informed of it sent one of his Dukes who quashed that Design The Provinces suffered most horribly by the cruel Discord of these Kings the Soldiers who marched every where plunder'd burnt and put all to the Sword There was no Discipline but so uncontroul'd a License that the Soldiers would fly in the faces of their own Officers if they did but question or forbid them as soon as on the meanest fellow With this cruel Desolation Heavens sent a cruel Epidemical Disease which raged over all France but most fiercely over Paris and that Vicinage it was called Lues Inquinaria because it appeared in those parts it burnt those that were tainted with it with great pain and made an Escar in a short time like a Cautery the most part died howling and shreiking most horribly and there was no cure found but in the Churches and especially that of our Ladies Chilperic had besieged Melun and commanded three of his Dukes to attaque Year of our Lord 583 Bourges the Berryvians came forth to meet them and gave them Battle which was very bloody to both Parties Gontran who went in his own Person to fight Chilperic having met with a Body of his Men who had left the rest to get Plunder cut them all off Chilperic much cooled with this Rebuke caused some Propositions to be made towards an Accommodation and Gontran who was of a mild and peaceable Temper receives them with joy Chilperic thought with himself that now he should get him to joyn to oppress Childebert in whose Kingdom he had great intelligence by the means of the Bishop of Rheims but maugre all the intrigues of those Factious Spirits Gontran and Childebert were reconciled the Uncle restored that part of Marseilles which began the breach to his Nephew again and they formed a League together to recover at their joynt Charges and Expence those Cities belonging to Chereberts Kingdom which Chilperic had gotten from it Upon the point when Childebert was preparing himself to assault Chilperic the Emperor Mauritius for the Sum of 50000 Crowns of Gold ready Money obliges him to carry his Forces into Italy against the Lombards who held the City of Rome besieged The young Prince but Fourteen years of Age went in Person Their King Autaris did not oppose Force with Force but putting his Men into several places let the Torrent run on and that it might for ever be turned another way he yielded up his Kingdom to the French and became their Tributary It is fit we understand that in the year 584. the Lombards perceiving that the Emperor Mauritius would needs endeavour by all means to root them out of Italy they thought the best way to preserve themselves was to restore their State to a Monarchy again and made Autaris the Son of Clephus King But nevertheless their thirty Dukes kept as their Propriety and as Hereditary the Titles to those Cities they then held but so that they should be obliged in certain Services to him particularly to obey and follow him in time of War This is perhaps the true Original of that Knights Service or Fee so much searched after by the Curious at least it is said they were setled or establish'd according to the Custom of the Lombards Year of our Lord 584 After many Wars Chilperic thinking to enjoy some rest was Assassinated in the Court of his Palace of Chelles in Brie which hapned towards the end of September One Evening in the twilight as he was alighting from his Horse being come from Hunting accompanied with but few a Murtherer gave him two Stabs with a Knife one under his Arm-pit the other into his Belly An Author attributes this unhappy blow to Brunehaud but others accuses his Wife Fredegonda who was obliged say they to prevent him because he had discover'd her Adultery with a Lord named Landry History describes this King to us Proud Inhumane Malicious Dissembling and a great Projector of Imposts but Crafty Patient Magnificent and instructed with good Learning In our days have been found it was Anno 1643. a couple of Tombs just by one another under ground at the entrance into the Church of St. Germain des Prez the name of Chilperic which was written upon one of the two hath made it to be conjectured that it was his and the other his Wife 's however it be that other Tomb in the same Church whereon we see his Statue is a Cenotaph which hath been placed there in these last Ages Of so many Sons as he had gotten on divers Women there remained but one who was but four months old and had as yet no name he caused him to be Nursed at the Burrough of Vitry near Tournay for fear they should destroy him by Poyson or Witchcraft as he believed they had done the others He had likewise a Daughter by Fredegonda she was named Rigunta who was then on her way into Spain to meet with Ricarede the King eldest Son to Leuvigildus to whom she was betrothed When she was gotten to Thoulousa the news came of her Fathers Death Didier Duke of that Country rifled all her Equipage so that she went no farther but returned to her Mother to whom she gave a great deal of trouble being much like her in Humour and ill Qualities Clotair II. King X. POPES PELAGIUS II. S. Five years during this Reign St. GREGORY I. Called the Great chosen Sept. 590. S. thirteen years six months SABINIANUS In Sept. 604. S. five months nineteen days BONIFACE III. Chosen in Sep. 606. S. nine months BONIFACE IV. Chosen 607. S. six years eight months DEUS-DEDIT Elected in 614. S. three years BONIFACE V. Chosen in 617. S. nine years HONORIUS I. Elected 13 May 626. S. twelve years five months of which six years in this Reign Vncle Cousin Germans GONTRAN in Burgundy and part of Neustria CHILDEBERT in Austrasia CLOTAIR II. Aged four or five months in Neustria Year of our Lord 584 THe Conscience of the Crime and the fear of Childebert who was at that time at Meaux terrified Fredegonda so much that leaving part of her Treasure at Chelles she flies to Paris and thrusts her self for Sanctuary in the Church of Nostre-Dame under the Protection of the Bishop Gontran having heard of the death of his Brother came presently with great Company Childebert was set forward likewise to have gotten in but finding the place was possessed he retires to Meaux and sends Ambassadors to him to demand part of the Kingdom of Paris and then again some others to pray him to deliver up Fredegonda to him to punish her for the Murther of her Husband and of Meroveus and Clovis To the first he Replied That all the Kingdom of Paris belonged to him because his Brothers Sigebert and Chilperic had forfeited their shares by violating the Treaty of Agreement made between them three and as for the other he would refer it to an Assembly of the Estates which was to be held on a day appointed He remained two months at
deal with the Saxons the Huns the Lombards and the Saracens The Saxons a most Warlike and as yet Idolatrous Nation compounded of several People and such as had been invincible had they acted by a mutual agreement and consent gave him work and exercise enough for above Thirty Years during which time he made divers Expeditions against them always with advantage He never denyed them Peace and they broke again as soon as he was out of their sight But his Piety constant as their Malice was never wearied in forgiving them not so much out of a desire to allure them to his obedience as to bring them under the Yoak of Christ Jesus The highest part of his Care having no other end but the propagation of Religion He entred into Saxony therefore this Year and would try to terrify those Rebels by Fire and Sword but they were not afraid to bid him Battle somewhat neer Osnabrug Their Confidence was punished by a huge Slaughter of their men those that remained made their escape beyond the Veser He pursuing his Victory took in the Castle of Eresburgh demolished the Famous Temple of the false God Irmensul and broke his Idol It is supposed to have been the God Mars whence Mers-purg took it's name He afterwards pass'd the Veser compelled the Saxons to give him some Hostages and having rebuilt Fresburgh put a French Garrison into it Year of our Lord From the Year 767 to 771. King Didier not able or willing to give over the Design his Predecessors had formed to abate the Power of the Popes to make himself thereby Master of all Italy sowed a Schisme in the Church of Rome whereby to discompose and weaken them Pope Paul being dead Anno 767. Toton Duke of Nepet at his instigation enters into Rome and forced the Clergy to Elect his Brother Constantine who was not in Orders The following Year another Cabal Enemies to this Violence of Constantine's sets a Priest in the holy Chair named Philip But Crestofle Primicera this was the highest Dignity in the City next to the Prefect constrained both the one and the other to renounce the Popeship and caused Stephanus to be duly elected a Priest of St. Cecil's who was the fourth of that name Didier bethinks him of another method in the Year 770. he goes to Rome upon pretence of Devotion and by force of Presents gained Paul Afiarte Duke or Soveraign Judge in Rome to cause this Crestofle to be put to death and to banish or imprison for colourable reasons all such Roman Citizens as he knew to be most able and disposed to thwart his attempts Afiarte did according to his desire but Adrian who was chosen after Stephen stopt those unjust proceedings and not only eluded all the vain essays of the Lombard but was likewise the cause of his utter destruction After all other Experiments Didier employs Force seizes on several Cities of the Exarchat ravaged the Neighbourhood of Rome and the Year after to turmoil the Pope advances towards him upon pretence of Visiting the Sepulchre of the holy Apostles carrying along with him the Sons of the late King Carloman to oblige him to Crown them The Holy Father flatly refuses him and failed not to make use of this Motive to exasperate Charlemaine the more against the Lombards Year of our Lord 773 Betwixt these two Kings there were already some other causes of Enmity For in the Year 771. Charles had repudiated Hildegard the Sister of Didier saying she was infirm A pretence that did not please a great many good people particularly Adelard the King's Cousin who for this reason retired from the Court into a Monastery And Didier on his side had given a reception to Carloman's Widow and promised her his assistance and support to restore her Sons to the Inheritance or Kingdom of their Father These offences having inclined Charles's Mind to hearken to the Pope's Intreaties he was the more easily induced to pass over the Mountains but with so great and numerous Forces that it was evident it was not meant so much to assist him as to conquer Lombardy Having therefore Rendevouz'd his Army at Geneva he divided it in two Bodies his Uncle Bernard with one took his way by the Mount Jou and himself led the other by Mount Cenis Didier had fortified the Passages and in case they should be worsted himself was advanced with all his Forces neer Turin and in Year of our Lord 773 the Valley of Aost to observe and oppose the French even to the hazard of a Battle but some of their Army having stollen by him very silently and charging them in the Rear he was so much afraid of being hemm'd in that he cast himself into Pavia and Adalgise his Son whom he had made Partner of his Crown into Verona Those of Spoletta and Rietta had already forsaken him to joyn with the Pope When his Retreat was known all the Marca Anconitana and many other Cities followed their Example Charles with a part of his Army encamped before Pavia and sent the remainder before Verona And to demonstrate he did not intend to go thence till he had them in his power he ordered his new Wife Hildegard Daughter of Childebrand Duke of Suevia to come to his Camp and passed the Winter there even till Christmass at which time he goes to Verona to press that Siege forwards Adalgise apprehending to fall into his hands abandoned that City and fled to the Emperour of Greece The Veronese soon after yielded Year of our Lord 774 and gave up Carloman's Children and Widow they were carried into France what afterwards became of them is not mentioned that I know of Nothing remained but Pavia The Siege spinning out in length Charles had a desire to go and pay his Devotions at Rome at the good time of Easter The Pope made him a magnificent Entrance such as was accustomed to be made for the Exarchs He in return confirms all the Grants made by his Father and besides say some added that of Soveraign Justice and absolute Power in all those Countries So that to speak properly the Popes before this time held what they had from the French Kings from whom it must be owned they derive the best portion of their temporal Grandeur In length of time Pavia became so straightned not by any Attaques but by Famine and the people so ill disposed Hunoud the Fire-brand of this War having been knock'd on the head by the Women that Didier surrenders himself with his Wife and Children to Charles He was conveyed into France Cloister'd and Shaved and died soon after Thus was the Kingdom of Lombardy in Italy Extinguished after it had lasted some 204 Years Before his return into France Charles made a second Voyage to Rome where the Pope with 150 Bishops whom he had summoned to honour his Reception and likewise the Roman People conferred upon him the Title of Patrician which was the Degree the nearest to the Empire It belonged to the Emperours only
our Lord 790 This very Year was begun as some do hold that indissoluble Alliance between France and Scotland Charles having sent four Thousand Men in assistance of King Achaius who made him a present say the Scottish Authors of Claudius Clement and Alcuinus an Anglo-Saxon two learned Men for that Age. It is added that they came to Paris and erected some publick Schools Beginning of that Famous Vniversity the Mother of all those that are in Europe Year of our Lord 791 France having at this time no other Affairs Charles thought it was time to take his Revenge of the Huns but so as it proved a blessing to them by their being subdued to embrace the Christian Faith They had say some Autâ—ors seven Ringues or Vast Enclosures lock'd within one another and wonderfully Pallisadoed and strengthned with Rampires into which they made their retreat with their Spoil which they had practised above two hundred Years Charles having passed the River Emms which divides Bavaria from their Country went forwards with his Forces who marched along the two sides of the Danube attended with a Fleet which sailed on the same River and at the same time another Body of Eastern French-men entred upon them from Bohemia Upon his arrival they all fled and left two of their Ringues to him and afterwards he made his way and ravaged as far as the River Rab. Had it not been for a great mortality which almost destroy'd all his Horses he would have push'd his Conquest further We must observe That the Country of those Avari which lay on the East of Bavaria was by the French because of their Situation Eastward in respect of them called Oosterich whence comes the name of Austria Year of our Lord 792 An eminent danger wherein he found himself the following Year prevented his return thither as he had projected The French Austrasian Lords offended at the lofty behaviour of the Queen Fastrade conspired to be freed from her to ridd themselves of their King her Husband and to set up one of his Bastards named Pepin in his stead who had a handsome face but crooked and as malicious as it was possible The plott was discover'd by a poor Priest who being accidentally in the corner of a Church where they met for this purpose over-heard them discoursing of the design Charles by Sentence of the Estates caused several to be beheaded some their Eyes to be put out others hanged and his Bastard to be shaved and thrust into the Abby of Prom which is in the Bishoprick of Triers Year of our Lord 793 This Year Liderick de Harlebec Great Forester of Flanders was made Earl of it but not hereditary though from him are descended the Earls of that Country Year of our Lord 793 The same Year a Tumult was raised in the Dutchy of Benevent contrived perhaps by Grimoald and the rest of the Lombards which proved so dangerous that Lewis King of Aquitaine went into Italy with his Forces to assist his Brother Pepin Year of our Lord 793 Whilst Charles was at Ratisbon and had laid a Bridge over the Danube to go and subdue the Avari A Design was propounded to him which would have proved of great benefit in that War and for ever after to all Europe Which was to make a Communication between the River Rhine and the Danube and by consequence between the Ocean and the Black-Sea by cutting a Channel from the River Almuâ—s which discharges it self into the Danube to the River Redits which falls by Bamberg into the Meine which does afterwards run into the Rhine near Ments To which end he caused a world of men to work but the continual Rains that hapned filling up his Trenches and over-flowing and washing away his Banks ruined that brave and useful Undertaking Besides he was diverted by two accounts of ill tydings one the revolt of the Saxons who having kept themselves quiet seven or eight years now threw off again both the Yoake of Obedience and of Religion The other that the Forces Commanded by his Counts in the Marea of Spain were defeated by the Saracens Year of our Lord 794 Felix Bishop of Vrgel had in his answers to Elipand Bishop of Toledo published a most dangerous heresy That Jesus Christ as Man was but the Adopted Son of God the Father And although about two Years before the King having sent for him obliged him to recant and to go to Rome to abjure his Errour nevertheless he began anew to dogmatize Wherefore he caused a Councel of French Bishops to assemble at Francfort as also several Bishops of Germany and Lombardy who all condemned that Error in presence of the Pope's Legat They also rejected the Second Councel of Nice which had ordained the adoration of Images and pronounced that it did not deserve the title of Oecumenique Whilst the King was at Francfort died Queen Fastrada his third Wife Year of our Lord 794 From thence he went and fell with all his Forces upon the Saxons Country his Army being divided in two whereof he Commanded one part himself and his Eldest Son the other struck so great a Terror thorough all those Provinces that instead of running to their Arms they came running to him to begg for Mercy and this good Prince sparing the blood of those obstinate People contented himself with the taking away of one third of all such as were capable of bearing Arms and transporting them to the Sea-Coast of Flanders Year of our Lord 796 Upon his Return he passed away his Winter in the Country of Juliers where having discovered some hot Baths he built a fair Palace and a Church to the honour of the Virgin Mary For which reason that place was called Aix la Chapelle These Baths had in former times been accommodated and adorned with handsome Structures by some great Lord or Roman Governor whose Name was Granus it is not well known in what time from whence in Latin it takes the name Aquis Granum But I should have told you that before this Year was expired the Saxons had once more play'd the enraged Devils cutting in pieces an Army of the Abodrites in the Passage to the Elbe as they were marching by the King's Command upon an Expedition against the Avari Viltzan who Commanded them was slain which put the King into so great Wrath that he gave up all Saxony to the mercy of the Sword and at this time there were slain at the least Thirty thousand of those People bearing Arms. Pope Adrian his intimate Friend being dead Leo was Elected by the Senators and the Principal of the Clergy at Rome He sent him an Ambassadour to give Year of our Lord 796 him notice of his Election and to carry the Keys of St. Peter's Church with the City Banner and other honourable Presents to him desiring him to send one of his Princes thither to receive the Oaths of Fidelity of the Romans a certain proof that the King in quality of Patrician held
joyned with those of the County and together made Count Sance Duke of Gascogny To whom some years after succeeded Arnold Son of Emenon or Immon Count of Perigord In the year 841. whilst the Kings were in the Field to destroy each other Hochery or Oger one of the most Famous Commanders of the Normands who commanded a Fleet of 150 Ships Burnt the City of Rouen the 14 th of May and the Abbey of Gemiege some days afterwards and for Fifteen or Sixteen years together continued his Barbarities upon Neustria and more particularly upon Bretagne and Aquitain They had also taken their course by Bretagne to make a descent The revolt of that Province opening a gap for them Louis the Debonnaire had given the Government to Neomenes descended from the Ancient Kings of those Countries and younger Brother of Rivalon Father of Salomon Now Neomene having acquired some reputation for having made head against the Normans An. 836. began to think himself worthy of the Crown belonging to his Ancestors however his design did not appear till after the Battel of Fontenay when being incited thereto by Count Lambert he openly declared himself Soveraign and drove all the French out of Bretagne unless those in Rennes and in Nantes who held out This Lambert enraged because King Charles had refused him the County of Nantes which he desired and demanded as a reward for having fought valiantly for him at the Battel of Fontenay renounced his Service and Leagued himself with Neomene with whose assistance having beaten and slain Reynold Count of Poitiers to whom the King had given Nantes he remained Master of the City But being in a short time driven thence in a contest hapning between Neomene and himself he mischievously went and fetched the Normans and brought them up the River before Nantes which they took by Escalado on Saint Johns Festival cut the Throats of most of the Inhabitants who were gotten into Saint Peter's Church Year of our Lord 844 and Massacred the Bishop at the High-Altar while he was saying Mass carried away all that were left alive and from thence went and Burnt the Monastery of the Islands which was Noir Moustier Thus Lambert became Count of a ruined City and endeavoured to maintain himself there wavering betwixt the King and Neomene unfaithful to both and beloved by neither After the division made by the Kings Bretagne being a pretended Member of West France which fell to the lot of Charles the Bald that Prince having now no enemies at home turned his Sword that way thiuking to bring Neomene to obedience But he confidently comes towards him and meeting him on his March in the Road from Chartres to Mans charged him so smartly that he put his Army to the Rout and forced him to fly to Chartres on Horse-back This advantage redoubled the Bretons Forces who made inroads upon Maine Anjou and Poitou It seems nevertheless there was some Truce since upon King Charles's intreaty Neomene drove Count Lambert out of Nantes who went and Nestled himselfin the Lower Anjou and there Built the Castle of Oudon At the same time that Charles was defeated by Neomene a Civil-War infesting Denmark the Lords of those Countries who found themselves strong at Sea amongst others Hasteng and Bier Iron-sides fell upon West France and haing forced the Guards that defended the Mouth of the Seine went up that River with their Barks They Sacked all on the right and left Shoar and Year of our Lord 845 being unable to take Paris they destroy'd all that lay without the Island Plundred the Abbey of Saint Germain des Prez and Ruined the City of Melun When they were pretty well laden with spoil they were soon tempted with Presents made them by Charles to withdraw themselves but as they returned they ravaged Picardy Flanders and Friseland and took the City of Hamburgh however observing all Germany was rising up to expel them from thence they quitted it The Priests and all Religious Orders fled before them from place to place seeking out places of safety or at least hiding places to conceal and keep the Churches Treasure in as also their Holy-Relicks towards which their devotion did so much ✚ increase when that furious Storm was over that it occasioned sometimes bloody contests between the Citizens and Nobility when the one would have them restored and the other would detain them Year of our Lord 843 Whilst Lotaire had denuded Italy of all it's Forces to lead them into France the Dukes Radelchise of Benevent and Sigenulfe of Capoua quarrelling with each other without regarding young Louis his Son called the one the Saracens of Spain to his assistance the other those of Sardinia for those Barbarians had invaded that Island and gave them entrance into Italy where having Fortified themselves â—in many places they exercised their fury for twenty years together And An. 847. pillaged the Burrough of Saint Peter and the Church of that Prince of the Apostles Which obliged Pope Leo the IV. to enclose it with a wall and quarter the Corsicans there whom the Saracens had driven from their Island Year of our Lord 846 The Nobility respected their Kings so little that Connt Gisabert dared to Steal away the Daughter of the Emperor Lotharius and convey'd her into the Dominions of Charles to marry her which gave great cause of complaint to Lotaire and much trouble to Louis of Germany to appease his resentment In Guyenne the great ones raised Forces for their private quarrels and fought in despite of Pepin In Italy in the year 844. the Clergy and Citizens of Rome had the considence to elect Sergius II. Pope without the Emperors permission who nevertheless having sent Twenty Bishops and with them some Soldiers forced the Pope to render his devoir and to acknowledge him for his Soveraign It is a Fable that this Pope first changed his Name and that before his Election he was called Swines-snowt for it was Sergius IV. had that filthy Name and he whom we here mention was called Sergius as was his Father It is held by some that it was one Octavian introduced this mysterious change who would needs be named John He was the 12th of that name Year of our Lord 846 The French being entred into Bretagne intangled themselves unadvisedly in Boggs and Fenny-grounds where they received a second blow Year of our Lord 847 While Charles was preparing for a Third expedition against that Country the terror of the Normans obliged him to agree to a peace with Neomene which nevertheless did not hold long for he began immediately again to make his inroads Year of our Lord 847. And 848. upon France For which Charles taking revenge by Fire and Sword in Bretagne Neomene did the like to all the adjacent Countries and the Territory of Rennes which did not then belong to his petty Kingdom Hitherto he had not taken the Title of King or at least had not put on the Crown The custom of those times were
fit we observe that at the Coronations of Kings they forgot not their own Interests nor failed to make them promise solemnly to maintain the Rights of the Church But we do not find them always so careful and zealous for the good of the People and the Prerogative of the Nobility Of those that appeared with most Splendor some were such as were noted for Intrigues and Factions and of them were a great number Ebbon of Reims Agobard of Lyons and Bernard de Vienne active in the degrading of Louis the Debonnaire Ebroin of Poictiers for disposing Aquitain to surrender themselves into the hands of that Emperor who would bestow it upon Charles his beloved Son Thietgaud de Colen and Gontier de Ments touching the marriage of Valdrade And Hincmar of Reims for his resisting the Pope and intermedling with all affairs both of Church and State wherein he acted with as much heat as judgment during the Reign of Charles the Bald. The others were illustrious for their Learning as the same Agobard Theodulfe and Jonas his Successor Rabanus Maurus of St. Bennets Order and Arch-Bishop of Mentz Hincmar of Reims who had been Abbot of St. Denis and the other Hincmar his Nephew Remy de Lyons Adon de Vienne Hilduin Abbot of St. Denis Loup Abbot of Ferrieres in Gastinois Henry Monk of St. Germain d'Auxerre Valafride Strabon Abbot of Richenoue Florus Master of the Church of Lyons that is a Divine and John Scot or Scotus surnamed Erigena This last was a great Philosopher and for the Beauty and Delicacy of his wit highly cherished by Charles the Bald even to the lying in his Chamber But in Theology he passed for one of a raving Brain whose sentiments were not right and sound As for Hincmar de Reims we have his works whereof every one may judge The other Hincmar his nephew very zealons for the Popes authority collected their Decretal Letters and was the first that durst put down the names of some Ancient Popes who till that time had none but which Isâ—dore Mercator had already gathered together Other Canonists followed his error till at length the more judicious found they were but fictitious Adon de Vienne composed a Matyrology which is yet in being Hilduin wrote the life of St. Denis the Areopagite by command of Louis the Debonnaire from the Memoires of Methodius Patriarch of Constantinople who to flatter the French endeavour'd to have two things believed which the Criticks pretend to condemn of false-hood The one that this Saint Denis had been Bishop of Paris the other that those Writings which go under his name were his own We have the Epistles of Loup de Ferrieres which give a great light in the affairs of those times And the Monk Henry wrote the Life of Saint Germain de Auxerre in more Elegant Verse then the roughness of that Age could promise I shall observe en passant that Latin Poetry began to rouze its self under Charles the Bald and amongst other Poets that flatter'd him there was one that made a Piece containing three hundred Hexameters in praise of the Bald where every word began with the Letter C. Some for their good lives deserved to be placed in the Catalogue of Saints as Anscher taken out of the Order of St. Bennet by Louis the Debonnaire to be the first Arch-Bishop of Hamburgh Established by that Emperor and to Preach to the Danes and Swedes the same Rabanus whom we have mentioned Two Audrâ—'s one of Sens the other of Mans Ayos de Bourges Prudence de Troyes Hildeman de Beauvais Foulquin and Hunfroy de Teroüanne Amant de Rodez and Bernard de Vienne This last had Adon above-named for Successor both in his Sanctity and his See But he had very few in that good Christian Maxim so often in his Mouth and ever in his Soul That the Riches and Goods of the Church are the Patrimony of the Poor and that a Clergy-man hath no right to them but for his necessities Nor did he keep any more Domestique Servants but one Priest and one Lay-man Proclaiming to all Prelats by this noble example That he who is great in himself hath no need of other Equipage or Train of Servants to make him appear so LOUIS IV. Surnamed TRANSMARINE King XXXII Aged XIX or XX Years POPES LEO VII in 936. S. 3 years 6 Months STEPHEN IX Elect. in 939. S. 3 years 4 Months MARTIN II. Elect. 943. S. 3 years 6 Months and one half AGAPET II. Elect. 946. S. 9 years 7 Months Louis IV. surnam'd Transmarine in France Otho I. in Germany Rodolph II. in Burgundy Transjurane HUGH and Lotaire his Son in Italy Year of our Lord 936 OF all the French Lords Hugh le Blanc Earl of Paris and Orleans Duke of France and Brother in Law to the late King had the greatest Authority in the Kingdom He durst not however take the Crown because Hebert Earl of Vermandois and Giselbert Duke of Lorraine two very potent Enemies would have broke his Measures He found it therefore more safe to make a King of the Blood of Charlemaine who should be wholy obliged to him for his Crown To this purpose he dispatched a Famous Deputation of Prelats and Lords whereof William Arch-Bishop of Sens was the Chief into England to beseech Ogina the Widdow of Charles the Simple to bring back her Son Louis whom the French desired to own for their King She granted their request but not without great opposition of King Aldestan her Brother He apprehended his Nephew might be destroy'd by some treachery as his Father had been and therefore would not be satisfied with only their Oaths but took Hostages besides Hugh and the other Lords came to receive their King at his Landing at Bullogne tender'd their Hommage on the Strand and thence conducted him to Laon where he was Anointed by Arnold Arch-Bishop of Reims the 20 th day of June Year of our Lord 936 Immediately after his Coronation Hugh who still retained the Administration of the Kingdom carried him into the Dutchy of Burgundy for his own ends for there were some pretences but how grounded we do not well know And Hugh le Noir appropriated it to himself as Heir of the Deceased Rodolph his Brother who had it from Richard his Father on whom Boson had bestowed it when he was made King of Burgundy Le Noir or the Black had therefore Seized on the City of Langres after the Decease of King Rodolph but the new King and Hugh thrust him cut again without striking one blow and engaged him to yeild up one half of the Dutchy to Hugh le Blanc or the White An. 937. King Rodolph died having Reigned 25 years in Burgundy Transjurane and only five in the Kingdom of Arles He left three Children Conrade who Succeeded him but whom Otho Seized upon and detained fourteen years Burchard Bishop of Lausanne and Adeleis a most Illustrious Princess who by her first marriage was Wife to Lotaire King of
which came on obliged him to retire and Lotaire and Hugh Capet having drawn their Forces together cut off all his Reare-Guard at his passage over the River of Aisne which was overflown and pursued him fighting to the Ardennes The Almain Monks of those days as it is the Genius of men to pretend Miracles in great danger write that St. Udalric Bishop of Ausburgh who accompanted that Emperor in this War went over the River Aisne dry-fout leading the way before him and his whole Army who followed the over-following Stream miraculously growing hard and firm under them the River becoming a Bridge to it's self In this retreat the Earl of Anjou did let the Germans know that the quarrel being between the two Kings it would be better according to common right for them to decide it singly hand to hand then to spill the Blood of so many innocent people But the Germans reply'd that although they did not doubt the courage of their ☞ King nevertheless they would not consent that he should expose his person singly Confessing tacitely thereby that they did not think him so brave as the King of France Year of our Lord 978 Otho thus roughly handled sought an accommodation with the French Lotaire and he conferring together in the City of Reims concluded a Peace upon condition that Lotaire should yeild him Lorrain to be held in Feif of the Crown of France say our Authors for which the French Lords shewed a great deal of discontent Year of our Lord 978 Thus the Soveraignty of that Kingdom remained in Lotaire the Dutchy of the Lower Lorrain which two years before had been bestowed upon Charles his Brother by Otho reverted to his disposal but as he must give some part to Charles he agreed he should enjoy that also Which was consented to at an enter-view between that King and Otho upon the River of Kar the German Prince having desired that conference before he undertook this expedition into Italy against the Saracens Year of our Lord 978 Charles imagining his Brother had yeilded him that Dutchy but by compulsion was so ill advised that he might have some body to support him in it as to render Hommage for it to Otho instead of holding the Soveraignty himself as he might have done Year of our Lord 981 Two years after Otho to oblige hm the more gave him likewise the Country all about Mets Toul Verdon and Nancy and other Lands between the Meuse and the Rhine Now this submission tendred by Charles to a Stranger sounded very ill amongst the French and the Augmentation of his power certainly shock'd the designs of Hugh Capet who was preparing his way to the Throne For we must consider that Charles was the only obstacle Lotaire having but one Son weak both in Age and understanding and of very small hopes Besides the long abode of that Prince in those Countries without coming into France the too great affection he shewed for the Germans who at that time were the Capital Enemies of France as likewise some ren-counters with the King his Brother one amongst the rest about the City of Cambray which he defended against that King who would have plundred the Churches as he had done those of Arras gave his Enemies occasion to decry him amongst the French Year of our Lord 982 The Emperor Otho II. Died in the year 982. having before declared his Son of the same name Successor of his Estates LOTAIRE and LOUIS his Son in France OTHO III. Emperor and King of Germany and Lorraine Aged 17 years CONRAD in Burgundy Upon the News of his Death Lotaire believed that Germany was going to be all in confusion and combustion by reason of the contests about the Guardianship of young Otho who was then but seven years old wherefore he entred Lorraine An. 983. to regain it and took 〈◊〉 with Godfrey Earl thereof but when he understood Otho was Crowned by thâ— content of all the Grandees he engaged no Year of our Lord 982 farther but returned home to Franâ—â— Year of our Lord 985 Two years after he rendred up the City of Verdun gave Godfrey his liberty and caused his Son Louis to be Crowned to Reign with him He had already married him to a Princess of Aquitain named Blanche And yet was at most not above 18 or 19. years of Age. It is not well known of which Aquitain she was for in that Age and the next following the French comprehended Languedoc and Provence likewise under that name Year of our Lord 986 This couple were ill-matched the Woman couragious and gallant the Husband wanting vigour of mind and perhaps of Body in so much that she despised him and carrying him into her own Country under colour that she could procure the conquest of it by the assistance and interest of her Kindred and Allies she planted him there and the King his Father was forced to go and fetch him thence again This was a great misfortune in the Royal Family and a greater yet that Lotaire Died the 12 th Day of March in the following year of some desperate morsel given Year of our Lord 987 him by his own wife He was a Warlike Prince active careful of his affairs and worthy in fine to have commanded better Subjects He survived little more then the 45 th year of his Age and the 33 th of his Reign LOUIS THE Lazy or Sloathful King XXXIV Aged about XX Years POPES JOHN XV. Elected towards the end of An. 985. S. 10 years 4 Months and a half whereof 16 Months under this Reign LOUIS the Do-Nothing in France OTHO III. CONRAD IT was divulged that at his Death he left the Guardianship of his Son to Hugh Capet who in effect was his Cousin German How-ever it were Emina Year of our Lord 986 not relying too much upon him as it seems had resolved to carry him in the Month of June to his Grand-mother Adeleida Widdow of Otho I. and Tutoress of Otho III. A Heroick Princess who was called the Mother of Kings But they did not give her the time for the 22 th of the same month the Poor Prince ended his Life in the same manner as his Father and by the crime of Blanche of Aquitain his wife He lieth at St. Corneille of Compiegne An Author of those times sayes that he gave his Kingdom to Hugh Capet another that he bequeathed it to his wife upon condition he should marry her He Reigned in all about three years Eighteen or Twenty Months with his Father and sixteen Months alone With his Reign ended that of the Carlian or Carlovingnian Line after it had lasted 236 years and had a Succession of Eleven Kings taking only those of West-France for if we reckon all the others we shall find above thirty without speaking of all those Princes who dismembred this Kingdom as being issued of this August blood descended by Women There were sprung up three Branches of this Race one in Italy by
he gave Robert the Cities of Chaumont and Pontoise and the French Vexin Year of our Lord 1033 It was then likewise he yielded the Dukedom of Burgundy to his Brother Robert From whom issued the First Race of the Dukes of Burgundy of the Blood Royal. The Earl of Champagn did not hold himself vanquish'd by the defeat of the Party to make him lay down his Sword the King was forced to beat his Army twice and Year of our Lord 1033 and the following the third time put him to a rout and made him fly away half naked and hide himself before he could compel him to shake hands About the year 1032. or 33. Geofrey surnamed Martel made a cruel War upon William V. called the Gross Duke of Guyenne and Earl of Poitou whose Mother-in-Law or his own Fathers second Wife he had Married She was named Agnes Daughter of the Earl of Burgundy The Subject of the Quarrel was the Earldom of Saintonge and the Country of Aulnis which he disputed for The Authors do not tell us plainly by what Title he claimed but that he vanquish'd the Duke in a great Battle near Monstrenil-Bellay took him Prisoner and did not release him till three years end after he had yielded up Saintonge and paid a lusty Ransom Year of our Lord 1033 Rodolph or Rouel King of Burgundy beyond the Jour and of Arles dying in the year 1033. instituted his Heir Conrad the Emperor who had Married Gisâ—lle his youngest Sister and had by her a Son named Henry and made no account of Eudes Earl of Champagne the Husband of Berthe his eldest Sister because while he was living he would have forced him to acknowledge him for King and had bred Factions and Stirs in his Country By this Institution the Kingdom of Burgundy and Arles passing over to German Princes was by them as it were united and joyned to the Germanick Kingdom and the Empire who being at too great a distance have insensibly let it slip through their Fingers and after they had lost the Possession have likewise lost the very Title to it In these days lived Humbert Surnamed White-hands Earl of Maurienne and Savoy Stem of the Royal House of Savoy which at this day holds a great Rank amongst Christian Soveraigns the Off-spring of this Humbert having by Marriages Successions Conquests and other means assembled and joyned all the several pieces whereof that State is composed Some Historians make this Prince to be descended from Boson King of Provence others from Hugh King of Italy and some from the ancient Counts of Mascon but Tradition and which appears most probable makes him the Son of one Berald of Saxony who descended from Vitekind by the same Branch as the three Otho's Emperors or by some other Year of our Lord 1033 34 The Earl of Champagn not able to endure that Conrade should allow him no part of a Patrimony of which the best share ought to be his took his time when that Prince was employ'd in Hungary and with his own Forces and those of his Friends made himself Master of a great part of the Kingdom Year of our Lord 1035 But Conrad at his return having led his Army into those Countries drove Eudes Garrisons forth of all the Places he had taken put in his own and received Hommage Year of our Lord 1034 of all the Lords In fine he handled him so roughly that all help failing and perhaps an apprehension getting into his thoughts that the King of France who hated him might agree with the Emperor to strip him he went and surrendred upon Mercy and humbled himself before him Year of our Lord 1035 Robert Duke of Normandy by force of Arms constrains the Bretons to do him Hommage Year of our Lord 1036 He dies the year after at Nicea in Bithynia upon his return from a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem At his departure he had instituted an only Son of his but a Bastard named William to be his Heir begotten on a Citizens Daughter of Falaise leaving him at Paris in the guard and protection of King Henry who had very great Obligations to him and giving the Regency of the Country to Alain Duke of Bretagne Year of our Lord 1036 William had two Paternal Uncles Mauger Archbishop of Rouen who was Married and had Children and William Earl of Argues to whom the Nobility of the Country would much rather have obey'd then to a Bastard This was the occasion of great Troubles and would have ruined Normandy had the French King's Forces been but as great as his desire to regain it Year of our Lord 1003 and the following About this time the name of the Normands began to grow famous and potent in Italy especially in Puglia and Calabria In the year 1003. forty Adventurers of that Nation upon the quitting the Holy Land having acted some things there almost incredible against the Saracens in favour of Gaimar Duke of Salerna who was hugely tormented by them being returned into Normandy loaden with Honour and Presents had excited other brave Men of their Country to go seek their Fortunes beyond the Mountains The first that try'd was a Gentleman named Drengot-Osmond who being forced to quit the Country for killing one William Repostel in the presence of his Prince having vapoured that he had abused his Daughter went with four more Brothers and some others of his Kindred to offer his Service to Mello Duke of Bary and Pandolphus Prince of Capoua who were Revolted against the Greeks They received them with open Arms and gave them a City and some Lands to maintain themselves Then after these were setled not without many hazards Combats and Adventures six of the Sons of Tancrede d'Auterville a Gentleman of the Bishoprick of Constance who had twelve all of them brave and courageous arrived there and carried their same to a higher pitch then the former Year of our Lord 1036 Normandy was all in Fire and Blood by the particular Feuds of some Lords upheld by the Uncles of the young Duke Alain III. Duke of Bretagne his Guardian being come to appease them could not avoid a Mortal Poyson given him by the Factious Antagonists Conan II. his Son but then in his Cradle succeeded him Year of our Lord 1037 About these times William the Gross Duke of Aquitain was delivered out of Prison and died the same year Otho or Eudes his second Brother succeeded him Two years after he inherited the Dukedom of Gascongne taking possession thereof in the Church of St. Severin at Burdeaux according to the Custom He had this Lordship in Right of his Mother Brisce who was the Daughter of Duke Sance Thus the House of Gascongne resolved or dissolved into that of Poitiers or Aquitain Year of our Lord 1037 The Pretensions of Eudes Earl of Champagne to the Kingdom of Burgundy not being wholly stifled he fell with an Army into the Kingdom of Lorrain which belonged to the Emperor and took the City of Commercy but as he
Boulogne had served Philip very well since his Reconciliation and had likewise been very well recompenc'd by a great deal of good Land bestow'd upon him in that Country Nevertheless the King suspecting him of holding Correspondence with the King of England demands his strong Holds of him and upon his refusal to deliver them he attaques them and press'd upon him so briskly that he durst not defend them but went away to the Earl of Bar his Kinsman and from thence to Flanders Year of our Lord 1212 Although King John had been Excommunicate the precedent year by the Popes Legat he scoff'd at those Censures But he was hugely astonished when he understood that by a more terrible Sentence the Pope had absolv'd his Subjects of their Allegiance and expos'd his Kingdom as a Prey and that King Philip made great preparations to invade it having already a prodigious number of Vessels ready at the mouth of the Seine The Legat by secret Informations increases his fears and disturbs him to that height as he promises to make his Kingdom hold of the Holy See and to pay a thousand Mark of Silver as a yearly Tribute besides the Peter-Pence When the Legat had wire-drawn all he desired from him he tries to persuade Philip to wave his Enterprize but he was too far engag'd in Honour and Expence to break off so Year of our Lord 1213 All the Lords of the Kingdom in a Parliament held at Soissons the Morrow after Palm-Sunday had promis'd to assist him with their Lives and Fortunes There was only Ferrand Son of Sancho I. King of Portugal Earl of Flanders that refused to accompany him in this Expedition unless he would restore the Cities of Aire and St. Omer which he had gotten from him to have his consent that he might Marry the Heiress of Flanders who was the eldest Daughter of Baldwin V. The King thought that his approach might bring him back to his Duty when he should see him on those Coasts ready to Embarque Therefore when he was at Boulogne he sent him order to come and meet him at Graveline The Earl made them wait for him but he appeared not so that the King resolv'd before he took Shipping to put him in a Condition not to be able to hurt him Year of our Lord 1213 The Towns of Ipres Cassel and all the Country to Bruges submitted to his Sword His Naval Force consisting of One thousand seven hundred Sail having cast Anchor at Dam. While the greatest part were in the Road with scarce any Men comes the English Fleet Commanded by the Earls of Boulogne and Salisbury who took and sunk a great many and laid Siege to the place Philip decamping from before Ghent routs those they had sent on shoar and slew two or three thousand Nevertheless they keeping the Seas and his Vessels not being able to get out without falling into their hands he took out all their Furniture and caused them all to be burnt and the City of Dam afterwards Year of our Lord 1213 Then having wasted and plundred the Territory of Bruges squeezed great Sums of Money from those Citizens as likewise from the Inhabitants of Ghent and Ipres sack'd and dismantled L'Isle he left his Son Lewis and Gaucher Count de Saint Pol in that Country with a strong Body of Horse and Garisons in the Cities of Doway and Tournay only When he was retir'd out of Flanders the Earl Ferrand re-entred and soon Master'd Tournay and L'Isle which Lewis was beginning to repair as in revenge Lewis sack'd and burnt Courtray Philip for the second time goes into Flanders to secure his Conquests and presently Ferrand withdraws but as soon as Philip was gone Renauld Earl of Boulogne took the Field with some Forces he brought out of England But without doing any Exploit only after he scowred about the Country once or twice and attempted two or three Sieges in vain he forced Henry Earl of Louvain and Duke of Brabant who had Married one of the Kings Daughters to joyn with him On the other side King John landed at Rochel with a great Army and having patch'd up again with the Earls de la Marche d'Eu d'Angoulesme de Lezignan and other Poitevins who assisted him with their Forces crosses Poitou made himself Master of some places in Anjou and began to rebuild the Walls of Anger 's his Native City To hinder this Progress the King recall'd his Son out of Flanders and sets him in opposition This Prince takes his head Quarters at Chinon and was seconded with the Forces of Bretagne by Peter de Dreux who this year had Married the Heiress of that Dutchy It was Alix or Alice Daughter of the Dutchess Constance and Guy de Touars Year of our Lord 1213 In the mean while the English wrought diligently about the fortifying Anger 's and enclosed that part towards the River of Maine with a Wall His Soldiers made excursions to the very Suburbs of Nantes on the other side of the Loire surpriz'd Robert the eldest Son of the Earl of Dreux in an Ambuscade who was got over the Bridge to attaque them cut his Men in pieces and made him Prisoner Peter King of Arragon having gotten into his League and under his Protection the Earls of Toulouze de Foix and de Comenges the Vicount de Beziers and others whose Lands Montfort had usurp'd sâ—â—t his Heraulds to deâ—ie him Montfort had left a strong Garison in Muret to make waste in the Neighbourhood of Toulouze This King lays Siege to it in the Month of September His Army consisted of an Hundred thousand Men almost Montfort who was at Castlenaudry having hardly drawn together a thousand or twelve hundred got into the place From whence making a furious Sally upon the King who slighting so small a number set down to eat at the beginning of the Fight cut all his Army off threw him on the ground where his Throat was cut by a private Soldier took his Royal Standard which was carried in Triumph to Rome and cover'd the Field with dead Bodies without the loss of Year of our Lord 1213 above eight Men. The weighty blow of this Club made the Earl of Toulouze and the Inhabitants of that great City fall down at the Legats Feet they offer'd to submit to whatever Conditions he would impose but they could not get off with words it was resolv'd they should be plum'd of all Year of our Lord 1214 This year 1214. France was shrewdly attaqu'd by King John and on the Flanders side by the Emperor Otho and the Counts Ferrand of Flanders and Renauld de Boulogne but both in the one and the other part his Arms remained Victorious Prince Lewis having drawn his Forces together at Chinon march'd resolutely against King John who besieged the Castle de la Roche au Moine upon the Loire between Anger 's and Nantes Being within a days Journey of that place that King was frighted repasses the River in such great haste
people admitted left it to the Chevalier that Commanded the Watch and his Archers Though the Truce was not expir'd there was still some enterprize upon one another The English seized upon Guisnes having corrupted the Governour with Money Edward excused it pleasantly saying The Truces were Merchandise and that he did no more then follow the example of King Philip who would have bought Year of our Lord 1351 Calais The Traytor that had sold Guisnes was taken and drawn in pieces by four wild Horses Guy de Nesle Mareschal of France was defeated and taken with Arnold d'Endreghen and several people of note in a rencounter in Guyenne Year of our Lord 1350 and 51. In Bretagne the two parties of Blois and Montfort though they had only two Women in the head of them were perpetually engaging and fighting it out desperately In those days challenges between Cavaliers and the chief Commanders of parties that were enemies was very common but more frequent between a certain number appointed on each side then singly hand to hand and indeed they called them Battles The most remarkable in these years was that of Thirty Bretons against as many English Richard Brembo was the chief of these and the Lord de Beaumanoir of the others The victory fell to the Bretons and the greatest Honour to their Chief The following year 1351. Charles de Blois who had been four years a prisoner in England was released upon ransom giving two of his Sons for hostage till the payment of it and till he had discharged that debt he forbore to take up Arms. The Lords that had been taken prisoners in their attempt upon Calais having been discharged carried on the War with the Mareschal de Beaujeu about the Countrey of St. Omers having upon a time surprized the Lombard that had betraid them they Year of our Lord 1351 caused him to be quartered alive The Earl of Flanders had deny'd to assist at the Kings Coronation because they refused to restore his three Cities to him nevertheless he came to Paris to pay homage for his Lands and renew the Treaty of Confederation Year of our Lord 1352 The Sixth of December hapned the death of Pope Clement VI. Cardinal Stephen d'Albert a Limosin by birth and Bishop of Clermont succeeded him the Eighteenth of the same Month and took the name of Innocent VI. Year of our Lord 1353 King Charles of Navarre his return into the Kingdom brought with it a long train of war and calamities He had all the good qualities that a wicked Soul renders pernicious Wit Eloquence Craft Resolution and Liberality Though he had this year 1353. married Jane one of the Kings Daughters he gave not over from pursuing his pretensions to the Counties of Brie and Champagne and also Angoulesme Charles d'Espagne to whom the King had given this last disswaded him from proffering satisfaction The Navarrois discontented retires to his County of Evreux and understanding that the Constable was in his Castle de l'Aigle he undertakes a thing as base as it was bold He carries with him a hundred Horse men Year of our Lord 1354 scales the Castle it was on the Sixth of January and makes them stab him in his Bed That done he had the insolence to own the fact to justifie himself by Letters to the King and Council and all the good Cities of the Kingdom to raise Forces fortifie his Towns and sollicite all the neighbouring Princes to a League against France Year of our Lord 1354 The King dissembles him and flatters him to draw him to Paris but he will not come till they grant him conditions very advantagious of Lands for the value of Brie and Champagne the independance of his Earldom of Evreux from all others but the King full and free Absolution for those that had murthered the Constable and besides all this a very considerable sum of Money and the Kings Second Son in Hostage Year of our Lord 1354 Upon these Securities he appears in the Parliament of Paris the third day of March The King sitting on his Throne attended by the Pairs the Legat and divers Prelats The criminal having crav'd his pardon in a studied Speech intermixed with complaints and excuses the Constable had order to arrest him only for forms sake and lead him out to the next room while they debated then straightway he was released upon the request of the two Queens the Widdows of Charles the Fair and of Philip de Valois The Legat made him a grave Remonstrance and after all the King declared him Absolv'd Some few days after he retired into Normandy but went immediately without leave of the King and made a journey to Avignon He went ierreting up and down till the English should take the Field whereupon the King enters again into Normandy and seized his Lands but that Prince returning from Navarre by Sea having brought Forces that sacaged all the Countrey and besides it being Year of our Lord 1355 feared the English would soon Land it was thought sitter to make use of kindness Charles the Kings eldest Son soothed him so finely that he was pacified and least in appearance and came with him to Paris The Emperour Charles IV. goes to be Crowned at Rome or rather to be cover'd with shame having made that infamous Contract with the Pope that he would not sojourn so much as one whole day in that City which brought both Year of our Lord 1355 himself and the Empire into the most despicable condition The year following upon the Eleventh of January he made that famous Constitution called the Golden Bull of which the Politicians judge very variously Upon a Shrove-Tuesday night the English by Scalado took the Castle of Nantes and the very same night Guy de Rochefort took it again and hew'd them all in pieces as a reward for their having broken the Truce Gaston Phebus Count de Foix who Married the Sister of the King of Navarre was sent prisoner to the Chastellet at Paris because he refused to hold his Lands of the Year of our Lord 1355 King perhaps it might be those holden of the English But in a Month after he was set at liberty upon condition he should go into Guyenne and command the Kings Army against the Prince of Wales For the Truce was no sooner at an end but that young Prince invested in the Duchy of Guyenne by his Father began to make himself known by ravaging and burnings He made incursions even as far as Beziers and Narbonne without meeting any opposition from the French Commanders the Earl of Foix James de Bourbon Constable Year of our Lord 1355 and John de Clermont who were stronger then his party but too much divided by jealousies amongst themselves His Father at the same time landed at Calais and ran over all the Boulonois and Artois even to Hesdin where he broke through the Park yet could not force the Castle but having intelligence that King John was coming directly to
he even left them there two Months without joyning them as he had promised They were fain to go and find him out at Vennes He was mightily perplexed for the Breton Lords even those who were the most affectionate being tired with suffering under strangers and the miseries of War and withal revolted from him by the intrigues of Clisson and the credit of Beaumanoir would peremptorily have him agree with France in effect they compell'd him to make a Peace with the King to dismiss the English and renounce their Alliance and also gave such cautions as obliged him to make good this Treaty They did not breed up the young King conformable to the good instructions of his Father but according to the inclinations of his age and airy Nature to Hunting Dancing and running about here and there One day when he was Hunting in the Forest of Senlis a large Stag was rowzed which he would not pursue with his Dogs but took him a Toil They found about his Neck a Copper Coller Gilt with an Inscription in Latine which imported * that Casar had given him it The young King because of this or for that in a Dream he had been carried up into the ✚ Air by a Stagg that had wings took two Staggs Volant for Supporters to the Arms of France Before him our Kings had Flowers-de-Luce Sans number in their Scutcheon he reduced them to three we do not know wherefore Year of our Lord 1381 The Children of the Navarrois to wit his Eldest and his Second Son and one Daughter who had been taken in one of his places of Normandy being yet prisoner the wicked King hired an Englishman to poison the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy in revenge for that they hindred their being set at liberty This wretched fellow was discover'd and quarter'd alive Nevertheless John King of Castille the Son of Henry importun'd by the continual sollicitations of his Sister who Married the Infant of Navarre interceded so effectually with the Kings Uncles that they released those innocent Children of a very wicked Father Year of our Lord 1381 The meanness and condescentions of the two Popes towards those Princes of their parties to attain their ends was a most lamentable thing nor can it without indignation be express'd what exaction and violence they committed on the Clergy and those Churches of their dependance The six and thirty Cardinals of Avignon were so many Tyrants to whom Clement gave all sorts of Licence They had Proctors every where with Grants of Reversions who snapp'd up all the Benesices the Claustral Offices the Commandery's retained the best of them and sold the rest or gave them upon pension or rather Farmed them out Clement himself besides his seizing upon all that any Bishop or Abbot left after his death besides his taking a years Revenue of each Benesice upon every change whether it hapned by vacancy or by resignation or by permutation ravaged the Gallican Church by infinite Concussions and extraordinary Taxes Good People bewailed these disorders there were none but Purloiners that wished they might be continued and nothing but the particular Interests of Princes kept this Schisme still on foot Clement allowed the Duke of Anjou the Levying of the Tenths and the Duke allowed of all his pilserings and violently reproved all those that durst complain This unjust proceeding rather then the Justice of Vrbans party was the cause why many of the principal Doctors of the Faculty put themselves under the Obedience of that Pope and also made the University begin to desire and demand a Council as the Sovereign remedy for all these mischiefs Year of our Lord 1381 The Duke of Berry angry that he had no part in the Affairs his Father-in-law the Earl of Armagnac perswades him to demand the Government of Languedoc as then in the hands of his Enemy the Count de Foix. The Council consents to his demand but the Count armed to maintain himself and the Province where he was as much beloved for his Justice and his Generosity as the Duke of Berry was hated for his Thievery stuck close to him The Duke with an Army to take possession by force the Count beat him foundly near the City of Rabasteins but after he had let him know he was able to keep his Government he yielded it up to him that he might not be the ruine of those that defended him Year of our Lord 1381 John Lyon chief of the White Hats had so blown up the troubles in Flanders that his death could not extinguish the Flame Most part of good Towns in that Countrey had joyned themselves to the Ghentois the Peace the Duke of Burgundy had made betwixt them and the Earl his Father-in-law lasted but a very short time the Earl goes secretly out of Ghent and the Gentry combine against the Cities Ghent had all manner of ill success but neither their being thrice let Blood which cost above Fifteen thousand Lives nor Waste nor Famine nor being fortaken by the other Cities nor yet the miseries of two Sieges could quell those stubborn obstinate lovers of their liberty After the loss of most of their stoutest Leaders they chose one named Peter du Bois and upon his perswasions another also to wit Philip d'Artevelle Son of that James formerly mentioned much richer then his Father but less crafty and much prouder This last took the upper-hand and pretended to all the Functions of a Sovereign Year of our Lord 1384 Although they had promised the People to take off the Imposts the Regent nor the Treasurers who Governed him could not resolve upon 't The great Cities took up Arms to oppose it Peter de Villiers and John de Marais Persons venerable with the People and also very much regarded by the Regent somewhat appeased the commotion at Paris but could by no means perswade them to suffer those new Levies The Burghers took Arms set Guards at the Gates created Diseniers Cinquanteniers Centeniers and made some Companies to keep the Avenues and Passages to the City free Year of our Lord 1381 The Duke of Anjou was therefore forced to dissemble for the present but he had not resolved to let go the thing thus and intended only to wait till their heats were grown colder to go on as before It hapned the following year that having published the Farming of those at the Chastellet one of the Officers belonging to the Farmers demanding a Denier of an Herb-Woman for a bundle of Cresles the Rabble gathered together upon the noise this Woman made grew into fury went and broke open the Town-Hall to get Arms and took out three or four thousand iron Maillets or Hammers for which cause this seditious crew were named the Malletiers After this they massacred all that were concerned to gather it plundred their Houses and razed them open'd the Prisons and took out all the Criminals amongst others Hugh Aubriot Prevost of Paris whom they made their Captain but
to be carried in Bennets Artifice and his Money had gained some of the Grandees who contrived this for him Year of our Lord 1398 The Earl of Perigord Archambauld Taleyrand tormenting the Countrey with the help of the English to whom he had ally'd himself and especially the City of Perigueux which belonged to the King was forced in his Castle of Montagnac brought to the Parliament and condemned to death The King gave him pardon for his life but bestowed his forfeited Estate upon the Duke of Orleans Archambauld de Grailly Captal de Buch having a Right to the Earldom of Foix as having married the Sister of Earl Matthew dead without Children got into possession of it by the Sword The King would not endure this because he was a Vassal Year of our Lord 1399 to the English and from Father to Son very affectionate to that party He therefore sent the Mareschal de Sancerre who pursued him so close that he was compell'd to desire a Cessation during which he came to the King and submitted himself to the judgment of the Parliament giving up in the mean time his two Sons in Hostage The Parliament declared in his favour conditionally he would relinquish the English and the King put him in possession This was in the year 1400. Year of our Lord 1399 Constantinople was invested by the Turks and in the greatest danger Pera which is as the Suburbs to it and from whence they fetched all their Provisions was very likely to be taken It belonged to the Seignory of Genoa the Mareschal de Boucicaut going thither with only Twelve hundred Men secured it and by consequence the City After he had disengaged all the parts round about and made the Turks retire whom he worsted in several Rencounters his Pay and Soldiers failing him he came into France to sollicite for a greater reinforcement bringing the Emperour along with him leaving the Lord de Chasteaumoran in Constantinople to defend it The discords in the Court of England caused by the ill Government of Richard and the ambition of his Uncles ended in a most Tragical Catastrophe Henry Earl of Derby became Duke of Lancaster by the death of his Father puts King Richard prisoner in the Tower of London Deposed him by the Authority and Consent of Parliament who degraded and condemned him to a perpetual imprisonment Then he took the Crown the Eighteenth day of October and was anointed with a Holy Oyl which some English say was brought by the Virgin Mary to St. Thomas of Canterbury whilst he took refuge in France This Ampoulle or Bottle that contains the Oyl is of Lapis and on the top stands a Golden Eagle enriched with Pearls and Diamonds Notwithstanding this Unction some while afterwards he gives way to the out-cries of the People who demanded that the unfortunate King might be strangled The London Citizens held Richard in execration because he had deliver'd up Brest and Cherbourg to the French The Duke of Bretagne who enjoy'd some repose after the many traverses which Year of our Lord 1399 had disturbed him from his Infancy died the First day of November in the Castle of Nantes He left his Children to the custody not of his Wife Jean of Navarre but of the Duke of Burgundy and Oliver de Clisson who alone were able to trouble them He had three John Arthur and Giles In the Month of November of this year 1399. a Comet was seen of an extraordinary brightness and darting its train towards the West It appeared only for one weeks time and was by Prognosticators held as a sign of those great Revolutions Year of our Lord 1399 that hapned all Chistendom over especially in the Kingdom of Naples and the Empire Lewis of Anjou had peaceably enough enjoy'd the better part of the Kingdom of Year of our Lord 1399 Sicilia when Thomas de Sanseverin Duke de Venousia offended for that he did not conclude upon the Marriage of his Brother Charles Earl of Mayne with his Daughter made him odious to the Neopolitans and introduced Lancelot and his Mother into the City where he was Crowned King and invested by the Pope of Rome So that Lewis having only some Castles left returned into France to crave assistance The Electors could no longer endure the Vices and brutish drunkenness of Year of our Lord 1400 Wenceslaus they degraded him and in his stead elected Henry Duke of Brunswic a generous Prince and great Captain and this Henry being basely assassinated upon his return from the Diet by the Count of Waldeck they substituted Robert Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine who was of the Electoral Colledge The Duke of Milan fearing left he might dispossess him shout up all the passages and hindred him from going to take the Imperial Crown at Rome and Sigismund King of Bohemia having procured himself to be chosen Guardian to Wenceslaus his Brother under this Title made many of the German Princes of his party who adhered to the House of Luxemburgh or rather made this a colourable pretence to avoid the owning any Sovereign Year of our Lord 1400 This year 1400. the Court of France received Emanuel II. Emperour of Greece who came to give the King thanks for his assistance and to crave more help of him He met with all manner of good Entertainment but nothing else unless it were an annual Pension for his subsistence He remained almost two years in France at the and whereof news being brought of the defeat and taking of Bajazeth by Themir-Lanc the King lent him the Lord of Chasteaumorand with two hundred Men at Arms and gave him a sum of Moneyto re-conduct him to Constantinople There was not any thing of advantage presented it self which the Duke of Orleans did not embrace with passion he undertook the quarrel of degraded Wenceslaus Year of our Lord 1401 and raised a good force to restore him but being informed of the ruine of his whole party he came back again The desire to Rule and ambition for Government grew hotter every day betwixt him and the Duke of Burgundy Twice had they displaced each other from that advantageous Post and besides the Burgundian resented it highly that the Duke of Orleans would have the Duke of Bretagne to be thrust out of all who was his Wives Cousin-german and his own surest friend The frequent punctillo's between their Wives exasperated them more than their own true interests the Duke of Burgundy's being the elder Heiress of a vast Estate and sprung from very Noble Blood despising the other who in truth had been much beneath her had she not been considered as Wife of the Kings only Brother Year of our Lord 1401. and 2. The Duke of Orleans had then the upper hand and was seized of the management of Affairs the Burgundian could not quit his part both the one and the other got their friends together and Paris was surrounded with Soldiers The Orleannois had called in the Duke of Guelders with Five hundred
on all hands crying out a la queue Many had their Brains beaten out in the Streets the rest escaped to the Bastille where they made composition All the little Neighbouring Forts were an Accessory to this Reduction In the Month of August following the King recalled the Parliament the Chambre des Comptes and the University thither The English had declared themselves Enemies to the Duke of Burgundy by all Acts of Hostility upon his Countreys and by underhand-dealings to stir his Subjects up to Rebellion in those days very much knit to and concerned for England as well by Commerce and Trade as out of a real hatred they had towards the French He would therefore needs revenge himself by taking of Calais which he esteemed no great difficulty and laid Siege to it with a numerous Army In the midst of this Enterprize the Flemmings finding it spin out to a great length fell into an imagination that they were betray'd and herding together in several small parcels on a suddain made up all their packs in great confusion leaving their Provisions and Artillery behind for want of Waggons to carry them off All that their Duke could possibly do for them was to cover them with his Cavalry leâ—t the English should have charged them and after that to follow them The Duke of Gloucester who had sent word that he was coming to give him Battle not finding him there entred into Flanders where he increased their former jealousie by his burning all those places he came near Year of our Lord 1437 It was impossible for Rene of Anjou to obtain his liberty of the Duke of Burgundy without paying him an extraordinary Ransom yielding up several places and consenting to a Marriage between his eldest Daughter whose name was Yoland as then but nine years old and Ferry eldest Son of Anthony Earl of Vaudemont the means whereby Lorrain returned to the Males of that House Year of our Lord 1437 In the interim they carried the King into Lyonnois and Dauphine to make Moneys in those Countries and the following year he went even to Languedoc for the same end Upon his return he laid Siege to Montereau Faut-yonne which submitted not till after a long resistance From thence he came to make his entrance into his good City of Year of our Lord 1437 Paris the fourth of November and then he might truly call himself King of France having replanted his Throne in the capital City of his Kingdom Year of our Lord 1438 These long and tedious Wars did necessarily produce great licentiousness and daily Robberies The Soldiers not being paid lived at discretion and the extream scarcity of all things rendred them most inhumane There were divers Bands commanded even by the Kings best Officers who under colour of seeking for subsistence ran from Province to Province rifling all they could lay lands on Those called Escorcheurs and then the Redondeurs committed strange disorders By these ravages the flight of the Husbandmen and Peasants who neither ploughed nor sowed and the continual Rains during two years 1437 and 38. ensued a great Famine and then a horrible Mortality over all France especially at Paris and its Neighbourhood That City was so depopulated the Wolves came and devoured Children even in the midst of the Street St. Anthoine They were forced that they might rid themselves of those Beasts greedy of humane Flesh to make Proclamation that any one should have twenty Solz a piece for every head of a Wolfe they brought to the Magistrate Pope Eugenius and the Council of Basil were imbroiled to that height that Eugenius declared the Council dissolved and called another to Ferrara and on the other hand the Prelats that were at Basil having summon'd him divers times to come thither began to think of deposing him with the greater confidence for that the Most Christian King seemed then to favour them having forbid the Prelats of the Gallican Church from going to Ferrara Year of our Lord 1438 This Discord in the end turned to a Schism he that might have extinguisht it hapning to die I mean the Emperor Sigismond who ended his days in Moravia the Eighth of November 1437. Albertus Duke of Austria his Son in Law succeeded him in the Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia and the year following in the Empire by the suffrages of the Electors The Clergy of France ever since the translation of the Holy See to Avignon had suffered infinite oppressions by the Court of Rome And therefore the King having assembled them at Bourges to find out some way to reconcile the Pope to the Council who had each sent their Legats they embraced the opportunity which they could never have since the Council of Constance and made their remonstrances touching those insupportable abuses The King desiring to provide against it order'd them to apply the most convenient remedies To this end by advice of his Council they framed that so celebrated Reglement called the Pragmatique which preventing any the like Enterprizes of the Court of Rome might well be termed the Bulwark of the Gallican Church Year of our Lord 1439 Eugenius transferr'd his Council of Ferrara to Florence where they treated concerning the uniting the Greek to the Latine Church their Emperor John VI. assisting with a good number of his most illustrious Prelats But in the mean while those who were assembled at Basil though reduced to a small number and not well agreed amongst themselves deposed Eugenius and elected Ame VIII Duke of Savoy who had retired himself as was before related to the solitude of Ripaille France Germany and most part of the West paid their obedience to him during the life of Eugenius but after his death all of them almost turned to Nicholas V. Two years after Rene was delivered from captivity he went into his Kingdom of Naples where according to the example of his Predecessors his entrance was very happy but his exit very different Year of our Lord 1439 The Siege of Meaux by the Constable although long and full of difficulty succeeded happily for the French but that of Auranches in the Lower Normandy being ill managed by the same Person and the Duke of Alenson brought them nothing but shame the English having made them raise it and taken part of their Bagage and their Ammunition At the Sollicitation of the Dutchess of Burgundy and the Popes Legats a great Conference was held between Graueline and Calais the Deputies of France England and those of Burgundy meeting to treat about a Peace The English not receding from that Condition that Normandy and their other Conquests should be left to them in full Soveraignty they parted without doing any thing in it Year of our Lord 1440 The King by inclination was well enough disposed for the good of his Country and we observe that from this very time even to the Reign of Henry II. the Kings did often and willingly make use of this term The Publick Concerns of Our
with a great Fleet which carried Ten Thousand Men and at the same time Felix of Wirtembergh entred by Land upon Milanois with a like number The Potentates of Italy did all bow down to this Power and the Pope himself came to Bologna to receive him But the Emperor informed of Solyman's irruption in Hungary durst not use all his Power to oppress them but on the contrary yielding to their Intreaties he resettled Francis Sforza in the Dutchy of Milan and agreed with all the other from whom he drew vast Sums of Money Year of our Lord 1529. and 30. There were none but the poor Florentines who remained exposed to the resentments of the Pope because they refused to submit themselves to the Medicis who were but private Citizens no more then the rest The Emperor lent him his Forces to Besiege their City who having defended themselves for Eleven Months in vain imploring the help of France and their ancient Confederates Surrendred upon Composition the Fifth of August in the following Year and were reduced under the Dominion of the Medicis although by the Treaty it was said that the Pope should Establish no Government that should be contrary to their Liberty Year of our Lord 1529 During these troubles between the two greatest Powers of Christendom Solyman snatched away the best part of Hungary The pretended King John had called him to his aid making himself his Subject and his Tributary but the Tyrant instead of putting him into possession of the Kingdom took for himself the Cities of the five Churches Alba Royal where were the Sepulchers of their Kings Buda Strigonium and Altemburgh After these Conquests he laid Siege to Vienna but in a Months time the scarcity of Provisions and the approach of Winter made him dislodge He raised his Siege the Fourteenth of October after he had lost near Threescore Thousand men and took his March towards Constantinople threatning to return the next year with a much greater force Those that adher'd to the doctrine of Luther acquired this year the Surname of Protestants because there having been a Decree made by the Arch-duke Ferdinand and other Catholick Princes in the Diet of Spire in favour of the ancient Religion and to hinder the progress of theirs they protested against it and appealed to the Emperor and to a General or National Council Year of our Lord 1530 The following year appeared their Confession of Faith which is called the Ausburgh Confession because they presented it to the Emperor in the Assembly which was held in that City to endeavour to pacifie and allay the differences in Religion Luther had composed it in Seventeen Articles Melancton explained and enlarged them The Affairs of Hungary and Germany not permitting the Emperor to be long absent the Pope gave him the Imperial Crown at Bologna with the same Ceremonies as if he had been at Rome The Emperor affected to pitch upon the Twenty fourth day of February for this great Ceremony as being his Birth-day and the day likewise of the taking of King Francis at Pavia Having sojourned there till the Two and Twentieth of March he returned into Germany and before he left Italy erected the Marquisate of Mantoua to a Dutchy in favour of Frederic Gonzague who merited a greater Title if Year of our Lord 1530 his Territory could have born it They had much adoe in France to make up the Twelve Hundred Thousand Crowns promised by the Treaty of Cambray for the Release of the Kings Children The Mareschal de Montmorency carried them to Endaya and the first day of June exchanged them for the two Princes in the same place and in the same manner as they did the Father The King went to meet them as far as Verin which is a Nunnery in the Launds of Bourdeaux near the Mount de Marsan In the same place he Married Eleonora the Emperors Sister who had sent her to him with his Sons The year following in the Month of March she was Crowned at Saint Denis and the City of Paris graced her with a Magnificent Entry This Princess aged thirty Years and rather ill-favour'd then handsom never possessed the heart of her Husband but that she might be consider'd gained the respects of the Mareschal de Montmorency who at that time governed the King and the Kingdom The Catholicks and Protestants had agreed in the Assembly at Ausburgh to call a Council that might put an end to their differences and the Emperor had given his assent because he would make use of this Proposition to awe the Pope In effect he was so alarmed at it that he wrote to the Kings of France and England that he would do all they would desire provided they hindred the Council In the mean time the Catholicks of Germany finding their Religion endanger'd made a League amongst themselves in the Month of November Which gave occasion to the Protestants to frame one likewise at Smalcalde about the end of the following Month. Year of our Lord 1531 The first effect of the Catholicks League was that by their help the Emperor got his Brother Ferdinand to be Elected King of the Romans who was already so of Hungary and Bohemia it was upon the Fifth of January in the Diet of Colen without having any regard to the oppositions of John Duke of Saxony and the Remonstrances of other Protestant Princes who being yet more alarmed upon this Election sent to the Kings of France and England to implore their Assistance They willingly granted it and Entred with them into a League but only to defend their Lands and the Rights and Liberties of the Empire The English promised to furnish them with Fifty Thousand Crowns monthly if they were Assaulted and the French deposited an Hundred Thousand Crowns in the hands of the Bavarian Princes to Levy Men in case they found reason for it or were necessitated thereto During the calmes of Peace to the Love for Ladies he joyned the Love of Learning The good King Lewis XII had caused him to be bred in the Colledge of Navarre and although he had made but a very small progress in the Latine Tongue nevertheless the little smattering he had gave him a great Gusto for the Sciences especially Astronomy Physick Natural History and Law He kept near him the ablest men in all the Kingdom who studied to make handsome and Methodical discourses to him upon all those parts of Learning most commonly whilst he sat at Dinner sometimes in his Walks or in his Closet and he improved so well by those entertainments that he became as knowing as the greatest Masters In acknowledgement of those Inestimable benefits he raised many of them to Offices and showred Presents and Pensions upon the rest Nor did they advance his Affairs a little by their Services and render his Name Illustrious to the Eyes of all Nations by their Works so that in spite of Fortune he gained most Renown though his rival flourish'd with more Success He instituted the Royal or
it The Emperor remanded him to give him the Government of Milan which he took from Ferdinand de Gonzague The Duke had much ado to get lieve to keep this General with him till the Siege were over The Emperor therefore substituted Gomez de Figueroa in the stead of Gonzague who being Year of our Lord 1554 fitter for a States-Man then a Soldier suffer'd the Affairs of Piedmont to decline very much The first three Months the Duke of Florence had the disadvantage Ascanius de la Corne one of his Commanders thinking to surprize Clusio lost Twelve Hundred Men and was made Prisoner by a double dealing intelligence Strozzi defeated Medequin in a Ren-contre near Petia where he slew him Two Thousand Men Then having received a great re-inforcement brought him by Octavia Farnese and the Count de Miranda he regained one of the Bastions of Sienna which Malatesta had surprized by treachery and ransacked over all the Dukes Country to the very Gates of Florence But this fortune changed immediately Leo his Brother who was just Arrived with Twelve Galleys with which he lay at Port-Hercole expecting a re-inforcement that was to come from Provence was slain by a shot from behind a Hedge as he was viewing the ill favour'd Castle of Scarlin Then himself coming to releive Marcian besieged by Medequin lost a Battel near that City The sault was laid upon his presuming to make a retreat in the open day-light before an Enemy stronger then himself the cowardize of the Count de la Miranda who sled at the beginning with all the Cavalry whom he commanded as Collonel and the treachery of some Italian Companies of his Van-Guard who proved to be Turn-Coats He escaped to Montalien where he rallied up what he could of those shatter'd Forces and did yet give the Florentines a great deal of trouble He had intreated the King to let him have some good Officer to be his Second particularly to Govern the City of Sienna He sent him Blaise de Montlue whether of his own Choice or named by the Guises which was the ruine of that Republique for the Constable considering him as the Creature of his adversaries did not care he should Succeed and so sent no relief that way He came into that Country much about the time when Leo was slain before Scarlin During all this Reign there were divers changes made amongst the Officers of the Finance and Judicature and great number of Creations all to get Money the thirsty Ministers inclining the King to draw the purest Blood of the Nation to satisfie their greedy appetite The Parliament of Paris seemed to have too much power and sometimes opposed their injustice they made it Semestre that is one half to sit and attend Six Months and then the other alternately and almost doubled the number of the Judges who till then were not above one Hundred taking in the Six Masters of Requests and the Twelve Dukes and Pairs The Edict for this was not verified and yet it took place but within three years after when they had sold all those new Offices they suffer'd the two parts to be joyned again in one By another Edict they augmented the number of the Kings Secretaries who were Sixscore already that is to say more by half than was necessary and added Fourscore so that in all there were Two Hundred By another yet they set up a Parliament in Bretagne composed of four Presidents two and thirty Counsellors two Registers two Advocates and an Attorney for the King They divided it into two Semestres in one of which the Officers were necessarily to be Natives of that Province Necessity extorted from the Ministers for those of Guyenne what compassion towards those people had never been able to obtain Observing there was a great deal of danger and yet a much greater expence in settling the Gabelle in that Province they took it off but constrained the people to pay Twelve Hundred Thousand Crowns to redeem themselves from that vexation Year of our Lord 1554 After the rebuke received by Strozzi at Marcian the Marquiss de Marignan being Master of the Field took most of the places belonging to that little State and laid a formal Siege to Vienna which he had before invested Blaise de Montluc kept up the Spirits of the Siennois and withstood the Attaques of the Enemies near Eight Months as he particularly relates in his Memoires and Commentaries At length his provisions failing extreme Famine forced him to capitulate This was upon the One and Twentieth of April Year of our Lord 1555 The Treaty contained that they should enjoy their Goods Liberty and Republique in all security but the Emperor failed them in his promise and faith he soon subjugated and fetter'd that unfortunate City and gave it to his Year of our Lord 1555 Son Philip who in Anno 1558. yielded it to the Duke of Florence retaining only the maritime places And indeed the chief Citizens foreseeing or guessing the Imperialists would not make good the Treaty went out with the French Garrison to the number of Eight or Nine Hundred and retired to Montalcino In that City they chose them Magistrates and preserved the Form of their Republick till the time of the Peace betwixt France and Spain in the year 1559. Brissac Besieged Valfenieres in Piedmont and the Spaniards were in the Field to relieve it when the Battel of Marcian was fought The news thereof heightned the courage of the Enemies very much and it was to be fearâ—d it might cast a great damp upon the spirits of the French so that he found fit by the advice of his Councel of War to raise the Siege Some time afterwards having given the Enemy a repulse and thinking he had put all Piedmont in a condition of safety at least for some Months he formed a great design It was to have gone straight forward resolutely to Sienna with a Body of Eight Thousand Foot he had Fifteen or Sixteen Thousand of the best in the World to fall immediately upon the Besiegers and force one of their Quarters to put Provisions into the City But the jealousie his great reputation gave to those that Govern'd the Kings Mind would not permit him to execute so brave an exploit The Constable though related to him did not wish him well he having obtained the Government of Piedmont by the Craft of the Dutchess of Valentinois and without his knowledge nay even in despite of him who was then upon the point of endeavouring to have it for his Nephew Gaspard de Coligny Chastillon The Duke of Guise highly esteemed him and yet as the brave cannot well endure one another he very often took occasion to quarrel and thwart him Thus to ruine his reputation and fame they ruin'd the Kings Affairs in Piedmont And yet all these obstructions could not hinder him from taking this year Vercel and Ivree nor when he had fortified Saint la from compleating a design he had contrived upon Casal by the
his full Liberty to continue his Correspondence with the Spaniards that he might discover all their Secrets and give him a true account thereof The King seemed to confide in his Promises soon discover'd that he neither kept Faith with him nor his Enemies but juggled with both Thereupon he Commands him to Court The Count excuses it till he had his full and authentick Pardon they sent it to him but with this Clause That he should come to the King He could not find in his heart to relye upon the word of a Prince whom he had so often deceived so that the King resolved he should be Apprehended month July in Auvergne The Count stood much upon his guard and thought there was no Man in the world able to surprize him being so well fore-warn'd Notwithstanding Nerestan and the Baron of Eurre having inticed him into the Field to be present at the Muster of a Company of Gens-d'armes belonging to the Duke of Vendosme surrounded and dismounted him and took him in such manner month Septemb. c. as is at length related by the Historians of those times At the same time Entragues and his Wife were seized in their House at Malesherbes and the Marchioness in her Hostel at Paris The Count was brought to the Bastille and Entragues to the Conciergerie or Common-Goal of Paris It was necessary that all the world might see and know the Spaniards still maintained Factions in France The King therefore commanded his Parliament to proceed against these Criminals The event we shall shew in the next years Transactions Another Faction also did much discompose the King's Thoughts He could not deny the Hugenots leave to Assemble at Chastelleâ—ant and it was to be feared the Intrigues of the Mareschal de Bouillon and Credit of the Duke de la Trimouille month May. and du Plessis Mornay should put them upon Resolutions contrary to his will and interest But Rhosny under colour of going to take Possession of his Government of Poiton broke their measures And la Trimouille falling into Convulsions and then languishing died some while after Aged not above Four and Thirty years He was a Noble-man of great Courage and of most eminent Qualities Year of our Lord 1604 but not of such as suited with a Monarchick state The King diverted himself amidst all these Intrigues with Buildings and other such like Occupations when his leisure would give him leave as tended to the improvement of his Kingdom King Henry III. had begun the Pont-Neuf having built two Arches and brought the Pyles for the rest above the Water mark Henry IV. finish'd it so that People began to pass over about the end of the preceding year He carried on the Works also of the Louver Galleries the Castles Sainct Germain en Laye Fontainebleau and Monceaux which last he had bestow'd upon his Wife After his Example all the Great and the Rich fell to Building the City of Paris was visibly enlarged and embellished The Hospital Sainct Lewis was Erected for such as were infected with the Plague Some private people undertook the Place or Square Royal and others offer'd to make a much finer one in the Marese du Temple They likewise offer'd at many Projects to make several Rivers Navigable which either had never yet been so of else were now choaked up and to open a Communication between the greatest by means of the lesser lying nearest together with some new Channels where it should be necessary to carry it from the month May. one to the other They proffer'd to joyn the Seine to the Loire the Loire to the Soane and the Garonne with the Aude which falls into the Mediterraneum neer Narbonne The Conjunction of these two last would have made that of the two Seas As for that of the Seine and the Loire Rhosny undertook it drawing a Channel from Briare which lies on the Seine to Chastillon above Montargis upon the River Loin and falls into the Seine at Moret In this Channel they Collected all the Waters of the adjacent Rivolets designing to make Two and thirty Sluces to retain and let them go by flashes when needful to convey their Boats He Expended above Three hundred thousand Crowns but the change of Government made this design to miscarry though very much advanc'd It was a long while after taken up again and compleated at last In the Month of October a new Phenomena was observed in the Heavens which appeared four Months together It was at first taken for the Planet Venus because although it exceeded all the other Stars in Magnitude and Splendour yet had it no Tail but Observation soon found it was different from that Planet for they both appeared at the same time John Kepler a very Learned Mathematician wrote a Treatise of its Motion according to the Rules of Astronomy without troubling himself or the World to no purpose like the Judicial Prognosticators who upon this Apparition and the Conjunctions and Oppositions of some other Planets hapning this year and such as were to happen the year following made as is usual divers strange and terrible Predictions month March c. There was for about two Months an extream Scarcity in Languedoc and which would have caused a horrible Famine had they not been furnished with Wheat from Champagne and Burgundy by the Rivers of Soane and the Rhône The Plague also raged in several Provinces of France the soregoing year it had afforded Death a most plentiful Harvest in England When the Plague was ceased in those Countries King James hold his first Parliament in London to whom having made a Gracious and Royal Speech concerning the happy Union of the two Kingdoms the Affection he had for his Subjects the Laws and Regulations they were to make he desired of his Parliament and they granted it That from thence forward the Kingdoms of England and Scotland should be joyned into one Body under the Denomination of GREAT BRITAIN otherwhile used by the Romans Whereupon was Coined that Medal bearing this Inscription HENRICUS ROSAS REGNA JACOBUS His Speech was full of excellent things amongst others That he did not believe as Flatterers would fain persuade their Princes that God bestowed Kingdoms upon Men to satisfie their unruly Lusts and Pleasures but to take care of the Peace and Welfare of the People That the Head was made for the Body not the Body for the Head The Prince for the People not the People for the Prince month March c. The Subtil Scholiasts have so great an itch to bring every thing into Dispute that some Jesuits moved this year three Questions at Rome which begot great Contentions in Year of our Lord 1604 that Court and greater Scandal thorow-out all Christendom The First That it was not an Article of Faith to believe that Clement VIII was Pope which so enraged the Holy Father as without the Intercession of the Spanish Ambassador the Society had been in great Danger The Second That Sacramental Confession might be made
in hand the Defence of King Hilderic whose Kingdom Gilimer had usurped sent the great Captain Belisarius thither who made an end of that Conquest in less than Six Months having happily overthrown those Arrian Barbarians in some Battles taken Carthage and received the Tyrant Gilimer upon Composition who had sheltred himself in a Fortress The Visigoths during the Wars of Burgundy and Turingia had taken divers places of Septimania The Princes Gontier and Theodebert who were Sons the former of Clotaire the latter of Thierry had Orders from their Fathers to recover them Goutier returned without doing any thing Theodebert took some Castles in the Countrey of Beziers but suffered himself to be taken also by the Beauty of the Artificious Deuteria Lady of Cabriere who received him into her Castle and into her Bed From Septimania he carried the War to Provence reckoning to have a better Market of the Ostrogoths When he had sorely snaken it and already received some Hostages from the City of Arles he received news that his Father was very sick at Mets he goes away in all diligence and arrived there some few days before he died Year of our Lord 538 Thierry Reigned a little more then 23 years and had lived about 55. He had no Son but Theodebert but a Learned Historian gives him likewise a Daughter named Theodechildus he believes it to be her that was Married to Hermegisile King of the Varni of whom Procopius relates a memorable Adventure and who being returned into France amongst many pious Works built the Monastery of St. Pierre le Vis near Sens. It is fit we observe that the Bavarois or Bojarians were under his obedience since in their Estates or General Assembly at Chaalons he put their Laws in Writing They were originally of Germany it is not certain of what Canton but that they had the same Language as the Lombards About the time of the death of Odoacer King of Italy they were come to possess that part of the Norica which lies on the Banks of the Danube and in time they also gained the Mediterranean part and Rhetia Secunda which was situate betwixt the Rivers L'Oein and the Lec so that they were bounded by Panonia Swevia Italy and the Danube Perhaps Clovis subdued them at the same time he subdued the Almains but they had always retained their Laws and a Duke of their Nation who was confirmed by the King of Austrasia he was to be of the Race of the Agilolfingues or Descendents of Agilolfe who in all appearance brought them into that Countrey CHILDEBERT in Neustria at Paris CLOTAIRE in and Neustria at Soissons THEOD'EBERT aged about 30 years in Austrasia Burgundy betwixt both  Year of our Lord 534. and 535. The Uncles of Theodebert were prepared to invade the Kingdom of his Father his diligence broke their measures After he had agreed with them by a Peace which he bought and that he in appearance had tied the knot of a strict amity with Chlidebert who promised him the Succession because he had no Children he sent for Deuteria and publickly Married her despising Wisgard the Daughter of Wacon King of the Lombards whom he had betrothed in the life time of his Father Thierry Year of our Lord 534 In this year they place the Erection into a Kingdom True or Fabulous of the Countrey of Yvetot in Normandy which was done say they by King Clotaire in satisfaction for his having with his own hand in the very Church and on a Holy Friday Killed one Gautier who was Lord of the Mannor Athalaric King of Italy dies in the age of Adolescency Amalasuinta his Mother espouses Theodad Son of Amalafrede Sister to King Theoderic and sets him on the Throne but shortly after the Ingrateful makes her away upon a suspicion of Adultery The death of Amalasuinta caused the ruine of the Ostrogoths Justinian with whom she had always kept in amity gave Command to Belisarius to revenge her death and to recover Italy At first Dalmatia the Islands of Sicily and Sardinia after that Abbruzza and Lucania the Campagnia or Terra del Lavor surrenders to him without any resistance and the City of Naples is surprized by a way thorough an Aqueduct Theodad sends an Army under the Conduct of Vitiges his Officer but the Ostrogoths who had a hatred for him elect this Vitiges who to secure the Diadem for himself puts Theodad to death and Marries Mattasuinta Daughter of Amalasuinta Year of our Lord 536 When Theodad dyed he was in Treaty with the French and proffer'd them Provence and Two thousand pound of Gold if they would embrace his Defence Vitiges being pressed by Belisarius and finding himself not strong enough to resist the Imperialists and the French put in execution what his Predecessor had projected and deliver'd Provence and the Money to the French If we must believe Procopius Justinian confirmed this Cession by his Letters Patents It seems they divided it into two Provinces that of Marseilles and that of Arles Year of our Lord 537 Theodebert made no scruple to take off both Parties that he might be the better enabled to ruine them both He had caused Ten thousand Burgundians to slip into Italy who having joyned with Oraia one of Vitiges Chiefs had helped him to retake Milan Year of our Lord 539 When he believed both parties to be much weakned he entred the Milanois with Two hundred thousand Men. The Roman Army and that of the Ostrogoths were encamped one just over against the other neer Pavia either of them thought he came to their assistance and his design was to surprize them both He therefore Assaults and Defeats the Ostrogoths and then comes thundering upon the Romans and cuts them all in pieces But a Plague and Famine soon revenged them upon him for this perfidiousness When he found his Men perished by thousands he repassed the Mountains with all speed for fear lest Belisarius who was in Tuscany should come and attaque him Year of our Lord 539 Afterwards Vitiges being Besieged by Belisarius in Ravenna omitted not to crave help of the French who promis'd to come to his assistance with Five hundred thousand Men but before they were arrived he had compounded with Belisarius and was gon to Constantinople where of a King he became an Officer to the Emperour The Visigoths in his stead chose Theodobaldus Governour of Verona and he being slain three years after they substituted the famous Totila who Took and Sacked the City of Rome twice in 547. and in 550. Year of our Lord 540 The Queen Deuteria became so furiously jealous of her own Daughter because the King her Husband began to look on her that she made her away in a cruel and ingenious manner having caused untamed Bulls to be harnassed to draw her Chariot who precipitated her from off the Bridge at Verdun into the Meuse The French who during the Two first Races and a good while in the Third had
of Soissons and Paris in Neustria CHILDEBERT II. called the Young aged Five years in Austrasia Year of our Lord 575 The death of Sigebert was followed with a suddain and general Revolution the Austrasians raised the Siege of Tournay and having joyned with those who were at Vitry they retired in confusion the Neustrians returned to the Obedience of Chilperic and Brunehaud found her self surrounded and cooped up in Paris where she then was with her Children and knew not how to get thence But the wisdom of the Duke Gombaud the greatest Lord of Austrasia found out a way to save the Pupil Childebert having let him down over the Walls in a Basket and put him into the hands of a faithful Person who himself carried him into the City of Mets. Already some of the Austrasians had made their Composition with Chilperic but the rest being assembled together in great numbers according to their custom set the young Prince upon the Royal Seat on New-years-day and put him under the protection of Gontran so that Chilperic lost his hopes of invading that Kingdom but he seized upon that of Paris and banished Brunehaud to Rouen and her two Daughters to Meaux Year of our Lord 576 He had sent Meroveus his eldest Son by Queen Audovere to seize upon Poitou which belonged to the Kingdom of Childebert Meroveus instead of putting this design in execution went to Tours and from thence to Rouen where he suffered himself to be so much surprized with the charms of Brunehaud as then aged at least 28 years that he Married her Pretextat Bishop of Rouen God-father to the young Prince making the Marriage The Father hastens thither and having by deceitful words drawn those so newly Wedded out of a Church where they had taken shelter he set a Guard upon Brunehaud and carried his Son away with him Mean time the Austrasian Lords who were come to submit to him returned again to Childebert Godin amongst others who to carry somewhat with him that might bid him welcom armed the Champanois and made himself Master of Soissons where he wanted but little of surprizing Fredegonda Chilperic was quickly there vanquishes him and re-takes the Town but Fredegonda believing that Godin had not undertaken so bold an enterprize without the participation of Meroveus and Brunehaud obliged her Husband to confine that young Prince and a while after to force him to turn Priest and send him to the Monastery of Aunisse which is called now St. Calas the name of its first Abbot The Austrasians demand their Queen Brunehaud with so much earnestness that Year of our Lord 576 he sent her to them and yet he could not forbear to invade the Lands of Childebert His Son Clovis took the Town of Saintes but the Duke Didier going to besiege that of Limoges met in his way the Patrician Mummole whom Gontran sent to Year of our Lord 577 defend the Country belonging to his Pupil the Fight was so obstinate that there were slain Thirty thousand on both sides three parts of them were Didier's who saved himself with much ado About the same time Meroveus escaped from the Monastery and secured himself in the Church called St. Martins of Tours prompted thereto by Gailen his most intimate Confident who was come to visit him and drawn by Gontran-Boson who had sheltred himself in that place as we have related The Step-Mother Ferdegonda favoured this Boson for the same reason that Chilperic would put him to death and maintained a private Commerce with him that he might destroy Meroveus as he had made his Brother Theodebert to perish The young Prince having notice that Fredegonda sought by all means to take away his life did not find himself there in security He goes out from thence accompanied with this Boson whose treachery he knew not of and would go to find out Brunehaud but the Austrasians refused to admit him he remained then some time concealed and a Vagabond in Champagne After which this Boson and Giles Bishop of Rheims upon the pretence of delivering up the City of Teroüenne to him made him fall into their Ambuscades surrounding and taking him Prisoner in a Village of which they gave immediate notice to Chilperic he went thither with Year of our Lord 577 all diligence but found that his unfortunate Son was dead he had been Poynarded by the order of Fredegonda who made him believe that apprehending he should be put to tortures he had borrowed the helping hand of Gailen his favourite to dispatch him A while before the Bishop Pretextat his Godfather was accused before the Bishops assembled in Councel at Paris where no proofs appearing strong enough against him touching what was alledged he suffers himself to be induced by two false Brothers upon an assurance the King would pardon him to confess more than they could desire for which he was banished to an Island near Coustances but with hopes of returning because he pretended he had not been degraded though they had placed Melantius in his See Death having snatched away the two Sons which Gontran had by Austrigilda his second Wife although he were not above the age of getting Children not being above Fifty he desired the Austrasians to bring his Nephew Childebert to him and Adopted him having placed him in his Royal Seat These two Princes being thus allied sent to Chilperic to demand their part of the Kingdom of Paris and declared War against him Chilperic did but scoff at them diverting himself in building of Cirques or places for publick Spectacles at Paris and at Soissons where he would have entertained the People with Chariot-races could he have found Charioteers that had skill enough The Bretons about the year 441. had possessed themselves of Vannes afterwards Year of our Lord 578 Clovis had taken that place again and likewise the Cities of Nants and Rennes at that time governed by Roman Captains This year 578. Waroc or Guerec a Count of Bretagne had the boldness to seize again upon Vannes which appertained to the Kingdom of Chilperic and march up to the French who were encamped on the Banks of the River Vilain They had some Companies of Saxons or Sesnes-Bessins in their Army one night he passes the River and beat up their Quarter but three days afterwards finding himself too weak for so potent an Enemy he desires Peace swore fealty to the King and renders up the City of Vannes upon condition he should remain Governor A short while after he again seizes it and so long as he lived put the French to a great deal of trouble Chilperic and his wicked Wife Fredegonda over-burthened the People with Imposts they had taxed an Amphore of Wine upon every half Acre of Vineyard several other Charges upon things of another kind and a Tribute upon the head of every Slave and indeed a kind of Poll-money for every Freeman insomuch that their Subjects ran away out of the Kingdom as a place of Torment and peopled
Lotaire Those Lords that accompany'd Charles observing these Artifices believed the best way was to breake thorow them all with a brave resolution and advised he would march directly to him Thus the two Armies were found to be within Six Leagues of each other the City of Orleans lying between them Then the Lords on either part endeavoured to bring them to an accord as was the usual custom of the French Those of Charles's party finding themselves by much the weaker yielded to an agreement very disadvantagious whereby was left to him only by provision Aquitain Languedoc and Province with some Counties between the Loire and the Seine and it was said they should meet at the Parliament to be holden at Atigny to compose all their differences but they added this Clause that in the interim Lotaire should attempt nothing upon Charles nor Louis otherwise they should be quit of their Oathes and promises Year of our Lord 841 This Treaty finished Charles marched towards Bretagne to quell the motions of some Lords of that Country From thence he returns on his way to be at the Parliament of Atigny Lotharius had in the mean while endeavoured to shut up the passages against him broken down all the Bridges over the Seine and ordered Forces on either Shoar who coasted along incessantly Which did him no good because Charles having information that there were several Vessels at Roüen Seized them with great diligence and wafted over his Army with them His enemies betook themselves to Flight upon the first appearance of his Standard At the same time Lotharius by the advice of Albert Earl of Mets his chief incendiary and Othbert Bishop of Ments were dealing with the French Austrasians and knowing that Louis of Germany was upon his march to joyn with Charles caused some Troops to pass over the Rhine to meet him and did entice away a part of his men so that he was councell'd fearing he might lose the rest to retreat into Bavaria where it had been easy for Lotaire to have crushed him had he but pursued it Year of our Lord 841 Charles marching up along the River Seine makes his Prayers in the Church of St. Denis joynes some Troops which two or three of his Counts brought him near Montereau on Yonne beats two of the Counts that Lotaire had sent to oppose him in his March goes on to Troyes where he celebrated the Feast of Easter From thence he went to Atigny to let them know he would not neglect to meet at the conference appointed between him and Lotaire After his having remained there some days he Marched towards Chaalons and there finds his Mother the Empress Judith and those Forces she brought him out of Aquitain He had intelligence at the same time that his Brother Louis having gained a Battel against Albert Count of Mets made all possible hast to joyn with him Wherefore he goes that way to meet him Lotaire gave out a report that he fled and pursues him Mean time Louis arrives and thus the two young Brothers being united were found to be the strongest Lotaire therefore gains some days time by his feigned negotiations till Pepin who was upon the March could joyn with him When he had this re-inforcement he talked of nothing but bringing them to obedience and having a Monarchical Soveraignty All the tenders they could proffer did but confirm his resolution of having all So that they were constrained to send him word they would give him Battel the next morning about the second hour of the day which was the 25 th of June Year of our Lord 841 The two Armies being encamped against one another near the Burrough of Fontenay by Auxerre The whole Power of France all the bravest Officers and most of the Grandees and Nobility were about the Four Kings who were to be both the Witnesses and rewarders of their Actions Since the Beginning of the French Monarchy to the very day I write these Lines there hath not been so much French Blood spilt in any Battel whatever A Hundred Thousand men perished there a horrible wound and which weakned the Carlovinian-House so greatly that it could never well recover it self again The victory fell to the younger Brothers share They used it with all humility and would not give the Emperor chace for fear of spilling more blood They likewise caused his men to be buried and took care to dress the wounded as their own proclaiming a general pardon to all those that would accept thereof Year of our Lord 841 The most part of those Officers that had been with these Princes being gone away they could not reap all the Fruits might have accrued upon so notable an advantage Louis repassed the Rhine and Charles took his way towards Aquitain to drive Pepin entirely from thence But some dissention hapning in his Councels so that he acted not vigorously enough Pepin who had been brought very low and would certainly have submitted re-assumed his courage On the other hand Lotaire having gathered up his scatter'd men and raised new ones appeared soon after in Neustria where he had a great many abetters His Army and Charles's drew near each other about St. Denis the River betwixt them Charles's being the weakest saved themselves in the Forrests of Perche Lotaire pursued them but not able to compel them to a Battel he sent back Pepin whom he had called thither with his Forces of Aquitain Year of our Lord 842 The two young Brothers at their parting had appointed to meet again at soonest As soon as Charles found the way open and clear he went to the banks of the Rhine to his Brother and both of them being met the 22 th of February in the City of Strasburgh made a new League and Alliance of Friendship promising by Solemn Oath never to forsake each other This Treaty was framed and written in two Languages viz. Romance the Original of the present French and the Tudesque It mentioned that if either of the two Brothers contravened their Subjects should be no longer obliged to serve them Which was in truth to leave a gap open for them to change their Soveraign when they pleased Year of our Lord 842 This union having reassured their Subjects brought back those whom Lotaire had inveigled and encreased their Forces they sought for him to give him battel but he left the Country in so much hast that he made no stop till he was gotten to Lyons and by his slight abandoned all Austrasia to them and part of the Kingdom of Burgundy Year of our Lord 842 When they were come back to Aix the Bishops by them Assembled pronounced a Solemn Judgment whereby they deprived Lotharius of all his Portion of Lands on this side the Mountains and yet they would not admit the two Brothers till they first were assured by them that they would govern according to the Commandments of God To which having answered that they desired so the Bishops told them And we by
Italy betwixt them Year of our Lord 888 THus the Succession of the Carlovinian House was divided into five Dominions without counting the Lords who set up almost for Soveraigns 1. Italy which was joyned with the Title of the Empire 2. Germany which then also comprehended the Kingdom of Bavaria 3. France which had the Kingdoms of Neustria Aquitain and part of Burgundy 4. Burgundy Cis-jurane named ordinarily the Kingdom of Arles or Provence under which were likewise the Lyonnois and Daufine 5. and Burgundy Trans-jurane or beyond the Jour as the other on the contrary We need not doubt but these new Kings gave part of the Quarry to the Lords of their Party and consented to every thing to get only their Oaths and Homage nor can we imagine but these Lords did the like towards their Vassals and these again to the lesser Nobility From hence arose so many Lordships both small and great of which the Bishops themselves such as were of good Families and had but courage enough did not forget to take their shares Year of our Lord 889 Now Eudes to show himself worthy the choice they had made of him went out against the Normans who ravaged Burgundy He set upon them on St. John Baptists Day nigh Mountfaucon slew nineteen thousand and pursued the remainder to the very Frontiers shewing himself personally brave on all occasions Another party of them who were in Champagne descended by the Marne as far as Paris and there loading the Barks upon Waggons carried and put them into the River again below the City then falling down to the Sea and so running along the Coasts plund'red the Country of Constentine Year of our Lord 889 Alain and Judicael who were contending for their shares in Bretagne agreed together to sight the Normans their common Enemy Judicael alone rashly presents them Battel and so doing lost both his Life and honour But Alain having gotten all his Forces together fought them so fortunately that of fifteen thousand hardly did four hundred escape The Bretons attribute this success to a vow he made to bestow the Tythe of the Spoil he should gain upon St. Peter's at Rome Such Devotion towards the Holy-Chair was very ordinary in those Ages Divers Princes devoted their Estates and became Tributaries to St. Peter Which did not a little contribute to imprint that persuasion the Popes then had in their minds that they had a right both to give and to take away Crowns After these losses the Normans having but few men left in France two of their Chiefs Godfrey and Sigefroy went and shipped a new levy of a hundred thousand men raised in Denmark Sweden and Norway that their reputation might not be wholly blasted They entred the Meuse with fourscore and ten thousand leaving the remainder to guard their Vessels King Arnold's Lieutenants assaulting them indiscreetly were defeated with the loss of an infinite number of the Nobility Year of our Lord 890 But Arnold himself picqued at so bloody an affront passes the Rhine with the whole Force of Germany seeks them in their very Camp which was close by the Meuse and forced them with so much fury that he left not so much as one of them alive The dead Bodies made a Bridge quite cross the River and the Flood was swoln with the Blood of those Barbarians If any wonder whence there could come such vast numbers we must know First that all the rascally and pilfering French and the like of other Countries joyned with them That besides those Countries were then extremely populous and all those Inhabitants greedy of Plunder listed and embarqued themselves to come and rob such rich and fertile Nations In fine there came so many who were either destroyed or else Inhabited in France that those large Territories of the North are unpeopled to this very day Thus in these last Ages Spain which once swarmed with men has made her self become a Desart through the covetous humour in her Subjects who all transport themselves into that new World where are the Mines of Gold and Silver they so long for Year of our Lord 891. and 892. All the Neustrian Lords did not own Eudes for their King Aymar Earl of Poitiers whom he would have dispossessed of his Estate to give it to his Brother Robert Ranulfe II. Duke of Aquitain and some others in those parts had taken up Arms against him Year of our Lord 892 Now whilst he was employed in Poitou in the War a confederacy was contrived between Herebert and Pepin Brothers sprung from Bernard King of Italy the one Earl of Vermandois the other of Senlis and Baudouin or Baldwin Earl of Flanders Fulk Arch-Bishop of Reims and many others who having been to fetch Charles the Simple out of England whither his Mother had carried him caused Year of our Lord 893 him to be Crowned at Rheims the 27 th of January in the year 893. It was by the assistance of Fulk that he immediately wrote Apologetick Letters to Arnold Guy and Rodolph exhorting them to help the Pupil against the Usurper Which at first made some impression upon Arnold in favour of Charles but soon after either in terest or inconstancy turned him on Eudes side Some have said that that Guy of Spoleta whom we have mentioned had likewise been Crowned at Langres three years before So that there were three Kings chosen and Crowned in West-France But Guy had absolutely quitted it for Italy and seemed to pretend no more to it CHARLES Called The SIMPLE King XXX POPES STEPHEN VII Near Three years THEODORE II. Elect. 901. S. 20 dayes JOHN IX also Elected in 901. S. 3. Years 15 days BENNEDICT IV. Elect. 905. S. about 2. Years LEO V. Elected in 907. S. 40 days after which Christopher dethroned him S. 7 Months SERGIUS III. an 908. having dethroned Christopher S. about 3 years ANASTASIUS III. Elected an 910. S. 2 years 2 Months JOHN X. Elected in 912. S. 15 years whereof 12 under this Reign Arnold King of Germany Bavaria and Lorraine Eudes and Charles Competitors for West-France Guy Emperour and King of Italy Rodolph in Burgundy and LOVIS in Arles Year of our Lord 893 FOr two whole years the parties for Charles and Eudes made War with various success Eudes being returned from Guyenne drove Charles out of Neustria but shortly after he got in again by the assistance of the Lords of his party Eudes made him work enough and had no less to do himself being forced to guard himself as well from his own party as from his Enemies Count Gautier Son of Adelme his paternal Uncle and Count of Laon drew his Sword upon him in open Parliament and had afterwards the confidence to take shelter in the City of Laon but Eudes followed him so close that not giving him time to put himself into a posture of defence he took the Town and caused his Head to be cut off Year of our Lord 892. and 3. Arnold was sometimes on his side
to St. Omers But as he was retreating towards Monstreuil Eustace Earl of Boulogne who had a great Body of Reserves took Robert and carried him to St Omers He that Commanded the place surrendred it to deliver Richilda for which the King was enraged that he sacked and burnt the City Year of our Lord 1071 The same year Richilda though still assisted by the French lost another Battle in which Eustace Earl of Boulogne being made prisoner his Brother Chancellor of France and Bishop of Paris to obtain his freedom obliged the King to intermedle no more in that dispute Nay which was more he made him Marry Bertha the Daughter of Florent I. Earl of Holland and Gertrude of Saxony who had taken Robert for her second Husband By this means he was engaged to maintain the Cause for his Father-in-law who by his assistance defeated Richilda's Army the Fourth time and so remained Master Year of our Lord 1071 of Flanders Roger Brother of Robert Guischard Duke of the Normans in Puglia was by his Brother sent into Sicilia which was possessed by the Saracens he conquerd d the City of Panormus and Messina which opened him a way to become Master of the whole Island Year of our Lord 1073. and 4. After the death of Baldwin the Regent King Philip being arrived to the age of Adolescency ran into many disorders and vexations with his Subjects Whereupon Pope Gregory VII who sought but the occasion to constitute himself the Judge and Reformer of Princes wrote to William Duke of Aquitain that together with the Lords he should make him some Remonstrances and Declare that if he did not amend he would Excommunicate both him and all the Subjects that obey'd him and would place the Excommunication upon St. Peters Altar to re-aggravate it every day Year of our Lord 1076 The death of Robert I. Duke of Burgundy his Son being deceased before him had left two Sons Hugh and Otho the first of these succeeded his Grandfather Year of our Lord 1077 After William the Conquerour had entirely subdued England suppressed the Rebellion of his Son Robert and quelled the Manceaux he went into Bretagne to reduce them to his Obedience and laid Siege to Dol. The Duke or Earl Hoel implored the Kings help who marching in person to his assistance made them raise their Siege A Peace immediately follow'd but was broken almost as soon again upon another Year of our Lord 1076 score which was for that the Conquerour in the Kings Presence having given the Dutchy of Normandy to his Son Robert before he went to invade England Robert would take possession of it the Father hindred him and the King justified the Son in his demands This was the subject of a new War The Father besieges his rebellious Son in the Castle of Gerbroy near Beauvais In a Sally the Son wounds him and turned him off from his Saddle with his Lance but Year of our Lord 1077. 78. and the following coming to know who it was by his voice he helped him up again with Tears in his eyes and the Father at length overcome by the sentiments of nature and the intreaty of his Wife and Barons gave him his pardon and quitted the Dutchy to him then returned into England Gozelon Duke of the Lower Lorrain who in favour of Baldwin Earl of Monts Year of our Lord 1077. and 78. the Son of Richilda had fought and defeated Robert the Frison being a while after this Victory assassinated in Antwerp the Emperour detained the Dutchy of the lower Lorrain and gave only the Marquisate of Antwerp to Godfrey Duke of Bouillon the Son of Adde Sister of Gozelon and Eustace Earl of Boulongne but Twelve years after for his great Services he gave him the said Lorrain Year of our Lord 1080 The Lords of Touraine and of Maine extreamly pressing Foulk Rechin by force of Arms to set Gefroy his Brother at liberty this barbarous Man rather then release him chose sooner to give the County of Gastinois to King Philp that he might maintain him in his unjustice Some time after his own Son named Gefroy likewise and surnamed Martel moved Year of our Lord 1080 with the miseries of his Uncle forced his Father to set him free but whether it were the Melancholy he had contracted or some Drink they had given him he could never relish the sweetness of his liberty The famous Robert Guischard Prince of the Normans in Puglia after he had gained Year of our Lord 1085 two Naval Victories one over the Venetians and the other over the Greeks died this year 1085. He had two Sons Boemond and Roger the eldest being then upon the coasts of Dalmatia with a Navy his younger Brother seized on the Dutchies of Pouille and Calabria for which the Brothers were contending till the time of the first Croisado or Holy War when the French Lords passing that way to the Holy Land brought them to an agreement Their Uncle Roger held Sicily with the Title only of Earl Year of our Lord 1085 Upon complaints about the vexations and ill Treatment Duke Robert shewed to his Norman Subjects his Father the Conquerour comes over out of England to chastise him but his paternal tenderness did easily admit of a reconciliation The death of Guy-Gefroy-William his Son William VIII aged but 25 years succeeded him Year of our Lord 1086 King Philip a very voluptuous Prince being disgusted with Berthe his Wise made use of the pretence of Parentage which was between them and having proved it according to the course then in use caused his Marriage to be dissolved by authority of the Church though he had a Son by her named Lewis about Five years old and a Daughter named Constance He banished his Divorced Wife to Monstreuil upon the Sea-side where she lived a long time poorly enough Year of our Lord 1087 This Divorce according to Rule and a judicial Sentence being made he demanded the Daughter of Roger Earl of Sicilia named Emma who was conducted as far as the coasts of Provence however he did not Marry her the reason is not given Year of our Lord 1088 William the Conquerour become crazy was under a strict regiment of Dyet at Rouen to pull down his over-grown fatness which did much incommode him The King rallied at him and asked when he would be up again after his Lying in the Duke sent him word that at his Uprising he would go and visit him with 10000 Lances instead of Candles and indeed as soon as he could he got on Horseback he destroy'd all the French Vexin and forced and burnt Mantes But he over-heated himself so much in the assaulting of that place that it set his own Blood and Body on fire and brought a fit of Sickness so that he returned to Rouen where he dyed in a few days By his Will he gave the Kingdom of England to William called Rufus who was bat his Second Son Normandy to Robert who was
others But the Popes durst not shock these Kings so rudely It was good Policy not to make so many Enemies at once to keep France in reserve as a Refuge against the Emperors and bring down the Germans first because they troubled them most The Peace between the two Kings Lewis and Henry was of no long duration The Friends of the late Duke Robert and William his Son declared for Lewis and the Earls of Anjou and of Flanders served him zealously as Thibald Earl of Champagne served Henry who was his Uncle Year of our Lord 1119 Baldwin Earl of Flanders being wounded upon an assault of the little Castle of Bures in Caux did so inflame his Wound with his Debauches that he died of it at Aumale Charles surnamed the Good Son of his Sister and Camut King of Denmark succeeded him in the Earldom of Flanders and maintain'd himself there courageously notwithstanding that Clemence of Burgundy Mother of Baldwin who was again Married to Godfrey Earl of Louvain endeavoured to make it fall into the hands of a Bastard of Flanders named William of Ypres who had Married her Neece After a world of Ravages Firings Sieges Surprizes and Plunderings of Places after two great Battles fought betwixt the two Kings one in the Plain of Bâ—eneville near Noyon on Andelle where the French had the worst the other near Breâ—euil where the success was doubtful Pope Calixtus as the common Father being come expressly Year of our Lord 1120 to Gisors brought them to agree by persuadin them to restore what places they had taken to each other Thus the Dutchy remained to Henry who gave it to his eldest Son William surnamed Adelin in wrong of William his Nephew This Peace did not put an end to his grief and troubles For a few weeks after he lost his three Sons and with them above Three hundred Gentlemen the flower of Year of our Lord 1120 his Nobility and his best Captains It was a strange misfortune They being Embarqued at Harfleur to go into England their Seamen who were drunk split the Ship as they were getting out of Harbor And at the same time his Nephew's Friends and Partisans stirred up new Disturbances in Normandy and re-engaged the King of France to uphold them Which renewed the Desolations of that Province In Anno 1119. died Alain surnamed Fergeant Duke of Bretagne Son of Hoel who departed this Life Anno 1084. His Son Conan surnamed the Gross or Ermengard succeeded him This Alain if we believe the Historian of Bretagne prescribed certain Forms and Rules for the doing Justice in his Country where before it was administred very confusedly For he Establisht a Seneschal at Renes to whom he would have all Persons to resort unless those of the County of Nantes who had one likewise and began to hold an Assembly or Parliament which judged of Appeals from the Seneschals of Rennes and Nantes for in Matters Criminal there lay no Appeal There were no certain and fixed Officers no more then any certain times for sitting They afterwards made a President in the absence of the Chancellor and a Master of Requests Year of our Lord 1123 The death of Hugh III. of that name Duke of Burgundy to whom succeeded Odon his eldest Son who Married Mary the Daughter of Thibauld Earl of Champagne Year of our Lord 1123 The War grew hotter in Normandy betwixt the French and King Henry and was ca ried on with various success But Henry found nothing more troublesome then his Domestick Officers and Servants who had framed a Conspiracy against his Life He could confide in no body he trembled at the approach of all that came near him he died a thousand times a day for fear they would Murther him and in the night shifted Beds five or six times and changed his Guards not thinking he was safe in any place believing there were none but Enemies about him Year of our Lord 1124 The Emperor reconciled himself with the Pope and laid down the Investitures But his Wrath still boiling in him would needs discharge it self upon France Year of our Lord 1124 He had Married Matilda Daughter of the English King for that reason as likewise for the Resentment he conceived because Lewis had protected Pope Calixtus he raised a very great Army to destroy and lay that City of Reims flat with the ground where Calixtus had held the Council against him Lewis on his side resolved to draw all the Forces of his whole Kingdom together even to the very Priests and Friers so that in a short time he had 200000 Men out of the Isle of France Champagne and Picardy only The Emperor having information of these prodigious Levics found it safer for him not to come into the Country of Messin but retire At his return Triumphant Lewis brings back the Martyrs Holy Standard called the Oriflamme and deposites it again in St. Denis whence he had taken it rendred Solemn Thanks to those Glorious Saints carried their Shrines upon his Shoulders which had been taken down and exposed on the high Altar during all the time of the War and made or confirmed several Grants to that Abby especially the Fair of Lendit out of the City for they had one already within Vpon this occasion we may observe the difference there was between the Forces of France and the Kings For when he made a War for himself he could have only the People of those Countries properly in his own possession and they served but unwillingly but when it was the Kingdoms Cause or Concern all the Forces of France were in action every Lord came in Person and brought all his Subjects along with him Year of our Lord 1125 The Emperor Henry being dead the Princes of Germany brought in Lotaire Duke of Saxony who likewise retaining the Kingdom of Burgundy as united to the Empire Renold Duke of Burgundy refused to acknowledge him For which he would have deprived him of his Earldom and have bestow'd it upon Bertold Duke of Zeringhen and this begot a bloody War between these two Houses who fought till the time of Frederick I. who Married Beatrix the Daughter of Renold This year 1126. the King received the Complaints made by the Bishop of Clermont Year of our Lord 1126 concerning the Usurpations and Tyrannies of Robert Earl d'Auvergne and going Year of our Lord 1126 thither in Person forced the Earl notwithstanding the Rocks and Castles of his High-Lands or Mountains to submit to Reason Five or six years after the repeated Violences of the same Earl engaged him to make a second Expedition and besiege Montferrand The Duke of Aquitain came to relieve his Vaslal but having from the height of a Mountain taken a view of the great Strength and Forces the King had with him he sent to offer him all Obedience and brought the Earl as far as Orleans to demand Pardon and submit to all that should be injoyned him Year of our Lord 1126 Death of
William VIII Duke of Aquitain Aged Fifty six years He left his Possessions to William IX his Son who was the last Duke of those Countries The Father had Married Emma only Daughter of William Earl of Arles and Toulouze and Brother of Raimond de Saint Gilles By her he pretended to the Earldom of Toulouze but Raimond de Saint Gilles said his Brother had sold it to him before he went to the Holy Land It caused a War between William Duke of Aquitain and Alphonsus Son of Raimond and afterwards again between Queen Elionor and the same Alphonso Year of our Lord 1127 Whilst Charles most justly surnamed the Good prudently governing Flanders relieving the Poor protecting the Clergy and doing Justice to all a Family in Bruges abounding in Riches and in numbers of Men but of Servile Race taking offence for that he had commanded them to open their Granaries in the time of Famine and withall being instigated by the Bastard William of Ypres plotted the Death of this Prince So that one Morning before day-light whilst he was at Prayers in St. Donats Church at Bruges these Villains Murther'd him at the foot of the Altar The horror of the Fact and intreaties of the Nobility of the Country made the King take Horse immediately to revenge this Parricide He besieged the wretched Authors in the Church and having taken them punished the two principal very severely For one after they had put out his Eyes and cut off his Nose was bound to a Wheel planted very high where they pierced him with an infinite number of Arrows and Darts thorough every part of his Body The other was hanged on a Gallows with a Dog tied on his Head whom they beat continually that he might tear his Head in pieces All the rest who fled into the Steeple were cast down from the top to the bottom and dasht against the Ground This done he adjudged the Earldom to William of Normandy Son to Duke Robert as being the nearest or next Heir without any regard to Baldwin Earl of Hainault and to William of Ypre who pretended a Right The last obstinately strugling to carry it by force the King handled him so roughly that he took from him the City of Ypre and all the Lands he held in Flanders Year of our Lord 1128 As little gained Stephen Brother to the Earl of Champagne who was Earl of Boulogne by his Wife though the King of England his Uncle supported him in this design not so much to advance him as out of hatred to the King of France and a fear of the growing greatness of his Nephew William The King finding that with the Assistance of the Earl of Hainaults and Godfrey of Namurs Forces he had besieged Ypres led his Army into that Country again gave them Chace and secured the Country to William However the Covetousness of this Prince vexing his new Subjects with Imposts he wanted not and selling of Offices the principal Cities revolted and invited in Thierry Earl of Alsatia whom they owned for their Prince and in truth he was of the Blood of their Counts by the Female side The King therefore made a third March towards those Quarters and advanced as sar as Artois to serve William but not finding things disposed so as he expected he came his ways back again William did not lose Courage for all this He gave Battle near Alost to Thierry and put him to the rout but pursuing his Victory he received a Wound in his Arm which being ill-dress'd caused his Death and after that all the Disturbances raised in Normandy by his Partisans wholly ceased In this Kings Reign there were four Brothers private Gentlemen of the Family of the Garlands Anseau William Stephen and Giselbert who had the greatest share in the favour of the King in his Council and Offices Anseau had that of Grand Seneschal or Dapifer which he held in Fief of the Earl of Anjou who was the Lord Suzerain for in those times Offices and Dignities were granted in Fief and even the Contributions or Offerings and other Revenues proceeding from the Charity and Devotion of the Faithful Stephen who was Archdeacon of Paris was provided with that of Chancellor and Giselbert with that of Butler Now Anseau being slain at the Siege of Puiset Anno 1118. the King bestowed his Office upon William and he being dead about the year 1120. Stephen desired it rather for himself then for his younger Brother Giselbert This was a Monster that never any Reason nor any Example could justisie a Soldering-Priest making profession to spill Human Blood And indeed all good People had him in horror but his Ambition and the flattery of Courtiers who lay the fairest Colours upon the fowlest Facts stopp'd his Ears that he might not hear the just Reproaches of his Brethren nor the checks of his Conscience His Pride ascended to that height to shock Queen Alix who had Spirit enough not to endure it and it was perhaps for that reason that he would surrender his Office to Amaulry de Montfort who was Married to his Neece the Daughter and Heiress of Anseau Year of our Lord 1128 c. The King not thinking that convenient he dared to take up Arms against him and made a League with the King of England Thibauld Earl of Champagne and other of his Masters Enemies plainly demonstrating thereby that in his former Services his ✚ aim was not the good of the Kingdom but his own Grandeur The King vigorously assaulted the Castle of Livry which they had fortified they shot at him and he was wounded in the Thigh with an Arrow The smart of his Wound redoubling his Anger he forced the Castle and razed it In fine he continued to make so hot a War upon them that Stephen was constrained to renounce the Office of Seneschal But the Party being strong he thought fit to leave him that of Chancellor Year of our Lord 1129 Great toil and labour more then number of years making Lewis old he found it fitting the better to secure the Kingdom to his Family to have his eldest Son Philip Crowned Which was performed in the City of Reims the 14th of April being Easter-day in presence of Henry King of England his Vassal LEWIS the Gross and PHILIP his Son HEnry likewise having no Children by his second Wife caused his Daughter Matilda Widow of the Emperor Henry to be acknowledged and accepted of as Heiress to his Crown and Dominions and Re-Married her to Gefroy surnamed Plantagenet Son and future Successor to Fulk Earl of Anjou The Party was good and besides he made it his choice thereby to divide this House of Anjou which had given him so much trouble from the King of France's Party and joyn it to his Interest King Lewis who had defended the Churches and protected the Clergy changed his Language towards the end of his Reign because they carried themselves too haughtily towards him and would not suffer he should meddle with the
de Creme who named himself Paschal and was confirmed by Frederick But Alexander III. recalled by the Romans left France the year following and returned to Rome to put an end to that Schism Year of our Lord 1165 In the year 1165. Lewis had a Son born whom he believed Heaven had sent him in return of his Prayers For this reason he was surnamed Dieu-Donne i. e. Gift of God or God-Gift and after for his brave Acts the Conqueror which Paul Emilius has rendred by Interpretation Augustus and is followed in the same by all the Modern Historians Year of our Lord 1166 The Life of Conan the Little Duke of Bretagne which had been ever full of trouble ended Anno 1166. to make room for Gefroy of Normandy his Son-in-Law This Prince being yet but Fifteen years of Age remained together with his Datchy under the Guardianship of the King his father for some time after which being at liberty he begins a War against him because he would make him do Hommage for his Dukedom a Duty he required by vertue of a Treaty made by Charles the Simple with Rollo Duke of Normandy Year of our Lord 1168 Thierry of Alsatia Earl of Flanders dies at Gravelin Philip his Son governs after him Year of our Lord 1169 70. The Feud was renewed between the two Kings upon several occasions one was the Earl d'Auvergne whom Lewis as Soveraign Lord took into his protection and safeguard against Henry to whom the Earl was a Vassal holding of him in Aquitain the other the support he gave to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury The War thereupon breaks forth and lasted for two years however it was carried on but slowly and so as the Respect either of them had for Pope Alexanders Mediation brought them to an Agreement for some time Year of our Lord 1170 These two Princes having Conferr'd together at Saint Germain en Laye concluded the Peace betwixt them and there the King of England's Sons rendred Hommage to Lewis for those Lands their Father assured to them by advance of Inheritance Henry of the Dutchy of Normandy the County of Anjou and the Office of Grand Seneschal joyned thereto from the time of Grisegonnelle as also the Earldoms du Maine and de Touraine and the second named Richard of the Dakedom of Aquitain as for the third which was Gefroy he had Bretagne by his Wife and ow'd Hommage to none but the Duke of Normandy The Kings Intercession obtained of Henry that Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury might return into England but he continuing to act with the same heat four Gentlemen of Henry's Court out of Complaisance as mean as detestable having plotted and contrived to deliver their King of him entred the Church at Canterbury where that Holy Prelat was reading Service it was on the Christmas Holy-days and Murther'd him at the foot of the Altar Year of our Lord 1171 Though the King disown'd this Murther and shewed an extream grief nevertheless Year of our Lord 1172 having given cause to commit it if perhaps he did not command it the Pope Year of our Lord 1173 made a mighty business of it from which he could not get clear without submitting to great Pennance and such Reparations and Satisfactions as was ordained by his Legats The Holy Archbishop revered as a Martyr was Canonized the following year and the frequent Miracles wrought on his Tomb attested his Holiness Year of our Lord 1173 Every year almost there was some Rupture then a Peace or Truce between the two Kings either concerning their own proper Interests or that of their Friends and Vassals Lewis had this advantage that being the Soveraign Lord he had a right of hearing the Complaints of Henry's Vassals and of making himself his Judge Year of our Lord 1173 He had stirred up many in Aquitain and Normandy but this year he Armed his own Children against him The eldest with Margaret his Wife being gone to Visit him and having staid some time in that Court had a fancy put into his Head that since he was Crowned he ought to Reign and to demand of his Father the enjoyment either of the Kingdom of England or the Dukedom of Normandy With this disposition and fretted for that his Father had taken some young People from about him who gave him such like ill Counsels he stole away one Night from him and came and cast himself into the Arms of the King Immediately all the young Nobility follows him Queen Alienor favours him his two Brothers Richard Duke of Aquitain and Gefroy of Brâ—tagne joyns with him and those whole Provinces follow their Motions The King of France takes them into his protection William King of Scotland declares for them and attaques England whither at the same time went some French Forces under the Command of Robert Earl of Leicester Year of our Lord 1174 It seemed therefore as if the unhappy Father must needs be overwhelm'd on a suddain but he overthrew all the Enemies Lewis having taken Verneuil au Perche durst not hold it and retreated before him The Earl of Leicester is defeated in England and all those that followed him either slain or taken then all the Kingdom reduced in less then Thirty days by old Henry who went thither presently after this defeat Year of our Lord 1175 The following year whilst he was doing Pennance at St. Thomas Becket's Tomb William King of Scotland his most capital Enemy loses a Battle against his Lieutenants and was taken Prisoner The Fleet of young Henry is dispersed and disabled by Tempest King Lewis who had carried Philip Earl of Flanders with him is rudely repulsed from Rouen so that finding Henry who was come over-Seas again to Relieve this City made ready to give him Battle he hearkens to a Truce for some Months Year of our Lord 1175 Whilst that lasted old Henry going into Poitou and subduing Richard the worst of his three Rebellious Sons who held that Country all the others returned to their Obedience and he enters upon a Treaty of Peace with Lewis who gave him Alix his Daughter for his Son Richard and put her into his hands to compleat the Marriage when she should be Age for it Year of our Lord 1177 The two Kings now grown old were weary of so many Wars and Disturbances Either of them had cause to fear the one the activity of his three most valiant Sons the other the weakness of his only Heir as yet too young so that they confirmed the Peace by new Oaths promised mutual friendship against all others and took up a resolution to go joyntly into Languedoc to extirpiate those Hereticks already mentioned by us But they thought it more convenient first to send the Popes Legat thither with three or four other Prelats to endeavour to reclaim them by Exhortations and Anathema's which converted and brought back a great many and kept the rest within bounds for some time These Hereticks were all called Albigensis because they propaged
Ambassadors thither before received tidings when he was got to Turin that the Pope and the Fathers had Excommunicated him with Candles extinguished and degraded him for divers things imposed upon him amongst others That he detained the Church-Lands That he had intelligence with the Saracens That he erred in divers Articles of Faith Year of our Lord 1245 After this deposition all his Affairs crumbled to nothing in an instant The Milaneses beat him the other Christian Princes took an aversion for him as an impious person even the Germans that they may not reproach the French for contributing to ruine the Empire rejected him and for King of the Romans elected Henry VII Landgrave of Hesse and Turingia when as the King in an enterview he had with the Pope at Clugny endeavour'd to make up the breach by an agreement betwixt this unfortunate Emperour and the Roman Church by virtue of a Procuration he had from him Year of our Lord 1245 This year 1245. died Raimond Berenguier Earl of Provence having by his Testament constituted Beatrix his fourth Daughter his Heiress James King of Arragon caused some Forcesto march into Provence to secure so good a party for his Son But the King of France did not intend to let a stranger run away with such a prize He therefore drove the Arragonians out of that Countrey and by consent of the Daughter as well as her Mother and her Uncles the Earl of Savoy and the Arch-Bishop of Lyons he so order'd it that she was promised to her Brother Charles who was Earl of Anjou The Marriage was not consummated till the year following Year of our Lord 1245 The same year on the First of December died also Jane Countess of Flanders without having had any Children by her Second Husband Thomas Earl of Savoy no more then by her First who was Ferrand of Portugal her Sister Margaret succeeded her This Margret had had Children by two Husbands John and Baldwin by Bouchard d'Avesue her first Husband and William John and Guy by William de Dampierre her Second These pretended that the Sons of Bouchard ought not to inherit because it had been discover'd that he was in Holy Orders when he married their Mother and for that reason the Marriage was declared null Year of our Lord 1246 Those of the first Bed observing the Mother favoured the others had recourse to the King He sent both parties to a Parliament at Peronne and therein it was ordained that those of the first Bed should have Hainault and the others should have Flanders Year of our Lord 1246 The pretended King of the Romans Henry Landgrave of Hesse being dead in Battle or of sickness the Germans who persisted obstinately under the pretence of Biety to ruine the dignity of the Empire elected the year following William Earl of Holland potent in Friends and Alliances whilst Frederic was strugling with his misfortunes and his enemies in Italy Year of our Lord 1247 and 48. The Duke of Burgundy and some French Lords were Leagued with him to defend the Liberties of their Countreys against the usurpations of the Court of Rome being supported by this League he leaves Lombardy to come to Lyons whether to invest the Pope or to molâ—ifie him by his Prayers but he was recalled by a blow the Milanese had given his bastard Son Entius whom he had left in Parma These Affairs and the great preparations for War detained the King till the month of May of this year from accomplishing the Vow he had made three years before It cannot be written in Characters â—o great as it deserves how this pious King being perswaded that Sovereigns are responsable by Laws both Divine and Humane for all the miscarriages of their Officers caused it to be published thorow ✚ all his Kingdom that whoever had suffer'd any wrong or damage by any belonging to him should make it known and he would give them satisfaction out of his own I state which was performed punctually That done and having taken leave of the Holy Martyr and given the Regency to the Queen his Mother he quitted Paris being conducted out of the City by all the Orders in Procession He took his two Brothers Robert and Charles with him the Queen his Wife theirs and an infinite number of Princes Lords Prelats and Gentlemen He received the Popes Benediction in his passage thorough Lyons thence Year of our Lord 1248 he descended by the Rhosue and going on board at Aigues-mortes in Languedoc the 25th of August set sail two days after and landed happily in Cyprus the 25th of September where he past the Winter to wait for the rest of his Forces and Ammunitions In this Island he received at the beginning of December Letters from Ercalthay one of the chief Chams of the Tartars and soon after arrived Ambassadors from the King of Armenia Ercalthay sent him word how the Great Cham and a good number of his Captains had embraced Christianity and that he had sent him with a great Army to destroy the Sultan of Balduc or Bagdet the most potent of all the Mahometan Princes The Armenian Ambassadors assured him that this news was true and that their King had vanquished with the assistance of the Tartars the Sultan of Iconia or Cogny to whom they were tributary and cast off the yoke of those Infidels Year of our Lord 1249 The Saturday after the Ascension the Holy King having drawn all his Men togther from their Winter Quarters in the Island of Cyprus and received a new reinforcement brought him by Robert Duke of Burgundy came the fourth of June into the Road before Damiata in Egypt The Saracens expected him in good order upon the Shore he landed in despite of them and made them give way They being well beaten so great a fear seized upon them that the next day they forsook the Town after they had set fire to it in several places and carried off in Boats beyond the River Nilus all their Families and the richest of their Goods The overflowing of the Nile which infallibly begins some days before the Summer Solstice hindred the Army from going on at the same time to take the City of Grand-Cairo and kept them almost till the midst of Autumn in so much idleness as brought them into all manner of debauchery and dissoluteness Year of our Lord 1249 In the Month of September Alphonso the Kings Brother arrived with new Adventurers of the Cross Raimond his Father-in-law who had accompanied him as far as Aigues-Mortes where he took Shipping with his Wife died upon his way home in the Town of Millau in Rouergne giving all the demonstrations of a hearty Repentance He was the last of the Earls of Toulouze who had Ruled over the greatest part of Languedoc above 350 years His Daughter Jane being deceased without any Child by her Husband Alphonso his Lordships were re-united to the Crown in pursuance of the Treaty made in the year One thousand two hundred twenty eight The 20th of
Power the advancement of Religion and the Service of God providing for the nourishment of the Poor the Marriage of decay'd Gentlewomen the maintenance of the Church and above all the ease of the People by the revocation of all Tolls and extraordinary Subsidies and Taxes which the malignity or necessity of former times had introduced and imposed The Titles of the Chamber of Accompts which have been shewed us by Mr. d'Heroval to whose care the History of our Kings of the Third Race is indebted for the greatest part of the new discoveries made known in these last times tells us amongst many other rare and curious things that this truly most Christian King spared nothing for the Conversion of Infidels that for this end he took up all the Jewish Children that were Fatherless or in want caused them to be bred up in the Christian Faith and allowed them two four six Silver Deniers a day for their Dyet or Keeping which was paid out of his own Demesnes and pass'd in Dowry to their Widdows and oftentimes to their Children that these were called the Baptized as those who embraced Christianity being of age were called the Converted That the Duke of Burgundy the King of England and some others practis'd the like in their Countreys which brought over a world of Jews from their obstinacy and that the Kings his successors did imitate him therein till the Reign of King John We have by the same means likewise learn'd that when St. Lewis made a journey any where there was always a Prelate which was ordinarily the Arch-Deacon of Paris and a Lord of some note that follow'd some days after the Court and made inquiry at all the Lodgings and in all the Countreys and Places they had pass'd what wrong or spoil they might have done to the Landlords or to their Lands and the just King made present reparation and satisfaction with his own Money without any complaint made by the party agrieved so far was it from suffering ☞ them to spend and squander away what they had in Fees and Charges to get Justice done to them Year of our Lord 1256 The City of Marscille did not give that obedience to Charles as he expected and desired wherefore he blocked them up with his Army and brought them to that low condition by Famine that they surrendred at discretion to this merciless Prince who caused many of the principal Citizens to be beheaded Year of our Lord 1256 Three sorts of People of Italy the Venetians the Genouese and the Pisans were become mighty powerful in the Levant Seas and for that reason were grown very jealous of Year of our Lord 1256 each other The two first having each of them their several quarters and their Magistrates in the City of Acon or Acre fell to quarrelling with each other upon some private pieque and went together by the ears to their mutual destruction which compleated the ruine of the Western Christians in the East Year of our Lord 1258 In an enter-view at Montpellier the two Kings Lewis of France and James of Arragon Treated the Marriage of Philip then Second Son to King Lewes but who in two years after became the eldest with Isabella younger Daughter of James to whom her Father gave in Dowry the Counties of Carcassone and Beziers Year of our Lord 1258 After this they agreed about their other differences in this manner St. Lewis yielded up to the Arragonian the Sovereignty which France had still held upon Catalonia Barcelona Rousillon Empurs Vrgel and Geronde from the time the French first conquer'd those Countreys of the Saracens And on the other hand the Arragonian yielded to him all the right he pretended whether by Marriage of his predecossors or otherwise by any Title whatsoever to the Counties de Razez Narbonne Nisines Alby Foix Cahors and other parts in Languedoc held in Under-Fief of the Crown of France as also the Rights he had in Provence to the Counties of Forcalquier and Arles and to the City of Marseilles Year of our Lord 1259 The English had still a very passionate desire to recover Normandy and the other Countreys they had lost in France and if Richard could have fixt himself well in Germany he and his Brother Henry might have attaqued France very shrewdly on both sides The pious King was not ignorant of it but he knew likewise that Henry was so dangerously engaged in a quarrel with his Barons that it would be easie to content him with a little and even to oblige him to an acknowledgment and therefore the business having been stated by the Popes Legats the King of England passes over into France together with his Wife his Brothers and his Children and being arriv'd at Paris confirmed the Treaty The substance of it was That he his Sons Brothers and Successors should for everrenounce all claim to Normandy Anjou Maine Touraine and Poitou and that the King gave a great sum of Money to Henry and released to him and his that part of Guyenne beyond the Garonne and on this side Limousin and Perigord upon condition to do Homage-Liege to the Kings of France and take place amongst his Pairs in quality of Duke of Guyenne Immediately upon this the King of England does this Homage and the eldest Son of France hapning to dye he was at his Funeral and helpt to bear his Corps upon his own Shoulders with the other Lords part of the way from Paris to St. Denis Year of our Lord 1260 In the year 1260. a new and strange heat of Zeal inspired many Christian people which was to whip themselves in publique with small Cords or with Thongs of Leather These whipsters were called the Devots and afterwards they were named the Flagellants This Phrensie begun in the City of Perugia in Tuscany by the example and Preaching of a Hermit named Râ—ynier spread it self even into Poland travell'd as far as Greece and in the end degenerated into Superstition and Heresies Year of our Lord 1261 In the month of July of the year 1261. a Lieutenant to Michael Paleologus VIII of that name Emperour of Greece who returned from making a War against Michael the Despote of Epirus made himself Master of Constantinople getting entrance by a hole under the Walls of the Town discover'd to him by some Traitors a thing of great importance which he effected the more easily because the Emperour Baldwin was abroad having carried his Naval force to besiege a little City upon the Black Sea or Pontus Euxinus Thus was it that Constantinople fell again into the hands of the Greeks from whom about two hundred years afterwards it fell under the Tyranny of the Turks The Latins had kept this fragment of the Eastern Empire about Seven and fifty years and as it had begun with a Baldwin it ended with a Prince of the same name The Venetians who had a great interest in this loss put a mighty strong Fleet to Sea wherewith they Commanded the whole
Council of Vienne coming on the Pope to hinder the obstinate pursute of the Kings people against the memory of Boniface gave all the Bulls they could desire for the justification both of the King and his Officers Nay even for fear lest Nogaret should blow up the flame anew he granted him Absolution but upon condition he should go on certain pilgrimages and also travel into the Holy-Land Year of our Lord 1310 The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem were retired to the Island of Cyprus after the loss of Ptolemais but finding themselves ill Treated by the King of that Island they sought another Habitation and gained themselves one by the taking of the Island of Rhodes and five other neighbouring Islands they gained it from the Turks after two years Siege the Turks had taken it from the Saracens and the Saracens from the Grecian Empire Year of our Lord 1311 A year afterwards the Turks made great attempts to recover it but the Knights maintained it bravely by the assistance of the generous Earl of Savoy named Ame V. who got the Surname of Great by it and preserved it as well as he had gained it by many other generous actions To this might well be applied the Simbol or Devise FERT which his Successors retain to this day and the four Letters might be thus made to say Fortitudo Ejus Rhodum Tenuit but it is certain the Princes of this House bear it a long time before Year of our Lord 1311 The General Council was open'd at Vienne the First day of October in the year 1311. the Pope declaring it was for the Process of the Templars for the recovery of the Holy-Land for the reformation of Manners and Discipline and for the extirpation of Heresie Philip came thither the year following about Mid-Lent with a stately Train of Princes and Lords assisted at the opening of the Second Session and took his Seat at the right Hand of the Pope but on a lower Chair The Order Year of our Lord 1312 of the Knights-Templars was there condemned and extinguish'd their Goods left to the disposal of his Holiness who bestow'd part of it upon the Knights of St. John That of the Begards and Begardes was likewise abolished they were a sort of Monks and Religious People that made profession of Poverty but not of Abstinence nor Celibacy and who besides were acccused of many errors As for the most important point which was the Process against the memory of Boniface the King though there present had no satisfaction in it For it was declared that Pope Boniface had always been a good Catholique the other crimes were not mention'd Three famous Doctors one in Theology another of the Civil-Law and the Third of the Canon Law made it out to the King by several reasons and particulars and there were two Catalonian Gentlemen that offer'd to justfy it by combat throwing down their Gantlets which no man there would take up However the Pope and Cardinals made a Decree importing that the King should never be hereafter reproached for all or any thing that he had done against Boniface Year of our Lord 1312 The City of Lyons had for a long time held of the Kings of Arles who had given the Temporal Lordship thereof to the Arch-Bishop but since the Kings of France taking advantage of the weakness and the distance of the Emperours who were Kings of Arles had by little and little drawn to themselves the Sovereignty of this Kingdom and the City of Lyons had began to hold of them Now during the War between Savoy and Dauphiné the Citizens fearing they might be plundred had recourse to Philip who gave them a Warden who coming within the City contrary to what had been agreed upon the Arch-Bishop stirred up the People against him Prince Lewis Hutin going thither with an Army brought the Bishop away prisoner and he could never get cleer but by yielding up the Temporal Jurisdiction to the King for which the Pope helped him to some recompence But afterwards Philip the Long gave it to him again Year of our Lord 1310 The Emperour Henry who was gone into Italy from the year 1310. thinking to restore the dignity of the Empire there found so much opposition from the Guelphs the great Cities and Robert King of Naples that he perished there as well as his Predecessors He died the Four and twentieth day of August in the territory of Year of our Lord 1313 Sienne having been poysonn'd as it was reported with the Sacred Host by a Dominican Monk a Florentine Robert Earl of Flanders would needs have again his Cities of l'Isle Douay and Orchies affirming that he had paid down the redemption to Enguerrand de Marigny who governed absolutely both King and Kingdom The Flemmings refused also to Year of our Lord 1313 dismantle their Towns or to pay either the Principal or Interest of those Sums they owed the King They were therefore forced to begin another War To provide for the charges of it the King summoned the Notables of the People and from a Theatre raised high he shewed them his Necessities The Deputies had suffer'd themselves to be perswaded and granted him by the mouth of Stephen Barbete the Impost of Six Deniers in the Livre and other Subsidies more troublesome yet but the Cities of Picardy and Normandy opposed it highly and all the rest called for the justice of Heaven to fall upon the Head of Marigny the Author of all these galling and flaying extortions These moans and curses did not move him on the contrary he aggravated their misery by making new Coins of very bad Gold and Silver After all none but himself and the Exchequer-men or Receivers could get any profit by it The King having past over the River of Lys and the Armies in sight of each other Marigny who had done his own business took advantage of the interposing of the Popes Legats to bring the parties to an agreement and perswaded the King to an ignominious Truce Thus that great Army which ought to have conquer'd all Flanders vanished in smoak This disgrace of Philips was followed with one much greater All the Wives of his three Sons were accused of Adultery Margaret Jane and Blanch. The First the wife of Lewis Hutin and the Third the wife of Charles being convicted of that crime with Philip and Gautier de Launoy Brothers and Gentlemen of Normandy ✚ were by decree of Parliament the King being present confined to the Castle Gaillard of Andeley and their two Gallants slay'd alive dragg'd into the Field de Manbuisson which was newly Mow'd those parts cut off that had committed the Sin then beheaded and their Bodies hung up being fastned under their Arm-pits upon a Gibbet Margaret the most guilty of the three perish'd in prison Blanch was divorced seven years after upon pretence of Parentage As for Jane who was wife of Philip the Long after she had been confined almost a year her Husband was willing to
stickled for her but the Grandees of the Kingdom and the Pairs assembled in Parliament towards the Feast of the Purification confirmed the Right of the Males and gave Judgment in favour of Philip. Who well attended went to be Crowned at Reims the Ninth day of January the Gates of the City being shut fearing some might have come to make opposition The Bishop of Beauvais though only a Count-Pair carried the Precedency from him of Langres who hath the Title of Duke The Estates being Assembled at Paris where were present most part of the Lords the Deputies of Corporations and Cities and above all the Burghers and the University of Paris gave their Oaths to the Chancellor Peter d'Arablay afterwards Cardinal not to acknowledge any other King but Philip and his Heirs Male to the Exclusion of Females Robert II. Earl of Artois had had a Sister named Mahaut and a Son named Philip. Mahaut was Married with Othelin Earl of Burgundy and from that Marriage were issued two Daughters whom the Fair gave unto two of his Sons Now Philip died in the War of Flanders before his Father but he left a Son who was named Robert as his Grandfathers name The Earldom of Artois ought to have belonged to this same however the Fair had adjudged it to Mahaut upon this pretence that it was not a Fief Masculine and that according to the Custom of those Countries Representation did not take place Robert Armed himself during the Regency of the Long and got himself into the possession by force but the business being examined the Lands were sequestred into the hands of the King and at last adjudged to Mahaut whose Daughter Philip the Long had Married This partial or interested Judgment caused a world of mischief Year of our Lord 1318 c. For three several times in less then Eighteen Months they began a War against the Flemmings and three several times it ended in a Truce Eudes Duke of Burgundy could not forbear mentioning the wrong they did to young Jane by detaining the Kingdom of Navarre and the Earldoms of Brie and Champagne from her The Long desiring to appease him gave him his Daughter also named Jane in Marriage with the Earldom of Burgundy Year of our Lord 1318 Notwithstanding this tie Eudes insisted so highly for his Neece that the King was obliged to Marry her to Philip the Son of Lewis Earl d'Euvreux this Lewis was Paternal Uncle to the King with the Rights she could have to the Kingdom of Navarre and the Earldoms of Brie and Champagne The great Peril France was in after the death of Hutin about the doubt of Succession and the cruel War that had afflicted Scotland for a business almost of the same nature after the decease of Alexander IV. was cause that upon the renewing the Alliance which was made between the two Crowns they added this Condition That if ever there hapned any difference for the Succession of one of those two Kingdoms he of those two Kings that should survive should not suffer any other to step into the Throne but him that should have the Judgment of the Estates for him that he should come in Person to defent it and should oppose whomsoever would contend for the Crown against him Year of our Lord 1319 The Countess Mahaut was so obstinately bent to change the Customs of the Country of Artois that the Lords and Commonalties revolted against her and nevertheless they got nothing by it being subdued by the Assistance the King and the French Princes lent her Year of our Lord 1319 The Citizens of Verdun molested by Thomas de Blamont their Bishop put themselves under protection of the King A fourth time Robert de Bethune Earl of Flanders broke the Truce but Ghent and the other Cities in his Country who in all these Wars had gotten a Power that counterbalanced his being risen up in Arms against him he was fain to consent that the Popes Legat who was a Cardinal and had been chosen Arbitrator should come to Paris the following Spring Year of our Lord 1320 The Peace was then concluded the Twentieth of May. The Cities of Douay L'Isle and Orchies remained to the King The Flemmings obliged themselves to pay Thirty thousand Florins of Gold and gave Oath not to assist their Earl in case he contraven'd to this Agreement The King promised his Daughter Margares to Lewis Earl of Nevers and Retel Son of another Lewis eldest Son of Earl Robert upon condition he should succeed his Grandfather in the Earldom of Flanders though his Father should die before his Grandfather Year of our Lord 1319 20. The Gibbelins growing powerful in Italy Pope John XXII solicited the King so earnestly that he sent thither his Son Philip Earl of Valois who was afterwards King to relieve Vercel whom the Sons of Matthew Viscount Lord of Milan held besieged He had but Fifteen hundred Horse but the Pope Robert King of Sicilia the Florentines and other Guelphs were to send him Forces to make up a great Army while he was at Mortara Matthews eldest Son had so wrought upon his Lieutenant by Money and upon himself by submission and fair words that he persuaded him to return into France without once drawing his Sword after he had made I know not what kind of Treaty which plaistered up a reconciliation between the two Factions in Lombardy Year of our Lord 1320 A like Frenzy to that we have already seen in the time of St. Lewis seized the Peasants and Pastorels for the recovery of the Holy Land upon the instigation of a renounced Monk and a Priest put out from his Cure They made their Muster in the Pre an Clerks at Paris marched into Aquitain from thence to Languedoc Massacring the Jews every where and Plundering their Magazines The Earl de Foix gave them Chase so smartly that he dispersed them all Robert de Cassel second Son of the Earl of Flanders having accused Lewis his elder Brother that he would have poysoned his Father Lewis was made Prisoner his Servants and Confesser put to Torture but not being able to make out any proof he was set at liberty but upon condition however that he should never enter into the Country of Flanders By this means Robert would chalk out his way to the Succession to the prejudice of his elder Brother History has not thought it unworthy its Remarks that in this year 1320. the Prevost of Paris named Henry Capperel for having caused an innocent but poor Fellow to be Hanged in the stead of a Rich Man condemned for great Crimes was by a Sentence of Parliament tied up to the same Gibbet We every day see his parallels save the rich Man that is guilty and punish his innocent Purse The Lepers did not give only a horror to all the World but envy likewise because they enjoy'd great Wealth and that loathsom Distemper did not render them uncapable of enjoying their pleasures add that they paid no Subsidies wherewith
which comes from the Hebrew Year of our Lord 1345 The Earl of Derby after the having refreshed himself at Bourdeaux with the Forces he had brought from England took the Field to fall upon the Provinces on this side the Dordogne The Earl de Laille and the Gascon Lords who had thrown themselves into Bregerac thinking to obstruct his passage over that River were constrained to abandon that Town to him and to let him over-run all the Upper Gascongny where he conquer'd several small places When he was returned to Bourdeaux the Earl de Laille took his opportunity having sent for the Lords of that Countrey he being as it were Vice-Roy and laid Sieg to Auberoâ—ke but not with the like success The Earl of Derby coming to its relief with only aâ—thousand Men defeated his Army which consisted of Tenthousand and took him prisoner with eight or ten Earls and Vicounts more After which he with much ease besieged and took the Cities de la Reole Angoulesine and divers others John Earl of Montfort had been set at liberty by virtue of the Truce upon condition that he should not depart the Court notwithstanding he goes and puts himself at the head of his Forces in Bretagne he besieged Kemper but was so far from taking it that himself had like to be taken Going from thence he sacked and burnt Dinant then over burthen'd with grief and anger for the slow progress in his Affairs he died about the end of September leaving the management of his pretensions to his Wife and his Son who was yet very young He had the same name as his Father and afterwards gained the Surname of Valiant Year of our Lord 1345 The famous Artevelle had made a promise to King Edward to procure that his Son the Prince of Wales should be owned for Earl of Flanders by the great Cities to the exclusion of their natural Lord. Upon this assurance Edward carries his Son to Scluse the Deputies of the Cities went to wait on him he treated them very magnificently but they would not hear of disinheriting their Earl Artevelle's enemies did not fail to make use of this occasion to stir up the peoples hatred against him When he was returned to Ghent having been so ill advised as to remain some days at Scluse after the other Deputies the People fell upon him and murther'd him The King of England retir'd in a fury for the death of his good friend however the Cities of Flanders having sent their Deputies to him he accepted their satisfaction and the offer they made him to bestow the Daughter of their Earl upon the Prince of Wales There was great reason to put some stop to the Earl of Derby's progress in Guyenne the Duke of Normandy goes to Toulouze in the beginning of January with an hundred thousand Men bearing Arms. All this formidable multitude did no more in three Months besides the taking of two or three little paltry Towns in Angenois and the City of Angoulesme whence they fell down upon Tonneius and after that came and hesieged Aiguillon seated on the confluence of the Rivers d'Olt and de Garonne well munition'd and well fortify'd those times In all this age we do not find a more memorable Siege either for the Attaques or the Defence They made three Assaults each day for a whole week together then they came to their Artillery and their Engins both by Sea and Land Philip the Son of Eudes Duke of Burgundy and Earl of Boulogne by his Wife who was Daughter and Heyress of Earl William was wounded upon a Salley whereof he died At last the Battle of Cressy being lost drew away the Duke of Normandy from this Siege which till then he obstaintely continued Year of our Lord 1346 The Second day of June Edward with a Fleet of Two hundred Sail wherein he had Four thousand Men at Arms Ten thousand Archers and as many Foot as well Irish as Welshmen puts to Sea with his eldest Son with intent to land in Guyenne He did not relye so much upon his Forces as upon the secret discontents of the French Nobility and the intelligence he held with many of the Grandees He had with him Gefroy Brother of the Earl of Harcoâ—r a Lord very powerful in Normandy who having lost the favour of King Philip in his indignation and finding no certain security there went into England The winds having turned Edward two several times out of his road towards Guyenne this Gefroy inslamed with revenge perswaded him that Heaven would have him steer his course for Normandy a fat and plentiful Countrey that had not felt a War for two ages so that he went and landed at the Port de la Hogue St. Vaast in Constantin near St. Sauveur which were Lands belonging to Gefrâ—y resolved to cross thorough France to go and joyn the Flemmings Year of our Lord 1346 His Army marched divided by day in three Bodies which joyned together at night Gefroy undertook the Office of Field Marshal The Cities of Valongnes Carentan St. Lo and Harfleur were his first prey Rodolph Earl of â—u and of Guisnes Constable of France and the Count de Tancarville whom the King had sent to Caen encreased his Spoil and Fame by taking them prisoners with the defeat of Twenty thousand Men the Burghers braver in words then deeds having fortaken them in the midst of the Fight Going from thence he continued his march by the Bishopricks of Lisieux and Evreux saccaged and burnt all along the Seine even to Paris but approached not nigh Rouen and came and encamped at Pâ—issy from thence he sent a defiance to Philâ—p to fight him under the Walls of the Louvre but after he had staid there five days fearing to be enclosed betwixt the Rivers of Seine and Oyse he caused the Bridges to be repaired and passed into Beatvaisis with design to retire into his County of Ponthieu marking his road all the way with long traces of Fire and Blood Year of our Lord 1346 Philip foaming with rage to behold with his own eyes from his capital City suh Flames in the very heart of his Kingdom goes forth to pursue him in great haste that he might fight him before he could pass the Somme Edward not being able to find any passage over the River was so happy as to have a prisoner that shewed him the Foord of Blanquetague below Abbevilie Gondemar du Fay a Norman Lord could not hinder him with Twelve thousand Men from passing at low Water and was put to the rout The same Evening Edward went and encamped at Cressy and the next day Philip lodged at Abbevilie which is within three Leagues of it on this side he had not less then an hundred thousand Men with which he might have hemm'd them in and reduced them to a Famine in a few days but he believieng that having over-taken them was conquering them he marches the next day out of Abbeville and gives him battle the
Service From the beginning he made it appear that the French could beat the English who had always beaten them in the preceding Reigns The Navarrois and Montfort not having been comprehended in the Treaty of Bretigny their people continued the War and the English Forces and the French took part with them John de Grailly Captal de Buchs who was come to the aid of the Navarrois took the Command of all their Forces The French Officers being met to Fight him found him near the place called Cocherel and de la Croix St. Leufroy between Evreux and Vernon Bertrand de Gueselin on whom he had conferr'd the Command upon refusal of the young Count d'Auxerre behaved himself so well with his companions that Captals Men were beaten out of their advantageous Post and he taken prisoner The King thinking to get him on his side released him a while after but he was rather desirous to retaliate his defeat then that obligation Year of our Lord 1364 During these Occurrences Philip of Navarre hapning to dye Lewis his young Brother got the Forces of that Party together and fell upon Bourbonnois and the lower Auvergne where he rifled several Castles Nay some of his Men surprized la Charite upon the Loire a place very important for the passage it gave from thence he made a cruel War upon the Countries on this side whilst on the other hand the Count Montbeliard was fallen upon Burgundy to serve the House of Navarre who pretended that Dutchy appertained to them But Philip of France to whom King Charles had confirmed the Grant was order'd to go and defend his Country and to quit la Beausse from whence he had resolved to expel the Robbers and had already cleared four or five small Castles by turning them out of their Kennels He carried the War therefore into Montbeliard and compell'd the Earl to go out of Burgundy Then laid his Siege before la Charite Lewis d'Evreux not finding himself strong enough to make him raise it retreated with his Forces to Cherbourgh in Normandy The Besieged surrendred upon Composition which the Duke agreed to by the Kings order that he might be able to send help to Charles de Blois his Cousin who was engaged with John de Montfort for the Dutchy of Bretagne Year of our Lord 1394 The Battle d'Auvray decided the Controversy between these Contenders John de Montfort had besieged that place with the assistance of the English led by John Chandois that Kings Lieutenant in Guyenne Charles de Blois undertakes to relieve it back'd by the French Forces commanded by the Count d'Auxerre and Bertrand du Gueselin The Armies came to an engagement the Nine and twentieth of September the Feast-day of St. Michael The Fight was obstinate and bloody to extremity in the conclusion Charles lost the day the Dutchy and his Life For the Lords of Bretagne had agreed amongst themselves that to put a period to that tedious Quarrel they would certainly kill that Chief of the two that was vanquished Year of our Lord 1364 The Children of Charles de Blois were still Prisonners in England and his Widow had more of Pride then Wisdom and good Conduct The Duke of Anjou her Son-in-Law would willingly have assisted her with all his power but the Council of France did not think it fit to drive that business too far least Montfort should turn Homager to the English They therefore made a Peace with him by the Treaty at Guerrande The Dutchy was left to him upon condition of paying his Devoirs to the King of France The Title of Dutchess to the Widow of Charles during her life and for all her Posterity the right of being restored upon want of Heirs descended from Montfort Moreover she had the County of Pontieure and divers other Lands with Forty thousand Livers of Rent for her self alone to be raised upon the whole Dutchy Year of our Lord 1365 Although the Holy War had been interrupted by the death of King John nevertheless Peter King of Cyprus having collected some assistance of Moneys from the Christian Princes and gathered up here and there some numbers of Adventurers together with the Knights of St. John went and landed in Egypt where he valiantly forced a part of the great City of Alexandria and might have brought it all under his power if those that went with him having more regard to their Plunder then their Honour had not returned on board their Vessels with the Spoil Year of our Lord 1365 and 66. With the like Valour and more Perseverance Ame VI. Earl of Savoy carried his Forces against Amurat Sultan of the Turks and the King of Bulgaria who would needs dispossess John Paleologus his near Kinsman of the Grecian Empire the Bulgarian holding him already a Prisoner Ame having taken the City of Calipolis in the Thracian Chersonese by Storm from the Turks entred Bulgaria and upon the taking of divers places forced that King to release the Emperor into whose hands he also put the City of Calipolis but the Greeks lost it again immediately afterwards so much was their Valour declined as well as their Empire The Emperor Charles IV. had much more fancy to design vast Undertakings then Understanding or Means to put them in execution He pleased himself with the empty pride and vain-glory of pompous Ceremonies because he could not attain to those things that were truly real and solid And as his small Revenues and his great Expences still kept him in a necessitous Condition when he began any Year of our Lord 1365 considerable Enterprize it was but only with intent to have Money given him This year 1365. he visited the Pope in Avignon to make a League with the Holy Father and the other Princes of Italy against Barnaby Viscount of Milan He was at Mass Celebrated by the Pope himself on the day of Pentecost in his Imperial Habit and then went and was Crowned King of Arles in the City of the same name Then returned again to Avignon where he obtained permission of the Pope to levy the Tenths upon all the Clergy of Germany and Bohemia for the Expences of that War which he never made Year of our Lord 1365 Gueselin who had been taken at the Battle of Auvray was set free upon Ransom and Oliver de Clisson who was of Montforts Party allured to the Kings service In the Month of December Montfort came to Paris and did Homage first for his Dutchy but only by word of Mouth and without any Oath then for the County of Montfort ungirt and on his Knees and both his hands joyned together between the hands of the King his Soveraign Lord. This year we met again with some Troops of those revolted Peasants of the Jaquerie Year of our Lord 1365 who being re-inforc'd and joyned with some Companies of Plunderers went even into Alsatia from whence they were hunted out and most of them destroy'd by the Emperor Charles IV. and the other Princes of Germany The
from them At that time the said Duke having vanquished the Liegois had sent to entreat him to leave his Friends in Peace otherwise he should be obliged to Succour them And indeed he advanced by long Marches for that end but mean while they being affrighted though nothing appeared which could oblige them to precipitate themselves so soon concluded their agreement and complied with the resolution of the Estates The King failed not to give speedy notice of it to the Burgundian but he would believe nothing even the Herald from the Breton who carry'd him the News ran the hazard of being hanged as a Party Suborn'd because he had seen the King in his journey At length he met with so many demonstrations that he must give Faith He encamped in great order along the Somme He was the first that renewed the Roman Method to enclose his Forces in a Camp entrenched Notwithstanding those precautions the Kings Army was so strong and his Soldiers so Animated that he might easily have forced him had he undertaken it but he would rather try a less hazardous way and gave him six Score Thousand Crowns of Gold to ☞ procure a Truce He never let any thing slip which could be purchased by money which cost him nothing for that he drained out of his Subjects pockets but the chance of a Battel concerned him most Year of our Lord 1468 The Catalonians notwithstanding the Kings Sentence and the accommodation of the Castillian had chosen the foregoing year John Duke of Calabria for their Soveraign as well for his valour as the pretensions the House of Anjou had to the Kingdom of Arragon He made a War in that Country with the Kings assistance three years together having sometimes good success and sometimes bad but in the year 1470. When he had routed the Army of John King of Arragon who besieged the City of Peralta he Died of a Burning Feaver in Barcelona Lewis had a Genius that was marvellously Subtil Insinuating and Intriguing He knew it perfectly well and had conceived that if he could but confer with the Burgundian he could difunite him from the other two or at least cast the Seeds of jealousies amongst them He therefore negociated for an enterview and by the advice of Cardinal la Balue went to find him at Peronne where he was without taking any Guards but only the Cardinal the Duke of Bourbon the Count de Saint Pol and two or three other Lords thereby to shew an entire confidence The Duke had lodged him in the City Soon after there arrives three Princes of the House of Savoy Philip Lord of Bresse the Count de Romont and the Bishop of Geneva then the Mareschal of Burgundy the Lords du Lau and d'Vrfe and some others all Enemies to the King Du Lau had been otherwhile his Favourite but afterwards had been clapt in Prison whence he made his escape The sight of these People put him in such fear that he desired the Duke to lodge him in the Castle This was to go into the Trap and give himself up a Prisoner Before his going to Peronne he had sent Ambassadors to Liege to stir those bustling People to take up Arms and he had taken no care to countermand it Now the Mine was sprung earlier then he would have had it for at the first word those impetuous People went forth out of hand took the City of Tongres immediately where they Seized their Bishop tore in pieces five or six of his Canons and slew some Burgundians Year of our Lord 1468 At this news the Duke grows in a Rage causes the Gates of the Castle of Peronne to be shut up and hardly could retain his wrath from a revenge upon the King himself Three days together the King was in mortal Trances he saw himself in the hands of his Enemies justly provoked and enraged and who might have gained all by loosing him amidst People that hated him to the very Death and in a House at the foot of that Tower where Hebert Count de Vermandois had heretofore put Charles the Simple to Death In effect he had been lost had he not found out the means to gain some of the Dukes Domestick Servants amongst others Philip de comines who softned the Spirit of the Duke their Master He would not withdraw himself from his Precipice but by making a new Treaty with the Duke by which he agreed Monsieur should have the Counties of Champagne and Brie and promised to follow the Burgundian to the destruction of the unhappy Liegois with what numbers of men he should desire He carry'd only some Guards and 300 Soldiers Although the City of Liege were dismantled and without Guns they nevertheless Year of our Lord 1468 defended themselves desperately eight days together made great Salley's amongst others one in the Night wherein they had like to have killed the King and the Count in their Quarters But on a Sunday the 30 th of October which they believed to be a day of rest amongst Christians as if there were any Religion in a War they were Attack'd about Dinner time and made but little defence One great part of the People fled over the Bridge that crossed the Meuse into the Forrest of Ardennes where more then half of them perished by hunger and cold the rest got into Churches or hid themselves in their Houses Fearconstrained the King to rejoyce at the unhappiness of his miserable Allies to applaud the great actions of the Duke of Burgundy before his own People and in his presence and make Courtship to his own Vassal Four days after he managed it so by means of those whom he gained to be for him that he was permitted to go to cause the Treaty of Peronne to be verify'd in the Court of Parliament for without that as Philip de Comines says the Treaties were at no value The Duke having made him some ill-favour'd excuses for having brought him thither conducted ☞ him only half a League After the Kings departure he caused about a Thousand or twelve Hundred of those miserable wretches to be drowned that had been taken in their Houses at Liege and set fire to the whole City excepting the Churches and three hundred Houses about them which were preserved to lodge the Clergy The Parisians could not refrain from Scoffing at the craft of the King which brought him into this Trap at Peronne he contrived to turn their discourse upon another Subject by sending to their Houses to take away all their Deers Goats Cranes Swans Cormorants and other Creatures which they kept for their pleasure as likewise all such Birds as were taught to whistle and speak Perhaps they had instructed some Parrot to say Peronne At his parting with the Duke he had asked him what he understood he was to do in case his Brother would not be contented with Champagne for his Apennage the Duke answered that if he would not take it and that the King could otherwise satisfy or content him he
Ferdinand and stept in before him prevented his getting into Romagnia These successful beginnings engaged Charles the more He parted from Ast the sixth day of October At Turin he borrowed the Dutchess of Savoyes Rings and at Casal the Marchioness of Montferrats and pawned them for twenty four thousand Ducats Ludovic with his Wife came to receive him at Vigeue and accompanied him as far as Piacenza He arrived at Pavia the thirteenth of October There he found Duke Galeazo very ill of some Morsel his good Uncle Ludovic had caused to be given him Being at Piacenza he heard of his Death and then Ludovic who had accompanied him thither took his leave of him to go and reap the Fruit of his Crime and make sure of the Dutchy without any regard to Galeazo's Son as yet but five years old The French trembled with rage that this wicked Wretch should bring the King to be witness of a Parricide upon the Person of his Cousin-German They thought it much more just and safe to revenge this Death upon that Tyrant and to conquer the Dutchy of Milan and the City of Genoa then to run to the farther end of Italy crossing above an hundred Leagues thorow the Enemies Country in the midst of Winter without Money and without Provisions to seek out a Kingdom which would be impossible to keep unless they could first be Masters of Genoa and the Milanois Such was the sentiment of Desquerdes a great Soldier and had he lived had so much Credit with the King as would no doubt have perswaded him to take that Course but he died at Lyons Ludovic's Intrigues who had gained Stephen de Vers overthrew all that good Counsel and the King went forward taking his march by Tuscany The taking a small Castle by storm on the Confines of the State of Florence and afterwards the Fort of Serezanella which capitulated and then the defeat of some Succors which Paul Vrsinus was bringing did so astonish Peter de Medecis that he consigned four Places into the King's Hands which were even the very Keys of that Country to hold them for some certain Time and consented that he should borrow Two hundred thousand gold Crowns of that City Ludovic had fancied to himself that the King would put those places into his hands pretending that two of them belonged to the City of Genoa And for this purpose lent him twenty Thousand Ducats The Council having fairly denied him he retired but left some of his Emissaries about the King to watch their opportunities and dispose things for his advantage His fingers itched to get Pisa One day while the King was in that City his men had persuaded the Pisans to fall on their Knees as he went along to Mass and cry out for Liberty The young King was moved with Pity and the Master of Requests who went along before assured him that what they craved was Just Thus without considering that City was none of his he granted them their desires The Florentines at all times French by inclination taking their opportunity of the Kings approach banished Peter de Medecis from their City by a Sentence of the Senate and recovered their Liberty He retired to Bologna and from thence to Venice with so little Credit that one of his own Factors refused to let him have a Piece of Cloth he sent for The 17 th of November the King entred into Florence his Army in Battallia and himself Armed at all points his Lance upon his Thigh The Florentines partly by force partly out of good will treated upon and agreed a Confederation with him which was proclaimed in all the Cities of Italy with a Manifesto declaring that the King was come thither only to chace away the Tyrants and from thence to carry his Arms against the Turks the capital Enemies to Christendom Picus Mirandolus that marvellous Prodigy of all sorts of Sciences Died in Florence the same Day the King made his entrance The very same hour he went forth the City of Pisa threw off the yoak of the Florentines the People pull'd down their Arms and erected the Kings Statue in the room of them This prodigious success of the French their great train of Artillery which was drawn by Horses and so well managed that in a few hours they could shatter and beat down the strongest Walls as likewise their Combats which was no Childrens play like the Italian fighting bred a Terror over all Young Ferdinand soon retreated from before Aubigny even to Rome and his Uncle Frederic getting out of the Port at Legorne retured to Naples All cried out Vive France the places about Rome strove which should first surrender and the Vrsini made their Peace with the King Then his Holyness to his great regret intreated Frederic to withdraw his Forces and himself was constrained to let the King make his entrance into Rome he being retired to the Castle St. Angelo Year of our Lord 1494 The King entred there Armed as into an Enemies Town upon the 28 th of December and disposed of his Soldiers and Artillery in all the publick places So that Alexander fearing to be taken by force and deposed as he well deserved capitulated with him and condescended to what ever he desired Amongst other things he let him have five or six of his best places for a certain time the investiture of the Kingdom of Naples Caesar Borgia his Bastard Son who was called the Cardinal of Valentia for Hostage and Zemes or Zizim the Brother of Bajazeth to make use of him against the Turks Year of our Lord 1495 The Treaty being finished the Pope came down from his Castle He and the King saw each other often with more appearance of Friendship then any real confidence And the King shewed great respect to his Dignity even to the kissing of his Feet giving him water to wash at Mass and taking his Seat in the Chappel below the Dean and Cardinals Which did not so well please such as expected he would have made use of his power in reforming the Roman Church and purging the Holy See of a Tyrant who defiled with all the abominations imaginable the House of God The eight and Twentieth of January the King went from Rome continuing his march towards the Kingdom of Naples Being at Velitri the Cardinal Bastard Son of the Pope who was an Hostage slunk away from him and returned back to Rome At the same place Antony de Fonseca Ambassador from Ferdinand King of Arragon seeking some pretence for a Rupture made sharp complaints for that the French invaded the Empire of all Italy and urged that when his Master treating with King Charles had promised not to oppose him in his Progress meant it only in relation to the Kingdom of Naples whereas the King had taken divers places from the Florentines and from the Holy See The French replied smartly And the dispute growing hot the Ambassador tore the Treaty in pieces in the Kings presence which so inceased
three Counties and in the mean time the King declared all the Vassals in those Countries acquit and discharged from their Oathes to him from all Faith and Homage and enjoyned them to serve the King upon the Penalty of Forfeiture of their Fiefs and to be Proclaimed Rebels whereof publication to be made upon the Frontiers The Heraulds went therefore to Summon Charles by posting up Papers and making Proclamation He replied fuming with rage that since they recalled him into France he would return thither with such powerful Justifications as would Year of our Lord 1537 make the Treaties to be duely observed and in the mean while for Comparition Adrian de Crouy Count de Roeux having drawn together the Commons of the Low-Countries came and ransacked the Frontiers of Picardy This proceeding of the Kings was variously spoken of but none could approve of the Alliance he made with Solyman the Enemy of Christendom as well to defend himself against the Emperor as in hatred to the Venetians with whom he was extreamly offended for having despised his Amity and the offer he made to share Milanois with them One might nevertheless in some Measure excuse this League of a Christian King with an Infidel not only by the example of the Kings of Spain Grand-Fathers of this Emperor who had contracted the like with Mahometan Kings but even by that of the Emperor himself who had endeavour'd earnestly to do the same with Solyman so that he was no less guilty in that particular but less prevalent or skilful or less fortunate then Francis The Kings attempts did not answer this grand Arrest or Decree of his Parliament He took only Hesdin and Saint Paul and having spent his first Fire returned in the beginning of May to Paris leaving his Army with the Count de Saint Paul and order to Fortifie the City of the same name where they put three Thousand Men in Garrison So soon as he was retired the Enemies being Assembled forced that City and received that of Monstreuil upon Composition but they could gain nothing at Terouenne the Dauphin and Montmorency having got their Troops together timely enough to Relieve it as they did During this Siege a Conference was held at the Village of Bommy at the solicitation of the two Queens Eleonora of France and Mary of Hungary where the Deputies agreed upon a Cessation of all hostilities for three Months in the Low-Countries that they might endeavour to bring about a Peace Some believed the King accepted of it to Transport all his Forces into Italy pursuant to the Treaty made with the Turks who at the same time were to fall upon the Kingdom of Naples In effect the Emperor Solyman did himself lead an Army of One Hundred Thousand Men into Albania from whence he sent Lusti-Bacha and Barbarossa to Cruise upon those Coasts and discover the Country resolved to follow them as soon as they had gained any Port but when he found that the King was making War in Flanders he returned with great Indignation that he should break his word with him As for Barbarossa having no certain News of the King he was fallen upon the Island of Corfu belonging to the Venetians where finding the Places too well provided he ruined the open Country and carried Sixteen Thousand Souls into Captivity The same Summer King Ferdinand received two great Foiles by the Turks the one at Belgrade in Hungary the other before a City in Dalmatia where his two Armies besieging those two places were shamefully defeated In the Interim it hapned in Piedmont as well by the little esteem the Soldiers had of Humieres as the particular quarrels amongst the other Officers and the Mutinies of the Lansquenets the French Forces were dissipated Humieres was retired into Pignerol to wait for Supplies from France and had quitted the Field to Du Guast who had retaken several Towns and almost the whole Country of Salusses The Marquess whom we told you had so unworthily forsaken the French Party was kill'd with a Cannon Bullet at the Siege of Carmagnoles His death so enflamed the fury of the Soldiers that they forced the Place and Du Guast to revenge his death hanged the Captain The Love of Liberty could not be so soon effaced out of the hearts of the Florentines One that was of Kin to the new Duke Alexander named Laurence de Medicis slew him in his own Chamber whither he had allured him with the hopes of meeting a certain Lady for whom he had a great passion but flying as soon as the blow was given the Cardinal Innocent Cibo Son of a Sister to Leo X. who was then at Florence and Alexander Vitelli Captain of the City Guards set up a young man of the House of the Medicis in the place of Alexander where he maintain'd himself in spite of Strossy and other Zealots for their Liberties His name was Cosmo and descended of one Laurent Brother of the Grand Cosmo To gain the People he promised them at first that he would have from the City but Twelve Thousand Crowns for his Maintenance but when he was well establisht he raised it to Twelve Hundred Thousand As for Laurence de Medicis after he had wandred in divers places because Cosmo had Year of our Lord 1537 set a price upon his head he was at last stabbed at Venice by two Assasins Christierne III. King of Denmark introduced Lutheranisme into his Kingdom and turned out the Bishops but kept the Canons that he might have the bestowing of Prebends He did the same in Norway which he had Conquer'd Some years before King Gustavus Erecson had made a like change in Sweden The King being informed that his Affairs went on very ill in those Countries that du Guast besieged Humieres in Pignerol and that before the years end he would drive the French quite out of Piedmont resolved to prevent it and in some measure satisfie Solyman to go thither in Person At Lyons being fallen sick of a slight Feaver he gave order to the Daufin and to the Mareschal de Montmorency to march before-hand with the Army At first coming they forced the Pass of Sufa guarded by ten thousand men a famous exploit in War drove Du Guast to Quiers and got several advantages which drew the King himself thither with great hopes of recovering Milanois His Army was found to be above Forty Thousand Men the French were in good Heart the Enemy affrighted and their Places ill provided but it was the end of October he apprehended the inconveniences of the Season the length of some Siege the Irruption of the Flemmings and the uncertainty of accidents so fatally experimented before Pavia So that making a specious pretence of the having given his word to the Queen of Hungary that he would not do any thing that should obstruct the Peace he upon the mediation of the Pope and the Venetians granted a Truce of three Months for those Countries beyond the Mountains and prolonged that with the Low-Countries
suffer she should be carried into England The Inhabitants of Rochel of Marennes and of the Islands were revolted upon the endeavouring to settle the Gabel in those Countries The King at his return from Languedoc passed that way to suppress that Commotion About the end of December he entred with his Forces into Rochel and caused great numbers of the Seditious Islanders to be brought before him bound and chained After he had put them into an extream Consternation he suffer'd himself to be overcome with Compassion and from a Scaffold where he was Surrounded by the Grandees of his Court he heard the most humble Request they made him by their Advocate and which they seconded with doleful Cries for Mercy and after he Year of our Lord 1543 had laid open their faults in a discourse equally Tender Majestick and Eloquent he absolutely forgave them caused all the Prisoners to be set at Liberty and all the Soldiers to be sent out of the City He would likewise that day needs be guarded and served at his Table by the Bourgeois His incomprehensible goodness ✚ cloathed them with shame and confusion and left in their Hearts and Memories a mortal regret for having ever offended him This was to chastise them indeed after a most Noble and Royal manner The Princes and Emperor of Germany had so often demanded a Council that in the Year 1536. Pope Paul III. had Indicted one at Mantoua for the Two and Twentieth of May the following Year From that time he had Prorogued it to 1538. then to 1539. at Vicenza but had yet suspended the Celebration for as long time as he should find fit In the Year 1542. he was obliged by the vehement pursuit of the Emperor who pressed him because he was so earnestly pressed by the Princes of the Empire to assigne one in the City of Trent which he did by his Bull of the One and Twentieth of May. He believed this Consideration might serve to bring the two Kings to a Peace but the War growing still hotter betwixt them there came so few Bishops to Trent that Year of our Lord 1543 he was this year 1543. forced to recal the Legates he had sent thither and refer the Celebration of the Council to a more pacifick opportunity In France and Spain they were making greater preparations for War than ever The Spaniards furnished the Emperor with above four Millions of Gold John King of Portugal who was Marrying his Daughter Mary to Philip his only Son gave him very great Sums and the King of England promised him no less This inconstant Prince who could never long agree even with himself being offended for that Francis would not renounce his obedience to the Pope and for intermedling too far about the Affairs of Scotland had made a new League Year of our Lord 1543 with the Emperor who did not in the least scruple to have a Prince in Alliance with him though he were under the blackest censures of the Church a mortal Enemy to the Holy-See and one that had used his Aunt so outrageously That he might be able to withstand so dreadful a Storm the King laid an impost upon the walled Cities for the Maintenance of Fifty Thousand men which ended not with the War as he had promised nor was revoked till under the Reign of Francis II. The Emperor going into Germany went by Sea to Italy whither he also carried Ten Thousand Spaniards in some large Ships and Galleys He could not upon the Popes earnest request refuse to confer with him They met as Bussetta between Parma and Piacenza The Holy Father endeavoured to perswade him to give up those two Cities to the Holy-See and invest his Grandson Octavius Farnese with the Dutchy of Milan since the Italian Potentates would never consent that he should retain it for himself The Emperor gave him only general words and cut the Conference off very short for fear of giving jealousie to the King of England who was subject enough to misinterpretations That Muley-Assan whom he had restored to the Kingdom of Tunis being hardly beset on all hands by the Turks who had taken from him divers of his places came to Genoa to kiss his hand and crave some Assistance Whilest he was absent one of his Sons named Amida usurped the Kingdom The unfortunate Father having given him Battle with some Forces scraped together was vanquished and taken with two more of his Sons by the Rebel who put out his Eyes reproaching him for having served his own Brothers so Afterwards this Parricide being driven out of his Kingdom by the Governour of Goletta where nevertheless he got the Mastery again some while after Muley-Assan made his escape out of Prison and took refuge amongst the Spaniards Year of our Lord 1544 In the Spring time the King gave Command to Antony become Duke of Vendosme by the Death of his Father Charles to revictual Terouane Then himself lead his greatest Forces towards the Low-Countries where he thought to make a considerable Progress while the Duke of Gueldres held the Emperors in play So that about the end of May though he were indisposed he put himself in the head of his Army which was joyned with the Troops of Antony Duke of Vendosme He roved for some Weeks all about the Country of Artois and having often changed his Mind sometimes to Fortifie L'Illiers and Saint Venant another while to besiege Avenes he fixed at last upon the Fortifying Landrecy on the other side of the Sambre After he had given the necessary Orders he came to encamp at Maroles then to refresh and repose himself at Reims where he had caused the Ladies to come to divert him Whilst he was at Maroles the Daufin employed part of the Army for the taking the Castle of Emery which is on an Island in the Sambre and the Town of Maubeuge but a while after he forsook them The Duke of Orleans likewise entred into Luxembourg regained all the Country which had been taken after his going away and amongst other the Capital City which gives it the Name The King was there in Person visited the Place and notwithstanding its vast Circumference and odd Situation would have it Fortified Such as were knowing in the Trade were against the doing of it but because it was like to be a work of great profit to him that should have the ordering of it there was an Engenier ☞ that advised it and undertooke it In the mean while the Emperor having passed out of Italy into Germany came at first to attack the Duke of Cleve and by the taking his City of Duren which he sacked and perhaps by the Assistance of his own People whom he had corrupted frighted him and all the rest of the Country so terribly that he came and craved his Pardon and promised to quit his Alliance with the French and the Title of Duke of Guelders satisfying himself with that of Administrator Which was so suddenly done that the Duke had not time
intelligence of a School-master whom the desire of Gain had wrought upon to shew them a certain place where they might scale it It was upon a Shrove-tide Festival when Figuerba and all the Nobility of the Spanish Army were come thither to make a Carousel The City being taken Figueroa cast himself into the Citadel the Mareschal caused it immediately to be batter'd and in a few days forced it to capitulate Year of our Lord 1555 Queen Mary and the Cardinal Pool her Cousin fearing lest the quarrel betwixt the two Kings should embroil the English in a War earnestly desired to procure a Peace between them Their great instances engaged them to send Deputies betwixt Calais and Ardres to treat They Arrived there the one and twentieth of May. For their accommodation several Tents were set up containing a large Hall in the midst of them having four Gates one to the East for the Popes Legates one at the West part for the English Ambassadors one in the South for those of France and one on the North for the Emperors The two Princes according to the Proposals made by the English agreed well enough about the referring all their differences to the judgment of the Council but the King declaring he would not restore the Duke of Savoy till the Emperor surrendred up Navarre to Jane d'Albret and Piacenza to the Farneses the Assembly broke up without concluding any thing Neither the one nor the other were very well prepared for a War so that this Summer past without any great exploits The Imperial Army after several Marches and Skirmishes employ'd themselves in fortifying the Burrough of Corbigny upon the Meuse which they named Philip-Ville Martin Van Rossen Mareschal of Cleves who commanded it dying of the Plague the Prince of Orange succeeded him in that employ Beyond the Alpes after the capitulation of Siena they likewise took the Port-Hercole The French succeeded ill at the Siege of Calvi in Corsica The Mareschal de Brissac took Vulpian and though but little assisted by the Court made head bravely against the Duke d'Alva who succeeded Figueroa This Duke could bring Five and Twenty Thousand Men into the Field notwithstanding he received an affront before Saint Ia being forced to raise his Siege Year of our Lord 1555 The Five and Twentieth day of May Henry d'Albret King of Navarre died at Hagetmar in Bearn The King had a great desire to seize upon the rest of that petty Kingdom and to give Anthony de Bourbon who had Married the Heiress some Lands in exchange but Anthony hast'ned to go and take possession of it and his Wife found means to preserve it notwithstanding the perswasions and treachery of her Officers The King was so fretted at it that he dismembred Languedoc from his Government of Guyenne to bestow it on the constable he refused to give that of Picardy which Anthony surrendred upon his going away to Lewis Prince of Conde his Brother and gratify'd Coligny with it After his departure it hapned that la Jaille being gone to make incursion in Artois with a party of the Arriere-band was upon his return cut in pieces by Hausimont Governor of Bapaume a slight shock which yet so terrified the French that they put their Men in Garrisons About the same time the Diepois having Information that two and twenty great Flemmish Vessels were returning from Spain loaden with rich Goods went and laid in wait for them about Dover and not staying to fire at them went directly aboard Their Vessels were little and low the other large and high built so that they maul'd them with Shot and Granado's from above The Fight lasted six hours hand to hand at length some of them took Fire which burnt half a dozen of either Ships and parted them sooner then otherwise they would have done Jane Queen of Spain Widdow of Philip the Fair and Mother of the Emperor Charles V. died in Spain the Twelth of April Aged 73 years She had been lock'd up as one distracted ever since the death of Philip her Husband however the Estates still reserved the Title of Queen of Spain for her which in all publick instruments was joyned with that of the Emperor her Son This Great Prince finding his Body grown weak and his head crazy not being any longer able to support either the heavy burthen of worldly Affairs nor his own decayed Cottage Resolved in a Council of Women these were his two Sisters to renounce his Soveraignty Having therefore sent for his only Son Philip King of England to come to him to whom the year before upon his Marriage he had already given the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicilia and since that also the investiture of the Dutchy of Milan he assembled the Estates of the Low-Countries at Bruxels the Five and Twentieth of October and there he Created him first Chief of the Order of the Fleece then he resigned up those Provinces to him A Month after in the same City in presence of the Governors and Deputies of his other Estates whom he had called thither for that purpose he yielded up and remitted to him all other his Kingdoms and Seigneories as well in Europe as in the new World He had nothing now left him but the Empire which he held yet a year hoping to oblige his Brother Ferdinand to resigne that up likewise to his Son In the Month of March of this same year Pope Julius III. ended his life Marcel II. who was Elected in his place held it but one and twenty days and they Elected the Cardinal John Peter Caraffa Aged fourscore and one year old He was Son of the Count de Matalone in the Kingdom of Naples and they called him Theatin because he had been Archbishop of Theati and had there instituted the Order of Clerc's Regulars who took their name from that City Many because of the resemblance of the habit have confounded the Jesuits with them His religious life and austere manners which made the World affraid of a severe reformation were immediately changed into a proud and a luxurious huffing vanity He was of a haughty heart and a stubborn Spirit and yet suffer'd himself to be circumvented by his Nephews and led any way as they pleased Amongst the rest he had two Sons of his Brothers these were Charles who had born Arms for the French under the Mareschal Strozzi and Alphonso Count de Montorio greatly desirous to raise themselves the first very proud and rash the second more mild and moderate To this he gave the Government of the Church Lands and to the other a Cardinals Hat The Uncle and the Nephews for divers injuries received hated the Spaniards and by a necessary consequence all those of that party especially the Duke of Florence and the House of the Colonnas who besides all this have ever been averse to the power of the Popes Year of our Lord 1555 Being therefore prompted by this resentment and that spirit so ordinary in many of the Papal
it in France The time drawing near la Renaudie who forged a thousand fine imaginations upon the event of this project could not hold his tongue but opened the whole mystery to an Advocate of his own Religion named des Avenelles with whom he lodged at Paris The Advocate discover'd it to l'Allemand Vouzé a Master of Requests and l'Allemand carried him to Court to declare particularly all what he had learned of la Renaudie Upon this news the Guises first provided for the security of their own persons and without the least noise called all their trustiest friends about them gave order for the preservation of the great Cities caused the Prince and the Admiral to come to Court granted an abolition of all things past to the Religionaries excepting to those that had conspired and at the same time set Guards of Soldiers and Men belonging to the Provosts upon all the Roads leading to the Conspirators The Duke got the Title of Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom confirmed to him as well whilst the King should be present as absent and established a Company of Musquetiers on Horse-back all select Men who were constantly to attend the Kings Sacred Person Year of our Lord 1560 The Court immediately dislodged from Blois and went to the Castle of Amboise as well because that place was stronger as to break the measures of the Plotters In the mean time the Duke of Guise sent the Kings Orders into all the Provinces with exhortations to the Nobility and Officers of War to arm themselves for the preservation of the State and to the Governors to seize upon all such as should be found in Arms whether on Foot or on Horseback upon the Road of Amboise The Prince of Conde who was going to Court met the Lord de Cipierre at Orleans by whom he was informed how the enterprize was discover'd but this hindred not his Journey forward nor la Renaudie a self-will'd fellow from pursuing his design But the Court having changed their station he was fain to change the Rendezvous appointed for his Gang and this was it that made them miscarry in the execution of the contrivance Castelno de Chalosses one of the chief Ring-leaders with Raunay and Mazeres were at Nozé James de Savoye Duke of Nemours took the two last as they were imprudently walking without the Castle but Castelno and the rest got in He besieged them there and being unable to take them by force drew them out by fair promises for he gave them his word he would carry them to the King and no hurt should be done to them neither should they be confin'd to Prison But as there is no security in the faith of that Man that is not able to warrant it as soon as they were come to Amboise they were cast into a Goal and Nemours thought it a sufficient excuse to say I cannot help it La Renaudie who was in Vendosmois made his Men advance with all speed to disengage Castelno whose surrender he knew not of but as they Marched in small parties and by ways thorow the Forrests the people set there by the Kings Order to watch them easily slew them or took them Prisoners and tied them to their Horse-Tails to lead them to Amboise whither they no sooner came but they hang'd them up immediately on the Battlements of the Walls Booted and Spurr'd The day after la Renaudie was kill'd in the Forrest of Chasteau-Renaud but he first slew Pardillan his Cousin to whom the King had given command to go a-hunting after the Conspirators with two hundred Horse His Body was for some hours hanged upon the Bridge at Amboise with this writing Captain of the Rebels then quarter'd and the quarters set up in divers places The Guises press'd the Chiefs might be dispatch'd the Chancellor was of opinion they should suspend that till they had found the bottom and main drift of the enterprize and to appease the fury of those exasperated spirits it would be fit to grant a Pardon to such whose blind zeal had misled them provided they would return to their own homes in small parcels of two or three in a Company But whilst they were contending for Mercy and Clemency against the rigour of Justice and Law a Captain of the Conspirators named la Motte made an attempt to surprize Amboise which stopt the Chancellors Mouth and let loose the raynes of persecution to the utmost severity A Command was given to take all such as had been in Armes either dead or alive though they should be returning to their own homes They pardon'd very few of those they had in Hold there were hanged drowned and beheaded near Twelve Hundred the Streets of Amboise were overflowed with Blood the River choaked up with dead Corps and the Market-places planted full of Gibbets The Chief were Executed the last the Queen-Mother her three Sons and all the Court Ladies gazing out of the Windows beholding this Tragical Spectacle as a divertisement Not one of them would own or confess that the Conspiracy aimed at the Kings Person but only against the Guises Raunay and Mazeres confessed upon the Rack that la Renaudie had told them that if it had succeeded the Prince of Condé would have declared Castelno stoutly denied it and upon their confrontation gave them very significant reproaches Some writings in Cyphers seized in the Custody of la Bigne Secretary of the Conspiracy and the Examinations of certain Captains that had Command amongst them gave them light enough to believe that the Prince of Condé and the Admiral were concerned but the proofs not being clear and the Evidence only upon hear-say and those that had orders to search the Princes House finding neither Men nor Arms there he demanded leave to purge himself in full Council before the King The Queen Mother being willing to admit him he made a discourse full of Reason and Eloquence to justifie himself concerning that attempt and afterwards gave the lye to all that durst say he was guilty of it and offer'd to Fight them himself renouncing his Quality only for that purpose Year of our Lord 1560 The Duke of Guise out of a most profound dissimulation applauded his generosity and told him he was also ready to maintain his Innocency but in private he notwithstanding was of opinion he ought to be seized on The Queen Mother did not judge it convenient whether she feared the Guises might make themselves too absolute if they could but pull down the only Prince that was able to make head against them or that she apprehended lest such a detension should produce some act of desperation which might prove more fatal then the fore-going Conspiracy The danger over they wrote Letters in the name of the King to all the Parliaments Governors and great Cities giving them an account of the eminent danger the King had escaped and the signal Service the Duke of Guise had rendred him The Parliament of Paris giving Credit to it bestowed upon him the glorious
maintaining the ancient Religion they laboured to set up an absolute and unlimited power over those Provinces who owed no further obedience then according to their Laws and Priviledges The procedure of the Cardinal de Granvelle who treated the Grandees of the Country very imperiously exasperated them yet more Divers Conspiracies were contrived against him the fear of which forced him to retire to Besanson but his Spirit Reigned in Flanders still and perswaded the Council of Spain not to abate in the least but proceed and carry on the work with the utmost severity The Council of State of the Order of the Fleece and Governors of the Provinces wherein Margaret Dutchess of Parma Governess of the Low-Countries presided thought good to send Egmont into Spain to represent the ill Consequences that would attend the publication of their too severe Edicts He returned with fair words and great caresses but Philip sent Orders to the Governess to publish the Council of Trent and set up the Inquisition The States of Brabant opposed it the Religionaries heated the people the Governess apprehending a revolt was constrained to put forth a Declaration which revoked the Inquisition and would not suffer the Council to be published but with restrictions conformable to the Priviledges of the Country But the Populace for the most part pre-possest with the Doctrine of the Sectaries were not satisfied with that but threatned to fall foul upon the Nobility in so much as the Lords of the Country dreading their fury or pretending so assembled at Gertrudemberg and made a League amongst themselves for the preservation of their Liberties The Governess being much amazed at this Conspiracy the Count de Barlaimont who hated them mortally told her they were only a Company of Gueux The Conspirators hearing of it took that Epithet or word for the name of their Faction and began to wear upon their Coats the figure of a wooden Porringer or Dish with this Inscription Servants of the King even to the Budget Immediately as if that had been the Signal for their rising the Religionaries broke loose in every part of the Country They began to hold Assemblies to destroy and break in pieces all what the Catholicks esteem most sacred and to seize upon some Towns as the Huguenots of France did formerly with whom they had kept intimate correspondence for several years Year of our Lord 1566 and 67. Of two Opinions debated in the Council of Spain touching the Method to extinguish this Flame Philip chose that of the Duke d'Alva as most suitable to his mercyless humour and his desire of absolute authority which was to use the utmost severities to quell those Tumults and not to receive the people to any kind of Mercy till they had given up their Priviledges their Estates and even their Lives to his discretion Wherefore after he had pretended for three Months together that he would go personally thither to settle that people he sent the Duke of Alva with Orders to execute those sanguinary resolutions of which he was the Author He Marched by Savoy Bress the Franche-Comté and Lorrain with the Forces of Milanois and of the Kingdom of Naples Whilst he was yet in Italy he advised Queen Catherine to arm on her part to exterminate the Huguenots at the same time as he would destroy the Gueux In effect she raised six thousand Swiss and ordered the Governors of Provinces to send the Companies already on foot called d'Ordonnance and to levy new ones but it was under pretence of Coasting the Duke to observe and hinder him from undertaking any thing upon the Frontiers of the Kingdom Before he left Spain the Marquiss de Bergue and Floris de Montmorency Montigny were arrested having been sent on the behalf of the States of the Low-Countries to make their Remonstrances to King Philip. The first died either of grief or some morsel prepar'd for the purpose the second had his head cut off though both of them were very stanch Catholicks which made it apparent that the Council of Spain intended no less against the liberty of the Low-Countries then against the new Religion Year of our Lord 1567. June c. Now it is certain that the Duke of Alva's Army kindled the flame of Civil War again in France The Huguenots seeing them march imagin'd That the Pope and the House of Austria had conspired their ruine that this design was evident because they every day restrained them more and more of that liberty which had been granted them by Edicts so that it was almost reduced to nothing Year of our Lord 1567 that the people fell upon them in all places where they were the weaker and where they were able to defend themselves the Governors made use of the Kings Authority to oppress them that they dismantled those Cities that had favour'd them that they built Citadels there that they could not have justice done them either in Parliaments nor by the Kings Council that they Massacred them impunitively that they restored them not to their Estates and Employments These were in substance the complaints they carried twice or thrice to the Prince of Condé and Coligny who having met them two several times still answered them that they must endure any thing rather then take up Arms again That a second disturbance would make them become a horror to all France and the particular object of hatred to the King in whose mind it would make so deep an impression of prejudice against them in his blooming youth as nothing hereafter would be able to blot out But when one of the Chief Persons about the Court had given them certain notice that it was resolved on to seize upon the Prince and the Admiral the first to be detained a perpetual Prisoner the other to be brought to the Scaffold Dandelot the boldest of them made them resolve not only to defend themselves but to attack their Enemies by open force and to that purpose drive away the Cardinal de Lorrain from the King and cut the Swiss in pieces this was their first aim but no man alive nay not themselves could have told to what height their success might have carried them had it proved such as they desired The little City of Rosoy in Brie was Assigned for Rendezvous of the Nobility of the Party on the eighth and twentieth day of September The Prince with the Admiral Dandelot and the Count de la Rochefaucaut seized upon it without any difficulty there being Arrived several Gentlemen from divers parts one by one till they made up the number in all of Four Hundred Masters They had a mind to surprize the Court which was then at Monceaux on the Feast day of Saint Michael when the King was to have held the Chapter of his Order but the Queen having Information that they were upon their March immediately retired with the King to Meaux And to give her Swissers time who were quarter'd in the Neighbouring Villages to get into the
of the Treaty they reveng'd it by the Massacre of the whole Garrison These cruel Inâ—idelities were much used during this whole War At this very time Dandelot having a little refreshed the Huguenot Forces who were yet near Four Thousand Horse besides their Foot made an incursion by Poiton as far as Clisson At his return he was seized with a Pestilential Feaver whereof he died at Saintes The Princes gave the Command of Collonel of the Foot to James de Crussol Daceir the King did the like to Philip de Strossy Son of Peter who had been Mareschal of France and was near of kinn to the Queen Mother The last day of February the Duke of Deux-Ponts parted from Savarna and had taken his March by Alsatia and Lorrain he had Seven Thousand Five Hundred Reistres and Six Thousand Lansquenets William of Nassaw Prince of Orange whom the Duke of Alva had thrust out of Flanders and Lewis his Brother came and joyned him with some Troops of Horse and Fifteen or Twenty French Captains of Daufiné with Six Hundred Horse and Eight Hundred Vrquebusiers they had pick'd up about Strasburgh The Duke d'Aumale finding he was unable to make head against him followed him in the Rear almost as far as Cisteaux When they had pass'd the Saone at Montier he left them that he might get before them and wait their passage over the Loire where he was to joyn the Duke of Anjou's Army which lay at Gien But the Duke des Deux ponts passed it at a Foord near Pouilly and also took the Town de la Charité a place very weak in those dayes but of great Importance upon the same River As soon as the Admiral knew he had passed the River he drew out a Party of his Forces to go and meet him having left the care of all Affairs in Guyenne to la Noüe and sent Montgommery into Gascongne as well to reconcile the Vicounts whom the ambition of Command had set at variance as to stop the Progress Montluc and Terride were making in Bearn The Queen of Navarre had inveigled all that Country to be of the New Religion She pretended to be absolute Soveraign there and yet many of the Nobility adhered rather to the King than to her The Duke of Anjou in the mean time advanced to Limoges and placed Guards upon all the Passages of Vienne but the Forlorn of the Duke de Deux-ponts Marched over the Bellies of them Thus after a three months March this Army of Strangers Arrived in Safety but the Duke des Deux-ponts who was very corpulent and labouring under the reliques of a Quartan-Ague died at Nessun Year of our Lord 1569 within three Leagues of Limoges the Eighteenth day of June By his Will he left the Conduct of his Forces to Volrad Mansfeld and within four dayes after they were joyned in a body with the Admirals The two Armies being near that of the Princes about Saint Yrier the Duke of Anjou's at Roche-labelle they had so great a Skirmish as had almost engaged them to a general Battel On the Royalists side Strossy was taken Prisoner Roquelaure and Saint Leu two valiant Captains were kill'd with four Hundred of their Men. After which the Duke of Anjou put his Army into Garrisons and discharged the Nobility with Orders to return again about Mid August During all which time there hapned nothing Remarkable but the Siege of Niort by the Count de Lude Governor of Poitou and of la Charité by Sansac where neither of them gained any thing but blows but Teligny seized upon Chasteleraud and forced the Castle of Luzignan no less Famous for the Fables of Mellusine then for the reputation it had of being impregnable month June c. During this time Montgomery was sent into Bearn to recover it for the Queen of Navarre for the Count de Terride had very near subdued it all Having therefore gotten some Forces together in Languedoc passed the Garonne and Ariege surprised the City of Tarbes in Bigorre he entred that part of the Country where Terride at that time Besieged Navarrins At the Noise of his approach Terride makes up his Bundle and retires to Ortez Montgomery besieges him there and forces him to Surrender He had four Barons of that Country with him Saincte Colombe Pordeac Goas and Favas who were comprised in the Capitulation but Montgommery caused them all to be Poniarded having more regard to the Orders Queen Jane had given him to use them as Traytors than to his own Honour and Faith But for the discord which was between Terride and Montluc and between the latter and Danville Governor of Languedoc he had not entred so easily into that Country or at least had never got out again However Montluc not to remain idle borrowed some Companies of Danville with which together with those la Valette had Raised he forced the City of Mont de Marsan where another Favas Commanded a Native of S. Macaire Whilst this Captain was Treating with him he caused the Castle to be stormed on the back part and put all to the Edge of the Sword in revenge for the death of the Four Barons After the taking of Luzignan which was followed by that of S. Maxian and Mirebeau the Admirals thoughts were to seize upon Saumur which he would fortifie to have that convenient passage on the Loire and carry the War the fourth time to the Gates of Paris Unfortunately for him he changed his design and besieged Poitiers a great City above two Leagues in circumference The young Duke of Guise whom the Duke of Anjou had sent to succour Luzignan puts himself into it with the Marquiss de Mayenne his Brother and great numbers of the Nobility and gained to himself no less Glory than his Father had done formerly by defending the City of Mets. The Count de Lude Governor of Poitu was likewise gotten in with six thousand Soldiers but there were very little Stores and Provisions for so many Mouths The Siege began the five and twentieth of July the Attaques the Besiegers made upon them did not give them so much trouble as the want of Food Forrage and Mills did put them to In the mean time Montluc having drawn his Forces together laid Siege to Chastelleraud to make a diversion The Admiral was glad of such a fair pretence to raise his Siege from before Poitiers where he lost both his time and reputation He decamped the seventh day of September and approaching near Chastelleraud put in four hundred Arquebusiers who entred by the Bridge conducted thither and cover'd by the Cavalry of his Van-Guard Upon his Arrival the Catholicks drew off their Cannon and afterwards their Men with so much diligence that their Army was lodged at la Celle which is six Leagues from thence and on the other side la Creuse before he knew they moved he follow'd with a resolution to attaque them but finding them in a Lodgment where he could not bring up his
King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé from joyning with him whilst they were at Court but they came on with more boldness when they were in the Camp Henry de la Tour Vicount de Turenne at that time a Catholick and already very knowing and subtle though but young was the contriver of their Association Being all hot headed rash young Men many Designs were propounded as strange as bold The King having had some hint gave order to Pinard Secretary of State to enjoyn the Duke not to leave the Camp upon pain of Incurring his Indignation The Duke sending him back without any answer because he would not produce his Order the Kings Council took such an Alarm that the King apprehending some dangerous surprize wrote to the Duke of Anjou to hasten the taking of Rochel because he had need of his Forces about his Person This was the cause he made so many Assaults unseasonably and lost so many Men. Now as both the one and the other were in an extream Perplexity Arrives the News from Poland which open'd them a way to go off with Honour The Bishop of Valence had gained the Affections of the Polanders by means of Balagny his naâ—ural Son before the death of King Sigismond the last Prince of the House of Jagellons When he was dead which hapned the Seventh of July in the year 1572. he parted from Paris the Seventeenth day of August following and went thither himself The Queen Mother and the Duke of Anjou apprehended nothing Year of our Lord 1573 more then the success of this Election wherefore at the same time they pretended to employ all the Kings power for it they obstructed it underhand by private Methods Nevertheless the Bishop having more regard to the Kings Command and his own Honor then to a Womans fancies managed the business so well that it succeeded The Duke of Anjou was Elected King but as the Heads of two of those four Factions that were amongst them were Calvinists they obliged the French Ambassadors to promise them several Conditions in favour of that Religion particularly that they should leave all those Cities at Liberty which were Besieged Upon the News of this Election and the Arrival of the Polish Ambassadours who came to fetch their new King the Duke of Anjou made them give some fresh Assaults and then renewed the propositions for accommodation The Rochellers refused to hearken to any thing unless all the other Cities of their Party were comprehended and they were fain to yeild to them in this point unless for month June Sancerre whose Surrender was hourly expected The Articles were all resolved upon the Five and Twentieth of June the Ratification was brought back some dayes after with an Edict of Pacification which was more restrictive by much then the preceeding ones for it allowed only Liberty of Conscience but no publick exercise excepting in the Cities of Rochel Nismes and Montauban It was not in their Power to obtain the same advantage for Sancerre the King under colour it belonged to a particular Lord whose right he could not infringe refused to grant them any more but the Liberty of Marriages and Christnings So that although for four Months past the scarcity of Provisions grew daily to a most-horrible Extremity yet they resolved to perish rather then not enjoy the same Conditions which the rest had They fed upon the most unclean Creatures and upon such Herbs as Beasts themselves refuse to tast as also Parchment and Leather and to say all in a word they surprized a Father and a Mother feeding upon their own Daughter that had been starved to death Whilst they were in this most lamentable State and yet would not think of a Surrender the Ambassadours from Poland who Arrived in the beginning of August got composition for them but they had no other advantages for their Religion then what was general So that the Cruel and Voluntary death of Two Thousand of those unhappy Wretches served only to Signalize to all future Ages their too long and fatal obstinacy In the Treaty of Rochel it was Stipulated that the Rochellers should intreat the Duke of Anjou to come into their City but that he should not enter So that after the most eminent had been with him to request it he dismissed his Army and went on Board his Galleys visited the adjacent Islands thence Sailed to Nantes and so returned to Court being every where received in quality of a King Thus ended that Famous Siege where the King lost Twelve Thousand Men and a great many Persons of Note the most remarkable being Claude Duke of Aumale who was Slain with a Cannon Shot The Polish Ambassadours who were Twelve in number and for their Chief had the Bishop of Posna Arrived at Mets the Five and Twentieth of July made their Solemn entrance into Paris on the Third day of September and the Tenth month July c. read the Decree of Election in the Palace-Hall The King was there upon a Scaffold Array'd in his Royal Robes and accompanied by all the Princes and Grandees of his Court The Decree being taken out of a Silver Box Sealed with an Hundred and Ten Seals of the Prelates Palatines and Castellans of the Kingdom was open'd and read aloud by one of the Ambassadors The King having given them very many civil thanks rose from his Seat and went to embrace the King of Poland his Brother the other Princes and Noblemen then present went afterwards to Congratulate him and pay their Respects He kissed the Duke of Alâ—ncon and the King of Navarre and treated the others with more or less Ceremony according to their quality I shall say nothing of the Feastings and Balets wherewith the Queen Mother entertained them those are the Abortives of Luxury and Prodigality the remembrance of which ought to last no longer then the smell of the meat and noise ☜ of the Violins The King of Poland made his entrance into Paris by the Gate Sainct Amoine with a Suitable Magnificence It was looked upon as an ill Omen that his Heraulds mistook in their blasoning the Arms of his New Kingdom Year of our Lord 1573 These Ceremonies ended King Charles who had taken up a strong Resolution he would Reign himself and withdraw that Authority he had imprudently committed to his Mother hastned his departure with great impatience every hour seeming a tedious year but the more he pressed the more delays the other still sought out It was not the delights only of the Court his Mothers tenderness the almost Royal Authority his Command had placed him in as Generalissimo of the Army's and the hope of succeeding to the Crown which ever seemed near at hand because the King had no Child that detained him in France the violent Love he had for the Princess of Condé was a stronger tye then all these The Duke of Guise who had Married the Sister soothed and served him though to no purpose in his passion and by that means had
he clearly answered that it was his intention that he had so promised to God on the Holy Sacrament of the Altar That he would have his Subjects forwarn'd to give no Faith to whatever he might do or say to the contrary and that if he were reduced to that condition he would not keep his Oath but till such time as he could recover strength sufficient and the opportunity to break it The Deputies for the Huguenots much astonished at these words and the resolution of the Estates made their protestations against them and the greatest part of them retired Year of our Lord 1577 from Blois and went to give a hot alarm to Rochel and in Languedoc Whatever resolution the King shewed nevertheless he so much feared the losing of his Rest and angmenting the power of the Guises that he would needs have the Estates send to the two Princes and to Damville to invite them to come to the Assembly and in the mean time that he might have some Warranty from the publique for the War which was now to begin he desired to have the Advice and Opinion of the chief Lords and of his Principal Counsellors in Writing They all concluded that it was just and necessary not perhaps that they really believed so but they thought it was his desire to make it or at least to pretend such desire to get some round sums of Money from the Estates He demanded two Millions of Gold for the said Expences and the Favourites made use of all the Engines and Tricks imaginable to get this grand Elizir The Third Estate who knew too well that they must pay for all could never be perswaded to consent thereto no more then to the alienation of the demeasne concerning which Bodin having proved with a freedom Confidence and Liberty truly Gallican that the funds of the Demeasne appertained to the Provinces and that the King was but the simple Usager he so fully perswaded the Assembly to be of this Sentiment that they answered Bellievre whom the King sent to them about it That ☜ the common Right and the Fundamental Law of the Nation rendred the thing absolutely impossible Year of our Lord 1577 With these dispositions was held the Second Sessions the Seventeenth of January at the same place and in the same order as the First The Archbishoy of Lyons Orator of the Clergy and the Baron de Senescey of the Nobility began their harangues month January on their knees their Deputies standing up and being uncover'd But at the Second period they were bid to rise and their Deputies sate down and were cover'd The Orator of the Third Estate had been Treated in the very same manner at the Assembly of the Estates at Orleance but here they let him kneel almost half an hour their Deputies standing all the while and bare-headed They had commanded this last it was Versoris to beseech the King to make all his Subjects conform to one Religion by fair and gentle methods and without War to desire he would grant the Election for Benefices absolutely without any reference to the Kings Will to touch home and roundly upon the Male-Administration of the Finances and to make great instance for the punishment of those that had risled and squandred the Treasure as also to insist upon the expulsion of Strangers from the Government and touching the dispensation of Year of our Lord 1577 the publique Moneys After this Session and when the Estates had taken some pains about their Papers the League brought it to this resolution That the King should be desired to forbid the exercise of any other but the Catholique Religion The thing passed by plurality of the Governments not by the Votes of the Deputies neither was it carried by more then two Suffrages and soon after those of Paris fearing the first Pence would be levied upon the City Rents would have retracted The Huguenots having notice of what passed set up a counter-League whereof the Prince declared himself Lieutenant under the Authority of the King of Navarre and published a manifesto much more bloody then any yet had appeared and which plainly shewed his vehement humour his frank and daring courage and the zeal he had for his Religion Whilst he armed in Poitou the King of Navarre armed himself also in Guyenne but either of them so slenderly that it was rather to make Incursions then Expeditions of any consequence The enterprises they had formed upon several places failed John Favas a Native of Bazas to secure himself after a horrible assassinate he had committed there deliver'd up that City to the King of Navarre and made himself of that party and also to give him a more sincere proof of his affection took Reole some few days after but Marmanda derided that King who rashly besieged it with a handful of Men. The Edict of Pacification being revoked and all their threatnings and intrigues proving ineffectual as to the Princes they set two Armies on foot to make quick dispatch of them The Command of one was given to the Duke of Anjou extremely incensed against the Huguenots because some had made him believe that whilst he was amongst them they had an intention of delivering him up to the Reistres nay even to attempt his Person and that the Prince of Condé made sport with him and acted him in his posture when running at the Ring The Duke of Guise demanded the Conduct of the other but the Duke of Anjou's enmity and that jealousie the King had of him denied him that Honour and placed it upon the Duke of Mayenne his Brother This Duke was first in the Field made the Prince quit his ground and drove his Men even to the Gates of Rochel Then proud for having thus beaten them into their strongest Sanctuary he went into Guyenne His Forces being much tired and weather-beaten month February by the Winter-season he readily made a Fifteen days Truce with the King of Navarre which being expired about mid April he took the Field a Second time but yet without any great progress till the Two and twentieth of May when he month April Year of our Lord 1577 returned to Poitou to re-inforce his Troops and wait for fresh Orders from the King who but unwillingly made this War month April In the beginning of April the Duke of Anjou besieged la Charité with Twelve thousand Foot and Three thousand Horse the Dukes of Guise Aumale and Nevers were his Lieutenants la Châtre his Mareschal de Camp and to say the truth his Director The place was invested so suddainly that James de Morogues who was Governour of it could not possibly get in any Soldiers so that having but One hundred and fifty Men to defend three breaches he capitulated after he had sustained two Assaults month April and May c. La Charité rendred up the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Guise rode post to Blois to tell Stories of their brave exploits to the Ladies who had bestow'd Scarfes upon
appear more plain to him then any thing else had done Now when they perceived his recovery they repented of having too openly discover'd themselves and endeavour'd to sooth him by new caresses and fairer profers then before And he on his part knew how to dissemble as well as themselves but intended for the future to order his Affairs by other measures then theirs In this mind he essay'd to make a new Party with the Cardinal de Bourbon upon whose Head he promised to set the Crown I cannot tell how far this intrigue was carried on but there is great likelihood the Dukes irresolution hindred the prosecution of it During this universal disorder the Royal Authority was very languishing for the great Cities had their designs for liberty the Lords and Governors for Soveraignties ☜ and private Gentlemen and Captains thought of nothing but Plunder and Robberies for which reason they were all of a mind to prolong the War whence they alone reaped the profit These Purloiners had the fifths of all Prizes Ransoms and Seizures disposed of the Tailles and Publick Money at their own pleasure laid new Imposts upon Passages and Rivers devoured all the labours and substance of poor People Then when they were to march served not above three weeks or a month and so returned again to their own homes But never without grumbling The King might give them new Salaries great Pensions Benefices Confiscations Year of our Lord 1592 grant them all Boons they demanded and engage the clearest of his Demeasns to them yet they were never satisfied month May. It was justly to be feared by him that if the Estates should at last elect a King all the Princes of Italy and the rest of the Catholicks might own him they being concerned only to have a King in France not whether it were he in particular before any other and lest the Pope who had some obligation to the Spaniards for his promotion should continue to assist the League This was Clement VIII for Gregory XIV died and Innocent IX his Successor Reigned but a short time Besides he wanted Money and was vexed to be no more but the Companion of his Subjects These Considerations inclined him to find out some way for an Accommodation with the Duke of Mayenne They entred upon it without much difficulty and without taking in the King of Spain or communicating it to the Lords of either Party as knowing too well those People did not at all desire an end of the Troubles Villeroy and Duplessis were made choice of for this Negociation They came to this Agreement That the King should take six Months time to be instructed by such ways and means as should be no prejudice either to his Dignity or his Conscience That the Nobility of his Party should send a Deputation to the Pope to desire his Authority for it That in the mean time they should endeavour to make a Peace and that he should be owned by those Princes that were united They afterwards further agreed That the Huguenots should enjoy those Edicts had been granted to them before the year 1585. That the Exercise of the Catholick Religion should be restored every where That the Gentdarmerie and Infantry should be regulated That the Tailles and Imposts should ☜ be moderated and that the Priviledges of Officers and of Cities should be preserved But when it came to treat of the interests of the Duke of Mayenne the Propositions seemed so excessive to Duplessis-Mornay that he dissuaded the King from giving ear to them Villeroy forbore not to enter again into Conference with the Mareschal d'Aumont and the Mareschal de Bouillon and to attend the King who was very well satisfied with his franc and loyal proceeding The fruit of these Conferences which lasted two Months proved more then a little for the benefit of the Catholick Religion for the King promised that he would forthwith send the Cardinal de Gondy and Pisany to Rome which did not overmuch please the Huguenots This Treaty being grown publick because too many People would concern themselves in it strangely alarmed the Spaniards and all the other Chiefs of the League The King and the Duke of Mayenne had both like to be abandoned the latter by all his Partisans the other by his Huguenots There were some amongst these who thinking to bind the King yet faster lest he should forsake them fortified themselves with the Queen of England and the Hollander and would needs have given them Year of our Lord 1592 May footing in France A proof hereof was evident by the Enterprise of du Fay his Chancellor in Navarre who having gotten a Commission for the fortifying of Quilleboeuf had scarce raised his Works Breast-high when he would needs Cantonize himself there and denied entrance to Bellegarde to whom the King had given the Government thereof Two or three Envoys from the King did in vain employ both their Persuasions and Menaces to make him lay aside so desperate a design his ambition had taken too high a stand to be brought down so easily he expected a supply of Eight hundred English but two days before the arrival of them he fell sick either of melancholy or otherwise and perished in the midst of his attempt He was so mightily possessed with the humour that death it self could not wean him from it for he gave order they should bury him in one of the Bastions there as if intending still to keep possession So soon as he expir'd Bellegard entred into it Villars thought he might carry the place upon this change and before it were defensible The Duke of Mayenne and he besieged it with four thousand Men but it was either so well defended or so ill attaqu'd that at the end of fifteen days they were constrained to decamp for fear of being beaten by the Count de Saint Pol and Fervaques who were coming to relieve it with Twelve hundred Horse and fifteen hundred Foot Villars going to this Siege had surprized the little Town du Pont-Audemer Whilst he was busie in fortifying it Bose-Rose one of his bravest Captains offended at his arrogance and some scurvy language he had given him seized on the Fort of Fescamp and Cantonized there This Fort was upon a Rock near thirty fathom high towards the Sea which washes the foot of it twice a day but never rises to the top but twice in the year and it was at one of those Spring-Tides that Bose-Rose surprized it by Escalado Villars flew thither immediately to recover it and not able to draw him thence he block'd it up by two Forts wherewith at last he reduced him to extremity but Bose-Rose thought it much safer to cast himself into the Arms of the King then to compound with one he had so much offended After the raising of the Siege of Rouen the greater part of the Kings Army was gone into Champagne he besieged Espernay and out of the apprehension of a relief to come would needs cover himself with a
Archbishoprick Year of our Lord 1594 of Sens called first an Assembly of the Curates of Paris who unanimously month April acknowledge they were convinced by his Reasons Then another Body of the University in the Royal Colledge of Navarre the Two and twentieth of April where the Rector all his Deputies and a great number of Scholers and Religious Votaries of all Orders Sware to be faithful to the King even to the shedding of their Blood renounced all Leagues and retrenched the Refractory from their Bodies as spurious and rotten Members The same week returned the Members of Parliament and other Companies who were at Tours The Governor of Paris this was Francis d'O whom the King had restored to that Command a great number of the Nobility and the most noted Citizens went to meet them as far as Bourg-la-Reyne Thus all were re-united without trouble to any Man unless it were about some fifty Persons to whom the King sent Tickets to quit the Town These were most notorious People nevertheless many others took so hot an alarm upon it that it was like to have produced very ill effects Paris thus reduc'd the other Cities came in with so much haste as if striving to precede each other The Six and twentieth of April Villars brought in Rouen Havre Montivilliers and Pont-Audemer but of all the Chiefs of the League he set the highest price upon what he did and would abate nothing of Twelve hundred thousand Livers in Money sixty thousand Livers Pension the Government of all those Cities without owning for three years time the Duke of Montpensier who had that of the Province and the Office of Admiral Biron having this it could not be taken from him without wounding his very Heart and that the more deeply for that Villars was his Concurrent both in Valour and Reputation month April and May At the same time or soon after May-David returned to his Duty with the City of Verneuil As also the Magistrates and Bourgeois brought in Monstreuil and Abbeville in Picardy Troyes in Champagne after they had forced out the Prince of Joinville the Governonor Sens in Burgundy and Rion in Auvergne Montluc Governor for the League in Agenois brought in Agen Villeneuve and Marmanda During this Torrent of Prosperities the King had information that Count Mansfeld after a Conference which the Duke of Mayenne held with him had besieged la Capelle and going to relieve it found it at the last gasp He had his revenge upon the City of Laon. The Duke had left his second Son in it with the President Jeannin as his chief Council and Adviser The King besieged it about the end of May the Enterprize was hazardous for him he wanted Ammunitions and the discontent of the Mareschal de Biron who was the Soul of his Enterprizes were a Year of our Lord 1594 dangerous Remora Mansfeld approached to relieve it his Army was posted upon month May and June a rising ground not far from the Kings for seven or eight days Then wanting Provisions and having seen two Convoys of his bravest Men went to fetch some from la Fere defeated he retired into Artois where Sickness compleated the ruine of his Forces The Place defended it self yet a long time and very obstinately not capitulating till the Two and twentieth of July to surrender upon the First of August if they were not relieved by that day In the Attacks Givry was slain the most accomplish'd Cavalier of the whole Court both for his Heroick Valour his skill in all Polite Learning his ready wit and ingenious gallantry An Amorous despair occasioned month July and Aug. by the infidelity of a Princess made him so often court and seek a kinder fate in death that in the end he met his wishes During this Siege the Baron de Pesche Treated with the King for the Town of Chasteau-Thierry and the Inhabitants of Poitiers for theirs the Government of it and of the Provinces were left to the Duke d'Elboeuf After the Capitulation of Laon the Magistrates of Amiens Beaâ—vais and Peronne alarmed for that the Spanish Cabal would have engaged them to take a new Oath returned to their Duty those of Amiens having forced the Dukes of Mayenne and Aumale to quit their City Dourlens which in the Reign of Henry III. had been given as a place of security to the Duke of Aumale would needs be comprehended in the Edict of the Reduction of Amiens month September In the Month of September the King laid Siege to Noyon Descluseaux who commanded within gave it up the Eighteenth of October Thus he recover'd all Picardy excepting three places Soissons Ham and la Fere which were in the power the first of the Duke of Mayenne the second the Duke of Aumale and the third of the Spaniards For Colas Vice-seneschal of Montelimar who was Master of this last had given himself up entirely to them and in Recompence they gave him the Demaine with the Title of a County month June and July There were yet certain Contrivances hatching in Paris to re-imbroil the Kingdom The greatest part of the Royalist Lords were angry that the Leaguers carried away most of the Money and the best Rewards they repented likewise the having dispatched and advanced the Kings Affairs so soon that he was now almost in a Condition not to want their further help The Parisians were more alarmed at the fifty Persons he had banished the City then they could be assured by all his Declarations The Cardinal de Bourbon could not put the ambitious-pleasing imagination of a Crown out of his thoughts The Count de Soissons his Brother was wounded to the very Soul because the King refused to let him have his Sister after he had most solemnly promised it and Biron afflicted and discontented they had deprived him of Year of our Lord 1594 month June and July the Admiralty was come to divert his melancholy thoughts at Paris where he met with so kind a Reception that the King conceived some jealousie and ran thither from the Siege of Laon that by his presence he might dissipate those practises which possibly they would have carried on against his Interest As for the Cardinal of Bourbon death put an end to his aspiring hopes and the Kings fears soon after about the end of July He believed he was poyson'd by month October a Lady whom he had tenderly loved In the Month of October following Francis d'O Sur-Intendant des Finances ended his life in his Hostel at Paris his Soul and Body being equally corrupted by all sorts of Villany The King was easily consoled for his loss because he made prodigious devastations and yet held him as it were under Tutelage After this he for a time ordered his revenue to be managed by four or five in Commission but finding no satisfaction in a multitude still disagreeing and self-interessed he restored the Sur-Intendance and gave it to Sancy and Rosny While the Chiefs and the Cities of the League were pressing their
Mareschals Staff to him The Duke who would needs get this prey to make his own Composition the better quarrel'd with him one day in the Streets of Rheims and ran his Sword into his Belly By his death he became Master of Rheims and having withall the Cities of Rocry St. Dizier and Ginville he procured a very advantageous Treaty For they gave him four hundred thousand Crowns in Silver the Government of those Places besides that of Provence The last not so much to gratisie him as to dispossess Espernon and perhaps that they might ruine one another thereby Burgundy which hitherto had remained almost entirely for the Duke of Mayenne began to give him the slip Auxerre Mascon and Avalon broke his Bonds Dijon and Beaulne were upon the point to do the same when he flew thither with his Light-Horse Now perceiving he could contain them no longer by fair he used foul means and severity caused in Dijon the Heads of James Vernes who was the Mayor to be â—ut off and Captain Gau's razed the Suburbs of Beaulnâ— doubled the Garison Year of our Lord 1594 and fill'd up all the Gates excepting one Moreover to preserve the rest of the month November Province he persuaded the Spaniards to make a sudden War on that side Meer necessity kept him yet in Confederacy with those dangerous Friends He knew the Duke of Feria and Diego d'Ibarra imputed all this decadency of Affairs to his treachery which could indeed be justly imputed to nothing but his slowness and irresolution He knew they hated him so mortally that when he went to the Arch-Duke Ernestus after the Siege of Laon they had deliberated to take off his Head as a Traytor and seeing the Arch-Dukes Council would not concur in that point they had essay'd to rid their hands of him by Poyson or by Poniard And indeed some imagin'd it was he who first to revenge himself for their unhandsom Treatments possess'd the Kings Council by such Friends as he had amongst them with the design of declaring War against them and that he had privately made his Treaty with the King However it were the Party was strong enough in Council to persuade him to a Rupture The Huguenots desired it out of that perfect hatred they still bear to the Spaniards The Catholicks to divert the Huguenots from their Contrivances by giving them this satisfaction and such Employments as would have been improper to entrust them withall upon any other Service The honest Frenchmen to unite all hearts together revive their affections for their Country and consound all the remainders of Factions and Cavils about Religion in the more zealous prosecution of this common Quarrel The Politicks in fine to make a strong Revulsion without of that Venom which caused so much mischief within and to employ the Enemies of the Kingdom in quenching a Fire at their own homes in stead of suffering them to blow the Coals continually in France It was therefore resolved in the Kings Council to carry the War into their Country and because Hainault and Artois were known to lie the most exposed to that ruine which must follow upon a Rupture between the two Crowns it was judg'd fit to write to the principal Cities of those Provinces that if they could not prevail with the King of Spain to withdraw his Forces out of the Territories of France and if they did not forbear to make War upon his Subjects and the Cambresians whom he had taken into his protection he was resolved quickly to make them feel the weight of his Arms. It is held that three Persons did more especially inspire the King with this design Gabrielle d'Estree his Mistress Balagny and the Mareschal de Bouillon Gabrielle that Year of our Lord 1594 he might Conquer the Franche-Compte for her Son Caesar Balagny that he might month November plunder Hainault and Artois the Mareschal for two ends the one to maintain himself in the Seigneury of Sedan the other to give an opportunity to Prince Maurice of Nassaw his Brother in Law to fix his Grandeur by securing the liberty of the United-Provinces For we must know that Charlote de le Mark the Mareschals Wife hapning to die some Months before without Children he retained that Principality by vertue said he of a Testamentary Donation she had made to him and the acquisition of the right of the Duke of Montpensier and had very lately betroathed Elizabeth the Sister of Prince Maurice He vaunted of having Correspondents ready to spring their Mines in the Country of Luxembourg Balagny promised to make a great breach in Artois and Sancy was positively confident of prevailing with the Swiss to Conquer the Franche-Compte The Duke of Lorrain too offer'd towards this Expedition four thousand Men commanded by Tremblecour and Aussonville In effect they did enter the Comte at the very beginning of the following year but it was against his interest and contrary to his intention Neither did they do any thing but make some incursions very ruinous to the poor People except it were their taking the little Towns of Vezou Luxeu and Jonville month December The King made his approaches to the Frontiers of Artois imagining to have had some good success there the severity of the Winter brought him back to Paris and almost to a tragical death For the same day he arrived which was the Seven and twentieth of December at six in the Evening while he was in his Mistresses Chamber at the Hostel du Bouchage and stepped forward to embrace Montigny he received a stroke with a Knife on the lower Lip which broke one of his Teeth Immediately they seized upon a young Fellow who was thrusting into the Crowd and by his scared Countenance they knew it must be he had made the attempt His name was John Chastel Son of a Woolen-Draper dwelling before the great Gate of the Palais aged about Nineteen years a melancholy Spirit who said in his Interrogatories That he was prompted to commit this Crime because finding himself laden with hainous and unpardonable Sins and imagining he could not avoid the Torments of Hell he had thought at least to diminish them by this attempt which he believed to be a Meritorious Act for that said he the King not being reconciled to the Church could be nought but a Tyrant He confessed likewise that he had made his Exercises in the Colledge of Clermont under the Jesuits and that Year of our Lord 1594 they had often led him into a Chamber of Meditations where Hell was represented month December with several most frightful Figures This disposition added to the injurious Libels against Henry III. and against the King now Reigning found in the Chamber of John Guignard one of the Fathers of the Society and whereof he was the Author and likewise the remembrance of the zeal which some amongst them had manifested for the interests of Spain and some Maxims their Preachers had published against Kings and against the ancient Laws of the
Kingdom and the opinions was held of them that by means of their Colledges and Auricular Confessions they perverted the minds of the Youthful and of the tender Conscienced which way best pleased them gave occasion to the Parliament to involve the whole Society in the same punishment due for the Crimes of particulars Thus by one and the same Decree which was pronounced the Nine and twentieth of the Month and executed by Torch-light they condemned John Chastel to suffer the pains accustomed for the like Parricides and Ordained that the Priests and Scholers of the Colledge of Clermont and others calling themselves of the Society of Jesus as being Corrupters of Youth Disturbers of the Common Peace and Enemies to the King and State should within three days leave their House and Colledge and in fifteen the whole Kingdom and that all what belonged to them should be employ'd to pious uses accordingly as the Parliament should dispose of it Some other Parliaments following the same Sentiments with this of Paris banish'd them by a like Decree but that of Bourdeaux and that of Thoulouze refused to conform to it so that they sheltred themselves in Guyenne and Languedoc till they were recalled By another Decree John Guignard having owned his Defamatory Writings was condemned to be Hanged not for the having made them but for having kept them By another also John Gueret under whom Chastel had gone thorough his Courses of Philosophy and the Father of this wretched Parricide were banished the Kingdom the first to perpetuity and the second for nine years and it was Ordained his House should be demolished and in its place a Pyramid of Carved Stone to be erected which should contain the cause of it Upon one of the four Faces was the Decree engraven and on the other three divers Latin Inscriptions in Verse and Prose in detestation of the Memory of that horrid Attempt and that Doctrine which was held to have been the occasion of it Year of our Lord 1594 month December Now the term the King had prefixed to the Hennuyers and Artesians being expir'd without their giving him any answer he caused a Declaration of War to be published against King Philip and his Subjects it hapned some weeks after that the Arch-Duke Ernest Governor of the Low-Countries died the One and twentieth of February King Philip committing the Administration to Peter Henriques Guisman Count de Fuentes till he had otherwise disposed of it The Duke of Nemours having made his escape from the Castle of Pierre-Encise disguised in the habit of a Valet and carrying the Pan of his Closs-stool got immediately on Horseback and with his Friends and three thousand Swiss lent him by the Duke of Savoy took several Forts round about Lyons whereby he thought to famish that great City but the Constable de Montmorency who brought a thousand Maistres and four thousand of the Kings Foot having received Order to remain in that Country Year of our Lord 1595 shut up the Duke himself in Vienne so close that his Swiss weary of the great month January want they endured retired into Savoy to the Marquiss de Trefort General of that Dukes month December in 1594. and January c. Army who far from being able to relieve him was forc'd to let the Constable Soldiers winter in Bress where they had taken Montluel Year of our Lord 1595 Whilst the Duke of Nemours was gone to the Constable of Castille with design of engaging him to come into Lyonnois Disimieu his most intimate Confident to whom month April he had committed the Guard of Pipet chief Castle of Vienne treated his Accommodation the Twelfth of April drew his Men into the Town and invited the Constable thither who took the Oaths of the Inhabitants Nemours who thought this bosom Friend had been proof against all Temptations was like to have lost his wits when he heard of this infidelity Such as were inclined to believe the worst and who judge of others actions by their own interpretation which is too often true said the motives that guided Lisimieu had more of self-interest then duty and chose rather to call him Traitor to his Friend then faithful to his King And even when Nemours fell sick whether for grief or some other cause they reported he had given him a Fig to prevent his Resentment month January Really this Prince was invaded by a strange malady and almost like that of Charles IX Blood flowed in great quantities from his Mouth His more then ordinary courage did for some time resist the violence of this Distemper but when he was so much attenuated that he could no longer stand upon his Feet he desired to be carried to his Castle of Anecy in Savoy and there having languished for some Months in such a dismal condition as drew tears from the Eyes of every one that beheld him he resigned up his Soul about mid July aged twenty eight years The Marquiss de Sainct Sorlin his Brother succeeded him in the Dutchy of Nemours and other Territories and soon after came to an agreement with the King month February The Duke of Mayenne had not so much love for him as to be grieved but the pejoration of his Affairs brought grief enough upon him from elsewhere In the Month of February the Inhabitants of Beaulne to whom the King the preceding year had granted a four Months Truce fell upon that Garison the Duke had re-inforced and called the Mareschal de Biron to their aid who then besieged the Castle Year of our Lord 1595 month February de Monstier-Sainct Jean hard by This Mareschal having forced three hundred Soldiers who yet defended themselves in the City to capitulate laid Siege to the Castle which surrendred within a Month having in vain expected the Duke of Mayenne month April would have joyned his Forces with the Duke of Nemours to deliver them The Cities of Autun and Aussonne finding his declining condition did also quit his Party the first by the advice and management of their Maire the second by a Treaty Senecay made with the King who left him the Government of it By the example of Beaulne the Inhabitants of Dijon took Arms in the beginning of May and finding themselves too weak to drive out the Garison had recourse to Biron who gained all the Quarters of the Town and at the same time besieged the month May. Castle and that of Talon which was within a quarter of a League whither the Count de Tavanes had retired The Constable of Castille named Ferdinand de Velasco was descended into the Franche-Comte in the Month of April with an Army of Fifteen thousand Foot and three thousand Horse This Mareschal apprehended lest he should fall upon his back with all his Forces the Constable de Montmorency had the same fear upon him and both these press'd the King extreamly to advance that way His Mistress by her Caresses made him resolve it She desired he might conquer the Franche-Comte for her
his forward heat and brought him back to the Siege The Arch-Duke being returned into Artois employ'd his Forces for the taking Monthuliâ— which incommoded Ardres then dismissed them and retired to Arras He there fell sick of Grief as it was said for having no better succeeded in his Enterprize of Amiens and for the loss during his absence of seven or eight places taken by Prince Maurice along the River Rhine and in the Country of Over-Issel The same day he went off the Besieged being Summoned which was upon the Nineteenth of September did not think convenient to stand so obstinately on a defence which might have held long indeed but had been to no purpose and only dangerous to themselves They Capitulated therefore upon the best Conditions usually granted on the like occasions and promised to surrender in six days unless they were relieved within that time They were allowed to send notice of it to the Arch-Duke and gave Hostages for performance of the Agreement The said Term expired they rendred the Town in the Morning of the Five and twentieth of the Month The Constable received it in the Name of the King they going forth about Ten of the Clock the same day carrying off together with their Bagage three hundred wounded Men and a thousand Women whereof four hundred belonged to that City The King being on Horseback at the Head of his Army with great kindness permitted Montenegre and the other Captains to salute him by embracing his Knees At Evening he made his entrance into the City and gave the Government to Dominick de Vic who finding but Eight hundred Inhabitants there in all re-peopled it Year of our Lord 1597 with four thousand within two years after and obtain'd the re-establishment of all month September their Priviledges but could not prevent the raising a Citadel over their Heads which makes their Posterity sigh to this very day for the neglect of their great Grandfathers The King himself carried the news of the surrender of Amiens to the Arch-Duke month October and November who was in Arras went to visit him there with his whole Army and to salute him with some Volees of Cannon Then finding no body mov'd he returned to Dourlens and invested it But the Rains the Myre the scarcity of Provisions the too great Fatigues and the Maladies proceeding from all those inconveniencies constrained them to decamp before the end of the Month of October with great damage and some shame Towards the end of this year the Dutchy of Ferrara for want of Heirs Males reverted to the Holy See by the Death of Duke Alphonso II. the last Legitimate Prince of the House of Est and Son of Hercules II. and of Madam Renee of France Ferrara was of the number of those Territories which the Countess month October c. Matilda Daughter and Heiress to the eldest of the House of Est gave to the Holy See for the sake of Pope Gregory VII about the year 1077. Since that time the Male-off-spring of the other Brothers bearing the Title of Marquiss d'Est had ever enjoy'd it not as Proprietors but only Vicars of the Holy See till the year 1471. that Pope Paul erected it to a Dutchy and invested Borso therewith to whom the Emperor had also given Modena and Regio with the like Titles Now the Duke Alphonso II. seeing himself without Male Children had made divers Applications to the Pope and the Emperor to obtain the transport of his Dutchies to Cesar d'Est who was his Kinsman The Court of Rome did not think him fit to succeed because his Father who was an Alphonso was reputed but the Natural Son of Duke Alphonso I. of that name Thus on that side he could get no ground but he gave such vast Sums to the Emperor Rodolphus that he granted him the transport of the Dutchy Modena and Regio of the Principality of Carpy and some other Territories holding of the Empire He made account that with all these together with the great Wealth and the good Friends he should leave him he might be able to maintain himself by force in the Dutchy of Ferrara In effect when he died which hapned the Twenty seventh of October Cesar believing he should be supported by the Venetians and even the Spaniards too got into possession and at first stood firm against the Excommunications of Pope Clement and against his Army which was commanded by the Cardinal Aldobrandino Legat and Nephew of his Holiness but when he understood that the King of Year of our Lord 1597 France which he never did imagine took the affirmative for the Pope and found the dread of this great Power had cooled his Allies and affrighted the Ferrareses he threw down his Sword and made his Accommodation about the end of December By the Treaty he restored the Dutchy of Ferrara to the Pope Who left him all the free Lands or Estate which the House of Est had possessed there and granted that he and the Dukes his Descendants should have in Rome the same Rank and the same Prerogatives as the Dukes of Ferrara had there enjoy'd month November and December The City of Paris honour'd the Kings Victory with a Triumphant Entrance they made for him He pass'd the whole Winter in his Louvre hearkning to Propositions of Peace but making however preparations for War employing his Intelligences to disunite the Huguenots and above all to regulate and meliorate his Finances As to the Peace while he was yet before Dourlens Villeroy on his behalf and John Richardot on the Arch-Dukes conferr'd together upon the Frontiers of Picardy and Artois and had agreed together that both Kings should send their Deputies to Vervins where the Popes Legat was to be present in quality of Mediator Year of our Lord 1598 Both were equally inclined to it upon different Considerations Henry IV. after so many satigues and pains earnestly desired to enjoy his repose and apprehended lest month January by the continuation of a War Fortune should shew him such another slippery trick as the surpisal of Amiens that some new Faction should start up within his Kingdom amongst the Grandees or the Huguenots or even in his own House because he had no Children As for King Philip he found himself even dying and saw his Son both weak and unexperienc'd so that they were both resolved to proceed with more sincerity then is wont to be practised on such occasions The King for this purpose named Pompone de Bellievre and Bruslard de Sillery both Counsellors of State and the latter also a President in Parliament The Arch-Duke having powers from the King of Spain who had contrived it thus that so if his Deputies must give place the shame would be the less to him made choice of John Richardot President of the Catholick Kings Council in the Low-Countries John Baptist Tassis Knight of the Order of St. James and Louis Verreiken Audiencier Prime Secretary and Treasurer of the Council of State Year of our Lord 1598
the Sacred Purple in the Church of Nostre-Dame de Haux within two Leagues of Bruxels and left the Government of the Low-Countries to the Cardinal Andrea of Austria in the name of the Infanta Isabella who had there been owned for Princess He passed by Tirol whence he carried Margaret Daughter of the Archduke Charles who was dead and the Widow his Mother to Ferrara They were received very solemnly and Pope Clement who had been in that City from the Eighteenth of May celebrated the Marriage of King Philip III. with Margaret and of the Archduke with the Infanta Isabella Albert being Proxy for the King of Spain and the Duke of Sesse for Isabella The new Queen and the Archduke did afterwards stay two Months in Milan then in the Month of February of the following year they embarqued at Genoa for Spain where this double Marriage was Celebrated between the said Parties in the City of Valentia in the Month of April month October A little before Mid October the King being at Monceaux an Estate which he had given to his Mistress as he was beginning to enter upon a Diet he fell ill of a retention of Urine attended with a higher Fever and frequent fits of fainting which gave some apprehension that he was near his end but the cause being remov'd he was immediately relieved and left his Bed within two days His Mistress having thus seen her self so near the Precipice did sollicite him eternally to Marry her and press'd him with the more confidence as her tender care month November and watchfulness express'd in this occasion seemed to oblige him to make good his Promise and really she was not unworthy of that Honour setting aside some inconveniencies might have ensued Soon after the Cardinal de Medicis being come to take leave for his return to Rome the King discover'd to him the design he had to satisfie her and intreated he would do him the good office to persuade the month December Pope to dissolve his Marriage with Queen Margaret The Legat answer'd very coldly that his Holiness had sent him into France for no other business but what concerned the Peace which having successfully mediated he was now going to give an account to the Pope The King repented he had discover'd his Heart so openly to Year of our Lord 1598 one whom he perceived was no favourer of his design and therefore the year after month December when he sent Sillery to Rome he enjoyned him expressly to assure that Cardinal all those fancies were dispell'd Year of our Lord 1599 In the beginning of the year 1599. three or four illustrious Marriages filled the month January c. Court with Divertisements First that of Madam Catharine the Kings Sister with the Duke of Bar which was Celebrated on the last day of January some while after that of Charles Duke of Nevers with Catharine Daughter of the Duke of Mayenne and that of Henry Son of that Duke with Henrietta Sister of Charles and then that of Henry Duke of Montpensier and Henrietta Catharine only Daughter of Henry Duke of Joyeuse and Heiress of that rich House The King the same year erected Aiguillon to a Dutchy and Pairrie in favour of the Duke of Mayennes Son The Duke of Bar had great repugnance for his Marriage to a Huguenot Princess who besides was of Kindred in the third and fourth degree and therefore stood in need of a double dispensation the one for diversity of Religion the other for Parentage but the Duke his Father thinking to find great advantage in this Match passed over all those Scruples of Conscience The difficulty was to find a Prelat that would adventure to Celebrate this discordant Marriage many whom they sollicited did flatly refuse it the Archbishop of Rouen Bastard Brother to the King after a little intreaty lent a helping hand and tied the Nuptial Knot in the Kings Closet and in his presence thinking it unbecomming to deny so small a piece of Service to him who had so lately promoted him to so fair an Archbishoprick After the Solemnities of those Weddings were past two unexpected changes gave the Court just cause of admiration the one was of that same Henry Duke of Joyeuse who had newly Married his Daughter the other of Antoinetta Sister to the defunct Duke of Longueville and Widow of the Marquiss de Belle-Isle The first as we have formerly related came out of the Capucins Covent Anno 1592. Now being moved with his Mothers Tears a Lady very devout and very scrupulous pressed by the summons of his own Conscience peequ'd at some words utter'd by the King and sollicited by the Popes secret Admonitions for he had given him dispensation to tarry abroad in the World but while the Catholick Religion should need his assistance he resolved to make good his Vow and having sent his Mareschals Staff and blew Ribbon to the King retired to the Capucins Covent in Paris They were much amazed three or four days afterwards to see him in a Pulpit where that Penitential Habit and his Sermons much fuller of Zeal then Learning gave him more lustre in the opinions of the People then either his Birth or Dignity had gaven him at Court For the Marchioness of Belle-Isle one of the handsomest and wittiest Ladies of her time having left Bretagne without communicating the design to any of her Relations Year of our Lord 1599 she went and cast her self into a Covent of Fucillantines newly instituted at Toulouze month May. It was said that a secret displeasure for that a Soldier whom she had employ'd to revenge the death of her Husband upon Kermartin was Hanged she not being able to obtain his Pardon gave her so much distaste that she would never converse more with the World by whom she had been so slighted In the beginning of the year Sillery being sent to Rome about the business of the Marquisate of Salusses had Orders likewise to follicite the dissolution of the Kings Marriage The hopes of having the Seals upon his return was a powerful motive to make him act with all his might for the Dutchess of Beaufort had promised she would get them for him without any regard to the Interest of the Chancellor de de Chiverny a good Friend to her Sister de Sourdis believing she had done sufficiently for her by obtaining a Cardinals Hat for her eldest Son The first point of Sillery's Commission had not proved difficult but only for that Queen Margaret knowing very well the King after he had repudiated her would Marry the Dutchess gave notice to the Pope how for that very reason she would never consent And the Pope for the same cause had repugnance enough to it For he did not see very well how he could Legitimate Children that were born in Adultery and foresaw great troubles for the Succession of the Kingdom for as much as the Princes of the Blood would never have agreed to it and besides the Children that should have come afterwards being
it really such that the Besieged could not maintain it Three days longer unless they would feed upon one another month January and February So that he and the Count Signed and sent their Ratification to Lyons where the Constable Sillery and Janin staid to receive it The King was gone thence Post to Paris about Fifteen days before the Queen follow'd by easie Journeys and arrived at the beginning of Sainct Germains Fair. Towards Spring both of them went to Orleans to gain the Jubilé the Pope had month May. sent thither This is the Substance of the principal Articles of the Treaty The Duke quitted the Country of Bresse to the King comprehending Bourg with its Cannon and Ammunitions Bugey Valromey and the Bailywick of Geix with the River of Rosne from Geneva even to Lyons excepting only Pont de Gressin which he retained for the conveniency of Passage Moreover he gave up the City Chastellenie and Tower of the Bridge of Chasteau-Dausin and demolished Beche-Daufin The King in exchange left him the Marquisat of Salusses with the Cities of Cental Demont and Roque-Sparviere and rendred up all the Places he had taken during this War Both the one and the other were bound to make good the Guifts Rewards and Assignments made by either of them or their Predecessors upon those Lands they yeilded up month March Bouvens went out of the Citadel of Bourg the Ninth of March. Had there been Provisions they could never have forc'd him thence But the City being surprized on an instant he could not transport any Stores into that place ☜ which Demonstrates that it is more secure to lay up Stores in Citadels than in the Cities The King gave this important Government to Peter d'Escodeca Boesse a Huguenot and therefore the fitter to be trusted there In the Count de Fuentes Army were Five and twenty thousand Men he could willingly have employ'd them against France but the Council of Spain had designed them elsewhere One half were sent to Flanders the other about Mid-spring were put aboard several Galleys for some grand Enterprize against the Infidels It was believed they month May June and July meant to surprize Algiers by the Assistance of Ten thousand Christian Slaves who were to be Armed upon their Landing The Barbarians suspected it and shut them close in their Cellars doubly-chained Now whether that were the Design or not this Fleet having roved about those Seas some time returned into Port much shatter'd without so much as off'ring to make any the least attempt A powerful Diversion of the Turkish Forces would much have amended the Affairs of the Emperor Rodolph Sultan Amurath III. had broke the Peace with him in the year 1591. after he had made one with the Persian 'T is true that during the rest of his Reign he ever had the disadvantage nor was his Son and Successor Mahomet III. more fortunate the first year of his The Imperialists having taken Strigoniam and Sinan his Grand Visier being most shamefully chaced by Sigismond Battory Prince of Transilvania But the following which was 1596. the said Sultan going in Person gained the Fortress of Agria in the Upper Hungary which the Turks call the INEXPVGNABLE and won a great Battel over Mathias the Emperor's Brother who came too late to the relief of that Place month May June and July The Invasions of the Persians who renew'd the War with him and the Mutinies of the Janisaries made him lay aside his Enterprizes for some years but having brought his Forces again that way the Emperor not relying any more upon the Conduct of his Generals who served him very ill had cast his eyes upon the Duke of Mercoeur as well because of his Courage and Quality as because it was likely he would bring great Numbers of brave French-men with him who otherwise weary of being idle would Year of our Lord 1601 have run themselves into the Service of the United Provinces This Duke did joyfully accept so honorable an Employment not however without the King's Permission and took with him the Count de Chaligny his Brother a great many Volontiers and some compleat Companies of Soldiers There is no Historian of those times but hath taken delight to mention the Exploits of this generous Prince They relate the great though fruitless efforts he made with only Fifteen hundred men to raise the Siege which Ibrahim Bassa had laid to Canisa with Threescore thousand Combatants and to draw him to give Battel Afterwards when he had no more Provisions his gallant Retreat the bravest that Europe had beheld month July in all these Wars Then the following year 1602. the taking of Alba-Royal and defeat of the Turks who marched to relieve that Place After so many noble Actions as he was returning into France for his Domestick Affairs a Purple Feaver seized on Year of our Lord 1602 him in the City of Nuremberg and sent him to Triumph in Heaven the Nineteenth of February Now Seha Abbas King of Persia having renew'd a War against the Turks was persuaded by Anthony Shirley an Englishman one of the greatest Cheats in the whole World to seek the Alliance of the Christian Princes against their common Enemy His Ambassador Conducted by this Anthony saw the Emperor the Pope and the King of Spain they all gave him noble Reception and magnificent Promises but such as had no effect The whole Profit of this famous Embassy fell to Anthony who stole and converted to his own use the greater part of the Presents the Persian sent and designed for the Christian Princes Mahomet advertis'd of the great Noise it made in Europe and that the Duke of Mercoeur with a small number of French put his Armies to more trouble than the whole Forces of Germany had done before dispatched an Envoy to the King desiring him to recall that Prince and renew the ancient Alliances between the House of France and that of the Ottomans This Envoy was only a simple Physitian without any Train or Attendance not that those Barbarians are so insolent as to hold the Kings of France Inferiour to their Grandeur but because our Kings themselves would never ✚ admit of any splendid Embassies from thence lest it should provoke the hatred and reproach of the rest of Christendom However the effect of this Negociation was as inconsiderable as the Minister of it Year of our Lord 1601 The Treaty of Vervins did not hinder the two Kings from seeking to take their advantages of each other The Spaniards reproached the King that he assisted the Vnited Provinces with Money and that he permitted his Subjects to go into their Service with whole Troops of Horse and compleat Regiments of Foot As to the first he replied That if he did send them Money it was because he owed them a great deal But for the second he could not avoid making an Order to Prohibit the French from bearing Arms for those Provinces though in effect he were very glad they disobey'd him in that
Lord then into a Strangers and an Hereticks The Day come they held a Council in the Town-Hall how to dispose of their Prisoners the wisest were of opinion to keep them as Hostages in case the Duke should have a mind to Besiege their City but the common Rabble and the Widows month Decemb. of those Citizens that had been Slain in the Attaque made such Out-cries that they resolved to treat them as Robbers They therefore Strangled those that were alive then cut off the Heads of them and Threescore more that were dead planted them upon the Walls and cast their Bodies into the Rhosne They make mention of a Damoisselle Wife of Sonnas one of the said Thirteen Officers that had Seven Children by him and was great with the Eighth who having resolved neither to eat nor drink till she had once more kissed her dear Husband and the Magistrates having refused to let her have his Head she sat her self just opposite to the place where they had planted it and kept her Eyes ever fixt upon that dismal Object of her Love and her Dispair till Death deprived her both of her Sight and Life It hapned after some good distance of time that Blondel Syndic of the Guards was accused by certain Persons of having had intelligence with Albigny but they being of the Scum of the People his Authority was enough alone to invalidate their Testimony so that the Business had rested there if himself to his Misfortune had not push'd it on too far by contending to have them punished as Calumniators The necessity of a Self defence drove them to search out for Proofs They alledged that he had sent Letters to d'Albigny by a Savoyard Peasant The difficulty was to meet with this Fellow three years were spent before they could get a sight of him so soon as he appeared Blondel made him Prisoner and had put him down into a Dungeon He thought by his very rough handling to force him to be willing to â—leer him But finding he persisted in the Truth he suborn'd the Goaler who strangled him in the Dungeon and left the Rope about his Neck as if the poor wretch had exercised that Cruelty upon himself The truth of the Fact being discover'd by Inspection of the Place and Circumstances Blondel and the Goaler were broke upon the Wheel The first before he died owning his Correspondence with the Savoyards Year of our Lord 1603 The News of this Enterprize being carried into Swisserland and France the month January February c. Canton of Bearn immediately concern'd themselves for the defence of Geneva the King assured them of his Protection and a Thousand or Twelve hundred Huguenots put themselves into the Place to defend it in case it were attaqued This People turbulent and proud of the Support of the Protestants and that of France gave themselves up to their resentments and began a War against the Duke of Savoy but with much more Fury than either Force or Success Now the King Year of our Lord 1603 whatever kindness he bare to Geneva had an interest to make up an Accommodation For if it went farther he knew himself obliged to assist the Huguenots and joyn all the Protestant Party together which would mightily have shock'd the Pope whom he more dreaded than all the Powers upon Earth For this reason he gave Order to Emery de Vic his Ambassador with the Swiss to come to Geneva and dispose them to Peace and at the same time declared to the Duke of Savoy who armed to Besiege that City that if he proceeded any further he must concern himself The consideration and weight of so great a Power put a full stop to their Motions on either hand and brought them to a Peace The Cantons of Glaris Soleure Scaffhaussâ—n Basil and Appenzel the least interessed of the Thirteen undertook to manage it It was first begun at Remilly and finished at Saint Julian's near Geneva the One and twentieth of July and ratified by the Duke the Five and twentieth The Treaty contained That they should mutually restore the Places which had been taken That the Immunities and Exemptions which those of Geneva enjoy'd for what they Possessed in the Territories of the Duke should be Confirmed That the Duke should not draw any Forces together raise any Fortifications nor keep any Garrisons within four Leagues of their City and that it was declared to be comprized in the Treaty of Vervins The Court passed the Winter after their wonted manner Dancing Gaming Feasts Balls and Comedies especially those of the Italians were their daily Divertisements In the beginning of March the King took a journey to Mets month January and February carrying the Queen along with him who on the two and twentieth of the preceding November was delivered of her first Daughter The chief Motive of this Voyage was to discover what practices the Duke of Bouillon might possibly have contrived with the Protestants of Germany and secure the City of Mets which being at that time in great combustion might have sided with some other month March Party The Duke of Espernon having been settled in that important Government by King Henry III. had left the Lieutenancy both of that City and Country in the hands of a Gentleman named Mont-Cassin his Kinsman and that of the Citadel to Sobole of the House of Cominges who had been bred as his Page Soon after having recalled Mont-Cassin near his person he bestowed both those employments on the second he invited a younger Brother to come into that Country a man violent and covetous and who soon gained the full sway over him Now the Elder Sobole having brought some assistance to the King at the Siege of Laon got of him as the reward for his Services the promise of these Lieutenancies his Master being then in Provence and in disfavour at Court with this new power playing Rex he begins to treat the Inhabitants scurvily and enraged that the Duke seemed to justifie their complaints and foment their discontents he by the advice of his younger Brother Accused the principal Citizens and Officers of Justice of having intelligence with Mansfeld Governor of Luxembourg upon this Information several were imprison'd and had been put to the Rack But in fine the business being brought before the Parliament their innocency and the calumny of Soboles were cleerly made known Then the Duke makes no difficulty of espousing the quarrel of the oppressed so that they barricade themselves to besiege Soboles in the Citadel This Mutiny proved the loss of the two ingrateful Brothers but the Duke got nothing but the pleasure of a revenge For the King making hast to treat with them pressed it so home that before his Arrival they Surrendred the place into his hands without making the least advantage to themselves He settled Francis de Montigny la Grange Lieutenant for the King over that Country and that City and Arquien his Elder Brother in the Citadel under the Government
he suspected abstained from being his Judges and that they would send Commissioners to Cambray to take Information and hear those proofs he would offer The Holy Father perceived then the Fault he had committed by his Precipitating a thing of that Importance and could well have desired to find out some remedy But the time was past his fatal hand had given the blow which made so desperate a Wound as wholly cut off England from the Communion of the Church of Rome For Henry transported with fury that he had posted him up at Rome withdrew himself absolutely from all obedience to the Pope declared himself Head of the Anglicane Church and persecuted severely all those that opposed this change It is observed that if the Pope had deferr'd the Judgement but ten Months death would have disengag'd him from all these Intricacies and cut this knot by taking Catherine out of this World as it did in January following Year of our Lord 1533. and 34. The Kings constancy for the Catholick Faith was then like to be sorely shaken by two strong Temptations the one was the King of Englands Summons Solliciting him to break with the Pope to preserve the strict Colligation that was between them the other the Induction of his dear Sister Margaret who would needs have perswaded him to call in Philip Melancthon and give him Audience concerning the means he had to propound for accommodating the differences in Religion But as to the first he replyed in Substance to the King of England A Friend even to the Alter And for the second the Cardinal de Tournon put by that dangerous blow and fortified the Kings mind so well that he would never after give the least Ear to any of those Reformers but in time did also wean his Sister from that Fondness she had and hankering after Novelties Each day Accumulated more and more cause of Quarrel and War between the King and the Emperor This last had great Jealousie of the Enter-view at Marseille and the Marriage there Solemnized He likewise thought himself highly affronted for that the King was entred into the League of the German Princes Confederated at Smalcalde and he was no less so for his assisting of the Dukes of Wirtemberg in the Diet of Ausburgh where their cause against his Brother Ferdinand was Judged who detained their Lands as also for that William Langey by his Contrivances and his Perswasive and Powerful Eloquence broke the League of Scwaben which had lasted for seventy years to the great advantage of the House of Austria King Francis on his part complained of a very Bloody and cruel injury He had in the number of his Esquires a Gentleman of Milan named Francis de Merveille who had gained much wealth in his Service And knowing that he would be willing to make some shew of it in his native Country he sent him to Milan in quality of Secret Ambassador Merveille was so vain as not to conceal his Employment the Emperor knew of it and made complaint to Sforza with Threats who promised to give him Satisfaction Now it happened either by chance or otherwise that some People of that Country made a Quarrel with Merveille and some body was killed in the Fray The Duke fails not to lay hold of this opportunity to content the Emperor and under colour of Justice but without any form causes his head to be cut off by night and in the Prison This hap'ned a little before the Kings journey to Marseille In pursuance of the Kings League with the Confederates of Smalcalde Philip Landtgrave of Hesse Espoused the Quarrel of the Dukes of Wirtemberg who that he might have Money to prosecute the same engaged Montbelliard to the King and declared War against Ferdinand over whose Army having gained a Notable Victory he re-Established them in their County and obliged Ferdinand to allow all Liberty to the Protestants the Sacramentaries and Anabaptists not Comprised Vpon which condition they acknowledged him King of the Romans The Landtgrave had promised Francis to go into Italy which however he did not and this King with the Design of renewing a War set up a Militia in all his Provinces which he distributed in seven Bodies of Six Thousand Men each they were named Legions This institution lasted not long it would have rendered the People too Powerful and the Government too weak The twenty fourth of September died Pope Clement Two days after the Cardinals being assembled in Conclave elected Alexander Farnese named Paul III. At this time John Cauvin or Calvin aged twenty four or five years began to expose his Doctrine more conformable to that of the Sacramentaries than to that of Luther and which went much farther for it did not only touch upon the inward belief but overthrew all the Exteriour and the Ceremonies He was a Native of Noyon Son of Gerard who was the Bishops Secretary A Man very studious of a sharp and penetrating Wit a Melancholly and Sickly Temper an angry and passionate humour no very smooth Tongue but an Eloquent and Fluent pen and who was oft reproached that he coverd a Violent ambition and extream obstinacy with the Vaile of great Modesty and Humility Year of our Lord 1534 He took the first Impression of those new Doctrines when he was Studying the Law at Bourges from a certain German named Melchior Volmar who taught the Greek Tongue and was entertained by Margaret Queen of Navarre Sister of King Francis A very generous Princess who having a great love for Learning had suffered her reason to be prevailed upon by these Broachers of Novelties It is held that he laid the first foundation of his Sect at Poitiers and there instituted the form of the Lords Supper or Mandâ—cation that from thence he sent three of his Companions into divers Parts to sow his Dogmatisms and that himself retired to Nerac to Gerard de Roussel and James le Feure of Estaples who were there sheltred under the protection of Queen Margaret and had already establisht secretly in that little Court a form of a Church almost the same as he intended to bring forth into the World He stayed but a few Months at Nerac and passed into Italy to see Renee de France Dutchess of Ferrara who was imbued with the same opinions as Margaret Then when Geneva had expell'd her Bishop and the Catholick Religion he there established the Seat of his residence And from thence he sent his Disciples to Preach his Doctrine over all France and the Low-Countries exposing them to all sorts of dangers and deaths which he kept himself far enough off from the fire of Persecution and hazarded nothing but his Paper and Ink. This same year 1534. and the following was acted that Bloody and Horrible Tragedy of the Anabaptists in the City of Munster Those Phanaticks thinking to Establish their Whimseys by subverting the Lawful Power had chosen for their King a Taylor named John of Leyden Their Bishop besieged them and reduced them to
extremity of Famine But whilst they resolved obstinately to Perish rather then yield he was let into the Town by one of that Mock-Monarchs Camerades took him and the chief Ministers of his fury and having led them some time about the Neighbouring Countries as objects of Derision put them to death with exquisite Torments Year of our Lord 1535 About the end of the year 1534. The Sacramentarians published some Libels and posted up Papers against the Divine Mystery of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar King Francis in the beginning of the Year 1535. for reparation of these Injuries caused a general Procession to be made at Paris whereat he assisted with great Devotion holding a Torch in his hand together with the Queen and his Children afterwards making diligent search for the Authors of that Scandal he committed half a dozen to the Flames who were burnt in several places but for every one he put to death there sprang up hundreds of others out of their Ashes These proceedings could not be pleasing to the Protestant Princes his good Friends Wherefore the Emperor failed not to stir them up to a resentment against him to accuse him of Cruelty for burning their Brethren and impiety since at the same time he thus severely handled those that professed a new Reformation of Christianity he had Turkish Ambassadors in his Court. And indeed he had much adoe to justifie himself towards them and in all this whole year could obtain nothing from them The Death of Merveille was either a pretence or a real cause for a War against Sforza that he might get footing once more in Milanois Charles Duke of Savoy denying him passage thorough his Country drew that Tempest upon his own head unless it were perhaps the Kings design first to attaque him for he had many other causes of resentment against him He complained that Beatrix of Portugal his Wife and Sister to the Emperor inclined him to consider the Emperor his Brother in Law more then him who was his Nephew That he had dar'd to take the Investiture of the County of Ast from that Prince which was the Patrimony of the House of Orleans That for pledge of his Faith he had given him Lewis Prince of Piedmont his Eldest Son and in the mean time had refused to accept his Nephew of him the Order of Saint Michael and an establisht Company with Twelve Thousand Crowns Pension As likewise to let the Pope have the use of the City of Nice for the enterview that was at Marseille That he had possessed some Lands of the Marquisate of Sallusses which were a Fief mouvant of Daufine That he refused him the Homage of Foucigny That he rejoyced in his Letters to the Emperor at his being taken Prisoner at Pavia That he had lent the Duke of Bourbon Money since his revolt But above all these there was the right of Convenience which led the King to seize upon those Territories to facilitate his Conquest of Milan and to prevent his exchanging them with the Emperor for others higher up in Italy For the Dukes Enemies reported that the bargain was in hand And therefore he underhand Year of our Lord 1535 demanded the giving up his Places of Montmeillan Veilland Chivas and Vercel for which he offer'd Lands in France and to compleat the Marriage of his Daughter Margarite with Lewis Eldest Son of the Duke accordingly as they had agreed eight years before Now though all these were great occasions of Offence to the King yet he took no other to quarrel with him but that which he would have taken formerly in the Year 1518. which was that he should do him Justice concerning the Succession of Louisa his Mother who was Sister of that Duke and the late Philibert his Predecessor During the Life of that Princess he pursued this business by no other wayes but by Treaty and it may well be believed he would have it sleep still if the reasons we have hinted had not engag'd him to awaken it now again He therefore sent William Poyet President of the Parliament of Paris to the Duke to make his demand for a free Passage and his Rights As for the Passage the Duke at lest in outward appearance shewed himself very ready to grant it and to furnish him with Provisions paying for them And for the other point he proffer'd to make an amicable Agreement and to leave the Kings and his own Pretensions to Arbitrators Which the King taking for a denyal declared War against him in the Month of February of the year 1535. He had already begun to make him feel his Indignation by giving Orders underhand to the Officers and Magistrates of Daufine to make Incursions upon his Countries by obliging the Holy Father to Suppress the Bishoprick of Bourg which had been newly Established in his Favour and by assisting those of Geneva against him The Inhabitants of that City pretending to hold of the Empire had a long time sought to free themselves from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop and for this purpose had twice or thrice helped themselves by the Protection of the Cantons of Bearne and Friburgh who had made them their fellow Citizens In fine they absolutely Revolted and Expell'd their Bishop his name was Peter de la Baulme The Duke having besieged them the King sent several small Supplyes but who were all defeated and yet the apprehension he had of the Beranois made him raise the Siege Immediately the City chiefly at the Instigation of two Sacramentarian Ministers i. e. Farel and Viret changed their Religion and Government and put themselves into the same State almost as they remain in to this day The Bishop transported his See to Anecy After these Flashes of Lightning the mighty Thunder-clap broke forth The Admirable Brion entered his Countries with the Army raised to fall upon Milan At the very report and Noise of his March all the Places of Bress and those of Savoy on this side Mount Cenis opened their Gates to the French without any opposition The Duke was wholly un-provided of Forces he could do no other till the return of the Emperor but only temporise and in the mean time defend himself by Submissions and Respects which are but feeble Arms against a Potent and an Angry Prince when he intends to make Advantage of his Wrath. Year of our Lord 1535 The eight of July of this year 1535. Anthony Duprat Cardinal Arch-Bishop of Lens Legate in France and Chancellour died in his Castle of Nantouillet Much Tormented with Remorse of Conscience as his Sighs and Speeches made manifest for having observed no other Guide or Law he that was himself so great a Lawyer but his own Interest and the Passion of his Soveraign It was he that took away the Elections to Benefices and the Priviledges of many Churches that Introduced the Sale of Offices in Courts of Judicature that taught them boldly to lay all sorts of Impositions in France that divided and distinguished the Kings Interest