went as it were to visit in the evening he thinking that they came as friends to sup with him entertained them as at a feast which entertainment the murderers having received they acquaint him with what was done at Paris and withal demand his Purse which being delivered they in the midst of their entertainment slay their Host From thence as if this had been the sign given they flock together for three days to murder and spoil above 1000 men women and children as it was thought were slain part were cast into the river Loire those that were slain without the City were thrown into the ditch Great was the plunder that was taken in all that time and especially the copious Library of Peter Montaureus a learned man who died four years since of grief of mind at Sancerra furnished with Books of all sorts especially with mathematical Manuscripts the greatest part of them Greek and corrected and illustrated by the labours of Montaureus himself as also with instruments useful in that Science contrived with admirable artifice was with a most barbarous outrage taken away Also some were slain at Gergolium the people raging through the neighbouring Cities Towos and Villages after the manner of the Inhabitants of Orleance The same was done at Angiers they beginning with Johannes Massonius Riverius who was most barbarously slain as he walked in his Garden by a cut-throat let in by his Wife who suspected no such thing as also others Barbeus Ensign of the Prince of Conde's Regiment eâ—â—â—â—â—ed the danger by flight as also Renatus Roboreus Bressaldus one that was very troublesome to Priests many of whom he had unworthily maimed was afterwards executed The Townsmen of Troyes of whom Coligny had a little before complained to the King when they heard of the tumult at Paris presently set guards at the City-gates that none might slip forth and having upon 3 Kal. VII bris August 30 th cast all the suspected into prison five days after by the command Anna Valdraeus Simphalius Governor of Troyes upon the instigation of Petrus Bellinus who as was believed came lately from Paris with private commandâ— they were brought out one by one and slaughtered by the cut-throats and buried in a ditch digged in the very prison and presently after the King's Proclamation wherein they were commanded to leave of killing and spoiling was published by Simphalius who as it is said received it before the slaughter was committed At Vierzon when as at the yet uncertain report of the news the Gates of the City were shut up by the diversity of Letters that were sent in the King's Name the Townsmen held their hands for some time from violence contenting themselves to have cast the suspected into prison till at last stirred up by the example of the men of Orleance they raged with the same madness against the imprisoned Franciscus Hottomannus and Hugo Donellus who professed Civil Law in that City by the help of their Scholars and especially of the Germans escaped the present danger Two days after the uproar at Paris the Regiment of Horse that belonged to Ludovicus Gonzaga under pretence of muster and receiving their pay seized on la Charite a Town lying upon the River Loire below Nevers and the people being stirred up by Letters from Paris 18 were slain in the Town Petrus Mebelinus and Johannes Lerius well known by his voyage into America did beyond their hopes escape the hands of the murderers and fled to Sancerra 27. The greatest Massacre of all was at Lions for in that City as it is very populous the Gates being presently shut many are taken and cast into prison by the command of Franciscus Mandelotus Governor of the Town under pretence as he said that the King's Guards might protect them from the rage of the people but many while they are lead by the seditious as if it had been to prison are slain in the blind lanes of the Town and presently cast into the Rivers la Saone and Rhone The ring-leader and chief promoter of this was one Boidonus a wicked debauched fellow who afterward came to his deserved end being executed at Claremont in Auvergne Three days were spent in rifling houses and finding out those that were suspected which being done on Friday 4 Kalends of VII br Duperacus a Citizen of Lions August 29 th Conchiliatorum equitum torque donatus but lately advanced to the order of Knighthood the honour of this order for many years being decayed since it began to be bestowed upon unworthy persons came from the Queen with instructions and letters of credence bringing also letters from Claudius Rubius and other City Officers men of like manners who managed the affairs of Lions at Paris and in the Court in which letters is declared what was done at Paris and withal it was added that the King did will and require that the men of Lions should follow the example of the Perisians Mandelotus a prudent man though he was looked upon as enclined to the Guisian faction abhorred the barbarousness of the thing and obtaining of the urgent multitude some days truce till he had deliberated upon the matter and till letters came from the King which he said he daily expected in the mean time he made open Proclamation that the Protestants should repair to the Major's house to hear from him what was the King's pleasure They poor wretches coming out of their hiding places as if they had been received into the King's protection came to him and by his command were committed to several prisons for the King's prisons upon the River Rhone were not able to receive such a multitude Rodanenses Regii Upon this Petrus Antissiodorensis Chamberlain of the City a man wicked and infamous for dishonest lusts rode post and without letters as if the dignity of the man had carried authority enough with him affirms to Mandelotus that this was the Kings and Queens will and pleasure that the Protestants that were taken or could be taken should be slain without expecting any further command Therefore Mandelotus being overcome by the importunity of the multitude that stood round about him to whom Antissiodorensis had told the secret yieldeth and turning to the messenger of so horrid a sentence I will saith he say to thee Peter what Christ heretofore said to Peter whatsoever thou bindest let it be bound and whatsoever thou loosest let it be loosed and presently all ran to the slaughter and spoil Morniellus and Clavius wicked men and ready for any mischief joyned themselves to Boidomus When they would have had the help of the Common Hangman in that matter he refused and said that he was ready to obey the sentence of a lawful Magistrate but he would not meddle nor trouble himself with such promiscuous executions when the same thing was commanded the guards of the Castle they likewise being much moved at the motion answered with disdain that they were no Hangmen nor did such dishonourable employment become
a fevor and therefore her body being dissected in open view but her head under colour of respect untouched it was divulged that by the testimony of skilful Physitians she died of a fevor as Davila relates the story The next to be made sure of in particular was that brave person Colinius a man who though through necessity ingaged in them yet detected out of an innate hatred of such broils the late Civil Wars even to his own ruine and destruction at last as Thuanus upon several occasions often notes and as real a well-wisher of his King and Countreys good as any Subject in France as appeared more fully in some instances discovered after his death But the King and Queen-mother by the arts of the Guisian Faction being prepossessed of a contrary opinion of him after all their fraudulent expressions of favour to him caused him to be shot by a retainer of the Guisian Family â—a p. 367. Thu. l. 52. to secure themselves from the imputation of so odious a fact but being thereby only maimed not killed out-right they presently according to their former dissimulations repair to his lodgings to visit him and with great shew of sorrow for the accident appoint him Physitians and Chirurgeons and a guard for his defence and order a strict search for the apprehension of the assasine This done upon the eve of St. Bartholomew being Sunday Da. p. 3â—1 372. the Duke of Guise by order from the King having about twilight given direction to the Provost des Marchand the chief head of the people of Paris to provide 2000 armed men with every one a white sleeve on their left arm and white crosses in their hats to be ready upon notice instantly to execute the Kings commands and that the Sheriffs of the several Wards should also be ready and cause lights upon the ringing of the bell of the Palace-clock to be set up in every window himself at the hour prefixed with the Duke of Aumale and Monsieur d'Angoulesme the King's bastard-Brother and other Commanders and Souldiers to the number of 300 went to the Admiral Colinius his house and having forcibly entred the Court-gate kept by a few of the King of Navar 's Halbardiers and the servants of the house who were all killed without mercy they likewise kill the Admiral himself and threw his body out of the window Felinius his son-in-law with other persons of quality and all the rest that had relation to him This done Monsieur d'O Colonel of the King's Guards calls out the principal Protestants that were in the Louvre one by one who being come into the Court were all killed by the Souldiers that stood in two long ranks with their arms ready for that purpose there died divers Noblemen and persons of great quality and others to the number of 200. At the same time the bell gave the sign and those who were prepared for the deed having received order what to do fell a killing the Protestants throughout all the lodgings and houses where they were dispersed and made an infinite slaughter of them without any distinction of age sex or condition and of many of the Papists among the rest And those who fled were pursued by the Duke of Guise with a great many horse and foot and being overtaken some without shooes some without saddles some without bridles but all more or less unprovided were scattered and cut off There were killed in the City that day and the next above 10000 whereof above 500 were Barons Knights and Gentlemen who had held the chiefest employments in the War and were now purposely met together from all parts to honor the King of Navar 's Marriage Thu. l. 52. A sad time it was what through the noise and clatter of those who every where ran to killing and carrying away of their prey and the doleful groans and sad cryes of those who were slain and murthered without mercy young and old rich and poor men and women women great with child and others with their little children sucking at their breasts and in the dead time of the night plucked out of their beds and houses what with the horrid spectacle of dead bodies thrown out of the windows and trod about the streets and the channels running down with streams of bloud into the River And yet so little moved were the Court Ladies with all this that without either fear or shame in an impudent manner they beheld and stood gazing upon the naked bodies of the Noblemen and Gentlemen which lay on heaps before the Court The day after the Admirals death Da. 3â—â— the Duke of Anjou with the Regiment of the Guards went through all the City and Suburbs causing those houses to be broken open that made any resistance but all the Protestants were either already dead or else being terrified had put white crosses in their hats the general mark of the Papists endeavouring by that means and by hiding themselves to save their lives but being pointed at in the streets by any one or discovered any other way they were without mercy torn in pieces by the people and cast into the River The day before this terrible execution the King dispatched Posts into divers parts of the Kingdom commanding the Governors of Cities and Provinces to do the like And the same night at Meaux and the days ensuing at Orleans Rouen Bourges Angiers Tholouze and many other places but above all at Lyons there was a most bloudy slaughter of the Protestants without any respect of age sex or quality of persons Most sad and lamentable stories says Davila might be here related for this cruelty was prosecuted in so many several places with such variety of accidents against people of all conditions as it was credibly reported that there were slain above forty thousand Protestants in few days The King himself as In vita Greg. 13. Cicarela relates told the Pope's Nuncio that seventy thousand and more were slain Some days after the King dispatched his Grand Provost with all diligence to seize upon Colinius his Wife and Children but his eldest Son with the widow-Lady his Mother-in-law and others being already fled secretly to Geneva the younger children both male and female were condemned to death in their tender years About two days after the Massacre was finished at Paris a Jubilee was there appointed and a publick Thanksgiving kept by the King the whole Court and a great confluence of the people for the business so happily managed according to their wish and desire Thu. l. 52.53 In memory whereof St. Bartholomew's day was by a decree of the Parliament of Paris appointed to be observed as an Anniversary Thanksgiving-day 46. Thu. l. 51.53 This horrible act of most barbarous and inhumane cruelty is highly extolled by the Italian Writers as a good and laudable deed and the politick contrivance of it as most worthy the subtil wit of a magnanimous Prince And certain it is that the news of
and other necessaries c. Into this League framed with so much art Davila p. 451. that making a shew to obey and maintain the King it took from him all his obedience and authority to confer it upon the head of their Union as Davila notes when many were engaged in France they began secretly to treat at Rome for Protection and in Spain for men and money nor did they find in either place any aversness to their desires Da. p. 461. V. Thu. l. 63. And though they thought it unfit to dispute openly whether the States were superior to the King or no yet while these things were acted in secret without his knowledge or consent they sought cunningly by a kind of cheat to take away his prerogative and with his consent to settle it in a certain number who should have power to conclude and determine all business without contradiction or appeal and to that end * At the Assembly of the States at 〈◊〉 which consisted most of such who had subscribed to 〈◊〉 the Catholick Lâ—ague petition the King that for the dispatch of all business with speed and general satisfaction he would be pleased to elect a number of Judges not suspected by the States who together with twelve of the Deputies might hear such motions as from time to time should be proposed by every Order and conclude and resolve upon them with this condition that what-ever was joyntly determined by the Judges and Deputies together should have the form and vigour of a Law without being subject to be altered or revoked which had been in effect to unking him and leave him little more than the title But the King not ignorant of the importance of that demand Thu. l. 63. became sensible of their designs and of his own danger which more manifestly appeared in certain secret instructions to Nic. David with which he was sent to the Pope concerning the deposing of the King and thrusting him into a Monastery and setting up Guise in his place c. which being taken with David in his journey and published by the Protestants were not believed at first till the same being also sent to the King of Spain the French Ambassador there happened to get a copy of them and sent them to his Master as Thuanus relates from his own mouth The King therefore returns them a wary answer such as though not altogether denying their demand yet gave them no great satisfaction But though they failed in this attempt to unking the King with his own consent yet they resolved though without or contrary to his consent not only to moderate the last articles of Peace but to break them utterly and again with more force than ever to begin the War against the Protestants whereby they brought the King to this necessity that he must either plainly and openly break his faith given to the Protestants which he had done before only by connivance or engage with them in a more dangerous War against the Leaguers And divers disswaded him from breach of his Faith among the rest William Lantgrave of Hesse Thu. l. 63. besides the reason he gave him in mind of that late and memorable example of Ladislaus 4. King of Hungary who having sworn a Truce with the great Turk Amurath 2. being perswaded by the Pope and Cardinals out of a vain hope that they could absolve him from the obligation of it perfidiously broke it Whereupon in the first encounter the Turk lifting up his eyes to Heaven and calling to Christ to behold and punish the perfidious dealing where with his followers had dishonoured him he was himself slain with 30000 of his men on the other side the French Theologists did openly both in Sermons and printed Books contend that the Prince is not obliged to keep Faith with the Hereticks alledging to that purpose the Decree of the Council of Constance and therefore War is to be undertaken to extirpate them And by the advice of the Bishop of Lymoges and Morvillier sometime Bishop of Orleans the King determined since he could not by open resistance hinder the designs and progress of the League which already had taken too deep root to make himself Head and Protector of it and draw that authority to himself which he saw they endeavoured to settle upon the Head of the League both within and without the Kingdom which accordingly he did causing it to be read published and sworn in open assembly and with high protestations declared that he would spend his last breath to reduce all his people to a unity in Religion and an entire obedience to the Roman Church which done he without much difficulty prevailed with Navar and the Protestants to yield to some restraints of the publick exercise of their Religion And thus by a new Edict of Pacification were things in * For in the midst of peace nothing but the persecution of heresie was daily threatened Da. p. 479. some sort quieted for some time 52. But after the death of Alancon the King's youngest Brother who died without issue and not without suspition of poison in the flower of his age being about thirty wherein we may take notice by the way of the Divine Vengeance by degrees extirpating that Family which so wickedly sought the extirpation of the Protestants the King having no issue nor like to have any Busbeq ep 5. notwithstanding all his visits and supplications at the Monuments of Saints and Religious places whereby the Crown was likely to descend to the King of Navar a Protestant Prince who was next heir to it the Leaguers presently begin new troubles Thu. l. 80. the Preachers from the Pulpits fill their hearers minds with fears and jealousies meetings are every where held Souldiers secretly listed and Officers appointed and the more to enrage the people Thu. l. 81. while the Preachers fill their ears with the noise of approaching dangers dreadful and horrid representations of most terrible persecutions which the Catholicks are said to suffer in England are presented to their view both in printed Books and also in Cuts and Pictures which are set up in publick places and persons appointed to relate the sad stories of them and tell the people that thus it will be also in France if the King of Navar be admitted to the Kingdom and therefore to secure themselves of a Catholick King they resolve to set up the Cardinal Bourbon for head of the League at present and to succeed the King in case he should die without issue And the better to strengthen themselves they renew their League with the Spaniard Da. p. 526. and having suddenly raised a considerable Army contrary to the King 's express prohibition by his Edict Da. p. 535. they begin to make themselves Masters of many Cities and Fortresses some by secret practices some by open force of Arms Da. p. 550. driving out the King's Governors and Officers and in short time through the fury
but be blamed by many would be so much the more blamed if a great Prince near of Bloud to the King joyned in a very late affinity should be slain in the King's Palace in the arms as it were of the King his Brother-in-law and in the embraces of his Wife For there would be no sufficient excuse nor would those arguments prevail to excuse the King which might cast the blame upon the Guisians Concerning Conde there was a greater debate he lying under the load of his Fathers faults yet both the dignity of the man and the authority of Ludovicus Gonzaga Duke of Nevers affirming that he would be loyal and obedient to the King and also offering himself as a surety for him upon the account of that close and manifold relation that was between them for Conde had lately married Mary of Cleve the Sister of Henrica Wife of the Duke of Nevers did prevail that he should be spared and exempt from the number of those that were designed for the slaughter as well as Navar. 15. Upon this the Duke of Anjou and Engolesme the Bastard departing as they rode in their Coach through the City they spread abroad a rumor as if the King had sent for Momorarcy and was about to bring him into the City with a select number of horse The very same hour there was one apprehended who was suspected of the hurt of Coligny who confessed himself to be a servant of the Guises which when it was understood Guise and Aumale and others of the Family went to the King to remove that suspition and complain that they were oppressed through the favour that was shewed to their enemies that the ears of Judges were open to calumnies cast upon them and that tho they were guiltless yet they were manifestly set against that they had a long time observed that they were for what cause they knew not every day less gracious with the King but yet that they did dissemble it and hoped that time which is the best Master of truth would at last inform him more certainly of the whole matter But since they find no place for their innocence they did though unwillingly and as forced to it desire that with his good leave they might return home This was done openly and it was observed that the King answered to these things somewhat coldly and the rather that he might perswade the Protestants that he bare no good will to the Guisians Upon this the King adviseth Navar that he should afford no occasion of mischief to the audacity and violentness of the Guisians things being so enflamed and the people enclining to the Guisian party That he should command those whom he knew most faithful of his servants to come into the Louvre to be ready upon any sudden accident which Navar did interpreting it in good part calling those which were most active to lodge with him that night in the Louvre Castle Wise men also did presage some future commotions when they observed armed men to run up and down about the City and the Louvre the people to mutter threatnings to be every where heard This being brought to Coligny he who no way doubted of the good will of the King but thought it to be the devise of the Guisians to enflame the people sends one to the King who should in his name acquaint him with it To whom the King answered that Coligny need fear nothing for those things were done by his command to compose the tumults of the people that were stirred up by the Guisians Therefore that his mind might be secure It was also told Teligny the very same hour that Porters laden with Arms were seen to be brought into the Louvre but he contemned the message and answered that unnecessary suspitions were sought for in this sad and dismal time and forbad that this should be made known to Coligny affecting the unseasonable reputation of prudence and moderation from his despising of reports and consequently of dangers and excusing the matter as if those Arms were carried into the Louvre upon the account of a Castle represented and assaulted in a shew 16. Forthwith Guise to whom the chief command of the execution of the whole matter was committed calling together in the deep of night some Captains of the Switzers and the Captains of the French Troops explains to them the Kings will and pleasure That the time was come wherein by the King's command punishment should be taken upon that head that was so hateful both to God and men and also upon the whole faction of the Rebels that the beast was now in their toils that they should take care that he escape not that they should not be wanting to such an opportune occasion of obtaining a more glorious triumph than they ever yet obtained in all their former Wars with the bloud of so many Royallists that the Victory was easy that rich spoils are proposed which they might acquire without bloud as rewards of their good service Upon this the Switzers are placed about the Louvre to whom are joyned the French Troops and command was given that they should look to it that no man of the Family of Navar or Conde should go out of the Louvre The keeping of Coligny's house was committed to Cossenius to whom was given a party of Musquetteers to lie in the neighbouring houses that none might escape them Matters being so disposed as to the foreign Souldiers the Duke of Guise calls to him John Charron President of the Court of Revenues who after a long canvasing and often repulses was at last put into that Office in the place of Marcellus Provost of the Merchants and commands him that he should give notice to the Corporals to command their Souldiers to their Arms but that they should remain at the Town-Hall till midnight there to understand what was needful to be done The same thing was given in command to Marcellus who though he was discharged of his office yet for some private good offices that he had done was retained in the Queens favour and kept his authority though he lost his dignity He by often going to the Court brought himself into an opinion with men that he was in favour with the King and Queen and upon that account was acceptable to the people and from his mouth the people that were of themselves apt enough to stirs were certified That it was the King's pleasure that they should take Arms to cut off Coligny and the other Rebels that therefore they should see to it that none were spared nor that those wicked men should be any where concealed So the King will have it so he commands who also will provide that other Cities of the Kingdom do presently follow the example of the Parisians The sign at which they should rise is the tolling of the bell of the Palace-clock The Mark whereby they should be distinguished from others is white linen-cloath bound about their left arm and a white cross in
as any of the rest wherewith divers of the Catholicks themselves were offended This manner of proceeding breedeth general mistrust in them of the Nobility and every man feareth God's vengeance Walsingham Let. 16. Sept. 1572. In the Compleat Ambassador p. 246. And many of the Nobles escaped with great danger and especially Thoreus who warned Coligny when Cossenius was designed to guard him that he could not be committed to a more deadly enemy and that now it was true that the sheep was committed to the woolf But it was believed that upon the account of the absence of his Brother Momorancy he and his Brethren Damvilla and Mernvius were spared Cossaeus his life was also in danger for that he joyned with the Momorancies and favoured not the Guisians Bironus in the Armory fearing upon the same account what would become of him planting two Culverins against the City fortified himself till the fury of the people and the guards ceased Among the Protestants that were of any note there escaped by a rare kindness of fortune Joh. Sancomonlius Sauromarius Cugius Bricomolius Junior and some few others Jacobus Crussolius Acierius by the commendation of his Brother Antony †Uticensium ducis Duke of Uzes and command of the Queen with some others of the Nobility were preserved by the Guisians to this intent as it was reported that they might cast the odium of the Massacre upon the King and the fury of the people as though they had no other design than to revenge their private injuries upon the head of Coligny and also that they might by such a benefit hold those whom they preserved ever obliged to them Nor did their expectations fail them Gulielmus Altamarus Fervacius did endeavour to procure the same favour from the King for Franciscus Moninius but all in vain but he being discovered by his means strait-way it was given in command to Marcellus to cut him off by the cut-throats That day were slain to the number of two thousand Toward the evening Proclamation was made to the multitude by sound of Trumpet that every one should betake himself to his own home nor might any stir abroad that only the King's Guards and the Officers with their Troops of Horse should go about the City upon pain of death to them that did not obey so that when it was thought that there was an end put to those slaughters and rapines the same massacre and liberty of plundering was continued the night following and the days following 22. The same day the King whether troubled at the horridness or fearing the odium of the fact by Letters directed to the Governors of the Provinces casteth the odium upon the Guisians telling them That the sedition was raised without his privity or consent that they as soon as they perceived that the friends and kindred of Coligny whom he still called cousin did intend to revenge the wound given him that they might be before-hand with them stirred up so great a party of the Nobles and Parisians that they by their help cut off the Guards that he had assigned to Coligny and as many of his friends as they met and this example was followed with such fury and violence throughout the City that such a remedy as might be wished could not be applied in any due time Now at last the sedition that seemed to be allayed was again upon old grudges between the two Families revived which thing since it hapned contrary to his will he would that all should understand that the Edict lately published was not thereby in any part violated but he did command that it should be religiously observed and that the Governors should see to it that mutual slaughters should not be committed in other Cities nor that they should take Arms one against another but that every one should keep home in the City and Countrey and abstain from violence upon pain of death to those that did not obey In the end of the Letter these words were added Here I am with my Brother of Navar and my Cousin Conde ready to undergo the same fortune with them The same day were Letters of the same contents written by the Queen sent not only through the Kingdom but to the Dyet or Assembly of Switzers and dispersed by the King's command through England and divers places in Germany 23. The next day slaughters and rapines were continued Petrus Platius President of the Court of Customs a man eminent for his gravity learning and integrity whom one Michael by name Captain of a Band had the day before cheated of a great sum of Gold by the help of slingers lent to him by Nic. Bellofremoutius Senescaeus and Carronius Provost of the Merchants defended himself from the fury of the people That Senescaeus was lately by the King put into the place of Innocentius Triperius Monstrolius great Provost del ' Hospital under whom that Office whose jurisdiction belonged only to some mean person of the King's Retinue after that began to be conferred upon Gentlemen as all those things which belong to the Master and Colonels of the Horse He first obtained the name of great Provost those being much offended at it who by how much was added to him in titles did complain that by so much their jurisdiction was diminished That so large jurisdiction for some time after the death of Monstrolius had ceased which at last the King conferred upon Senescaeus for the Nobleness of his Family and such learning as with us is rare in a military person Therefore Senescaeus coming this day from the King to Placius told him that though the King resolved utterly to root out the Protestants by slaying them that there should not remain one that pisseth against the wall yet that for many reasons he would give him his life and sent him to conduct him to the Louvre for that he did desire to learn from him many things concerning the affairs of the Protestants which it behoved him to know Then Placius desired to excuse himself and desired that he might stay till the fury of the people were somewhat allayed that in the mean time he might be kept prisoner wheresoever it pleased the King On the other side Senescaeus who had received such command from the Queen did hasten him that he should without delay obey the King's command and assigned him Pezovius one of the privy leaders of the Sedition for his greater security as he said by whom he was delivered into the hands of those that lay in wait and being thrown off his Mule upon which he rode he was stabbed with daggers his body was dragged and thrown into the stable of a publick house and his house lay three days open to ransacking his wife being fled and his children wandring hither and thither His office which in his absence in the time of war was managed by Stephanus Nuellius a factious and bloud-thirsty man and who was believed to have hired these cut-throats against the life of Placius
might come in But many of those that had gone out would not return into the City but went thence to †Podium Laurentii le Puy St. Laurence Montauban * Regium montem Regimont and some one way some another Two days after by authority of the Senate publick Proclamation was made that no violence or molestation should be offered to the Protestants The day following Guards being set at the Gates of the City and in the Streets those that were suspected are some of them distributed into Monasteries others are cast into the common prisons some days after upon the coming from Court of Delpechius and Madronius rich Merchants and most bitter enemies to the Protestants they were all thrown into the Palace prison where presently in the night by certain cut-throats chosen out of the Students of the Civil Law that went to the Fencing-School among whom one Turrius was most eminent together with other men of lewd life and conversation 200 were barbarously slain and among theâ— some Senators and in the first place Johannes Corasius who afterwards to double their cruelty were hanged in their Senatorian habits upon an Elm growing in the Palace-yard the bodies of the dead were buried in a ditch made in the Arch-Bishop's house At the same time but with greater slaughter were things carried at Rouen where Tanaquilius Venator Carrugius the Governor of the chief Nobility of Provence a man of a merciful disposition did what he could to hinder it But at last not being able any longer to withstand the violence of the seditious and especially of those who the year before were by the decree of the Judges delegated from Paris proscribed who hoped that by this course they should both revenge the injury offered them and also obliterate the memory of the Decree many were thrown into prison Septemb. 17. and afterwards 15 Kal. of VIII br being called out one by one by the voice of the Cryer were cruelly slain by those Emissaries Maronimus a most wicked wretch leading them on Upon this they set upon private houses and that day and the day following they fell upon men women without distinction and 500 of both sexes and all ages were slain and their bodies being stripped were cast into the ditches ad Portam Caletensem and their garments all bloudy as they were were distributed among the poor they seeking even by these murders to ingratiate themselves with the people This the Senate was in shew offended at and began to proceed against the Authors of this fact but through connivance it came to nothing the murderers and cut-throats for a time slipping out of the City This example raged through other Cities and from Cities to Towns and Villages and it is reported by many that †It was Credibly reported that there were slain above 40000 Hugonots in a few days saith Davila p. 376. more than thirty thousand were slain in those tumults throughout the Kingdom by several ways though I believe the number was somewhat less In September Castres a City in la Paix Albigeois which was held by the Protestants when after great promises by the King for their safety it was delivered into the hands of Creuseta one of the principal of the neighbouring Gentry it was by him cruelly plundered and laid waste In the beginning of October happened the Massacre at Burdeaux The Author and chief Promoter of it is reported to have been one Enimundus Augerius of the Society at Claremont who also is said to have perswaded Franciscus Baulo a very rich Senator of Burdeaux that he should leave his wife and being supported by his wealth he had founded a rich School in that City He when as he did in his Sermons daily inflame his Auditors that after the example of the Parisians they should dare to do something worthy of their piety so especially upon S. Michael's day when he treated of the Angels the ministers of the grace and vengeance of God what things had been done at Paris Orleance and other places he did again and again by often repeated Speeches inculcate to have been done by the Angel of God and did both openly and privately upbraid Romanus Mulus the King's Solicitor and Carolus Monferrandus Governor of the City men of his faction as dull and cold in this business who contented themselves to have interdicted the Protestants the liberty of meeting together and to have kept the Gates of the City with guards but otherwise they wholly abstained from violence and slaughters being admonished so to do as is believed by Stozzius who had a design upon Rochel who did fear lest that should hinder his attempts But when as about that time Monpesatus came to Blaye as though the sign for effusion of bloud had been given by his coming certain men were slain in that Town But when he arrived at Burdeaux the people began to rage and the seditious to run up and down Enimundus thundered in his Preaching more than ever at last after some days private discourses of Monpesatus with Monferrandus though it be uncertain whether he did discourage or perswade the thing when Monpesatus was departed who a little while after died of a Bloudy Flux V Non. Octobr. 3. VIII br which fell upon a Friday the Magistrates of the City with their Officers as they were sent came after dinner to the house of Monferrandus bringing with them lewd impudently wicked men who were drawn together by Petrus Lestonacus and receiving the word of command from him they ran through the City to the slaughter being distinguished by their red Caps a sign very agrecable to their bloudy design They began with Joannes Guilâ—â—hius and Gul. Sevinus Senators who were both cruelly murdered in their houses which were presently rifled Also Bucherus the Senator who had redeemed his life of Monferrandus for a great sum of mony did hardly escape the danger whose house was also plundered Then promiscuous slaughters and rapines are committed for three days together throughout the City wherein two hundred sixty four men are said to be slain and the Massacre had been much greater had not the Castle of Buccina and the other Castle of the City yielded an opportune place of refuge to many Jacobus Benedictus Longobastonus President of the Court was in great danger of death and was hardly preserved by the help of his friends 29. Nor were they in the mean time in quiet at Paris and at Court where by the Queens special command and the diligence of Morvillerius Coligny's Cabinet was examined if by any means they might find any thing in them which being published might take off the odium of so bloudy a fact either in the Kingdom or with foreign Princes Among those Commentaries which he did every day diligently write which were afterwards destroyed by the Queens command there was a passage in which he advised the King that he should be sparing in assigning the hereditary portion which they call
Appennage to his Brethren and in giving them authority which having read and acquainting Alanson with it whom she had perceived to favour Coligny This is your beloved cordial friend saith the Queen who thus advised the King To whom Alanson answered How much he loved me I know not but this advice could proceed from none but one that was faithful to the King and careful for his affairs Again there was among his papers found a breviate wherein among other reasons that he gave for the necessity of a War with the Spaniards in the Low-Countreys this was added as being omitted in the Speech which he made to the King lest it should be divulged and therefore was to be secretly communicated to the King that if the King did not accept of the condition that the Low-Countreys offered he should †V. Walsingham◠Letter 14 Septemb. 1572. in the Compleat Ambassador p. 241. not transfer it to his neighbours of England who though they were now as things stood friends to the King if once they set footing in the Low-Countreys and the Provinces bordering upon the Kingdom would resume their former minds and being invited by that conveniency of friends would become the worst enemies to the King and Kingdom Which being likewise imparted to Walsingham Queen Elizabeths Ambassador and the Queen telling him that by that he might judge how well Coligny was affected towards the Queen his Mistress who so much loved him He made her almost the same answer and said He did not know how he was affected towards the Queen his Mistress but this he knew that that counsel did savour of one that was faithful to the King and most studious of the honour of France and in whose death both the King and all France had a great loss So both of them by almost the same answer frustrated her womanish policy not without shame unto her self About the end of the month wherein Coligny was slain the King fearing lest the Protestants should grow desperate in other Provinces writes to the Governors with most ample commands Carnii Comes and principally to Feliomrus Chabolius President of Burgundy in which he commanded that he should go through the Cities and Towns that were under his jurisdiction and friendly convene the Protestants and acquaint them with the tumult at Paris and the true causes thereof That nothing was done in that affair through hatred of their Religion or in prejudice to the favour that was granted them by the last Edict but that he might prevent the conspiracy made by Coligny and his confederates against the King the Queen the King's Brethren the King of Navar and other Princes and Nobles That it was the King's pleasure that his Edicts might be observed and that the Protestants every where taking forth Letters of security from the Presidents should live quietly and safely under the King's protection upon pain of death to any that should injure or molest them in any thing On the other hand he should admonish the Protestants that they should keep themselves quiet at home and because in their Meetings and publick Assemblies there used to be such Counsels among the Protestants as were suspitious to Catholicks and which might put them upon new stirs therefore that they should abstain from those meetings and expect the same favour and safety from the King's clemency and goodness as he doth exercise towards others But if they should foolishly neglect this advice command and promise of the King and should presume to meet publickly stir up troubles and take up Arms under colour of their own defence he would then proceed against them as against Rebels To the same effect were Letters sent to Melchior Monpesatus President of Poictou Pria President of Toures and the Presidents of other Provinces Chabolius managed his office with great prudence and moderation having learnt that the Protestants who had hitherto been exasperated by severity and cruelty of punishments might be better reduced to their duty by clemency and mildness And matters were ordered without almost any bloud-shed in Burgundy many returning either through fear or of their own accord to the Religion of their Ancestors renouncing the Protestant Doctrines Only Claromontius Travius of the prime Nobility whose Sister Helena Antonius Grammontanus had married was when the news was hot slain at Dijon in the absence of Chabotius by the people Those that were suspected at Mascon being by the King's command apprehended and cast into prison by Philibertus sustained no further damage 30. So foul a tempest in France being in some sort allayed and the liberty of killing and plundering repressed when the more prudent that yet no way favoured the Protestant party did upon the sad thought of the present state of things by little and little come to themselves and abhorring the fact did curiously enquire into the causes of it and how it might be excused they thus judged That no example of like cruelty could be found in all Antiquity though we turned over the Annals of all Nations These kinds of outrages had been confined to certain men or to one place and might have been excused by the sense of injury newly offered or their rage did only exercise it self upon those whom it was their interest to remove out of the way For so by the command of Mithridates King of Pontus upon one message and the signification of one Letter 40000 Romans were slain in one day throughout all Asia The Sicilian Vespers So Peter King of Arragon commanded 8000 French-men to be slain in Sicily who had seized upon it in his absence But their case was far different from this For those Kings exercised their rage upon strangers and foreigners but this King upon his own subjects who were not more committed to his power than to his faith and trust They were obliged no otherwise by their faith given than to the strangers themselves but he was bound in a late league with his neighbouring Kings and Princes to keep that Peace which he had sworn to They used no arts unworthy of royal dignity to deceive them he for a snare abused his new engaged friendship and the sacred Nuptials of his own Sister whose wedding garment was even stained with bloud These are the vertues that use to be commended in Kings Justice Gentleness and Clemenoy but savageness and cruelty as in all others so especially in Princes use to be condemned Famous through all ages was Publius Scipio who was wont to say he had rather save one Citizen than slay a thousand enemies and Antonius who was called the Pious did often use that saying Kings indeed have power of life and death over the Subjects of their Realm but with this limitation that they should not proceed against them till their cause was heard upon a fair tryal This rage and blindness of mind was sent by God upon the French as a judgment for the daily execrations and reproaches of the Deity from which the King himself ill educated
Inventio crucis Holy rood day he said he came thither that day to find an end at length of all the crosses that he had born in this life that none were ignorant of the cause of his punishmentâ— that he had sinned against the King in concealing it that he was sorry for it and humbly begged the Kings Pardon that the Plot against the King and Kingdom was bloody and which if it had taken effect he should have detested with all his heart and that so horrid and inhumane a Fact should be attempted by Catholicks was that that grieved him more then his death Then he added many things in defence of Anne Vaux who was held in Prison and lay under great suspition upon his account Being accused that he had while Q. Eliz. was alive received certain Breves from Rome v. Proceedings Q 3. in which he and the Peers inclined to Popery were admonished that when that miserable Woman should happen to die they should admit of no Prince how nearly soever related in blood but such as should not only tolerate the Catholick Faith but by all means promote it he said he had burnt them the King being received for King And when he was again Examined upon the same things he referred Henry Montacute who asked him about it The Recorder of London to his Confessions subscribed by him Being taxed for sending Edmund Bainham to Rome not to return to the City before the Plot should take effect This he thus excused as if he had not sent him upon that account but that he might inform the Pope of the calamitous state of England and consult with him what course the Catholicks should take and therefore referred them again to his Confessions Then he kneeled down upon the Stage to his Prayers and looking about hither and thither did seem to be distressed for the loss of his life and to hope a Pardon would be brought him from the most merciful Prince Montacute admonished him that he should no longer think of life but if he knew of any Treachery against the King or Kingdom that he should as a dying man presently discover it for that it was now no time to Equivocate At which words Garnet being somewhat moved made answer that he knew the time did not admit of Equivocation that how far and when it is lawful to Equivocate he had otherwhere delivered his opinion that now he did not equivocate and that he knew nothing but what he had confessed Then he excused himself that he did at first dissemble before the Lords That he did so because he did not think they had had such testimony and proof against him till they did produce it which when they did produce he thought it as honourable for him to confess as it would have been at first to have accused himself He added many things to excuse Greenwell professing that unless he thought he were out of danger he would not have discovered the guilt of his dear Brother in this Conspiracy Then praying that the * He said also I exhort them all to take heed they enter not into any Treasons Rebellions or Insurrections against the King Catholicks in England might not fare the worse upon his account he crossed himself and after he had commended his Soul to God the Ladder being taken away he was hang'd to death In his behalf Andreas Eudaimon-Johannes a Cretian of the same Society wrote an †Against which Robert Abbot wrote his Antilogia edit Lond. 1613. 4. Apology in answer to Sir Edw. Cokes Book Intituled Actio in Proditores for so much the Title doth imply published four years after and approved by Claudius Aquaviva Provincial of the Society in which chiefly the Doctrine of Equivocation is defended and explained from Scripture Fathers Schoolmen and Thomists and the necessity and matter of the Seal of Secresie or Confession is debated and the chief heads of his Accusation are answered the Speech of the Earl of Northampton is refuted Moreover he doth endeavour to evince that Garnet never knew any thing of the Conspiracy but by the way of Confession and that he did always abhor the Treason Then some things are related of his Constancy at his Death which are not related in the History of it And as a conclusion of his Commentary there is the memorable Story of the Straw upon which the Effigies of the Dead was seen at which he saith his Adversaries were very much disturbed Whiles the Body was quartered by the Hangman some drops of blood fell upon the Straw that was there provided to light the fire John Wilkinson who was there present that he might gather some relique of the Body of Garnet carried home with him an Ear that was sprinkled with blood and deposited it with a Gentlewoman Hu. Griffith 's Wife who kept it with great veneration in a Christal-glass Afterward it was observed with great admiration that the Effigies of Garnet was plainly expressed in that blood Then with great Zeal was the fame of the Miracle spread abroad which others did presently elude by a contrary construction saying It ought to seem no wonder if a man brought up among Exiles in Flanders improved at Rome in Italy authorized to a Conspiracy in his own Countrey and breathing nothing but revenge did as long as he lived thirst after the blood of his Countreymen should when dead deserve to be pictured in blood So dangerous a thing it is in these corrupt times to say any thing for the honour of any man in those things which do exceed belief and the common course of Nature which may not presently be retorted to his disparagement This end had this Conspiracy the strangest that either our or former ages do make mention of for contrivance daringness or cruelty For it is often heard of and fame doth deliver it down to posterity that many Princes are cut off by Treachery many Common-wealths are attempted by the snares and falshood of their Enemies But no Countrey no Age ever bred such a Monster of Conspiracy as this wherein the King with the Queen the Parents with their whole Issue all the States of the Kingdom the whole Kingdom it self and in it innumerable Innocents should all be destinâ—d to one Destruction in one moment for a Sacrifice to the lust of a few enraged Minds But it was very well that that Monster which they themselves that bear the blame of it do both by word and writing every where detest being so long before conceived at home should be strangled in the birth before ever it see the light A little while after Isaac Casaubon when he went into England thinking of nothing less than to be engaged in this business upon occasion of another Apology sent to him and by him delivered to the King of Great Britain wrote an Elegant Epistle to Fronto Ducaeus in which he sheweth that Garnet knew otherwise then under the Seal of Confession of the Powder Conspiracy by his own Confession and Testimony written with his own hand and doth at large discuss the Doctrine of Equivocation as ensnaring and pernicious against the Arguments of Eudaimon-Johannes Against which not Ducaeus but Eudaimon-Johannes doth rail sufficiently FINIS
year sends out his Sentence of Anathema against her Wherein he first sets out his own Title and Authority Sanders 3. De Schis Angl. pag. 368. in these words He that reigneth on High to whom is given all Power in Heaven and Earth hath committed the One Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church out of which there is no Salvation to One Alone on Earth to wit to the Prince of the Apostles Peter and to Peters Successor the Bishop of Rome to be governed in Plenitude of Power c. Next he acquaints us with his own great care and endeavours for the discharge of this great trust then draws up a particular charge of several crimes and misdemeanors against Elizabeth pretended Queen of England whom he calls the Servant or Slave of wickedness Flagitiorum Serva And therefore saith he Supported with his Authority who was pleased to place Vs though unable for so great a burthen in this Supreme Throne of Justice out of the Plenitude of Our Apostolical Power We do Declare the aforesaid Elizabeth being a Heretick and Favourer of Hereticks and her Adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the Sentence of Anathema and to be cut off from the unity of Christ's Body and Her to be Deprived of her pretended Right to the Kingdom aforesaid and of All Dominion Dignity and Priviledge whatsoever and also the Nobles Subjects and People of the said Kingdoms and All others who have in any sort Sworn unto her to be for ever Absolved from the same Oath and from All manner of Duty of Dominion Fidelity and Obedience As we do by Authority of these presents Absolve Them and Deprive the same Elizabeth of her â—â—tended Right to the Kingdom and of all other things abovesai◠〈◊〉 we Command and Interdict All and Every the Noblemen Subjects People and others aforesaid that they Presume not to Obey Her or her Monitions Mandates and Laws Those who shall do otherwise we Innodate in the like Sentence of Anathema This was sent over and toward the end of May affixed upon the Bishop of London's Palace Gates and Copies of it to be dispersed through out England sent to Bidolph Catena who having by the Popes Order distributed 150000. Crowns Aurea among the Confederates and all things here being again made ready against the Queen is sent to acquaint the Pope with their preparations which he approving presently sends him to the King of Spain promising that if need be himself will go to their Assistance and will pawn All the Goods of the Apostolick See the Chalices Crucifixes and Sacred Vestments Hereupon the Spaniard presently gives express Command that Vitellius with an Army shall Invade England and the Pope prepares his money in the Low-Countries But it pleased God that a messenger coming over with Letters to the Queen of Scots the Spanish Ambassadour Norfolk and others being intercepted the whole business is discovered Norfolk and others committed and all their Preparations and Hopes disappointed Which says Catena the Pope took sadly and the Spaniard condoled who said before Cardinal Alexandrino the Popes Nephew not long before sent to him from the Pope that no Conspiracy was ever more advisedly undertaken nor with greater unanimity and constancy concealed Which in so long time was revealed by none of the confederates and that the forces might easily have been transported from the Low-Countries in the space of twenty four hours which might have suprised the Queen and the City of London restored Religion and setled the Queen of Scots in her Throne especially when as Th. Stucley an English fugitive had taken upon him at the same time with 3000. Spanish Souldiers to reduce all Ireland to the Obedience of Spain and with one or two scouting Ships to fire the English Navy The Duke of Norfolk was brought to his Tryal the 16. of January following and Condemned and the 2. of June after beheaded The Pope in the mean time the first of May being called to his tryal and to give an account for these things before a far other Supreme Throne of Justice than what he pretended himself here placed in 27. Before we leave this Pope Pius v. we may take notice of two notable horrid exploits about his time practised in our neighbour Countries The first in Scotland the murther of the Lord Darby King James his father in the first year of his Papacy and the house wherein he was murthered at the same time blown up with Gun-powder in relation to which Thuanus tells us Ad haec Pontificis ut passim jactabatur Caroli Lotaringi Cardinalis Literis incitabantur nam cum per eum a Pontifice petiissent pecuniam ad instaurandam majorum religionem responsum fuerat frustra ipsos conari nisi sublatis iis per quos stabat ne res exitum sortiretur c. lib. 40. ad finem Anni 1566. The other in France that barbarous Massacre at Paris which though not executed till near two moneths after this Popes death yet it is observable that Cicarella notes in his life Ad Regem Galliarum ejusque Ministros optima misit documenta ad eosdem Hereticos Regno illo exturbandos and what these documenta were we may the better guess if we take notice of the temper and employments of this man a most severe austere man who had with so much rigor exercised the business of the Inquisition wherein he was imployed as made many dread his severity when he was chosen Pope And the same Authour notes his irreconciliabile in Hereticos odium though he looks upon it as matter of Commendation But how exceeding mad he was against them condemning and burning even for familiarity with Sectaries or those that were suspected such may be seen at large in the Noble Author de Thou lib. 39. pr. And in both these exploits is observable the Care that was taken to cast the Odium of the fact upon others But to return to our own story 28. After the death of this man the thirteenth of the same moneth was Gregory XIII chosen Pope And although with their late disappointment their party also in England was much broken and disabled for the future the chief heads being taken off yet was it not long before this Pope was also engaged in the same Combination Which was first begun between him and Don John of Austria base brother to the King of Spain and by him about that time appointed Governour of the Low-Countries and in pursuance thereof the Pope wrote to the King of Spain But Don John's Exploits were prevented by his own death before ever he could put them in practice Yet the like Consultations were soon resumed by the Pope and the King himself 〈◊〉 lib. 65. Camd. hoc An. and now England and Ireland both are to be invaded together and Th. Stucley whom the Pope had honoured with the Title of Marquess Earl Viscount and Baron of several eminent places in Ireland is to command the forces thither the Pope providing
which the Pope was about to deprive Elizabeth for her heresie But when this by reason of his love to his Queen a woman of great worth and by whom he enjoyed a good estate though they promised him the continuance of this by the Popes Authority notwithstanding the divorce and to his children he had by her would not take with him they propose that the King of Spain for satisfaction for his Kingdom of Navarre which the Spaniard unjustly held from him should give him the Isle of Sardinia which though a pitiful thing they very much magnified and promised the assistance of Spains Treasures and Forces if he would desert the Lutherans whom by the means of his Queen he was brought to favour and take upon him the Patronage of the Catholicks in France By which abuse for it proved no other they prevailed upon him and so made up the Triumvirate of Navarre the Duke of Guise and Momorancy the Constable and layd the foundation of that Civil war which shortly after ensued and in the compass of about a year after put an end to his hopes and life also Thu. l. 33. when being wounded he became sensible of his abuse and declared that if he recovered he would embrace the Protestant Confession of Augsburg and live and die in it About the same time or not long after the Queen Regent and the Councel upon the complaint of the Protestants of that little liberty Thu. l. 28. which was permitted them by former Edicts being abridged by or under pretence of the Late Edict of Italy which they said was surreptitiously obtained by a fraud in numbering the Votes resolve upon another Assembly at S. Germans where was made that famous and much Celebrated Edict of January Thu. l. 29. whereby the Protestants are permitted to assemble at Sermons so it be out of any City and the Magistrates commanded not to molest but protect and defend them from all injury and the Protestants that they should hold no Synod or Consistories unless the Magistrate first called was present their Pastors should engage to observe the Edict to teach the people the pure word of God and nothing contrary to the Nicene Councel the Creed and the books of the Old and New Testament and that both sides should abstain from all reproachful words speeches and books against one another and when the Senate interceded against the promulgation of the Edict a mandate was sent out to them to promulgate it without further delay which being again and again reiterated they at last obeyed The Guises the Constable and others of their party in the mean time leaving the Court contrive to hinder the Execution of it and oppose the Hugonot Faction as they call it not doubting but having by the Arts aforesaid gotten Navarre to their party to obtain their desires And first they endeavour to insinuate into the Lutheran Princes of Germany and if possible to engage them against the Protestants of France who in a point or two wherein Luther and Calvin differed incline rather to Calvins opinion or at least to render them more slack in affording them their assistance Then after a three days secret consultation with the Duke of Witenberg to this purpose at Zabern to which they had invited him and an out ragious violence committed in the way by the Duke of Guise his company upon an Assembly of the Protestants at Vassy met to hear a Sermon whereof sixty men and women were by them slain and above two hundred more wounded the Duke with a great retinue speedily repairs to Paris in an insolent manner without any respect to the King by the way and contrary to the Queens express will and pleasure and not contented to go the nearer way by S. Martins he goes about with his attendants being accompanied by the Constable the Duke of Aumale his brother and the Mareshal of S. Andre and enters by S. Denis gate by which the Kings of France in Royal State are used to make their entrance to that Metropolis of the Kingdom being met by divers of the Magistrates of the City with the acclamations of the Rabble in such sort as is used by the people to their Kings Hereupon the Queen after divers other insolencies of this party fearing that under pretext of asserting the Catholick Religion they would usurp the Supreme Power of the Kingdom and get into their hands the King her self and other Children She commends all Dav. l. 3. Thu. l. 29. and the whole Kingdom to the Care of the Prince of Conde the next Prince of the blood and earnestly and frequently importunes his assistance to stop the proceeding of the Confederates But they who upon longer Consultation had made sufficient preparation for what they intended easily prevented him and having exasperated the people with feigned rumours from all the Provinces of the Kingdom of pretended injuries done to the Catholicks by the Protestants an Artifice wherein the Cardinal of Lorain's greatest skill consisted the Duke draws out a party and at Fountain-bleau seiseth upon the King whom with the Queen and Her other Children they carry by force to Paris the King weeping to see himself his mother and brothers carried as it were into Captivity The Queen the same day they were seised renued her importunity to Conde desiring him not to abate his courage or neglect his care for the preservation of the Crown or suffer their enemies to arrogate to themselves the absolute Power in the Government The Confederates on the other side being come to Paris with the young King and the Queen having in the morning by a party led by the Constable fired one of the places without the Gates where the Protestants assembled to Prayers and Sermons and in the afternoon another whereby also the neighbour buildings were consumed and permitted licence to the Rabble to abuse and injure those they suspected for their Religion held frequent Consultations how best to Order their affairs for their own advantage In which Counsels the Duke of Guise openly declared that he thought it most expedient to proceed to a War with the Hugonots so to extinguish the fire before it burst out into a consuming flame and to take away the root of that growing evil Thus was the first Civil War begun the Confederates pretending the Authority of the King and Queen Regent whom they had by force gotten into their power and the Prince alledging the express Authority of the Regent and that the Orders sent out in the Kings Name against him were by the Confederates obtained by force and dures This I have related the more largely because hitherto the Protestants had been onely passive that since now they had engaged in Action as many of them did in this service of the Prince it may the better appear upon what grounds they did Act which was not upon pretense of Religion though no doubt that was a great motive to them but for defence of the Laws and for the
all these oppressions and Injuries though they provoked some little tumults of the vulgar yet were they not sufficient to produce and necessitate another Civil War which not only the Spaniard desired as well for his own security to divert a War from himself as in order to his further designs but also the Cardinal of Lorain his Nephews now growing up though his brother the Duke was slain and therefore besides these other means were thought on to do that at least if they should fail to make way for their ends by taking off those who most stood in their way And to this purpose besides some lesser Confederacies for an irreconcilable war against the Protestants there was a Conspiracy which was begun indeed by the Duke of Guise in his life time but renued again and carried on by the same faction with the King of Spain for the cutting off of those of the Nobility who favored the Protestant doctrine and particularly for surprising the Queen of Navarre and her Children the next heirs to the Crown of France after the familie of Valois who were all children and in their power already and clapping them into the Spanish Inquisition But this being discovered by the Queen of Spain in receit to her mother the Queen mother of France who easily perceived what was aimed at and by others to the Queen of Navarre and so prevented the Legates of Spain the Pope and Savoy were by the means of the Cardinal of Lorain sent to perswade the King to admit the Councel of Trent in France and to that end to invite him to a Consultation of the Catholick Princes at Nancie in Lorain to enter into a Holy League for the extirpation of the Hereticks but the Queen mother neither liking the admission of the Councel nor to engage so openly against the Protestants the Legates were under some other pretenses dismissed Wherefore the next year the King being declared out of his Minority and with his Mother making a progress through all parts of the Kingdom an Enterview between them and the Queen of Spain accompanied with the Duke of Alva is so ordered that a more secret Consultation is held at Bayonne for the extirpation of the hereticks Jan. 1565. Davila l. 3. Thu. l. 37. and a Holy League made between the two Crowns for mutual assistance to that end and at last it is concluded according to the opinion of Alva which he said was the judgement of King Philip to cut off the chief heads of the Protestants and then in imitation of the * 30. May. 1282 When the French were all at an instant without distinction of age or â—eâ— cruelly slaughtered as were the Danâ—s here in England 282. years before that Sicilian Vespers to slaughter all the Protestants to the last man and because the intended Assembly at Moulins was already talked on that it would be best to make a slaughter of the Nobility assembling there from all parts and upon a sign given to exterminate the rest through out France This Thuanus relates from Jo. Bapt. Hadrianus who he saith wrote his history with very great fidelity and prudence and as is very likely extracted many things from the Commentaries of the Duke of Tuscany Father to the Queen Mother But as he further relates either because they did not all meet there or that for some other cause it seemed unseasonable that business was deferred to another time and was seven years after as was then continued put in execution at Paris at a more convenient place and occasion But from this time the Prince of Conde and the Colinies being admonished by their friends at Court of these bloody Counsels and thereupon suspitious of the Court designs were more cautious and wary Yet was Colinius at the Assembly at Moulins in January following Thu. l. 39. and there by solemn Oath purged himself of the death of the Duke of Guise and possibly might then make some further discovery into these secret counsels which if as is said they were at first designed to be put in execution there seem by the succeeding History to have been deferred for want of sufficient Forces ready and of fit instruments For afterward by the advice of Alva Thu. l. 4â— 6000 Swissers were hired and levies of Souldiers made in Champain and Picardy under pretence of guarding the Frontiers against Alva But this pretence quickly vanished by Alva's withdrawing from those parts as it was afterwards more fully detected of fraud and collusion by his sending them Forces in the War soon after following nevertheless the Swissers were still retained 43. Whereupon Thu. l. 42. all very well knowing that there was a better accord between the Courts of France and Spain especially since the enterview at Bayonne than that there needed any such Guards the Prince of Conde Colinius Andelot his Brother and the rest of the Protestant Nobility and Gentry began to be very sensible of their near approaching danger of ruine and after a long patience under Slaughters Banishments Calumnies loss of their Estates and Fortunes to consult together what course might be taken for the safety and preservation not only of their estates and liberties but of the lives of themselves and their wives and children They had seen and felt the Edicts made on their behalf partly eluded by the interpretations of new Edicts and Proscripts partly violated by the malice and iniquity of Judges and Presidents of the Provinces injuries and mischiefs every where done to them and even the murthers of no small number connived at and permitted to go unpunished And besides all this they had certain intelligence of those secret consultations held for their destruction and of other secret counsels held by Ambassadors with the Pope who fomented the hatred of those two Kings against them and besides the speeches and threats frequently given out that they were not like long to enjoy their Assemblies they saw plainly that those preparations which after the Cities which they inhabited were dismantled and Forts therein built and Garrisons put into them were at first made under such pretext as was no way probable and now continued without any at all were designed against them and were also informed thereof by intelligence from their friends Sures p. 768. and by letters intercepted from Rome and Spain Notwithstanding after a consultation or two it was resolved by common consent of all to use all mild and gentle means and therefore since now there remained no further pretence to retain them the Prince of Conde by his friends desires that since Alva is now retired into Belgium the Swissers may be dismissed But when instead of being dismissed or retained only to guard the Frontiers they found them daily march on nearer to the heart of the Kingdom and had further notice from the Court of their designs they at last assemble in great confusion and though every one saw the danger which hanged over their heads and was now ready to
undone partly to consult the credit of their King and Countrey partly to accommodate the present state of affairs endeavoured either by feigned praises or officious excuses to cover and palliate that fact which in their hearts they detected And some were therein so far transported and over-shot themselves out of zeal for the honour and good of their Countrey that our ingenuous author deplores their actings in it especially as to that foul business of the Trial and Sentence above-mentioned But generally the French Courtiers who were more ingenuous than to prostitute their reputation by asserting that pitiful pretence of the conspiracy yet used all their art to represent the case as a sudden accidental thing and not so long before contrived as the Italians and Spaniards relate 48. It is very usual and even natural to men especially to the more considering minds when any thing rare and extraordinary doth occur not to rest satisfied with the bare contemplation of the thing but also to reflect back and enquire into the causes of it And therefore since Thuanus relates that the more prudent of those Lib. 53. who being no way addicted to the Protestant party with good and honest meaning sought how to excuse this execrable fact yet in their heart detesting the same did also seriously consider the causes of it their sense and judgment in that respect may likewise deserve our observation They saw apparently that so infamous and pernitious counsels could not proceed but from minds so strangely infatuated and blinded and did seem to argue a special judgment of God upon them And of that the causes to which it might be reasonably attributed were very obvious and easy to be discovered For such was the profaneness debauchery and wickedness which prevailing in the King through his evil Education by his Mother and those Tutors to whom she committed him and in the Court were by the evil example thereof derived to the City and thence to the Countrey-Towns and Villages and so diffused through the whole Kingdom as could not but provoke the Holy Majesty of God to send down his judgments upon them This is the sum of their judgment only he gives more particular instances in the sins of common Swearing Adultery and Fornication to which others add many more and tell us in general that then never was there any more vicious or more corrupted Court. And indeed those were such causes as being so obvious and notorious no serious Christian believing and instructed in the Sacred Scriptures but would readily assign in the case Rom. 1â— For thus doth St. Paul inform the Romans of such as hold the truth in unrighteousness and our Romanists might do well to be admonished by it that because when they knew God they glorified him not as God their foolish heart was darkened and he gave them up to the lusts of their own hearts to vile affections and to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient being filled with all Injustice Fornication Murder Deceit breach of Faith c. What-ever be the profession which such men make of Religion most certain it is that there is either great error and corruption in their Religion or little sincerity and life in their profession or lastly such impotence in the professors that the prevalence of their sensual affections doth easily over-power and fascinate their reason which argues their desertion by that Sacred Spirit which infuses light and life and heat and power into humane souls as they are disposed to receive it no less than doth the Sun communicate its kind influences to the corporal and animal nature And as this doth maturate and sweeten crude and sour fruits and confirm and strengthen the tender plants so doth that where it is indeed heartily embraced admirably dispose mens minds to sweetness and tranqâ—ility in themselves to sweetness and devotion to God to sweetness kindness and benignity to men and makes these dispositions strong and powerful in them Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is power it informs the mind and understanding it reforms the will and affections and transforms the whole man into its own likeness These are the fruits of the Spirit by which we are to judge of the tree This is that whereby all true Christians have a real and internal not meerly external or political communion and union with their Head Christ Jesus and through him with the fountain from whom by him it is derived to all his true members of his fulness we all receive and one with another they are all partakers of the same Spirit a nearer alliance than that of bloud and are filled with a tender affection to all the children of the same Father and love to all the creatures of their great Lord and for his sake even to their enemies to those that persecute and injure them pitying their blindness and madness and desiring their conversion not destruction But no sooner or further is any man deserted by this blessed Spirit or devoid of his sweet influences but he presently becomes so much the more obnoxious to all the malevolent aspects of wicked spirits and is impregnated and â—illed with the poison of their infections which excites and exalgitates to exorbitancy his sensual affections dementates his understanding and continually foments and promotes the assimulation and likeness of their own nature in him cherishing and fructifying the roots which are in him of Pride Ambition Envy Malice Revenge Perfidiousness and all manner of lusts and wickedness according to his particular disposition And because there is so strong and powerful a propensity to Religion rooted and fixed in the very nature of man as is very difficult if not impossible utterly to extirpate or depress this in such a person is by the subtil operation of these agents either if more languid and remiss diverted by exciting him to an eager prosecution of his other more strong inclinations or if more intense and active perverted either into superstition or some other conceived heroick acts of a partial Religion consisting and concurring with the satisfaction of his other inclinations whence ordinarily proceeds much of that heat and zeal which we frequently see in men for their several parties for the shells and out-sides of Religion for opinions and notions no more necessary to be known and determined to make men compleat Christians than the speculations of Philosophers and often for pernitious and destructive principles especially in the Romanists and inconsiderate endeavours by fraud and injustice sedition or oppression and violent persecutions and such like most unchristian actions for the advancement of the cause which they espouse whereby they encourage themselves with secret hopes to expiate their licentiousness and indulgence to their own inclinations in other matters and easily perswade themselves that so long as they are such good Catholicks or well affected to the truth and the cause of God and his Church that all must needs be well with them And hence
of the people and great converse of the Clergy in favour of the League became so formidable to the King that he was forced to a new agreement with them against the Protestants Da. p. 557. to banish their Preachers confiscate their estates and with all speed denounce a War against them wherein such men should be made Commanders as the League should confide in and a great deal more partly against the Protestants and partly to strengthen their own party Da. p. 598. This agreement was made by the King only to comply with his present necessity and not with any intention to perform it For being now out of hope of issue himself he resolved to further Navar 's right and to unite himself with him as his lawful Successor and make him partaker in matters of Government to which end he held secret correspondence with him Da. p. 600. But the Leaguers force him to go on with the War and upon the score of his treaty with Navar raise great clamors and calumnies against him that the cause of Religion is betrayed the Protestants openly favoured the course of the War interrupted and that the King shews openly that his mind is averse to the Catholick party and that he desires by all means to cherish and maintain heresy Da. p. 606. And now the minds of the people are more than ever inflamed against his person and proceedings which were publickly inveighed against in the Pulpits and particularly slandered in private meetings Thu. l. 86. but especially by the Priests at the secret confessions of the people whom they refused to absolve unless they would enter into the League and for the more secret carrying on of the business intrusted in this new Doctrine that as well the Penitent who shall reveal what he hears from his Confessor as the Confessor who reveals what the Penitent confesseth doth incur the guilt of mortal sin From calumnies and slanders they proceed to conspiracies and actions And at Paris they set up a new Council of sixteen Da. p. 606. Thu. l. 86. which hold their secret meetings first at the Colledg of Forlet commonly called the cradle of the League afterwards at the Colledge of the Dominicans and at the Jesuites Colledge they plot to surprize Boulogne and there to admit the Spanish Fleet prepared against England Da. p. 609. Thu. l. 86. They also consult about taking the King himself as he returned from the Boys de Vincernes with a small guard And both these enterprizes being discovered to the King failing Thu. l. 87. they set up a seditious Preacher to inveigh against the King and his Counsellors and not doubting but thereupon the King would send to apprehend him they determine upon that occasion to stir up the people and thereupon take up arms and destroy both him and those about him who were faithful to him Which in part proceeded and perhaps had been accomplished if the King had not timely recalled those he had employed whereupon he was advised to depart from Paris which he did but not long after returning thither he is presented with a Petition which at a Consultation at Nancy where it was concluded that Guise and the other confederate Lord Da. p. 668. Thu. l. 90. should not enter to oppose the King at the very first was so contrived that if he granted it their desires would be effected without noise or trouble and if he refused he should thereby give them occasion and opportunity to make use of arms and to acquire that by force which he would not consent to of his own accord And though the King did not so much refuse as by excuses delay to answer it the Preachers labour to cast all the odium they can upon him inveigh against him as favouring the hereticks and on the other side highly extol and magnify the Catholick Princes so they called the Guisians And Guise his coming to the City is by frequent Letters much importuned which though according to the former conclusion he at present deferred yet were some experienced Souldiers sent to them he not being willing to trust to the City Commanders alone And now reckoning their strength 20000 men there is a new Conspiracy to fall upon the Louvre and killing the guard and all about him whom they suspect to seize upon the King But this was also discovered and the Council of sixteen who thought there might be some hazard in that resolve upon a more safe course to seize upon him when he should be in procession as he was wont in the habit of a Penitent among the whipping Friars and shut him up in a Monastery with a strong Guard and in the mean time a report should be spread abroad as if the King was taken away by the Protestants at which the people should take up arms and fall upon the Politicks and those they suspected And this being also discovered the King consults how to secure himself against the Conspirators In the mean time the Duke of Guise unexpectedly comes to Paris contrary to the King's command And while the King seeks to strengthen himself and preventing the Leaguers to secure the most important places of the City the Parisians are raised at the ringing of the Bells make Barricadoes cross the streets come up to the Louvre and begin to assault it Whereupon the Queen-Mother goes to Guise in her Sedan being denied passage in her Coach and confers with him but brings back nothing but complaints and exorbitant demands But the siege pressing much on the one side when it was feared they would likewise besiege it on the other the Queen mother going again to Guise and having notice by the way that 15000 men were preparing to enclose the Louvre on the other side holds him in a long treaty while the King with 26 Gentlemen steals secretly away to Chartres to the no small grief of Guise and the Leaguers who had lost so fair an opportunity Whereupon they secure and strengthen Paris lay siege to the Boys de Vincernes which yielded without resistance as did also St. Cloud Lagny Charranton with all the other neighbouring Towns The King being again reduced to his former straits of accepting the assistance of the Protestants or yielding to such terms as the Leaguers would please to give him after long consultation at length resolved to use the same means against Guise which he remembred had been used in the reign of his Brother Charles against the Admiral Coligny and his Adherents and to that end feigned to consent to the opinion of those who perswaded him to unite himself to the Duke of Guise And having upon a treaty concluded a Peace upon almost the same conditions which were contained in the Petition framed at Nancy Thu. l. 91. he receives Guise much after the same manner that his Brother did Coligny with great expressions of honour causes the Edict of the Union to be presently published the War against the Protestants proclaimed for
the prosecution whereof according to the Articles of the Peace two several Armies were appointed Guises atchievements were highly magnified by the Leaguers in France and no less by the Pope at Rome who sent to him and to the Cardinal Bourbon his Congratulatory Letters full of high praises which were presently published in print and dispersed abroad Wherein he commends their piety and zeal in promoting the business of Religion comparing Guise to the Holy Maccabees the defenders of the people of Israel so highly extolled in the Sacred Scriptures and exhorting him to continue succesfully and gloriously to fight for the advancement of the Church and the total extirpation of the Protestants acquaints him with his own uncessant prayers for the Divine assistance to him adding that nothing could be more seasonable for the present occasion than that he should have his Legate in France by whose means and authority their endeavours might be promoted for the good of the Kingdom and of the Catholick Religion And if any thing more be necessary to be done by him he desires to be certified of it who shall never be wanting to their cause Guise and the Leaguers being not a little animated by these things Thu. l. 93. the Assembly of the States at Blois which was called upon this late agreement and were most of the faction of the League especially the Order of the Clergy which did in a manner wholly incline to that side with great heat pronounce the King of Nivar for his crime of heresy unworthy of the succession of the Kingdom which being decreed by the Clergy and upon their signification and admonition universally subscribed by the other two orders holding it a great fault in the cause of Religion to dissent from the Ecclesiasticks the Arch-Bishop of Ambrun with twelve of each Order repair to the King and desire that by his authority and a publick Edict the Decree may be confirmed But the King utterly averse from it though he would not plainly deny it yet put it off as well as he could but such was the obstinacy of the States that he was forced at last to answer that he agreed to the general vote and would think of causing the Decree to be framed Guise also with all his might urged the receiving of the Council of Trent whereunto though the King consented yet was it rejected with great contradiction not only by the Nobility but by a great many of the Clergy This was urged by him partly as a powerful engine against the Protestants partly further to oblige the Pope if it succeeded and to raise a prejudice in him against the King if it succeeded not by his default And to ingratiate himself the more with the people he moves for ease of grievances by impositions and taxes though a thing inconsistent with the prosecution of the War against the hereticks But the King finding now a convenient opportunity to execute his design acquaints some of his confidents with it and having ordered all things so as to avoid the suspition of Guise much after the manner heretofore used against Colinius he commands him to be slain which was accordingly * The manner of his death see in the notes upon the history of the Massacre Sect. 17. done and the Cardinal his Brother being with many Lords and adherents of that Faction at the same time committed to custody was about two daies after by the King's command in like manner slain Thus do those who had wickedly conspired the barbarous slaughter of so many innocent Protestants now by the just judgment and vengeance of God upon them mutually conspire one anothers destruction And that City which was then so forward in executing the wicked counsels and commands of savage and perfidious men is now as forward in executing the just judgments of the righteous God upon one of the chief Authors of them and they who before had been the instruments of his cruelty are now made the instruments of his punishment 53. Thu. l. 93. Da. l. 10. Upon the news of these things spread abroad the Leaguers are all in an an uproar and at Paris having held a Council where nothing almost was heard but reproaches against the King and cries for revenge the Duke of Aumale is called out of a Monastery to be their Governor the Preachers from their Pulpits thunder out the praises of the Duke of Guise his Martyrdom and detestations of that slaughter most cruelly committed by the King in such manner that not only the minds of the baser people but also of the most noted Citizens were won by their perswasions and inflamed with an infinite desire to take revenge Thu. l. 94 Da. p. 762. Foul. c. 5. p. 530. and the Council of sixteen cause a writing to be presented to the famous Colledg of Divines called the Sorbon in the name of the Provost and Eschevins of the City containing these two Questions 1. Whether they should not be free from their Oath of Fidelity and Obedience to Henry the third And 2. Whether they might not with safe Conscience arm unite collect and contribute money for the defence and conservation of the Roman Catholick Religion in this Kingdom against the wicked counsels and endeavours of the King aforesaid and all other his adherents whomsoever and against his breach of publick Faith at Blois c. Whereunto upon mature deliberation at an assembly of seventy Masters of that Faculty and solemn resolution it was answered 〈◊〉 refragante 1. That the people of this Kingdom are free and at liberty from their Oath of Fidelity and Obedience to King Henry aforesaid 2. That the same people lawfully and with safe conscience * Dav. p. 763. that the King had forfeited his right to the Crown and that his Subjects not only might but ought to cast off their obedience c. may arm unite collect and contribute money for the defence and conservation of the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Religion against the wicked counsels and endeavours of the aforesaid King and whomsoever adhering to him since he hath violated the publick Faith to the prejudice of the Catholick Religion and of the Edict of the holy Vnion and of the natural liberty of the assembly of the three Estates of this Kingdom Moreover they think fit that this Decree or conclusion be sent to the Pope that he may by the authority of the holy See approve and confirm it and afford his help and assistance Fonl. p. 533. And accordingly a Letter is drawn up and sent by the Parisians in the name of themselves and the rest of the Catholicks in France wherein they represent to him the zeal of the people all good men being ready to lay down their lives rather than suffer that Tyranny and more than 10000 of the Parisians filling the streets with cries to Heaven for vengeance against the Tyrant others whipping the statue of the Tyrant breaking it to pieces and throwing it into the fire Da.
p. 763. And indeed after this Declaration to use Davila's words the people as it were loosened from the bonds of obedience and having broken the rein of modesty ran violently to the breaking down of the King's Arms and Statues where ever they found them and began furiously to seek out all those whom they accounted dependants of his party by them called Navarrists and Politicks which forced many quiet men to leave their houses to save their lives which others were fain to compound for with money V. Thu. p. 397. and others unfortunately lost All Churches eccho'd with voices of the Preachers who aggravated the particide committed by * Hence Charles Steward here Henry Valois no longer called King of France but the Heretick Tyrant and persecuter of the holy Church and all places were full of Libels both in verse and prose which contained and amplified the same things several ways And the Council of sixteen having prepared the Preachers to be ready in case any tumult should arise to appease the people cause all the Counsellors of Parliament and Officers who adhered to the King to be imprisoned in the Bastille as enemies to the publick good This done they assemble a kind of Rump Parliament which substituting others in the place of those they had secluded make a publick Declaration for the deposing of the King and a new Decree and Engagement of holy Vnion for defence of the Catholick Religion the safety of Paris and other united Cities to oppose those who having violated the publick Faith had taken away the lives of the Catholick Princes to take just revenge for their marther and to defend the liberty and dignity of the States of France against all persons whoever without exception c. And this was proposed to be sworn to by all whereupon there was presently a general engagement throughout the whole Kingdom and for a Head of the Vnion they make choice of the D. of Mayenne Brother to the late D. of Guise who at the request of the Leaguers comes to Paris where a Council of the Vnion consisting of 40 of the chief Leaguers whose Orders all are to obey upon pain of death being instituted he is by the Parliament declared Lieutenant-General of the State and Crown of France and solemnly sworn to defend the Roman Catholick Apostolick Religion the Royal State the Authority of the Supreme Courts the priviledges of the Church and of the Nobility the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom c. In the mean time to heighten and inflame the odium of the people against the King nothing is omitted either in the Pulpit or out of it by slanders calumnies and false reports And while among other devises they endeavour to represent him as a worshipper of Satyrs and a Magitian they exercise a kind of magick or witchcraft against him devising religious execrations and instituting strange superstitious rites women and maids clad only in such fine linen that their bodies might be seen through it and some carrying burning tapers in their hands they sang over certain mysterious rithms with dissonant and confused tones and voices and then suddenly extinguished their torches as if they hoped or wished that the King's life should be thereby or in like manner also extinguished and a great deal such stuff too long to be here related By these means were the people every where incensed and enraged against the King but especially by the new Doctrines of the Preachers and Confessions were the minds of men generally so perverted that they made it almost a sport to break Faith with him and betray their trust and many thought it their duty so that the Cities daily revolted from his obedience Thu. l. 94. sin At Bourdeaux the J suites for a conspiracy and tumult raised there were by the President of the Province expelled the City to prevent the like for the future And when from thence they repaired for refuge to Agen and * Vesuna Paetrocariorum Vesuna those Cities thereupon presently rebelled But the greatest fury and rage of the people was at Tholouse stirred up as was believed by these new Theologists While the Leaguers are thus busy both at home and abroad Thu. l. 95. prâ— Thu. l. 94. the King is not idle but treats with his Neighbour Princes and States for men and money and to mitigate the fury of his own people with great importunity and submission solicits for absolution for killing the Cardinal from the Pope who was highly enraged against him for that sacrilegious act as he pretended but probably more for killing the Duke if that be true which the State of Venice and the Dukes of Tuscany and Mantua certified the King that the Pope and the Duke had agreed in secret to marry the Pope's Niece to Prince Jonvil the Duke's Son and to depose the King thrust him into a Monastery and make the Duke King in his place His Ambassador going about this affair to Rome was by the way admonished by the Duke of Tuscany that the King should do well to trust more to his own forces and strength at home than to the Pope's favour for if things succeedeed well with him in the beginning of those commotions in France he should have friends enough at Rome and among them the Pope himself but if otherwise he should find them his bitter enemies And so it proved for when this proud and insolent Pope to gratifie his own pride and ambition and magnify his authority in the opinion of the people had drawn on the King and his Ministers to do all acts of submission and base prostration to him as far as he could he turned him off at last without any absolution and not not long after began to proceed to Excommunication against him Wherefore the King when he could obtain no favour from the Pope Thu. l. 95. treats more openly with the King of Navar and concludes an agreement with him to the no little joy of all sober men who thought there was no such way for setling that Kingdom as by this reconciliation of the King of France with Navar the first Prince of the Bloud the next Heir of the Crown and an excellent General and Commander Had he done this at first rather than so basely and foully broak his Faith he had certainly by God's blesting which he might then with more reason have expected prevented the growth of this faction of the League to this height and most of this trouble to himself and his Kingdoms But this now afforded new matter for the Preachers and Writers to exasperate the minds of the people withal And the Pulpits ring and the Presses sweat with virulent Sermons and Books against the two Kings Among those who bestirred themselves in this kind were Father Comolet the Jesuit Genebrard Fr. Feu-ardentius and Bucherus famous for his Book de Justa Henrici 3 Abdicatione and many others mentioned by our Author And in their Sermons besides those ways of moving the
people by stirring up their passions of fear and hatred they had another part to act which was to encourage them to action by moving their hopes and expectations and this was done by acquainting them with the victories and happy progress and prosperous success of their Armies and friends abroad amplifying the same as much as might be And what-ever news came whether good or bad the Preachers were generally the publishers of it if good to magnify and set it out to the best advantage if bad to represent it to the people as occasion served partly comforting and encouraging them under the misfortune and partly stirring them up to more forwardness and greater assistance to the War So that these matters were the general and ordinary subject of their Sermons And besides these good services which they performed severally the famous Colledge of Sorbon it self by a publick Decree order that the Kings name and the Prayers for him be put out of the Canon of the Mass and instead thereof other Prayers for the Catholick Princes be inserted and that those who shall say Mass otherwise than by this Decree is appointed shall be held for excommunicate c. And not to be wanting to the encouragement of his devoted Sons in so meritorious undertakings their good Father the Pope sends out his Monitory against the King whereby he is excommunicate unless within ten days he will do the Leaguers the kindness to set at liberty the Cardinal of Bourbon whom they having already agreed to the deposing of him may set up for their King and moreover make his submission within the term of 60 days from the publication of the Monitory which was posted up in Rome the 23 of May Da. p. 811. and within a few days after published at Meaux ten leagues from Paris These dealings of the Pope with the King seemed so hard and unreasonable to the Princes of Italy that they advised the King no longer to treat with him as a suppliant Thu. p. 430. but to deal with him according to his own rough nature and presently to seize upon Avignon and the County of Veniessine Da. p. 811. But the King was not a little grieved at it and said That he thought it very hard that he who had ever fought and laboured for Religion should be rashly excommunicated because he would nor suffer his own throat to be cut by the arms of his Rebel-subjects and that those who had * Charles V. anno 1527. sacked Rome and kept the Pope himself prisoner had never been excommunicated to which the King of Navar who was present answered but they were victorious Sir Let your Majesty endeavour to conquer and be assured the censures shall be revoked but if we be overcome we shall all die condemned hereticks Whereunto the King assented and all the by standers did the like and upon that hope order was given that the Army should march and the Kings affairs began to proceed very prosperously against the Leaguers For having first by supplies coming in from the King of Navar put a stop to the D. of Mayenne's progress at Tours and about the same time given a great defeat to the D. of Aumale by the assistance of La Noue one of the chief Commanders of the Protestants taken Gergeau Thu. l. 96. Piviers Chartres Estampes Poissy Montereau Pontoise and all such places and passages of the Rivers which were fit to strengthen the City of Paris or furnish it with victuals he forthwith with an Army of 42000 fighting men laies close siege to the City it self himself on the one side and the King of Navar on the other whereby the Parisians were so straitned and dejected Da. p. 814. though the Preachers used all their arts in their Pulpits to animate them and the Priests and Friers themselves took up arms putting themselves generally upon Military Duty that there was no man but thought that within a few days the King would be Master of it But in the midst of this success and height of his hopes a zealous young Frier †Da p. 816 819. Thu. l. 96. Jaques Clement stirred up by the Sermons which he heard daily against Henry Valois the Tyrant and Persecutor of the Faith resolved in conscience as hath been mentioned before exhorted thereunto by the Prior one of the chief Counsellors of the League and other Fathers of his Convent in all likelihood It being unlikely that the chief men of the Union and particularly the Prior a trusty Counsellor of the Grand-Council of it should not have confered about the fact with the Princes and with their privity exhorted and with effectual motives spurred on the simplicity of the Frier Da. p. 819. v. Thu. l. 96. Serres p. 879. not without the privity of the Catholick Princes affirming to him that if he lived he should be made a Cardinal and if he died for freeing the City and killing the Persecutor of the Faith he should without doubt be Canonized for Saint by an expected stab put an end to his hopes and his life together within * Duobus post mentibus al quot diebus quam Pontifex hanc Sententiam excommunicationis tulerat Cicarel p. 446. few days after the aforesaid term of 60 days prefixed by the Pope who had foretold his unfortunate end was expired to the great joy of the Leaguers and the Pope as hath been related before Sect. 34. this account of the French Story not being then intended The †Da. p. 857. Thu. l. 98. Prior of the Convent was Father Edmond Bourgoin who being afterward taken at Paris and convicted by witness to have publickly in the Pulpit for several days together praised this murder in studied speeches and to have counselled and instigated the murderer comparing him also in his Sermons after the fact to Judith and the dead King to Holofernes and the City delivered to Bethulia he was by judgment of the Parliament of Tours sentenced to be drawn in pieces by four horses his quarters burned and his ashes scattered in the wind which sentence was afterward severely executed Not long after at Vendosme was taken Da. p. 861. Thu. l. 97. and likewise condemned to death Father Robert Chesse a Cordelier or Franciscan Frier who had there publickly praised the King's murderer and with his Sermons stirred up the common people 54. This end had Henry 3. when he had scarce lived out half his days and in him thus dying without issue after 14 years Marriage many visits to Saints and the use of hallowed shirts and smocks for obtaining of issue the whole life of Valois his Bastard brother also the Duke of Angolesme not escaping a violent death some years before by a stab Thu. l. 85. In this King besides the hereditary guilt of his Ancestors descended upon him there are two things especially observable in his own actions whereby he involved himself in the participation of the common guilt of his Family
Scotland those of James Gordon and Edmond Hay and with us that so often mentioned of Barriere But among the ancient Christians these monsters were unheard of Of the Christians was no Cassius no Niger no Albinus as Tertullian speaks Nor was that crime ever heard of in France till the coming in of the Jesuites For it was brought in by them from Spain whence they had their original where the Gothes as an ancient Author informs us took up this detestable custom that if any of their Kings pleased them not they put him to the sword and set up whom they pleased in his place On behalf of the Jesuites Cl. Dureus rather pleaded in bar of the action than spoke to the merits of the cause but P. Barnius answered more copiously in writing But as much of what was spoken by the others is here purposely omitted for brevity sake so those things particularly which I find answered by him except that of Portugal which notwithstanding his answer seems very probable as well agreeing with their principles and actions though such mysterious practices are not easy to be fully proved And thus stood the case with the Jesuites in France when the King was about to * Which was done 17. Jan. proclaim war against their great Patron the King of Spain and whether the particular consideration of these or either of these to prevent what they feared might be the consequence of them †V. Perefix 229. did produce that attempt of their Scholar Chastel or not for he was more deeply seasoned with their principles and instructions than to make a full confession yet certain it is that that attempt did produce a more speedy determination of the cause than could otherwise have been expected by a Decree 29 Dec. 1594. Thu. l. 111. whereby the Court did ordain that the Priests and Students of the Colledge of Clermont for they would not call them by the name of Jesuites and all others of that Society as corrupters of Youth perturbers of the publick Tranquillity and enemies of the King and Kingdom shall within three days after denunciation depart from Paris and all other Cities where they have opened School and within fifteen days after out of the Kingdom upon pain to be prosecuted as guilty of Treason and that their Goods and Lands shall be imployed for pious uses and be distributed at the pleasure of the Court and all the Kings Subjects were interdicted to send their children to the Schools of that Society out of the Kingdom to be instructed in Learning upon pain of Treason This was executed the Summer following Li. 112. Some few days after this was made another Decree whereby Chastel's Father's house which was neer to the Palace was ordered to be pulled down and a Pyramid to be erected in the place of it with the Decree inscribed upon it ad aeternam facti memoriam which was likewise done with other inscriptions in detestation of the crime V. l. 134. 58. How necessary for the safety both of the King and Kingdom this was and that the Decree should be strictly executed throughout the whole Kingdom and duly and constantly observed for the future many in the Court and most in the Parliament of Paris and of the Clergy were very sensible and the King could not be ignorant especially after such fair warnings And yet whereas the Jesuites being by virtue of this Decree exterminated out of the Jurisdictions of the Court of Paris Thu. l. 129. which extends to near half the Kingdom and likewise of Burgundy and Normandy continued notwithstanding for three years after to keep up their Schools in the Territories of Tholouse and Bourdeaux to which many sent their Sons to be taught and many again from that Society changing their habits as if they had also renounced their vow crept into other Schools though the King was often importuned to command those Courts by his Edict to publish the Decree and it was once or twice so resolved in Council the execution notwithstanding was continually retarded by the craft and subtilty saith our Author of some about the King but perhaps some thoughts of a peace with Spain which had been proposed might make it thought unseasonable at that time But the Parliament of Paris was not wanting to do what in them lay 21 Aug. 1597. and by another Decree under a severe penalty prohibited all Cities Colledges and Universities to admit any of that society though pretending the renunciation of their vow to preach or to excrcise any sacerdotal Ministery or to teach children either publickly or privately Thu. l. 12â— The year following the King was again provoked through the obstinacy and insolency of the Court of Tholouse to send out his Edict commanding those Courts to publish the Decree and was moved by the Chancellor Ph. Huraltus Cevernius so to do but by some Courtiers says 〈◊〉 Author the business was at present delayed and at last wholly put off and very likely was now also though unseasonable in respect of the King's desire to obtain a dissolution of his Marriage with the Queen Margaret Thu. ib. Perefix p. 294. that he might marry his beloved Mistress La belle Gabrielle whereof he began about this time to treat with the Pope's Legate And indeed though I know not whether so much be written by any yet it seems very legible in the actions and occurrences which are written that this was so powerful a motive with him as made him not only desist from further enforcing the execution of the Decree and total extermination of the Jesuites but on the contrary to yield to their Restitution Thu. ibid. For the Jesuites about this time taking occasion upon a Convention of the Clergy to offer him a supplication ceased not afterwards till by supplications and recommendations every where sought they at last obtained their desire the Pope's Legates sparing no pains on their behalf So out Author who afterward tells us L. 129. that when Ignatius Armandus their Provincial about a year before they were restored had made a Speech to the King for them the King answered that the business was now in the Pope's hands without whose direction he would determine nothing negotium penes Pontificem esse quo inconsulto nihil velit decernere But it may be more plainly perceived in a passage afterward at their restitution L. 1â—â— for when the Parliament interceded against their restitution and were very averse from publishing the Kings Eidict for that purpose at lâ—st comes 〈◊〉 Huraltus Messius into the Senate and acquaints them from the King with the whole series of the business and tells them that above five years since the Pope had dealt with the King that the Jesuites might be restored to the same state in the Kingdom wherein they were before the Decree This was about the beginning of the year 1604 and the King having in the year 1598 treated with the Legate about the dissolution
on concerning the murder of this King 60. While the Spaniards are thus active to continue their old and make new friends in France it is not likely they would be unmindful of the Jesuites whom they had always found such ready instruments to serve them and in other Countries were still as well affected to the interest of Spain and the house of Austria V. l. 135.136 though contrary to that of their own Countrey as ever Nor is it to be thought that the Jesuites would be so easily drawn off from their old Friend and Patron by those little expressions of kindness not sufficient to compensate their injuries received and besides might be doubtful whether proceeding from any real affection to them or not especially considering their subjection to the same F. General by whom the motion of their society in other Countries under their several Provincials is in a correspondent uniformity steered only 't is probable as becomes wise men they would be cautious and wary how they did hazard the loss of what they had gotten and therefore act upon pretty sure grounds yet we meet with some influences of their affection to their old friend For to say nothing of F. Cotton a prime man of the Society and the King's Confessor his consulting a supposed Daemoniack concerning the * L. 132. King's life the same Father is reported to have †P. du Moulin Answ to Philanax Ch. 5. brought and recommended to the King a certain Spaniard of whom the King a while after received from Monsieur de la Force Vice-Roy of Bearne and Navar a description with an advertisement that such a day he went from Barcelona into France with intent to kill his Majesty and shewing his letter to Cotton commanded him to bring the man again but Cotton returning a good while after told him he was gone and could not be found and that not a year before the King was murdered he was in disgrace for writing * P. du Moulin ibid. divers things to the Provincial of the Jesuites in Spain which the King had revealed to him in confession and that †Foul. 9. c. 2. the D. of Sully proved to the King that he was guilty of betraying his secrets What these secrets were I find not but this is to be noted that he had then a great design in hand which whether the same or not which he pretended and which is related by the D. of Sully and from him by Perefix the Arch-Bishop of Paris he had in pursuance of it raised a great Army which startled both Spain and Rome Perefix an 1608. He had about two years before his death entred into a League Offensive and Defensive with those Hereticks and Rebels against the Catholick King the Hollanders whereof the Spaniards grievously complained Don Pedro de Toledo representing to him that the ruine or conversion of the Hereticks was the common interest of all the Catholick Princes and what great wars his Master had made upon that design Foul. ibid. Per. an 1609. and was now though the Pope had earnestly dehorted him from any more arming going in person with an Army of 40000 choice men to assist the D. of Brandingburg with his Allies the Protestant Princes in the business of Cleves and Juliers whereof the Emperor complained as that which could not be without wrong to the Catholick Religion and what was worst of all this expedition was not doubted to be only a cover for some greater design that business of Cleves falling out very opportunely to furnish him with a good occasion to commence the execution of his projects Foul. ibid. While the King was raising this Army in France was a great Book secretly kept by some Priests wherein many did subscribe their fidelity and obedience to the Pope Moulin ibid. many of the subscriptions in blood and at Rome the Pope having dehorted him from arming four months before he was murthered was the Decree against John Chastel censured and forbidden to be read by an Act of the Consistory together with the History of Thuanus for relating too plainly that horrid action of Chastel and the part which the Jesuites had in it and likewise a Book of Mariana the Jesuite but not that which approveth the murthering of King's which by that means was in some sort that is tacitly and implicitly approved At last having as well ordered all things for the Government at home in his absence as perfected his preparations for the Expedition he was impatient to be gone from the City partly through his eager desire of pursuing the exploit partly boding and presaging some mischief to his person if he should stay longer there But the Queen to whom he had committed the Regency in his absence assigning her a select Council Per. p. 489 Quaere who was this Conchini who put this into the Queens head I think an Italian of Florence through the instigation of Conchini and his Wife being very importunate with him that she might be crowned before his departure he would not deny her that testimony of his affection though otherwise very unwilling and withal told her That that Coronation did presage him some mischief they would kill him he should never go from that City his enemies had no other remedy but his death it was told him that he should be slain at the first grand magnificence that he should make and that he should die in a Coach which ' made him taken with a trembling when he was in one He was counselled for the avoiding of the unhappy prophecies to depart the next day and to leave the Coronation which might well be done without him but this extremely offended the Queen and therefore to satisfie her he staid with such success as was foretold For the next day after the Coronation when in the morning * Continuation of de Serres he had been very sad and pensive one while casting himself upon his bed to sleep then again when he could not sleep arising to his prayers doing this several times in the afternoon he would needs go to the Arsenal to visit the Duke of Sully who was there indisposed though the Duke of Vendosme imminded him that he had been warned to beware of the fourteenth day but contemning the warning and predictions out of a desire to conceal his fear just as he had done before in the restitution of the Jesuites contrary to the advice and perswasions of his best friends in the way his Coach being stayed by a stop made by two Carts accidentally meeting in a narrow street he was stabbed between the second and third rib Peref and at a second blow to the heart whereof he died presently The Assassin was one Francis Ravaillac formerly a Monk but at that time a Sollicitor What motives perswasions or instigations he might have to this wicked act is much in the dark but that it was not out of revenge for any personal injury the meanness
which had been so often and so long disappointed All which having managed with wonderful art and dissimulation he at last obtained what he desired as in the following History is more particularly related THE HISTORY OF THE MASSACRES OF THE Protestants at PARIS and many other places in FRANCE in the Year of our Lord 1572. 1. THE day of the Nuptials between Henr. Lib. 5. King of Navar and Margaret Sister to the King of France drawing on which was appointed the * August 18th 15th of the Kalends of September the King by Letters solicits Coligni that he should come to Paris having before given in charge to Claudius Marcellus Provost of the Merchants that he should see to it that no disturbance did arise upon Colignie's coming to Paris Likewise Proclamation was published the third of the Nones of July July 5th when he was at Castrum-Bononiae about two miles from the City wherein it was for bidden that any of what condition soever should dare to renew the memory of things past give occasion of new quarrels carry pistols fight duels draw their swords especially in the King's retinue at Paris and in the Suburbs upon pain of death But if any difference should arise among the Nobles concerning their Honour or Reputation they should be bound to bring their plaint to the Duke of Anjou the King's Deputy throughout the whole Kingdom and to pray justice of him if they were of the Commons they should betake themselves to the High Chancellor deâ—l Hospital if it shall happen among those that shall not be in the Court but in Paris they shall go before the ordinary Magistrate It was also provided by the same Proclamation that those who were not of the Courts of any of the Princes or Nobles or of the Retinue of others or were not detained upon some necessary business but were of uncertain abode and habitation about Paris or the Suburbs should depart from the Court City within 24 hours after the publication of this Edict upon the same pain of death This was published for three days together with the sound of Trumpet in the Court and through the City and it was ordered that the publication should be repeated week by week upon the Sabbath-day Also there was adjoyned to the guards of the King's body for his greater security a guard of 400 choice Souldiers all which Coligni full of confidence and good assurance so interpreted as if the King desirous of the publick Peace did only prepare a contrary strength against those which were seditious and movers of troubles Therefore he comes into the City though many were greatly disturbed at it to whom when they importunately dehorted him both by letter and word of mouth he after he had given them thanks answered in one word That he was resolved now that Peace was concluded and things past forgotten to rely upon the saith of the King and that he had rather be dragged through the streets of Paris than to take up Civil Arms again 2. Among other letters there was one brought to him being now come to Paris written very smartly after this manner Remember that it is an established Decree of the Papists upon the account of Religion and confirmed by the authority of Councils that Faith is not to be kept with hereticks in the number of which Protestants are accounted Remember also that Protestants upon the account of the former Wars do lie under an eternal odium so that it is not to be doubted but this is the Queens resolution that Protestants be rooted out by any means whatsoever Add to this that it cannot be but that a woman that is a stranger and an Italian descended of the race of the Popes whom they oppose and of a Florentine and guileful nature should study all extremities against her enemies Consider moreover in what School the King was educated in which he drew in with his milk under his good Tutors this Doctrine that he should make it a sport to swear and forswear to use the name of God profanely to defile himself with Whoredomes and Adulteries to dissemble his Faith Religion Counsels to set his countenance according to occasion And that he might be accustomed to the effusion of the bloud of his Subjects he was taught from his childhood to behold the slaughters and butcheries of * And of men also v. l. 24. p. 275. beasts that he is setled in this perswasion to suffer no Religion in his Kingdom but that which may uphold his state according to the opinion of his Master Machiavel otherwise it would never be at Peace so long as two Religions flourished in it and that it was instilled into his ears that the Protestants did decree to spoil him of his Life and Empire And therefore he would never suffer the Protestants who had once whether upon a just or unjust cause taken up Arms against him to enjoy the benefit of his Edict but that he would with Arms revenge what was done with Arms against him nor would he look upon himself obliged to keep his Covenants which he had entred into with his armed Subjects These are the Arts of Princes the Elements of Policy the Arcana Imperii So Commodus of old commanded Julian whom he owned and embraced as his Father to be slain Thus Antonius Caracalla under pretence of mustering slew the prime youth of the City So Lysander cut the throats of eight hundred Milesians called together under pretence of friendship and society So Sergius Galba raged upon six thousand Spaniards and lately by the command of Antonius Spinola the chief men of the Isle of Corfica were called together to a Feast and slain In our memory did Christiern a King of a barbarous nature use the same arts in the Massacre of Stockholm So heretofore Charles 7 though reconciled to the Duke of Burgundy yet abstained not from killing him though he begged for his life Nor are the discourses that the King lately had with his mother at Blois unknown For when in a jocular manner profanely using as his custom is the name of God he asked her whether he had not acted his part handsomely at the coming of the Queen of Navar the Queen answered that he had begun well but these beginnings would little advantage him unless he proceeded But I said he with often repeated oaths will bring them all into your toils From these words the truth whereof you may be assured of you ought to take counsel and if you are wise get out of the City and so from the Court as from a most filthy sink with all the speed as may be 3. Coligni having read this letter though he was not a little troubled at it yet that he might not seem altogether to neglect the admonitions and intreaties of his friends made answer That there was no place left for these suspitions that he could never perswade himself that so great persidiousness could enter into so good a King than whom France
afore-mentioned from whence after Mass was ended being recalled by D'Anvil he came into the Chore again and kissing his new Bride before the King Queen and the Brethren when they had entertained one another some little while with discourse they returned into the Bishop's Palace where dinner was provided And I well remember when as Mass being ended I was admitted through the rails into the Chore and standing nigh to Coligni while I fixed my eyes upon him and curiously observed him I heard him say discoursing with d'Anville and looking up to the Ensigns fastned up and down and the sad Monuments of the Battel of Bassac and Moncountour That ere long these being taken down others more pleasing should be set up in their places which words then he meant of the Low-Country War which as he thought was now resolved upon others interpreted as though he had thoughts of a new Civil War which he so much abhorred 7. After Dinner they went into the Palace where a royal Supper was prepared and all orders of the City and the Senate together with the Courts of Accounts Customs and Treasury are entertained according as is usual in a most sumptuous manner a short time was spent in dancing afterwards interludes were brought in The representation of three Rocks silvered over upon which the three Brethren the King the Duke of Anjou and Duke of Alanson did sit and seven more upon which Gods and Sea-monsters were set which followed being drawn along in Coaches and were brought through the great Hall of the Palace which was divided by a triumphal arch in the middle and when they made a stand some choice Musitians recited Verses in their own Tongue composed by the best of their Poets And thus a great part of the night being spent in interludes they afterwards betook themselves to their rest The next day being not able to rise before the Sun was got high at three a clock after-noon they went to dinner at the Duke of Anjou's Palace where after dancing they went toward the evening to the Louvre The day following being Wednesday running at Tilt and interludes which had been a long while in preparing were exhibited at the Cardinal Bourbon's Palace there were represented upon the right hand the Mansions of the blessed and a little below the Elysian-fields possessed by 12 Nymphs on the other side on the left-hand was represented Hell flaming with fire and brimstone and full of sprights and frightful ghosts The Brethren the King the Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Alanson defended Paradise as they called it which many Knights Errant seeking to break into of whom Navar was Captain they were every one of them repulsed and at last thrown headlong down into Hell Then Mercury riding upon a Cock and together with him Cupid came sliding down to the defendants and then after much discourse with them returned into Heaven Then the three defendants came to the Nymphs wandring in the pleasant green fields and led them into the middle of the Hall where the Spectators were with much pleasure entertained with new Dances about the Fountain for a full hour Then the defendants being prevailed upon by their entreaties the Knights Errant that were shut up in Hell were released who presently in a confused skirmish break their spears at last the Gunpowder that was laid by pipes about the Fountain being fired fire broak forth with a great noise and consumed all their Scenes and so all departed This shew was variously interpreted for that the assailants who were most of them Protestants did in vain attempt to get into the seats of the blessed and were afterwards thrust down into Hell for so they put a mockery upon the Protestants and others did bode that it portended some mischief However certain it is that Francis E. of Momorancy whether suspecting some evil or being indisposed by reason of the tossing of the Sea as lately returned from his Ambassy in England having obtained leave of the King went to Chantilly for his healths sake leaving in the Court Henry d'Anville Carolus Meruvius and Gulielmus Thoraeus his Brethren and that very happily for that most Illustrious Family V. Da. p. 370. for it was the general opinion that the plotters of the following Massacre would have comprehended them all in this conspiracy had they not feared that Momorancy who was now absent would have revenged it The next day being Thursday there was running at Tilâ—s held in the Court-yard of the Louvre in which on the one side the King and his Brethren together with the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Aumale in the habit of Amazons and on the other side the King of Navar with his party in Turkish habits contended with their launces Scaffolds being set up on either side from which the Queen-Mother the King's Wife Lorain and all the Court-Ladies beheld the sports 8. Two days before the Counsel concerning the Massacre being not yet concluded the King with great shew of kindness bespeaks Coligni thus You know Father so he called him upon the account of his age and honour what you undertook to me that you would offer no injury so long as you are at Court to the Guises and they again engaged that they as they ought would behave themselves toward you and yours honourably and modestly I repose very great trust in your words but I have not the like confidence in their promises For besides that I know the Guises do by all means seek revenge I know their daring and haughty nature and in what favour they are with the people of Paris It would be a very great grief to me if they who under pretence of coming to the Marriage have brought with them a great party of souldiers well appointed should attempt any thing to your hurt for that would be an injury to my self Therefore if you think it expedient I think it convenient that the Regiment of the Guards be drawn into the City under these Commanders then he named those who were no way suspected who if any turbulent persons attempt any thing may be ready at hand to secure the publick Peace To such friendly discourse Coligni easily yielded his assent out of a desire of domestick Peace and being already overcome by the Court-flatteries therefore a Regiment is drawn within the walls without any suspition of the Protestants 9. This being done they enter into Counsel * Lib. 51. He mentions a former Consultation between the Queen-Mother Anjou Cardinal Lorain Aumale Guise Birage and others in the same Chamber wherein Guise was afterwards by the King's Command killed and afterwards in the same buildings where the King himself Henr. 3. here called Anjou was murthered by a Fryer again and after some debate the thing was left undetermined their opinions varying according to the condition of places and of the persons admitted to the Council For thus it was discoursed before the King with whom were in Council the Queen-Mother the Duke of Anjou and
fresh he would by no means be removed 13. After the King departed the Nobles of the Protestant party take counsel together and John of Ferriers Vidame of Chartres in the presence of Navar and Conde conjecturing what was indeed the matter said that the Tragedy was begun by the wound of Coligny but would end in the bloud of them all Therefore he thought it most safe that without delay they should depart the City he produced testimonies and tokens for his opinion from the rumors that were spread abroad for it was heard by many when upon the day of Marriage the Protestants went out of the Church that they might not engage in worship the Papists said by way of mirth that within a few days they should hear Mass Also it was openly spoken in discourse by the chief of the City that at that Marriage should be poured out more bloud than wine That one of the Protestant Nobles was advised by the president of the Senate that he should with all his family betake himself for some days into the Country Besides these things the counsel of Johannes Monlucius Bishop of Valence when he was going Ambassador into Poland given to Roch-fou-cault that he would not suffer himself to be intoxicated and turned about by the smoke and unwonted favour of the Court which deservedly ought to be suspected by all wise and cautious persons that he would not be too secure to run himself into danger and that he would timely withdraw himself together with other Nobles from the Court But Teligny being of another mind and saying that he was abundantly satisfied of the sincere love and good will of the King Ferrerius and those that thought as he he did could not be heard The next day the Page was again examined and new witnesses produced In this examination Arnold Cavagnes was engaged for so Coligny did desire and all things were done in shew as if there had been a diligent enquiry into the business The next day when as Coligny and by his command Cornaton in the name of his fellows who he said knew for certain that the Parisians that is LXM deadly enemies of Coligny would tumultuate and take Arms desired of the King and his Brother Anjou a guard of some Souldiers to be set to protect the house of Coligny that if the people should make any disturbance they might be restrained by fear of the King's guards they both of them answered kindly and freely and it was given in command to Cossenius Colonel of the Regiment of the Guards that with some choice Bands he should keep watch before the dores of Coligny To these were joyned to avoid suspition some but few in number of the Switzers of the guards of Navar. Moreover for the greater security it was ordered by the King that the Gentlemen of the Protestants who were in the City should lodge near Coligny's house and it was given in command to Quarter-masters forthwith to assign lodgings and the King gave command with a loud voice that all might hear it to one of the Colonels that no Catholick should be suffered to come thither nor should they spare the life of any that should do otherwise Upon this occasion the Corporals went from place to place and wrote down the names of Protestants and advised them to repair near to Coligny for that the King would have it so These and such like signs and whisperings abroad though they had been enough to have warned the Protestants if they had not been infâ—tuated yet by the constant dissimulation of the King it came to pass that Coligny and Teligny could not perswade themselves that any such cruelty was in his mind Therefore when the Nobles entred into consultation in the Chamber of Cornaton in the house of Coligny upon the same matter and the Visdame of Chartres persevered in the same opinion that they should depart the City as soon as might be and prevent that imminent danger though with some disadvantage to Coligny's health who yet was that day somewhat better Teligny was of opinion and Navar and Conde agreed with him that they should stay in the City otherwise they should offer a great affront to the King that was so well affected towards them 14. There was a suspition lest this should be caried to the King by one that was then present that was Buchavanius Bajancurius one very familiar with the Queen who presently hasted to the Tuilleries where a Counsel was held by the Conspirators under a colour of walking there was the last time that they consulted of the manner of executing the design There were present besides the King Queen and Anjou the Dukes of Nevers and Angolesme the Bastard Biragus Tavannes and Radesianus And since by the death of one man whom the Physitians did affirm was like to recover of his wound the grievance of the Kingdom which was nourished by him and diffused into many could not be extinguished it seemed good that it should be suppressed by the ruine of all and that wrath which God would not have to be satisfied with the bloud of Coligny alone should be poured out upon all the Sectaries That was their voluntary resolution at first and now by the event necessity and force is put upon their counsels that the danger that hangs over the King and the whole Kingdom cannot be avoided without the ruine of Coligny and all the Protestants For what would not he do so long as the faction of the Rebels remains entire after such an injury who when he was no way provoked was so long injurious to the King and hurtful to the Kingdom whom now all might foresee and dread going out of Paris with his party as a Lion out of his den raging against all without respect Therefore the reins are to be let loose to the people who are of themselves ready enough nor ought they any longer to withstand the will of God which would not that more mild Counsels should take effect After the thing is effected there will not want reasons whereby it may be excused the fault being laid upon the Guisians which they would gladly take upon them Therefore all agreed upon the utter ruine of the Protestants by a total slaughter To which opinion the Queen was even by her own nature and proper design enclined some time was spent in deliberating * The Duke of Guise was urgent to have the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde slain with the rest Dav. p. 370. It was also debated whether among the rest they should comprehend the Marshal d'Anville 〈◊〉 his Brothers who professed the Catholick Religion but were nearly related to Colingy but 〈◊〉 were spared 〈◊〉 the eldest 〈…〉 rancy was absent Da. p. 370. whether Navar and Conde should be exempt from the number of the rest and as for Navar all their suffrages agreed upon the account of his Royal Dignity and the Affinity that he had lately contracted For that fact which of it self could not
whereby he quite disfigured him then with repeated blows he fell down dead Some write that these words shewing his indignation fell from Coligny as he was dying If at least I had died by the hand of a man not of a scullion But Atinius one of the Assasines repeated it so as I have written and adds that he never saw man in so present a danger bear death with such constancy Much otherwise did Guise bear the sense of his less apparent approaching death For when after his conspiracy and rebellion in the H. League against the next King he was with such like arts as had been here used brought into the snare which the King had laid for him and having before neglected the warnings of his friends at last began to be suspitious of his danger though nothing visible appeared his vehement fear so prevailed over his dissimulation whereby he endeavoured to conceal it that his whole body though he sate by the fire shaked and trembled and to immind him of this present fact a stream of bloud flowing plentifully from his nostrils as he called for a napkin he was fain to call for some Cordials to comfort his spirits but yet nothing of danger visible when in the midst of this his fear and languishing he was by one of the Secretaries who knew nothing of the design called into the Kings Privy Chamber whereupon having saluted each of the company as if he took his last farewell of them going directly thither he was no sooner entred but the dore was boulted and one of those who were appointed for the business struck a dagger through his throat downward into his breast whereby his mouth was presently filled with bloud and stopped that he could not speak but only fetch so deep a groan as was heard with horror by those who stood by This stroke was seconded by many others upon his head breast belly and groyn And to this end he came not as Colinius from his Prayers but after all his other wickedness from his whore with whom he had indulged the night and therefore came later than the rest this morning into the Counsel Thu. l. 93. It was their different lives and actions which made this difference in their deaths for otherwise Guise was a man of great courage as well as Colinius Then Guise asking Besines out of the Court-yard whether the thing were done when he answered it was done he could not perswade Angolesme unless he saw it Therefore Guise replying and bidding him throw down the body it was thrown out of the window into the Court-yard as it was all besmeared with bloud when * He was afterwards stabbed to death l. 85. Angolesme not believing his own eyes wiped off the bloud from his face with his handkerchief and at last perceiving it was he and as some add kicking the corps in scorn going out of the house with his fellows into the way Go to fellow Souldiers saith he let us prosecute what we have so happily begun for so the King commandeth which words being often repeated when forth-with the Bell of the Palace clock rang out they every where cryed Arm arm and the people presently ran to Coligny's house then the carkass after it had been abused in a strange manner is cast into the next Stable and at last cutting off his head which was sent as far as Rome and his privy-members and his hands and his feet they dragged it about the streets to the bank of Siene which thing he had formerly presaged by an ominous word though he thought no such thing When he was about to be thrown into the River by the boys from thence he was drawn to the Gibbet of Mount Faucon where with his legs upward and his body downward he is hanged in iron-chains then a fire is made under him by which he is only scorched not consumed that he might as it were be tormented through all the Elements slain upon the earth drowned in the water burnt in the fire and hanged in the air There when his corps had been exposed for some days to the luff and rage of all spectators and to the just indignation of many who did boad that that rage would hereafter cost the King and all France dearly Francis Momorancy who had timely withdrawn himself from the danger being near of kin and nearer by friendship to the dead took care that he should by some trusty men be taken down by night and committed to the earth in a Chapel at Chantilly In Coligny's house were slain in the tumult whosoever they met or found hiding themselves and then the Souldiers betake themselves to plunder and breaking open Chests they take away mony and other precious things only they preserve letters and papers for so the Queen commanded 18. Thence Nevers and Tavannes and Monpenser who joyned himself to them through the hatred that he bore to Protestants ride armed through the City and spurred on the people that â—an already telling them That Coligny and his Associates had laid a plot against the King the Queen the King's Brethren and Navar himself and that it was detected by the singular Grace of God and that the King prevented them only in time therefore that they should not spare the bloud of those wicked men who are the capital enemies of the King and Country but that they should fly upon their goods as spoil lawfully gotten that it was the King's pleasure that that pestiferous serpentine seed should be extirpated that the poison of heresy being extinguished there should for the future not so much as a word be spoken of any Religion but that of their fore-Fathers Then all being let loose to satisfy their hatreds every one prosecuted his enemy and rival with embittered minds Many brake into houses through desire of prey all ran upon the slaughter without distinction At the same time Francis Count de la Roche fou cault being for his facetiousness and pleasantness in discourse very gracious with the King when as but the day before he had though unseasonably drawn out the night till late in jesting with the King and from thence betook himself to his own house he underwent the same fate with Coligny For Bargins Avernus knocks at Roche-fou-cault's house and telling him he had something to acquaint him with from the King Roche-fou-cault himself commanding the dores to be unlocked he is admitted in when he saw men as he thought in disguises supposing the King was not far off who had sent men in jest to beat him he beggeth them that they would deal better with him but miserable man he found that the thing was not to be acted in jest but in earnest when his house being plundered before his eyes he himself half naked was most cruelly butchered by one that stood by him Also Teligny the son-in-law of Coligny having by running over the tops of houses escaped the hands of many and at last being espied by the Guards of Anjou he is
was by him obtained of the King 24. Such cruelty raging every where while the Heavens seemed more than ordinarily serene an accident hapned whereby the minds of the enraged people were after a strange manner inflamed An Oxyacantha which is a kind of shrub which they call white-thorn growing in the Church-yard of St. Innocents did whether of its own accord which sometimes happens when nature failing that plant is come to that that it is about to dry up or whether by warm water poured upon it by impostors did in an unusual time put forth its flower All which the factions flattering themselves in their madness did refer to God signifying by these tokens that what they had done was acceptable to him And therefore they said that the Heavens did rejoyce to see the Massacre of the Protestants And James Carpenter alluding to the Month in a writing that he published called that light Augustae Therefore the seditious flocking together at the fame of the blossoming thorn did skip about with great joy which they also testified by the unusual beating of a Drum though without command for even that they might do then and so interpreted it as if the Protestants being rooted out the Catholick Religion and the Kingdom of France should recover its ancient splendor and flower But the Protestants argued otherwise and if this were to be looked upon as a Miracle they said this was portended by this sign that though the Church might seem by this wound to be utterly extinct yet it should come to pass that it should in a wonderful and incomprehensible manner revive and flourish which also they did confirm by the example of the wonder shewed to Moses in the bush which though it burned yet was it not consumed They added that it might be said rather to belong to the commendation of innocence than the approbation of butchery because the thorn blossomed in a place which took its name from Innocents The same day some drawn out of the King's Life-Guard by Gaspar Castreus Nancaeus are by the King's command sent to †Castillionem ad Lupam Chastillon to take and bring Coligny's wife and children as also the sons of Andoletus But Franciscus the Eldest Son of Coligny and Vidus Lavallus the Eldest Son of Andoletus had already saved themselves by flight All the rest are taken and brought with all their precious houshold-stuff to Paris 25. It was the King's design that as soon as the slaughter of Coligny and his followers had been performed the Guises should immediately depart the City and go every one to his own house that thereby all might take notice that whatsoever had been done at Paris proceeded from their faction But the Queen and Anjou especially who did both of them with an over-weaning affection incline to the party of Guise did intercede seeing the King was at first enraged only against Coligny as not yet forgetting his flight from Meaux drew him on who yet wavered to the slaughter of all the Protestants in the City so that not knowing where he set his foot they brought him by degrees to this pass that he should take the whole blame upon himself and so ease the Guisians who were not able to bear such a burden And to that end Anjou did as it it was laid produce Letters found in Teligny's desk written by the hand of Momorancy in which after the wound given to Coligny he did affirm that he would revenge this injury upon the Authors of it who were not unknown with the same mind as if it had been offered to himself Thereupon the Queen and Anjou took occasion to shew the King That if he persisted in his former dissimulation things were come to that pass that he would endanger the security of the Kingdom his Fortunes Riches and Reputation For the Guisians who do by these Letters and otherwise understand the mind of the Momorancies being men desirous of troubles and seeking grounds of them upon every occasion will never lay down their Arms which they have by the King's command taken up to offer this injury that they will still keep them under pretence of desending their safety which they say is aimed at by the enemy and so that which was thought to have been the end of a most bloudy war will prove to be the beginning of a more dangerous one For the remainders of the Protestants who see their matters distressed will without doubt gather themselves to the Momorancies who are of themselves strong and thence will take new strength and spirits which if it should happen what a face of the Kingdom will appear when the name and authority of the King's Majesty being slighted and trampled upon every one shall take liberty to himself and indulge to private hatred and affections according to his own lust Lastly what will foreign Princes think of the King who suffers himself to be over-â—uled by his subjects who cannot keep his subjects in their duty and lastly who knows not how to hold the reins of legal power Therefore there is no other way to prevent so great an evil but for the King to approve by his publick Proclamation of what was done as if it had been done by his command For by this means he should take the arbitrement and power to himself and on the one hand disarm the Guises and on the other hand keep the Momorancies from taking up Arms and lastly should bring it about that the Protestant affairs now already very low should be separated from the cause of the Momorancies That the King ought not to fear the odium of the thing for there is not so much danger in the horridness of a fact the odium whereof may be somewhat allayed by excuse as in the confession of weakness and impotency which doth necessarily bring along with it contempt which is almost destructive to Princes By these reasons they easily perswaded an imperious Prince who less seared hatred than contempt that he might recall the Guisians to obedience and retain the Momorancies in their loyalty to confirm by publick testimony that whatsoever had been done was done by his will and command Therefore in the morning viz. upon the Tuesday he came into the Senate with his Brethren the King of Navar and a great retinue of Nobles after they had heard Mass with great solemnity and sitting down in the Chair of State all the orders of the Court being called together He complained of the grievous injuries that he had from a child received from Gaspar Coligny and wicked men falsly pretending the name of Religion but that he had forgiven them by Edicts made for the publick Peace That Coligny that he might leave nothing to be added to his wickedness had entred into a conspiracy how to take away him his mother his brethren and the King of Navar himself though of his own Religion that he might make young Conde King whom he determined afterwards to slay likewise that the Royal Family being
extinct he usurping the Kingdom might make himself King That he when it could not otherwise be did though full sore against his will extinguish one mischief by another and as in extream dangers did use extream remedies that he might extirpate that impure contagion out of the bowels of the Kingdom Therefore that all should take notice that whatsoever had been that day done by way of punishment upon those persons had been done by his special command After he had said these things Christophorus Thuanus chief President in a speech fitted to the time commended the King's prudence who by dissembling so many injuries had timely prevented the wicked conspiracy and the danger that was threatned by it and that that being suppressed he had now setled peace in the Kingdom having well learnt that saying of Lewis XI He that knows not how to dissemble knows not how to reign Then the Court was commanded that diligent enquiry should be made concerning the conspiracy of Coligny and his Associates and that they should give sentence according to form of Law as the heinousness of the fact did require Then lastly Vidus Faber Pibraccius Advocate of the Treasury or Attorney-General stood up and asked the King whether he did will and command that this declaration should be entred into the acts of the Court to the preservation of the memory of it whether the orders of Judges and Civil Magistrates which he had complained were corrupted should be reformed And lastly whether by his command there should be an end put to the slaughters and rapines To these things the King answered that he did command the first that he would take care about the second and that for the third he did give command by publick proclamation through all the streets of the City that they should for the future abstain from all slaughters and rapines Which declaration of the King astonished many and among the rest Thuanus himself who was a man of a merciful nature and altogether averse from bloud and feared that example and the danger that was threatned thereby who also did with great freedom privately reprove the King for that if the conspiracy of Coligny and his company had been true he did not rather proceed against them by Law This is most certain he did always detest St. Bartholomews-day using those verses of Statius Papinius in a different case Excidat illa dies aevo nec postera credant Saecula nos certe taceamus obruta multa Nocte tegi propriae patiamur crimina Gentis So that he seems to have commended the King's art by a speech fitted to the present time and place rather than from his heart The advising of the King to enquire into this conspiracy is thought to have been from James Morvillerius Bishop of Orleans who had left his Bishoprick to give himself wholly to the Court a man of a cautious nature but moderate and just and who was never the author of that bloudy counsel But when as that which was done could not be undone he thought it was best for the reputation of the King and for the publick Peace that since the odium of it could not be wholly abolished yet that it might by some means be mitigated he perswaded the King and Queen that to the things being now done they should though in a preposterous manner apply the authority of Law and that proof being made of the conspiracy judgment should be passed upon the conspirators in form of Law which thing Thuanus himself approved being consulted about it by Morvillerius upon the King's command Two days after a Jubilee is appointed and Prayers are made by the King and a full Court in a great assembly of people and thanks were returned to God for that things had succeeded so happily and according to their desires And the same day an Edict was published wherein the King declared that Whatsoever had happened in this matter was done by his express command not through hatred of their Religion or that it should derogate from the Edicts of Pacification which he would have to stand still in force and to be religiously observed but that he might prevent the wicked conspiracy of Coligny and his confederates Therefore that he did will and command that all Protestants should live at home quietly and securely under his protection and patronage and did command all his Governors to take diligent care that no violence or injury should be offered to them either in their lives goods or fortunes adding a sanction that whosoever did otherwise should understand that he did it under pain of life To these things a clause was finally added which the Protestants did interpret to contradict what he had said before that Whereas upon the account of their meetings and publick Assemblies great troubles and grievous offences had been stirred up they should for the future abstain from such meetings whether publick or private upon what pretence soever till further order was taken by the King upon pain of life and fortunes to those that disobeyed 26. These Edicts and Mandates were diversly entertained in the Provinces according to the divers natures and factions of the Governors for those that were addicted to the party of the Momorancies made a moderate use of them but great was the rage and fury of others to whom secret commands were brought not in writing but by Emissaries following the example of the Parisian Massacre The beginning was at Meaux as being nearest where the same day that the Massacre had been at Paris above two hundred were thrown into prison by Cossetus Advocate of the Treasury an impudent man who was chiefly assisted by Dionysius Rollandus an Apparitor and Columbus a Mariner The next day they set upon the Market that is out of the City and the men being slipt away they fell upon the women whereof 25 were slain and some of them violated by the rude murderers The day following after they had every where rifled the houses of the suspected they come to those that were imprisoned who being called out one by one by Cossetus himself were there slain as Oxen by Butchers in a Slaughter-house and thrown into the Castle-ditch and the greatest part of them the cut-throats being wearied were drowned in the River Marne And then Cosset us exhorts the neighbouring places that they should proceed in what had been so happily begun But the presence of Momorancy President of l'Isle la France who was then at Cantilia not far from thence did hinder the seditious from stirring at Senlis But great was the rage at Orleans which being once or twice taken by the Protestants the sad ruines of the demolished Churches lying open to the eyes of all did enkindle the minds of the people to revenge their injuries being yet fresh the day following therefore they began upon Campellus Bovillus one of the King's Counsellors whem being ignorant of what had happened at Paris Curtius a Weaver the leader of the seditious with some of his party
Souldiers those miserable men never injured them therefore they hired men from the Shambles and shameless persons out of the dregs of the people but neither would they do it at length all these detesting the fact they came to the City Train-Bands which consisted of 300 Townsmen who did readily undertake against their own fellow-Citizens what hangmen and strangers had resolutely refused Out of these Bands therefore are chosen all the veriest rake-hells and they leading on they ran violently to the house of the Franciscans this was done upon the following Lord's-day where part of the Protestants were kept and then to the house of the Celestines where a great slaughter was made whiles Mandelotus with Sallucius Manta Governor of the Castle ran with all speed to the tumult raised by the people in the suburbs next the River Rhone they make an assault upon the Arch-Bishop's house where 300 chief Protestants were by the Governor's order kept in prison and first carefully examining their purses they most barbarously slew them praying unto God and imploring the faith of men A miserable sad sight Supplices Dei hominumque fidem implorantes while the Sons hanging about the necks of their Fathers and Fathers embracing their Sons Brethren Friends exhorting one another to constancy they were slain like sheep by merciless Butchers Porters Water-men among the sad lamentations and horrid cries that did resound all over the City Which thing Mandelotus in all haste returning from Guilloteria but yet after the thing was done seemed to be much troubled at as if it had been done without his consent or privity and coming to the place of the Massacre taking the King's Officer along with him that he might enquire into the matter in a legal way and proofs being taken by a publick Notary in a ridiculous dissimulation he commanded Proclamation to be made that those that knew who were the Authors of this outrage should tell their names an hundred Crowns being proposed to the informer and discoverer for his reward In the evening the same Butchers went to the publick prison upon Rhone and raged against the prisoners with a new sort of cruelty and miserably tormented them with halters put about their necks and dragged them half dead into the River that was near The night following is spent in slaughters and plundering houshold-stuff is carried out of houses and wares out of shops those that hid themselves are by spies brought out of their hiding places and many thrown into the River Mandelotus being offended at the horror of the sight of the bodies of the slain lying in the Court of the Arch-Bishop's house commanded them to be put into boats and carried to the other side of the River that they might be buried in the Church-yard of the Monastery of Aisnay where was formerly the Altar of Lions and sent men thither to see them buried But the Monks said they would never suffer that and that those carkasses were unworthy of burial Therefore upon a sign given there is a concourse made and they are thrown by the enraged people into the River the grosser bodies being given to the Apothecaries upon their desir◠for their fat as is reported by those who wrote whiles things were fresh Nor did the slaughte slay here For not long after the two Brothers Darutii Merchants of great account Labessaeus Galterus and Floccardus honourable Citizens being brought out of the prison had their throats cut and were cast into the River Rhone Among these slaughters some escaped by the help of the guards and the favour of Manta the Governor among whom were Jo. Ricaldus and Antonius Callia Pastors of the City when as Joannes Anglus chief Pastor was slain in the first tumult It is said that 800 of all kinds and sexes were barbarously slain the carkasses of the slain swimming down Rhone to Turnonium lay so thick about the banks that the Townsmen affrighted at the accident cried Arm Arm as if the enemy had been coming upon them by and by being amazed with horror and detesting the authors of such a villany though they had no favour for the Religion of the Protestants to remove that sad spectacle they set men to thrust the bodies off with poles from the banks which the swift stream brought down So horrid a spectacle they also detested at Vienne at Valence at Burgh at Viviers at the Temple of the Spirit yea at Avenion where there is great hatred of the Protestants But at Arles when through want of wells and springs they drink of the water of the River the Townsmen besides the detestableness of the villany were grievously distressed when as they would not use the fishes and water that they could be supplied with only from Rhone yea◠they abhorred the very sight of the River 28. But in Dauphine and Provence things were carried after far another manner For Claudius Sabaudus Count of Tende who was very nearly allied to the Momorancies when Letters were brought him about the same business by Josephus Bonifacius Mola who two years after came to an †Being executed and his quarters set upon the City-gates unhappy end at Paris ingenuously answered that he did not think that that was the King's pleasure but that some that were evilly affected to the publick Peace did falfly pretend his name when as not many days since he had received quite other commands that therefore he would rather obey the former as more worthy of the King's Faith and Clemency But he not long after being at Avignon died of a sudden disease to the great grief of the people of Provence not without suspition given him by the Emissaries of the seditious In Dauphine Bertrandus Simienus Gordius educated in the Family of the Momorancies receiving the same command he excused himself pretending the great danger he was like to be in from the powerfulness of Mombranius and other Protestants in * In allobrogibus Savoy and Dauphine yet some were slain at Valence Also at Romans there were some slain though it were late first Septembr 22. viz. 10 Kal. VIII br where when many of that great number that was cast into the prison for fear of death returned to the Religion of their Ancestors only seven were stabbed with daggers by the raging people Also Santeranus Governor of Auvergne who also was well affected to the Momorancies used the same moderation and made the same answer to those that came posting to him from Court that the Count of Tende had done before him adding to this moreover that he would never obey such commands unless the King in person did command him Greater was the fury that did rage at Tholouse for news of what had been done at Paris being brought prid Kal. VII br which was the Lord's-day August 31. upon which the Protestants went out of the City to Castanetum to Sermon straitway the Gates were shut up and care was taken that no one should go out but that whosoever would
to Arthur Creswell of the same Society living in Spain Des. 1601. Mandatis and with Commands to the King of which this was the summe That he should forthwith send an Army into England for which the Catholicks would be ready in Arms as soon as it came over In the mean while that he should assign yearly Pensions to some Catholick Gentlemen Furthermore that he should insinuate it to the King that there were some Gentlemen and Military persons that were aggrieved at the Present state of things whom he might easily draw to his Part by relieving their necessities And whereas the greatest difficulty after the Landing such an Army would be for supply of Horses they in England would take care to have Two thousand Horses ready provided upon all occasions This thing was secretly transacted by the Mediation of Creswell with Petrus Francesa Secretary to King Philip and Franciscus Sandovallius Duke of Lerma and he affirmed that the thing would be very acceptable to King Philip and that he had offered his utmost assistance that it was also agreed among them of the Place of Landing For if the forces were great then Kent and Essex would be most commodious for their Landing if less Milford in Wales and that King Philip had promised by Count Miranda toward that Expedition Ten hundred thousand Crowns Decies centena aurcorum M. Stored with these promises Winter returns into England and acquaints Garnet Catesby and Tresham what he had done These things were transacted under Q Elizabeth who dying about this time Mar. 1603. Christopher Wright who was privy to these Matters is speedily sent into Spain who bringing the News of the Queens Death Sir Will. Stanly presseth the business of the Pensions and the Expedition With him was sent from Bruxells by William Stanly Hugh Owen and Balduinus 22 Jun. 1603. one of the Society of the Jesuits Guido Fâ—wkes with Letters to Creswell that he should speed the business To him was given in Command that he should signifie to the King that the Condition of the Catholicks would be more hard under the new King then it had been under Q. Elizabeth and therefore that he should be no means desist from so laudable an Enterprize That Milford lay open for an easie Landing to Spinola But the state of things was changed by the death of the Queen and King Philip returned an Answer worthy of a King that he could no longer attend to their Petitions for that he had sent Ambassadors into England to treat of Peace with the new King Therefore despairing of their design as to King Philip the Conspirators fly to their last and desperate Counsels and in the first place they make it their business to satisfie their Consciences and that being done they confirm their resolutions to attempt some great Enterprize And thus their Divines discoursed To depose Kings to grant their Kingdoms to others is in the power of the Supream Judge of the Church But all Hereticks being ipso jure separated from communion of the Faithful are every year on Holy Thursday Caena Domini excommunicated by the Pope And this holdeth not only in Professed Hereticks but in those that are covertly such because being reputed ipso Jure Excommunicate they do incur the same Penalties which are ipso facto deserved by professed Hereticks From thence it follows that Kings and other Christian Princes if they fall into Heresie may be deposed and their Subjects discharged of their Allegiance Nor can they recover their Right again no not though they should be reconciled to the Church When it is said that the Church the Common Mother of all doth shut her bosome against none that return to her this is to be understood with a distinction viz. provided it be not to the damage or danger of the Church For this is true as to the Soul but not as to the Kingdom Nor ought this punishment to be extended only to Princes that are thus infected but also to their Sons who for their Fathers Sin are excluded from Succession in the Kingdom For Heresie is a Leprosie and an Hereditary Disease and to speak more plainly he loseth his Kingdom that deserteth the Roman Religion he is to be accursed abdicated proscribed neither is he nor any of his Posterity to be restored to the Kingdom as to his Soul he may be absolved by the Pope only Thinking themselves abundantly secured within by these reasonings they begin to seek outward strengthenings to their Conspiracy and chiefly Secresie which they sealed by Confession May 1604. and the receiving of the Sacrament To this end there was an Oath drawn up amongst them in which they did engage their Faith by the H. Trinity and the Sacrament which they were presently to receive that they would neither directly nor indirectly by word or circumstance discover the Plot now to be communicated to them nor would they desist from prosecuting it unless allowed by their Associates Thus being encouraged by the Authority of their Divines they betake themselves to the adventure as not only lawful laudable but meritorious This was done before John Gerard of that Society Unto this after Confession by the Sacrament of the Holy Altar were drawn in the next May at first five of the Conspirators Robert Catesby Tho. Winter Tho. Percy Kinsman to the E. of Northumberland John Wright and the aforementioned Fawkes called out of Flanders Catesby the Author of this Tragedy thought it not enough that this or that or any single person should be aimed at but that all together and at the same time should be comprehended in this Conspiracy For so he reasoned with himself The King himself might many wayes be taken away but this would be nothing as long as the Prince and the Duke of York were alive again if they were removed yet this would advantage nothing so long as there remained a Parliament so vigilant so circumspect to whatever might happen or if the Parliament could or the chief Members of it could be destroyed there would remain still the Peers of the Realm so many Prudent Persons so many powerful Earls addicted to that Party whom they could hardly resist and who by their Authority Wealth and Dependants would be able if occasion should be to restore things to their former state Therefore not by delayes but at one blow all were to be swallowed up and so laudable an Atchievement was to be brought to effect altogether and at once At Westminster there is an old Palace of very great Honor and Veneration for its Antiquity in which the great Councils of the Kingdom are used to be celebrated which by a word borrowed from us they call a Parliament In this the King with His Male issue the Bishops of His Privy Councel the Peers the English Nobility the Chief Magistrates and those that are delegated from particular Counties Cities Towns and Burroughs in short the Men of greatest Wisdom and Counsel do meet together
the fact on the Puritans Fuller v. Foulis p. 690. did nothing less at first than profess themselves the Authors of the Fact or make any mention of Religion to the People but purposed to hold that in suspense for some time and by a Proclamation published in the Queens name to redress great grievances for the present and feed them with hopes of more for the future till the Faction growing strong either by favour or severity of new Edicts they might draw the People to their Parts and Obedience and the odiousness of their fact so by degrees discovering it self would in time and together with their good success grow off Nor came it in so long time into the minds of any of them how many Innocents all about them how many Infants how many that agreed with them in Religion how many who perhaps had deserved well of them that vast ruine would over-whelm Now all things are ready and the last Scene was going to be Acted when as by the unsearchable Judgment of God one who desired to save another brought destruction both to himself and his Associates There were ten dayes to the Parliament when upon Saturday in the Evening a Letter was brought as from a Friend to the Lord Monteagle but by whom written is uncertain and by whom brought unknown By it he was warned to forbear meeting at the Parliament for the two first dayes of the Session forasmuch as some great and sudden and unsuspected mischief did threaten that Meeting The hand of him that wrote it was unknown and the writing it self purposely so ordered that it could hardly be read No date to the Letter no subscription no inscription put to it and the whole composure of words ambiguous The Lord Monteagle was doubtful what he should do therefore late in the night he goeth to Robert Cecil Earl of Salisbury and chief Secretary to the King and giving him the Letter freely declared to him how he came by it and how little he valued it Cecil did not make much more account of it and yet thought it was not altogether to be neglected and Therefore shewed it to the chief Councellors Charles Howard Chief Admiral of the Seas the Earl of Nottingham to the Earls of Worcester and Northampton The thing being considered of amongst them although at first sight the Letter seemed of no great moment yet they thought that not the slightest discovery ought to be despised especially where the safety of the King was endangered nor such great care to be blamed in them to whom the preservation of His Majesty did both by Office and Duty belong The King was then gone to Royston to Hunt It seemed good to them to determine nothing before they had consulted the King For they said that they had oftentimes experienced the quick apprehension and happy conjecture of the King in unriddleing things that were liable to greatest doubtfulness Upon the Calends of November 1 Nov. the King returned to the City and forth with Cecil taking him aside unfolds the matter and shews him the Letter which it seems worth while to insert here for the perpetual remembrance of it forasmuch as not without cause it afforded such matter of dispute between him and his Councellors The love which I bear to some of your Friends makes me careful for your safety Wherefore I advise you as you love your life that you would invent some excuse for your absence from the Parliament For God and Men as it were by agreement do hasten to punish the wickedness of this Age. Do not make light of this warning but depart as soon as you can into your own Countrey where you may securely expect the event For although no signs of troubles do appear yet I admonish you that that meeting shall receive a terrible blow and shall not see who smiteth them Do not despise this discovery it may be profitable to you it cannot hurt you For the danger is over as soon as you have burnt this Letter I hope by the grace of God you will make good use of this Counsell to whose protection I commend you The King having read the Letter though through the generousness of his mind he was no way prone to suspicion did conjecture that some strange thing did lye hid under it and that the notice given was by no means to be neglected On the other side Cecil said it was certainly written by some Mad man For no man well in his wits would speak at this rate of a danger which he doth admonish so much to beware of The danger is over as soon as you shall burn the Letter How small a danger could that be which should vanish in so short a moment On the other side the King in whose breast the first suspition had now â—aken deep root urged the foregoing words That assembly shall receive a terrible blow and shall not see who smiteth them And whiles walking in the Gallery he deeply thought of these things from one particular to another it came into his mind that a sudden blow by Gun-powder was intended by those words For what more sudden then a blow by Gun-powder Thus the King and Salisbury so broke off their discourse that the King did strongly persevere in his conjecture Salisbury to free the Kings mind from fears and cares seemed in his presence to make light of this notice given but in the mean time admiring within himself the Kings uncouth and unusual interpretation and so presently suspecting it did conclude that it was not lightly to be regarded The next day the thing being again considered of by the King and His Counsellors it seemed good that the Palace with the places near adjoyning should be diligently searched and that business was assigned to the Lord Chamberlain who upon the Monday which preceded the Parliament about the Evening that he might give no occasion of Rumours goes with the Lord Monteagle to those places entring into the house that Percy had hired they found a great heap of Billets and Fagots and Coal in a Vault under ground Wardrobe and Wineard the Keeper of the Kings houses being there present he was asked for what use they were brought in thither they understood that the house was hired by Percy and that heap was brought in by him Moreover the Chamberlain spying Fawks standing in a corner of the Cellar asked who he was and what business he had there Who answered that he was the Domestick Servant of Percy and the Keeper of that house in Percy 's absence Having thus done they return to the Court reporting what they had seen and conjecturing worse things then formerly they had done For it came into Monteagles mind upon the mention of Percy that he was highly addicted to the Popish Religion that they had formerly been acquainted and lived as Friends and it might be that he was the Author of that Letter which gave ground to all this suspition The Lord Chamberlain among other suspicious matters
by his Mother and by those Tutors that she appointed him did not at all abstain the example whereof proceeding from the Court to the Cities and from the Cities to the Country Towns and Villages they now at every third word swore by the head death bloud heart of God Moreover the patience of God was even wearied with their Whoredoms Adulteries and such lusts as are not fit to be spoken Lastly nature it self doth now expostulate as it were with God for his so long patience and forbearance nor could the Country of France any longer bear such prodigious wickedness For as for the causes which are pretended against Coligny they are feigned with such improbability that they can hardly perswade children much less can they be proved For how is it probable that Coligny should enter into such a conspiracy within the walls of Paris who though he were guilty before the Pacification to suppose that yet certainly after the Edict if indeed the publick Faith and the King's promises ought to be observed he came to the King guiltless altogether abhorring a Civil War and solicitous only about the Belgick War But whereas they say he conspired after he had received his wounds this hath less colour of truth For how could Colligny that was indisposed by two such wounds now grown old disabled in both his arms one of which the Physitians tallted of cutting off rise with three hundred young men that attended him against an Army of sixty thousand men that bare him deadly hatred and that were well appointed with Arms How could he in so little time consult concerning so great and vast a design for he lived hardly forty hours after he had received his wound in which all conference was forbidden him by his Physitians Then had he been accused of any crime was he not committed to Cossenius and his guards and the passages being every where secured was he not in the King's power that he might in a moment if it had so pleased the King been thrust into prison and witnesses being prepared after the manner of judicial proceedings might he not have been proceeded against in form of Law Moreover if Coligni with his Dependents and Clients had conspired against the King why must needs the rest that were innocent so many Noble Matrons and Virgins who came thither upon the account of the Marriage so many great-bellied women so many ancient persons so many bed-ridden persons of both Sexes and all professions that were ignorant of these last counsels of Coligni be comprehended in the same guilt To whom doth it not seem absurd and most ridiculous that Coligni should at so unseasonable a time conspire against Navar that professed the same Religion with him and whom he had in his power for four years together Thus many did discourse and so they judged that upon the account of this fact the French Name would for a long time labour under an odium and infamy and that posterity would never forget an act of so great unworthiness Typographical Errors to be Corrected as followeth in THe Hist of the Massacre Pag. 5 l. 1. Burleigh l. 7. Cosmus p. 7. l. 4. compact p. 8. l. 10. when he l. 36. Palace near the Louvre p. 12. l. 1. receive p. 13. l. 28. Antonius Marafinus Guerchius without commas so p. 14. l. 2. Rochus Sorbaeus Prunaeus l. 7. Armanus Claromontius Pilius l. 8. Moninius l. 26. racket p. 18. l. 7. your Kingdom p. 21. l. 9. as he did p. 28. l. 11. Cossenius l. 36. Atinius l. 37. Sarlaboux p. 29. l. 5. Merlin the Minister Coligny p. 32. l. 32. Claromontius Marquess of Renel p. 34. l. 19. Caumontius p. 35. l. 25. Monralbertus Roboreus Joach Vassorius Cunerius Rupius Columbarius Velavaurius Gervasius Barberius Francurius p. 36. l. 15. Armanus Claromontius Pilius l. 32. Bellovarius l. 36. Durfortius Duracius l. 37. Gomacius Buchavanius p. 40. l. 36. Perionius p. 41. l. 13. Languages who had private fends and contentions with Carpentar l. 22. to those l. 30. Roliardus p. 43. l. 2. Sancomontius Sauromanius l. 3. Bricomotius p. 53. l. 33. Meletinus p. 57. l. 17. Arles where l. 36. suspition of poison given p. 58. l. 2. Mombrunius p. 62. l. 20. Helionorus Chabotius p. 63. l. 11. Chabotius THe Hist of the Powder-Plot Pag. 8. l. 27. Harrington p. 14. l. 30. detest p. 15 l. 21. for wikes r. de Vic p. 16. in marg So on the p. 22. l. 27. dele Look entituled l. 29. for Provincial r. Father General A TRUE NARRATION Of that Horrible CONSPIRACY AGAINST King JAMES And the whole PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND Commonly called the Gun-Powder TREASON Written in Latine by Jacobus Augustus Thuanus Privy-Councillor to the King of France and President of the Supream Senate of that Kingdom Faithfully rendred into English LONDON Printed for John Leigh at the Sign of the Blew Bell by Flying-Horse Court in Fleet-street 1674. MDCV. The History of the Powder-Plot Translated out of Thuanus lib. 135. NOw shall we in a contiued Relation declare that Horrid and by all Parties justly * So detestable it seems it was to some of the Students of the English Colledge at Rome that being informed of the discovery of the Plot Sixteen of them abhorring such jugling and bloody Designs forsook the Colledge slipt into France some of them turning to the Church of England whither they came Foulis Hist of Popish Treasons li. 10. c. 2. p. 692. detested Conspiracy entred into a-against the King of Great Britain which being discovered about the end of this year 1605 was in the next year suppressed by the Death of the Conspirators To the Petition for Liberty of Conscience made by the Papists in the former Session of Parliament and rejected by the King there was a rumour there would be another preferred at the next Sessions which had been now often deferred which should be in no danger of being denyed as the former but should carry with it a necessity of being granted by the King whither he would or not Therefore those that managed the Affairs of the Kingdom under a generous and no wayes suspcious King fearing nothing worse did make it their business to avoid such Petitions and that necessity that did attend them But among the Conspirators it was consulted not how they might obtain the Kings favour which they now despaired of but how they might revenge that repulse though with the ruine of the Kingdom which the other never thought of The beginning of these Counsels are to be derived from the latter end of Q. Elizabeth For then as appeared afterwards by proofs and confessions Robert Winter to whom Oswald Tesmond alias Greenwell of the Society of the Jesuits joyned himself as his Companion was by the advice of Hen. Garnet Provincial or Superiour of the said Society in England Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham of the Gentry instigating privately sent into Spain in the name of the Catholicks with Letters Commendatory