shall as Martyrs immediately passe to Paradise hereupon one of Earl Simons great Captains said Monsieur Cardinall you talke with great assurance but if the Earl believe you it will be little for his profit for you and other Prelates have been the causers of all this evil and will be of more if he believe you Then was it resolved that the City should be besieged on the side of Gascon but the Citizens made such a blunt salley that they put their enemies to flight and presently the Earl of Foix coming with new supplies fell upon Earl Simon chased him to the river Garonne where many of his Pilgrims were drowned and the Earle with his horse fell into the river and hardly escaped The Earl Remund caused publick thanksgiving to God for this happy victory Earl Simon being in great perplexity a Bishop bid him be of good comfort for that the Cardinal had sent messengers throughout the world to raise him succours and so he was inforced to wait with much impatiency the coming of these new supplies Anno 1218. There came to him a hundred thousand Pilgrims and he was resolved that they should earn their pardons knowing that at the end of fourty daies they would vanish Whereupon the next morning they were ordered to give a generall assault to Tholouse But Earl Remund perceiving in the night that they were very secure because of their great multitude he sallied out upon them and that with so good successe that ere morning all the field was covered with their dead bodies and the Earl with his men being weary with killing returned into the City to give thanks unto God for his assistance Then did Earl Simon enter into the Castle of Narbonnes to see if he could discerne any way to enter into the City but finding none it much troubled him whereupon two Lords gave him Counsell to come to some honourable agreement yet the Cardinal Betrand told him that there was no need for him so to do To whom one of them answered Monsieur Cardinal pray you where finde you that you should take from Earl Remund and his son that which belongs unto them If I had known as much as I know now I had never taken upon me this business After nine moneths siege the Citizens of Tholouse made another sally killing as many of the crossed souldiers as they encountered with and Earl Simon coming in to the reliefe of his men had his horse shot in the head with an arrow which caused him to run away with him which one of the Albingenses seeing with his Cross-bow he shot him thorow the thigh Simon perceiving that he lost much bloud was labouring to get out of the presse but just at that present a woman discharging an engine from the walls of Tholouse a stone parted his head from his shoulders and thus by Gods just judgement he that had been the deflourer and murtherer of many women was himselfe slaine by a woman Upon his death the Legate and all the Bishops fled never staying till they came to Carcasson the Pilgrims disbanded and returned to their homes and Earl Remund caused a publick Thanksgiving to be returned to Almighty God for this so signall a deliverance Afterwatds at the instigation of the Pope Prince Lewis of France went and besieged Tholouse but finding the business too hot for him he returned without doing any thing of note yet in this iourney he tooke the towne of Miromand wherein he cruelly put to the sword men women and children to the number of five thousand Upon his returne the Legat Bertrand being weary of these warres wrote to Pope Honorius the 3. desiring to be recalled because of his age yet with all he signified a necessity of continuing these warrs Otherwise saith he not only the lands of the Albingenses wil be lost but the Church of Rome itself will be ruined the Doctrin of the Albingenses shaking the authority of the Popes themselves And saith he this war hath cost us very deare for within less then fifteene years there hath dyed above three hundred thousand Crossed soldiers and therefore all wil be lost except these Hereticks be utterly destroyed This occasioned the Pope to send a new Legat Conradus Bishop of Portua Also he granted to all Crossed soldiers that fought against the Albingenses the same in dulgences as to those that went to fight against the Saracens in the Holy land Moreover he tooke King Philip of France into his protection and made peace betwixt him and young King Henry the third of England so that Philip wholly bent himself to roote out the Gospellers Anno Christi 1220. Earl Guido of Monfort son and heire to Earl Simon went against the Albingenses but was soone after slaine by the E. of Sant Giles as he besieged a Castle in Tholouse Then did his brother Almerick besieg the same Castle and swore that he would never depart from it till he had taken it But after a while his hoped-for aides failing him he was faigne to leave the siege and depart After whose departure the Albingenses recovered many places Anno Christi 1221. the young Emperor Frederick by the instigation of the Pope published a cruell and bloody Edict against the Gospellers with in his Dominions where in he damned them with perpetuall ignominy and declared them publick enemies Commanding their goods to be confiscated without redemption and their sons to be disinherited As also that all of them that were apprehended by the Inquisitors or others should be kept in Prison till they were killed with an abomminable death The like punishment he commanded to be inflicted on all such as should aide or assist them Also he tooke away all benefit of appeale from such as were receivers or favourers of them And further he commanded that their houses and the houses of such as should receive defend or favour them either where they have taught or where they have laid on hands should be plucked downe and never more repaired Also the same yeare some of these Albingenses going into Bosina and Dalmatia drew many of the people to imbrace their faith whereupon the Bishop of Collen was sent thither by Pope Honorius as his Legate and required to force them to returne to the Catholick faith as they called it either by perswasion or by the arms of the Crossed souldiers but where neither prevailed he being a weary of the work left it to the Frier predicants to see if by arguments they could convince and convert them Columminus the King assisting them and saith mine Author when they had got footing they burnt with fires those that were obstinate in their Heresies and purged the Churches which were defiled by them Leander de viris illust ordinis praedicatorum Anno Christi 1223. Bartholmew the Bishop of the Albingenses of Tholouse ordeined a Bishop for Bulgary Croatia and Dalmatia where their faith spread so fast that Bishops themselves were drawn
to be of their opinion whereupon Conradius Bishop of Portua the Popes Legate wrote to the Arch-Bishop of Roan and his Suffragan Bishops to meet with others Bishops at a Councill to be held at Sens against the said Bartholmew who saith the Legate in his letters stiles himself servant of the servants of God and runs about Creating Bishops and endeavoring perfidiously to gather Churches Mathew Paris Anno Christi 1226. saith the same Author the Crosse was preached all over France by Romanus the Popes Legate against the Albingenses where in he commanded all that were able to beare arms to signe them selves with the signe of the Crosse against the Earl of Tholouse and his people and at his preaching a great multitude of Prelates and Lay men tooke upon them the signe of the Crosse yet more for fear of the King of France and for favour of the Legate then induced by the justness of the cause But the King of France being signed with the Crosse would not take upon him the expedition unlesse the Pope would forbid the King of England under paine of excommunication to move war against him for any land that he possessed at that present either iustly or unjustly which accordingly the Pope did and our King Henry the third upon receipt of the Popes letters assembled his Nobles to consult with them what he should do upon this inhibition at which time their was present one Mr William Perepund skilfull in Astronomy who constantly affirmed before the King That if the King of France took upon him this expedition he should either never returne alive or else should meet with as greate confusion as might be both of his person estate and followers The King of France having thus settled his affaires at home he together with the Legate appointed a Peremptory day for the Crossed-souldiers to come to a rendevous with their horses and Arms at Lyons from which at the time appointed he began his expidition with an huge Army which was accounted Invincible whom the Legate followed with Arch-Bishops Bishops c. In the Army there were reckoned to be fifty thousand Knights and men at Arms on horsback besides an innumerable company of footmen and then did the Legate publickly excommunicate the Earl of Tholouse putting all his favourers and lands under Interdict The King thus marching with his glittering Arms and terrible Army on Whitson-Eve came to Avignion the first City in Tholouse purposing to destroy the whole land of the Earl from one end to the other and utterly to root out the Inhabitants thereof yet very cunningly the King and the Legate sent to the Citizens only desiring passage through the City that they might follow their iourney the neerest way The Citizens consulting together returned answer That they suspected fraud neither would they admit them into the City where upon the King in a great rage swore that he would not depart thence till he had taken the City The Citizens valiantly defended themselves so that the sieg lasted long and the Earl of Tholouse being a skilfull warrior before the comming of the French Army had withdrawne all kind of victualls together with the women children and cattell into places of safety Hereupon the Kings Army fell into great wants so that multitudes perished by famine Their horses and beasts also were starved for the Earl had caused all the meddowes to be plowed up in the whole country so that they had no fodder but what was brought out of France And their wants daily increasing many Legions went out of the Kings Camp to seek for food and fodder but the Earl of Tholouse with a flying Army many times lay in ambush for them and cut off multitudes of them They also that lay in the siege before the City were miserably wasted by darts and stones shot in ingines from the walls by the Citizens valiantly defending themselves and a generall famine overspread all but it raged most amongst the poorer sort who had neither food nor money Also out of the dead carkasses of men and beasts their bred certaine great and blackflies which comming into there tents by swarms with an horible humming infected their meat and drink and when they were not able to drive them from their cupps and dishes many of the Pilgrims perished suddenly by their meanes But the King and Legate were especially troubled and confounded to think what reproach it would be to them and to the Church of Rome that so gallant and numerous an Army should vndertake such an expedition and be able to effect nothing Then the chiefe Princes and Captains being weary of the long siege amongst so many deaths sollicit that a generall storme might be given to the City hoping by their multitudes to oppresse the Citizens which being resolved upon such a great multitude of Armed men thronged upon the bridge that goes over the river of Rhodanus that the bridge breaking under them three thousand of them were drowned in that swift river Presently after as the French were one day at dinner the Citizens discovering there carlesness suddenly sallied forth violently setting upon them suddenly slew Twenty thousand of them with out any losse to themselves and so retired and the King of France commanded the dead bodies to be throwne into the River affording them no other buriall Then did he also remove his sieg to afarther distance and to prevent the like attempts caused a great ditch to be cast up between the City and his camp and the Legate with his Prelates not knowing how otherwise to reveng themselves Anathematized the Earl of Tholouse and all the subjects But whom they cursed the Lord blessed For shortly after he sent a very great plague into the French campe so that king Lewis to escape the same retired himself into the neighbouring Abbey of Monpensier where he resolved to remain till the City should be taken unto whom came Henry Earl of Compaigne desiring to be dismissed having now sereved his fourty daies but the King denyed his request To whom the Earl said that having performead what was injoyned he neither might nor would be staid any longer The King being very angry hereat swore that if he departed he would wast his whole land with fire and sword yet the Earl according to his former resolution went his waies and shortly after the Lord struck the King with sickness whereof he dyed The Legate and great Captaines concealed his death for a month together and in the interim sent messengers laboring to draw the Citizens to a composition and Commissioners being sent to the Camp the Legate perswaded them to resigne up their City to him upon promise that they should injoy their lives estates and liberties in a better manner then they had formerly but they answered that they would not live under the power of the Frenchmen whose pride and insolency they had often tryed After along Parlee the Legate desired that himself and the
was neither town nor City in all the Countrey wherein some were not banished beheaded or condemned to perpetual imprisonment neither was there any respect either of age or sex But especially at Gaunt many of the chief men were burned for Religion Also at the Emperours going to Bruxels there was a terrible persecution and slaughter made of Gods People in Brabant Artois c. so that two hundred men and women were apprehended at one time whereof some were drowned some buried quick some privily made away others sent to perpetual prison yea so many others were put to death that the hands of the hangman were tired with slaying of men Anno 1545. There was one Martin at Gaunt a Fishmonger who lived very dissolutely to his old age but it pleased God by a Sermon that he heard to bring him to the knowledge of the truth and to repentance for his former sins whereupon he left Gaunt and sought out the company of godly Christians who used much reading of the Scriptures by whom he was further instructed and grounded in the truth Then after three moneths he returned to the City again where he visited the Captives in prison comforted them in persecution and confirmed them in the truth which were led to the fire The Friars seeing this though formerly he had been very bountiful to them yet now they conspired against him whereby he was laid in bands and by sharp and cruel torments they would have enforced him to recant but not prevailing he was condemned and his goods confiscated as he stood at the stake a Friar said to him Martin except thou dost turn thou shalt go from this temporal to everlasting fire to whom he answered It is not for you to judge me and so he quietly slept in the Lord. The next day after two other men were burned and a woman buried alive for the same cause who joyfully and cheerfully suffered Martyrdome At Delden two Virgins of a noble stock who frequently and diligently attended Sermons being apprehended and examined couragiously confessed and maintained the truth whereupon they were condemned and the younger was first burned In the fire she prayed so ardently for her enemies that the Judges greatly marvelled at it Then did they exhort the elder that if she would not recant yet at least that she would petition to have her punishment changed into beheading instead of burning whereupon she answered that she held no errour of which she had cause to repent but the truth which was consonant to the Scriptures in which she trusted to persevere unto the end And for the kind of her punishment she feared not the fire but would rather follow the example of her dear sister and so being put into the fire she quietly slept in the Lord. But this was marvellous that after their death the bodies of them both remained white and unhurt by the fire whereupon some Christians privily in the night buried them Anno Christi 1545. There was in Mechlin one Andrew Thiessen who had three sonnes and a daughter whom he carefully brought up in the knowledge of the truth after which he went into England and there died Two of his sonnes went into Germany to study there and after a time returned home again instructing their mother brother and sister in the right knowledge of Christ which being taken notice of they were all carried before the Magistrate and exhorted to returne to the Church of Rome again The younger brother and sister being not so throughly grounded in the truth by reason of their yeares yielded something and so were sent home again the mother who remained constant was adjudged to perpetual imprisonment the two elder brethren defended the truth stoutly against the Friars Disputation not prevailing they proceeded to torments endeavouring to know of them who was their Master and what fellows they had they answered that their Master was Christ who bare his Crosse before them and for fellows they had innumerable dispersed in all places At last they were condemned to the fire and at the place of execution they began to exhort the people whereupon bals were put into their mouths which through vehemency in desiring to speak they thrust out again intreating them for the Lords sake that they might have leave to speak and so singing with a loud voice they were fastened to the stake where they prayed for their Persecutors exhorted one another and endured the fire patiently One of them feeling the violence of the flame said O what a small pain is this compared with the glory to come and so committing their spirits into the hands of God they finished their race Anno 1545. There was a great persecution in Dornick and amongst others there was one Adrian Tailor and his Wife apprehended and upon their examination the man being somewhat timorous relented something and so was beheaded but the woman being more constant was put into an iron grate and so buried alive There was also one Master Peter Bruly about the same time sometimes a Preacher in Strasburg but now at the request of the faithful in Dornick a diligent Preacher there He used to preach in houses the door standing open the Magistrate hearing of it laid wait for him shutting up the City gates and searching three days for him but the brethren in the night time let him down in a basket over the wall and when he was down one of them leaning over the wall to bid him farewel unawares threw down a loose stone which falling upon his leg brake it in pieces He complaining of his hurt the watchmen heard him and apprehended him Then did he give thanks to Almighty God who by that providence staid him there to bear witnesse to his truth whilst he was in prison he ceased not to instruct and confirm all them that came to him in the Word of grace after four moneths imprisonment he was condemned to be burnt and his ashes to be cast into the river The Friars took care that he should have but a small fire that his pain might be the more increased yet he constantly and chearfully suffered Martyrdom God made the Ministry of this good man very powerful to many amongst others there was one Peter Mioce who had lived long in all manner of wickedness and licenciousness but being through Gods grace converted he excelled all the rest of the brethren in zeale and holinesse at last he was apprehended and being asked whether he was one of Peter Brulies disciples he said that he was and that he had received much benefit by his Doctrine withall professing that his doctrine was consonant to the holy Scriptures whereupon he was let down into a deep dungeon full of Toads and other vermine Afterwards he was brought forth before the Senate who had provided some Friars to convert him To whom he said When I lived an ungodly life in all manner of