiers he was torn in pieces burnt and his ashes thrown into the River The King was carried to his bed and sending for the King of Navarre he committed to him the care of the Army He told him it custom of killing Kings should grow in use neither should he be long secure He exhorted the Nobility to acknowledge the King of Navarre to whom the Kingdom of right belonged His Confessour absolved him and gave him the Sacrament the same night And having embraced the King of Navarre having called his Chaplain he in the presence of them all rehearsed the Creed after the use of the Roman Church and having crossed himself began the Miserere but his speech failing him in these words Redde mihi laetitiam salutis tuae he died having lived 36. years and Reigned 15. and just 2. Months In his death ended the Line of Kings of the house of Valois and the posterity of Philip III. Sirnamed the Hardy and by vertue of the Salique Law the Crown devolved to the Family of Bourbon nearest of the blood and descended from Robert Count of Clermont the second Son of St. Lewes Here let the Reader be advertised that when the Jesuites have made choice of an Instrument for that King-killing service that they intend to set him about they do not put him upon it till they have first raised and fitted his spirit for the service by this means First they bring him to a very private place in a Chappel or Oratory where the knife lies wrapt up in a cloth with an Ivory sheath with divers Characters and Agnus Dei's upon it They draw the knife and bedew it with holy water and hang upon the haft of it some Beads consecrated with this Indulgence that so many blows as he gives in killing the King so many souls shall he deliver out of Purgatory Then they give the knife to him commending it to him in these words O thou chosen Son of God take to thee the Sword of Jephte Sampson David Gideon Judith of Macchabees of Julius the second who defended himself from the Princes by his sword Go and be wisely couragious and God strengthen thy hand Then they all fall upon their knees with this prayer Be present O ye Cherubims and Seraphims be present ye Thrones Powers holy Angels fill this Vessel with glory give him the Crown of all the holy Martyrs he is no longer ours but your companion And thou O God strengthen his arm that he may do thy will give him thy helmet and wings to flie from his enemies give him thy comforting beams which may joy him in the midst of his sorrows Then they bring him to the Altar where is the Picture of Jaques Clement who killed King Henry III. the Angels protecting him and then they shew him a Crown of glory and say Lord respect this thy arm and Executioner of thy justice Then four Jesuites are appointed privately to talk with him they tell him that they see a Divine lustre in his face which moves them to fall down and kiss his feet and now say they he is no more a mortal man They envy his happiness every one sighing and saying Would God I were in your room that they might escape Purgatory and go immediately into Paradise But if they perceive him to shrink and to be troubled after all this they will sometimes affright him with terrible apparitions in the night and sometimes have the Virgin Mary and the Angels appear c. After the King's death the Image and Portraicture of the traiterous Monk who killed the King by the commandment of the chief of the League was most artificially framed in brass and other paintingâ— wherewith they garnished both their houses and their Churches Then was he Canonized and among the Superstitious prayed unto us as a Martyr whom they called by the name of St. James Clement Henry King of Navarre succeeded Henry III. in the Kingdom of France The Duke of Mayenne not daring to take upon him the title of King caused it by publick Proclamation to be given to Charles Cardinal of Bourbon then a Prisoner and coined both Gold and Silver with the Picture of King Charles X. And disguising the usurpation of his authority he accepted the title which the General Council of the union gave him of Lieutenant General of the State and Crown of France The Duke of Luxemburg told the new King that the Princes Lords and Officers of the Crown together with the Catholick Nobility that was in the Army were ready to acknowledge him King of France to serve him against every one since God and nature had called him to the Crown by a lawful succession but withal they besought him he would be pleased to turn to the Catholick Religion to take away the pretences of his enemies and the scruples of his servants The King gives them thanks telling them how ready he was to
a select number of Prelates to accompany the Legate men of good Learning and experienced in the matters of Government among whom were Lorenzo Bâ—anchetti and Filippo Sega who after were Cardinals Marco Antonio Mocenigo Bishop of Ceneda a man well versed in affairs and highly esteemed by the Pope Francesco Panigarola Bishop of Asti a renowned Preacher and Robert Bellarmine a learned Jesuite To the choice of these men the Pope added Bills of Exchange to the Merchants of Lions for three hundred thousand crowns with Commission to the Legate to dispose of them according to occasion but particularly to spend them for the infranchisement of the Cardinal of Bourbon upon which he shewed his mind was fixed more than upon any other thought whatsoever But the Pope by letters from the Duke of Luxemburg found that what the Agents of the League had represented to him was vain whereupon the Pope gave Orders and Commissions to his Legate to shew himself no less Neutral in the secular pretensions of the Princes than most zealous concerning Religion and not to value one French-man above another provided he were obedient to the Church and generally liked by the Kingdom and that he should not shew himself an open enemy to the King of Navarre so long as there was any hope he might return into the bosom of the Church But these advertisements were very contrary to the principal scope of the Embassy which was to uphold the Catholick party of the League as the foundation of that Religion in France so that the substance of the business changed in the variety of circumstances did so disturb the Execution that it was afterwards governed more by the diversity of accidents than by any determinate resolution The Cardinal-Legate being come into France required Colonel Alfonso Corso not only to forbear molesting Grenoble and Valence which Cities alone held for the League in Dauphiné but also that as a Catholick and stranger he should forsake the King's party and joyn with the union But he answered that he was indeed a Catholick and an obedient Son to the See of Rome in spiritual things but that having made his Fortune as a Souldier in the service of the King of France he could not desist from following him but was bound to do what he could in the affairs of the Prince whom he served This answer troubled the Legate and the rather because being come to Lions he found the business of the League in great disorder by the King 's prosperous success The Count of Brisac appointed at first to meet the Legate and sercure his passage was forced to face about and employ himself in the affairs of Normandy The Duke of Nevers invited him to come into his State where standing Neuter he might freely take those wayes as might appear most convenient to him On the other side the Duke of Mayenne ceased not to sollicite him to come to Paris shewing him that without the authority of his name and those helps which were hoped for from him the League was in danger to be dissolved and subdued by the King's Forces and all the rest of the Kingdom would remain oppressed by the Hugonot's party The Legate having overcome many difficulties arrives at Paris where he caused the Pope's Breve of the 15. of October to be published wherein after an honourable commemoration of the merits of the Kingdom of France toward the See of Rome c. He attested that he had chosen Cardinal Gaetano Legate to the Kingdom of France with power to use all means fitting to protect the Catholick Religion to recal Hereticks into the bosome of the Church to restore the Peace and tranquillity of the Kingdom and finally to procure that under one only good pious and truly Catholick King the people of France might to the glory of God live in quietness and tranquillity after so many calamities of War Wherefore he prayed and exhorted all the Orders and Degrees of France to persevere in the Catholick Religion and to labour to extinguish and root up the evil of Heresie to cut off the occasions of discord and that particular enmities quarrels and Civil Wars being laid aside they should resolve to yield obedience to a lawful truly Catholick King and the Divine worship being restored under his shadow to live in charitable union and concord Two different Declarations followed upon the publication of this Breve one of the Parliament of Tours by which all persons were forbidden to obey or acknowledge the Legate the other of the Parliament of Paris by which all were exhorted to receive the Fatherly love of the Apostolick See and to give due Reverence to the Legates admonitions After which contrary Declarations many Learned men fight for their Factions with their Pens as the Souldiers with their Swords Aid being desired by the League from the King of Spain the Sieur de la Mothe refuseth to advance beyond the Frontiers of France from Flanders unless the King of Spain be declared Protector of the Crown of France with authority to dispose the chief part of the Temporal and Ecclesiastical Dignities which Prerogatives they called las Marcas de Justitia marks of justice The Duke of Mayenne will not hearken to an agreement with the King The Archbishop of Lions lately imprisoned at Amboise being newly set at liberty by Captain Du-Gast for a great summ of money and come to Paris is made High Chancellour to the Duke of Mayenne and President of the Council The Pope's Legate grants unto Mayenne the three hundred thousand crowns brought for the enlargement of the Cardinal of Bourbon Mayenne besiegeth Meulan a small place but seated upon the pass of the River Seine at the entring into Normandy which therefore next to Pointoise hindered the bringing of Victuals to Paris where after 25. dayes siege news came that the Old Castle at Roven was seized by some Seditious persons which caused him to raise the siege and march to Roven to appease the troubles On the other side the King besiegeth Dreux and the Duke of Mayenne being joyned with the Spanish supplies from Flanders marching towards Dreux resolveth to fight The German Infantry raised for the King of France turn for the League under the Command of Colonel S. Paul The Army of the League had in it four thousand five hundred Horse and twenty thousand Foot The King's Army was but three thousand Horse and eight thousand Foot The King's Army being refreshed they marched toward the field of Yvry appointed by the King for the place of Battel Here the Armies joyned wherein the King obtained a great Victory The King all Armed on Horse-back visits every Division with great diligence and exhorts his Souldiers with great vehemency At last standing still at the head of the main Battalion joyning his hands and lifting up his eyes to Heaven He said so loud that he was heard by many O Lord thou knowest the intentions of my heart and with the eye of thy Providence thou piercest into
Lions Bourges and Orleans surrender to the King On the 22. of March the Parliament the Provost of Merchants and the Sheriffs having disposed the City of Paris received the King maugre the vain endeavours of some remnant of the faction of the Sixteen The Duke of Mayenne was gone into Picardy and Brissac to whom he had committed the Government of Paris for some Months past having taken it from the Count of Belin broke his faith with him believing he ought it rather to the King than to him The King had a little before caused himself to be anointed at Chartres with the Cruise of St. Martin of Tours The City of Rhemes was yet in the hands of the League but he would no longer defer his Coronation because he knew that That Ceremony was absolutely necessary to confirm to him the affection and respect of his people It was wonderful how that there being four or five thousand Spaniards engarrisoned in Paris and ten or twelve thousand factious persons of the Cabal of the Sixteen who all cruelly hated the King he could nevertheless render himself Master of it without striking stroak or without shedding blood His Troops having by intelligence seized on the Gates Ramparts and publick places he entred triumphantly into the City by the new Gate by which Henry III. had unhappily fled six years before and went directly to Nostredame to hear Mass and cause Te Deum to be sung Afterwards he returned to the Louvre where he found his Officers and his Dinner ready as if he had alwaies remained there After Dinner he gave the Spanish Garrison a safe-conduct and a good Convoy to conduct them as far as the Tree of Guise in all security The Garrison departed about three a clock the same day of his entrance with twenty or thirty of the most obstinate Leaguers who chose rather to follow Strangers than obey their natural Prince The same day that he entred into Paris the Cardinal de Peleve Archbishop of Sens a passionate Leaguer expired in his Palace of Sens. The Cardinal of Placentia Legate from the Pope had safe-conduct to retire home but he died by the way Brissac for recompence had the Staff of Mareschal and a place of honourable Counsellour to the Parliament D' O was replaced in his Government of Paris which he had under Henry III. but he died soon after That part of the Parliament which was at Tours was recalled and that which was at Paris re-inabled for it had been interdicted and both re-united conjointly to serve the King By noon of that day in which the King entred Paris the City was every where peaceable the Burgesses in a moment grew familiar with the Souldiers the shops were opened and the Artificers wrought in them And the calm was so great that nothing interrupted it but the ringing of the Bells the Bonfires and the Dances which were made through the Streets even till midnight Balagny with his City of Cambray turns to the King's side In like manner Amiens Beauvais and Peronne renounced the League Yea the Duke of Guise compounds with the King and brings the Cities of Rhemes Vitry and Mezieres under his obedience who in recompence of it gave him the Government of Provence from which he was obliged to withdraw the Duke of Espernon because the people the Parliament and the Nobility had taken Arms against him The Duke of Lorain also made his peace with the King on November 26. Now the Court of Parliament revokes and disannuls all other Decrees Orders or Oaths given or made since the 29. of December 1588. to the prejudice of the King's Authority and the Laws of the Realm And especially they disannulled all that had been done against the honour of the deceased King as well during his life as after his decease commanding to inform of the detestable Parricide committed on his Person and to proceed extraordinarily against such as should be found culpable They revoked the Authority given unto the Duke of Mayenne under the Title of Lieutenant General of the Estate and Crown of France forbidding all men to acknowledge him in that quality or to yield him any aid or obedience upon pain of High-Treason They likewise enjoyned the Duke of Mayenne upon the like pains to acknowledge Henry IV. of that name for King of France and Navarre and their King and to yield him the obedience of faithful Servants and Subjects And to all other Princes Prelates Noblemen GeBtlemen Towns Commonalities and private men to forsake that pretended Faction of the League whereof the Duke of Mayenne had made himself the Head and to yield unto the King obedience and fealty upon pain to the said Princes Noblemen c. to be degraded of their Nobility and Gentry and they and their posterity declared base with confiscation of Bodies and Goods and the razing of their Towns Castles and places that should infringe the King's Ordinances and Commandments Moreover they decreed That the 22. day of March should be for ever celebrated and the same day a general Procession should be made after the accustomed manner where the said Court should assist in their Scarlet Robes as a remembrance to give God thanks for the happy reduction of this said City to the King's obedience Now one John Castel Son of a Merchant-Draper of Paris about the end of the year 1594. having thrust himself with the Courtiers into the Chamber of the fair Gabriella where the King was would have struck him with a knife into the belly but the King then bowing to salute some one the blow chanced on his face only piercing his upper lip and breaking a Tooth It was not known for the present who had struck it but the Count of Soissons seeing this young man affrighted stopt him by the Arm. He impudently confessed that he had given the blow and maintained that he ought to do it The Parliament condemned him to have his right hand burned his flesh torn off with red hot Pincers and after to be torn in pieces by four Horses burnt to ashes and cast into the wind The Jesuites under whom this Miscreant had studied were accused for exciting him to this Parricide Among other things he heard the Fathers of that Society to say That it was lawful to kill the King That he was Excommuncated out of the Church that he was not to be obeyed nor taken for their King until such time as he was allowed by the Pope Therefore the Parliament Decreed That the Priests Scholars and all others terming themselves of that Society of Jesus as corrupters of Youth should depart within three daies after the publication of the said Decree out of Paris and other places where they had Colledges and within fifteen daies out of the Realm upon pain after the same time to be punished as guilty of high Treason The house of Peter Castel the Father of this Parricide standing before the Palace was razed and a Pillar erected containing for a perpetual monument the
time flourished Jacobus Sirmondus a Learned French Jesuite he was Confessour to King Lewes XIII Dallaeus saith he was a most Learned and most diligent man Natione Gallus Biblioth societ Jesu A Philip. Alegamb edit Rector olim Collegii Parisiensis vir totius antiquitatis curiosus investigator Latine Graecéque impensè doctus in omni penè literarum genere excultissimus qui humaniores literas theologicas admodum decore conjunxit As for his Works there are his Eucharisticon pro Adventoria de Regionibus Ecclesiis suburbicariis Censura conjecturae Anon. Scriptoris de suburbicariis Regionibus Ecclesiis Propempticum Cl. Salmasio adversum ejus Eucharisticon and other Works of his We owe unto him saith Dr. Du Moulin the Works of Facundus an African Bishop who lived in the time of the Emperour Justinian Claudius Salmasius was a Learned French Critick Vir incomparabilis maximus Salmasius de primatu Papae post quem Homerum siquis Iliada conscribere velit inutilem laborem suscipiet Rivet Grot. Discus Dial. Sect. 5. Vir nunquam satis laudatus nec temerè sine laude nominandus Claud. Salmasius Voss de Orig. progress idol li. 4. ca. 91. Nostri seculi miraculum antiquitatis promus condus Gul. Rivet Praefat. ad vindic Evang. Non Galliae suae duntaxat sed jam hujus Bataviae ingens decus atque adeo totius Reipublicae literariae praesidium Voss de anal li. 3. ca. 46. Clariss Salmasius notis ad Vopiscum ubi post Guilandinum Dalecampium in Plinium ac Scaligeri Diatribam adversus Guilandinum pulchrè indictaque aliis de hoc disserit argumento Voss de art Gram. li. 1. ca. 38. Vir alioquin ad literas summo honore tractandas illustrandas natus si modestiam adhibere arroâ—â—â—ti de se persuasione ac erga alios mdlignitate excussa mentem animi in iis sedulo occupare potuisset Herald animadvers in Salmas observat Ad jus Att. Rom. li. 2. ca. 7. Desiderius Heraldus a Learned French man hath written a Comment on Martial and the other Books forecited and other Learned Works Franciscus Vieta was a Learned French Mathematician There are his Opera Mathematica Vol. 2. Relatio Calendarii vere Gregoriani cum aliis opusc Vniversalium inspectionum ad Canonem Mathematicum lib. singularis De Aequatione recognitione emendatione Thuanus thus saith of him Vir ingeniosa profunda meditatione cujus vi nihil illi inaccessum in abstnusioribus scientiis nihil quod acumine mentis possit confici difficile confectus fuit Thuan. Hist Tom. 5. part 2. li. 129. Nicholas Vignerius was a Learned French Historiographer There are To. 3. de la bibliotheq Hist and other works of his vid. Thuan. Hist Tom. 5. li. 117. part 1. His Son Nicholas Vignerius was a Learned Divine He hath published an excellent Treatise in French styled Theatre de l'Antichrist and a Dissertation in Latine of the Excommunication of the Venetians against Cardinal Baronius And Theses of the satisfaction of Christ which Rivet highly commendeth and annexeth unto his own Disputations Benedict Turretine was also a Learned French man These Books of his are published in French Defense de la fidelité des traductions de la S. bible faictes a Geneve Recheute du Jesuite Plaigiaire Profit des Chastiments Quod adversus Petri Cottoni Jesuitae plagiariam Genevam manifestum fecit vir dum viveret doctissimus accuratissimus Benedictus Turretinus Andr. Rivet Apologet. pro vera pace Ecclesiae The Works of Cardinal David Du Perron are in four Volumes in Folio in French Replique A la Response du Serenissime Roy de la Grand Bretagne Les Diverses Oevres c. Du sainct sacrement de l'Eucharistie Les Ambassades Negotiations He is well answered by Du Moulin Rivet and Blondel The Jesuites seek to be incorporate in the University of Paris whom the University opposed by all means presenting a Petition unto the Queen Regent against them therein laying down at large their damnable Doctrine and strange Equivocations Hereupon Factions began in Paris some standing for others siding against the Jesuites But these Clouds were quickly dispersed and the State preserved for the continuance whereof Monsieuer Pasquier one of the Masters of Requests a man of great Learning and Judgement wrote unto her a Discourse of advice The Abbot of Bois in his Sermons treating of the Question Whether it be Lawful to kill a Tyrant and refuting Mariana's Book and others he made an exhortation to the Jesuites that they should hereafter have a great care that no Book should be published to the prejudice of France under the name of their Society nor with the approbation of their Superiour if they would not willingly expose themselves to those dangers which all their wisdoms fortified with the Authority of their confident friends could not avoid For this did the Jesuites complain and informed against him who answered for himself both wisely and discreetly October 17. the young King was Crowned at Rhemes by Cardinal Joyeuze On November 26. the Great Chamber the Turnelle and the Chamber of the Edict being assembled by a motion made by Monsieur Servin the King's first Advocate against Bellarmines Book touching the Pope's Temporal Power made a Decree against the same whereat the Pope's Nuncio did mightily storm On May 27. 1611. began the Assembly of the Reformed Churches at Saumur whereat many Dukes and Noblemen of the Reformed Religion were present where Du Plessis was chosen President Which Assembly was dissolved September 29. Monsieur de Bullion letting them understand that their Majesties had given him in charge to say that all their just requests should be favourably answered and whatsoever had been promised should be paid The Duke of Espernon to manifest his gratitude to King Henry III. his Master and Benefactor begged of the Queen Regent to give him leave to perform his Funeral Rites he having formerly after the death of the said King attended his Body to Compeigne where the misfortunes of War and the confusions of the times permitted not at that time the performance thereof The Queen readily consented to his request so that the Duke with a great company of Lords and Gentlemen went to fetch the body from Compeigne from whence he conveyed it to St. Dennis where it was deposited in the ancient Sepulchre of the Kings of France A little before his death the Duke caused a Marble Pillar one of the most excellent pieces of Architecture of these late times to be carried and set up in the Church of S. Clou wherein he was so curious as to make it to be wrought in his own house and almost in his own sight his design being to found a Revenue of a thousand Liuvres yearly for the service of the Chappel where it was erected which was also adorned with Pictures and paved with Marble at his own charge But some difficulties arising about the settlement of that foundation which
1626. and the next day the General and particular Deputies ratified and confirmed them King Lewes made a severe Edict against Duels and took a solemn Oath not to shew any favour to those who should break it About this time there arose very great Disputes in the University of Paris especially between the Doctors of Divinity about a certain Book composed by Sanctarellus a Jesuite which treated of the power Popes had over Kings which Book had been approved by their chief President by the Pope's Vicegerent and by the Master of the holy Palace His Doctrine was That Popes had a power of direction or rather correction over Princes that they might not only Excommunicate them but deprive them of their Kingdoms too and absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance whether it were for Heresie Apostasie or any other great publick crime whether it were for the insufficiency of their persons or for their not defending the Church and that the Pope might at last give their States to such as he should think fit For the present it made a great noise among the Doctors and was opposed by several Books which then were published The whole Body of Divines did condemn it some indeed of the old League seemed to favour it But the Parliament called the chief of the Jesuites before them and obliged them to sign a Declaration by which they should condemn the said Book and to cause another of the like to be subscribed by all the Provincials and Rectors and by Six of the most ancient of every one of their Colledges in France and so ordered the Book to be burnt by the common Hangman with prohibition to the Stationers to sell any of them At this time there were Combinations of divers Grandees of the Court against the King and State Madam de Chevuruse being discontented that her private intelligences with the English Ambassadour were so publickly taken notice of did not a little promote the undertakings by her animating of Monsieur the Grand Prior and Chalais to execute it both which were engaged by love to her as also that the Colonel d'Ornano abusing Monsieur's goodness and the credit which his place gave him did absolutely divert him from the Marriâ—ge which his Majesty had so earnestly desired should be celebrated The Cardinal discovered that Chalais was one of chief Instruments of the Enterprize and that Colonel Ornano was the Ring-leader of the Plot. That their chief end was to unite all the Provinces so close together that they might enforce his Majesty not to remove any thing from the Court and withal to permit them to live in the same licentiousness that they had a long while formerly enjoyed That to this effect they endeavoured the breaking of the match between Monsieur and Madamoiselle de Montpensier and to bring on that of Madamoiselle de Bourbon which would more nearly engage Monsieur to their Interests or else to persuade him to marry some other stranger Princess which might be a means to shelter and defend their designs by the forces and assistances which they might reasonably expect from such a Family That this once effected they intended the Count de Soissons should Marry Madamoiselle de Montpensier that the Houses of Guise and Bourbon might be united together and in this manner they would in a moment huddle up together all the leading potent persons of the Court. The Marshal de Ornano is arrested at Fountainbleau and carried Prisoner to the Castle of Bois de Vincennes where he died a few months after of a stoppage in his Bladder The Cardinal beseecheth the King to permit his retirement from the Court. And the King causeth the Duke de Vendosm and the Grand-Prior of France his Brother to be imprisoned at Blois The Marriage of Monsieur and Madamoiselle de Montpensier was celebrated soon after to the quiet and content of the whole Kingdom Chalais the Master of the King's Wardrobe is arrested from the Chamber of Justices at Nantes who condemned him of Treason and sentenced him to be beheaded which was done accordingly Then was the Sieur de Baradas removed from the Court who had been much in favour with the King About the end of this year great differences arose between the Bishop and the Officers of Verdun This being a Frontier Town was then lookt upon as considerable in regard Monsieur de Lorrain seemed to be active and able to attempt something upon France which obliged the King to go on with a design which he had long before resolved of the building a Citadel there The Abbey of S. Vannes was ever reputed the most fit place of all the City for that purpose whence it happened that in the Charter of the said Abbey there had been divers Articles concluded between the Bishop of Verdun and those to whom that place hath ever belonged in which they bound themselves to build their Church in some other place if it should be found necessary to make use of some part of it for the raising of a Citadel However the lines were so contrived that the Church was saved but that of the Capuchins was forced to be taken down which was afterwards done and rebuilt in another place Now the Bishop of Verdun being Lorrain's kinsman was wholly moved by him so that not considering what dependence he had upon the King he suffered himself to be engaged by the Duke to prevent the building of the Citadel On December 30. he published a Monitorium fixed upon all publick places against all such as should labour about it This proceeding was lookt on as a strange thing by the King's Officers The Sieur Guillet presently called a Council of his Majesties Officers of the Town to consider of what was to be done where it was concluded to tear down such Papers as had been any where posted up and to set others in their places of a contrary tenour in the King's behalf which was presently done The Bishop offended at it thundered out an Excommunication the next day against Guillet which he fastened in divers places and having given order to his Vicars not to act any thing in prejudice to his pretended authority he departed from Verdun and rode Post to Cologne In the mean while the Sieur Charpentier his Majesties President in Metz Thoul and Verdun being acquainted with the whole proceeding he declared the said Monitorium to be abusive and scandalous and commanded it to be torn and burnt by the Hangman That the said Bishop should be sent Prisoner to Paris That his Benefices in the mean time should remain in his Majesties hands and that he should pay a fine of ten thousand livres for his said fault This Judgement was put in execution with the usual form excepting only as to the Bishop's being sent to Paris so that he resolving not to suffer himself to be thus despoiled of his goods thought it his best course to send to the King to pacifie him for his rashness he also gave order to
upon Assumption-day at the Altar in the Morning and that in the Evening a general Procession should be made wherein the Provost of Paris and all the Soveraign Companies should be assistant with the Court of Parliament This Command extended to all other Archbishops and Bishops throughout France that they should in every Cathedral Church erect one special Altar to the Virgin Mary for this end and in commemoration of this Act to pepetuity One Instance more I shall add of his Zeal to the Romish Religion When the Old Marshal de la Force a Protestant was admitted to see him a little before he expired he told him on his death-bed That he thought God Almighty suffer'd him meaning the Marshâ—â— to live so long upon Earth expecting his Conversion as he had done that of Lesdiguiers He put out sundry Proclamations against Swearers against Pride in apparel as also against Duels and the last was so strict That both the appellant and defendent whosoever did survive should suffer death without mercy and be deprived of Christian burial but both rot upon the Gallows with their heels upwards Here I shall put down a List of divers Books that were Printed in France for sundry years past Francisci Garciae Evangelicus concionator Printed at Lions Anno 1622. Petri Damiani Cardinalis opera Printed at Lions 1623. Bibliothica Veterum Patrum Graecorum Printed at Paris 1624. Deus Natura Gratia by Saint Clara Printed at Lions 1625. Puteani Commentaria in summam D. Thomae Printed at Tholouse 1627. Biblia Septuaginta cum Graeco Testamento Graec. Lat. in three Volumes Printed at Paris 1628. Biblia Vulgata Printed 1628. Bibliotheca Ordinis Praemonstratensis per Job le Praige Printed at Paris 1633. Ludov. Dolae de Concursibus Dei creatura Printed at Lions 1634. Concilia Generalia Graec. Lat. ten Volumes Printed at Paris Franc. Lanovii Chronicon generale ordinis Minimorum Printed at Paris 1635. Didacus Baeza de Christo figurato in Vet. Testam Printed at Lions 1636. Francis Hallier de sacris electionibus ordinationibus at Paris 1636. Historia Ecclesiae Gallicanae at Paris 1636. Franc. Bouquet de Pontificibus Romanis è Gallia oriundis Jacobi Sirmondi propemptrion contra Eucharist Cl. Salmasii Jac. Sirmundi opuscula Dogmatum veterum Scirptorum Andrew de Saussay Martyrologium Gallicanum at Paris 1637. Mart. Bonacinnae opera omnia Printed at Paris 1638. Jacobi Saliani Annales Ecclesiastici Steph. Fagundez in Decalog at Lions 1640. Theses Theologicae Protest Academiae Salmuriensis at Saulmur 1641. Hâ—ttingeri Historia Ecclesiastica five Volumes compleat Hottingeri Analecta Historico-Theologica Octavo Afterwards Anno 1646. there was published Annalium Ecclesiasticorum Epitome at Roven Novissima Galliae Concilia à Tempore Concilii Tridentini ad Annum 1646 at Paris Lewes XIV the present French King succeeded his Father in the Kingdom being about five years old Mazarine casting with himself what is hutful and profitable past this sentence upon the Clergy These are his words counselling the Queen Regent The Sacred Order for these many years hath had but a thin harvest of excellent Persons however it come to pass Men follow after nice Questions live idly do not embrace serious Studies All is done with pomp nay if any Sermons be to be made and the very venerable sacrifice offered Of their Office they lay claim to nothing but their Rents the duty of Preaching which is the principal dignity of a Bishop they quit to any one though never so insufficient They think themselves Bishop enough if they can but ride in fine Coaches with their Arms set on out-vie one another in rich Liveries and Lacquies and punish with rigour those that transgress in the least matters Perpetual haunters of Ladies Couches not without undervaluing the Pastoral staff This is for the most part for there are some that lead holy and unreprovable lives He that shall take offence will own himself not to be one of these but those other So much power hath Religion over the minds of men that as often as among men in holy Orders any eminent vertue hath got up and overcome the common attainments and the vices of mankind it is adored like a Deity At that time that company was of no weight nor moment in France said Mazarine There was Francis Paul Gondy by extraction a Florentine but born in France Abbot of Rhetz afterwards Coadjutor to the Bishop of Paris Archbishop of Corinth one that if occasion had offered would have aspired high as Cardinal Mazarine confessed he was perswaded Over and above an honourable Family he had eloquence and learning with promptness of spirit All was now prosperous and quiet in France whose power reached over Almania from the Mazelin Brink beyond the Rhine By the Victory at Norlingue the parts confining on the Danube were afterwards invaded and terror struck on all sides In Spain by seizing Tortosa and Flix the French got to the River Iber. Their Fleets ranged over the Mediterranean and Ocean All Italy from the Pope who then was Vrban VIII to the least Princes bore reverence The Dukes of Savoy Mantua and Modena then rather Instruments of French slavery than free Princes The Kings of Sweden and Denmark boasted of their friendship the Pole sued for it The Electors of Germany sought to interest themselves in their favour Portugal rent from Spain depended on the looks of France whose Yoak Catalonia had put on being weary of the Spanish Dominion The Low Countries stuck close to them All Europe with astonishment stood gazing at such a state of the French affairs nothing was then wanting to compleat their happiness besides moderation and the art enjoying it Paul Gondy designed Archbishop of Paris is consecrated of Corinth it is the Bishop of Rome's practice that so the whole world may be thought depending on the Vatican Oracle to exercise his authority even upon the dissenting parts That day was first occasion of much ensuing mischief Ferraro Pallavicini a Canon Regular a Parmesan of a Noble house sharply inveighing in libellous Pamphlets against the practices of the Roman Court lost his Head at Agivnon in France and gave instance how unsafe a thing it is to touch upon the Roman State in writing though never so truly The Divisions of Italy being closed up Pope Vrban VIII died July 29. 1644. after he had sate twenty one years and some months Then Gio Battista Pamphilio a Noble Roman was Proclaimed Pope after the See had been vacant 45. daies He assumed the name of Innocent the Tenth The Hist of Cardinals part 3. lib. 2. This Election was not at all displeasing to the French though they were not a little displeased at Cardinal Antonio who for his own private Interest had by his reiterated instances perswaded that Crown to the exclusion of Pamphilio and afterwards consented to it contrary to the King's order and without expecting the return of the Currier which was dispatched to that Court that they might consult upon the
Arms to suppress the King's Authority that of their Court with the publick liberty And to that effect had caused the City of Paris to be invested and the King to be conveyed from thence at two of the clock in the morning Upon the news of these combustions in Paris at Rome Monsieur Mazarine wrote to his Son the Cardinal telling him of his faults and giving his Fatherly advice The Court now between Paris and Roven the two most powerful Cities of the Kingdom was distressed with the want of all things especially of money the Aids coming in but slowly from all parts The City Militia grew every day more unwilling to submit to Orders and all people were full of murmuring complaints Thereupon the Archbishop of Corinth gets up into the Pulpit at St. Pauls and saith I would have had you in safety I would have had you Victorious and the goodness of the cause had acquitted you unless your repentance and tameness did plead guilty Then having inveighed much against the Government and Mazarine he cometh down out of the Pulpit and having put off his Mitre and Surplice he putteth on his Armour Often he sallied out of the Town to charge the Enemy without any regard to his Function Great uproars and tumults followed but at St. Germans the principal Lords of the King's Council did earnestly treat of Peace with the Parliaments Commissioners Mazarine being excluded as already pre-condemned by publick Acts some Courtiers driving that way that they might engross to themselves the honour of having procured the quiet of the State The Queen opposed it strongly and at length when he was taken in March 11. 1649. the Articles were agreed to the great joy of the Common people That an Act of Oblivion for past miscarriages be made That all things be restored to their former estate That the King be brought home again to Paris Taxes to be diminished A Treaty of Peace with the Spaniard consented to and some Worshipful Member of the House for Age and Experience be joyned in the transaction to see it concluded upon good and firm terms The Sedition at Paris was scarce quiet but the Faction works in new Plots There is a Rising in Provence and especially in Guienne against their Governours which Conde underhand abetteth Conde Conti and Longueville are imprisoned Thrice they alter their Prison in thirteen months Various transactions passed in the mean time in Normandy Burgundy and Guienne Great contests there were either about releasing or detaining the Prisoners The Cardinal and the Slingers fell at odds so as to betray one another and treat with the Prisoners about Marriages and in a manner sharing the whole Kingdom At length a Peace is concluded and published on August 2. 1650. and all things are setled in Guienne The King enters the City of Bourdeaux with a Guard of four thousand choice men The Cardinal had Lodgings with the King in the Archbishop's Palace Espernon the cause of the Insurrection was excluded who might by his single vertue purchase a Government The Life-Guards were dismissed and the King trusted himself to the Guard of his Subjects Which took much with their Ambitious temper The Court parted from thence The King stayed at Fountainbleau all being in an uproar in Paris at his success in Guienne the Faction were enraged On November 15. 1650. Conde Conti and Longueville were conveyed in eleven daies journey through the midst of Normandy to Havre de Grace where they were kept in close custody Harcourt secured the conveyance with four hundred Horse and the like number of Foot On February 6. 1651. in a dark night the Cardinal Incognito in a disguised habit guarded by about 200. Horse riding himself on horseback retired to St. Germans Harcourt beating the way He pursues his journey through the midst of Normandy to Havre de Grace with a pompous train gazed at by all the people as he passed along Mazarine having disposed his Cavalry into the neighbouring Villages enters into Havre de Grace with his retinue of menial servants He goes into the Castle alone with only two others he delivers the Queens Letters to the Governour for the releasing of the Princes which was done accordingly Longueville went out first then Conti and both of them leaped into Grammont's Coach Conde staid a little while after with the Cardinal in the Prison Chamber where they had Conference together The enlarged Princes return to Paris where the Souldiery at the sight of Conde weep for joy Great was the concourse of the City and so great was the joy as though the Pillars were restored to the Kingdom Mazarine withdraws from France and comes in safety to Brovel the Palace of the Elector of Cologn Thence he writes to the Queen and the Count de Brienne his Majestie 's Secretary This Letter being read with an audible voice in the Privy Council brought some to relent but exasperated more Mazarine is Voted in a full house guilty of High Treason the disturber of the publick peace and enemy of France Strict prohibitions are made that no French man should hold correspendence with him imposing a severe penalty on all that should presume to transgress Mazarine was in ill condition against whose return were strict Ordinances to which the Queen Regent gave her assent nay by Act of Parliament not only foreign but home-born Cardinals and Ecclesiasticks in what degree soever dignified are rendred uncapable of being admitted Members of the King's Council No man can pay a divided Allegiance to his natural Sovereign and the Bishop of Rome For Cardinals if the account be rightly cast up are but Curates in Purple They should attend the Consistories and over-see their Flock the charge whereof cannot be neglected without the hazard of souls Corinth drew against the Bill that only foreigners should be excluded from the Government lest his expected Hat not being lined with that Ministry to which he aspired might be depressed by his meaner contemplations Obusson Archbishop of Yverdon in behalf of the Clergy made an eloquent Oration for the priviledges of the Church but without success Yet the reputation of Obusson grew by this means higher and paved him a path to future preferments The main scope of his Oration lay in amplifying the obligations that Cardinals had laid upon France whose good services were conspicuous all over the World The Parliament answered that the same Cardinals were insatiable in Ambition and Covetousness This said they is incident to Ecclesiastical dignities a slighting of heavenly matters and an affectation of domineering on earth and eminency over great Princes in all which they write after the Copy and come as near as they can to the Roman Court overcoming all the world in pride They added that they turn the greatness they have received against their very benefactors and aim at nothing less by their Canonists and Emissaries than the total suppression of the Secular power That if their immoderate advance proceed the Authority of Church-men will become
Cognard a Professour of the Reformed Religion for writing a Book by order and with approbation of the Synod of Normandy in answer to a book full of calumniations and falsities written by a Physitian of that place who from a Protestant had a little before turned Papist And the said Archbishop by his violent persecution having obliged the said Cognard to leave this City by a just judgement of God who useth ordinarily to punish men in the very things wherein they have sinned He the said Archbishop fell into the same pit which he had digged for another having at Roven published a most dangerous Pamphlet containing this seditious doctrine That it is lawful to fall on the Hereticks and granting either by his Archiepiscopal authority or otherwise an Indulgence or Pardon of an hundred years to any one that should fall on any pretended Heretick This cursed doctrine coming to the knowledge of the French Court and the dangerous consequences of it having been there seriously weighed the King sent order to the Duke of Longueville Governour of that Province to apprehend the said Archbishop but he timely hearing of it ran away and absented himself from thence An English man was imprisoned at Bourdeaux having been taken as he was endeavouring to seduce divers persons to turn to the Sect and Opinions of the Quakers a thing not heard of in France before that time Great talk was in Paris of a Miracle which they say hapned in the Monastery of Port-royal in that City upon one that was a Pensioner belonging to that Monastery who was said to have been cured of a Fistula in the eye called Fistula lachrymalis by the touch of one of the thorns which the Priests say was taken out of the Crown of our blessed Saviour But how it came into France I cannot tell you And albeit in this prying age the Church of Rome hath not been very forward to broach any new miracles especially on this side the Alpes yet this hath been much cried up The Grand Vicar of the Arch-bishoprick of Paris was the first that was Patron of it and afterward it was approved by the Curat of S. Severin the present grand Vicar assisted therein by five Doctors of the Sorbon and a publick mass and thanksgiving was celebrated for it Hereupon many were drawn to the said Monastery to be cured by the holy Thorn The Assembly of the Clergy lay so heavy with their importunities upon the King that it was yielded at length that a Declaration should be issued forth contrary to the sence of former Declarations which were made in favour of the Protestants Hereupon the Parliament of Tholouse proceeded so far as to ratifie the said Declaration against the Protestants of France and ordered that two Counsellours should go into upper and lower Languedoc to put it in Execution and to cause such Churches to be demolished as had been built since the Wars Soon after the Bishop of Soissons died a Prelate of much reputation who had served King Henry IV. in the quality of Almoner He was promoted to the said Bishoprick in the year 1623. He had the honour to consecrate the present King at his Coronation Since the Declaration forementioned another Declaration of the French King was published at Paris in behalf of the Protestants intimating that the Edict of Nantes should be punctually observed and that two Commissioners one Protestant one Papist should repair to the places where any innovations or contraventions had been made to reform the same Some Bishops of the Assembly of the Clergy viz. those of Montauban and Alby represented to the said Assembly that the answer made in the behalf of the Protestants to the late speech of the Archbishop of Sens ought to be burnt as a Book pernicious and injurious to the King as they reported and other Bishops affirming the contrary for the proving of the truth the same answer was read in their Assembly by the Secretary from one end to the other and upon reading of it the Assembly concluded thâ—t there was no just ground therein to complain of it to the King and so the said Assembly dissolved without prosecuting the business any farther at that time Not long after a certain Popish Priest discoursing one day with a French Protestant with design to draw him over to the Church of Rome he thought he had brought him into a very hopeful way when the Protestant had told him that all the Protestants in France would submit themselves to the Pope if the Pope would submit himself to the Councils to whom the Priest replyed it will be necessary then that a Council be called and such rules established by common consent as shall be thought necessary for the Government of the Church To which the Protestant replyed a little fiercely How will the Pope observe the Decrees of a Council that cannot be kept â—rom violating the Precepts of the Gospel but if you will undertake to bring the Pope to a submission to them I do not question to convert all of my Religion to the Pope for to tell you the truth Sir I hold one as feasible as the other After the taking of Dunkirk by the English and French and put into the hands of the English Crequi is sent Embassador to O. Cromwel with Mazarine's Nephew in his pompous train Cromwel died not long after Divers places in Flanders were surrendered to the French but amidst these prosperous successes the French King falls into a Fever at Calais judged to be mortal Supplications were made for him at all Altars and prayers for his recovery were publickly enjoyned Mazarine day and night sate by his bed side to make him governable in taking Physick which he would taste himself either to take off the unpleasantness or to make proof of it The eleventh day accounted Critical the King seemed at the point of death could scarcely life up his eyes that now appeared almost set in his head His Majesty having Antimony with judgement given him by Geunault recovered and being conveyed to Paris pay'd his Vows in Nostre-Dame Church An heart of massy Gold was hung upon the wall as an oblation afterwards to confirm his health he removed to Fontainbleau Mazarine stayed some time behind to advance the siege of Graveling The taking of Graveling was the last Monument of the French glory before the conclusion of the peace At twenty four Sessions the business of the peace between France and Spain was compleated and at length on November 7. 1659. the Articles agreed on by the two Ministers were signed and published The Cardinal at Tholouse rendered the King and Queen an account of the peace concluded whereat they received much satisfaction From hence the Court made a Progress into Provence till the King of Spain should come with his daughter who was to be married to the French King to compose the disorders at Marseilles which had broken out about the Priviledges of their Consuls Gaston Duke of Orleans born of Henry IV. and
and banished should appear with such ardour in the defence of that interest that was the cause of his troubles and which is worse resolved never to re-admit him to the Dignities he had lost The King of France unwilling to let the constancy or generosit of de Retz with which he maintained the just priviledges of his Crown to go unrewarded he admitted him again into his favour which he enjoyes to this day if he be yet living but with some conditional limitations as retaining still in his mind the prejudice he did formerly to the Crown though he often declared that all his designs were against Mazarine Afterwards Carlo Roberti a Roman was created Nuntio and sent into France And though the gross of the quarrel forementioned was composed by the Treaty at Pisa yet there were certain reliques remaining that without good managing might have unravelled all again Therefore above all the Pope gave Roberti in charge that he should as much as in him lay redintegrate into the favour of his Majesty and the principal Officers in his Court the opinion that Chigi had lost in France and that he should endeavour to make them appear innocent and full of affection for that Crown Pope Alexander VII in his last promotion made him a Cardinal with the rest of the Nuntio's and sent him his Cap to Paris Before his Nuntiature into France this Prelate was much inclined to the Interest of Spain but when he began to be acquainted with the French Kings entertainment and the civility of the French Court he changed his mind and followed the humour of the French Afterwards certain Jesuites disobliged by some check which they had received in Paris about the Jesuite Anthony Sancterelli's Book de Haeresi Schismate Apostasia in which he spake to the disparagement of the power of Princes but magnified and exalted the power and Authority of the Pope fell publickly to maintain before the Kings face the question of the Infallibility and inpeccability of the Pope The French Divines thought themselves concern'd for the honour of the Crown and conservation of the antient priviledges of their Church to answer them with a most just and well-grounded Censure wherewith they rigorously condemned the doctrine of the Jesuites as too remote from the general opinion and of great prejudice to the Soveraignty of Princes Pope Alexander VII having notice of what passed testified to King Lewes his dislike of this proceeding The King recommending the examination of the matter to the wisdom of the Parliament of Paris they upon mature deliberation concluded that the Popes Infallibility was not to be admitted in France as being an innovation and inconsistent with the antient priviledge of the Gallican Church and therefore they saw no reason to admit a new opinion known only to such as depended on the Court of Rome and reject that which was of greater antiquity and had been owned by so many Popes Which determination so netled his Holiness that he fell immediately to his Bulls and with great threatning and curses forbad the Printing or reading of the abovesaid Censures Among other expressions in his Bull there were these Praefatas censuras uti praesumptuosas temerarias atque scandalosas It was very well known that those Censures were made by the Sorbonists Il Cardinalissimo the King 's principal Divines by the Parliament it self which is as much as to say by the King himself Notwithstanding the Pope spares not any revilings but throws forth peals of invectives indiscriminately as if from a Pope nothing is injurious This is the respect the Popes bear to the most Christian King and to such a State as France Lewes Duke of Vendosme a French man is descended from a Natural Son of King Henry IV. who Marrying with Frances of Lorrain Dutchess of Mercoeur had this Lewes by her He had no great enclination to the Ecclesiastical habit his mind running more after Matrimony and the affairs of the world Accordingly when he arrived at a competent Age he Married a Niece of Cardinal Mazarine's hoping by means of his favour to open a way to some honourable employment This Lady lived not many years with the Duke her Husband to whom she left two hopeful Sons This Lord being a Widdower changeth his mind being now altogether for the Ecclesiastical habit not in any penitential way but only to capacitate him for the Cardinalship which he alwaies aim'd at Finally the French King according to the Prerogative of his Crown being to nominate a person in the last promotion of Pope Alexander presented this as a person of great Merit and fit to be an Ornament both to the Cap and Colledge and the rather because in his Viceroyship in Catalonia and in his Government of Provence he had shewed great diligence in his Majesties service A few daies after he had received his Cap the tidings of the Popes languishing condition arrived so that with directions from the King he parted immediately for Rome to be present at the new Conclave where he met exactly with all the rest of the French Cardinals In the year 1667. Pope Alexander VII dieth and Clement IX succeedeth him The Election being made the Cardinal of Vendosm who in this Conclave had behaved himself with great prudence and perhaps more than was expected by the elder Cardinals that had been a long time acquainted with the Intrigues of the Conclaves prepared for his return into France but first he recommended to his Holiness the Interests of his Master particularly in the business of the discameration of Castro according to the Treaty at Pisa in which it was Articled that Castro should be delivered The Pope sent a Bull to Cardinal Vendosme declaring him Legate à Latere and thereby qualifying him for that Function Here followeth a Relation of the Present Estate of the Reformed Churches in France translated out of French and published Anno 1668. I Shall only in brief relate the proceedings of the Adverse party against them The first and most considerable Mean used against them by the Popish Clergy is that of Commissions For under pretext of executing the Edict of Nantes and the Decrees made in consequence thereof and providing against the breaches of the same they have engaged the King to send Commissioners into all Provinces For clearing whereof we must remember that Henry IV. of happy memory having found it convenient for the quiet of his Subjctes to make this Edict as a particular and irrevocable Law did send Commissioners into all the Provinces to execute the same and after those Commissioners had established all things in due form they returned their Executions into the hands of the King to serve as a Rule in all future debates which could arise on that subject These Commissioners although the Hugonots have usurped nothing since the first execution of the Edict but on the contrary have sustained innumerable losses have now altogether perverted the business for concealing the first execution of the Edict they have
the Heretical and forbidden Books The King was informed of their shifts and of that Letter Wherefore he ordereth the Bishop to require them again After divers exhortations to this purpose they send fifteen places which they had marked The Bishop conferreth with their Deputy Gagneius upon these Instances and writes a large Letter unto them commending the Annotations and shewing what course they should observe in their censure They were the more enraged at that commendation and would not go on in their censure but would have the Book to be condemned which they had declared Heretical Then the King sent his Letters Patent and sealed charging them to proceed in their censure and to deliver it unto his Printer They do still refuse and at that time King Francis dyeth viz. on March 31. Anno 1547. His Son King Henry II. who succeeded him sendeth the like charge unto them on August 16. 1547 They return Answer that they shall perfect their censure before November 1. But then in place of the censure they send a supplication craving that the Books may be forbidden because he is a Sacramentarian and had written that mens Souls are mortal The Printer is informed of it and addresseth himself to answer before King and Council Then they return unto Paris But he shews how false their calumnies were At that time they sent unto the King forty six Articles which they had collected It was told unto their Deputies that they had spoken of some thousands of Errours and were these all turned to forty six They answered the University had more but had not as yet put them in form The Printer returns to Paris chiding some of the Divines for accusing him falsly The Printer craves of the King protection from the malice of his Enemies The King grants it under his Seal This storm being over he gathereth fifteen old Manuscripts of the new Testament in Greek and printeth it with the divers lections on the Margin and gives the first copy unto Castellan The Pope sends into France Jerome Boccaferrius a Roman Cardinal of St. George in shew to condole with the King for the death of his Father and to give him joy of the beginning of his Kingdom but with commission to make confederation with him The Pope gave the Legate most ample power to grant the King all his demands in matter of Benefices without regarding the Decrees of the Tridentine Council a strong Alliance is made between the Pope and the French King and two Cardinals are created at the King's instance viz. Charles of Guise Arch-Bishop of Rhemes and Charles of Vandosme of the Blood-Royal The Cardinal of Guise made an open discourse in publick consistory in the name of the French King shewing Hist Concil Trident li. 3. that King Francis had never spared any cost or danger to maintain the liberty of other Princes In conformity whereof Henry not degenerating from the vertue of his Ancestors as soon as he had left to mourn for his Father's death was willing to declare his observance towards the See of Rome That the merits of the Kings of France were famous and exceedeth all those of other Nations But this was above all which the King now doth promising all his Forces to preserve the Papal Dignity now when it is so contemned He prayed the Pope to receive the King for his Son and to promise to himself all assistance from him and to take care that the Church should receive no damage nor shame in regard that from small beginnings great factions have risen which have brought the Popes into great calamities He exemplified in many Popes afflicted who were defended and raised by the Kings of France concluding that the present King will not yield to his Ancestors in preserving the Dignity of the Apostolick See In the year 1549. The French King making his first entry into Paris caused a solemn procession to be made and published an Edict wherein he signifieth that he received the protection of the Catholick Religion and of the See of Rome and the care of the Ecclesiastical Order and that he abhorred the Novity of Religion and testified unto all his will to persevere in the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and to banish the new Hereticks so he called the Protestants out of all his Dominions He caused this Edict to be printed in French and sent it into all parts of his Kingdom He gave leave also to his Prelates to make a Provincial Assembly to reform the Churches Which being known at Rome was thought to be a bad example and might be a beginning to make the French Church independent of the Church of Rome He caused also many Lutherans to be put to death in Paris himself being present at the Spectacle and in the beginning of the next year he renewed the Edict against them laying grievous punishments upon the Judges who were not diligent in detecting and punishing them Pope Paul III. dyeth Anno 1549. the Cardinals were divided into three factions about the choice of a new Pope Imperialists French and dependents on the dead Pope and by consequence on his Nephews Hist of Cardin. part 3. li. 2. They made agreement among themselves that nine Cardinals should be named of each Faction three but that the nomination should be made by two only of the Faction of France and that afterwards it should be lawful for the Imperialists to take one of the said nine at their pleasure and that the rest should be obliged to concur Of the French Faction accordingly were named the Cardinals of Lorrain Tornon and Bellai Of the Imperial Faction Theatino Monte and San Marcello and three others of the other Faction Salviati Ridolfi and Trani The Imperialists refused all the nine persons which were named which gave great offence to the other two Factions insomuch that it was proposed by the French to the Farnesians to unite among themselves and to choose a Pope in spite of the Imperialists But they could not agree in the choice of their persons because there were several Cardinals among the Farnesians who were much obliged to the Emperour and much afraid of his displeasure But after a tedious discussion of the Cardinals for the space of three months during the vacancy of the See Gio Maria del Monte was created Pope on February Anno 1550. by the name of Julius the third And now the Faction of the Nipotisme was introduced into the conclave having over-powred the Factions of the Emperour and King of France with no small reputation The Council having been translated to Bolonia the Emperour having protested against it the Pope deliberates about the remitting of it to Trent The French King offered to the Pope whatsoever he was able to do for him promised to assist the Council and to send the Prelates of his Kingdom and all favour and protection for the maintenance of the Papal Authority The Book of Francis Duraneus a learned Lawyer entituled De Sacris Ecclesiae Ministeriis came