Souldiers who so well awaited their opportunity that as the Pope was riding from Avignon to one of his Castles in Provence called Poursorge he surprised him and brought him prisoner into France then put him into a strong Tower where for want of food he was forced to eate the flesh from his armes and so diedâ— of whom the story gives this Character That he estred into the Papacie like a Fox that he ruled like a Lyon and in the end died like a Dogge Nero Caesar who had all the seaven deadly sinnes predominant in him even in his minority and first comming to the Empire was in a high measure worthily asâ—â—â—st and branded with this horrid and abhominable vice of Envy who when Cesar Germanicus a Prince of great hope and expectation on whom all the eyes of Rome were fixt was made competitor with him in the Empite 〈◊〉 â—ligning his greatnesse and goodnesse though his neare kinsman he with his owne hands tempered a strong and moâ—â—â—serous poyson and most 〈…〉 ously inviting him to a feast in the height of all their 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 he caused that deadly draught to be ministâ—ed unto him which he had no sooner tasted but immediately he sunke from his seat and fell downe dead at the Table at which all the guests being startled and amazed Nero the master of the feast put it off with this sleight saying onely remove the body into some withdrawing roome and let it be buried according to the custome of Romans but how God revenged this and other his inhumanities you may reade in his wretched and unlamented death in the former Tractate expressed Macrinus who had murdered Antoninus the brother of Geta attaining to the Empire when he had raigned one yeare his head was cut off in Calcedon a Citie of Bythinia with his sonne Diadumenus whom in his life-time he had made competitor with him in the Empire Bassianus otherwise called Heliogabalus the sonne of Semiamira succeeded in the Empire He was first a Priest of the sunne and after by meanes of his grandmother Mesa a rich and potent woman was made Emperour who though a young man of an extraordinary aspect and feature able to attract the loves and affections of all men yet was he inwardly infected with the contagion of all the vices that could be named Insomuch that in all his actions he rather appeared a monster then a man so that hee grew not onely despised but hatefull to the people Which the wise Lady Mesa seeing and fearing his fall and in his her owne ruine as farre as she could she excused his grossest crimes laying the fault upon the tendernesse of his youth and wrought so that by his consent Alexianus who was the sonne of Mammea her daughter was admitted companion with him in the Empire which Alexianus after called Alexander Severus was a wise and prudent Prince whose vertue had gained him the generall love of the Senate and people for which Heliogabalus so envied him for vice and vertue are still in opposition that he made many attempts to poyson him which by the care of Mesa and Mammea were prevented But how was this envy punished The people seised upon Heliogabalus with his mother Semiamira and dragging their bodies through the chiefe streets of Rome having after torne them piece-meale would not affoord them the honour of buriall but cast their quarters into the common jakes that stood upon the river Tiber. Neither have women beene free from this rankorous sinne of Envy as appeareth by the story following and shall be made more apparant hereafter This Prince Alexander Severus afore-named all the time that his grandmother Mesa lived who suffered none but grave and wise men to be about him insomuch that no Emperour before or after him could be said to exceed him in all these attributes that belong to an Imperiall Monarch was both beloved and feared But she being dead his mother Mammea grew to that height of pride covetousnesse and envy that his indulgent sufferance of her ambition was a great and the sole blemish of his government who comming to maturity and the Empire now setled in his owne hands he tooke to wife a daughter of one of the most noblest Senators of Rome which was also by his mothers consent but when this Lady came to take upon her the state of an Empresse Mammea who challenged that title solely to her selfe malitiously envying her estate wrought so that first the father of the new Empresse was put to death and so terrible was her commandement and her Majestie so much dreaded that she banished both from the Court and the bed of the Emperour the innocent Empresse unto the uttermost coasts of Africa Thus was Alexander out of a milde and gentle nature swayed and over-ruled by his mother which was the occasion of both their ruines for Maximiâ—us a Thracian borne of base parentage his father being a shepheard and preferred by Alexander to eminent place in the warres taking the advantage of the murmuring of the people and souldiers and the covetousnesse and envy of the mother most treacherously conspired against his Lord and Master the same barbarously and cruelly flew them both and by their death aspired unto the Imperiall purple The French Chronicles speake of one Prince Cranne the sonne of Clotharius who having raigned forty five yeares at Soissons now called the Belgick Gant upon the decease of his elder brother Childebert who died without issue male was proclaimed the seventh King of France This Cranne on whom that may be truly construed of the Poet Filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos was sicke of his fathers life envying and grieving that he kept him so long from the Crowne but wanting meanes to make him away privately by poyson or the like because his servants about him were faithfull and not to be corrupted he therefore opposed him by publike hostility incensing his Unkle Childebert against him who supported him in all his insolencies against his father But Childebert being dead and he now wanting his great support was forc't to mediate his peace with his father who upon his submission tooke him to grace and gave him his free pardon But his former heart burning envy still boyling in his breast he fell into a second rebellion yet finding the successe of his bad attempts to grow still worse and worse as his last refuge hee fled to the Prince or Duke of the Brittons whom some call Conobee others Canubo who undertooke to secure him from the pursute of his father Whereupon Clotharius with his Army invaded that Countrey and joyned battaile with the Prince and his sonne in which the Brittons lost the day their Army was routed the Prince slaine and Cranne taken prisoner of whom his father having seised hee caused him to be shut up in an house and with his wife and children to be burnt to death a just judgement from heaven but a cruell sentence from a father who that very day twelve-moneth
himselfe to have the like congresse with them being a young man he was a scandall to all those whom he made his companions and they reciprocally were scandalized by being in his company These with infinite others of his licentious irregularities are recorded by Lampridius Hee had also as the same Author testates three hundred Concubines of selected forme and feature chosen out of the families of the Senatours and Patritians and as many choice young men of sweet aspect and undespised proportion taken out of the best of the Nobility and with these hee did continually riot drinke and wanton in his Pallace where were used all immodest postures and uncomely gestures that the very Genius of lust could devise so that his Court shewed rather a common stewes then the royall dwelling house and mansion of a Prince Gordianus Iunior who wore the Imperiall purple with his father absenting himselfe from all warlike imployment lived in lazinesse and ease giving himselfe solely to voluptuousnesse and carnall concupiscence having at once two and twenty Concubines and by every one of them three or foure children at the least for which by some he was called the Priamus of his age but by others in scorne the Priapus And Proculus the Emperour in one expedition besides many other spoyles tooke captive an hundred Sarmatian Virgines all which hee boasted not onely to have vitiated and deflowred but to have perpetrated or more plainly got with childe within fifteene dayes for so Flavius Vopiscus reports of him as also Sabellicus in Exemplis Heliogabalus that Monster of nature gathered together Bawdes Whores Catamites Pimps Panders Rounsevalls and Stallions the very pest and poyson of a Nation or People even till they grew to a great multitude to which he added all the long-nos'd vagabonds and sturdy beggars he could finde for these they say have the greatest inclination to libidinou filthinesse and these he kept together and maintained at his great charge onely to satisfie his brutish humour Therefore Lampridius writing to the Emperour concerning his prodigious Venery useth these words Who can endure a Prince who committeth lust in all the hollowes of his body when Roomes Cages and Grates the receptacle and dennes of wilde beasts cannot amongst them all shew a beast like him He also kept cursors and messengers who had no other imployment but to ride abroad and seek out for these Masuti and to bring them to Court that he might pollute and defile himselfe amongst them But these whose dissolute and floath-infected lives have growne to such an execrable height of impudence have not escaped Gods terrible Judgements by miserable and tragick ends as you may read in the premises where I have had occasion to speake of the same persons though to other purpose I will prosecute this further by example wherein the effects of this dull and drowsie vice of idlenesse and sloath shall be better illustrated and in none more proper then that of â—Egistus and Clitemuestra for Agamemnon King of Mycena and brother to Menelaus King of Sparta the husband of Helena ravisht thence by Paris one of the sonnes of King Priam being chosen Generall of the Grecian Army in that great expedition against Troy for the rape of that Spartan Queene In his absence he left Aegistus to governe his family and mannage his Domesticke affaires who lull'd in ease and loytring in idlenesse and she a lusty Lady and lying in a widdowed and forsaken bed such familiarity grew betwixt them that at length it came into flat adultery of whom the Poet thus ingenuously writes Quaeritur Aegistus quare sit factus adulter In promptâ— causa est Desidiosus erat c. Aske any why Aegistus did Faire Clitemnestra woe 'T is answer'd he was idle and Had nothing else to doe Now this Egistus was before espoused to a young Lady the daughter of Phocas Duke of Creophen whose bed he repudiated and sent backe to her father For the love of this Queene of Micena of whom he begot a daughter called Egiona and in the absence of his Lord and Master supported by the Queene tooke upon him all regall authority and was obeyed as King Now Agamemnon had a young sonne called Orestes who was then under the tuition or guardianship of a worthy Knight called Fultibius who fearing lest the adulterer and the adulteresse might insidiate his life he conveyed him out of the Land and brought him to Idomeneus King of Creet a pious and just Prince who undertooke to bring him up educate and instruct him like the sonne of such a father and protect him against all his enemies whatsoever Imagine now the ten yeares warres ended Troy sackt and spoyled rak't to the earth and quite demolished and Agamemnon at his returne the very first night of his lodging in the Palace cruelly murdered in his bed by Egistus and the Queene By this time Orestes being of the yeares able to beare Armes and having intelligence how basely his father was butchered and by whom he made a solemne vow to avenge his death upon the Authors thereof and to that end besought aide of the King Idomeneus his foster father and protector who first made him Knight and furnisht him with a competent Army To assist whom came Fultibius his first Guardian with all the forces he could levy as also Phocas whose daughter Egistus had before forsaken These sped themselves so well that in few dayes they entred the Land and after laid siege to the chiefe Citie called Micene where the Queen then lay for Aegistus was at that time abroad to solicit aâ—d against invasion which he much feared but finding the gates shut and the wals manned and all entrance denied they made a fierce assault and though it was very couragiously and valiantly defended yet at length the City was taken and the Queen surprised in the Palace who being brought unto the presence of her son all filiall duty set apart and forgetting the name of mother he saluted her onely by the title of Adulteresse and Murderesse and when he had thundered into her eares the horridnesse and trocity of her crime having his sword drawn in his hand he suddenly transpieâ—â—'d her body and left her dead upon the pavement as an explaâ—ion or bloody sacrifice to appease the soul of his dead farher Some would aggravate the fact and say that he caused her breasts to be torne off she being yet alive and cast to the dogges to be eaten but that had been a cruelty beyond nature for a son to exercise upon a mother now whilest these things were in agâ—â—ation Aegistus had gathered an Army for the raising of the â—â—ege and reclaiming the City of which Orestes having intelligence ambuâ—hed him in his way and had such good successe that having incompassed him in he set upon his Forces both before and behinde routed them and took Aegistus prisoner whom after he had put to the greatest tortures that humane apprehension could invent or devise he commanded his body
bold thus further to proceed Touching the first Question What hath mans labour most increast Yet of it selfe desires it least In my weake understanding I take it to be the Earth the mother of all creatures rationall or irrationall sensitive or vegetative which though men daily digge and delve plow or furrow mine and undermine trenching her sides and wounding her intrayles not suffering her to have the least cessation of rest in any of the foure seasons yet she in her owne fertility and annuall vicissitude without these injuries is able of her selfe to yeeld herbs and flowers grasse and hay plants and trees with food and sustenance in abundance to all creatures bred upon her still teeming wombe who as she delivers them into the world not onely fosters and cherisheth them but when their Date is runne and their time expired receiveth them again into her owne breast from whence they had their first being Touching the second I take it to be Humility which teacheth a man how to rule his affections and to keepe a mediocrity in all his actions The high Creator dwelleth in Heaven and if wee arrogantly lift up our selves unto him he will fly from us but if we humbly bow our selves before him he will descend downe upon us Humilitas animi sublimitas Christiani In Humility is a Christian mans mindes sublimity It stirs up affection augmenteth good will supports equity and preserves a common weale in safety It is apt to repentance hungring after righteousnesse and conversant in deeds of mercy It hath brought these good things to passe which no other reason or vertue could effect And whosoever shall desire to ascend where the Father is much first put on that humility which the Sonne teacheth and most happy is the man whose calling is high and his spirit humble of which vertue I may truely conclude with your Question Man hath by that most honour gain'd And yet with least losse is maintain'd The third the most basely vile and yet the highest valued the most cursed to mannage yet the most costly to maintain in my ignorant conceptions I hold to be Pride which being first hatched in heaven in an instant precipitated Lucifer and his Angels headlong into hell which perceiving Humility to be honourable desireth often to be covered with the cloake thereof least appearing alwayes in its owne likenesse it might thereby be the lesse regarded I shall not need much to amplifie the vice nor to aggravate the sinne a spice whereof may I speake it with pardon hath beene discovered even in this my best beloved parent and to avoide prolixitie It is that thing men soonest rue And yet with greatest charge pursue With which answer so modestly delivered and in a kinde of matron-like gravity rarely to be found in one of her tender and young yeares the King was so highly raptur'd that he not onely received her father into former grace but spake openly being then a Batchelour that had she beene borne of noble bloud he would have made her his Queen and Royall Consort and taking her from the earth caused her to stand before him when instantly newes was brought him that an Earledome was then fallen unto the Crowne which he presently for her sake conferred upon Don Pedro her father of which she taking advantage fell downe againe upon her knees to give the King thankes for so great an honour bestowed upon him for which she prostrated unto him in all humble manner her life and service adding withall some words to this purpose My Royall Liege excuse my over-boldnesse if I challenge your Majestie of your Kingly word and promise past unto me before all this presence who demanding of her wherein he was any way ingaged she made reply But late great Sir you said that were I noble you would accept of my unworthy selfe as your royall Bride and Spouse Then pardon my presumption if I thus farre prompt your memory to put your Highnesse in minde that I am now not onely by your Grace ennobled but an Earles daughter at which word covering her face with her hand shee concluded in a bashfull and modest blush All which so highly pleased the King that making good his Princely word he gave order for the present celebration of their nuptiall This History though it have a comicall conclusion yet is pertinent to the discourse now in agitation for Don Pedroes pride of knowledge was sentene't with death and his life howsoever redeem'd by his faire and vertuous daughter was immediately forfeit by the doome of the King and therefore the judgement in Justice howsoever not in execution remarkable We reade in the French Chronicle of one Iordaine of Lisle by Nation a Gascon and Nephew to Pope Iohn the two and twentieth of that name a man of a most high and insolent spirit daring any thing though never so facinorous cruell inhumane or bloudy building all his heinous and horrid acts upon the greatnesse of his Unkle who after he had beene pardoned for eighteene capitall crimes still grew more impious and shamelesse former mercy making him still the more presumptuous at the last being apprehended and brought to Paris he was arraigned convicted and condemned by Charles the fourth surnamed the Faire King of France where notwithstanding his great allyes he suffered like a common felon and murderer on the Gallowes It is credibly reported also of a proud Italian Gentleman borne in Genoa who in a single duell having the better of his Antagonist in the field insomuch that he disarmed him of his weapon and the other now standing at his mercy he fell to parle with him upon these termes that there was no way for him to escape immediate death but by abjuring his Christianity and renouncing his Saviour to which the other through base timerousnesse assented of which the Victor taking divelish advantage even in the midst of his most impious Apostasie he stab'd him to the heart and slew him uttering these more then heathenish words before I had been onely revenged upon thy body but now I have sent both thy body and soule to the Devill and that 's a revenge which deserves a chronicle But what became of this firebrand of Hell and limbe of the Devill being apprehended for the murder and his diabolicall proceedings in the act being related to the Judges as a terrour to others he was first committed to the rack and after many other insufferable tortures despairing of all mercy from God having shewed no compassion towards man he most miserably ended his life One Herebert Earle of Vermendoys in France was of that haughty and insolent spirit that he durst lay hands upon his Soveraigne Charles King of France surnamed the Simple who caused him to be imprisoned and under whose custody hee shortly after died at Peroune which seem'd for a time to be smothered and he still subsisted in his former eminencie but where man seemeth most to forget God doth remarkably remember nor doth
by your speeches late uttered that some who are no well-wishers of mine but rather seeke to poyson my reputation with your Majesty have possessed you that I have been accessary to the death of your brother and proceeded further having then a piece of bread in his hand ready to put into his mouth but so may I safely swallow this morsell as I am altogether innocent and guiltlesse of the act which streyning to eate he was therewith immediately choaked at the table which the King seeing and observing the strange Judgement inflicted upon his perjury he commanded his body to be drag'd froÌ„ thence conveyed to Winchester there buried But Marianus and some others write that he was not choaked with bread but upon his former false protestation dining with the King upon an Easter Monday at Winchester he was suddenly struck with a dead palsie and died the third day after Neither did Gods Judgements upon him end here but after his death all his Lands in Kent which were very spacious and great were eaten up and swallowed by the Sea and turned into dangerous quick sands on which many a goodly vessell hath since beene shipwrackt and they beare the name of Goodwins sands even to this day Harold the second sonne of Earle Goodwin after the death of his elder brother Swanus aswell heire to his fathers insolent and aspiring spirit as to his Earledome and Lands in the twentieth yeare of the raigne of the before-named Edward the Confessor he sayled into Normandy to visit some of his friends but by adverse windes and a sudden tempest at Sea he was driven upon the Province of Pountiffe where hee was tooke prisoner and sent to Duke William of Normandy who inforced him to sweare that hee should marry with his daughter when she came to mature age and farther that after the death of King Edward he should keep the Crowne of England to his behoofe according to the will of the Confessor to both which Articles having solemnly sworne he was dismissed from the bastard Duke and with great and rich gifts sent backe to England But after the death of Edward in the yeare of the Incarnation one thousand threescore and sixe Harold forgetting his former oath and promise made to Duke William he caused himselfe to be crowned King of the Lande who was no sooner warme in his Throne but Harold Harfoot sonne to Canutus with a puissant hoast of Danes invaded the Realme whom Harold of England met in a set battaile slew him hand to hand and discomfited his whole Army for he was of an invincible hardinesse and valour which victory was no sooner obtained but newes was brought him that William of Normandy was landed with a potent Army to claime his right and interest he had in the Crowne of England by the last Testament of Edward the Confessor with these tydings being thoroughly heated he marched with all speed from the North scarce suffering his Army to rest by the way to give the Normans battaile betwixt whom was a dreadfull and bloudy conflict But when the victory rather hovered over the English then the other Harold after many deepe and dangerous wounds was shot into the eye with an arrow and slaine In whose death may be observed Gods heavy Judgements against price and perjury Of my first sinne namely Pride none hath ever beene by our English Chronologers more justly taxed then that French Gerson Pierre Gavestone the great misleader and seducer of Edward the second whom though his Royall Father King Edward the first sirnamed Long-shanks upon his death-bed caused to bee banished yet the sonne was no sooner inaugurated and admitted to the government of the Realme but contrary to the wils of all his Lords and Peeres he caused his Exile to be repealed sent for him over and advanced him to great honour in which he demeaned himselfe like a proud upstart or as our English Proverbe goes Like a beggar set on horsebacke who is ready to ride poste to the Devill for whose sake the King committed William Lancton Bishop of Chester in the second yeare of his raigne to the Tower because he had perswaded the King against his Minion for which the Barons of the Realme and especially Sir Henry Lacy Sir Guy and Sir Aymery de Valence Earle of Lincolne of Warwick and Pembroke to whom the late King had given charge for his exile upon his death-bed wrought so farre by their power that contrary to the Kings will hee was avoyded the Land and banisht into Ireland for that yeare whither his Majestie sent many secret messengers with rich gifts to comfort him and made him chiefe Ruler of that Countrey But in the third yeare of his reigne divers grudges and discontents began to arise betwixt the King and his Nobles insomuch that for quietnesse sake and in hope of his amendment he was againe repealed but more and more increased in his insufferable insolence insomuch that having charge of all the Kings Jewels and Treasure he went to Westminster and out of the Kings Jewell-house tooke a Table and a paire of trestles all of pure gold and conveyed them with other precious gems out of the Land to the great exhausting and impoverishing of the same by whose wanton effoeminacies and loose conditions he drew the King to many vitious courses as adulteries and the like which mischiefes the Lords seeing daily to increase they tooke counsell againe at Lincolne and notwithstanding the Kings main opposer he was a second time confined into Flanders but in his fifth year was again sent for over when not able to contain himselfe from his immoderate luxury as he demeaned himselfe far more arrogantly than before insomuch that he disdained and had in contempt all the Peeres of the Land giving them much opprobrious and despightfull language wherefore seeing there was no hope of his amendment with an unanimous consent they vowed to rid the Land of such a Caterpiller and soon after besieged him in the Castle of Scarborrow and taking the Fort they surprised him and brought him to Gaversed besides Warwicke and the nine and twentieth day of â—une smote off his head Thus was Gods just doom against his pride luxury and avarice But there succeeded him both in ambition and the Kings favour of our own Natives the two Spencers the father and the son his great minions and favorites who both in wealth power and pride overtopt all the Nobles of the Land commanding their Soveraigne and confounding the Subjects of whom you may reade in the Records of the Tower that in the fourteenth year of this Edward the second Hugh Spencer the elder for his riots and extortions being condemned by the Commonalty and expelled the Land an Inventory of his estate being taken it was found by inquisition that the said Spencer had in sundry Shires fifty nine Mannours and in his possession of his own goods and chattels twenty eight thousand sheep one thousand oxen and steeres twelve hundred beeves with their calves
fourty mares with their coltes one hundred and threescore drawing horses for the teame two thousand hogges three hundred bullockes in his cellar fourty tonnes of wine he had moreover six hundred bacons and fourscore carcases of Martinmasse beeves six hundred muttons in larder ten tonnes of sider besides his provision of ale for beer in these dayes was not known thirty six sackes of wooll with a fair library of bookes and other rich and costly utensils his armour plate jewels and ready money amounting to more than an hundred thousand pounds but what in the end became of all this magâ—zine This Spencer being after called home by the King and restored to all his former estate mauger the Queen and the chief Peeres of the Realme she with an Army pursued the King with these his proud favourites the father she surprised in Bristow which Town the King had fortified and left unto his charge himselfe for his better safeguard flying with his son into Wales whither she pursued them and seâ—sed upon them both bringing Sir Hugh the elder and Sir Hugh the younger to Hereford where upon the morrow following the Feast of Simon and Iude at Bristow Sir Hugh Spencer the father upon a publique scaffold lost his head and his body was after buried at Winchester and upon Saint Hugh's day following being the eighteenth of November was Sir Hugh his son drawn hanged and quartered at Hereford and his head sent to London and was set upon a pole amongst other Traitours of whom a Poet of those times made this short Epitaph Funis cum lignis à te miser ensis ignis Hugo securis equus abstulit omne decus And thus paraphrased or interpreted in old English suiting these times With ropes wert thou bound and on the gallowes hunge And from thy body thine head with sword was kit Thy bowels in the fire were thrown and burned long Thy body in four parts eke with axe was slit With horse before drawn few men pittying it Thus with these torments for thy sinnes sake From thee wretched Hugh all worldly wealth was take And these were remarkable judgements of such as being raised from humble and mean fortunes to high and eminent posture through pride and vainglory attributed that to their own merit which is onely due to their Maker I come next to Sir Roger Mortimer who being highly puft up with the favour that he had from Queen Isabel who in the minority of her young son Edward swayed all during the imprisonment of her husband Edward the second whether by the Queenes consent or no I dare not say but of most assured truth it is that this Roger caused the King to be removed from Kenelworth Castle to the Castle of Barkley where by his direction and command he was most bloodily and inhumanely murdered After which Edward his son the third of that name at the age of fifteen yeares was crowned King but for a time kept in a kinde of pupillage under the Queen and Mortimer betwixt whom there was suspected to have been too much familiarity in whose power was all the management of State and many things past by them to the great dishonour of the Kingdom This Mortimer was by the King made Earle of March who imitated King Arthur by keeping so many Knights of the Round Table to whom he allowed both meat and meanes and bore himselfe in that high straine that he had in contempt the greatest Peeres in the Land but in processe of time he was surprised in Votengham Castle and from thence sent prisoner to the Tower of London when a Parliament being called in the fourth year of the King He was convicted of five Articles first of the murder of the King next that he had dealt perfidiously betwixt our Nation and the Scots thirdly that he received certain summes of money from Sir Thomas Duglas and caused to be delivered unto them the Church called Rugium to their great advantage and Englands prejudice fourthly that he had got unlawfully into his possession much of the Kings treasure and wastfully mispent it and lastly that he was more private with the Queen than was to Gods pleasure or the Kings honour of all which being convicted by the said Parliament upon Saint Andrews day next following he was drawn upon an hurdle to the common place of execution since called Tiburne and there like a Fellon and Traitour upon the Gallowes hanged such is the end of greatnesse when it abandons goodnesse and honour and opposeth it selfe against humility Great also were the arrogancies and insolencies of Sir William Scroop Earle of Wiltshire and Treasurer of England Sir Iohn Bushey Sir Henry Green and others in the time of Richard the second who by him greatly animated and incouraged greatly vexed and oppressed the people men advanced from the cottage to the Court and from basenesse to honour who through their great pride forgetting from whence they came in their surplus of wealth and height of ambition were surprised in Bristow by Henry Duke of Lancaster as cankers and caterpillars of the Common-wealth the son of Iohn of Gaunt who then laid claim to the Crown and by him caused to be executed on a publike scaffold Infinite are Gods threatning judgements to this purpose of which there be infinite examples but being loath to tire the Reader with too much prolixity I will conclude this Tract against pride with one notable president as much if not more remarkable than any of the former In the time of King Henry the eighth Thomas Wolsey Archbishop of Yorke and Cardinall had in his hall daily three Tables or Boards mannaged by three principall Officers a Steward who was alwayes a Priest a Treasurer no lesse degreed than a Knight and a Controwler who was by Place an Esquire he had also a Cofferer who was a Doctor of Divinity three Marshals three Yeomen Ushers in the Hall besides two Groomes and Almners in his Kitchen belonging to the Hall two Clerkes of the Kitchin a Clerke Controller a Surveyour of the Dresser a Clerke of the Spicery and these kept a continuall messe in the Hall two master-cookes and of other Cookes Labourers and Children of the Kitchen twelve persons four Yeomen of the ordinary Scullery four Yeomen of the silver Scullery two Yeomen of the Pastry with two or three Pastulers under the Yeomen In his Privy Kitchin he had a Master-cook who wore alwayes Satten and Velvet with a great chain of gold about his necke with two other Yeomen and a Groom in the Scalding-house a Yeoman and two Groomes in the Pantry two Yeomen in the Buttery two Yeomen two Groomes and two Pages in the Chandry two Yeomen in the Wafery two Yeomen in the Wardrobe of Beddes the Master of the Wardrobe and ten other persons attending in the Laundry a Yeoman and a Groom thirty Pages two Yeomen-purveyours and one Groom in the Bake-house a Yeoman and two Groomes in the Wood-yard a Yoman and a Groom in the Barne one in
9. Inquisition shall be made for the thoughts of the ungodly and the sound of the words shall come unto God for the correction of his iniquities Therefore beware of murmuring which profiteth nothing and refraine thy tongue from slander for there is no word so secret that shall goe for nought and the mouth that speaketh lyes slayeth the soule It is the counsell of the Wise man Eate not the bread of him that is envious or hath an evill eye neither desire his d 〈…〉 meates for as though he thought it in his heart bee will say Eate and drinke but his heart is not with thee thou sh 〈…〉 t vomit the â—arselâ— that thou hast 〈◊〉 and thou shalt lose thy sweet words c. The booke of Wisdome 〈◊〉 us that through Envy of the Devill came death into the world and they that hold of his side prove it therefore let us be advised by Saint Peter who in the second chapter of his first Epistle saith Wherefore laying aside all malitiousnesse and all guile and dissimulation and envy and evill speaking as new borne babes desire that sincere milke of the Word that yee may grow thereby c. But from the discovery of the foulenesse of the sinne I come now to shew what severall judgements have beene inflicted upon it And first to search forraine Histories before we come to fearefull and tragicall Examples moderne and domestick of our owne that the one may the better illustrate and set off the other I begin with that incestuous brood of Thebes the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices whose father Oedipus ignorant of his owne naturall parents and having first most unfortunately slaine his owne father and after retyring himselfe to Thebes by the solution of Sphinxes riddle married with his owne mother Iocasta neither of them knowing their proximity in bloud and by that match swayed the Kingdome together with those two before-named sonnes and two daughters Antigone and Ismene which he had by her But at length having knowledge of that incestuous match made with his mother he in griefe thereof with his nayles pulled out his owne eyes and she in despaire strangled her selfe after which the Kingdome falling to the two brothers They first agreed to raigne monethly and then yearely by turnes but soone after there grew such malitious envy betwixt them that whatsoever the one did in his regency the other when the power came into his hands utterly abrogated and disanull'd making new lawes to the former quite contrary which also lasted but a moneth for then the succeeder paid the resigner in his owne coyne Upon this grew faction and divers partisans on either side some favouring the one and some affecting the other in the end from threatnings and braves it came to battaile and blowes in which the two brothers encountering hand to hand in a single duell they interchangably slew one another whose envy in life was so irreconcilable and invererate that it appeared after their deaths for their two bodies being brought to be burnt in one funerall pile the very flame was seene to divide it selfe and burne in two parts suting to their opposite soules and contrary conditions Another Example of Gods Judgements against Envy Greece affordeth us Perseus the sonne of Philip King of Macedon but not that Philip who was father to Alexander the Great hee had an elder brother whose name was Demetrius a man of most approved honesty and imitable condition whose knowne vertues his younger brother of a malevolent and cumbred spirit much envying framed a most scandalous and detracting inditement against him pretending that he had privately insidiated his fathers life and Kingdom and sold them both unto his enemies the Romans of which by suborned witnesses he had made such proofe and bribing to that purpose prevailed so farre that he was convented convicted and condemned and most innocently suffered the rigout of the Law by having his head strooke off But the King having had notice of these barbarous and injust proceedings surprised with excesse of griefe died not long after and this malicious fratricide succeeded in the Kingdome who now having all things answerable to his own desires thinking Macedonia too narrow a limit for his unbounded ambition he in great presumption not onely opposed but invaded the Roman Empire whose envy and detraction against his brother God thus punished He drew him with all his puissant Army neare unto the river of Danubius where being encountred by the Roman Consul Aemilius he and his whole hoast were cut to pieces and utterly ruined insomuch that the power of the Macedonians being utterly confounded it became after subject and tributary to the Roman Empire and thus his defamatory destruction conspired against another fell upon his owne head and is still registred to his perpetuall shame and inflamy It is reported of the Roman Emperour Caligula who was a man of infinite vices that he never spared man in his rage not woman in his lust to whom sisters and strangers were alike he was so infected with this vice of envy that in contempt of the most noble families in Rome from the Torquati hee tooke the honour of wearing golden chains from the Cinâ—innats so called for their crisped and curled looks he tooke their haire and caused them to be shorne to the skull and so of others besides from 〈◊〉 Pompeâ—â—s he caused the denomination of Great to be taken away and Aesius Proculeus a very beautifull young man because hee was for feature and favour preferred before him he caused to be murdered for which and other like vices hee was deposed from the Imperiall purple and put to a most base wretched and ignoble death Antoninus and Geta were the two sonnes of the Emperour Severus betwixt whom he divided the Empire after his death To Antoninus was all Europe allotted and whole Asia was the possession and patrimony of Geta. Bizantium kept a great Garrison of Souldiers for Antoninus and Caloedon a Citie of Bythinia was the place of strength to which Geta trusted besides the two great Cities of Antioch and Alexandria were the Royall and Kingly feats for Geta and Mauritania and Numidia for Antoninus who was of a dangerous and divelish nature but Geta of a very curteous and affable temperature for which he was the more envyed by the Elder and his attrocities and inhumanities as much disaffected by the younger By which mutuall enmity those glorious victories which Severâ—s atchieved and after by concord and peace enjoyed to the great advancement of the Empire were now almost wholly ruined The Empresse their mother fore-seeing some great and eminent disaster gave them often very matron and pious admonitions exhorting them to unity and concord but her indulgent and wholesome counsell nothing prevailed with them for daily their discord hatred and bloudy practises increased and the one was so jealous of the other that they durst not eate nor drinke together for feare of poyson In this mutuall feare they continued till at the
nothing regarded and their last age shall be without honour if they die hastily they have no helpe neither comfort in the day of triall for horrible is the end of the wicked generation Again 4. 3. The multitude of the ungodly which abound in children is unprofitable and the bastard plants shall take no deep roots nor lay any fast foundation for though they bud forth in the branches for a time yet they shall be shaken with the winde for they stand not faste and through the vehemency of the winde they shall be rooted out for the imperfect branches shall be broken and their fruit shall be unprofitable and sower to eat and meet for nothing for all the children that are borne of the wicked bed shall be witnesse of the wickednesse against the parents when they be asked And what more terrible judgements than these can be threatned against the Adulterers Let us now hear the Fathers this is Saint Austins counsell De verbo Dom. tract 48. If you will marry wives keep your selves unto them and let them finde you the same you desire to finde them What is he desirous to marry and would not be coupled to a chaste wife Or if a virgin one that is untoucht Be thou also chaste and untoucht Dost thou desire one to be constant and pure to thee Be constant and pure to her for can she prove so to thee and not thou also to her Saint Chrisostome Hom. 3. As that Pilot which suffers his ship to be wracked in a port or harbour is inexcusable so he that to qualifie the lusts of the flesh shall lawfully take a spouse to live withall for better and for worse and shall after insidiate the bed of his neigbour neither can that man whose wanton eyes and petulant fancies wander after every loose prostitute or strumpet either acquit himselfe to men or excuse himselfe towards God although he shall ten thousand times alleadge his naturall inclination to pleasure or how can that properly be called pleasure which is waited on by fear diffidence danger and where there is expectation of so many evils accusation the seat or the tribunall of justice and the ire and wrath of the Judge he stands in dread of all things shadowes walls stones graves neighbours adversaries nay even his dearrest friends But be it granted that their guilt be private and known onely to the delinquents they are not therefore safe here shall they bear a conscience even reproving and suggesting bitter and fearfull things against them and the conscience to be alwayes about them For as no man can fly him so none can evade or avoid the sentence of that private Court for this judicatory sense is not with gold to be corrupted with flattery mitigated not by friends mediated in regard it is a thing divine and by God himselfe placed and appointed to have residence in our hearts Saint Ambrose de Patriarchis in speaking of the Patriarchs Abraham and Iacob and of their multiplicity of wives he in excuse of them saith that Abraham was before either the Law or the Gospell and in his time Big 〈…〉 y was rot forbidden Now the punishment of a fault grew from the time of the Law for it was not a crime before it was inhibited and forbid so 〈◊〉 had four wives which whilest it was a custom was no crime who as they married not meerly for concupiscence and to fulfill the lust full desires of the flesh but rather instigated by providence to the propagation of issue therefore let no man flatter himselfe by making them their president for all adultery is damnable c. Ioses the son of Iehochanan in that Book which the Hebrews stile Capi 〈…〉 vel apothegmata hath this saying the time which a man spends in multiplying words with a woman he loseth to his great damage for at length with her petulancy she will bring him to perdition And Rabbi Aâ—â—ba saith Laughter and the light and unconstant moving of the head easily convince a man of loosnesse and effeminacy And Habbiben Syra saith For the sake of beautifull women the strongest have fallen and many have perished therefore hide thine eyes from the allurements of a fair woman lest she catch thee in her snare and thou become her captive to thy desâ—â—â—ction Dionysius the elder though otherwise a Tyrant when he by complaint made had understood his son to whose charge he had committed the government of a Province to have stuprated the wife of a noble young Gentleman he sent for him and being exceeding angry demanded of him if he had seen any such president in his father To whom he replied Many for he had not a King to his father Nor thou said Diony 〈…〉 s art likely to have a King to thy son if thou followest these lewd and luxurious courses The Tyrant holding Adultery a crime worthy to disinherit him from all regall Authority which is now made no more than a sport and pastime amongst great ones for Sylla sirnamed Faustus the freed man of Sylla the great competitour against Marius hearing that his naturall filler had entertained two Adulterers into her service at once which were Fulvius Fullo and Pomponius whose sirname was Macula he put it off with a jest upon their names Miror inquit sororem meam maculam habere cum fullonem habet that is I wonder my sister should have a macula or wear any spot or stain when she hath a fullo a fuller that washeth and taketh out staines still so near her There is also scortation of Scortum a whore which the Greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Scortari the Hebrews Zonach To this capitall head of lust likewise belongeth incest which is a venereall abuse in Affinity and consanguity which for these reasons may be said justly to be prohibited because man naturally acknowledgeth an honour to his parents and so by consequence a more than common respect to those of his near blood and alliance Secondly because it is necessitous that persons arising from one root and stem be mutually conversant Thirdly it hindereth the increase of friends which are lost by not marrying into other stockes and families Lastly when a man naturally loveth his sister or cousin-germine being so neer to him in blood if that venereall ardor which comes from commixtion were added love would break out into raging lust which is altogether repugnant to all modesty and chastity There is also Sodomia Turpitudo in masculum facta contranaturam of which to speak I will be very sparing Thus you see the sixth of the seven heads as the Beast dissected and anatomised But I come now to History and Example Cateline that firebrand of Rome and pestilent incendiary of all sedition to adde to all his other criminall and capitall malefactions which were indeed beyond president or since his time by any of the most notorious ruffians that the later ages have bred if imitated yet scarce equalled and
THE SECOND PART OF THE THEATRE OF GODS IVDGMENTS Collected out of the writings of sundry Ancient and Moderne Authors By the late Reverend Divine Dr THOMAS TAYLOR sometime Pastor of Aldermanbury in London LONDON Printed by Richard Herne An. Dom. 1642. THE SECOND PART OF THE THEATRE OF GOD'S JUDGMENTS CHAP. I. Gods Remarkable Judgements against Pride AS in the two former learned Tractates bearing Title of The Theatre of Gods Iudgements inflicted upon the severall breaches of the Ten Commandements so now to these we adde a third Tract Of his most remarkable punishments of the seaven deadly sinnes and these illustrated by sundry notable Examples aswell Domestick as Forraine And because Pride was the first which began in the Angels and hath since infected all mankinde from our Protoplasti our first Parents Adam and Eve and hath continued through all generations hitherto and shall in their posterity even to the last dissolution I derive my first Discourse from that There be foure sorts of Pride by which every insolent and arrogant man discovereth himselfe For instance when those good parts if he have any of which he is possest he apprehendeth meerely to spring from himselfe or when those which he acknowledgeth to be conferred from above he attributeth to his owne merit or when he boasteth to have what indeed hee hath not or when despising others he covets to be singular in himself This sinne was borne in Heaven but so suddenly precipitated thence that it could never since finde the way backe againe thither all other vices are onely at warre with these particular vertues by which they are overcome as Inchastity Chastity Bounty Avarice Wrath Patience and so of the rest Pride is not with that contented as to oppose Humility and Obedience but it rageth against all the vertues of the minde and like a generall pestiferous disease striveth to putrifie and infect them all For Pride in riches makes men the more covetous In idlenesse scorning labour in wrath more outragious in gluttony more intemperate in envy more malicious neither is there any mortiferous sinne in which Pride is not a supreame agent The signes thereof are boldnesse in language sullennesse in silence arrogance in mirth murmuring in melancholly and despising all others doating upon himselfe Aesop being asked by Chian What he thought Iupiter was at that time doing made answer Hee is now dejecting the proud and exalting the humble And the famous Philosopher Aristotle spying a rich young man but altogether unlearned strutting along the streets with a proud affected gate and his eyes so elevated towards Heaven as if hee despised the earth whereon he troad came to him and said friend Such as thou thinkest thy selfe to be I wish I were but to be such as thou art I wish onely to mine enemie This also Socrates with great modesty reproved in Alcibiades who finding himselfe suddenly puft up with his extraordinary abundance in riches and much to glory in his many spoyles and victories he drew him into a private Gallery and shewing him a Cosmographicall Table of the World bid him looke in what part of the Map he could spy all his great Trophies and Triumphs And when hee answered him They were not there to be seene Socrates replyed Cur igitur ob illa superbis quae circa nullam terrae partem existunt that is Why then art thou so proud of these things which are not visible in any part of the earth Neither was the Church it selfe free from this sinne in the dayes of learned Saint Bernard who in one of his Sermons thus complaines Thou shalt see many in the Church who from obscure parentage being ennobled and from poverty made rich with pride so suddenly tumor'd and tympanized that forgetting from whence they came have contemned their parents and blusht at their owne births Thou shalt see also some pernicious persons aspire unto Ecclesiasticall honours and then pretend to themselves a seeming sanctity by changing of their vestures not their vices and their manner of habit not their mindes esteeming themselves to deserve that dignity which they have insidiated by deceit and which I scarce dare say have attributed that to their merit which they have bought with their money But as the smoake which of its owne nature is blacke and obscure yet covets to ascend from a light and bright flame but in the midst of its violent reluctation resolves it selfe into aire and so vanishing loseth both nature and name So the proud and ambitious howsoever coursly and obscurely parted yet will elevate and advance himselfe above others yet in his striving to stand high is often precipitated and loseth both his place and memory Behold saith the Prophet He that lifteth up himselfe his minde is not upright but the Iust shall live by his faith Yea indeed The proud man is as he that transgresseth by Wine therefore shall he not endure because he hath enlarged his desire as the Hell and is as death and cannot be satisfied but gathereth unto him all Nations and heapeth unto him all people shall not all these take up a Parable against him and a taunting Proverbe and say Ho he that increaseth that which is not his how long and be that ladeth himselfe with thicke clay Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee and awake that shall stirre thee and thou shalt bee their prey Because c. How Pride hath beene severely punished by the Almighty we finde frequent examples in the holy Text It was punisht in our first Parents by their Exile out of Paradise In the Builders of Babel who said Come let us build us a Citie and a Tower whose top may reach up to the Heaven that we may get us a name c. In their scattering over the face of the earth and the confusion of their Languages In Sodome and Gomorrah by raining down fire and brimstone upon their Cities and people In Miriam the sister of Moses by Leaprosie In Korah Dathan and Abirâ—m for their pride and rebellion against Moses the ground clave asunder that was under them and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up with their families and all the men that were with Korah and all their goods so they and all that they had went downe alive unto the pit and the earth covered them and they perisht from amongst the Congregation In Goliah the Philistime slaine by the hands of David In Sheba the sonne of Bicri who lift up his hand against the King by having his head cut off and cast over the walls to Ioah Captaine of the hoast In Absalom who tooke such pride in his haire that it after became his halter In destroying of Davids people for his pride in numbring them In Adoniah who for demanding Abishag the Shunamite to wife who had layen in his fathers bosome was slaine at the commandment of Solomon by the hand of Benaiah the sonne of Iehojadah In Benhadad King of Aram Rabsakeh and Zenacharib In
Olofernes the great Captain of the Assyrian hoast slain by Iudith at the siege of Bethulia In Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite whom the great King Ahashuerosh exalted and set his seat above all the Princes that were under him whose pride growing up with his promotion at length advanced him to a Gibbet fiftie foot high upon which in the glory of his ambition he was strangled In Nabuchadnezar and Balthassar King of the Chaldeans In the great King Antiochus who went up towards Iudea and Hierusalem with a mighty people and entred proudly into the Sanctuary and tooke away the golden Altar and the Candlesticke for the light and all the instruments belonging thereto and the Table of the Shewbread and the powring vessels and the Bowles and the golden Basons and the Vayle and the Crownes and the golden apparrell which was before the Temple and brake all in pieces He brake also the Silver and Gold and the precious Jewels with the secret treasures that he found and then departed away into his owne Land But the same proud Prince comming after with great dishonour from Persia the God Almighty stroke him with an invisible and an incurable plague by a paine in his bowels which was remedilesse and which grievously tormented him in the inner parts for so he had tormented other mens bowels with divers cruell and strange torments yet would not hee cease from his arrogance but swelled the more with pride against Gods owne people to destroy them and commanded to haste his journey for that purpose but so it was that he fell downe from the Chariâ—t that ranne swiftly and all the parts and members of his body were bruised Thus he who but a day before thought hee might command the Flouds such was his Luciferian pride beyond the condition of man and to weigh the high mountaines in the ballance was cast on the earth and carried in an horse-litter declaring unto all the world the manifest power of God so that the wormes came out of his body in abundance and his flesh dropt from his bones with paine and torment and all his Army was grieved at his smell No man could now endure him because of his stinke who but a little before thought with his hands he might reach the starres of Heaven And then though too late he began to abate his haughty and peremptory insolence when being plagued he came to the knowledge of himselfe by the just scourge ' of God and by his inward torments which every moment increased upon him and when he himselfe could not abide his owne favour he said It is meet for man to be subject to God and that he who is but mortall should not oppose himselfe against his Maker The like punishment we reade of in the person of Nicanor who came unto Mount Sion whom the Priests and the Elders of the people went forth of the Sanctuary to salute peaceably and to shew him the daily burnt offerings for the King but he laughed at them and derided their devotion accounting them meerely prophane and spake proudly and sware in his wrath If Iudas and his Hoast be not delivered into mine hands If ever I shall returne in safety I will burne up this house c. and so departed thence in great fury but observe the event of his so great ostentation and insolence Iudas after some few dayes though against infinite oddes having slaine Nicanor in battaile and routed his whole Army he caused his head to be struck off and that arme and hand which he had so proudly lifted up against the Temple of the God of Israel and brought them to Hierusalem and there caused them to be hanged up as a remarkable judgement But not to dwell on those frequent in the holy Text I come now to the like examples gathered from Ethnick and Morall remembrancers and out of them give you onely a taste to prevent surfet till I fall upon those more familiar and moderne Alexander the Great in his height of potency and supereminent fortune contemning the remembrance of his father Philip would be called God and commanded himselfe to be stiled the sonne of Iupiter Hamon who notwithstanding in the sufferance of many heats and colds his subjection to humours and passions his enduring of smarts and wounds and all other infirmities belonging to man would not be sensible of his mortality till in the very Apex of his sublimity he was treacherously poysoned and so most miserably expired And Nero the Arch-tyrant since Adam after he had filled the Earth with many insolencies and Rome the theu Worlds Metropolis with infinite Rapes Murders and Massacres not sparing his neare Kinsman Germanicum his corrivall in the Empire nor his great grave and learned Tutor and Master Seneca to make himselfe unparalleld in all kinde of parricidy He caused the wombe of his owne naturall mother Agrippina to be ript up before his face onely in an ambition to discover the place of his first conception notwithstanding which inhumanities hee was so inflamed with an ardent desire of future memory that by a publike Edict he proclaimed that the moneth April should lose its ancient name and be called after his owne appellation Nero and the Citie of Rome Neropolis Yet this proud man in the end being quite abandoned and forsaken of all his Sycophants and oily flatterers was glad to fly from his Royall Court to seeke refuge in a rustick Cottage and with greater terrour to his owne conscience then before he had used tyranny upon the carkasses of others he was compelled to fall upon his sword his body being after most contemptibly dragg'd through the streets of the Citie with more bitter execrations and curses then before he had lived houres or minutes Another called Varus Pergaus was so infected with the adulatory assentations of his Flatterers Buffoones and Trencher-flyes That hee was brought to perswade himselfe to be of all faire men the most beautifull of all able men the most sinnowie and strong of all understanding men the most prudent and wise and that in all kindes of musick and melody he could out-play and out-sing even the Muses themselves But this poore effascinated wretched creature when hee had long fooled and spent the prime and best of his age in this vaine and idle false conceit he grew towards his end to be strangely disfigured and deformed in visage feebled and disabled in his vigour and strength idioted and besotted in his understanding and sence and so farre from song or Harmony that his unlamented death was accompanied with his owne shreeking and howling We further reade of one Menecrates a rare Physitian who in his practise had done many extraordinary cures upon severall Patients insomuch that he was held in a generall admiration especially amongst those to whom he was best knowne who having gathered to himselfe a competent estate or rather a surplusage of meanes that he presumed no casualty or adverse fortune was any way able
he suffer deeds of such horrid nature to passe unpunished in this world what vengeance soever he without true repentance reserveth for them in the world to come as it is observable in this present History for Lewis the fourth the thirty third King of France by lineall discent comming to the Crowne being the sonne to the before-named Charles the simple and loath that so grosse a treason committed against his father should be smothered without some notable revenge being very ingenious he bethought himselfe how with the least danger or effusion of bloud in regard of the others greatnesse and alliance how to bring it about and therefore he devised this plot following He caused a letter to be writ which he himselfe did dictate and hired an English-man who came disguised like a Poste to bring it unto him as from the King his Master at such a time when many of his Peeres were present and amongst the rest this Herebert was amongst them this suborned Poste delivereth the letter to the Kings hands hee gives it to his principall Secretary who read it privately unto him who presently smiling said openly Most sure the English-men are not so wise as I esteemed them to be for our Brother of England hath signified unto me by these letters that in his Countrey a labouring-man having invited his Lord and Master to dine with him at his house and he vouchsafing to grace his Cottage with his presence in the base requitall of so noble a curtesie he caused him to be most treacherously slaine and now my Brother of England desireth my counsell to know what punishment this fellow hath deserved In which I desire to be instructed by you my Lords that hearing your censures I may returne him the more satisfactory answer The King having ended his Speech the Lords were at first silent till at length Theobant Earle of Bloyes was the first that spake and said that hee was worthy first to be tortured and after to be hanged on a Gibbet which sentence all the Lords there present confirmed and some of them amongst the rest much aggravating the punishment which also Herebert Earle of Vermendoys did approve and allow of whereupon the Kings Officers who by his Majesties appointment then waited in a with-drawing roome of purpose seised upon him with an armed guard at which sudden surprise hee being much amazed the King raising himselfe from his seat said Thou Hebert art that wicked and treacherous labourer who didst most trayterously insidiate the life of my father thy Lord and Master of which felonious act thine owne sentence hath condemned thee and die thou shalt as thou hast well deserved whereupon he was hanged on a Gibbet on the top of a Mountaine called Lodan which since his execution is called Mount Hebert to this day Bajazet the great Emperour of the Turkes who in his mighty pride thought with his numerous Army to drinke rivers dry and to weight the mountaines in a ballance who had made spoyle of many Nations and with tyranny persecuted the Christians dispersed through his vast dominions who compared the world to a Ship and himselfe to the Pilot who commanded the sayles and secured the helme yet afterwards being met in battaile by Scythian Tamberlaine and his Army being quite routed his person also taken prisoner in the field the Conquerour put this untamed beast into an iron cage and caused him to be fed from the very fragments and scraps from his table and carried along with him whither soever hee marched and onely then released him from his imprisonment when he was forced to stoope and humble his body as a blocke to tread upon whilest Tamberlaine mounted upon his steed but here ended not Gods visible Judgements against this Usurper Persecutor and Tyrant who in despaire rayling upon his Prophet Mahomet in whom he had in vaine trusted against the Iron grate in which he was inclosed beate out his owne braines and wretchedly expired Infinite are the examples to the like purpose but I will leave those Forraine to come to our Domestick extracted out of our owne Chronologers and first of King Bladud Who was the sonne of Lud Hurdribras and after the death of his father was call'd from Rome where hee had studied darke and hidden Arts and was made Governour in this Isle of Brittain in the yeare of the world foure thousand three hundred and eighteene For so testifieth Gualfride Polichronicon and other ancient remembrancers This Bladud was altogether devoted to the study of Magick and Necromancy and very expert in Judiciall Astrology by which he is said to make the hot Baths in the Towne then called Caerbadon but now Bath which Citie he is said to have erected This King caused the Art of Magick to be taught through his Realm and ordained Schooles and Schoole masters to that purpose in which hee tooke such pride and presumption as that he thought by it all things were possible to be done so much the Devill the first master and founder of that Art had deluded him so farre that at the length having called a great confluence of his people about him he made an attempt to flie in the arre but fell upon the Temple of his god Apollo where he brake his neck his body being torne and bruised after he had raigned twenty yeares leaving a sonne called Leire to succeed him and continue his posterity Goodwin Earle of west Saxon in the time of Edward the sonne of Egelredus was of that insufferable ambition by reason of his great revenues and numerous issue for he had five sonnes and one daughter that he swayed the whole Kingdome and almost compulsively compelled the King his Soveraigne to take his daughter Edith to wife After rebelling against the King and forced with his sonnes to depart the Land yet after he made such meanes that hee mediated his peace and was reconciled to him 〈◊〉 but amongst all his other insolencies he was accessary to the death of the Kings brother or at least much suspected to be so which was the first breach betwixt his Soveraigne and him But so it happened in the thirteenth yeare of the raigne of this King Edward Earle Goodwin upon an Easter Monday sitting with diverse other Lords and Peeres of the Kingdome at the Kings table in the Castle of Windsor it happened one of the Kings Cup â—eaâ—â—â—s to stumble and yet well to recover himselfe without falling and not spilling any of the wine which Earle Goodwin observing laughed aloud and said There one brother helped the other thereby intimating that the one leg or foot had well supported the other from falling To which words the King instantly replyed and so might my brother Alphred have bin still living to have helped and supported me had not Earle Goodwin supplanted him by death At which words being startled as conceiving that the King suspected him of his brothers murder thinking to excuse himself of that horrible act he said to the King Sir I perceive
length Antoninus grew so sicke of his brothers generall love and welfare that his ambition is now to be the sole possessour of the whole Empire and therefore in the dead of night with other of his assasinates he violently broke open his brothers chamber and basely murdered him even in the sight and presence of their mother not thinking hee was throughly dead till he had cut the head from the body This done he excused the fact to the Souldiers and with large donatives so insinuated into their favours that never was found who so much as repined at what was done nor was he sooner well seated in the Throne Imperiall but he caused all the friends well-wishers and acquaintance of Geta to be most cruelly put to death sparing neither degree age nor sex so that not one remained alive in the Common-weale of Rome most of the rich Senatours he caused to be slaine and their forfeited wealth he distributed amongst his Souldiers who supported him in all his villanies he slew his owne wife the daughter of Plantianus and the sonne of Pertinax and such was his hatred to Geta being dead that he destroyed all the Praefects Proconsuls Governours and Officers throughout Asia who had by him beene promoted to honour But after all his rapes incests and ryots murders and massacres as possest with all the horrid and abhominable vices that have any name As his life was detestable so was his death remarkable being in the midst of his sinnes without any repertance was most wretchedly slaine by his Souldiers at the instigation of Macrinus after Emperour Supplantation is one of the branches of Envy concerning which I have read an History to this purpose A Roman Emperour in those dayes before any Christianity was professed amongst them living in peace and tranquillity and no sedition or insurrection being made in any of his dominions so that the practise of Armes was quite left off and almost forgot This Emperour had a noble Prince to his sonne naturally inclined to prowesse and manhood and wholly addicted to martiall exercises But finding no imployment at home he had a great desire to know what milâ—tary exercises were abroad wherefore making choyce of one Gentleman to be his friend and companion whom hee valued as a second selfe furnisht with gold and treasure sufficient unknowne to any betooke themselves to sea and after much perillous navigation they landed in Persia at such time as the Soldan had warres with the Caliph of Aegypt The Prince with his companion concealing his birth and Countrey put himselfe under the Soldans service in which he so bravely demeaned himselfe that he grew remarkable through the Army and none in all the hoast was able to compare with him in daring or doing he so farre transcended them all insomuch that by his valour the Soldan had many brave victories and having but one onely daughter a Lady of incomparable beauty he had a secret purpose to take an advantage to bestow her upon him with all the Royalties of Scepter Sword Crowne and Dominion after his decease In processe it so happened that in a dreadfull battaile fought betwixt the Persians and Aegyptians the Soldan was mortally wounded in the eye with an arrow yet his body he yet living was safely brought to his Tent by this Roman Prince who before his death drew out a ring of great value and gave it unto him saying my onely daughter upon my paternall benediction hath vowed and sworne that whosoever shall deliver this ring from me to her shee will without any scruple or evasion accept him for her husband and this I freely bestow on thee and with these last words he expired Whose funerall being performed and by his death the warres ended the Prince with this ring retires himselfe with his companion towards Grand Kayre and by the way revealed unto his friend all that had past betwixt him and the Soldan concerning the Princesse and withall shewed him the ring who most perfidiously watching his opportunity in the night whilest the Prince was fast sleeping he stole away the ring and poasting to the Court presented it to the Lady who accepting both of it and him the false Imposter had her to wife and was crowned King of Persia. For which affront not able to right himselfe his great spirit was so afflicted that he grew into a dangerous and deadly feaver yet before his death he writ a Letter and sent it to his Father and the Senate in which he discovered the whole passage of the businesse as is before related and then died who by Embassadours informing the Queene and the State of Persia the truth of all which was confirmed by the dying Princes Letter The Impostor at length confessed all but because he had been their King the State would not put him to death or torture but delivered him to the Roman Embassadors to dispose of him at their pleasure who carrying him to Rome with the body of the dead Prince he was doomed to be shut alive into the Princes Sepulchre where the trayterous wretch most miserably finished his dayes A second to the like purpose wee reade in the History of the Popes which tells us that Pope Nicholas being dead one Celestine a man of a sincere and innocuous life and conversation was by a common suffrage advanced to the Papacie who bore himselfe with all humility and piety whose godly life one of the proud Cardinals envying and ayming to supplant him hee preferred a young kinsman of his to waite in his chamber who growing in favour with his Holinesse the Cardinall gave him a long trunke of brasse through which hee whispered in the Popes eare divers times when he was slumbering that it was Gods will and for his soules safety to resigne the Father-hood over to some others and himselfe to lead a private religious life which being often done took in him such impression as in a publike Consistory he told them what revelation he had from Heaven humbly desiring that with their good love and leave he might resigne his great charge and betake himselfe to a private and monastick life which motion this Cardinall seconded and by bribery and gifts having many friends and partisans on his side by his voluntary resignement was elected Pope in his steed by the name of Boniface Who now attaining to the height of his wishes and being feised of the tripple Diadem was not ashamed openly to boast how fraudulently hee came to that high Ecclesiasticall honour growing therewith more proud haughty and insolent insomuch that he pickâ— a quarrell with Lewis King of France and would have forced his personall appearance to acknowledge him for his supreame Father and Master which because the King denyed he excommunicated his Clergy and interdicted his Realme curfing him and his Subjects with Bell Booke and Candle But at length the King troubled and tyred with his so many contumacies sent a Knight called Sir Guillam de Langaret with a troope of
way addicted to any martiall exercise hee put into a religious house called Saint Swithens Abbey and made him a Monke his two other sonnes were Aurelius Ambrosius and Vter sirnamed Pendragon But Constantine the father being trayterously murdered one Vortiger who then was the most potent Peere in the Land tooke Constantine the eldest sonne out of the Monastery and made him King onely in name for he himselfe swayed the government of the Kingdome with all the power that belonged to a Crowne and Scepter Yet not with that contented he envied the state of the innocent King and though he had all the power yet he could not content himselfe without the title and therefore placed a guard of an hundred Picts and Scots about the Kings person and having ingrossed into his hands the greatest part of the Kings Treasury hee was so bountifull to those strangers that they feared not to say openly that be better deserved to be King then Constantine and waiting their best advantageous opportunity murdered him Whose head being presented to Vortiger then at London he made much seeming sorrow for his death and to acquit himselfe of the act caused all those hundred Knights to be beheaded by which the people holding him innocent crowned him King when the other had raigned about five yeares and this his coronation caused those that had the keeping of the two younger brothers Aurelius and Vter to flie with them into little Brittain where they remained long after but as a just reward of this trayterous supplantation hee was never after in any peace or quietnesse his Land being alwayes in combustion and trouble his Peeres suspecting him of the death of the King made insurrection against him insomuch that he was forced to sollicite aide of the Saxons who though they helped him for the present after of his friends they grew to be his enemies and were too mighty for him so that when he had raigned in great molestation and trouble sixteen years the Brittaines deprived him of all Kingly dignity and crowned his eldest sonne Vorâ—imerus in his stead Who when he had in many battailes overcome the Saxons and had almost quite expulsed them the Land he was poysoned by his stepmother Râ—waine when he had gloriously and victoriously seaven yeares governed the Land and his father Vortimer was againe made King who was after twice taking prisoner by Hengest King of the Saxons and his Peeres and Nobles cruelly butchered in his presence At length the two younger brothers of Constantine invaded the Land being aided by the distressed Brittains and pursued him into Wales where hee and divers of his complices fortified themselves in a strong Castle which Castle the two brothers with their Army besieged and after many vaine assaults it being valiantly defended with wilde-fire they burned and consumed the Fort together with Vortiger and all his souldiers and servants Worthy it is to observe by how many severall kinde of Judgements this sinne of Envy hath beene punisht as in the former examples is made apparant namely by the single sword by battaile by poysoning strangling heading torturing by murdering and cutting to pieces by being swallowed up of monsters the living to be buried with the dead by famishing in prison by being torne piece-meale and the bleeding limbes cast into common privies some burnt with ordinary fire others with wilde-fire the brother murdering the brother and the mother the sonne the bondage and vassalling of Nations c. which sinne though for the commonnesse and familiarity it hath amongst us is scarce minded or thought upon because many who are envious may so hide it that they may appeare honest withall yet is this hypocrisie no excuse for you see how hatefull it is in the eyes of the Creator by so many visible punishments thereof But I proceed After many dreadfull battailes fought and not without great effusion of bloud betwixt Edmund sirnamed for his strength and valour Iron-side the sonne of Ethelstane and Canutus the sonne of Swanus during this warre betwixt those martiall Princes to the great desolation of the Realme and mortality of the people It was agreed betwixt the two Generals to conclude the difference in a single duell The place where this should be performed was in an I le called Olney neare unto Glocester incompast with the water of the Severne In which place at the day appointed both the Champions met without any company or assistance and both the hoasts stood as spectators without the Isle there awaiting the fortune of the battaile where the Princes first proved one another with sharpe speares and they being broken with keene cutting swords where after a long fierce combate both being almost tyred by giving and receiving of hard and ponderous blowes at length the first motion comming from Canutus they began to parle and lastly to accord friendly kissing and embracing each other and soone after by the advise of both their Counsels they made an equall partition of the Land betwixt them and during their naturall lives lived together and loved as brothers But there was one Eâ—riâ—us Duke of Mercia of whom my Author gives this character A man of base and low birth but raised by favour to wealth and honour subtile of wiâ— but false of turning eloquent of speech but perfidious both in thought and promise who in all his actions complyed with the Danes to the dammage of his owne Countrey men and yet with smooth language protestations and false oathes could fashion his excuse at his pleasure This false Traytor in whose heart the serpent of envy and base conspiracy ever burned â—t length breaking out into flame against his owne Prince Iron-side for what cause is not knowne and thinking to get the grace and favour of Canutus he so awaited his opportunity that hee most treacherously slew his King and Master Iron-side Which done thinking thereby to be greatly exalted he poasted in all haste to Canutus shewing him what he had done for his love and saluted him by the stile of sole King of England which when the Prince of Danes had well understood and pondering what from his owne mouth he had confest like a just and wise Prince he answered him after this manner Since Edâ—â—câ—s thou hast for the love thou sayest thou bearest unto me slaine thy naturall Lord and King whom I most loved I shall in requitall exalt thy head above all the Lords thy fellow Peeres of England and forthwith commanded him to be taken and his head to be strook off and pitcht upon a speares head and set upon the highest gate of London a just judgement inflicted upon Envy which hath alwayes beene the hatcher of most abâ—ominable treason Unparalleld was that piece of Envy in Fostius one of the sonnes of Earle Goodwin and brother to Harold after King hee in the two and twentieth yeare of the raigne of Edward the Confessor upon some discontent betwixt him and his brother Harold came with a company of Ruffins and rude Pellowes and
expeditions hee had alwayes a steele bow ready bent and what souldier soever but stept out of his ranke hee instantly strooke him dead with an arrow glorying to himselfe that he was so good a marks-man But after these and infinite other cruelties hee that delighted to see men die like Beares was himselfe in the end torne in pieces with wilde Wolfes being paid in the like though not in the same coyne which hee lent to others Suiting to which is that story of Perillus who hearing that Phalaris the Tyrant over the Agrigentines was much delighted in the severall wayes of tormenting men and presuming that nothing could better comply with his cruelty then to present him with some rare and unheard of machine to that purpose he devised and forged by his Art a brazen Bull to open on the one side and shut againe at pleasure which being brought to Phalaris he demanded of him the use for which it was made who answered him again he had forged it to punish offendors of high nature for saith he let the naked body be put in at this doore and then an hot fire made under it the person tormented will not utter the voyce of a man to put a telenting commiseration upon you but the sound will appeare like the bellowing of a Bull to make it the lesse terrible which Phallaris hearing and grieving in his ambitions evill that any should offer to out-doe him in his cruelty He told the workeman that he accepted of his gift but commanded withall that he should make proofe of his owne worke which was instantly done and he most miserably tormented in his owne engine for who more fit to taste of tortures then they that have the inhumanity to devise them and they by Gods Justice meritedly suffer themselves what they devise for others of which Oâ—id speakes thus Ipse Perillaeo Phalaris permisit in are Edere mugitus bovis ore queri The purpose this All that the Workeman by his Art did gaine He in his owne brasse bellowed out his paine Amongst these bloudy minded men let me give you a taste of some no lesse cruell women Parisatis the mother of Cyrus Iunior not content with inflicting ordinary and common torments upon the bodies of men devised with her selfe a new and unheard of way how to put men to a lingring death by putting wormes unto them being alive and so to beâ—d evoured And Irene the Empresse and wife of Leo the fourth caused her owne sonne Constantinus Sextus first to be cast in prison next to have his eyes torne out of his head and lastly to die in a dungeon Fulvia the wife of Antony one of the Triumuirat after her husband had caused the head of Marcus Cicero to be cut off he commanded it to be brought home to him and plac't upon his Table and when he had for a whole day glutted his revengefull eyes with the sight thereof he sent it to his wife Fulvia who no sooner saw it but as if it had still enjoyed the sence of hearing rail'd upon it with many bitter and despightfull words and having tyred her selfe with maledictions and womanish taunts she tooke the head into her lap and calling for a knife she with her owne cruell hands cut out the tongue once the pride and glory of Eloquence and with the pinnes from the tyre of her head prickt it full of holes as if it had still beene sensible of paine till she had fully â—â—ted her spleene and cruelty Tomyris Queene of the Scythians after she had taken Cyrus King of Persia in battaile when he was brought unto her presence she first caused a great and large Tombe to be filled with the bloud of his slaine subjects and then commanded his head to be cut off and cast there in which done she tauntingly said Now Cyrus drinke bloud enough in thy death which in thy life time thou hast so much thirsted after Dirce a Theban woman when she understood that her husband Lycâ—s was inamored of Antiope the daughter of Nictâ—â—s in her pestilent jealousie she caused the Virgine to be surprised and being in her power she commanded her to be first bound unto the head of a wilde Bull and then made fire to be fastened to his hornes by which he being the more inraged ran madly through woods and over rocks untill her body was miserably torne in pieces Alike if not more bloudy minded was Amos 〈…〉 the wife of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 jealous of the wife of Masista president over the Baâ—â—rians in his absence most cruelly butchered her causing first both her breasts to bee cut off which she cast to the dogges to be eaten then her nose eares lippes and tongue to be throwne into the fire and all these torments she endured being yet alive Progne the daughter of Pandion King of Athens having by her husband Terenus King of Thrace a sweet young Prince called Itis because her husband had ravished her sister Philomel and cut out her tongue because shee should not reveale the incestious Act of this having notice she in an unworthy revenge slew her sonne whom the King much loved and having cookt his limbes with sundry sawces she set them before his father who eate thereof and after because he should be sensible of what he had done in the last course she served in his head Tullia the wife of Tarquinus sirnamed Superbus the proud and daughter to Servius then King of the Romans when her father was by her consent slaine in the Capitoll and his body throwne in the streets she riding that way in her Chariot when the horses stopt their course and the driver stood amazed she compelled him to drive over her fathers body with whose bloud and braines her coach-wheeles were stained yet was shee so farre from being daunted that she was said to rejoyce highly in the Act. Yet for this accident so hatefull it shewed to all the multitude that the very street where this was done is called Vicus sceleratus the impious or wicked street even to this day Now if any shall taxe my promise in the title of this worke and say True it is that these were very bloudy and cruell women and their horrid Acts worthy both to be condemned and hated of all people whatsoever but where are the Judgements or what were the punishments inflicted upon them I answer It is not to be doubted but all or most of these suffered by the heavy hand of God in this life and that remarkably howsoever the ancient Remembrancers and Chronologers of those times forgot to leave the manner and particular circumstances of their ends in that to give the World a more full satisfaction But howsoever of this I am assured that no greater Judgement can be imposed upon any man-slayer or murderer than to have his or her name branded to all posterity Their actions as they were prodigious so their very memories are to be made hatefull and abhorrid of all Caligula the Roman Emperour when his
Grandmother Antonia was dead and her much lamented body being brought to the funerall pile he would not so much as grace it with his presence but all the time of the Ceremony was sporting with his Jesters and Buffoons in a summer Parlor He slew his brother Tiberius and used his wives father with all contempt and contumelies He stuprated all his sisters and which is worse if worse might be hee after made them prostitutes to his Ruffians and Villaines Ptolomaeus the sonne of Iuba his neare Kinsman and Macro and Euma his Coadjutors in the Empire for their good and faithfull service he caused to be put to death He commanded a Questor in Rome because his name was given up in a Conjuration to bee stript naked and openly scourged Many of worthy birth and condition for crimes devised not proved against them to branded with hot irons or otherwise marked and maimed Some he confin'd to the mending of high-wayes others to labour and dig in mynes and others he imprisoned like bruit beasts in Grates and Cages some hee caused to be sawed in pieces in the middle and that for a small fault or none When he punisht the sonnes or the daughters he usually sent for the parents to bee spectators of the torment and when a father upon a time would have excused himselfe by the messenger that hee was grievously sicke and could not come hee sent a bed to his house and had him brought thereon Because a Comick Poet used in his Sceane one doubtfull versicle which by a double construction might bee wrested to trench upon the Emperours person he commanded him to be burnt upon the very stage on which the Dramma was acted When hee had sentenc't a Roman Knight to be torne by wilde beasts because the condemned person proclaimed his innocence he first commanded his tongue to be cut out and then sent him presently to be devoured Having called a Nobleman from Exile when after his returne he came into his presence the Emperour demanded of him What he and the rest did all the time of their banishment who thinking to flatter with him and insinuate into his favour made answer We continually prayed that your brother Tiberius might die and your sacred selfe survive and raigne long over us at which words a sudden fansie tooke him that all these which remained in Exile desired his death and therefore hee sent in all haste to have them suddenly dispatched out of their lives Besides his facinorous workes he used words fierce hasty and favouring of all inhumanity among others this phrase was often in his mouth All things against all men are to me lawfull When certaine Gauls and Grecians were together put to death hee boasted openly as of a great conquest saying He had conquered Gallogracia Those whom he tortured by degree still as they fainted hee would have them comforted with hot drinkes to make them longer endure their paine giving alwayes a charge to the tormentors in these words Have yee a care to make them sensible that they must die He would also often bragge of that sentence of the Tragicall Poet Oderunt dum metuunt They hate whilest they fear He often wished that all the people of Rome had but one neck that at one blow with an axe hee might cut it asunder Hee would often grieve and complaine of those times wherein hee lived because they were not made notorious by some great affliction and dire calamity or other wishing the slaughter of Armies famine pestilence combustions in the Empire swallowing of Cities by earthquakes and whatsoever all good men desired of the gods might not chance but be removed from them all these mischiefes and miseries hee wisht might be inflicted on them not excepting the security of his owne person Being at Putcoli at a solemne annuall dedication made to the Sea where a multitude of people were assembled he called and beckoned a great company of men women and children to come to that part of the shore where he was seated which having done he commanded the souldiers of his guard to precipitate them into the water and those who catcht hold of any thing to save themselves from drowning they with their speares and javelins pusht from all safety so that they all perisht together At a publike banquet because a servant that waited mistooke the taking away of a plate trencher he presently delivered him to the Hangman to have his hands cut off and then the plate to be hanged about his neck and to rest upon his bosome then a scroule in large letters to be pasted thereon where was inscribed his fault and cause of punishment and in that manner to be led as a spectacle to all the Feasters Hee contracted a combat with a valiant and strong man who stooping to his mercy as was before agreed betwixt them he tooke the advantage fell upon him and slew him I am tyred with the recicall of his many tyrannies these being but part of them on which I have dwelt the longer because in the subsequent examples I purpose to be more compenâ—ious and end him with his death and lasting ignomiâ—y who was 〈◊〉 by a Tribune comming from the Theatre his wife after him and his daughter crushed to death against a wall Avidius Cassius a barbarous and bloudy fellow the Romans called a second Cateline because he was so covetous and thirsty after bloud for besides many publike slaughters and private murders striving to imitate Periâ—â—s he invented an engine of torture never heard or I thinke scarce heard of before for he caused a beame or pole betwixt fourscoure and an hundred foot in length to be fixed in the earth to which from the top to the bottome thereof he caused the living Bodies of men to be fastened and a fire of weâ—â—illets and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and straw to be put under them till some with the flame consumed others with the smoake suffocated all perished to other with which manner of torture borrowed from his president in the ten Persecutions was used upon the Christians but he escaped not a notorious judgement dying as some have reported a strange and remarkable death for sitting at dinner when an extrordinary feast was served whilest his hand was in the dish and the meat between his fingers one hired to that purpose standing or waiting behinde him with his sword at one blow strook off his head and thus he perished without any remorse or penitence in himselfe or any commiseration or pity from others Though I have spoken of Domitius Nero and withall the judgement in his death yet hear but megive ye a brief relation of his inimitable butcheries and execrable murders with actions every way as prodigious He was the son of Domitius Aenobarbus and Agrippina who slew his mother He first married Octaviae and then Sabina Poppaea first commanding their husbands to be slain and was the cause of both their deaths after for after in his implacable fury he had killed Poppaea being at that
time big with childe with a spurne upon her wombe by which she perished with her infant because Antonia the daughter of Claudius fearing the like refused to marry with him he commanded her to be put to death He persecuted the Church and under his Tyranny Saint Peter and Saint Paul both suffered Martyrdom Aulus Plancius a beautifull young Roman after he had violently and against his will stuprated he put to death 〈◊〉 Crispinus his step son by the marriage of Poppaea a beardlesse youth in rage he made to be drowned Many freed men when they came to the estate of riches he cut off by the sword He pulled out the eyes of Cassius Longinus an excellent Lawyer or Orator and never made known the cause of his offence To Pâ—liâ—hagus by Nation an Aegyptian who was accustomed to eat raw flesh he gave living men to be devoured these are but a part of his barbarous inhumanities who not throughly sated with the blood of men sought to exercise his hate upon Rome his own City by setting a great part of it on fire his excuse being the deformity thereof which incendiary he beheld from the Meceâ—â—tian Tower glorying in the flames thereof being so far from commanding the fire to be extinguished that he suffered not any man to enter into his own house to save any part of his Goods and yet how mercifull was God in his judgement to punish this Tyrant with one miserable death who had indeed deserved more than a thousand Creon a Tyrant of Thebes besides many other cruelties in which he exprest a most bestiall and unmercifull nature denied Buriall to all the dead Bodies of his Enemies slain in Battell with others of his own Subjects who had any way offended him whom Theseus after slew in a conflict and served him with the same sauce forbidding his dead carcase to be inhumed or sepulcred but thrown out in the fields for the brute beasts to feed and the fowles of the air to prey on Antonâ—â—â— Commodus one of the Roman Emperours had so troubled the Empire with gladiatory slaughters that the people in contempt gave him the denomination of Gladiator or Fencer He as Lampridius witnesseth when he saw any man weak or unserviceable by reason of some disease in his feet would shoot him with arrowes to death having a strong steel Bowe made for that purpose The braines of others he used to beat out of their heads with clubs and boasted that therein he imitated Hercules to that purpose putting on a Lions skin He was also so irriligious and such a contemner of the gods that offerings and sacrifice at the altars he would mingle with the blood and flesh of men and if any man shewed either a smiling or supercilious brow at what he did both were alike him he commanded to be cast to the Lions and other wilde beasts to be devoured One of his servants being commanded to reade unto him the tyrannous Raigne of Caligula with the manner of his death as it was set down in Sâ—etoniuâ— Tranquillus because it displeased him as somewhat reflecting on his person he commanded to be cast to the Lions If any man in his own hearing or by the information of other said he must die he was precipitated from a rocke or some other high place and his body crushed to pieces he delighted to see the bellies of fat men ript up and how suddenly their guts and entrals would tumble to the ground But the people after so great sufferings now at length tired with his inhumanities in the very height of his insolencies when he least dreamed of any such disaster caused him to be flain which though a violent death yet in all mens judgements may appear somewhat too milde for his merit but the great Judge of all sometime mitigates the punishments of such grand malefactours here to make their torments more great and perdurable in the world to come The next I present to your view is Caius Marius the Roman who as he was of great power and potency in Rome so his pride was boundlesse and unmeasured but his inhumanity far exceeding them both for after his exile when he had again emptied the City of all those whom he suspected to have but the least finger in his confinement by the assistance of Cinna Carbo and Sertorius he presently fell upon the slaughters of the Princes and Senatours which was so violent that the channels overflowed with the blood of the slain Nobility He took away the head from Octavius the Consul and caused that of Octavius a consular Senator to be brought and set upon his table taunting and deriding him even after death Casar and Fimbria two of the most eminent in the City he commanded to be murdered in their own houses breaking them violently open in the night and killing them in their beds the two Crassi the father and the son he flew one in the sight of the other the more to aggravate their sorrow in their alternate indulgence Bebius and Numitorius he commanded to be dragged through the Forum by the common hangmans clutches but Catulus Lactutius by swallowing fire ended his life and escaped his greater cruelty Archarius and Flamen Dialis a priest whose office was sacred and in great reverence amongst the Romans he commanded to be through pierced with swords All which examples of Tyranny he committed from the Kalends of January to the Ides of the same moneth but what heavy judgements God laid upon him you shall next hear in the relation upon Sylla Which Lucius Sylla made a deluge and overâ—â—ux of blood through Rome and all Italy four legions of the contrary faction of Marius being surprised and imploring his mercy he commanded instantly to be cut in pieces the Prestines who had received and entertained Marius junior into their City after they had yeelded themselves unto his mercy he put them out of the City commanding Putilius Cethegus to kill them every man without the wals and their bodies to be left in open fields without buriall in which inhumanity perished at once five thousand men four thousand and 700 slain by strength of his bloody Edict of proscription he caused their names to be registred in the publike tables lest the memory of that facinorous act might be buried in oblivion and not sating himselfe with the strage of men his tyranny usurped upon women not sparing matron or virgin but he commanded their heads being cut off to be brought unto him that he might thereby the better glut his savage indignation and implacable fury Marcus Marius the Praetor he deprived not of his life before his eyes were pulled out of his head and after caused all the bones in his body to be broken Marcus Pletoriâ—s because being sent to kill his enemy Caius Marius he was daunted at his brave aspect and honourable presence and therefore left the fatall act unperformed he commanded him instantly to be slain Nor did his malitious rankor and hate end in the
The greatest part of his wealth he purchast out of the civill garboyles seditions and combustions converting the publike calamities to his private use and benefit for when he had left him three hundred Talents onely from his fathers Inheritance before he enterprised any expedition against the Parthians hee had gathered together into one Magazine seaven thousand and one hundred Talents though hee had before consecrated the Tenths and Tythes of his whole estate to the Temple of Hercules Hee moreover made a publique Banquet in which he feasted the whole people of Rome and gave to every one of his guests three pounds in silver He kept moreover as his servants that had dependance of him five hundred Smiths and Carpenters skilfull in Architecture whom hee not onely imployed in his owne sumptuous Buildings and Aedisices but to any noble Citizen who had a will and desire to build he not onely lent them freely but paid them at his owne charge yet this man overcome with covetousnesse of the Parthian gold was by them taken prisoner in battaile who knowing his great avarice caused molten gold to be powr'd downe his throat deriding his insaciety in these tearmes For gold thou thirstest in thy life and now take thy fill of it in thy death And yet Pallas the freed man of Claudius Caesar was held to bee twenty times richer then Crassus Plinius the Praetor speakes of this Pallas as also of Calistus and Narcissus possest of innumerable wealth during the principality of Claudius insomuch that the plenty of Narcissus grew to a proverbe for if they had to speake of any man who was possese of superabundant wealth they would say he was as rich as Narcissus of this Pallas Iuvenall speakes in his first Satyre who with Narcissus were the freed men of Claudius and by the generall suffrage of the Senate had not onely mighty Donatives conferred upon them but they were admitted unto prime Magistrates and underwent the most honourable offices in the Citie More over the Emperour as Tacitus writes bestowed upon Pallas the Praetorian Ensignes with great summes of money being yearely possest besides his domestick wealth of three thousand Sestertii but what happinesse had hee by the enjoying of such abundance the same Author relates that Ner◠Caesar grieving that hee had lived so long for hee was growne aged caused him to be poysoned and by that meanes consiscated his goods to his owne use Antiochus the great King of Syria did so abound in riches that purposing to make warre upon the Romans he gathered a puissant and numerous Army who were accommodated in all the bravery that could be possible their Helmets being richly plumed and the heads of their Speares and Shields shining with silver and gold who after with great esteeme shewing the glory of his Souldiers and pride of his Host to Hanniball he asked him whether he thought that these were not able to conquer the Romane who after some small pause made him answer I cannot presume that they are able to vanquish them but of this I am most assured they are able to satisfie them if the Romans be covetous and so it after proved to his great dishonour Pythius Bythinius a Persian gave to Dari 〈…〉 a plaine tree and a Vine all of gold he also feasted Xerxes Army in his expedition towards Greece which consisted of seaven hundred fourescore and eight thousand men and allowed unto them five moneths provision of corne victuall and pay and onely because that of five sonnes he had Xerxes would leave one of them at home with him to comfort him image Herodotus and Pliny both testifie of him that being demanded of the King of what possession 〈◊〉 was he made answer That he had in his Coffer ten thousand Talents of silver and foure hundred Mirlads of gold besides of the coyne of the Daricans which amounted to seaven thousand pound weight in gold all which when he had prostrated to the Kings service and free dispose he wondring at his extraordinary liberality tooke to supply his present use the foure hundred Miriads of gold and left him the rest notwithstanding which in his returne from Greece whence he was basely beaten and baffled he caused that young man the sonne of so bountifull a father before his face to be cut in pieces And thus we see there is no trust in riches for even King David and his sonne who had wealth above account and gold and treasure beyond numbe◠the one 〈◊〉 into Murder and Adulterie the other into Lust and Idolatrie From those which were rich I come to the covetous Constat Manasses Annaltum pag. 94. relates that Chaganus King of the Septentrionall Scythians when he had invaded many of the Roman Forts and Cittadels even those most strongly manned and defenc't in his first violent assaults tooke in many walled Cities and all the Region bordering upon Ister quite depopulutated insomuch that the whole River was sanguin'd with the bloud of the Natives And having surprised many Captives to the number of twelve thousand men hee sent to the Emperour Mauricius to know if hee would redeeme them being Christians and his subjects but neither the extreame rage of the Scythian cruelty nor the barbarous Kings inhumanity neither the cryes and ejaculations of the miserable and distressed prisoners could move the minde of this obdure and flinty-hearted Emperour who was wholly given over the base and sordid avarice Againe Chaganus sent unto him Embassadours with more moderate and reasonable conditions with a great part of the first price deducted to which the covetous Emperour would not lend any eare at all which Chaganus hearing he raged like a Tyger and caused them all to be hewed to pieces the whole Region to be covered with their carkasses the fields to bee stain'd with their bloud and their bodies to be piled in an heape almost to the height of a Pine-tree which cruell act of the Emperour my Author thus aggravates O gold and love of gold more cruell then a Tyrant of men the persecutor the Fort of mischiefe the Castle of destruction the eversion of Towers the depopulation of Cities the demolishing of Walls and Gates the fall of Houses the ruine of Families O with what mischiefes doest thou afflict us mortals no earthly thing can compare with thee in cruelty Thou softnest the hard indurat'st the soft thou givest speech to the silent and makest mute the free speaker In roving thou makest the swift slow pac't and puttest wings to the feet of the lazy Thou kickest against Law and Justice expellest bashfulnesse and modesty violat'st Sepulchres diggest through there is nothing which thou wilt not sell nothing which thou wilt not betray Now let us looke upon the dreadfull Judgement of God which fell upon this gripple minded Prince who was so hated amongst the Christians that upon Christmas day as he was entring into the Temple was like to have beene stoned to death After which he grew jealous even of his owne brother and all
seeing him run they ran after him all not knowing the originall of this uprore they stop him and demand the cause of his flight who in his great affright and terrour of conscience said He was the man They asked what man he answered the same man that committed such a bloody murder so many yeares since upon which he was apprehended and committed to Newgate arraigned by his own confession condemned and hanged first on a gibbet and after at Mile-end in chaines Thus we see how the devill never leaves his ministers and servants especially in this horrid case of murder without shame and judgement Another strange but most true story I shall relate of a young Gentleman of good meanes and parentage brought up in Cambridge whose name for his worshipfull kinreds sake I am desirous to conceal he being of a bould spirit and very able body and much given unto riot and expence could not containe himselfe within his exhibition but being a fellow-commoner lavisht much beyond his allowance to helpe which and to keepe his credit in the Towne he kept a good horse in the stable and oftentimes would flie out and take a purse by the high-way and thus he continued a yeare or thereabouts without the jealousie or suspition of any At length his quarterly meanes not being come up from his father and hee wanting money to supply his ordinary riots hee put himselfe into a disguise tooke horse and crossing New-market Heath he discovered a purchase a serving-man with a cloak-bag behinde him and spying him to travell singly and alone he made towards him and bid him stand and deliver the other unacquainted with that language answered him that he had but little money and what he had he was loath to part with Then said the Gentleman thiefe thou must fight for it Content saith the other and withall both alight and drew and fell stoutly to their businesse in this conflict the honest serving-man was infortunately slain which done the other but sleightly wounded tooke away his cloak-bagge and binding it behinde his owne horse up and fled towards the University and having set up his horse in the Town and carried the cloak-bagge or Portmantuan to his chamber he no sooner opened it but he found a Letter directed to him from his father the contents whereof were That hee had sent him his quarterly or halfe-yeares allowance by his owne man a faithfull servant commended unto him by a deare friend whom he had lately entertained willing his sonne to use the man kindly for his sake which Letter when he had read and found the money told to a penny and considering he had kil'd his owne fathers man whom he had intreated to be used curteously at his hands and onely to take away his owne by force abroad which hee might have had peaceably and quietly brought home to his chamber he grew to be strangely alter'd changing all his former mirth into a deepe melancholy In briefe the robbery and murder were found and known and the Lord chiefe Justice Popham then riding that Circuit whose neare kinsman hee was he was arraigned and condemned at Cambridge Assises though great meanes were made for his pardon yet none could prevaile the Judge forgetting all alliance would neither commiserate his youth nor want of discretion but caused him without respect of person to be hanged up amongst the ordinary and common malefactors Doctor Otho Melander reports this horrible parricide to be committed in the yeare of Grace 1568. within the Saxon confines At a place called Albidos neare unto the Lyon Tower which hath beene an ancient seat of the Dukes of that Countrey There saith he lived a father who had two sonnes the one hee brought up to husbandry the other in merchandise both very obedient and dutifull and given to thrift and good husbandry the Merchant traded in Lubeck where in few yeares hee got a very faire estate and falling sicke even in his prime trading he made his Will in which hee bequeathed to his brother about the summe of five hundred pounds and his father ten and died some few houres after he had setled his estate But before his death he sent to his brother to come in person and receive those Legacies the father not knowing how he had disposed of his meanes dispatcht his other sonne with all speed possible to Lubeck more avaritious after what his sonne the Merchant had left him then sorrowing for his death though hee were a young man of great expectation and of a most hopefull fortune The surviving sonne who was the younger arriveth at the Citie and having first deplored the death of his brother as nature bound him and glad to heare of him so great and good a report he takes out a copie of the Will and after receiveth his money to a farthing and with this new stock seeing what was past hee joyfully returnes into his owne Countrey who at his first arrivall was as gladly welcommed by his father and mother who were over-joyed to looke upon the bagges that hee had brought but when by reading of the Will they saw how partially the money was disposed in that so little fell to their share they first began bitterly to curse the dead sonne and after barbarously to raile on the living out-facing him that he had changed the Will by altering the old and forging a new which the innocent youth denying and excusing himselfe by telling them that the originall was upon record and by that they might be fully satisfied yet all would give them no satisfaction till very wearinesse made them give over their heavy execrations then the sonne offered them whatsoever was his to dispose of at their pleasure which they very churlishly refused and bad him take all and the Devill give him good with it which drew teares from the sonnes passionate eyes who after his blessing craved but denyed very dolefully left them and was no sooner departed from them but to compasse this money they began to devise and consult about his death which they concluded to be performed that night and when hee was sleeping in his bed they both set violently and tygerly upon him forcing daggers into his breast so that inforced with the agony of the wounds he opened his eyes and spying both his parents with their hands imbrued in his bloud he with a loud ejaculation clamour'd out these words or to the same sence Quae non Aurum hominem cogis quae non mala suades In Natos etiam stringere ferra Iubes That is O Gold to what dost thou not compell man to what evils dost thou not perswade are not these sufficient but must thou cause parents to sheath their weapons in their owne bowels their children which words were uttered with such a loud and shrill shreeke that it was heard by the neighbours who starting out of their beds and breaking open the doores found them in the very act before the body was cold for which they were apprehended
of Augustus Caesar was a man of a most perdit obscenenesse practised in that superlative degree of filthinesse that scarce any age could produce a prodegy to paralell him modesty will not suffer me to give them name And Tegillinus according to Tacitus lib. 17. was a man of a most corrupted life who soothed and humoured Nero in all his ribaldries his sirname was Othonius by whose flattery and calumny many a noble Roman was put to death and when Otho who succeeded Nero came to wear the Imperiall purple and to be instated Emperour he sent amongst other malefactours for him to suffer as a putrified and corrupt member of the State and when the executioner with other lictors and officers came to surprise him in his house they found him drinking and rioting amongst his catamites and harlots where without limiting any time either to settle his estate or to take leave of any of his friends he was instantly slain and his wounded body cast into the open streets Crassus the richest of the Roman fathers after the death of one of his brothers married his wife by whom he had many children And Surinus the wealthiest and most potent of the Parthians next to the King had in his tents two hundred concubines at one time And Xerxes King of Persia was so given over to all licentiousnesse and luxury that he hired pursuivants and kept Cursors and messengers in pay to inquire and finde out men who could devise new wayes of voluptuousnesse and to them gave great rewards for so Valerius Maximus reports of him And Volateranus remembers us of one Vgutius a Florentine Prince who was slain of his Citizens and Subjects for stuprating their wives and vitiating their virgins Thus seldom we see this vice to go unpunished Nor is it particular to the masculine sex as the sole provocatours hereof but women have been equally and alike guilty We reade in Genesis of Potiphars wife who solicited Ioseph to her adulterate embraces who because he refused to commit such villany and to offend both God and his master she accused him to his Lord that he would have done to her violence for which he lay two years in prison But from prophane Histories we have many examples For Iulia Agrippina the mother of Nero was said to have unlawfull congresse with Domitian for so Iuvenal saith nay more after feasting and banqueting in the heat of her cups when she with her son were together topt with wine they commonly used incestuous consociety the conclusion of which impious lust was that the son in the end having caused his mother to be slain commanded her body to be dissected and ript open before his face as longing to see the bed wherein he lay when he was an unborne infant She was the daughter to Germanicus sister to Caligula the wife first of Domitius after of Clodius whom she poysoned for no other cause but to make Nero her son Emperour and you hear how well he requited her A chicken of the same brood was Messalina the daughter of Messala and the wife and Empresse of Claudius Caesar a woman of a most insatiate lust whose custome was to disguise her selfe like a private Gentlewoman so that she might not be known and with her pandor ushering her to walke unto common stewes and brothell-houses and there prostitute her selfe to all commers whosoever nay she was not ashamed to contend with the ablest and strongest Harlot in the City for masterie whence also shee returned rather tyred then satisfied nay more she selected out of the noblest Wives and Virgins to be eye witnesses and companions in her filthinesse whither men also were not denied accesse as spectators against all womenly shame and modesty and if any noble Gentleman of whom she seemed to be enamoured refused or despised her profered imbraces shee would feigne and devise some crime or other to be revenged on him and his whole familie Pliu. lib. 29 tels us That one Vectius Valius a notable Physitian was nobilitated meerly for pandthering to her luxuries Fabia the Wife of Fabrius Fabricanus grew greatly besotted on the love of a faire young Gentleman call'd Petroninus Valentinus who the more freely to injoy in her petulant imbraces caused her husband to be traiterously murdred But being in regard of the high measure of the fault complain'd upon by her husbands Kinred and Friends shee was convicted by the Iulian Law and suffered according to the penalty thereof Martiall reckoneth up as notorious Strumpets and Adulteresses Leviana Paula Proculina Zectoria Gallia as Catullus remembreth us of Austelina and Iuvenall of Hyppia Zoe one of the Roman Empresses caused her husband Arginopilus to be slaine to adulterate her selfe with Michael Paleologus but who shall read of both their ends shall finde that they were most wretched and miserable As these for Scortation and Adultery so others have been notoriously infamous for Incest Giddica the Wife of Pomminius Laurentinus grew into such an extreme dotage of her sonne in law Comminius that not able to compasse her unchaste desires and her Incestuous love being discovered to her husband shee dispairingly strangled her selfe of which death also Phoedra alike besotted on her husbands sonne Hippolitus perished Papinius the sonne of Papinius Volucris had a beautifull Sister whose name was Canusia These two spending their childhood together as their yeares so their naturall affection increased insomuch that the one thought nothing to deer for the other their love being mutuall and alternate not guilty of the least Impious thought or immodest apprehension but when they came to maturity new thoughts began to grow and fresh temptations to arise to which in their minority they were altogether unacquainted and now they could not sollace themselves without sighing nor frame any mirth but mixt with melancholly both were sick and of one disease but neither had the boldnesse to discover the nature of their malady and thus they continued for a season In the meane time the Father had found out a noble match for his Sonne but he put it off with evasions and could not bee wonne to lend a willing eare to the motion The Mother also had sought an Husband for her daughter to which shee was quite averse alledging her youth and unripenesse of yeares and so both the motions had a cessation for a time without any suspition in which interim the incestuous fire burst out into a flame which in the end consumed them both for the Sister was found to be great with Childe by the Brother which a length comming to the knowledge of the Father he grew inraged beyond all patience neither could his wrath be mitigated or appeased by the teares of the Mother or mediation of any friend but his constant resolution was they both should die yet not willing to imbrue his own hands in their bloud he devised another course causing two swords to be made the own he sent to his son Papinius the other to his
daughter with no other message then this you must not live which the wretched creatures understanding knowing the austeritie of their Father and his constancy in his resolutions hee fell upon the one and shee on the other and so miserably ended their lives Iulia was the step-Mother of Antonius Caracalla Emperour of the Romans who having cast many wanton glances towards her and she reciprocally answering them at length when they were in familiar discourse together he brake forth into these words vellem si liceret I would if it were lawfull whose meaning she soone apprehending suddenly answered again and without pause si lubet licet leges dat Imperator non accipit if you like it is lawfull Emperours make Lawes but are tide to none with which words being emboldned he first contracted and then publikely married her notwithstanding some few dayes beforehe had caused her owne sonne Geta to be put to death and this is related by Sextus Aurelius and by Aeliâ—â— Spartanus Amongst these Incestuous is listed Capronia the vestall Virgin who for her offencâ— was strangled Semiramis was the wife of Ninus King of Assyria who after she had caused her husbands death and fearing lest so great and warlike a people would not be govern'd by one of her Sex shee tooke upon her the masculine shape of her Sonne whom she had altogether brought up in delicacie and effeminacy and in his name she raigned for the space of fourtie two yeares conquering the most part of Asia and erecting many famous Cities But Babylon she made her chiefe place of residence who also hedged or walled in the vast River Euphrates turning the channell and compelling it to run through the great City yet according to Diodorus lib. tertio shee grew to bee of that venerious and libidinous disposition she did not onely admit but hire and inforce divers of the youngest and ablest Souldiers to her lascivious and incontinent imbraces and further as Trogus Pompeius lib. 2. hath left remembred shee laboured to have Carnall congression with her sonne Ninus whom she concealed in her Pallace and whose shape she adulterated for which setting all Filiall respect and obedience aside hee slew her with his owne hands and after raigned in her stead A young Spanish Maid having prostituted her selfe to a Gentleman upon promise of marriage she being of meane parentage he married another which comming to her eare she vowed his death and the better to effect it preswaded him by flattering Letters to come againe and see her which he did and although at first she received him with teares and cornplaints yet seeming at last to be satisfied with some reasons he alledged she permitted him to use the same privitie with her as before and so to bed they went together but when he was asleepe she cruelly murdered him having first bound him so fast with a Cord that he could not make any resistance using also divers cruelties against the dead body before the heat of her rage could be extinguished For the which she also suffered death having first voluntarily accused her selfe A Gentleman of Millan a Widower tho of 60 yeares of age fell in love with a young Wench Daughter to a Farmer his Tenant whom he bought for ready money of the wretched Father to serve his Lust. This Strumpet growing impudent after a while fell in love with the eldest son of this Gentleman being about twentie yeares old and in the presence of a Cousin of hers who was her Baud she discovers her whole heart to him seeking by teares and sighs to draw him to commit Incest But the Gentleman having more grace sharply reprehended and threatned both her and her Companion Wherefore to excuse this her shamelesnesse as soone as the Father returned she complaines to him saying That his sonne had sought three or foure times to corrupt her which he beleeving and meeting his sonne at the staires head ranne furiously at him with his sword drawne and the sonne to shun that danger leapt backward downe the staires and brake his neck The Father following and finding him dead after cryes of fury and despaire in detestation of his former wicked life fell upon his owne sword and so dyed The Strumpet hearing by the fearfull cryes of the servant what had hapned pursued by the just judgement of God she runnes toward a Well neere the house into which she threw her selfe and was drowned The she Baud being apprehended and racked confesseth the whole plot and was therefore justly executed her body and the young Strumpets being hanged in the open aire as a prey for ravenous Birds Nicholas Prince of Opolia was so monstrously given to corrupt wives and maids that none were safe that came neere him for which God punished him in this manner Being at Nice in an assembly of the States of Silesia called by Cassimer Prince of that Countrey it hapned that one in his presence brought a packet of Letters to Prince Cassimer which being opened he delivered to the Bishop of Nice to read Which Nicholas seeing and his former beastly wickednesse causing him to imagine it was some partie made against him to seize upon his life suddenly drew his Dagger and desperately runnes against Cassimer and the Bishop whom he wounded tho but lightly for that being in open Court many Nobles and Gentlemen defended them Nicholas failing of his purpose saves himselfe in the Sanctuary from which he was drawne by the Bishops command and brought backe into the assembly by whom he was justly condemned for this and many other notorious Crimes and the next day was publiquely beheaded and his naked body as a reproch of his former wickednesse exposed to the view of all men A Burgesse of Ulmes finding his wife wantonly given did often advise her to carry her selfe in a more modest and civill sort But she not regarding his admonitions and he more and more suspecting her dis-honesty on a time he made a shew to goe into the Countrey but suddenly slipt back into his house without discovery and privately hid himselfe yet so that he saw his servants busied in preparing a feast and the Adulterer and his wife imbracing each other Yet he retained himselfe till after supper when seeing them enter the chamber to goe to bed together using filthy speeches the witnesses of their wickednesse he suddenly stepping out first killed the Adulterer and then his wife and having justified his proceedings before the criminall Judges he obtained pardon for the same An Advocate of Constance having had the carnall knowledge of an Atturnies wife of the same Citie which the Atturney suspecting pretends a journey into the Countrey but returning at night he heard they were together in a Hot-house in an old womans house that dwelt by him whereupon he goes thither with three of his friends which he left in the street to hinder any that should come to helpe them then entring the house with a strong Curry-combe in
noise not so much as a sigh or groane hee began to imagine that shee was dead and so indeed it prov'd hee then more incivilly then before rapt at his Ladyes chamber-doore and wakned her telling her that shee had now the event of her bloudy and cruell desires for by reason that there was a still silence in the Dungeon hee perceived the poore Virgin had expired her life At which words being startl'd and strangely mov'd she rose from her bed and calling for store of lights caused the Dungeon doore to be opened where they might behold a most ruthfull and samentable spectacle the maid throwne upon her backe and foure great Snakes wrapt about her one of an extraordinary bignesse wound about her neck another had twinde it selfe encompassing both her legges a third like a girdle imbrac'd her waste or middle a fourth stuck upon her jawes stretching its selfe to its utmost length which no sooner taken thence but was found dead having so ingorg'd it selfe with her bloud that it swel'd and burst asunder At whichsight the Lady strook with the horrour thereof from a suddaine melancholy grew into a meere madnesse and in a raging fit soon after dy'd Strange were that act abroad which cannot in some sort be parallel'd with us at home At Gainsborough in Lincolnshire it happened that a Gentleman of the Town had occasion to ride up to London about his Term businesse and as the custome is in the Countrey the night before a man takes his journey his neighbours and friends will send in their meat and sup with him and drinke to the hope of his safe returne and so they did to him Now this Gentleman had in his house a young gentlewoman sent thither to bee tuter'd and withall to learne good huswifrie and was about the age of fourteen or fifteen yeares at the most The next morning before hee tooke horse when hee call'd for water this maid brought him the Towell and Bason and held it till hee had wash'd onely in rubbing of his hands he sprinkled a little water on her face which his wife observed after Breakfast the Gentleman road on his journey and the woman in whom this slight accident strooke a deepe impression of devillish Jealousie soon after call'd to the maid to deliver her an account of her linnen us'd the night before which was her charge she having hid a Napkin or two out of the way of purpose to pick a quarrell with her The Girle sought in every roome and could not finde them then she bid her looke in the next Chamber but shee was no sooner up staires but after followes the Mistresse like an incens'd Virago and shut the doores fast upon her then casts her upon the Bed and threw another Feather-bed upon her and spying a Scotch Pocket-Dagger hanging by the Walls shee tooke out one of the knives and casting her selfe upon the upper bed turn'd up the bottome where she fell most unwoman-like to worke with her maid making her quite uncapable of future marriage and this was done withinin memory for to the womans great ignominy and shame in the same Towne I have heard it reported and been shewne the very house where the deed was done The horridnesse of which Act makes me that I cannot conceale her name shee was call'd Mistris Brig house In this intrim a Serving-man comming in and hearing his Mistris was in great displeasure and distemperature gone up with her maid and knowing her froward and hasty disposition he went to the doore and knockt but hearing none but one as it were miserably forcing breath for life he lookt in either at some chinke or the key-hole where he saw his Mistris in the same posture I before described with a knife in her hand and one pittifully bleeding under her He broke open the doore being Wainscot and casting her off from the Bed to the floore tooke up the Maid nigh stifled and carried her to a neighbours house where Chyrurgeons were sent for and she in time recovered of life though shee had made her utterly unable of Conception But what gain'd shee by this her uncivill cruelty she was after abhorr'd by all good and modest women asham'd to looke out of her owne doores neither would any of fashion converse with her but held it a scandall to be but seen in her company But now to return to the Judgments inflicted upon adultery and to shew what our own countrey relates as those perpetrated and committed in this Land King Locrine who succeeded his Father Brute in the Kingdome tooke to his Bride Guendolina daughter to Corinaus Duke of Cornwall who lived in great conjugall love together having a young Prince to their issue call'd Madan but after the King having rest and ease in his age with which his youth was scarce acquainted with he was greatly enamoured of a delicate faire Lady whose name was Estrild the daughter of one Homber a Dane who with a great power invading the Land the King gave him battaile and having routed their whole Army they were forc'd to take that great River which parteth Lincoln-shire and Holdernes and runnes up to Hull in which he with his people being drowned left to the same River his name unto this day To returne to the matter Locrine had by this Lady Estrild a daughter call'd Sabrina but this close packing could not be long conceal'd but by some who thought to insinuate into the favour of the Queen who was of a haughty and masculine spirit all was told her for which being mightily incensed no mediation could appease her implacability but she first incensed her Father and then all her owne particular friends whom by her bounty or favour shee had before obliged to make Warre upon her Husband and prevailing in her purpose shee gave the King Battaile in which his party was discomfited and he himselfe slaine in field This revenge to any of reason might seeme sufficient but here her anger rested not but shee caused the faire Estrild and her Daughter Sabrina to be brought unto her Tent where having reviled them both one with the name of Whore the other of Bastard shee in her heat of bloud and height of rage commanded them both to be throwne into the River neare unto the place where the Battaile was late fought where they were both drowned the River upon that accident losing the name and after the Daughter Sabrina hath beene called Severne even to this day Brithricus the first King of the West Saxons began his Reigne in the yeare of our Lord seven hundred threescore and eighteen and the tenth of Charles the Great then King of France who took to Wife Ethelburge one of the Daughters of Off a King of Mercia he was a valiant Prince and renowned for many Warlike exploits but especially for beating the Danes and compelling them to avoid the Land But what can Valour or Prowesse availe against a wicked and cursed woman who the more freely to
enjoy the moecall embraces of her libidinous companion plotted divers ways to take away her husbands life which at length she affected by poysoning him and divers of his family which having done and fearing to be questioned about the Fact she truss'd up her Jewels and the best things about her and fled into France unto the Court of Charles the Great with whom she so temporized and qualified her owne impious Cause and being withall a Lady of extraordinary aspect and presence that she grew highly into his grace and favour But when after he was informed of her unstable condition hee thought to make some tryall of her and being at that time a Widdower one day when hee was in some private conference with her at a window hee said openly Now Lady I put it to your free election whether you will take mee for your wedded Lord and Husband or this my Son here standing in presence To which Question shee without the least pause gave this suddaine Answer Then I make choice of the Sonne and refuse the Father which the King taking as an affront and being therewith somewhat mov'd he as suddenly reply'd I protest woman if thou hadst made choice of me I would have given thee to my Sonne if he would have accepted of thee but for that thou hast slighted and for saken me thou shalt now have neither of us and so presently commanded her as a Recluse to be shut up into a Nunnery But this place though never so strict could not containe her within the bounds of Modesty or Chastity For by the meanes of some Libertines her old companions and acquaintance shee made an escape out of the Cloister and having quitted that place shee wandred up and downe till having consumed all that shee could make she fell into necessitous poverty in which she miserably dy'd none commiserating her in her greatest extremity In memory of which her misdemeanors mixt with the murder of her naturall Lord and Husband the Kings of the West Saxons made a Decree that thence-forward none of their Wives should be called Queenes nor sit by them at any Feast or in any place of State or Honour And this was observed amongst them for a long time after Now to shew how the Creator of all who instituted chaste Matrimony in Paradice as hee hates those contaminated with all impurity so of the contrary he is a Guardian and Potector to those of cleane and undefiled life as may appeare by this subsequent story In the time of Edward the sonne of King Edgar by his first wife Egelfleda who began his reigne in the yeare of Grace nine hundred threescore and nineteene though he was opposed by his step-mother Elphaida who got into her confederacy Alphred Duke of Mercia a potent man in those dayes to have instated her sonne Egelredus a childe of seven yeares old in the Regall Dignity yet she was opposed by Bishop Dunstan with the rest of the Clergy who were also supported by the Earle of East Ingland now called Essex who against the Queens minde and her Confederates Crowned the said Edw. at Kingstowne but the fore-named Alphred who altogether adhered to the proceedings of the Dowager Queen being suspected to have too much private familiarity with her they agreed to put the strict Religious Cloysterers out of the College of Winchester where K. Edgar had before there placed and put into their roomes so many wanton and lascivious Clerks every one of them having his Concubine about him which Controversie had been like to have ended in bloud But there was an assembly of the Bishops and Lords the Prelates and Peeres of both parties in which Dunstan maintaining Chastity was much despised by the Adversary but still he upheld his opinion being grounded upon Justice and Vertue Now the place of their meeting was in a faire and large upper â—â—om and in this great division and argument it being doubtfull which side would carry it suddenly the joysts of the Loft failed and the floore tumbled downe being a great distance from the ground in which ruine the greatest part of those adverse to the Bishop and Clergy were either slaine outright or very dangerously hurt even to lamenesse but of all those that stood with Dunstan in the defence of chastity not one perished neither was any heard to complaine of the least hurt felt or found about them by which miraculous accident the Bishop compass'd his pious and religious ends This King Edward upon a time being hunting in the Forrest and having lost his Traine and finding none of his servants neare him hee bethought himself that his Mother-in-law Elphaida with her Sonne Egelredus lived at a place called Corfe-Castle which is in the West-Countrey and thought it no better a time then now to give her a visit but the malicious woman looking out of her window and knowing him a far off called to one of her servants of her owne breeding and told him what he had to doe for she perceived he was alone and none of his Peeres or Attendants about him By this time the King was come to the Castle gate whither she descended and offered him all the Courtesie of entertainment that any Syren who only flatters to destruction could have done for with courteous words she besought him to alight and to lodge in the Castle that night both which he with great affability and gentlenesse refused saying he would onely taste a Cup of her Beere and then ride to finde out some of his Company but the Cup being brought he had no sooner moved it towards his mouth but this Barbarous Villaine Traitor and Regicide strook him with a long Dagger edg'd on both sid 〈…〉 which entring behind the poynt appear'd to have fore'd way through his breast at which mortall wound receiv'd he put spurres to his horse making speed towards the Forrest in hope to have met with some of his servants but by the extremity of bleeding fainting by the way he felt from his horse with one foot intangled in the stirrop then he was dragg'd crosse high-wayes and a thwart plowde lands till his horse staid at a Towne called Covisgate where he was found but not being knowne for the King hee was unworthily buried at a Town called Warham where his body remained for the terme of three yeares after at which time it was discovered and the dissembling and murderous woman thinking to clearer her selfe of the fact to the world thought at the first to visit him in the way of Pilgrimage but to make the cause evident against her the Horse on which she rode could not be compell'd to come neare unto the place by a miles distance neither by faire usage nor sore beating or any course that man could devise after whose death her sonne Egelredas was Crowned King in the first yeare of whosâ— Reigne the Land grew barren and scarce bore any fruit there happened moreover a Plague which tooke away the men and a Murraine
One Albidinus a young man of a most perdit and debaucht course of life when he had consumed all his Lands Goods and Jewells and exhausted all his estate even to one house he with his owne hands set that on fire and despairing of any future fortune left the City and betaking himselfe to the sollitude of the woods and groves hee in a short space after hang'd himselfe Lucullus a noble Roman in his Praetorship govern'd Africk two severall times he moreover overthrew and defeated the whole forces of King Mithridâ—tâ—s and rescued his Colleague Cotta who was besieged in Calcedon and was very fortunate in all his expeditions but after his greatnesse growing an eye-sore to the Common-weale he retired himselfe from all publike Offices or Imployments to his owne private Fields where he builded sumptuously sparing for no charge to compasse any rarity that could bee heard of and had in his house he made a very rich Library and plentifully furnish'd with Books of all sorts And when he had in all things accomodated his house suiting with his owne wishes and desires forgetting all Martiall Discipline before exercised hee wholly betooke himselfe to riotous Commessations and gluttonous Feasts having gotten so much spoyle and treasure in the Warres that it was the greatest part of his study how most profusely to spend it in peace It is reported of him that Pompey and Cicero one night stealing upon him with a self-invitation to supper he caused on the suddaine a Feast to be made ready the cost whereof amounted to fifty thousand peeces of silver the state of the place the plenty of meat the change and variety of Dishes the costly sawces the finenesse and neatnesse of the Services driving the guests into extraordinary admiration Briefely having given himselfe wholly to a sensuall life his high-feeding and deep quaffing brought him to such a weaknesse that hee grew apoplex'd in all his senses and as one insufficient to governe either himselfe or his estate hee was committed to the keeping of M. Lucullus his neare Kinseman dying soon after Caesar the sonne of Pope Alexander was one of those who much doted on his belley and wholly devoted himselfe to all kinde of intemperance who in daily Breakfasts Dinners afternoon sittings Suppers and new Banquets spent five hundred Crowns of the same not reckoning Feasts and extraordinary Invitations For Parasites Buffoones and Jesters he allowed yearely two thousand suits of Cloathes from his Ward-robe He maintained also a continuall army of eight thousand souldiers about him and all this hee exhausted from his Fathers Coffers And Galentius the sonne of Iohn Galentius the first Duke of Imsubria was ranked amongst these great Rioters who cared not at what expence he was so he might see the Tressells of his Tables ready to bend under the waighty and gluttonous dishes that were plac'd upon them who at one Feast made at the Celebration of his Daughters marriage at which Petrarch the learned Italian Poet was present spent an hundred thousand Peeces of money which might be rated to the value of a Spanish Piece of Eight or a Dutch Ricks Doller One Peter a Priest and Cardinall in the time when Syxtus was Pope in the space of two yeares was knowne to lavish and waste three hundred thousand Double-Duckets rated at twelve shillings English the piece upon vanities and unnecessary disbursements the greatest part of which was consumed in his Kitchin and Seller the rest in sundry kindes of excesse and prodigality I read also of one Belflorius by Nation a Sicilian at first of very meane and low Fortunes but after by parsimony being a Banker and an Vsurer attaining to an infinite and almost incredible estate hee did not take the common course of your avaritious money-masters to imprison it in strong and Iron-barr'd Chests but cleane contrary hee built him a faire and goodly house and when it grew up somewhat above the Sellerage and Foundation in stead of Stone or Bricke his Materials were Plates and pieces of Silver which amounted to a mighty summe and having finish'd this argent Structure there he spent the rest of his dayes in all voluptuous feeding so that one would have thought Epicurus himselfe to have survived in him So what he got lewdly having spent lavishly he dyed like to a Fowle which we have in England call'd a Knott which never eats in season till it dye of Fatnesse He began in Poverty continued in Prodigality ended in surfeit At first a Camelion after a Cormorant and lastly a Swine or Boare fatted for slaughter Let us therefore bethinke our selves that whensoever wee sitdowne to eate and drinke we have two guests to entertaine and those are the body and the soule whatsoever the body receiveth departs away quickly into the draught and is seene no more but that on which the foule feedes lasteth and abideth for ever For then is the minde most apt to apprehend reason and ghostly instruction where the free operations of the â—raine are not dull'd and molested by such vapours as the excesse of feeding distempers it withall Salust saith nothing can appeare more abject and mis-becomming man who is the Image of the Creatour then to live as a slave to the mouth and belly But how hard a matter is it faith Cato to preach Abstinence to the Belly which hath no Eares and yet is importunate whether the hand have wherewith to supply it or no. Socrates inviting certaine of his friends to a Schollers pittance or a spare Supper when he was taxed by one of his Guests for too slender provisions made answer If these whom I invited be vertuous they will say here is enough but if they be otherwise then I say here is too much Intemperancy is a root that hath hand in every disease that belongeth unto mans body and it is a Proverbe common amongst us Much meat much malady Origen tells us that Vessells more fully fraught then they are able to carry are forc'd to sinke and the stomack and belly surcharged with too much meat and drinke causeth bodies to surfeit which is the readiest meanes to prepare sicknesse and sicknesse is the immediate path-way to death One Gorgius a very temperate and abstemious man being demanded how he came to arrive to the number of an hundred and eight yeares and in all that time was not visited with any grievous sicknesse made Answer I never eate but when I was hungry nor never drunke but when I was thirsty and then both moderately And King Cyrus being asked by one of his great Captaines named Artabazus in a long and heavy March what he would have provided for his Supper He answered Bread for Drinke saith he we shall finde in every Current or Fountaine by the way To order our lives well and frugally is to live temperately and avoid high and voluptuous feeding for there is a great difference betwixt living well and living sumptuously Because the first proceeds from Discipline
and feet both failing hee fell downe and brake his neck The like happened to one Philostratus comming from the Sinuesanian Baths and Cleomenes King of Sparta in striving to imitate the Scithian Vinoleuch grew frantick and so dy'd Lacides the Philosopher by too much Compotation fell into the Disease call'd Paralysus and dy'd of it Armitus and Cyannippus both of Syracusa in their drunkennesse ravish'd their daughter and in their sobriety were after slaine by their owne children whom they had vitiated It is further read of Alexander that he was of a wondrous temperate and abstemious continence till he had subdu'd the Persians who liv'd the most deliciously of any nation under the Sunne but as he Conquered them so their vices Captiv'd him and made him a meere slave to all sensuality and pleasure So the Romans were a people of civill demeanour and of a most thrifty and temperate Dyet but having won the Monarchy from the Grecians as they could teach the other to fight so they could quickly learne of them to drinke and health it after their lavish and riotous manner Briefely you shall scarcely read of any brave and victorious Nation who brought any forraigne people under subjection but though the spoils he took thence were of never so great value there came with him the greatest part of their vices were they never so vile I need not presse this much farther the late Examples from the Roman Emperours and others may sufficiently illustrate it I come now to the most bitter fruits that grow upon this cursed Tree of Gluttony and the Parricidal and bloudy effects thereof Doctor Selreccerus in Pad pag. 211. hath this History In the same City saith he where St. Augustine was borne dwelt a very rich man both of great power and substance who had one onely Sonne the sole heire to his meanes and fortunes who taking very debaucht and riotous courses notwithstanding his Fathers dayly admonishments yet still hee persisted in his former course of life The Father out of his greater indulgence as having but one had allowed him large exhibition and the mother too of her naturall love had still supply'd his riotous expences both using him with gentle and courteous language hoping by that fair course to draw him to some regularity But finding that it nothing prevailed but that every day he grew worse then other he began then to change his Coppy his Brow was more austere and his look more supercilious and his tongue before altogether inur'd to advise and gently perswade grew now to another tone sharply to reprove and reprehend him But that which toucht the Son nearest was he took away all his meanes from him leaving him to the wide world thinking if any thing want and necessity might make him look into himselfe and in time reduce him to some goodnesse but alas his hopes were all in vaine for the young man grew so stupid and besotted in drunkennesse that hee grew like one sencelesse at least uncapable of any good and wholsome counsell It happened some moneths after he had this neglect from his Father and his scores abroad grew so high that neither Taverne nor Ale-house knowing him to be in his Fathers displeasure would give him any further credit He came home to the house whence hee had been foure weekes absent and being full of Wine entred at the gate whom his father meeting and seeing him in that distemperature he began to chide him after the old manner which the other impatient to heare catcht him by the throat and having utter'd many execrable oathes call'd him old Dotard and said Money he wanted and money he would have ere he departed The Father seeing violence offered called out for helpe at which the Sonne drew his Dagger and stabb'd him into the Shoulder most of the Servants were absent abroad but the mother hearing her husbands voice comes downe and seeing him bleed and her sonnes Dagger bloudy in one hand and with the other grasping his throat shee fell downe upon her knees and humbly besought him to spare his life but the devill had got such power over him that he was deafe to all intreaties and solely benâ— on the most horrid mischiefe that could be devised For breaking suddenly from his father he at an instant whipt out his sword and ran him cleane through the body and then turning towards his Mother who fill'd the place with many a lamentable out-cry he dispatcht her of life also and as he was about to enter the house purposing to rifle their Coffers and so to be gone in came some of the servants and finding their Master and Mistris weltering in their blouds they stood confounded and amazed and not knowing what Murderers were in the House or how strong they were they shut fast to the Doores and Barricado'd them till they had called in helpe sufficient Officers were sent for that open'd the doores and searching the House found the Paracide with his bloudy weapons in his hands and his Pockets well stuft with gold who was presently apprehended and sent to Prison and there laden with as many Irons as hee was able to beare There needed no great examination the fact being so apparent was soone confest and hee condemned to suffer onely one death who had deserved a thousand I could almost parallell this Story even here in our Countrey with a young Gentleman that dwelt with his Mother not farre from Salisburie whose Father being dead his mother continued a grave and religious Matron This young man seldome comming sober home she had often disswaded gently from such debaucht courses but found in him no amendment One night he staying abroad very late she resolved not to goe to rest till hee came in and if he were any way intoxicated or overcome with Wine to chide him soundly which happened according to her feare for that night hee was extraordinarily in drinke which shee by his uncertaine steps and justling the walls perceiving intercepted him in his way to his Chamber and began to chide and rate him soundly which he not having the patience to endure the devill so wrought with the Wine that he drew his Rapier and runne her through the body and this hapned within these few yeares whose name I conceale as loath to offend his Worshipfull friends and kindred yet living who might thinke the fact being so horrid howsoever themselves bee innocent thereof a blemish to their name and posterity and in consideration of the premisses I leave to all Parents who are too cockering and indulgent over their children in bringing them up this Counsell from Solomon With-hold not correction from the childe if thou smite him with the rod hee shall not dye thou shalt smite him with the rod and shalt deliver his soule from hell Notwithstanding these fearefull judgements how many may we meet in the day-time come either led or else reeling from the Tavernes but especially in the night where some have beene almost
those that have willingly falne away 49 17. Of the third and worst sort of Apostates those that through Malice forsake the Truth 51 18. More examples like unto the former 55 19. Of Hereticks 61 20. Of Hypocrites 67 21. Of Conjurers and Inchanters 71 22. Of those that through pride and vaine glory strove to usurpe the honour due to God 79 23. Of Epicures and Atheists 87 24. Touching the Transgressors of the 2. Commandement by Idolatrie 94 25. Of many evills that have come upon Christendome for Idolatrie 96 26. Of those that at any time corrupted and mingled Gods Religion with humane Inventions or went about to change or disquiet the Discipline of the Church 99 27. Of Perjurers 101 28. More examples of the like subject 116 29. Of Blasphemers 130 30. Of those that by cursing and denying God give themselves to the Devill 134 31. More examples of Gods judgement upon Cursers 136 32. Punishments for the contempt of the Word and Sacraments and abuse of holy things 140 33. Those that prophane the Sabbath-day 147 Judgements in the second Book Chap. 1. Of rebellious and stubborne Children towards their Parents 151 2. Of those that rebell against their Superiours 158 3. More examples of the same subject 163 4. Of such as have murthered their Rulers and Princes 168 5. Of such as rebelled against their Superiours because of Subsidies and â—â—â—es imposed upon them 171 6. Of Mu 〈…〉 〈◊〉 â—74 7. A suit of examples like unto the former 177 8. Other examples like unto the former 193 9. Other memorable examples of the like subject 197 10. Of divers other Murtherers and their severall punishments 201 11. Of the admirable discovery of murthers 203 12. Of such as have murthered themselves 214 13. Of Paracides or Parent murtherers 221 14. Of Subject-murtherers 226 15. Of those that are both cruell and disloyall 231 16. Of Queens that were murtherers 234 17. Of such as without necessity upon every light occasion move war 236 18. Of such as please themselves overmuch in seeing cruelties 239 19. Of such as exercise too much rigor and severity 241 20. Of Adulteries 244 21. Of Rapes 245 22. Other Examples of Gods Iudgements upon Adulterers 251 23. Shewing that Stewes ought not to be suffered amongst Christians 254 24. Of Whoredomes committed under colour of marriage 256 25. Of unlawfull marriages and their Issues 257 26 Touching incestuous marriages 259 27. Of Adulterie 261 28. Other Examples like unto the former 264 29. Other Examples like unto the former 268 30. More Examples of the same Argument 272 31. Of such as are Divorced without cause 275 32. Of those that either cause or authorize unlawfull Divorcements 277 33. Of Insestuous persons 278 34. Of effeminate persons Sodomites 〈…〉 â—onsters 280 35. Of the wonderfull evill that ariseth from the greedines of Lust. 282 36. Of unlawfull Gestures Idlenesse Gluttony Drunkennesse â—ancing and other such like dissolutenes 283 37. Of Theeves and Robbers 292 38. Of the excessive burdening of the Commonalty 297 39. Of those that have used too much cruelty towards their subjects in taxes and exactions 299 40. More examples of the same subject 302 41. Of such as by force of Armes have either taken away or would have taken away the goods and landâ— of other men 304 42. Of Vsurers and their Theft 373 43. Of Dicers Card-players and their Theft 376 44. Of such as have been notorious in all kind of sin 379 45. More examples of the same argument 385 46. Of Calumniation and false witnesse 393 47. That Kings and Princes ought to look to the execution of justice for the punishment of naughty and corrupt manners 40â— 48 Of such Princes as have made no reckoning of punishing vice nor regarded the estate of their people 402 49. How rare and geason good Princes have been at all times 40â— 50. That the greatest and mightiest Cities are not exempt from punishment of their iniquities 408 51. Of such punishments as are common to all men in regard of their iniquities 409 52. That the greatest punishments are reserved and laid up for the wicked in the world to come 410 53. How the afflictions of the godly punishments of the wicked differ 411 A brief Summary of more examples annexed to the form◠〈◊〉 â—â—e same Author Chap 1. Of such as have persecuted the Church of Christ. 414 2. Of Perjury 414 3. Of Epicures and Atheists ibid. 4. Of Idolatry 418 5. Of Blasphemy 418 6. Of Conjurers Magitians and Witches ibid. 7. Of the prophanation of the Sabbath 419 8. Of Drunkennesse 420 9. Of rebellious disobedient children to parents 426 10. Of murtherers ibid. 11. Of Adultery 428 12. Of Theeves and Robbers 429 13. Of 〈◊〉 431 14. Of the molestation of evill spirits and their execution of Gods judgements upon men ibid. 15. The Conclusion concerning the protection of holy Angels over such as feare God 437 A Table of the most remarkable judgements contained in the last part of this Book never before imprinted DEvoured by Wormes pag. 3 Poisoned 4 Self-murther ibid. â—â—postume 5 A Spanish History against pride in knowledge 〈◊〉 c. The Popes Nephew hanged 8 An Italian rack◠〈◊〉 death 9 Herbert Earle of Vermendois 10 Bajazet beats out his own brainis ibid. Bâ—adaas neck broke by a fall ib. Earle Goodwin choaked at the table 11 Earle Harold shot in the eye 11 12 Pierce Gaveston beheaded 13 Sir Hugh Spencer beheaded and his sonne hang'd and quartered 13 Earle Mortimer hanged 14 Sundry others executed 15 A briefe relation of the life and death of Cardinall Wolsey 15 16 Envious persons punished sundry wayes 17. One Brother murthereth another 21 A remarkable history of a Roman Prince 22 Pope Boniface his miserable death 23 The death of Caesar Germanicus ib. Matrinus head cut off 24 Bassianus and his mother torne in pieces throwne into a â—akes 24 Alexander Severus miserably slaine ib. Prince Cranne with his Wife and Children burnt to death 25 One brother killeth another and the mother murdereth her owne Son 25 26 Prince Morwith devoured by a Sea monster Sundry other remarkable judgements upon envious persons 27 The unfortunate deaths of Edw. 6. his two Vncles 30 31 Ptolomeus Pisco torne in pieces 33 Cirenes famished to death ibid. One destroy'd by Lightning ibid. Of another torne in pieces by Wolves ibid The story of Philaris brazen Bull. 33 34 Sundry relations of bloudy women 34 35 Remarkable observations upon the Emperor Caligula together with his death 35 Avidius Cassius his bloudy acts and miserable death 37 Sundry murthers strangely discover'd 42 Sundry judgments against the sin of sloth 46 A strange story of a slothfull Chamber-maid 55 Covetousnesse defined 58 The infinite riches of some men 62 The monstrous covetousness of Mauritius the Emperor together with his death 64 Sundry judgments against covetousnes 66 A strange Murther committed in Honey-lane and as strangely discover'd 69 A Scholler murdereth his Fathers Servant 70 Parents murder their own children 71 Iudgements inflicted upon Usurers 74 Lust learnedly defined 76 c. Gods judgements against Gluttony 96 c. FINIS Foure Species of Pride Habbak 2. 4. Nicanor Alexander the Great Nero Casar Varus Pergaus Menecrates the Physitiaâ— Pride in all states conditions and sexes The nature of Pride S. Augustine Plutarch An excellent Spanish History against pride in knowledge The 3. Questions propounded The Earth Humilitie Pride Advantage well taken Their marriage A just censure His owne tongue condemned him Histories out of our owne Chronicles in which the sin of pride hath beene most severely punished Examples in the Gospell One brother murdereth the other The History of a Roman Prince The Soldans great love to the Prince Envy in Women Murder the fruits of Envy A just Judgement upon an envious Traytour Envy pursued by many disasters Texts in the holy Scripturè by which wrath is condemned Noted murderers in the holy Text. Examples of Sloath out of the Scriptures A strange story of a sloathfull Chamber-maid The Parents murder their owne naturall sonne for the luere of money Fabia Zoe the Empresse Women branded for Incest Papinius and Canusia Julia the Empresse and Antonia Coracalla Semiramis A Spanish Maid A Gentleman of Millan The Prince of Opolia A Burgesse of Ulmes An Advoc 〈…〉 of Consta 〈…〉 A Nobleman of Piedmont Cyanip Syrac Armutiâ—s Childebert K. of France and Plectrude Philip the second and Gelberge his Q. A miraculous deliverie A needful observation A lamentable History Jealousie A fearefull Prison or Dungeon A cruel Lady A fearfull sight The former parallel'd with a modern Story An unwomanly Act. Locring Estrild Sabrina Ethelburge a notorious Adult 〈…〉 An unadvised Woman The fury of Elphaida A miraculous accident A bloudy Regitide Sigandus Bish. of Sherburne and Winchester Henry the second Mr. Arden of â—eversham Master Page of Plymouth Countrey Tom and Cambury Besse The symptoms of Gluttony From the Old Testament Texts out of the New Testament The Fathers of Gluttony Erotes The Devills miracles Albidinus Lucullus Caesar the Son of Pope Alexander Galentius Belflorius a Sycilian Good admonitions against Gluttony Maximinus a great Glutton The Emperor Bonosus Phago Edax Clodius Albinus Heterognathus Mithredates K. of Pontus Domitius Affer Philoxenes Galba and Vitellius Drunkards amongst the Grecians Alexander the Great Antiochus the Illustrious Agrones The bitter fruits of Gormundizing Gluttony An unmatchable villainâ— Almost the like done in England The effects of too much wine A miraculous escape A drunken Bu 〈…〉 A judgement upon three drunkards A Glasier A Barber One that drank himself to death A true relation of a Prodigall Citizen A strange and unheard of prodigall