in vassallage unto themselves Now this could not satisfie the ambition of that See which gloried falsly to be the only See Apostolique For as the Reputation of the Romane Prelats grew up in those blind ages under the Westerne Emperours much faster then true piety could raise it in former times when better Learning had flourished So grew up in them withall a desire of amplifying their power that they might be as great in temporall forces as mens opinion have formed them in spirituall matters Immediately therefore upon the death of Charlemaine they began to neglect the Emperours consent in their Elections And finding in them that afterwards reigned of the house of France either too much patience or too much weakenesse they were bold within seaventy years to decree That in the Creation of Popes the Emperour should have nothing at all to doe Having obteined this It followed that they should make themselves Lord over the whole Clergie in all Kingdomes But the worke was great and could not be accomplished in hast for they were much disturbed at home by the People of Rome who seeing about Fifty Popes or rather as mainetainers of the Papacie would now have them called Monsters to succeed one another and attaine by the faction of Cut-throats and Strumpets St. Peters Chaire despised that hypocrisy which the world abroad did Reverence as holinesse Likewise the Empire falling from the line of Charles to the mighty house of Saxonie was so strongly upheld by the first Princes of that race as it greatly curbed the ambition of those aspiring Prelats Yet no impediment could alwaies be of force to withstand the violence of seeming sanctity The Polonians Hungarians and some other farre removed Nations had yeilded themselves in subjection more then meerely spirituall even to those Popes whom Italie knew to be detestable men As for the Romane Citizens they were chastised by the sword and taught to acknowledge the Pope their Lord though they knew not by what right Long it was indeed ere they could with much adoe be throughly tamed Because they knowing the Lewdnesse of their Prelate and his Court their devotion unto him the trade by which now they live was very small Because also they were the Popes domesticall forces against which no Prince doth happily contend But finally the Popes Armes prevailed or when his owne were too weake the Emperours and other friends were helping Contrariwise against Emperours and other Princes the sword of the people even of their owne Subjects hath been used by teaching all Christians in our Westerne world a false Lesson That it is lawfull and meritorious to rebell against Kings excommunicated and deposed by the Pope This curse was first laid upon the Emperour Henry the fourth by Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the seaventh It is true as I said before that Leo of Constantinople had felt the same though not in the same sort For Leo being excommunicated was not withall deposed only he suffered a revolt of some Italian Subjects And one may say That the Germane Empire deserved this plague Since the founder thereof had given countenance to the Popes Rebelling against their Soveraigns the Emperours of Constantinople Howsoever it were when Hildebrand had accursed and cast downe from his throne Henry the fourth there were none so hardy as to defend their Injured Lord against the Counterfeited name of St. Peter Wherefore he was faine to humble himselfe before Hildebrand upon whom he waited three daies beare footed in the Winter ere he could be admitted into his presence Neither yet could he otherwise get absolution then by submitting his estate unto the Popes good pleasure what was his fault He had refused to yeild up to the Pope the investiture of Bishops and Collation of Ecclesiasticall dignities within his dominions a right that had alwayes belonged to Princes untill that day It were superfluous to tell how grievously he was afflicted all his life after Notwithstanding this submission In breife the unappeasable rage of Hildebrand and his Successors never left persecuting him by raising one Rebellion after an other yea his owne Children against him till dispoyled of his Crowne he was faine to beg food of the Bishop of Spyers promising to earne it in a Church of his own building by doing there a Clarks duty for he could serve the Quire And not obteining this he pined away and dyed That Bishop of Spyers dealt herein perhaps rather fearfully then cruelly For he had to terrifie him the example of Vteilo Archhishop of Mentz chiefe Prelate among the Germans Who was condemned of heresie for having denyed that the Emperour might be deprived of his Crowne by the Popes authority If Princes therefore be carefull to exclude the doctrine of Hildebrand out of their dominions who can blame them of rigour This example of Henry though it would not be forgotten might have been omitted had it not been seconded with many of the same nature But this was neither one Popes fault nor one Princes destiny He must write a story of the Empire that means to tell of all their dealings in this kind As how they wrought upon Henry the fifth whom they had set up against his Father what horrible effusion of Blood they caused by their often thundering upon Fredericke And how they rested not untill they had made the Empire stand headlesse about seaventeene years These things moved Rodolph Earl of Habspurgh who was chosen Emperour after that long vacation to refuse the Ceremony of being Crowned at Rome though he were therero urged by the Electors For said he our Caesars have gone to Rome As the foolish Beasts in Aesops Fables went to the Lyons Den leaving very goodly footsteps of their journey thitherward but not the like of their returne The same opinion have most of the succeeding Emperours held all of them or almost all neglecting that Coronation Good cause why Since the Popes besides many Extortions which they practised about that Ceremony Arrogated thence unto themselves that the Empire was held of them in Homage And dealt they not after the same fashion with other Kingdomes What right had St. Peter to the Crowne of Sicily and of Naples The Romane Princes wonne those Lands from the Saracens who had formerly taken them from the Empire of Constantinople The same Romanes had also been mighty defenders of the Papacy in many dangers yet when time served the Pope tooke upon him as Lord Paramount of those Countryes to drive out one King and set up another with a Bloody confusion of all Italie retaining the Soveraignty to himself In France he had the daring to pronounce himselfe superiour unto the King in all matters both Spirituall and Temporall The Crowne of Poland he forced to hold of his Miter by imposing a subjection in way of penance For that the Polish King had caused one St. Stanislaus to be slaine For the death of St. Thomas Beckett and more strangely for a Refusall of an Archbishop of Canterbury whom his Holinesse had appointed
he imposed the like penance upon England Also when our King Edward the First made Warre upon the Scots word came from Rome that he should surcease for that the Kingdome of Scotland belonged unto the Popes Chappell A great oversight it was of St. Peter that he did not accurse Nero and all heathen Princes whereby the Popes Chappell might have gotten all that the Devill offered and our Saviour refused Yet what need was there of such a banne Since Fryar Vincent of Valnarda could tell Atatalipa King of Peru That all the Kingdomes of the Earth were the Popes who had bestowed more then halfe thereof upon the King of Spaine If the Pope will have it so it must be so otherwise I should have interpreted that place in Genesis Increase and multiply and fill the Earth As spoken to Noah and his Children not as directed only to Tubal Homer and Phatto the supposed Fathers of the old Iberians Gothes and Moores of whom the Spanish blood is compounded But of such impudent presumption in disposing of countryes farre remote And whereto the sword must acquire a better title the mischiefe is not presently discerned It were well if his Holinesse had not loved to set the world in an uproare by nourishing of War among those that respected him as a Common Father His dispensing with oaths taken for agreement between one King and another or between Kings and Subjects doe speake no better of him For by what right was it That Fardinand of Arragon won the Kingdome of Navar why did not the Confederacie that was between Lewis the Twelfth of France and the Venetians hinder that King from warring upon Venice why did not the like between England and France hinder our King Henry the eighth for warring upon the same King Lewis Was it not the Pope who did set on the French to the end that himself might get Ravenna from the Venetians Why was it not the same Pope who afterwards upon desire to drive the French out of Italie excommunicated Lewis and his adherents By vertue of which Excommunication Fardinand of Arragon seized upon Navarr And served not the same Warrant to set our Henry upon the back of France But this was not our Kings fault more then all the peoples We might with shame confesse it if other Countries had not been as blindly superstitious as our Fathers That a Barque of Apples blessed by the Pope and sent hither for presents unto those that would be forward in the War upon France made all our English hasty to take Armes in such sort as the Italians wondred and laughed to see our men no lesse greedy of those Apples then Eve was of the forbidden fruit for which they were to hazard their lives in an unjust War Few ages have wanted such and more grievous examples of the Popes tumultuous disposition but these were amongst the last that fell out before his unholinesse was detected Now for his dispensing betweene Kings and their Subjects we need not seeke instances far from home He absolved our King Iohn of an oath given to his Barons and people The Barons and people he afterwards discharged of their alleageance to King Iohn King Henry the third had appeased this Land how wisely I say not by taking such an oath as his Father had done swearing as he was a Knight A Christian and a King But in a Sermon at Paules People were taught how little was to be reposed on such assurance the Popes dispensation being there openly read which pronounced that Oath voyde Good cause why For that King had the patience to live like neither Knight nor King But as the Popes Tenant and Rent-gatherer of England But when the same King adventured to murmure the Pope could threaten to teach him his duty with a vengeance And make him know what it was to winch and play the Fredericke Thus we see what hath been his Custome to oppresse Kings by their people And the people by their Kings yet this was for serving his owne turne Wherein had our King Henry the sixt offended him which King Pope Iulius would after for a little money have made a Saint Neverthelesse the Popes absolving of Rich Duke of Yorke from that honest oath which he had given by mediation of all the Land to that good King occasioned both the Dukes and the Kings ruine And therewithal those long and cruell Wars betweene the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke and brought all England into an horrible Combustion What he meant by this I know not unlesse to verifie the Proverbe Omnia Romae venalia I will not urge the dispensation whereby the Pope released King Philip the second of Spaine from the solemne Oath by which he was bound to maintaine the priviledges of the Netherlands though this Papall indulgence hath scarce as yet left working And been the cause of so many hundred thousands slaine for this last forty years in the Netherlands Neither will I urge the Pope encouraging of Henry the second and his sons to the last of them against the French Protestants the cause of the first three Civill Warres And lastly of the Leavyings of Byrons in which there hath perished no lesse number then in the Low-Countryes For our Country it affords an example of fresh memory since we should have had as furious Warre as ever both upon us and amongst us in the daies of our late famous Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth if Pope Pius his Bull Could have gored as well as it could Bellow Therefore it were not amisse to answer by a Herald the next Pontificall attempt of like nature rather sending defiance as to an enemy then publishing answers as to one that had here to doe though in deed he had never here to doe by any lawfull power either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Romane Empire For howsoever it were ordered in some of the first holy generall Councills that the Bishop of Rome should be Patriarch over these quarters yea or it were supposed that the forged Canons by which he now challengeth more then precedency and primacie had also been made indeed yet could this little help his claime in Kingdomes that hold not of the Empire For those right holy Fathers as in matters of Faith they did not make truth But religiously expounded it so in matters of Ecclesiasticall Government they did not create provinces for themselves But ordered the Countries which they then had They were assemblies of all the Bishops in the Romane world and with the Romane dominion only they medled Requisite it is that the faith which they taught should be imbraced in all Countryes As it ought likewise to be entertained if the same had been in like sort illustrated not by them but by a generall Councill of all Bishops in the great Kingdome of the Abissines which is thought to have been Christian even in those daies But it was not requisite nor is that the Bishops of Abissines or of India
Popes Crociata The truth is that the Saracenes affirme no lesse of the Warres which either they make against Christians or which arise between themselves from difference of Sect. And if every man had his due I thinke the honour of devising first this Doctrine That Religion ought to be inforced upon men by the sword would be found appertaining to Mahomet the false Prophet sure it is that he and the Caliphes following him obteined thereby in a short space a mighty Empire which was in faire way to have inlarged untill they fell out among themselves Not for the Kingdome of Heaven But for Dominion upon Earth And against these did the Popes when their authority grew powerfull in the West incite the Princes of Germany England France and Italie Their chiefe enterprise was the Recovery of the Holy Land In which worthy but extreamely difficult action it is lamentable to Remember what abundance of noble Blood hath been shed with very small benefit unto the Christian State The Recovery of Spaine whereof the better part was then in Bondage of the Saracens had been a worke more availeable to the men of Europe more easily mainetained with supply more aptly serving to advance any following enterprise upon Kingdomes further removed more free from hazard and Requiring lesse expence of Blood But the honourable piety of the undertakers could not be terrified by the face of danger nor diverted from this to a more commodious businesse by any motives of profit or facility for the Pulpits did sound in every Parish Church with the praises of that voyage as if it were a matter otherwise far lesse highly pleasing unto God to beare Armes for defence of his truth against prosecutors or for the Deliverance of poore Christians oppressed with slavery then to fight for that selfe same Land wherein our Blessed Saviour was borne and Dyed By such perswasions a marvellous number were excited to the Conquest of Palestina which with singular vertue they performed though not without exceeding great losse of men and held that Kingdome some few generations But the Climate of Syria the far distance from the strength of Christendome And the neer Neighbourhood of those that were most puissant among the Mahometans caused that famous enterprise after a long continuance of terrible War to be quite abandoned The care of Ierusalem being laid aside it was many times thought needfull to represse the growing power of the Turke by the joint forces of all Christian Kings and Common-wealths And hereto the Popes have used much perswasion and often published their Crociata with pardon of sins to all that would adventure in a worke so Religious Yet have they effected little or nothing and lesse perhaps are ever like to doe For it hath been their Custome so shamefully to misuse the fervent zeale of men to Religious Armes by converting the Monies that have been Leavyed for such Wars to their owne services and by stirring up Christians one against an other yea against their owne naturall Princes under the like pretences of serving God and the Church that finally men waxed weary of their turbulent spirits And would not believe that God was carefull to mainetaine the Pope in his quarrells or that Remission of sins past was to be obteined by Committing more and more grievous at the instigation of his suspected holinesse Questionlesse there was great reason why all discreet Princes should beware of yeilding hasty beliefe to the Robes of Sanctimonie It was the Rule of our Blessed Saviour By their works you shall know them what the works of those that occupied the Papacie have been since the dayes of Pepin and Charlemaine who first enabled them with Temporall donation The Italian writers have testified at large Yet were it needlesse to Cite Machiavell who hath Recorded their doings and is therefore the more hatefull or Guicciardine whose works they have gelded as not enduring to heare all that he hath written though he spake enough in that which remains What History shall we Read excepting the Annales of Caesar Baronius And some books of Fryars or Fryarly Parasites which mentioning their Acts doe not leave witnesse of their ungodly dealing in all quarters How few Kingdomes are there if any wherein by dispensing with others transferring the right of Crowns Absolving Subjects from alleageance and cursing or threatning to curse as long as their curses were regarded they have not wrought unprobable mischiefs The shamelesse denyall hereof by some of their friends And the more shamelesse justification by their flatterers makes it needfull to exemplifie which I had rather forbeare as not loving to deale in such contentious arguments were it not follie to be modest in uttering what is knowne to all the world Pitty it is that by such demeanour they have caused the Church as Hierome Savanarola and before him Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincolne prophecied to be reformed by the sword But God would have it so How farre the Popes blessing therefore did sanctifie the enterprise upon Ierusalem it rests in every mans discretion to Judge As for the honourable Christians which undertooke that conquest to justifie their Warre they had not only the redresse of injuries and protection of their oppressed Brethren But the repelling of danger from their owne Land threatned by those misbeleivers when they invaded If the Popes extortions which were not more forcible then those of Peters the Hermits added spirit unto the action yet altered they not the grounds of the Warre nor made it the more holy Let the Indulgences of Pope Leo the tenth beare witnesse of this who out of politick feare of the Turkes violence urged a Religious contribution towards a Warre to be made upon them The necessity of that which hee propounded was greater doubtlesse then any that had perswaded the Conquest of Palestina But too foule and manifest was the unholinesse of obtruding upon men Remission of sins for money That the Sums which Pope Leo thereby raised and converted to his owne uses have made his Successers loosers by the bargaine even to this day Pius the Second formerly well knowne by the name of Aeneas Silvius was discernedly reckoned among the few good Popes of latter ages who neverthelesse in a Warre of the same Religious nature discovered the like though not the same imperfection His purpose was to set upon Mahomet the great who had newly won the Empire of Constantinople and by carrying the Warre over into Greece to prevent the danger threatning Italie In this action highly Commendable he intended to hazard his owne person that so the more easily hee might win adventurers who else were like to be lesse forward as not unacquainted with such Romish tricks Yet was not his owne devotion so zealous in pursuit of this holy businesse but that he could stay a while and convert his forces against Malatesti Lord of Rimini letting Scanderbeg waite his Leisure who had already set the Warre on foote in Greece For said he we first subdue the little Turke