Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
and preferments of the French By these propositions to which the Jusuits in the end subscribed I know not with what mental reservation it is more than evident that they have left him no command neither over their consciences nor their persons So that all things considered we may justly say of the Papal power in France what the Papists falsly say of Erasmus namely that it is Nomen sine rebus In one thing onely his authority here is entire which is his immediate protection of all the Orders of Friers and also a superintendency or supreme eye over the Monks who acknowledge very small obedience if any at all to the French Bishops For though at the beginning every part and member of the Diocess was directly under the care and command of the Bishop yet it so happened at the building of Monestaries in the Western Church the Abbots being men of good parts and sincere life grew much into the envy of their Diocesan For which cause as also to be more at their own command they made suit to the Pope that they might be freed from that subjection Vtque intutelam Dive Petri admitterentur A proposition very plausible to his Holiness ambition which by this meanes might the sooner be raised to his height and therefore without difficulty granted This gap opened first the several Orders of Friers and after them the Deans and Chapters purchased to themselves the like exemptions In this the Popes power was wonderfully strengthened in having such able and so many props to uphold his authority it being a true Maxime in State Quod qui privilegia obtenent ad eadem conservanda teneantur authoritatem concedentis tueri This continued till the Council of Trent unquestioned where the Bishops much complained of their want of authority and imputed all the schismes and vices in the Church to this that their hands were tied Hereupon the Popes Legates thought it fit to restore to their jurisdiction their Deans and Chapters At that of the Monks and Monestaries they were more sticking till at the last Sebastian Pighinus one of the Popes Officers found out for them this satisfaction that they should have an eye and inspection into the lives of the Monks not by any authority of their own Sed tanquam a sede Apostolica delegati But as for the Orders of Friers the Pope would not by any means give way unto it They are his Janizaries and the strongest bulwarks of his Empire and are therefore called in a good Author Egregia Romanae Curiae instrumenta So that with them the Diocesan hath nothing to do each severall religious House being as a Court of Peculiars subject onely to the great Metropolitan of Rome This near dependance on his Holiness maketh this generation a great deal more regardless of their behaviour than otherwise it would be though since the growth of the reformation shame and fear hath much reformed them They have still howsoever a spice of their former wantonness and on occasions will permit themselves a little good fellowship And to say truth of them I think them to be the best Companions in France for a journey but not for acquaintance They live very merrily and keep a competent table more I suppose than can stand with their vow and yet far short of that affluency whereof many of our books accuse them It was my chance to be in an house of the Franciscans in Paris where one of the Friers upon the entreaty of our Friend had us into the Hall it being then the time of their Refectory a favour not vulgar There saw we the Brothers sitting all on a side and every one a pretty distance from the other their several commons being a dish of pottage a chop of mutton a dish of Cherries and a large glass of water This provision together with a liberal allowance of ease and a little of study keepeth them exceeding plump and in good liking and maketh them having little to take thought for maketh them as I said before passing good Company As I travelled to Orleans we had in coach with us three of these mortified sinners two of the Order of St. Austin and one Franciscan the merriest Crickets that ever chirped Nothing in them but mad tricks and complements and for musick they would sing like Hawks when we came to a vein of good Wine they would chear up themselves and their neighbour with this comfortable doctrine Vivamus ut bibamus et bibamus ut vivamus and for Courtship and toying with the Wenches you would easily beleeve it had been a trade with which they had not a little been acquainted Of all men when I am married God keep my wife from them and till then my neighbours On the other side the common Priests of France are so dull and blockish that you shall hardly meet with a more contemptible people The meanest of our Curats in England for spirit and discourse are very Popes to them for learning they may safely say with Socrates Hoc tantum scimus quod nescimus but you must not look that they should say it in Latine Tongues they have none but those of their Mother and the Masse Book of which last they can make no use unless the Book be open and then also the Book is fain to read it self for in the last Romanum Missale established by the authority of Pius the fifth and recognized by Clement the eighth Anno 1600. every sillable is diversly marked whether it must be sounded long or short just as the varifying examples are in the end of the English Grammer When I had lost my self in the streets of Paris and wanted French to enquire homeward I used to apply my self to some of this reverend habit But O soeclum insipiens et infacitum you might as easily have wrought water out of the flint as a word of Latine out of their mouthes Nor is this the disease of the vulgar Masse mumbler onely it hath also infected the right worshipful of the Clergy In Orleans I had business with a Chanoin of the Church of St. Croiz a fellow that wore his surplice it was made of Lawne and Lace with as good a credit as ever I saw any and for the comliness and capacity of his cap he might have been a Metropolitan perceiving me to speak to him in a strange Tongue for it was Latine he very learnedly asked me this question Num potestis loqui Gallica which when I had denied at last he brake out into another Interrogatory viz. Quandiu fuistis in Gallice To conclude having read over my Letter with two or three deadly pangs and six times rubbing of his temples he dismissed me with this cordial and truly it was very comfortable to my humor Ego necotias vestras curabo A strange beast and one of the greatest prodigies of Ignorance that ever I met with in mans apparrel Such being the Romish Priests it is no marvail if the French be no more setled and resolute
learned so much of her kinswoman as to permit this Son of hers also to spend his time in his Garden amongst his play fellows and his Birds that she may the more securely mannage the State at her discretion And to say nothing of her untrue or misbecoming her vertue she harh notably well discharged her ambition the Realm of France being never more quietly and evenly Governed theâ—n first during her Regencie and now during the time of her favour with the King For during his minority she carryed her self so fairly between the Factions of the Court that she was of all sides honoured the time of Marquessd ' Ancre onely excepted And for the differences in Religion her most earnest desire was not to oppress the Protestants insomuch that the warre raised against them during the Command of Mr. Luines was presently after his death and her restoring to grace ended An heroical Lady and worthy of the best report of posterity the frailty and weekness of her as being a woman not being to be accounted hers but her Sexes CHAP. II. The Religions struggling in France like the two Twins in the womb of Rebecca The comparison between them two and those in general A more peculiar Survey of the Papists Church in France In Policie Priviledge and Revenue The Complaint of the Clergie to the King The acknowledgement of the French Church to the Pope meerly titular The pragmatick Sanction Maxima tua fatuitas et Conventui Tridentino severally written to the Pope and the Trent Councill The tedious quarrels about Investitures Four things propounded by the Parliament to the Jesuit's The French Bishops not to meddle with Friers Their lives and Land The ignorance of the French Priests The Chanoins Latine in Orleans The French not hard to be converted if plausibly humoured c. FRom the Court of the King of France I cannot better provide for my self than to have recourse unto the Court of the King of Heaven and though the Poet meant not Exeat aulâ qui vult esse pius in that sense yet will it be no treason for me to apply it so And even in this Court the Church which should be like the Coat of its Redeemer without seam do I find rents and sactions and of the two these in the Church more dangerous than those in the Louure I know the story of Rebecca and the Children struggling in her is generally applyed to the births and contentions of the Law and the Gospell In particular we may make use of it in the present estate of the Church and Religions in France for certain it is that there were divers pangs in the womb of the French Church before it was delivered and first she was delivered of Esau the Popish faith being first after the struggling countenaaced by authority and he came out red all over like a hairy Garment saith the text which very oppositely expresseth the bloody and rough condition of the French Papist at the birth of the Reformation before experience and long acquaintance had bred a liking between them And after came his Brother out which laid hold on Esaus heel and his name was called Jacob wherein is described the quality of the Protestant party which though confirmed by publick Edict after the other yet hath it divers times endeavoured and will perchance one day effect the tripping up of the others heeles And Esau saith Moses was a cunning hunter a man of the field but Jacob was a plain man dwelling in Tents In which words the comparison is most exact A cunning Archer in the Scriptures signifieth a man of Art and Power mingled as when Nimrod in the 10th of Geneses is termed A mighty Hunter Such is the Papist a side of greater strength and subtilty a side of warre and of the field On the other side the Protestants are a plain race of men simple in their actions without craft and fraudulent behahaviour and dwelling in Tents that is having no certain abiding place no one Province which they can call theirs but living dispersed and scatterred over the Country which in the phrase of Scripture is dwelling in Tents As for the other words differencing the two Brethren and the elder shall serve the younger they are rather to be accounted a Prophesie than a Character we must therefore leave the Analogie it holds with the Rebecca of France and her two Sons to the event and prayer For a more particular insight into the strength and subtilty of this Esau we must consider it in the three main particular strengths of it Its policy priviledge revenue For the first so it is that the Popish Church in France is governed like those of the first and purer times by Arch-bishops and Bishops Archibishops it comprehendeth twelve and of Bishops an hundred and four Of these the Metropolitan is he of Rhemes who useth to annoint the Kings which office and preheminence hath been annexed to this seat ever since the time of St. Remegius Bishop hereof who converted Clovis King of the Franks unto the Gospel The present Primate is Son to the Duke of Guise by name Henry de Lorrein of the age of fourteen yeares or thereabouts a burden too unweildy for his shoulders Et quae non viribus istis Munera conveniunt nec tam puerilibus annis For the better government therefore of a charge so weighty they have appointed him a Coadjutor to discharge that great function till he come to age to take Orders His name is Gifford an English fugitive said to be a man worthy of a great fortune and able to bear it The revenues of this Arch-bishoprick are somewhat of the meanest not amouting yearly to above 10000. Crowns whereof Doctor Gifford receiveth onely two thousand the remainder going to the Cadet of Lorreine This trick the French learnt of the Protestants in Germany where the Princes after the reformation began by Luther took in the power and Lordships of the Bishops which together with their functions they divided into two parts The Lands they bestowed upon some of their younger Sons or Kinsmen with the title of Administrator the office and power of it they conferred with some annual pension on one of their Chaplains whom they stiled the Superintendent of the Bishoprick This Archbishop together with the rest of the Bishops have under them their several Chancellors Commissaries Archdeacons and other Officers attending in their Courts in which their power is not so general as with us in England Matters of Testament never trouble them as belonging to the Court of Parliament who also have wrested into their own hands almost all the business of importance sure I am all the causes of profit originally belonging to the Church The affairs meerly Episcopal and Spiritual are left unto them as granting licence for marriages punishing whoredom by way of pennance and the like To go beyond this were Vltra crepidam and they should be sure to have a prohibition from the Parliament Of their Priviledges the
be found more children in the towne than fathers this walk and the night are shrewdly suspected to be accessories a greater incnovenience in mine opinion than an English Kiss There is yet a fourth walk in this towne called L'estappe a walk principally frequented by Merchants who here meet to confer of their occasions It lieth before the house of Mr. Le Comte de St. Paul the Governour and reacheth up to the Cloister of St. Croix of the buildings of which Church I could never yet hear or read of any thing but that which is meerly fabulous for the Citizens report that long since time out of minde there appeared a Vision to a holy Monk which lived thereabouts and bad him dig deep in such a place where he should finde a piece of the Holy Crosse charging him to preserve that blessed relique in great honour and to cause a Church to be built in that place where it had been buried Upon this warning the Church was founded but at whose charges they could not inform me so that all which I couâ—d learn concerning the foundation of this Church is that it was erected by Superstition a Lie The Superstition is apparent in the worshipping of such rotten sticks as they imagine to be the remnants of the Crosse their calling of it holy and dedicating of this Church unto it Nay they have consecrated unto it two Holy-dayes one in May and the other in September and are bound to salute it as often as they see it in the streets or high wayes with these words Ave salus totius Seculi arbor salutifera Horrible blasphemy and never heard of but under Antichrist Cruces subeundas esse non adorandas being the lesson of the Ancients As for the Miracle I account it as others of the same stamp equally false and ridiculous This Church in the yeare 1562. was defaced and ruined by the Hugonots who had entred the town under the conduct of the Prince of Conde An action little savouring of Humanity and lesse of Religion the very Heathens themselves never demolishing any of the Churches of those towns which they had taken but in this action the Hugonots consulted only with rashnesse and zealous fury thinking no title so glorious as to be called the Scourge of Papists and the overthrowers of Popish Churches Quid facerent hostes captâ crudelius urbe The most barbarous enâ—mies in the world could not more have exercised their malice on the vanquâ—shed And this I peâ—swade my selfe had been the fate of most of our Churches if that Fictâ—on had got the upper hand of us but this Church notwithstanding is likely now to survive their madnesse being Henry the fourth begâ—n the repairing of it and his Son Lewis hath siâ—ce continued it so that the Quire is not quite finished and the workmen are in hand with the rest What should move the Hugonots to this execution I cannot say except it were a hate which they beare unto the name and perhaps not that unlikely We read how the Romans having expelled the Kings banished also Collatinus their Consul a man in whom they could finde no fault but this that his sirname was Tarquinius Tantum ob nomen genus regium saith Florus Afterwards quam invisum fuerit Regis nomen is very frequent in the stories of those times Among those which had been of the Conspiracy against Julius Caesar there was one named Cinna a name so odious among the people that meeting by chance with one of Caesars friends and hearing that his name was Cinna they presently murthered him in the place For which cause one Cassius which was also the name of one of the Conspirators published a writing of his name and pedâ—gree shewing therein that he neither was the Traytor nor any kin to him The reason of his action Dion giveth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ne si nominis causâ occideretur With a like heat it may be were the French Protestants possessed against the name of the Crosse For they not onely ruined that Temple but beat downe also all those little Crosses betwixt Mount Mactre and St. Denis though now King Lewis hath caused them to be re-edified And what troubles the French party here in England have raised because of that harmlesse ceremony of the Crosse Notius est quam ut stylo egeat and therefore I omit it This Church is the Seat of a Bishop who acknowledgeth the Archbishoprick of Seines for his Metropolitan The present Bishop is named Franciscus de Anbespins said to be a worthy Scholar and a sound Polititian though he were never graduated farther than the Arts of his revenue I could learn nothing but of his privileges this namely that at the entrance of every new Bishop into this Church he hath the liberty of setting free of any of the Prisoners of the Gaole though their crime be never so mortall For the originall of this indulgence we are beholding to St. Aâ—gnan once Bishop here and who defended the city against Atella the Huanne At his first entrance into the towne saith the Story after he was invested Bishop he besought Agrippinus the Governor that for his sake he would let loose all his Prisoners Vt omnes quos pro variis criminibus poenalis carâ—er detinebat inclusos sibi in introitus gratiam redderet resolutos When the Governour had heard this request he denied it and presently a stone falleth on his head no man knew from whence Wounded and terrified with this the Governour granteth hiâ— desire recovereth his health and ever since the custome hath continued For the truth of this story I intend to be no Champion for I hold it ridiculous and savouring too much of the Legend but this I am certain of that every new Bishop maketh a solemn and majestick entry into the City and at his entry releaseth a Prisoner Let us follow the Bishop into his Church and we shall finde him entertained with an high Masse the ceremonies whereof are very pretty and absurd To goe over them all would require a volume I will therefore mention those onely wherein they diffâ—r from other Masses and they are two the one Fantasticall the other Heathenish for as soon as the Priest at the Altar hath read a certain lesson but what his voyce was not audible enough to tell me out marcheth the Dean or in his absence the senior Chanoin out of the Church before him two or three Torches and a long Crosse silvered over after him all those of the Church and lastly the Lay-people both men and women so that there is none left to keep possession but the Priest at the Altar and such strangers as come thither for curiosity they went out at one door and just circuited the Quire and the body of the Church afterwards they return to their places and the Priest proceedeth I have seen many a dumb shew in a Play just like it This onely is the difference that here we had no interpreter nor Chorus
not directed for ought I could perceive to any particular Saint yet not to be passed over without a due remembrance It was separated from the rest of the Church by two ranks of brass pillars one rank above the other The pillars are curiously cast and such as would not shame rhe workman In the massing Closset over the Altar there was hanged a tablet which by the many lines and shadows drawn in it seemed to represent some piece of building Moving my hand towards my eye in the nature and kind of a perspective-glass I perceived to be the representation of that Church wherein I stood to see it and it was done with that cunning that it would almost have perswaded a man out of himself and made him beleive that he had been in the Church-yard so perfectly did it shew the majesty of the Front the beauty of the Iles the number of the pillars and the glory of the Quire a kind of work in my opinion of all others the most excellent and such as would infinitely delight an Optick Had not such peices been vulgar to me it had more affected me But in the gallery of Mr. Crane of Cambridge once belonging to that humerous Physitian Mr. Butler and in that of Sir Noel Caron late Leiger for the States at Lambeth I had seen divers of them whereof some perfecter The third of these Massing Clossets was that of St. Peter not so gorgeous as the rest unto the eyes of them that saw it but more useful to the soules of those who had a mind to take the benefit of it for therein hung an Indulgence granted by Pope Gregory the fifteenth unto that Church dated the twenty seventh of July Anno Dom. 1612. and of his Popedom the twentieth The contents of it were an absolute exemption from the pains and place of Purgatory to those who upon the Feast of All-Soules Festum commemorationis Sanctorum the Breif calleth it and the Octaves of it would come to pay their devotions and moneys in that Temple Had the extent of it been general it would quickly have emptied the Popes treasury and in time to have put an end to Purgatory His Holiness therefore did wisely restrain it in his Bull to the natives of that Diocess The author and first founder of those Indulgences if it be lawful to note so much by the way was Pope Vrban the second who began his Popedom Anno 1088. who conferred them on all such who would go into the warrs for the recovering of Hierusalem Next they began to be conferred on those who would side with the Pope in his unlawful warrs against the Emperours And lastly about the time of Clemâ—nt the fifth he began his raign Anno 1306. they began to grow merchantable for to him that gainful invention of the Church treasury consisting of the merits of our Saviour and the Saints is imputed but I return again to the Church of Amiens This glorious Church is the seat of a Bishop who acknowledgeth for his Metropolitan the Archbishop of Rhemes Primate of all France the first Bishop of it was one Firnamus a native of Pampelune in the Kingdom of Navarre who suffered Martyrdom under the Emperor Dioclesian to him succeeded another Firminus to whom the first foundation of this Church is attributed the present Diocesan is named Franciscus Faber his intrado about six thousand Crowns a year Chanoins there are in the Church to the number of forty of whose revenue I could not learn any thing Neither could I be so happy as to see the Head of St. John Baptist which is said to be here entire though it cannot be denied that a peice of it is in the holy Chappel of Paris besides those fractions of it which are in other places CHAP. IV. Our journey down the Some and Company The Town and Castle of Pigingi for what famous Comminees censure of the English on matter of Propheoies A Farewell to the Church of Amiens The Town and Castle of Pont d' Armie Abbeville how seated and the Garrison there No Governour in it but the Mayor The French Post-horses how base and tired Mp preferment to the Trunk-horse the House of Philip de Commiâ—ees The Town and strength of Monstreville The importance of these three Towns to the French border c. IVly the thirtieth we took boat to go down to Abbeviâ—e by the River of Some a River oÌ„f no gâ—eâ—t breadth but deep and full the boat that carried us was much of the making of those Lighters that live upon the Thames but that it was more weildy and fit for speed there were in it of â—â—â—hall to the number of thirty persons or thereabouts people of all conditions and such with whom a man of any humour might have found a companion under the tilt we espied a bearie of Lasses mixt with some young Gentlemen To them we applied our selves and they taking a delight to hear our broken French made much of our company for in that little time of our abode there we had learned onely so much of the French as a little Child after a years practise hath of his Mothers tongue Linguis dimidiata ad huc verba tentantibus loquelâ ipso affectantis linguae fragmine dulciori The Gentlewomen next those of Orleans were the handsomest that I had seen in France very pleasant and affable one of them being she that put my Religion to the touchstone of kissing the cross of her beads Thus associated we passed merrily down the stream though slowly the delight which our language gave the company and the content which their liberal humanity afforded to us beguiling the tediousness of the way The first thing which we met with observable was the Town and Castle of Pignigni The Town poor and beggerly and so unlikely to have named the Province as Mercator would have it besides the disproportion and dissimilitude of their names The Castle scituate on the top of the Hill is now a place of more pleasure than strength as having command over an open and good Country which lyeth below it it belongeth as we have said to the Vidimate of Amiens and so doth the Town also This Town is famous among the French for a tradition and a truth The tradition is of a famous defeate given to the English neer unto it but in whose raigne and under whose conduct they could not tell us being thus routed they fled to this Town into which their enemies followed with them intending to put them all to the sword but at last their furie being allayed they proposed that mercy unto them which those of Gilead did unto those of Ephraim in the Scriptures life and liberty being promised to all them that could pronounce this word Pignigni it seemeth it was not a word in those daies possible for an English mouth for the English saying all of them Peguenie instead of Pignigni were all of them put to the sword thus farre the tradition The truth of story by
of London As for the Town of Boulogne it is divided into two parts la haute Ville and la Bass Ville or the High Town and the Low Town distant one from the other about an hundred paces and upwards The high Town is seated upon the top of an hill the low Town upon the the declivity of it and towards the Haven Or else we may divide it into two other parts Viz. the Town and the City the Town that towards the water and the City that which lieth above it It was made a City in the reign of Henry the second Anno 1553. at which time the City of Terorenne was totally ruined by the Imperials and the Bishop was removed â—â—ther The Church of Nostre Dame being made the Cathedral there came along hither upon the remove of the Bishop 20. Chanoins which number is here still retained their revenues being about a 1000. Liures yearly as for the present Bishop his name is Pierre de Arme his intrado twenty thousand Liures His Metropolitan he of Rhemes The Town or as they call it the low Town is bigger than the City and better built the streets larger and the people richer most of the Merchants living in it because it lieth above the Haven but that which made this low town most pleasing was a solemn procession that passed through the streets of it intended to pacifie Gods anger and divert the plague which at that time was in the City In the first front there was carried the Cross and after that the holy and sanctified Banner next unto it followed all the Priests of the Town bare-headed and in their Surplices singing as they went the services destinate to that occasion after them followed the Men and after them the Women of the Town by two and two it being so ordered by the Roman Ritual Vt Laicia Clâ—ricis faeminae a viris separatae prosequantur On the other side of the street went the Brethren dela Charite every one of them holding in his hand a little triangular Banner or a Pennon after them the Boys and Wenches in this method did the solemnity measure every lane and angle of the Town the Priests singing and all the people answering them in the same note At the Church they began it in prayer and having visited all the Town they returned again thither to end it with the same devotion An action vety grave and solemn and such as I could very well allow of were it not onely for one prayer which is alwayes said at the time of this performance and addition of the Banners The prayer is this Exaudi nos Deus salutaris noster intercedente beatâ gloriosa Dei genetrice Mariâ semper Virgine Sebastiano beato Martyre tuo this Sebastian is their Aesculapius or Tutelary Saint against the sickness omnibus Sanctis populum tuum ab iracundiae tuae terroribus libera misericordiae tuae fac largitate securum Amen This onely excepted there is nothing in the whole Liturgy of it which can be offensive to any conscience not idle scrupulous These Processions were first instituted by Pope Stephanus the second who began his Popedom Anno 752. the intent of them is as Platina reporteth Ad placandam Dei iram The first place that they ever went to in Procession was the Church of our Lady in the Shambles or ad Sanctam Dei genitricem ad praesepe as the Historia calleth them As for the Letany which is a principal part of it it was first compiled by Mamercus Bishop of Vienna in Daulphine in the time of Pope Leo the first which was 308. years after the time of Stephanus The motive of it was the often danger to which France was subject by reason of the frequency of Earthquakes Since those beginnings which were fair and commendable the Romish Church hath added much to them of magnificence and somewhat of impiety and prophaneness As for the Brethren de la Charite I could not learn any thing of their original but much of their office for they are bound to visit all such as are infected with the Plague to minister unto them all things necessary and if they die to shrowd them and carry them to their graves These duties they perform very willingly being possessed with this fancy that they are priviledged from contagion by vertue of their Order and to say the truth they are most of them old and so less subject to it and indeed such sapless thin and unbodied fellows that one would think almost no disease could catch them yet hath their prerogative not alwayes held to them Of thirty three of them in Callice three onely surviving the disease about four years since But were the danger to which themselves are liable all the inconvenience of it I should not much disallow it There is a greater mischeif waiting upon it and that is the infecting of others they immediately after their return from the Pest-house mixing themselves with any of their neighbours A most speedy meanes to spread the pestilence where it is once begun though neither they nor the people will be perswaded unto it The City or the high Town standeth as we have said on the top of the hill environed with deep ditches a strong wall and closed with a treble gate and two draw-bridges a little small Town it is not much above a slights shoot thwart where it is widest and hath in it but one Church besides that of Nostre Dame which is the Cathedral the streets not many and those narrow unless it be in the market place where the Corpus du Guard is â—ept What the outworks are or whether it hath any or no I cannot say Even in this time of League and peace their jealousie will not permit an English man to walk their wall either within the Town or without A Castle they said that it hath bur such a one as seemeth more for a dwelling than a fort The Garrison of this Town consisteth of five Companies sixty in a Company which amount in all to 300. their Governour being Mr. de Anmont sonne to the Marshal de Anmont who so faithfully adhered to Henry the fourth in the beginning of his troubles the cause why this Town being so small is so strongly Garrison'd is the safe keeping of the Haven which is under it and the command of the passage from the Haven up into the Country The first of these services it can hardly perform without much injury to the low Town which standeth between them but for the ready discharge of the last it is daintily seated for though to spare the low Town they should permit an enemie to land yet as soon as he is in his march up into the higher Country their Ordinance will tear him to pieces But for the immediate security of the Haven their Ancestors did use to fortifie the old Town standing on the top of the hill called La Tower de Ordre it is said to have been built by
of them severally consecrated or rather exorcized for so the words go Exorcizo te creatura salis and afterwards Exorcizo te creatura aquae c. This done the Salt is sprinkled into the Water in form of a Crosse the Priest in the mean time saying Commixtio salis et aquae pariter fiat in nomine Patris c. Being made it is put into a Cisterne standing at the entrance of their Churches the people at their coming in sometimes dipping their fingers into it and making with it the sign of the Crosse in their foreheads and sometimes being sprinkled with it by one of the Priests who in course bestow that blessing upon them Pope Alexander who is said to be the Father of it gave it the gift of purifying and sanctifying all which it washed Vt Cunesti illa aspersi purificentur et sanctificentur saith his Decretall The Roman Ritual published and confirmed by Paulus the fifth maketh it very soveraigne ad abigendos Daemones et Spiritus imundos Bellarmine maintaineth it a principall remedy ad remissionem peccatorum Venialium and saith that this was the perpetual doctrine of the Church August Steuchus in his Commentary upon Numbers leaveth out Venialia and pronounceth it to be necessary Vt ad eius aspersum debita nostra deleantur So omnipotent is the Holy Water that the blood of our Saviour Christ may be in a manner judged unnecessary But it is not onely used in the Churches the Rituale Romanum of which I spake but now alloweth any of the faithfull to carry it away with them in their vessels ad aspergendos aegros domos agros vineas et alia et ad habendum eam in cubiculis suis To which purposes it cannot but think this Water very serviceable The second Superstition which this Church shewed me was the continual burning of a Lamp before the Alter A Ceremony brought into the Churches as it is likely by Pope Innocent the third Anno 1215. at which time he ordained there should a Pix be bought to cover the bread and that it should therein be reserved over the Altar This honour one of late times hath communicated also unto the Virgin Mary whose Image in the Church hath a Lanthorne ex diametro before it and in that a Candle perpetually burning The name of the Donor I could not learn onely I met on the Screene close by the Ladies Image this Inscription Vne Ave Mariae et un Pater nostre pour luy qui ce la donne which was intended on him that bestowed the Lanthorne No question but Pope Innocent when he ordained this Vâ—stall Fire to be kept amongst the Christians thought he had done God good service in reviving this old Commandement given to Moses in the twenty seventh of Exodus and the twentieth and twenty one verses If so the World cannot clear him of Judaisme therefore the best way were to say he learned it of the Géntiles for we read that the Athenians had Lychnum inextineti luminis before the Statua of their Pallas that the Persians also had ignâ—m pervigilem in their Temples and so also had the Medians and Asirians to omit the everlasting Fire of Vesta and come neer home we meet with it also here in Britaine In Britania quoque saith a good Philosopher Minervae numen colitur in cuius Templo perpetui ignes c. Afterwards the flattery of the Court applying divine honours unto their Kings this custom of having fire continually burning before them began to grow in fashion among the Romans Herodian amongst other the ensigns of Imperial Majesty is sure not to omit this and therefore telleth us that notwithanding Commodus was fallen out with his sister Lucilla he permitted her her antient seat in the Theater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that fire should be carried before her The present Romans succeed the former as in their possessions so in their follies For calling the Sacrament their Lord God and the Virgin their Lady they thought they should rob them of half their honour should they not have their lamps and fires also burning before them As are their Lamps so is their Holy water meerly heathenish Siquidem in omnibus Sacris as we read in the fourth book Genialium Dierum Sacerdos cum Diis immolat rem divinan facit corporis ablutione purgatur The Author giveth a reason for it and I would no Papist no not Bellarmine himself to give a better Aquae enim aspersione labemtolli castimoniam praestare putant Neither did the Preist onely use it himself but he sprinkled the people also with it Spargere rore Levi ramo faelicis Olivae Lustravitque viros As Virgil in the Aeneads In which place two things are to be noted First ramus Olivae now called Aspersorium or the sprinkling rod wherewith the water is sprinkled on the standers by and secondly the term Lustrare meerly heathenish whence the Holy water of the Papists no question had the name of Aqua lustralis by which they call it That the Laicks also of the Gentiles were cleansed of sin by this water is evident by that of Homer where he maketh Orestes having killed his Mother and threupon grown mad at once restored to his wits by washing in the water Perhaps Pilate might allude to this custom when having condemned our Saviour he washed his hands in the midst of the Congregation Hereunto also Ovid. O faciles nimium qui tristia crimina caedis Fluminae â tolli posse putatis aquâ Too facil souls which think such hainous matters Can be abolish'd by the River-Waters Indeed in the word Fluminae â the Poet was somewhat out the waters onely of the Sea serving for the expiation of any crime the reason was cum propter vim igneam magnopere purgationibus consentaneae putaretur And for this cause questionless do the popish Priest use salt in the consecration of their holy water that it might as near as was possible resemble the waters of the Sea in saltness so willing are they in all circumstances to act the Heathens But I have kept you too long within the Church it is now time to go up to the top and survey the out-works of it It hath as we have already said at the front two Towers of admirable beauty they are both of an equal height and are each of them 377. steps in the ascent From thence we could clearly see the whole circuit of Paris and each several street of it such as we have already described of an orbicular form and neatly compacted From hence we could see the whole valley round about it such as I have delineated already though not in such lively colours as it meriteth An object it is so delicious and ravishing that had the Devil taken King Henry the fourth and placed him on the top of this Temple as he did our Saviour on that of Hierusalem and said unto him all this will I give thee this alone had been
chief of the Clergy-men is the little or no dependency they have on the Pope and the little profits they pay unto their King Of the Pope anon To the King they pay onely their dismes or tithes according to the old rates a small sum if compared unto the payments of their neighbours it being thought that the King of Spain receiveth yearly one half of the Living of the Churches But this I mean of their Livings onely for otherwise they pay the usual gabels and customs that are paid by the rest of the Kings Leige-people In the general assembly of the three Estates the Clergy hath authority to elect a set number of Commissioners to undertake for them the Church which Commissioners do make up the the first of the three Estates do first exhibite their greivances and petitions to the King In a word the French Church is the freest of any in Christendom that have not yet quitted their subjection to the Pope as alwayes protesting against the Inquisition not subjecting themselves to the Council of Trent and paying very little to his Holiness of that plentiful revenue wherewith God and good men have blessed it The number of those which the Church-land maintaineth in France is tantum non infinite therefore the intrado and revenues of it must needs be uncountable There are numbred in it as we said before twelve Archbishopricks an hundred and four Bishopricks To these add five hundred and fourty Archpriorities one thousand four hundred and fifty Abbies twelve thousand three hundred and twenty Priorities the sixty seven Nunneries seven hundred Covents of Friers two hundred fifty nine Commendams of the Order of Malta and one hundred and thirty thousand Parish Priests yet this is not all Their reckoning was made in the year 1598. since which time the Jesuits have divers Colledges founded for them and they are known to be none of the poorest To maintain this large wilderness of men the Statists of France who have proportioned the Country do allow unto the Clergy almost a fourth part of the whole For supposing France to contain two hundred millions of Arpens a measure somewhat bigger than one Acre they have allotted to the Church for its temporal revenue forty seven millions of them In particular of the Archbishops Bishops Abbots and Parish Priests they of Aulx Alby Clumai and St. Estiennes in Paris are said to be the wealthiest The Archbishop of Aux in Gascoyne is valued at 400000. liures or 40000 li. English yearly The Bishop of Alby in Languedoc is prized at 100000. Florens which is a fourth part of it a great part of the revenue arising out of Saffron The Abbot of Clumac in the Dutchy of Burgundy is said to be worth 50000 Crowns yearly the present Abbot being Henry of Lorreine Archbishop of Rhemes and Abbot of St. Denis The Parish Priest of St. Estiennes is judged to receive yearly no fewer than eight thousand Crowns a good intrado As for the vulgar Clergy they have little tithe and less glebe most part of that Revenue being appropriated unto Abbies and other religious Houses The greatest part of their meanes is the Baisemen which is the Church offerings of the people at Christnings Marriages Burials Dirges Indulgences and the like which is thought to amount to almost as much as the temporal estate of the Church An Income able to maintain them in good abundance were it not for the greatness of their number For reckoning that there are as we have said in France one hundred and thirty thousand Parish Priests and that there are onely twenty seven thousand four hundred Parishes it must of necessity be that every Prrish one with another hath no fewer than four Priests too many to be rich But this were one of the least injuries offered to the French thrift and would little hinder them from rising if it were not that the goodliest of their preferments are before their faces given unto Boyes and Children An affront which not onely despaireth them of the honours due unto their callings but dishearteneth them in their studies and by consequence draweth them to debauched and slanderous courses Quis emim virtutem exquireret ipsam Praemia si tollas The Clergy therefore Anno 1617. being assembled at the house of Austin Friers in Paris as every two years they use to do being to take their leaves of the King elected the Bishop of Aire to be their Spokesman and to certifie his Majesty of their greivances 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 signifieth a Father and the function of a Bishop was full of fatherly authority yet Erance 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 designed to Bishopricks Abbacies before they were born He also made another Complaint that the Sovereign 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 gratious 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 loath to take from himself those excellent advantages of binding to himself his Nobility by the speedy preferring of their Children And so the Clergy departed with a great deal of envy and a little of satisfaction Like enough it were that the Pope would in part redress this injury especially in the point of Jurisdiction if he were able but his wings are shrewdly clipped in this Country neither can he flie at all but as farre as they please to suffer him For his temporal power they never could be induced to acknowledge it as we see in their stories Anno 1610. the Divines of Paris in a Declaration of theirs tender'd to the Queen Mother affirm the supremacy of the Pope to be an erroneus doctrine and the ground of that hellish position of deposing and killing of Kings Anno 1517. when the Council of Luteram had determined the Pope to be the Head of the Church in causes also temporal the Vuniversity of Paris testified against it in an Apoligie of theirs dated the twelfth of March the same year Leo decimus saith the Apologie in quidam coetu non tamen in spiritu Domini congregato contra fidem Catholicam c. sacrum Basiliense Concilium damnavit In which Councill of Basill the supremacy of the Pope was condemned Neither did the Kings of France forget to maintain their own authority And therefore whereas Pope Boniface the eighth had in a peremptory Letter Written to Phillip le Belle King of France stiled himself Dominus totius
in their Religion If the eye be blind the body cannot chuse but be darkned and certainly there is nothing that hath prepared many of this Realm more to embrace the reformation than this blockishness of their own Clergy an excellent advantage to the Protestant Ministers could they but well humor it and likely to be a fair inlargement to their party if well husbanded Besides this the French Catholicks are not over earnest in their cause and so do lye open to the assaults of any politick enemy to deal with them by main force of argument and in the servent spirit of zeal as the Protestants too often do is not the way Men uncapable of opposition as this people generally are and furious if once thwarted must be tamed as Alexander did his Horse Bucephalus Those that came to back him with the tyranny of the spur and a cudgel he quickly threw down and mischieved Alexander came otherwise prepared for turning his Horse toward the Sun that he might not see the impatiency of his shadow he spake kindly to him and gently clapping him on the back till he had left his flinging and wildness he lightly leapeth into the saddle the Horse never making resistance Plutarch in his life relateth the storie and this the Morall of it CHAP. XII The correspondency between the King and the Pope This Pope An Omen of the Marriage of France with England An English Catholick's conceit of it His Holiness Nuntio in Paris A learned argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the Allegory of Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly mannaged Their insolence and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free Estate The War not a War of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more than he did First forsaken by their own party Their happiness before the War The Court of the Edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministery c. WE have seen the strength and subtilty as also somewhat of his poverties at home let us now see the alliance which this French Esau hath abroad in the world in what credit and opinion he standeth in the eye of Bâ—eâ—i the Romish Hittite the daughter of whose abominations he hath married And here I find him to hold good correspondency as being the eldest son of the Church and an equal poize to ballance the affairs of Italy against the potency of Spain Oâ— this ground the present Pope hath alwayes shewed himself very favorable to the French side well knowing into what perils a necessary and impolitick dependance on the Spanish party onely would one day bring the state Ecclesiastick As in the general so in many particulars also hath he expressed much affection unto him as first by taking into his hand the Valtolin till his Son of France might settle himself in some course to recover it secondly his not stirring in the behalf of the Spaniard during the last warrs in Italy and thirdly his speedy and willing grant of the dispensation of Madames marriage of which his Papacy was so large an Omen so fair a Prognostick Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illi The Lar or Angel Guardian of his thoughts hastened him in it in whose time there was so plausible a presage that it must be accomplished For thus it standeth Malachy now a Saint then one of the first Apostles of the Irish one much reverenced in his memory to this day by that Nation left behind him by way of prophesie a certain number of Motto's in Latine telling those that there should follow that certain number of Popes onely whose conditions successively should be hereby expressed in those Motto's according to that order he had placed them in Messingham an Irish Priest Master of the Colledge of Irish fugitives in Paris hath collected together the lives of all the Irish Saints which book himself shewed me In that volume and the life of that Saint are the several Motto's and the several Popes set down columewise one against the other I compared the lives of them with the Motto's as farre as my memory would carry me and found many of them very answerable as I remember there are thirty six Motto's yet to come and when just as many Popes are joyned to them they are of opinion for so Malachy foretold that either the world should end or the Popedom be ruined Amongst others the Motto of the present Pope is most remarkable and sutable to the cheif action likely to happen in his time being this Lilium Rosa which they interpret and in my mind not unhappily to be intended to the conjunction of the French Lillie and the English Rose To take from me any suspition of imposture he shewed me an old book printed almost two hundred years ago written by one Wion a Flemming and comparing the number of the Motto's with the Catalogue of the Popes I found the name of Vrban now Pope directly to answer it upon this ground an English Catholike whose acquaintance I gained in France made a Copy of Verses in French and presented them to the English Embassadors the Earles of Carlisle and Holland because he is my Friend and the conceit is not to be despised I begged them of him and these are they Lilia juncta Rosis Embleme de bon ' presage de l' alliance de la France avec l' Angleterre Ce grand dieu quid ' un oecl voit tout ce que les aâ—s Souos leurs voiles sacrez vont a nous yeax cathans Descouvre quelque fois ainsi qui bon luy semble Et les moux avenir et les biene tout ensemble Ainsc fit il iadis a ce luy qui primier Dans l' Ireland porta de la foye le laurier Malachie son nom qu' autymon de l' Eglise On verra soir un jour il qui pour sa devise Aura les Lys chenus ioints aux plus belles fleures Qui docent le pinâ—temps de leurs doubles couleurs CHARLES est le fleuron de la roso pour pree HENRITTE est le Lys que la plus belle pree De la France nâ—urit pour estrâ— quelque iour Et la Reine des flâ—ures et des roses l' amour Adorable banquet bien beu reux courâ—nne Que la bonte du ciel en parrage nous donne Heu reux ma partie heu reux mille fois Cela qui te fera reflorrier en les Roys With these verses I take my leave of his Holiness wishing none of his successors would presage worse luck unto England I go now to see his Nuntio to whose house the same English Catholike brought me but he was not at home his name is Ferdinando d' Espado a