to deserve such hard usage I must confess says hâ— it would make one suspect some such thing by that course is taken with them For who could ever think that so Great and Wise a Prince would deal with Loyal Subjects as if he had to do with Traytors And yet which is the prodigious part of the History of Lewis the Fourteenth there is nothing more certain than that these very Protestants to whom they have done so much mischief have always observed exactly their duty towards their King One may safely say by their behaviour they have loved him as their Eyes Their Loyalty has been yearly tryed during the minority of this King All the World knows it neither could any thing ever corrupt or shake it By their Care and Address all the Towns where they had any Interest at that time as Montauban Nimes Rochel declared for their King and disposed not only the Provinces that belonged to them but those adjoyning likewise God knows what had become then of the Crown had it not been for the warm Sermons of those Ministers whose mouths are now stopt and the courage of those very Protestants they now persecute with so much violence Whil'st the Popish Prelates and great Lords drank publickly the health of Lewis the Fifteenth these poor persecuted People were with Sword in hand exposing themselves to the utmost dangers to preserve the Kingdom to Lewis the Fourteenth It is matter of Fact which the King knows He has born them witness more than once that their Loyalty upon this account had contributed in the highest degree to the security of his Crown And it is fit upon this occasion I should impart to you a wonderful Piece It is a Letter of this Kings writ to his Electoral Highâ—ess the Marquess of Brandenburg My Friend that gavâ— me this Lâ—tter copyed it from the Original which was seen by a thousand Hoâ—orable Witnesses that may be produced in time and place It may not be impossible but that I may shew you the Original This was the Letter Brother I should not enter into discourse with any other Prince besides your selfe concerning what you write to me in behalf of my Subjects of the pretended Reformed Religion But that you may see what a particular respect I have for you I will freely tell you That some ill affected people to my service have published Seditious Libels in forreign Countreys as if the Edicts and Declarations which the Kings my Predecessors have made in favour of my said Subjects of the pretended Reformed Religion and which I my self have confirmed to them were not punctually observed in all my Estates which I never intended For I would have them enjoy all their Priviledges which were granted them And I take care that they be suffered to live upon equal Terms and without distinction among the rest of my Subjects I am obliged to it by the word of a King and from the Acknowledgment I owe upon fresh proofs they have given me of their Loyalty in my Service during the late troubles when they took up Arms and vigorously and successfully opposed the wicked designs against my Government of a Rebellious party at home I pray God c. From St. Germain Octob. 13. 1666. Such happy Beginnings were followed with suitable Success The Protestants have been remarkable upon an hundred occasions since both by Sea and Land they were always observed to be the first when they were to fight for their King and Countrey All the World knows to whom they owe their Victories in Portugal over the Spaniards which was so highly advantagious for France and the Defeat of the Famous De Ruyter who after so long and great a Reputation was at last overcome by a French Protestant I will conclude with an observation which they assure me this King made himself That neither in that great number of Conspirators who had laid so dangerous a plot against him some years since nor amongst that monstrous Croud of Poisoners that have alarmed all France and destroyed so many considerable Families was there found one single Protestant After all this to persecute them as they do and proclaim them to be Firebrands and disturbers of the publick peace Enemies of Monarchs and Monarchy is it not to punish those that deserve Reward Is it not by a shameful aspersion no less ridiculous than fowl to contrive the oppression of persecuted Innocence You are in the right said I but yet pray do not forget to answer some Objections which are made every day to blast or render suspicious the Loyalty of these poor people First they accuse them for concealing dangerous poison under these words in their Confession of Faith So long as the Sovereign Power of God be kept inviolable We hold that we ought to obey their Laws and Ordinances pay Tribute Imposts and other Duties and bear the Yoke with a cheerful and good Will although they were Infidels Provided the Sovereign Power of God be kept inviolable Whence they infer that they hold it for an Article of Faith that Subjects may take Arms against â—heir lawful Prince whenever they fancy that what he commands is not suitable to the Principles of their pretended Reformation That is a Gloss replies our Friend that spoils the Text and a new aspersion these Protestants have given no ground for Nay they foresaw and have confuted it before-hand in resolving as they have done That Subjects ought to bear the Yoak of their Subjection with a cheerful and good Will though their Princes were Infidels For this plainly intimates That although our Kings were Enemies to our Religion we are always obliged to submit to their Orders And if you would know what then is the meaning of this exception Provided the Sovereign Power of God remain inviolable I answer it means no more than what St. Peter and St. Iohn intended when they said to the great Council of the Jews Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye Or what all the Apostles meant when they said to the said Council We ought to obey God rather than Man Than what St. Châ—ysostome intended when he told his Auditors When we say Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's we only mean such Duties as are not against Piety and Religion because whatever harms Faith and Virtue is not Câ—sar's but the Devil's Tribute Or to bring an Authority of greater weight to those of the Popish persuasion this exception imports no more than what we find in the Canon of the Papal Decree If the Master command those things that are not repugnant to the Holy Scriptures let the Servant obey his Master If he command the contrary let him rather obey the Lord of the Spirit than him of the Flesh. If what the Emperor command you be lawful execute his Commands if it be not Answer We ought to obey God rather than Man In a word the French Protestants
opened After our first Salute I ask'd him what they were They are said he French Books and those Printed Sheets are the new Edicts Declarations and Acts which the King of France hath lately publish'd against the Protestants of his Kingdom I am very happy said I in lighting on you at the opening of your Papers I was extremely impatient of knowing with some certainty what it was drove so many of them from their Native Country and I perceive by the care you have taken to collect all the pieces which concern them that I could not have met any one who might better satisfie my curiosity They come hither in Troops almost every day and the greatest part of them with no other Goods but their Children The King according to his accustomed Goodness hath had pity on them so far as to provide means whereby they may be able to gain their Lively-hood and amongst other things he hath ordered a general Collection for them throughout the Kingdom We were all resolved to answer the charitable Intentions of our Gracious Prince and were beginning to contribute freely But to tell you the truth we were extremely cooled by certain Rumors It is confess'd that their King is very earnest to make them embrace his Religion but they assure us that he uses none but very reasonable Means and that they who come hither with such Outcries are a sort of People not gifted with much patience who easily forsake their Native Country being dissatisfied that their merit as they conceive is not sufficiently rewarded Besides they are represented to us very much suspected in the point of their Obedience and Loyalty If we may believe many here they have been very factious and rebellious such as in all times have struck at the higher Powers both in Church and State which you must needs see would not be much for our purpose in these present Conjunctures In truth this is intolerable cry'd our Friend I cannot endure that the Innocence of these poor people should be run down at this rate I perceive Father La Chaise is not content to persecute them in their own Country with the utmost cruelty but trys all ways to shut up the Bowels of their Brethren in foreign parts he endeavours to ruine and to famish them every where in England as well as France A Hatred so cruel and if I may so say murderous agrees not so well with the Gospel of the Meek Iesus whose Companion Father La Chaise styles himself For he came not to destroy men but to save them Let this Jesuite alone said I and his Emissaries I do not doubt but he hath too much to do in all the Affairs of Protestants But tell me ingenuously do they give just cause to them of France to quit their Country as they do and are they persons whom the State and the Church may trust You your self shall be Judge said he and that you may be fully inform'd of the Cause I will give you a particular Account of the State of these poor People But before I speak of the Evils they have suffered it is sit you should know what it is that they have right to hope for from their King and from their Countrymen you will then be more affected with the usage they find You cannot but have heard of the Edict of Nantes Here it is said he taking up one of the Books that lay upon the Table It is a Law which Henry the Fourth confirmed to establish their Condition and to secure their Lives and Privileges and that they might have liberty freely to profess their Religion It is called the Edict of Nantes because it was concluded of at Nantes whilst the King was there It contains 149 Articles 93 general and 56 particular You may read it at your leisure if you please I will only observe some of them to you at present Look I pray said he on the sixth general and the first particular Article Liberty of Conscience without let or molestation is there most expresly promised not only to them who made profession of the Protestant Religion at the establishment of the Edict but which is principally to be observed to all those who should imbrace and profess it afterwards For the Article saith that Liberty of Conscience is granted for all those who are or who shall be of the said Religion whether Natives or others The seventh general Article grants to all Protestants the right of having Divine Service Preaching and full exercise of their Religion in all their Houses who have Soveraign Iustice that is to say who have the privilege of appointing a Judge who hath the power of judging in Capital Causes upon occasion There are a great many Noble Houses in France which have this privilege That seventh Article allows all Protestants who have such Houses to have Divine Service and Preaching there not only for themselves their own Family and Tenants but also for all persons who have a mind to go thither The following Article allows even the same Exercise of the Protestant Religion in Noble Houses which have not the right of Soveraign Justice but which only hold in Fee-simple It is true it doth not allow them to admit into their Assemblies above thirty persons besides their own Family The ninth Article is of far greater importance it allows the Protestants to have and to continue the exercise of their Religion in all those places where it had been publickly used in the years 1596 and 1597. The tenth Article goes farther yet and orders that that Exercise be established in all places where it ought to have been by the Edict of 1577 if it had not been or to be re-established in all those places if it had been taken away and that Edict of 1577 granted by Henry the Third declares that the Exercise of the Protestant Religion should be continued in all places where it had been in the Month of September that same year and moreover that there should be a place in each Bailywick or other Corporation of the like nature where the Exercise of that Religion should be established tho it had never been there before These are those places which since have been called with reference to the Exercise of Religion The first places of the Bailywick It follows then from this tenth Article of the Edict of Nantes that besides the Cities and Towns in which the Exercise of that Religion ought to be continued because they had it in the years 1596 and 1597 it ought to be over and above in all those places where it had been in the month of September in the year 1577 and in a convenient place of each Bailywick c. altho it had not been there in that Month. The eleventh Article grants also this Exercise in each Bailywick in a second place where it had not been either in the Month of September 1577 or in the years 1596 or 1597. This is that which is called The second place of the
not small They had testified an inviolable Loyalty to him in all his Troubles They had spent freely their Lives and Fortunes to defend his Rights and his Life against the Princes of Lorrain who made so many Attempts to keep him from the Throne of his Ancestors and to usurp his place Had it not been for their Valour and their Loyalty the Crown had gone into the hands of Strangers and since we must speak out had it not been for them the Blood of the Bourbons would not this day have been possessed of the Throne The Edict of Nantes then was the Effect and the Recompence of the Great Obligations which King Henry the Fourth had to his Loyal Protestants and not as is slanderously reported the fruit of any violence gained by force and granted against the hair But farther the Law of Nature and common policy might challenge such an Edict for them as well as Gratitude It is true that Soveraign Magistrates are appointed by God to preserve the publick peace and by consequence to cut off or prevent as much as in them lies whatever may disturb it It is true also that new Establishments in matters of Religion may cause great troubles in a State and that there are Religions which have Maxims so pernicious that when Magistrates are of a different opinion or but so much as tolerate such a one their Lives and their Kingdoms are never in safety But Henry the Fourth found the Protestant Religion wholly establish'd in the Kingdom when he came to the Crown Besides he who had so long profess'd it knew perfectly well that it had none of those dreadful Maxims which makes Princes and States jealous that on the contrary in it Loyalty and Obedience of Subjects to Soveraigns of what Religion and what humor soever was to them an Article of Faith and an obligation of Conscience He knew that Protestants by their Religion were peaceable men who sought but to serve God according to his Word and were always ready to spend the last drop of their blood for the service and the honor of their King But he knew also that the zeal of the Romish Clergy always animated the Popish Common People against them and that they would be sure to fall upon them unless he took them into his protection The Law of Nature then did not permit him to abandon to the rage of the multitude so many innocent persons and common policy warned him to preserve so many faithful Subjects for the State so capable of supporting it on occasion as he had so freshly experienc'd It being certain that had it not been for them the Pope and the Ligue had ruin'd the whole Kingdom But it was not possible either to defend them from the fury of the People or to preserve them for the service of the State if he had granted in favour of them any thing less than the Edict of Nantes so that this Edict in truth was to be ascribed to common Equity and Prudence no less than Gratitude But said I to my Friend do you believe that the Grandson of Henry the Fourth is bound to make good what his Grandfather did I do not doubt it at all answered he otherwise there would be nothing secure or certain in Civil Society and wo be to all Governments if there be no Foundation of publick Trust. 1. For if ever Law deserv'd to be regarded by the Successors of a Prince it is this It was establish'd by a Hero who had recovered the Crown for his posterity by his Sword and this Establishment was not made but after mature and long deliberations in the calm of a prosound Peace obtained and cemented by many and signal Victories That Hero hath declar'd expresly in the Preface of the Edict that he establish'd it in the nature of an irrevocable and perpetual Law willing that it should be firm and inviolable as he also saith himself in the 90th Article Accordingly he made all the Formalities to be observed in its establishment which are necessary for the passing of a fundamental Law in a State For he made the observation of it under the quality of an irrevocable Law to be sworn to by all the Governors and Lieutenant-Generals of his Provinces by the Bailiffs Mayors and other ordinary Judges and principal Inhabitants of the Cities of each Religion by the Majors Sheriffs Consuls and Jurates by the Parliaments Chambers of Accounts Court of Aids with order to have it publish'd and registred in all the said Courts This is expresly set down in the 92d and 93d Articles Was there ever any thing more authentick 2. The same Reasons which caused the Establishment remain still and plead for its continuance 1. The Family of Bourbon preserved in the Throne 2. The Law of Nature and common Policy 3. The two Successors of Henry the Fourth look'd not upon themselves as unconcern'd in this Edict Their Word and their Royal Authority are engaged for its observation no less than the Word and Royal Authority of its Illustrious Author Lewis the Thirteenth confirm'd it as soon as he came to the Crown by his Declaration of the 22d of May 1610 ordering that the Edict of Nantes should be observed in every Point and Article These are the very words Read them said he shewing me a Book in Folio called The Great Conference of the Royal Ordinances and Edicts I read there in the first Book Title 6 of the second Part of the Volume not only the Article he mention'd but also the citation of nine several Declarations publish'd at several times by the same King on the same subject Lewis the Fourteenth who now Reigns says our Friend hath likewise assured all Europe by his authentick Edicts and Declarations that he would maintain the Edict of Nantes according to the desire of his Grandfather who had made it an irrevocable Law He himself acknowledges and confirms it himself anew by his Edict of Iune 1680 where he forbids Papists to change their Religion There it is pray take the pains to read it Lewis by the Grace of God King of France and Navarre to all persons to whom these Presents come Greeting The late Henry the Fourth our Grandfather of Glorious Memory granted by his Edict given at Nantes in the Month of April 1598 to all his Subjects of the Religion pretended Reformed who then lived in his Kingdom or who afterwards should come and settle in it Liberty of professing their Religion and at the same time provided whatsoever he judged necessary for affording those of the said Religion pretended Reformed means of living in our Kingdom in the Exercise of their Religion without being molested in it by our Catholick Subjects which the late King our most Honored Lord and Father and we since have authorised and confirmed on other Occasions by divers Declarations and Acts. But this Prince is not content to tell what he hath formerly done in confirmation of the Edict of Nantes read some Lines a little lower
has committed to them the Administration or Rule And upon that score it is they pray to God for their own King and for all other Princes That he would give them his holy Spirit and all Graces requisite to well Governing Is this the stile of a seditious People Enemies to Monarchs and Monarchy Since therefore the Confession of Faith and form of Common-Prayer speaks the mind of the whole Body of the French Protestants it will be needless to quote the Sermons and Writings of their particular Ministers yet because I observe to my great grief there are many here cry down the incomparable Calvin as if in this point of obedience to Monarchs he were not very sound I must needs read to you what he has said upon that subject in his excellent Institution It is in his fourth Book Chap. 20. where after he has shewed Sect. 22 23 of this Chapter the Duty of Subjects towards Princes and Magistrates which he makes consist in having a profound Reverence for them to observe their Commands with a perfect submission to pay such Taxes and Rates as they put upon them to offer up Prayers and Thansgivings to God for their Prosperity and when he has there proved by Scripture That we cannot resist the Magistrate without resisting God who is prepared to defend them he considers Sect. 24. That there are many who fancy we owe not this respect and obedience but to good Princes and so may despise the wicked and shake off the yoke of Tyrants This Maxim he confutes as a most pernicious error in the following Sections of which I shall here give you a taste The Word of God obliges us to submit not only to the authority of Princes that use us well but in general to the Dominion of all those after whatever fashion that exercise Sovereign Power though they perform nothing less than the Duty of a Prince For however the Lord assures us that Magistrates are the Bounty of his Grace set up for the conservation of Men and that therefore he sets them bounds within which they ought to keep yet he declares at the same time that whatever they prove they hold their Power of him that they who seek the publick good in their Sovereign Administration are the lively Images of his Goodness that they which rule with violence and oppression were raised by him to the Throne for a Scourge to a sinful people but that the one and the other are equally invested with that Sacredness of Majesty which he has stamped upon the Forehead of all lawful Authorities I shall insist upon this point which the Spirit of the Multitude does not so easily conceive to wit that this admirable and Divine Authority that the Lord by his Word confers upon the Ministers of his Justice remains no lâ—ss with a Man that is never so wicked or unworthy of all honour if once he be raised to the Sovereign Power so that his Subjects ought no less to Reverence him in regard of Allegiance due to Sovereigns than if he were a good King First I would have it carefully observed the special Providence of God in bestowing Crowns and setting up Kings of which we are so often told in Scripture It is God says Daniel that removeth Kings and setteth up Kings And speaking elsewhere to Nebuchadnezzâ—r Thou shalt be says he to him wet with the Dew of Heaven till thou know that the most High Ruleth in the Kingdom of Men and giveth it to whomsoever he will We know well enough what a kind of King this Nâ—buchadnezzar was who took Ierusalem He was an Usurper and an accomplished Villain Nevertheless the Lord assures us in Ezekiel that he had given him Egypt as a Reward for the Service he had done him in the mischief he did to Tyre And Daniel says to the same King The God of Heaven has given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory and wheresoever thâ— Children of Men dwell the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of the Heaven has he given into thine hand and hath made thee Ruler over them all He says also to Belshazzar this King's Son The most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy Father a Kingdom and Majesty and Glory and Honour and for the Majesty that he gave him all People Nations and Languages trembled and feared before him Whenever we find God has set up any man to be King let us call to mind the heavenly Oracles which appoint us to Honour and Fear the King and then we shall not fail to bear Respect even in the persons of Tyrants to this mighty Character wherewith God has been pleased to honour them Samuel telling the People of Israel what they were to suffer from their Kings uses these words This will be the manner or Right of the King that shall Reign over you He will take your Sons and will appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horse-men and some shall run before his Chariots And he will take your Daughters to be Confectionaries and to be Cooks and to be Bakers And he will take your Fields and your Vineyards and your Olive-yards even the best of them and give them to his Servants And he will take the tenth of your Seed and of your Vineyards and give to his Officers and to his Servants And he will take your Men-servants and your Maid-servants and your goodliest Young-men and your Asses and put them to his Work He will take the tenth of your Sheep and ye shall be his Servants Doubtless Kings have no Right to deal thus those that the Law so carefully directs to Moderation and Temperance But Samuel calls this the Right of the King over the People because the People are under an indispensable Obligation to submit and are not allowed to resist as if the Prophet had explain'd himself after this manner The mismanagement of Kings shall come to this height and you shall have no right to oppose it your part must be to take their Commands and to obey them Calvin after this produces a long passage out of Ieremiah where great punishments are denounced against all those that would not submit to the Government of Nebuchâ—dnezzar who originally was but an Usurper as wel as a Tyrant And he concludes that we ought to reject these seditious thoughts That a King ought to be handled as he deserves and that there is no reason we should behave our selves as Subjects towards him if he carries not himself like a King towards us After which he most substantially answers the Objections which unquiet Spirits are used to make against this Doctrine And now I leave it to reasonable Men to judge whether it be not the greatest Injustice to this excellent Person to declare to the World That he was an Enemy to Kings They that followed him have after his example all taken the same side upon this subject No doubt you have read what their great Salmasius has writ in defence
by force the setling of the true Religion but they are to answer to none but God for it This is Sir says our Friend the true sense of the French Protestants in this important Affaiâ— I could make it out by a thousand more witnesses of credit if it were needful And I am well assured that after so many pregnant Testimonies there is no reasonable person can be offended at their Confession of Faith Therefore let us go to your other Objections I would with all my heart said I but that it is so late And besides I would be glad to make my Objections stronger by running over a new Book which the Enemies of the French Protestants make a great noise with in England and put it into the hands of all our people of Quality to prejudice them against these poor Protestants It is the History of Calvinism by Monsieur Maimbourg a Secularised Jesuit If you will take my word let us put it off till this day sevennight Be it so says our Friend and so we parted This shall be also the end of my Letter I am Sir Yours c. The fourth Letter The Protestant Loyalty vindicated against Maimbourg SIR I Failed not to be at our Friends Chamber at the time appointed Well says he so soon as we were sat down What do you say of our Secularized Jesuit and his Book I told him his Book smelt strong of a Libel And as for him he is a man so full of Equivocation that he will hardly ever forget his former profession He would fain have us believe that his design is to make a Satyr against the French Protestants whom he charges at random with many crimes and yet when he comes to cast up his reckoning one would swear he set Pen to paper for no other end but to write in their praise and to let after-ages know That the Huguenots or Calvinists as he is pleased to call them were far honester men and better Christians than their enemies the Papists For what is it he omits for the advantage of those he himself acknowledges to be true Protestants Lewis de Bourbon Prince of Condè had a strength of parts a constancy and greatness of mind worthy his high Quality of Prince of the Blood He had the courage of a Hero and as much Wit as Valour He had a largeness of Soul and of Understanding equal to the greatest men of former ages and ought to be reckoned amongst the chiefest Men of the Royal house of Bourbon had he not spoiled so many rare Qualities which made him one of the most beloved men in the World by unfortunately dying a Huguenot The Lady de Roye his Mother-in-law and Eleonor de Roye his Wife were both very wise Women couragious and of great vertue but both these likewise the most zealous and resolute Huguenots of their time Cardinal Odet the elder of the three Brothers of Coligny was one of the handsomest men in France and who got the greatest love and esteem of any man at Court for his Wit and Learning for his Prudence and Ability in the management of Affairs for his sweet and obliging Deportment and for his magnificence and wonderful generosity He had certainly been one of the greatest and most accomplished Prelates of the Kingdom had he not disgraced his Coat and Character by Heresie in becoming a Calvinist The Chancellor Michael de L'Hospital was a man of extraordinary merit It is not to be denyed but that he was one of the most considerable men of his time in all curious and substantial knowledge and in all the perfections of Moral Virtues But after all this we neither can nor ought to conceal what eclipsed the beauty of so many raâ—e Endowments which was that he openly countenanced Calvinism Iaâ—es du Bosc of Esmendreville second President in the Court of Aids of the Parliament of Roüen a Man of high Birth and great Worth disgraced all his good Qualities by an obstinate adherence to the Huguenot party Francis de la Noüe surnamed Bras de Fer was one of the bravest men of his time as he has evinced by a thousand noble Exploits He was not only equal to the Stoutest but to the wisest and most knowing Commanders of old Iasper de Coligny Admiral of France a Man of Method Wit and Courage quick and watchful bold a good Souldieâ— and great Captain was almost the only person that was a good Huguenot amongst all the people of Quality on his side Now we must know what Monsieur Maimbourgh means by a good Huguenot He explains himself very clearly in that passage where he commends the Queen of Nuvar Mother to Henry the Fourth These are the words She was a Princess that besides the perfections of her Body had so great a Soul so much Courage and Wit that she had deserved the glorious Title of the Heroess of her time had not Heresie which though at first she was hardly brought too yet at last she cleaved to with an unmoveable Resolution been so great a blot in her Scotcheon However we must allow her to have been a good Huguenot living up in all appearance to the greatest Piety and Regularity For as to the other great Persons of this Sect except the Admiral they only carryed the name of Calvinists not very well knowing what they were themselves and to speak truly the Court was then very corrupt where there was little difference between Catholick and Huguenot but that the one went not to Mass nor the other to a Sermon As to any thing else they agreed vâ—ry well the one with the other for the most part having no Religion at all either in Devotion or the fear of God which this Queen Iean d' Albret bewails in one of her Letters Whence it appears That according to Monsieur Maimbourg to be a good Huguenot is to lead a virtuous Life contrary to that of a debâ—uched Court to be very devout in the fear of God and to grieve for the corruption of the Age. This is the notion he gives us of the true French Protestants whom he calls The good Huguenots He is very far from giving so advantageous a Character to those zealous Catholicks whom he makes the Bulwark of his Church against the pretended Heresie of the Protestants He affects the contemptuous compellation of little King when he speaks of Francis the Second of whom he says in another place That he had conceived so great a prejudice against the Huguenots that he bound himself under a solemn Oath to drive them all out of the Kingdom The Reign of the little King Francis The little King Francis being dead c. At the death of the little King Francis c. And what doth he not say of the Queen Katharine de Medicis the other scourge of the Calvinian Heresie He has represented her as the most wicked of all Women As he says She had Principles that favour'd
which Aristotle calls Iust Griefs we are apt rather to pity than blame men for the faults they have committed I am well assured Monsieur Maimbourg will not deny but that the Prince's integrity has been put to the severest tryal For he confesses that the Queen broke her word with him in a matter of the Highest Consequence and that the Duke d' Anjou had passed a cruel Affront upon him which touched him to the quick Besides the Prince knew upon very good grounds that his enemies were about to seize his Person a second time It is true they talked only of shutting him up in Prison during life But he could not forget that they were not men to be satisfied with so little when once they had got him in their hands For when he was first in Prison they condemned him to lose his Head by the hand of the common Executioner And then it was manifest they designed the death of the Admiral his great Friend and of a Million of innocent Persons more Suppose it therefore to be true that at the sight of death and of so many Injuries and so great a spilling of Blood the Prince's head was a little turned and that being intent upon saving his own Life and Honor and the Lives and Honor of so many brave Men as were engaged with him c. he forgot that he could not without a want of respect to his King attack his Ministers how wicked or injust soever they might be supposing this to be true ought he to be used after that insolent manner as Monsieur Maimbourg treats him Is he the only Hero the only true Christian that has discovered his Infirmity under so heavy a Temptation And when is it that a Fault is most excusable if it be not when a Man is hurryed away by such violent storms 3. But I cannot endure that so glorious an attempt should be blemished with the least Imputation The Prince by his Birth and the great Concern that engaged him in was under a particular Obligation to watch for the preservation of the Crown and the Blood Royal all the World must grant it It is most certain that the Princes of the House of Lorrain aimed at the Crown under a pretence that it belonged to them as the lawful Successors of Charlemain and that they only waited a fit opportunity to possess themselves of it Experience shews plainly that he was not deceived when Henry the Third to escape the ambitious Attempts of the Duke of Guise Nephew to the Cardinal of Lorrain was forced to run from his Palace and his capital City where the Duke had made every body against him and where they shewed the Suissers with which they intended to make him a Monks crown when they had taken away that of a King The Prince knows moreover that the Cardinal of Lorrain to compass his wicked Design was resolved to rid himself of all the Princes of the Blood whatever it cost him They had thoughts of stealing away the Queen of Navar and her Son the first Prince of the Blood to destroy them in a most cruel and shameful manner by putting them into the Spanish Inquisition They had raised Six thousand Suisses to seize his Person put the Admiral to death and to root out all the Protestants that is the main Supporters of the Rights of Capet's true Line against the false pretences of the Mock-posterity of Charlemain The Prince who sees and knows all this is he not obliged to set himself with all his might against this Bloody Conspiracy of Strangers who are about to shed the Noblest Blood of France to supplant the Heirs of the Family and usurp their Place There is no question of it But things were come to such a pass that the Prince could no longer set himself effectually against the wicked purposes of the House of Guise by the common methods of Remonstrances and Petitions to his Majesty and by the course of Justice either in Council or Parliament For the Cardinal of Lorrain and his party swayed all in the Parliament and Council They had all the power at Court There was no coming to the King but by them They were so got into this young Prince who was at the most but sixteen years of age that he would hear nothing but what these people told him and blindly took their advice in every thing It was then absolutely necessary either that the Prince against his duty of Prince of the Blood and a faithful Subject should suffer all the Royal Blood to be spilt with that of all true French men and that the Crown should be usurped by Strangers or else that he should do something extraordinary and put Himself in a posture to overcome all the difficulties which hindred him from undeceiving the King making him to understand who were his real enemies and bringing them to condign punishment which could never be done without the assistance at least of several of his Friends and cutting off the six thousand Swisses who were to seize his Person and ruine all the honest party unless in short he would become a prey to the Cardinal when he should present himself before the King to request Justice I must confess the Protestant that is the Christian Religion never allows a Subject to take up Arms against his Soveraign upon any pretence whatever But a Prince of the Blood does not take up Arms against his Soveraign when he takes them up to no other end but to hinder Strangers from laying hands upon the Crown and changing the Succession It is true indeed that these Strangers taking the advantage of Charles the Ninth his tender years were predominant in his Court and that it is an odd sort of a way for a Subject to come armed before his King and to seize upon his chief Ministers before his face and as it were teaâ— them out of his arms But Prudence directs us of two Evils always to avoid the greatest And I do not think any one will dispute it in earnest but that to suffer a Kingdom to be taken from its lawful Heirs and all the Royal Family to be oppressed by Tyrants who have ingrossed their King for no other end but to destroy him is an evil infinitely greater than to come short for some little time of the Laws of good manners till the King and Kingdom were safe There are none but such as would be glad to have the way left open either to invade the Throne or Royal Authority whereby to work the overthrow of the State I say there are none but the ambitious and common Pests that have the impudence to perswade the King that to fail in these rules of Good manners when it is upon the utmost necessity and in prospect to save the Crown is to give a mischievous example and encourage Rebellion Extraordinary actions upon absolute necessity as this attempt of the Prince never ought to be drawn into example for ordinary proceedings which should always be
whose Name we have exhorted and advised them to condescend to the Conditions offered and given in upon the abovenamed Peace in kindness and for the good of this Kingdom and the satisfaction and aid of Christendom in general For these Reasons we declare and certifie that by the words they had before agreed upon with us for the finishing of the said Treaty and which were produced in the presence and by the command of his most Christian Majesty by the Lord Chancellor in order to the acceptance of the Peace importing That by long Services and a continued Obedience they had reason to expect the Kings favour which they never could procure by any Treaty even of matters esteemed of greatest importance for which in due time they might receive humble addresses with all humility and respect there was a clearer explication on his Majesties part and his Ministers reported to us by the Commissioners for the Peace Persons of great Quality appointed and put in with directions and power from his Majesty and his Ministers the sense and meaning of which is That they mean the Fort Loâ—is before Rochel and thereby to give assurance of the demolishing of it in convenient time and in the mean while for the â—aking off those other matters which rest by the aforesaid Treaty of Peace to the prejudice of the Liberty of the Town of Rochel without which assurance of demolishing and taking off the Garisons the aforesaid Deputies have protested to us that they had never consented to the continuation of the said Fort being directed and resolved to hold the Right of its demolition as they do by the present Declaration in confidence that the King of Great Britain will endeavour by his Mediations together with their most humble intreaties for shortning the time of the said demolition for which we have given them all the words and promises of a King they could wish for after we had laid before them that they ought and might rest satisfied therein In confirmation of which and what else we have above said we have Signed and Sealed this Present with our Names and Coats of Arms and made the same he Countersigned by one of Our Secretaries Given at Paris the Eleventh of February 1626. Signed thus HOLLAND D. CARLETON With the Seals under each of their Names And below By Command of my Lords AVGIER Our King pressed the performance of so Solemn a Promise for demolishing the Fort Louis to little purpose when they neither took notice of his sollicitations nor the obligation to which his Embassadors had tyed him up to see this Treaty of Peace executed You may perceive it by the Duke of Buckingham's Manifesto who at last landed upon the Isle of Rè with an Army to discharge the Royal Word of our Soveraign This is the Manifestò What share the Kings of Great Britain have always taken in the Concerns of the Reformed Churches of this Kingdom and with how much zeal and care they have laboured for their good is notorious to all Men the experiences of which have been as frequent as the occasions The present King my most honoured Lord and Master comes nothing short of his Predecessors in this Point had not the good and laudable purposes for their good been perverted to their ruine by those that were most concerned in their true accomplishment What advantages has he let slip What course has he not taken by his Alliance with France to enable himself to procure more eâ—fectually and powerfully the restitution of the Churches to their ancient Liberty and Splendor And what could be expected less from so strict an Alliance and so many repeated promises from the Mouth of a great Prince but Effects truly Noble and suitable to his high Quality But so far has his Majesty been after so many Promises and such strict ties of Amity from being able to obtain freedom and security for the Churches and restore France to Peace by reconciling those that breath nothing but entire obedience to their King under the liberty of the Edicts that on the contrary they have made use of the Interest he had in those of the Religion to deceive them thereby not only to disingage him from them but likewise to render him if not hated at least suspected in diverting the means he had appointed for their good to a quite contrary end Witness the English Ships intended not for the extirpation of those of the Religion but on the contrary an absolute Promise made not to employ them against that Party whiâ—h were nevertheless brought before Rochel and employed in the last Sea-fight against them What then could be hoped for from so powerful a Prince as the King my Master so grosly disappointed but a resentment equal in proportion to the injuries received But he forbore beyond all Patience Whilst he had hopes by other means to advantage the Churches he sought not to do it by force of Arms till he had been made the Instrument and Mediator of the last Peace upon very hard terms and such as never had been accepted of without His Majesties Intercession who interposed his Credit and Mediation towards the Churches to accept of it even with threats that he might save the honor of the Most Christian King upon assurance on his side not only of making good but likewise of bettering the terms for which he became Surety on behalf of the Churches But what was the event of all this but an abuse of his Goodness And which His Majesty looked upon as the chief remedy of all their Miseries has it not almost given the last blow to the ruine of the Churches It missed very narrowly by keeping up the Fort before Roâ—â—el the slighting of which was promised by the outrages of the Soldiers and Garisons and of the said Fort and Islands as well upon the Inhabitants of the said Town as upon Strangers who instead of being wholly withdrawn were daily increased and other Forts built and by the stay of the Commissioners in the said Town beyond the time agreed to make Cabals there and by means of the divisions they stirred up among the Inhabitants to set open the Gates to the neighbouring Troops and by other contraventions and breaches of the Peace it missed I say very narrowly that the said Town and with it all the Churches had given up the Ghost And for all this His Majesty yet contained himself and used no other Weapons against so many Affronts and Breaches of Faith but complaints and Intercessions till he had certain advice confirmed by Letters that were intercepted of the great preparations the Most Christian King had made to set down before Rochel And now what could His Majesty have done less than vindicate his Honor by immediately arming Himself against those that had made him Party to their false dealing and given proof of His Integrity and the zeal he has always had for reestabâ—ishing the Churches a Work which will be ever valued by him above all other things
that in words in which his heart gives him the lie And I beseech you consider what he adds to make us believe that the Roman Catholicks have not that belief which the Popes themselves attribute to them So far from that says he that our most Christian Kings who are known alwais to have been the most zealous asserters of the Catholick Faith and the chiefest Protectors of the Holy See to which they have inviolably held in all times notwithstanding all the disputes they have had with some Popes about temporal concerns and the rights of their Crown which they are bound never to relinquish our Kings I say have ever protested against this claim which is grounded upon a Doctrine that all our Doctors have ever condemned as point blanck against the Divine Law To this purpose may be seen the Remonstrances and Protestations which I have said that Charles the Ninth addressed to Pope Pius the Fourth upon the account of Queen Jane of Navarre as obstinate a Heretick as she was What can be said to such childish stuff Is it not an excellent way of arguing The Kings of France do not believe the Pope has that power over them as he challenges to him self therefore it is by no means the belief of the Roman Catholicks that the Pope has such a power so that Princes who are Protestants or protect such as are can be in no danger either of life or Crown from their Popish subjects The Remonstrances and the Protestations which Monsieur Maimbourg makes such a noise with did they prevail that more than half the Papists of France should noâ— rise against their King Henry the Third so soon as ever the Pope had thundred out his â—xcommunication against him This crowd of people of Churchmen and of Fryars who by Monsieur Maimbourg's own confession entred into a League with so much heat against this pooâ— Prince did they not make it appear plainly that the good Catholick subjects take much notice of the particular belief and the weighty Protestations of the French Kings when the Pope has pronounced Anathema The almost perpetual Conspiracies of our Papists against the sacred Majesty of our Kings and against their faithful Subjects are likewise a strong evidence of Monsieur Maimbourg's sound reasoning Do not the Catholicks of England plainly shew that they take these particular decisions of the French Kings for the rule of their Faith and of their practice But this assertion All our Doctors have ever condemned the Doctrine upon which is grounded the claim of Popes against Kings as directly opposite to the Divine Law is such a piece of confidence as it may be never was the like I must confess I could not have believed that what is said of the Jesuitical impudence could have gone thus far What then Is it that Anthony Santarel the Jesuite who has written That a Pope has power to depose Kings discharge their Subjects from the obedience they owe them and deprive them of their Kingdoms for Heresy nay if they governe negligently or are not useful to their Kingdom that Cardinal Bellermin who was likewise a Jesuite and has maintained That the Pope may absolve Subjects from their Oath of Allegiance and deprive Kings of their Dominion that a thousand other Priests of the same Society quoted in the second part of the moral Divinity of the Jesuits ought not to be reckoned among the Doctors of the Church of Rome that Monsieur Maimbourg pronounces so positively All our Doctors have ever condemned this Doctrine as directly opposite to the Divine Law But perchance Monsieur Maimbourg since he left the Society has almost as good an opinion of the Jesuits as their good friend sof the Port Royal No doubt he has taken up the same prejudice which these Gentlemen have done that those Jesuits are no other in the Harvest of the Church than the tares that annoy the good Corne and that they ought not to be reckoned among the Christian Doctors However he ought to have the best intelligence and know them better than any man At least he should not have forgotten that he was informed how the whole Sorbonne in a body declared it self in this point of the same judgment with the Jesuites upon the particular case of Henry the Third He should as little forget that Cardinal du Perron in one of the greatest assemblies of the World maintained with open face not in behalf of the Jesuits but of the whole Clergy of France and as the mouth of all the Prelates of the Kingdom that the Pope has all that power over Kings which the Jeâ—uâ—ts attribute to him Therefore not to sâ—ay longer upon these â—â—â—llings of Monsieur Maimbourg you may easily see says our friend that as much as it is false that the Protestants who abhor all those principles above mentioned are to be suspected by any King of any Religion whatever in whose Dominion they abide so far certain and undeniablâ— is it that Roman-Catholick Subjects of what Countrey soever from the cursed tenents oâ— their Religion ought to be dreaded by their Kings whether Protestants or favourers of such I told our friend interrupting of him that I was already fully satisfied of the second Article neither can I imagine how it is possible that any man in this Kingdom should doubt of it after the no less cleer then convincing proofs that our worthy Bishop of Lincolne has brought in his learned Observations upon the Bull of Pius the Fifth for the pretended Excommunication of our renowned Queen Elizabeth As to the Loyalty and honest intentions of the Protestants of France I am likewise fully satisfied by all that you hâ—ve said And I make no question but they that have been so good Subjects in a Kingdom where their Loyalty has undergon such rough Tryals will be all zeal and flame in the service and for the Honour of our good King who takes them into his Protection with so much charity and compassion But pray tell me before we part what do you think of a little story which Monsieur Maimbourg has printed at the end of his Libell under the Title of The Declaration of the Dutchess of York I could tell you a great many things upon this subject said our friend For I have the whole History of it I have it here in English But to speak particularly to it would force me to discover too many misteries It would carry us a great way and is much more proper for another time I will only tell you that this Declaration was drawn up for quite another person then the late Dutchess of York and it were easie to prove that the greater part of what is there said does not at all sute with this Lady It was from much a different principle to what is reported in this piece that she made so suddain a change of her Religion And they who were by when she lay a dying have testified of quite other thoughts then those they have made
Bailywick in distinction to that other place of the same nature which is granted by virtue of the Edict of 1577. When Henry the Fourth sent Commissaries into the several Provinces to see his Edict put in execution there was scarce found any considerable City or Town where the Commissaries did not acknowledge that the Exercise of the Protestant Religion had no need to be confirm'd or re-established because it had been used there in some one of the three years above-mentioned in so much that there were whole Provinces which had no need of those two places granted out oâ— pure favour I mean the two places of each Bailywick all the Cities and all the Towns of those Provinces claiming that Exercise by a better Title This is it which made the Bishop of Rodes Monsieur Perifix afterwards Archbishop of Paris in his History of the Life of Henry the Fourth to say that that Prince by his Edict of Nantes granted to the Protestants Liberty of Preaching almost every where But he granted them farther the means and full power of breeding up and teaching their Children Read as to that the thirty seventh particular Article It declares that they shall have publick Schools and Colleges in those Cities and Places where they ought to have the publick Exercise of their Religion The Edict having secured as you see the Exercise of the Protestant Religion secures also the condition of them who should profess it to the end that they might without any molestation each one according to his quality follow those Trades Employments and Offices which are the ordinary means of mens Livelyhood Indeed the thing of it self speaks this For it is plain that they do not grant in good earnest the free Exercise of a Religion who debar the persons that profess it the use of means necessary for their subsistence Nevertheless for their greater security Henry the Fourth hath declared to all Europe by his Edict that he would not that there should be any difference as to that point between his Protestant and his Papist Subjects The thirty seventh general Article as to that is express This it is We declare all them who do or shall make profession of the pretended Reformed Religion capable of holding and exercising all Conditions Offices Honours and publick Charges whatsoever Royalties Seigneuries or any Charge in the Cities of our Kingdom Countries Territories or Seigneuries under our Authority The fifty fourth Article declares that they shall be admitted Officers in the Courts of Parliaments Great Council Chamber of Accounts Court of Aids and the Offices of the general Treasurers of France and amongst the other Officers of the Revenues of the Crown The seventy fourth Article puts them in the same state with their Fellow Subjects as to all publick Exactions willing that they should be charged no higher than others Those of the said Religion pretendedly Reformed saith the Article may not hereafter be overcharged or oppressed with any Imposition ordinary or extraordinary more than the Catholicks And to the end that Justice might be done and administred impartially as the Edict explains it self the 30th 31st to the 57th Articles set up Chambers of the Edict in the Parliaments of Paris and Roan where the Protestant Counsellors ought to assist as Judges and Chambers Miparties in the Parliaments of Guienne Languedoc and Dauphine consisting each of two Presidents the one Protestant the other Papist and of twelve Counsellors an equal number of each Religion to judge without Appeal exclusive to all other Courts all Differences of any importance which the Protestants might have with their Fellow Subjects as well in Criminal as in Civil Matters In short this great Edict forgets nothing which might make the Protestants of France to live in peace and honor It hath not fail'd even to explain it self as to the Vexations which might be created them by taking away or seducing their Children For read the eighteenth general Article It forbids all Papists of what quality or condition soever they may be to take them away by force or by perswasion against the will of their Parents As if it had foreseen that this would be one of the ways which their Persecutors would use to vex and ruine them But the 38th Article goes farther yet That Wills that even after their death Fathers shall be Masters of the Education of their Children and consequently of their Religion so long as their Children shall continue under Guardians which is by the Laws of France till the 25th year of their Age It shall be lawful for Fathers who profess the said Religion to provide for them such persons for their education as they think fit and to substitute one or more by Will Codicil or other Declaration made before Publick Notaries or written and sign'd with their own hand You perceive then plainly continued our Friend that by this Edict King Henry the Fourth made the condition of the Protestants equal almost in all things to that of his other Subjects They had reason then to hope that they should be allowed to exercise their Religion to breed up and instruct their Children in it without any disturbance and that they should have as free admission to all Arts Trades Offices and Employments as any of their Fellow Subjects This is very clear said I and I am much obliged to you for explaining to me what this famous Edict of Nantes is which I had heard so much discourse of But they who have no affection for the Protestants tell us that it is a Law which was extorted by violence and consequently is not to be kept I will not stand now said our Friend to examine whether that consequence be good you cannot but perceive that it is dangerous But I dare assure you that the Principle from whence it is drawn namely that the Edict was extorted by violence is very false I would not have you take my word for it But I will produce an unexceptionable Witness It is the Archbishop of Paris he who writ the Life of Honry the Fourth That one Witness is worth a thousand for he was a declared Enemy of the Protestants According to him The general Peace was made the Ligue extinguish'd and all persons in France had laid down their Arms when this Edict was granted in favour of them It is ridiculous now to say that it was extorted by violence there being then no party in all the Kingdom in a condition to make the least attempt with impunity Moreover that Prelate could not forbear owning expresly what it was mov'd the King to grant them that Edict It was the sense of the Great Obligations he had to them See the Book it self read the Passage The Great Obligations which he had to them would not permit him to drive them into despair and therefore to preserve them a just ballance he granted them an Edict larger than any before They called it the Edict of Nantes c. Indeed the Obligations he had to them were
and you will see that he repeats again his former Ingagements We declare that confirming as much as is or may be needful the Edict of Nantes and other Declarations and Acts given in pursuit of it c. That is to say That by this new Edict he signs once more the Edict of Nantes and for a more authentick confirmation of that important Law he ratifies together with it and seals with his Royal Seal all the Declarations which had already confirmed it If all this is not sufficient to render His Word Sacred and Inviolable there is nothing in the World can do it all things are lawful and it is to no purpose to talk of any Obligation or of any Bond in humane Society They cannot make void or break the Clauses of an Edict so well deserv'd by the Protestants so just and so wise in it self so solemnly establish'd so religiously sworn to and so often and so authentically confirm'd by three Kings without shaking all the Foundations of publick Security without violating in that Act the Law of Nations and silling the World with fatal Principles which by ruining all mutual Faith among men render Divisions in States incurable and consequently immortal Dear Sir said I I am much pleased with what you have inform'd me O how I shall dash them out of countenance who hereafter shall compare the condition of our Papists in England with that of the Protestants in France There is no sort of good usage but what is due to these in their own Country of which they have deserved so well by preserving that Family which now reigns there What have they not a right to hope for under the protection of an Edict so authentick But our Papists in England have they ever deserved a like protection Hath there ever been pass'd any Act of Parliament in favour of them like to this Edict On the contrary have not there been pass'd 1000 against them And not one but upon the provocation of some Sedition or open Rebellion You need but review the Fundamental Laws of the Land now in force against the Pope against the Jesuits Seminary Priests and in general against all the Papists There is decreed justly against them all the contrary that by the Edict of Nantes is promised to the Protestants You are much in the right said our Friend when you use the word justly on this occasion Princes and Protestant Magistrates cannot look upon nor by consequence treat Papists otherwise than as declared anâ— mortal Enemies of thâ—ir Persons and of their States They may disguise themselves as they please 〈◊〉 in truth every Papist is a man who takes the Pope to be the Soveraign Head of the Universal Church and believes that on that very account there is no Prince nor King nor Emperor who is not subject to his Censures even to Excommunication Now who knows not that it is a general Maxim of that Religion that they ought to treat all excommunicated persons as common Pests Upon this all Subjects are dispensed with from their Oaths of Allegiance to their Princes Kingdoms are laid under Interdicts and they are no way obliged to keep faith with Hereticks This is the original and damnable Cause of the many Conspiracies that have been made against the Sacred Lives of our Kings And if you will search our Histories you will find none of the forementioned Acts ever passed but upon some previous provocation given by the Papists Insolence or Rebellions of the Massacres in France and Ireland wherein they of Rome have so triumph'd and of the general consternation into which so lately our Nation was cast They would fain perswade us that these pernicious Maxims are peculiar to the Jesuits and some Monks But a little Treatise called The Disserence between the Church and Court of Rome proves undeniably that it is the judgment of all true Papists I could produce other invincible authority if this point were here to be proved There cannot then be too great caution against such persons whatever they pretend they do not design simply the exercise of that Belief which their Conscience dictates to them they grasp at the Power and aspire at Dominion they design whatever it cost them to have their Church reign once more here in England There is nothing they dare not attempt nothing they are not ready to act that they may compass it They are implacable Enemies who wait but for an opportunity to cut our Throats and we must needs be very senseless and stupid if after so many proofs as they have given us of their desperate malice we should repeal those Laws which tie up their hands You are much in the right I replyed but let us leave them for the present and return to our Protestants of France You have shewed me their Rights now let me understand their Grievances I am willing to do it said he but it is a little late and if you please being somewhat weary with my Journey we will defer it till to morrow I will expect you here in my Chamber at the same hour you came to day I told him with all my heart And as our Conversation ended there I think it not amiss to end my Letter also intending in another to let you know the present condition of those poor People I am your c LETTER II. I Did not fail to wait on my Friend at the appointed hour Sit down said he as soon as he saw me in the Chamber and let us lose no time in needless Ceremony I was just putting my Papers in order by which I would desire you to judge of the Protestants Complaints and the Reasons that have made them leave their Country But since you are here take them as they come to hand The first is a Verbal Process of the extraordinary Assembly of the Archbishops and Bishops held in the Province of the Arch-Bishop of Paris in the Months of March and May this 1681. It is a Piece which justifies a Truth that the World will hardly believe Namely That whereas the Protestants by Virtue of the Edict had the Exercise of their Religion almost every where they have it now scarce any where See the proof in the tenth Page of that Verbal Process where one of the Agents General of the Clergy of France alledgeth as so many publick Testimonies of the Piety of their King An almost Infinite Number of Churches demolish'd and the Exercise of the Religion pretended Reformed suppress'd I leave you to imagine what a consternation such a terrible Blow must have put those poor people into not to mention their Grief to see those Holy Places beaten down whose very Stones they took pleasure in instead of having the Heavenly Mannah shower down at the Doors of their Tabernacles at this present they are forc'd to go 30 or 40 miles through the worst of ways in the Winter to hear the Word of God and to have their Children baptized But let us go on to a
strange Acts have no respect for Henry the Great and his Edicts at least they ought to be more tender of the Glory of their own Illustrious Prince and not to expose him as they do to be ranked with that Emperor against whom the Holy Fathers have cryed so loudly Is it possible they can be ignorant that this method oâ— extinguishing the Protestant Religion is exactly the same that Iulian took to extinguish the Christian Religion I do not think said our Friend that they can be ignorant of a truth so well known especially since one of their eminent Writers hath publish'd the History of the Life of S. Basil the Great and of S. Gregory Nazianzen There they might have read in more than one place that it was likewise one of the Secrets of that Emperor to ruine the Christians by keeping them from all Improvement in Learning and to prohibit their Colleges and Schools and which the Father 's judg'd to be most subtle policy But their zeal transports them above the most odious Comparisons They stick not to give occasion for them every moment I will shew you an Example which will astonish you I have here light upon the Paper They are now come to take the measures of that barbarous and inhumane King who us'd Midwives of his own Religion to destroy the Race of the people of God in Egypt For by that Declaration of the 28th of February 1680 It is ordered that the Wives of Protestants shall not be brought to bed but by Midwives or Chyrurgeons who are Papists This they make to be observ'd with the utmost rigor so far that they put a poor woman in prison for being present at the Labour of her Sister whose delivery was so quick and fortunate that there was neither time nor need to call a Midwife That you may in few words understand of what consequence this is to our poor Brethren I need but acquaint you that the King of France in his Edict of the Month of Iune 1680 where he forbids Papists to change their Religion acknowledges himself what experience doth but too plainly justifie namely that the Roman Catholicks have always had an aversion not only against the Protestant Religion but against all those that profess it and an aversion which hath been improv'd by the publication of Edicts Declarations and Acts. That is to say that whatever pretence the Roman Catholicks make to the contrary they have always been and still are Enemies of the Protestants and that the Protestants ought to look to be treated by the Catholicks as Enemies After this what can they judge of the Design and Consequences of a Declaration which puts the Lives of their Wives and Children into those very hands which the King who makes the Declaration acknowledges to be hands of Enemies But farther the Declaration it self discovers that one of its intentions was to make the Children of Protestants to be baptized by Midwives or by Popish Chyrurgions And what mischief do they not open a way for by that The Protestants will hold that Baptism void which hath been administred by such hands they will not fail to make it be administred anew by their Pastors This shall pass for a capital Crime in the Pastors and Fathers and they shall be punished as sacrilegious persons who trample on the Religion in Authority the Religion of the King for the most odious Representations are still made use of Nay said I by this they will likewise claim a right from the Baptism's being administred by Papists to make themselves Masters of the education of their Children You are in the right said he and that Article ought not to be forgotten It is just will they say that they should be brought up in the Church which hath consecrated them to God by Baptism at least that they should be bred up there till they are of age to chuse for themselves and when they are of age they will say then that it is just they should as well as others be liable to the same Edict which forbids Catholicks to change their Religion Is not this enough already to make one forsake such a Kingdom A Christian for less than this would surely flie to the utmost Parts of the World But to proceed Here is that terrible Decree which fills up the measure as to what concerns the poor Children It comes to my hand very seasonably It is the Declaration of the 17th of Iune last This ordains that all the Children of Protestants shall be admitted to abjure the Religion of their Fathers and become Papists as soon as they shall be seven years old It declares that after such an Abjuration it shall be at the choice of the Children either to return home to their Fathers and there to be maintain'd or to oblige their Fathers and Mothers to pay for their Board and Maintenance where ever they please to live It adds extreme Penalties to be laid on them who breed up their Children in foreign parts before they are sixteen years old But I pray read over the whole Edict Upon that I took the Deâ—â—aration from our Friends hand read it and returning it to him again could not forbear declaring that I did not now wonder any more that the Protestants of France were in so great a Consternation They are much in the right said I Discretion and Conscience oblige them to depart out of a Country in which there is no security for the salvation of their dear Children They are of too great a value to be so hazarded What is more easie for them who have all the power than to induce such young Children to change their Religion There is no need for this to shew them all the Kingdoms of the World and their Glory A Baby a Picture a little Cake will do the business or if there want somewhat more a Rod will not fail to complete this worthy Converâ—ion In the mean while what a condition are their wretched Fathers in besides the most inexpressible grief of seeing what is most dear to them in the world seduc'd out of the Service and House of God they shall likewise have this addition of Anguish of having their own Children for their Persecutors For knowing as I do the Spirit of that Religion I doubt not but they will all prove rebellious and unnatural and renounce all that love and natural respect which is due to them whom they owe their Lives to They 'll give Law to their Parents they will oblige them to make them great Allowances which they will dispose of as they list and if their Fathers pay them not precisely at the time appointed I am sure no rigors shall be forgotten in the prosecution No certainly said our Friend and I could give you an hundred Instances if there were need Even before this merciless Declaration was made the Goods of Parents were seis'd upon exposed to sale to pay for the maintenance of their Children who had been inveigled from them and
to acquaint you with But it is late and I have produced but too much to justifie the French Protestants who forsake their Country from any suspicion of impatience or wantonness You see now what are the Reasonable Means that are used to convert them Those goodly means which have been employed are To despise the most Sacred Edict that was ever made by men to count as nothing promises repeated a hundred times most solemnly by authentick Declarations to reduce people to utmost Beggary to make them die of Hunger in my opinion a more cruel death than that by Fire or Sword which in a moment ends life and miseries together to lay upon them all sorts of afflictions to take away their Churches their Ministers their Goods their Children their liberty of being born of living or of dying in peace to drive them from their Employments their Honors their Houses their native Country to knock them on the head to drag them to the Mass with Ropes about their Necks to imprison them to cast them into Dungeons to give them the question put them to the Rack make them die in the midst of torments and that too without so much as any Formality of Justice This is that they call Reasonable Means Gentle and Innocent Means For these are the Terms which the Archbishop of Claudiopolâ—s useth at the Head of all the Deputies of the Clergy of France in the Remonstrance they made to their King the last year when they took leave of his Majesty I must needs read you the passage here is the Remonstrance and the very words of that Archbishop Those gentle and innocent means which you make use of Sir with so much success to bring the Hereticks into the bosom of the Church are becoming the Bounty and Goodness of your Majesty and conformable at the same time to the mind of the divine Pastor who always retains Bowels of Mercy for these strayed Sheep he wills that they should be brought back and not hunted away because he desires their salvation and regrets their loss How far is this conduct from the rigor wherewith the Catholicks are treated in those Neighbouring Kingdoms which are infected with Heresie Your Majesty makes it appear what difference there is between Reason and Passion between the Meekness of Truth and the Rage of Imposture between the Zeal of the House of God and the Fury of Babylon In good truth cryed I to our Friend after the reading of this passage this is insufferable and I cannot forbear taking my turn to be a little in passion Methinks they should blush to death who call those Cruelties which have been executed upon innocent Sheep Meekness and that Rigor and the fury of Babylon which we have inflicted upon Tigers who thirsted after our Blood and had sworn the destruction of Church and State They plague and torment to death more than a million of peaceable persons who desire only the freedom of serving God according to his Word and the Laws of the Land who cannot be accused of the least shadow of Conspiracy and who by preserving that Illustrious Blood which now reigns there have done to France Services deserv'd together with the Edict of Pacification the love and the hearty thanks of all true French Men. And we have put to death in a legal manner it may be twenty wretched persons the most of which had forfeited their lives to the Law for being found here convinced by divers Witnesses who were the greatest part Papists of having attempted against the Sacred Liâ—e of our King and the lives of millions of his faithful Subjects Surely they would have had us let them done their Work let them have rooted out that Northern Heresie which they were as they assure us by their own Letters in so great and so near hopes of accomplishing But we had not forgot the Massacre of Ireland wherein by the confession of one of their own Doctors who knew it very well more than a hundred and fifty thousand of our Brethren in the midst of a profound peace without any provocation by a most sudden and barbarous Rebellion had their Throats cut by that sort of Catholicks whose fate they so much bewail Altho your Transport be very just and I am very well pleased with it said our Friend to me I must needs interrupt you to bring you back again to our poor Protestants What say you to their Condition I say answered I that there can be nothing more worthy compassion and that we must entirely forget all that we owe to the Communion of Saints if we open not our hearts and receive them as our true Brethren I will be sure to publish in all places what you have informed me and will stir up all persons to express in their favour all the Duties of Hospitality and Christian Charity To the end said he to me you may do it with a better heart at our next meeting I will fully justifie them against all those malicious Reports which are given out against their Loyalty and their Obedience to the Higher Powers Let us take for that all to morrow seven-night As you please said I so we took leave one of another and thus you have an end of a long Letter assuring you that I ever shall be Sir Yours FINIS The third Letter The French Protestants are no Antimonarchists SIR SInce you know the reason why this my third Letter comes so late I will not take up your time in excusing my long silence Our Friend being now recovered from his Indisposition which was the main stop hitherto we agreed upon a day when I came to his Chamber at the hour appointed I cannot tell sais he whether before we enter upon this matter to justifie our French Protestants in point of Fidelity towards their Superiours I should not impart to you several Letters which have since come to my hands wherein I have an account of several fresh Persecutions since August last I told him No For besides that what you related to me at our second meeting is more than enough to convince the greatest Infidel That the Mischiefs are at the height in that Kingdom and that there is no security of Conscience for the Protestants who stay there besides all this our Streets are full of instances of the new troubles they give them There is no Man but knows what was the event of the Marquiss Venour's Deputation wherein he gave a List of the cruelties used in Poictou against our poor Protestants He was forced to fly from his Estate and Country Every body has heard how many Gentlemen of good condition and several Ministers have been imprisoned for no other fault but their zeal for a Religion they believe to be the only true and safe one the exercise of which is likewise tolerated by one of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom as you have already so well made out In short we are assured by a thousand credible Witnesses as likewise by the
of our blessed Martyr King Charles the first Their famous Amyraldus likewise took occasion from the Martyrdom of our good King to Print an excellent Discourse of the Power of Kings where by the strongest Arguments taken out of the Word of God he proves beyond dispute That the Majesty and Person of Sovereign Princes ought at all times to be Sacred to all their Subjects We have likewise to the same purpose the Letter of their learned Bochart to Doctor Morley then Chaplain to His Majesty and now most deservedly Bishop of Winchester You may see there how this excellent person defends the Rights of all Crowned Heads He takes in there in the Compass of a few Pages the strongest things that can be said The force of all this is that the performance of these Protestants has exactly answered their Confession of Faith the Prayers of their Liturgy and what their Doctors have taught as often as there was occasion for it They have been always the first in assisting their Kings when there was need with their Lives and Fortunes Every Body knows how many mischiefs the Queen Catharine de Medicis did them Yet when the Guises had seized the person of Charles the Ninth who had nothing but Tears to oppose their violence as Mezeray well observes and that the Queen finding her self under the same streights with the young King had called for help upon the Prince of Condè and his Friends the Protestants came in from all parts and ventured all they had to set their Majesties at Liberty It is a remarkable Story Mezeray does all he can to diâ—guise the matter but so known a Truth could not but extort this confession from him The Queen writ two Letters the same day to the Prince full of pitty and good words recommending to him the safety of the Kingdom beseeching him to take compassion of the innocent tears of his King who was held captive by his own Subjects and that he would generously attempt his rescue aâ—suring him that he should be maintained in whatever he should do The same Historian confesses in his Chronological Abridgement That by these Letters the Queen who was then Regent gave to the Prince who was then a Protestant a just ground to take up Arms which he did so soon as he received the Order Then flew in like lightning to the assistance of the King and Queen the same Protestants that with so much rigour and violence had been persecuted by them He sent presently says Mâ—zeray to the Reformed Churches especially to those upon the River Loire to Bourges Poitiers and others more remote ordering them immediately to seize all the Passes and that for his part he was resolved to expose his person and all that was in his power to make good the Kings Commands and Revenge the injury done to his Majesty You have here Sir the true Cause of these Proteâ—â—ants first taking up Arms and as you see it was upon a glorious account For it was in short to succour their King whom stranger-Princes who aimed at his Crown as it appeared at last held Captive Besides all here was lawful They take not up Arms but by order of the Regent who promises the Head of the Protestants That he should be justified in all he did And she made her word good to him however the great credit his enemies had and the Queens inconstancy had for some time run down the credit of this glorious Action with the people For the King gave an authentick testimony of the Innocence and Loyalty of the Prince and his Friends upon this occasion It is by the solâ—mn Edict of 1563. where the King says That the sincere and true intent of our said Cousin the Prince of Conde may not be doubted we have said and declared and do say and declare That we esteem this our said Cousin as our good Kinsman faithful Subject and Servant as likewise We hold all those Lords Knights Gentlemen and other Inhabitants of Towns Communalties Boroughs and other Places of our Kingdoms and Countries of our Dominion that have followed assisted aided and accompanied him in this present War and during the said Tumults in what part or place soever of our Kingdom for our Good and Loyal Subjects and Servants believing and esteeming what was done before this by our sâ—id Subjects as well in regard of the taking up of Arms as the Articles of Justice agreed among them and the Judgments and Executions of the same was done with a good Intent and for our Service Henry the Third was their mortal Enemy He was the chief Author of that detestible Massacre where by the confession of the Bishop of Rhodes himself near a hundred thousand Protestants had their throats cut And yet all this did not hinder them from coming in to his assistance so soon as ever they saw his Crown and Life in danger They forgot that he had been their Persâ—cutor and remembred only that he was their King And all Europe knows that without their aid he had been lost He was shut up in Tours hard pressed by the Army of the Ligue which consisted as every one knows all of Roman Catholicks Already three parts in four of his party and those of the bravest as Mezeray assures us were slain and the Duke of Mayenne General of this Army of Parricides had made himself master of the Suburb when the Protestant recruits came This brave Captain says Mezeray speaking of Chastillon lodged his Men in the Isle in despite of their continual Firing upon him from every part of the Suburb and made them work so hard that they had covered themselves in less than two hours The Liguers so soon as they had discovered them and knew him by his face did well to cry To your Quarters White Scarfs this is none of your quarrel brave Chastillon we have no design against thee retreat it is against him that Murdred thy Father let us but alone and we will revenge his death adding several reproaches against the King more insolent than commonly upon such occasion Souldiers use to do Chastillon answered That he they spake so ill of was their King that it was for women to rail and that he would see the next day whether they were as good at fighting as they were at scolding But the Duke of Mayenne fearing to stand the shock of the Protestant Troops considering as Mezeray says That it might not be safe to encounter with old Souldiers that had been used to blows he quits all his advantages and marches silently away at three a clock in the morning Thus was Tours relieved and Henry the Third saved by the same Protestants to whom he had done so much mischief And by this the Protestants preserved the Crown to the Family of Bourbon fâ—om which it had been gone past recovery if Tours had been taken For indeed they that laid the siege and intended to dethrone their King were heads of that powerful Faction which as
the Bishop of Rhodes testifies would have broken the succession of the Royal Line And the General of the Army was own Brother to the Duke of Guise who as the same Bishop tells us designed the Crown for himself As for King Henry the Fourth Grand-father to our King as well as to the present King of France there is no man that understands the least of those Histories but knows it was his faithful Protestants that preserved him for the Throne and set the Crown upon his Head The Bishop of Rhodes acknowledges That this Great Prince had been bred up from his Birth among the Huguenot party and that they were his best support And indeed they expended their blood more than once to save his against the rage of the Ligue and the ambition of the Lorain Princes who would have usurped his right So soon as ever Henry the Third his Predecessor assassinated by the Fryar Iaques Clement was dead they did not do as Papists that were then in his Army For whereas these for the most part fell into Cabals and gave him a thousand troubles by their Seditious Resolutions which tended either to exclude him from the Succession or tear the Government in pieces the Protestants kept steady they immediately owned him for their King The Huguenot Nobility with the Forces they had brought which were all Protestants swore Allegiance to him presently They are the very words of the Bishop of Rhodes And when unhappily which cannot be enough lamented he forsook their Religion fearing the Papists should choose another King in his stead their Fidelity failed them not for all that they maintained his Cause with the same zeal whil'st divers â—apists continued to keep his Garrisons from him and armed several Assassins to take away his Life Peter Barriere says Mezeray had designed to kill the King because he heard some of the Clergy say That it would be an exploit worthy eternal praise and that would carry a man straight to Heaven When he was come to Lions with this resolution the same Popish Historian adds He communicated it to the Archbishops Vicar General to a Capucin Frâ—ar and to two other Priests who all approved of it and encouraged him to do it Mezeray tells us afterwards That Barriere having a little demurred upon the Kings having forsaken the Protestant Religion Christopher d' Aubry Curat of S. Andrè des Arces and Varade Rector of the Jesuits heartened him by their advice to pursue his Hellish Design of stabbing the King You know the story of Iohn Chastel one of the Jesuits Scholars to the same purpose how he wounded the King in the mouth with the stab of a Knife which he intended for his throat It is well known what share the Jesuits had in this attempt This young Desperate confessed that he heard them say That it was lawful to kill the King There were found in their Colledge several Pieces full of Invectives and most pernicious Propositions against the Honor and Life of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth his Successor then Reigning The famous Act of Parliament at Paris has eternized the Memory of this Execrable Attempt It Ordains That all the Priests and Scholars of the Colledge of Clermont and all others that stiled themselves of the Society of Jâ—sus should quit the Kingdom in fifteen days as corrupters of Youth disturbers of the publick Peace and Enemies to the King and Kingdom Which was done accordingly And it is fit I should tell you upon this how Cardinal d'Ossat bemoaned their loss by reason of the apparent advantage the poor Protestants had by it You may see it in the eighth Letter of his first Book these are his words It must needs give a Prince converted to the Catholick Religion whom we should have comforted and confirmed by all means possible great offence and prejudice against Catholicks when they that boast themselves the Pillars of the Catholick Religion have thus endeavoured to get him Murdered Whereas if there had been any pretence for Assassinates it should have been the Hereticks that should have procured it and seen it done because he had quitted and forsaken them and they had reason to apprehend him And yet they have attempted no such thing either against Him or any of the five Kings his Predecessors whatever slaughter their Majesties made amongst them You have here at once an authentick Witness of the exact Loyalty of the Protestants of France to their Soveraign how violâ—nt soever the Soveraign might have been and a dreadful warning for all Princes to consider the Spirit of Popery perpetually engaged in Murder and ready to spill the most Sacred Blood if they think it runs cross to their interest The death of this Great Prince Henry the Fourth is a precedent enough to make the heart of any Prince ake that is so unhappy as to have in his Dominion or near his Person these sort of common pests It was to much purpose to profess the Romish Religion while these Monsters out of a suspicion perhaps that his heart was not Roman enough never rested till they had pierced it by the hand of that abominable Villain Ravilliac who had been a Monk as the Bishop of Rhodes assures us And what he says of the hardiness of this wicked Fellow to suffer all without speaking a word plainly shews us who were those Devils and Furies that Inspired him with such cursed Thoughts He was taken in the very Fact says the Bishop of Rhodes after he has given an account of the Crime of Ravilliac being Interrogated several times by the Commissioners of Parliament condemned the Courts met and by Sentence torn between four Horses in the place of Execution after they had tormented him with hot burning pincers in the Breast Arms and Thighs without discoveâ—ing the least fear or grief in the midst of so great Torment which confirmed the mistrust they had that certain Emissâ—ries under pretence of Zeal had instructed and charmed him by false assurances that he should die a Martyr if he kill'd him whom they made believe to be a sworn enemy of the Church But I should not make an end this day if I were to take notice of all the Stories of the malice and fury of the Papists against such Princes as have not had the happiness to please them and give you all the proofs of the affection and untainted Loyalty of the Protestants for their Kings how little secure soever they have been to them However said I to our Friend do not conclude before you have quitted the Subjects from that suspicion which the proceedings of the present King of France has â—aised every where of the innocence of this poor people For according to the manner he has treated them within his Kingdom he must needs look upon them rather as his Enemies than his Subjects Must there not have been some failure on thâ—ir part and that they have entred into some conspiracy or are revolted
the Tyrant so as to make the whole Kingdom despâ—rate and then they had put all the Princes of the Blood from having any thing to do with the Government the Children of the houâ—e whose chiefest Interest it was to preserve King and State 3. This Illustrious Prince of Condè whom Mezeray represents to us of so sweet a temper and great a courage sincere and loyal an enemy to all tricks and cheats and detesting to do an ill thing and who for this reason cannot be suspected in this matter had got the Informations to be drawn by men of known unblemished reputation concerning the behavior of the Guises by which Information he had made it appear that they were guilty not only of many Oppressions Violences but had moreover a design to extinguish the Royal Line that they might possess themselves of the Crown having already got into their hands the Justice the Money the Garrisons the Souldiers and the hearts of the common people 4. Indeed the Guises declared publickly that Provence and Anjou belonged to them and it was a thing commonly known that they set men to work who were versed in History to find out their Genealogy in the Line of Charles the Great on purpose to challenge their right of Succession against the Descendants of Hugh Capet of which Francis the Second then Reigning was one as is likewise Lewis the Fourteenth who now Reigns It was because the Protestants opposed this design and that the business of Amboise as well as other contests which they had afterwards with the Guise Faction down to the Reign of Henry the Fourth were to no other end but to preserve the Crown to the posterity of Hugh Capet it was I say for this cause that the Protestants were called Huguenots from the name of Hugh Mezeray observes very well that this was always esteemed by them to be the original of this Appellation But they says he took this name for an honor giving it another sense as if they had been the Preservers of the Line of Hugh Capet whom they said the Guises intended to destroy that they might restore the Crown to the Posterity of Charlemayn of whose Issue they boast themselves to be A great man of the Popish Religion has made it appear that this is the only probable Etimology of the Name So that far from the Protestants of France taking it as a reproach they ought to be proud of it as a lasting Work of their inviolable Loyalty to their Kings and their glorious oppositions they made against the attempts of the Guises who aimed at the Crown 5. Besides that we have the Word of such a Prince as the most Renowned Prince of Condè who asserted it more than once in great Assemblies the whole Conduct of the Duke of Guise makes it evident what detestable Design this ambitious Family had When he had got Francis the Second into his hands He took upon him says Mezeray to equal himself with the Princes of the Blood and to give orders in the Military Affairs and the Cardinal his Brother to direct the Treasury whereas the ancient Laws of the Realm as the same Historian has very well observed Ordain That the Blood Royal shall have the preference before 〈◊〉 in matters of Government They had in a short time made a way for themselves to the Soveraign Power as Mezeray adds speaking of the Duke and the Cardinal and possessed themselves of all Charges and Places of Trust the Garrisons and the Treasury so ordering it that all this passed either through their own hands or through those of their Creatures When the King of Navar came to Court his Purvoyer could find no room for him in the Castle and the Duke of Guise who had taken up the next Apartment to the King told him plainly That it should cost the Life of him and ten thousand of his Friends before he would quit it as much as to say he would have the Preference before the first Prince of the Blood and in truth he did trample upon him The event shewed plainly afterwards that the Prince of Condè and his Friends understood very well that the Guises aimed at the Crown The Duke procured full power to summon all the Princes great Lords Captains and others of all Conditions to give them his Orders what they were to do to raise men immediately as many as he should think fit and generally to provide and order all things either in Ammunition or repairs of Fortifications in as ample manners as the King himself could do So that he wanted nothing but the name of King And Mezeray is forced to acknowledge that since the Mayors of the Palace there had never been such an Encroachment made by any French Man upon the Crown He takes notice moreover of the bitter Resentments the French had of an Edict so injurious to their King When the Queen-Mother intreated him to go strait to the Court which was then at Monceaux and not pass through Paris he took no notice of her Request but made his Entry in the Capital City of France by the Gate of St. Dennis in the midst of the Peoples Acclamations the Provost of the Merchants going before him All Ceremonies says Mezeray which ought to be paid to the King alone The Dukes death and the incessant opposition of the Protestants hindred him from going farther But his Son who succeeded him in his Ambition and in all his Designs made it appear upon the first occasion how far the Treacherous Intentions of this Family went He shuts up his King in the Louvre on purpose to lay him aside You have the Story of it in Mezeray's Chronological Abridgement under the year 1588. He put himself in the head of that powerful Faction which as the Bishop of Rhodes assures us designed to take away the Succession of the Royal Family The same Bishops tells us That this new Duke of Guise had thoughts of making himself King and that he endeavored it several ways 6. The Prince of Condè who was so well assured that the Duke of Guise Father to this Man had so foul a design did questionless look upon him with another eye then Maimbourg do's who would make us believe that he was in a very high degree Master of all the excellent Qualities which can contribute to make a great Prince without any fault that might Ecclipse the splendor of so glorious Perfections and that he was a truly Christian Hero At this rate a profound Dissimulation and horrid bloody Treason are to be reckoned as nothing The Prince of Condè profers to justifie his Innocence against his Accusers by Combat assuring himself to make them confess that it was they themselves who had conspired the overthrow of the Government and Blood Royal. This Defiance was chiefly intended to the Duke of Guise But this Duke would not take it to himself but deeply dissembling
the matter he commends the Prince his generosity and said He was likewise ready to justifie his Innocence though privately he took care to have him apprehended In good earnest Monsieur Maimbourg's Morals must be strangely depraved since he is no longer a Jesuit not to find any fault in a Prince guilty of so prosligate a Dissimulation and notorious Treachery And does he think if Lewis the Fourteenth ever comes to open his eyes he will think himself obliged to those that would make such a Man pass for a truly Christian Hâ—ro who has done his utmost to disappoint him of the Crown by taking it from his Ancestors and endeavoring to cut off the Illustrious Race of the Bourbon's If an â—nglishman should Canonize Cromwell and place him among the Hero's Can you imagine he should be well received at Court or that the King should repose any great confidence in his Loyalty Monsieur Maimbourg must know that the Prince of Condè being what he was could not look upon this pretended Hero otherwise than as a Monster He was obliged by the duty of his Relation his Honor Loyalty and all that was becoming a Great Mind with all his might to set himself against those wicked Designs which he saw the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorrain had so plainly layed Would you have had him stood with his hands in his pockets when he discovered so great danger and suffer Strangers to ruine the State and take the Crown away from his Family with a high hand 7. These Usurpers had laid their business so well and were become so absolute Masters of the Person the Mind the Authority and the whole Power of the young King that it was impossible to carry any Address to the King unless by their means and to do any thing against them to bring them to Justice but as one may say in the Kings presence who was continually in their hands and by consequence to redress a mischief that so absolutely required a remedy without resolving upon some great and extraordinary attempt Either therefore the Prince of Condè must have done what he did or else have suffered the Throne to be usurped and the Royal Family sacrificed contrary to that duty he owed to France to his King to Himself and to his whole Race If Monsieur Maimbourg will have it that the Prince of Condè should have let the Guises go on his King ought to look upon him as his mortal Enemy If he believes he did his duty let him retract and be ashamed of those unadvised words That he would have taken the Kings Lodgings by force as Affairs then stood to seize in his presence upon his chief Ministers was to attack the King himself and to seek to make himself master of his Person and Government In the condition matters were then it was the only humane means left to rescue the young King from slavery to give a stop to the Outrages of a Forain domineering Power or rather Tyranny and to preserve the Crown to its right Heirs If God was not pleased in his All-wise providence to give so good success to the attempt as was hoped it failed not nevertheless of doing some good It gave a check to the wicked designs of the Guises and made them sensible that whil'st they had to do with men of that Courage they should not purchase the Kingdom at so cheap a rate as they thought for Besides I must not conceal it from you that the Protestants were not the only Men that Lifted themselves under the Prince of Condè for this important Service to their Country and to the Royal Family several Roman Catholicks shared with them in the glory of this Attempt The famous Mezeray has published it to all the World So that Monsieur Maimbourg is 〈◊〉 out when he would make it a quarrel upon Religion And much 〈◊〉 unjustly is he mistaken when he offers to say that at the business of Amboise The Huguenots entred into a horrible Conspiracy against their King I am satisfied says I to our Friend and I am confident every honest man that knows as much as you have told me of this matter will look upon this Jesuits Imputation with amazement and detestation Pray give me an account now of the business of Meaux The French Protestants repâ—yed he are no less innocent of Conspiracy against their King in the business of Meaux than they were in that of Amboise The testimony of the eminent Cardinal d'Ossat is an invincible Defence to them in this Affair and puts them beyond the reach of Calumny But I suppose you would be throughly informed of this matter I will do it in as few words as possibly I can And I will take the account partly from Monsieur Maimbourg himselff partly from two other Popish Historians who have much a greater esteem in the World than he it is the famous President de Thou and Mezeray We will take it from the beginning You have not forgot what I told you at our former Meeting when I gave you an account of the first War the Prince of Condè was forced to make for rescuing the King at the earnest intreaty of the Queen-mother then Regent I shall not need to take off a thousand odious Reflections which Monsieur Maimbourg lays upon the French Protestants in relation to this War They are either the faults of some private persons who having acted contrary to the principles of the Reformed Religion were disowned by all sincere Protestants or false Suggestions which the solemn Edict of Charles the Ninth in the Year 1563. has sufficiently confuted the King there owning as done for his Service all that the Prince of Condè and his Friends had done in this first taking up of Arms. This noted Edict Ordains That the Protestant Religion should be publickly exercised in several parts of the Kingdom which the Edict names it puts all the French Protestants under the protection of their King in what part of France soever they should make their abode it Wills That every one of them when they come home should be maintained and secured in their Goods Honors Estates Charges Offices c. The Prince and the Protestants observed the Articles of the Treaty of Peace most exactly Monsieur Maimbourg tells us himself That all the places which the Huguenots held submitted to the King Nay we English have occasion to complain of their too great exactness in this point For they were the hottest in taking Havre de Grace from us which we had possessed our selves of only to give them succor against their Persecutors All their great Souldiers came against us to the Siege of this Town The Prince of Condè lodged all the while in the Trenches All the French says Mezeray went thither in great fury especially the Huguenots But their Adversaries dealt not so with them they broke the Edict every where in a shamful and barbarous manner This Illustrious Queen
any favour they built Citadels in the same places no Justice was to be obtained for them either in Parliament or Council they murdered them without restraiâ—t neither were they restored to their Estates or Offices These complaints were brought two or three times to the Prince of Condè and to Coligny who at two meetings had given this Answer both times That thoy ought to endure all patiently rather than to take up arms But when one of the chief Men at Court had given them certain notice that they were resolved to seize the Prince and the Admiral to confine the first to perpetual Imprisonment and bring the other to the Block Dandelot's advice who was bolder than the rest put them upon a resolution not only of defending themselves but likewise to attack their Enemies by open force and for this end to drive the Cardinal of Lorrain from the King's presence and cut off the Suisses They were six thousand Suisses they had raised under pretence of hindring the Duke Alva's passage but indeed to destroy the Protestants as Monsieur Maimbourg himself sufficiently hints and as I shall plainly shew you from a remarkable passage of Monsieur de Thou Which passage shall likewise serve to confirm what Mezeray has told us That one of the chief men at Court gave certain notice to the Protestants that they were resolved to seize the Prince and the Admiral And to convince Monsieur Maimbourg of the greatest Impudence and at the same time of the highest Injustice done to a Prince that was the Hero of his age See but how this Jesuit relates to us the occasion and motive of that he calls The business of Meaux The Prince was always in hopes that the Queen would have procured for him to be Lieutenant General over the whole Kingdom That she had promised to bring him to the point he aimed at when the Treaty of Orleans was made Tho she was no ways inclined to put so great a charge in his hands but said it only to fool him She was resolved to set the Duke of Anjou upon him who was the dearest to her of all her children And she instructed him so well that when the Prince of Condè came some days to the Queens Supper Monsieur who watched for an opportunity to affront him took him aside to a corner of the Reom where he treated him in a strange manner so far as to tell him in a threatning way laying his hand upon his Sword That if ever he thought of this place contrary to that respect he ow'd him that he would make him repent it and make him as inconsiderable as he aspired to be great After this the Prince touched to the quick disputed no farther with himself what party to take though he concealed his resentment at that time to make his Revenge the surer of which from that moment he laid the design And this was the true cause of the second Troubles which he cloaked with the pretence of Religion which had the least share if any at all in that violent resolution which he took and in that unhappy and abominable attempt at Meaux Indeed he had already had two Meetings with the Colignies chief of his Friends one at Chastillon and the other at Valery where nothing was as yet agreed upon But presently after Monsieur had used him thus and that he found himself thus tricked by the Queen and all his credit at the Court lost he went and had a third at Chastillon And there it was that without discovering any thing more than what had been said in the two former about the Ligue which they said was made to oppress and ruine their Religion they resolved to take Arms not only to defend themselves but likewise to assault and to cut in pieces the Suisses which the King had caused to be raised and to make themselves Masters of the whole Kingdom by seizing upon the Sacred Person of the King the Princes his Brothers and the Queen Really this is intolerable I could never have thought so private a Person as Monsieur Maimbourg could have dared to blast by so impudently false a story the memory of so great a Prince in the face of his Highness the Prince of Condè now living who no doubt shares in so foul a Disgrace cast upon one of the most renowned of his Ancestors 1. Mezeray gives Monsieur Maimbourg quite another reason of the second Troubles and to find out those that were the cause of them there was no need that he should go to make of one of the sincerest Princes the World ever had a Hypocrite and a wicked Person that made a stale of Religion using it for a cover to his pernicious Designs and to a mad unbridled Ambition and Revenge Philip the Second King of Spain says Mezeray contrived a second Civil War in France the severe effects of which had almost put it to its last gasp See from a Papist Writer what was the true incentive of discord in these second Troubles Surely then Monsieur Maimbourg has some secret malice against the house of Bourbon to impute as he does the crime of a Blood-thirsty King to the generous Prince of Condè 2. But with what face dare he say that they resolved at the third meeting of the Protestants to take arms though at that time they discovered no more than what they had done at the two former where by the way no such thing was concluded With what face dare he say this who is told by Mezeray That in this last meeting they determined to resist force by force forasmuch as one of the chief men at Court gave certain notice that they had resolved to seize the Prince and the Admiral In short the learned President de Thou whom he quotes some times in his History could have informed him of all that was needful to hinder him for ever doing so cruel an injustice to so excellent a Prince For he tells us in the beginning of his 42 Book That the Protestants met one and another time with the Prince of Condè the Admiral and d' Andelot at Valery first and afterwards at Chastillon upon Loin That after having well discussed the matter Pro and Con they at last unanimously agree to try all means before they came to the last Remedy that is to take Arms But that after this Provocations growing higher especially by reason of the Suisses which the King would not dismiss though he was entreated to do it and that the Duke d' Alva was now entred into the Low-Countries There came Letters from one of the great Lords at Court who was a Friend to the Protestants by which the Prince was advised that it was determined in a private Councel that they intended to seize upon him and the Admiral to cramp the one in Prison and cut off the others head that at the same time they would put two thousand Swisses into Paris two thousand into Orleans and as
many into Poictiers that then they would repeal the Edict and set out others for the extirpation of the Protestants For that reason it was according to Monsieur de Thou that they came to a resolution and not as Monsieur Maimbourg reproaches them without proof or ground that they might seize the Sacred Person of the King his Brothers and the Queen The Guises Monsieur Maimbourg's Hero's are only capable of such Exploits but to present their most humble Petitions to the young King in such a posture as might secure them from the rage of their irreconcileable Enemies and to drive the Cardinal of Lorrain from the Court who had sworn the ruine of the Princes of the Blood and sought the extirpation of the Huguenots for no other end than because they opposed with all their might this detestable Design as Mezeray very well observes I fancy it will not be amiss to read the passage to you The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorrain looked upon the Protestants as a hindrance to the establishment of their Grandeur They easily foresaw if the King should happen to dy of that sickness which they apprehended very dangerous they should have no farther pretence to keep the Authority longer in their hands which then they held in his name the Duke of Orleans that was to succeed him being a Minor and that therefore the Princes of the Blood had all the reason in the World to take it from them They knew likewise very well the weakness of these Princes and thought they had strength enough to order them like the others could they but hinder the gathering together of the Factions of the Religionaries who came to joyn them from all parts for which cause they made haste to disperse them before they should be able to form themselves into a Body which would certainly prove very sturdy and formidable and might serve as a retreat for all the rest Some thought and indeed their private dealings and those they confided in made it appear that they had attempted to draw them on their side nay they had a mind to declare themselves head of this Party if the Princes of the Blood should have got the better at the beginning but that the Religionaries did always refuse to come in to them It was they say one of the chief reasons why they set themselves upon their ruine This Cardinal thirsting after the Blood of the Huguenots because they would not betray the Interest of the Blood-Royal and who was wonderfully desirous of troubles as necessary for the setting a Value upon his Power and placing his Nephews in their Fathers Credit became an unmoveable obstacle to the Kingdoms Peace Besides the Prince knew that he was to fall into the hands of this merciless Prelate who had caused him to be condemned to have his head cut off under Francis the Second and that the whole Royal Family was in danger especially the House of Bou-bon if he made not haste to prevent it in seizing upon his person that he might rid the Court of him Therefore he takes Horse with about four hundred of his Friends to make his way to fall at the Kings Feet where he might offer his ‑ complaints of the severe Persecutions the Protestants lay under all over the Kingdom and to remove from his Majesties presence this publick Pest who had ingrossed him to himself and imposing upon his tender years possessed him with Resolutions so pernicious to the Princes of his Blood and to his best Subjects The Queen upon the news of this withdraws the King to Meaux a town of Brie By her Order the Marshal of Montmorancy goes to while off the Prince till six thousand Suisses should be got into Meaux The Constable argued exceeding well for staying at Meaux forasmuch as there was not the least danger to the Kings Person At first says Mezeray the Queen liked well of this advice but within an hour after her mind was altered either through the inconstancy of her Sex or the Cardinal of Lorrain's dissuasions They say that this Prelate being very desirous of troubles as requisite to put a value upon his power and to establish his Nephews in their Fathers Credit suggested as if Montmorency held Intelligence with the Prince That she and her Children would be delivered into their hands representing to her likewise That if this should not so fall out yet she was to consider That by staying at Meaux she would be confined and helpless under the imperious Austerity of the Constable who set himself to keep their Majesties in so inconsiderable a Town for no other end than to have them at his own disposal At the same time to encrease her suspicions his Emissaries spread a Rumour about the Court That the Constable and Chancellor had sent a secret dispatch to the Prince and were to deliver him up one of the Gates of the Town The Queen startled at the Cardinal's Suggestions and it may be at those false reports called the Council a second time in the Apartment of the Duke of Nemours who was strongly tyed up by Interest with the House of Guise There it is resolved by the advice of this Duke that it was fit to carry the King to Paris and to be gone presently aftâ—â— Mid-night It was to no purpose that the Chancellor layed before the Queen the Inconveniences that would happen upon this course and cryed out That they exposed the Sacred Person of the King to the utmost peril that they betrayed the publick Interest for private ones that they cut off all means and hopes of accommodation and that the Ambition of some was engaging the Kingdom to the necessity of entring into an Implacable War The Cardinal 's evil Counsel carryed it The King went away in the midst of seven or eight hundred Horse flanked with the Six thousand Suisses At peep of day they discovered the Princes Troops who were not in all above Four hundred Horse The Kings Troops seeing them in their way and that they cut off their passage made a Halt to receive Orders In the mean time the Prince knowing that the King was there advanced leisurely with his Horse and asked to speak to his Majesty But the young King would not vouchsafe to hear him but kept himself all the while covered under the Guard of his Suisses The Prince enraged that they would not suffer him to lay his just Complaints before the King changed both his Countenance and his Purpose says Mezeray and put himself in a Posture to vent his Fury upon the Suisses who stood here in his way and whom he knew his enemies had appointed to destroy him and all the Protestants But what could Four or Five hundred men do against above seven thousand All ended in some slight Skirmishes of words rather then blows as appears from Monsieur Thou's History who no doubt had better ground for what he said
directed by the Laws and Customs of the Country Had the business succeeded it had been easie for the Prince and his Friends to have excused to the King this indecent Violence and justified by the event of the sincerity of their Intentions in the same manner as by the event it proved that when Charles the Seventh whil'st he was Dauphin took up Arms it was neither against the King his Father nor against the Kingdom which was the Example that was brought to resolve the scruples of some of the Prince's Friends who were afraid of the odious Reflections which might be made upon the attempt at Meaux how necessary or innocent soever it might be in it self And Monsieur de Thou who gives us an account of this particular tells us likewise that the design the Prince and his Friends had in arming themselves was to drive from the Helm the Enemies of the publick Peace to undeceive the young King and to settle all things quiet in his Kingdom But I ought to read you the whole Passage since it is in my hand Objiciebatur Cardinalem semper Regi ejusdem c. It was objected that the Cardinal always beset the King and that the Swisses were continually about him whom if they should attack in these Circumstances they would not seem to assault the Cardinal and the Swisses but the King himself This must no doubt draw the utmost envy of all men upon them but the King whose favour they should seek would never forgive them To this d' Andelot who was almost always for the warmest Counsel answered That the intention of the Protestants would be judged by the event as formerly Charles the Seventh when he was yet but Dauphin made it appear to all the World by the conclusion of the War that he fought neither against his Father nor his King Nor indeed could any one imagine that a Body made up of French should conspire their Kings ruine For though we have an account of the Conspiracies of some single persons an universal revolt was never yet heard of But if fortune should favour their first attempts there would be an end of a fatal War which being crush'd at the beginning the enemies of our common repose might be removed from the Government and the King of whom being better informed of things a confirmation of the Edicts might be obtained and a firm peace setled in the Kingdom Here is enough to convince all the World of the Insolence and Malice of Monsieur Maimbourg in treating the renowned Grandfather of the present Prince of Condè so rudely in an attempt which as it had nothing in it contrary either to the Principles of Christian Religion or good Politicks was doubtless every way glorious and deserves the highest commendations The Prince appeared in this a true Hero He comes to the succor of his King and Country and all the honest part of the Kingdom and with five or six hundred men he attempts to cut off the six thousand Swisses who were to be the Tools and Bulwork of a Forain Tyranny He had not failed of success had not the contrivances of the Queen who then favored the enemies of the State disappointed him of the Conquest But God was not yet pleased to give repose to France The King retreats from Meaux to Paris against the advice of the wisest of his Councel And the Prince to hinder the utter ruine of a Party that was the only check to the wicked designs of the House of Lorrain found himself obliged to raise a small Army to give Battle at St. Dennis to besiege and to take several Towns But the deep respect he had for his King made him and all his party lay down their Arms at a time when he was just ready to take the Town of Chartres and to have reduced all the enemies of the State So soon as ever they proposed any safety for his Person and for the security of his faithful Protestants who were the only true Supports of the Crown against the ambition of the Guises he immediately quitted all his Advantages and accepted of the Peace which was offered him This was the substance of the Articles says Mezeray That they should fully and peaceably enjoy the Edict of Ianuary without any Qualification or Restriction whatever That they should be put and maintained under the Kings protection as to their Estates Honor and Priviledges That the King would esteem the Prince for his good Kinsman and his loyal Subject and Servant and all those that followed him for good and loyal Subjects You see now what this business of Meaux was with the Consequences of it that Monsieur Maimbourg has made such ado about so as to make it pass with the affair of Amboise for horrible Conspiracies which the Huguenots have contrived against the Kings of France To hinder the Princes of the House of Guise from usurping the Crown of the French Kings and taking it from Lewis the Fourteenth in the person of his Predecessors and destroying the whole Race of the Bourbons must pass according to this man for contriving horrible Conspiracies against the Kings of France Thus It is that he courts his Hero and complements the present Prince of Condè But what does he mean said I to our Friend when he says moreover Not to speak of their cruel Rebellions that have cost France so much blood and the mischievous intelligences they have held with the enemy to rid themselves of the Monarchy and with open face set up a Commonwealth as they have done more than once Our Friend answered me That since he distinguishes this from the pretended Conspiracies of Amboise and Meaux he must by the Rebellions and Plots he Imputes to these Protestants needs mean the other Troubles that happened after these two first to the Reign of Henry the Great and those that were revived in the beginning of the Reign of Lewis the 13th Indeed he accuses them upon this account that contrary to the Treaty they had made the Protestants refused to surrender to the King Sancerre Montauban Milhaud Cahors Albi and Castres but especially Rochel the Rebellion of which Town says he openly maintained by the Heads of the Huguenot party who were resolved to make it their chief place of strength was the true ground of the breach because it would not admit the Garrison which the King would have put in there but received several of the chief Leaders of the Huguenots went on with the Fortifications and gave the Court reason to believe that the Prince and the Admiral were preparing for a War Upon which it was resolved to surprise them and carry them away The Marshal de Tavannes a great Friend to the House of Guise and Confident of Queen Catharine undertook to do the thing whil'st the Prince was at his house called Noyers in Bourgoyne But the matter being discovered just as it was to be executed the Prince made his escape to
her Priviledges to avoid the admitting those Men who came for no other end but to destroy her Monsieur Maimbourg is scandalized at it under pretence that the Cardinal of Lorrain who did all at Court had invested them with Regal Authority who came to take away their Religion Liberty and Lives But a scandal very absurdly taken There is no man but sees it plainly and what I shall tell you hereafter will make it more plain I will not enter into the Particulars of this unhappy War where the Prince of Condè was killed in cold Blood after the Battle of Iarnac and which concluded witâ— a Peace yet more unfortunate They allowed in this Peace several very great Advantages to the Protestants but it was only to have an opportunity to cut their Throats in the most Treacherous and Inhumane manner that was ever heard of To say the truth says Monsieur Maimbourg as the Queen made this Treaty it is very likely that such a Peace as this was never really meant on her side who concealed her Intentions and did not grant so many things to the Huguenots otherwise than to make them lay down their Arms that she might fall upon such as she had a mind to be revenged of the Admiral especially upon the first favorable occasion that should offer it self which she thought she had met with at last when she had prevailed with the King to take that horrid Resolution which was executed upon that Bloody and Accursed Day of St. Bartholomew Under pretence of Marrying the Prince of Navar to the Lady Margaret Sister to Charles the Ninth all the Protestants that were of any Quality were drawn to Paris The Queen of Navar was taken away in five days by a hot Fever occasioned as many believed by the art of the Perfumer Messer René a Florentine suspected for a skillful man at poysoning as Monsieur Maimbourg himself acknowledges At last to make the Feast more solemn they had the Admiral murdered by an old retainer to the House of Guise called Louviers Monrevel who shot him with a Carabine and they concluded it with this cruel Butchery which Monsieur de Perefixe Archbishop of Paris sums up in these words in his History of Henry the Great All the Huguenots that came to the Feast had their throats cut amongst others the Admiral Twenty other Lords of note Twelve hundred Gentlemen Three or four thousand Soldiers and Citizens and then through all the Towns of the Kingdom after the pattern at Paris near a Hundred thousand men A detestable action such as never was before nor never will be by the help of God the like But all the Popish World was of the Archbishop of Paris his mind witness what Mezeray says The holy Father and all his Court expressed a mighty joy at it and went in a solemn Procession to the Church of St. Lewis to give God thanks for so happy a riddance where the Cardinal of Lorrain who found not himself in such a transport of joy had placed over the door a Latin Inscription after the ancient manner giving the reason of this Ceremony They were not less rejoyced in Spain than at Rome where they preached up this Action before King Philip under the Title of The Triumph of the Church militant It is true that Monsieur Maimbourg Papist as he is could not bring himself to second this Joy of his High Priest and one of his Hero's the Cardinal of Lorrain But on the contrary he has highly condemned so shameful a Fact neither could he forbear to Declame in more than one place against those barbarous people that did it My Reader says he ought not to expect from me an account of all that was done upon this unhappy day which I wish with all my heart had been buryed in the shâ—des of eternal Oblivion So soon as it rung the Warning Bell at the Palace there were more than Fifty thousand men Armed running up and down the Streets like so many Furies let loose breaking open doors crowding into the Houses that were marked out or that they themselves had observed making the Air sound with the hideous Cries that were heard from the groans of Men and Women that were assassinated and the Oaths and Blasphemies of those that murdered them Dispatch kill stab knock them down fling them out of the windows made Paris all that day which was upon a Sunday and a Feast a bloody Theater of Cruelty or rather an abominable Butchery by the slaughter of above Six thousand persons whose Blood ran down the kennels and their Bodies all gored with Wounds dragged into the River This was what we might reasonably expect from the brutish and blind rage of a Rabble when they are let loose to do what they please with impunity But that which we find in this altogether mis-becoming the French generosity which ought to be the proper character of the Nobility of the Kingdom especially those of the Highest Rank was that the Marshal de Tavannes the chief contriver of this Massacre and the Duke de Montpensier too warm a Catholick went up and down the Streets encouraging the People who were already but too much transported of themselves and setting them on upon every body sparing none The King himself who saw out of his Chamber-window the mangled Bodies floating upon the Water was so far from being troubled at the sight that he shot with a long Gun though to no pâ—rpose cross the River at those who they had told him were got into the Faubourg St. Germain to save themselves from the Massacre and cryed out as loud as he could stretch his voice that they should pursue and kill them However he was afterwards extreamly trouble at it and to excuse himself from the imputation of so cruel an Act he caused Letters to be writ the same day to all the Governors of the Provinces that all which was done at Paris upon St. Bartholomew's day was the effect of an old Quarrel that was bâ—tween the Duke of Guise and the Admiral which drew on such deadly Consequences it being impossible to hinder them during that rage the Parisians were then stirred up to by running into Arms for the Guises against the Huguenots However this excuse passed but for a little while They made the King sensible that besides it would not be credited it would expose his Majesty to the contempt of his Subjects when they should see by this that he had not authority enough over the Guises to be obeyed by them nor power and resolution to punish so great a fault Wherefore wholly changing his mind he appointed the Tuesday following to appear himself in Parliament where he declared the same which he likewise caused to be writ to all the Governors that this Massacre was committed by his Order though to his great grief for prevention of a Hellish Conspiracy which the Admiral with the Huguenots had entred into against his Person
and against all the Princes of the Blood thereby to possess himself of the Soveraign Power and of the Regality when they should at one blow have destroyed all the Royal Line The premier President Christopher du Thou though in his heart he abhorred so foul an action as that of St. Bartholomew's day and openly disclaimed against it all his life does yet undertake out of a flattery little becoming so great a Magistrate to commend it as the effect of a singular prudence and in his Speech to extol the King who to preserve the Government by suppressing those that would have overthrown it understood so well how to practice that excellent Rule of Lewis the Eleventh who was used to say He that knows not how to dissemble knows nothing of the art of Governing And the better to prove this Plot which gained but little faith then and that no body believes now they proceeded against old Briquemaud Marshal du Camp to the Princes Army against Caragnes Chancellor to the party and against the dead Admiral They were all three hanged the last in Effigy by something made up like him with a tooth-pick in his mouth as he was almost always used to have and the two others in person before the King and the Queen who would needs see the Execution out of the Town-house window They thought by this likewise to perswade the Princes whom they had a mind to draw over from that Party by making them believe That they had engaged with those who were their greatest enemies and the most profligate of all men What do you think says our Friend after he had read all this long story out of Monsieur Maimbourg what do you think of the enemies of the French Protestants and their dealings I assured him I was extreamly surprised and that out of respect to the quality of those that acted I durst not tell him all I thought But I heartily thank Monsieur Maimbourg for letting the World know that this pretended hellish Conspiracy charged upon the Huguenots to take away their good Name after they had taken away their Lives was but a shameful Story raised by a devilish malice to excuse a hellish action and for so freely censuring the meaness of the Premier President Christopher du Thou who was so base to commend that in publick which he abhorred in private and to countenance such a Story against the Dictates of his own Conscience All the World may by this easily discern the Spirit of Popery It is a Spirit of Murder and Lying It causes the shedding Rivers of Blood and it invents Lies to colour its Murders and to commit fresh ones by which Briguemaud and Cavagnes were hanged This is to say much in a few words says our Friend And if Monsieur Maimbourg had been constantly so ingenuous as he is upon this occasion his Book would be no Libel but a true and righteous defence of the Protestants Innocence All those dreadful things which he there alledges against them are the stamp of the same Spirit which vouches a Conspiracy to justifie the Massacre Neither was it harder for him to be assured of that than to satisfie himself that this last report was a meer Story This Story was as he says himself the first means his Church thought fit to use for the conversion of the young King of Navarre who was afterwards Henry the Great and the young Prince of Condè to the Roman Religion They likewise believed says he that this meaning the false rumour of a hellish Conspiracy against all the Royal Line would help towards the Conversion of the Princes by making them believe they were engaged with those that were their greatest enemies and the worst of Men. An excellent way of converting truly And becoming the Christian Religion I will now read to you what account Monsieur Maimbourg gives of Charles the Ninth's proceedings in the accomplishment of this excellent Work after as Christian a manner as it had been begun Whilst they were Massacring the Huguenots in the Louvre and all over Paris the King sent for those Princes into his Closet where after he had in short given them the reason of this bloody Proceeding of which they themselves had seen some part and which was yet in execution he tells them with a stern countenance imperious and threatning according to his custom that being resolved no longer to suffer in his Kingdom so wicked a Religion which teaches its Followers to revolt and even to conspire against the Person of their Sovereign he expected they should presently renounce this cursed Sect and that they should embrace the Faith which was always professed by the most Christian Kings from whom they had the honor to be descended and that if they refused to comply with him in this he would use them just as they had seen them used whose Rebellion and Impiety they had hitherto been directed by To this the King of Navarre answered with all respect that he was no ways obstinate but was ready to submit to instruction and sincerely to embrace the Catholick Religion when he should be convinced of the truth of it which as yet he was ignorant of The Prince of Condè answered That his Majesty whose Subject he was might dispose of his Life and Fortune as he pleased but not of his Religion for which he was accountable to God alone of whom he held it This answer given to a fierce and hasty Master put him into so great a rage that falling into hard words calling him ever and anon Seditious Mad-man Rebel and Son of a Rebel he swore by God that if he did not comply in that little time which he should give him he would have his life Nay more not being able to endure to see that in spight of all their endeavors to convert him this Prince should still continue unmoveable he drew his Sword and vowed he would destroy all the rest of the Huguenots that persisted in their Heresie beginning presently with the Prince of Condè And it was with much ado that the young Queen prevailed with him to lay by his Sword casting herself at his feet to entreat him with hands lifted up and tears in her eyes but to forbear a little while He yielded but at the same time making the Prince be brought before him he cast two or three thundring looks at him without saying any more than these three words to him in a threatning and frightful tone Mass Death or the Bastile and so turning away he dismissed him This wrought so strongly upon the Mind of the poor Prince and so terrified him that he solemnly abjured Calvinism in the presence of his Uncle the Cardinal of Bourbon as had done before him the King of Navarre the Lady Catharine his Sister and the Princess of Condè You see what were the motives that converted the Princes And this detestable Massacre was the introduction of the fourth War upon the Protestants as Mezeray
says As to the Fact our Jesuite Jesuite as he is notwithstanding condemns it Neither has he the Heart to charge the Huguenots with these new troubles The King raised several Armies to extirpate those that had escaped the Massacre They layed the two so much talked of Sieges of Rochel and Sanvane which were raised at the arrival of the Polish Embassadors come to seek for the Duke of Anjou elected King of that Kingdom whither he went Charles the Ninth falls very ill The Prince of Condé flies into Germany and returns again to the Protestant Communion The King dies after a thousand remorses of Conscience upon the account of St. Bartholomew's Massacre For we are told That oftentimes he fancied that he saw a Sea of Blood flowing before his Eyes and that they should hear him from time to time cry out Ah! my poor Subjects what have ye done to me They forced me to it Then though too late he acknowledg'd that it was not the Protestants as the Jesuite Maimbourg so maliciously reports but the Montmorency's and the Guises who had been the real Authors of all the Troubles He had owned says Mezeray That the Houses of Montmorency and Guise were the true causes of the Civil Wars The King of Poland who was afterwards called Henry the Third returns into France and succeeds Charles the Ninth The Protestants apply to him for Peace and at the same time That Atheism and Blasphemy may be exemplarily punished and that the Ordinances against enormous and lewd Whoring which drew down the Wrath of God upon France might be execuâ—â—â— â—ut says Mezeray this untoward reproof made the Huguenots mere haâ—ed at Court than did all their Insurrections and Heresies They had no fruit 〈◊〉 their demands they would not be hearkned to The War was kept up every where The Duke of Alanzon presumptive Heir to the Crown retired from Court and headed the Protestants The King of Navarre likewise withdrew four Months after Their conjunction with the Prince of Condè who had raised a considerable Army obliges the Court at last to agree to Peace which they had so long desired The Edict was prepared and verified the 15th of May 1576. It allowed the Protestants the free exercise of their Religion which from that time forwards was to be called The Pretendded Reformed Religion It allowed them Church-yards and made them capable of all Offices both in the Colledges Hospitals c. forbid farther enquiry after Priests and Fryars that were married declared their Children Legitimate and capable of Succâ—ssion c. expressed a deep resentment of the Slaughters upon St. Bartholomew's day exempted the Children of those that had been killed from the Duty of the Militia if they were Gentlemen and from Taxes if Yeomen repealed all the Acts which had condemned the Admiral Briquemaud Cavagnes Montgommery Montbrun and others of the Religion owned the Prince and D' Amville for his good Subjects Casimir for his Allie and Neighbor and owned all they had done as done for his Service gave to those of the Religion for their better security of Justice the Chambres my parties in each Parliament or Court of Justice c. But all this was only for a new decoy to catch the Huguenots Mezeray observes that so soon as they had got the Duke of Alanzon from them they began afresh to contrive their ruine And then it was that terrible League broke out which under pretence of extirpating the Protestants set the whole Kingdom in a flame All the Historians agree that it was the pernicious cause of all the Wars that were made against the Huguenots during the Reign of Henry the Third and that had like to have laid France waste Wherefore to justifie the innocence of the Protestants during all these troubles we need only observe the measures and designs of the League which was the cause of them I will keep to what Monsieur Maimbourg says He is thus far ingenuous This League says he had like to have overthrown both Church and State The most of those that went into it or rather run headlong and blindfold with so much heat and passion and especially the common people the Clergy and the Fryars were but stales to those that composed the Cabal where Ambition Malice and Self-Interest had more share than Religion which in all probability was brought in for no other end but to châ—at the World These were the King of Spain Queen Catharine and the Duke of Guise who cast up their Accounts together though upon very different reasons yet such as agreed all against the State the Duke to make himself head of a Party which after the expiration of the Valois might advance him to yet a higher pitch the Queen that she might have a pretence to bring in her Grandchild Henry Son to Charles Duke of Lorrain instead of the lawful Successor to the Crown the King of Navarre her Son-in-Law whom she cared not for and the Spaniard to take advantage of the division the League would cause among the French to make them ruine one another and afterwards become their Master This League divided the Catholicks who took Arms one against anther the one to sâ—cure Religion as they said the other to defend the Royal Authority and the Fundamental Law of the Land which they designed to overthrow It obliged the King for prevention of the dangerous Conspiraciâ—s of the Leaguers to come to a difficult extreme and to join his Forces with those of the Huguenot Party to reduce the Catholick Rebels to their Duty It stirred up terrible Commotions all over the Kingdom This cursed League was made in opposition to the Royal Authority under the fair pretence of Religion It had a fowl beginning though contrary to the common apprehension of those who know not how to fift into the bottom of it It s procedure was abominable being neither more nor less but almost a continued attempt against the Government of a King who was at least as good a Catholick as they that headed the League In conclusion that the rise and design of the League extended to the Subversion of the Royal Family I shall not need to give an exact account here of all the steps the Contrivers of this violent Conspiracy took since the holding of the Estates at Blois in the year 1576. Where as the Bishop of Rhodes says The King Henry the Third was forced to declare himself Head of the League whereby from a Soveraign he became head of a Faction and Enemy to a part of his Subjects down to the year 1589. when they caused this unfortunate Prince to be stabbed by Iaques Clement the Fryar It is enough to understand that by the confession of Monsieur Maimbourg himsâ—lf the Duke of Guise and his Complices did not put Henry the Third upon persecuting the Protestants with that heat and violence for any other end but by the
ruinâ— of the Protestants to compass The Subversion of the Royal Family This was the bottom of all their Designs All their aim was to take the Crown from its lawful Heirs The first thing the Guises and the Queen Mother proposed to themselves when the Duke of Alenzon was dead says the Bishop of Rhodes was each to make sure of the Crown as if the Succession had been at an end This Prelate says further that the Duke of Guise his design was to secure the Crown to himself So soon as ever the League was coâ—â— to a heighth and strengthened they that had contrived it made it 〈◊〉 that it was not only to sâ—cure Religion for the future but from 〈◊〉 moment to get themselves up to the Throne and that thei◠〈◊〉 was not only upon the King of Navarre who was to succâ—â—d 〈◊〉 upon Henry the Third who then Reigned They had hired certain new Divinâ—s who undertook to maintain That a Prince who does not his duty ought to be deposed That nothing but a Power well disposed is of God else when it is out of order it is not Authority but Invasion and that it is as ridiculous to say such a one is King who knows not how to Govern and is void of Understanding as to believe that a blind Man may be a Guide or that a sensless Statue may give motion to living Men In short the same Bishop asseâ—ts in express Terms That the Duke of Guise ' perpetually urged Henry the Third to give him Forces to accomplish the extirpation of the Huguenots in whose ruine he certainly expected to involve the King of Navarre It appears from all this That the Protestants could not omit defending themselves with all their might in the Wars which the League stirred up against them without betraying their King their Country the Lawful Heir of the Crown who headed them and the whole Line of the Bourbons I do not think there needs any more to take off all aspersions Neither can I imagine what the Jesâ—ite Maimbourg means who understood all this so exactly well to say of these worthy Defenders of the Crown They became more obstinate and more insolent under Henry the Third What! would he have had all the Protestants suffered their Throats to be cut he that maintains the design of those who would have cut the Protestants Throats to have been the Subversion of the Fundamental Law of the Land the extinguishing of the Royal Family and to have taken away the Crown from his Kings Renowned Grandfather In good earnest his King is much beholding to him to call that Obstinacy and Insolence which was the heroick attempts of those who so often hazarded thâ—ir Lives to preserve that Throne for for him which he enjoys with so great Glory You see easily then says our Friend that justly they can no more charge the French Protestants with Rebellion than they can do with any Plot against their King down to the Reign of Henry the Fourth whom they delivered from the fury of the League and seated in the Throne in despite of all the obstructions of this powerful Faction Therefore Monsieur Maimbourg is but an infamous Detractor when he charges them with Rebellions which cost France so much Blood and Plots which he accuses them to have layed with the Enemies to withdraw themselves from under the Monarchy by openly setting up for a Commonwealth The later part of this accusation is so absurd that it deserves not to be considered Whom would this Man perswade that they who made no other War but under the conduct of Princes of the Blood who were so nearly concerned for the support of the Monarchy should â—vâ—r endâ—avor to set up a Commonwealth Besides Is there any likelihood that so many Protestants of the Nobility who hold all their Honor of the Monarchy and had no other Lustre but as they were Rays of the Royal Sun should have renounced their glory and dependence upon the Court to lie obnoxious to the caprice of a seditious multitude under the obscurity of a Commonwealth They took up Arms about the beginning of Henry the Fourths Reign or indeed rather they continued in Arms but it was only to compleat his Conquests and to settle him in the Throne by dispersing the remainder of the League which held out as long as it could from owning him King even when he was turned Roman Catholick and reconciled to the Pope So soon as all the troubles were appeased and every one reduced to his duty he setled the famous Edict of Nantes under the Title of Perpetual and Irrevocable as I shewed you at our first meeting which gave the Protestants a full Peace during the remaining part of this Prince's Life His Life had been as long as glorious in all appearance but for the wicked knife of the vile Ravillac who had the confidence to spill this illustrious Blood in time of Peace which was so much reguarded in the heat of War The disorders broke out again after France had lost its wise Pilot and invincible Protector But because this Conference has held us so long Let us if you please defer what we have more to say in justification of the French Protestants till another time Only give me leave before we part to read to you a passage out of Mezeray He confutes in very few words all Monsieur Maimbourg's Calumnies by which he would maliciously charge the Protestant Religion with all the mischiefs in France and all the rest of Europe during the Reigns of Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth whereas this excellent Historian who has more sincerity than the Jesuite though of the same Religion lays them all to the abominable Wickedness the Papists of these two Courts were alone guilty of These are his words Charlee the Ninth lived 25 years wanting 31 days But he began not to Reign till after the Siege of Rochelle His Mother always kept the Government in her own hand with three or four of her Confidents who turned all upside down to keep the Authority to themselves Thence sprung the continual Civil Wars pursued with so many fatal Battles Pillages and all sorts of Waste Thence came the abuse of Military Discipline the Corruption of Manners the overthrowing of Laws In short this barbarous day of St. Bartholomew and a thousand other mischiefs that perplexed his Reign had all their rise from hence Three great Evils prevailed likewise in those days which did most provoke the Divine Majesty to wit Blasphemy Sorcery and all sorts of Villanies which having begun ever since the Reign of Henry the Second drew the vengeance of Heaven upon this unhappy Kingdom and were the cause that God visited it with so many Judgments one after another After we had read this passage we appointed a day to meet again and so parted I take my leave therefore for this time and remain c. The End of the Fourth Letter The fifth Letter French Protestants
And this was the only end of arming himâ—elf and not any private Interest if any one shall yet question let him but consider the circumstance of the time and the poâ—ture of his Affairs For who can believe that the King my Maâ—ter has any design upon â—rance or making any Conquests there at so improper a time when he has already upon him an Enemy one of the most Powerful Princes in the World And that if he had any such thoughts of so many Men as he has raised which are the same charge to him as if he had them here and which he is always ready to send over if the Churches want them he should only send a handful in comparison of so many as would be needful for so great an undertaking besides the great Succors he sends at the same time into Germany Who would not conclude rather as in truth it is that the Forces here are but Auxiliaries and that they are for no other purpose but to assist the Churches which for so many reasons and upon such important accounts he finds himself obliged before God and Man to aid and protect that if they will say the King my Master was provoked to arm himself upon other considerations as the imbargo and seizure of all the Shipping Goods and Effects of his Subjects at Bourdeaux and other places of this Kingdom to the open breach and overthrow of the Treaties between the two Crowns which are direct in this point and to the irreparable prejudice even the entire ruine of Trade in the disappointment of which the poor people of this Kingdom not being able to put off their Commodities groan not only under the Burden of so many Taxes and Impositions but even of the Necessaries of Life it self that the apprehension the King my Master has of the growth of the Most Christian Kings Power by Sea has put him upon taking Arms to hinder the progress and in conclusion that he was forced to put himself in a Warlike posture through despair of an accommodation The answer to all this must be that whoever will take notice of the Stops Seizures and Prizes that were on the one side and the other shall find that the King my Master and his Subjects have hitherto got most by this Breach and that it has been an advantage to them in some measure In the second place he is so far from being jealous of the growth of this pretended power at Seâ— and seeking to obstruct it that there needs no more whenever the King my Master shall see his time but to give out Letters of Mart to his Subjects to disappoint all these vain and weak attempts without making use of his Royal Power And lastly that we were necessitated to this arming of our selves out of a despair of an accommodation the contrary is most apparent to any one that will consider the applications that have been made at several times as well by their own as by the Ministers of stranger Princes to the King my Master at their instance to treat about an accommodation All which justifies the King my Master who has not been forced to arm upon any private account but only in aid of the Churches for whose safety and freedom he had undertaken And there are that would possess the world that his Majesty has a private design and that he makes use of a pretence of the Religion to form a Party by the help and addition of which with his own forces he thinks to carry on his design to his own purpose But our Religion teaches us otherwise and the goodness of the King my Master in which he comes short of no man living will never suffer him to do it His purpose is to settle the Churches his interest is their good his end to give them satisfaction This being done the beating of Drums and displaying of Colours shall cease and all this noise of War shall be buried in Oblivion as what was never done but upon their account nor set forward but for their sakes Given on Board the Admiral this Wednesday the one and twentieth of Iuly 1927. Signed Buckingham This Declaration shews that our Kings are resolved to love and cheâ—ish the Protestants of France and that our Great Monarch in holding his Arms open to them at this day does but follow the steps of his Princely Father He demonstrates thereby to all his people that he inherites his goodness as well as his Crown and that as this holy Martyr he knows assuredly that these poor persecuted would breath nothing but loyalty in the enjoyment of the Edicts The same Declaration shews undeniably the innocence and justice of our arming upon the occasions whereof we are treating as not having been made but upon the extreamest necessity when there was no other way left to hold France to that promise of which our King was the Garante and to prevent the loâ—s of Rochel which was undone only for committing its concerns to his Majesty Honour sincerity publick faith the Law of Nations the urging Duty of conscience all obliged us to run in to the succour of a Town that had cast it self upon our Monarch and that had full right to shake off the yoke of France since it had been no otherwise given up to the French but upon a condition that was broken which was that they should build no Fort upon its Territory whereby to give cause of suspicion Nevertheless as the Declaration obâ—erves they had not only built one against the Article of the Treaty which made the Treaty void and put Rochel into its full liberty which it had acquired at other times but they had built several which blocked up the Town on every side and destroyed its trade Our arming therefore upon this occasion was just It was justified by the publick faith and the Law of necessity and had no other end but to protect the weak who were oppressed contrary to the â—ngagement of the Treaty which was the supporting of a good cause For Rochel which they wasted after so many manners was then in right to defend it self being no longer subject to the Prince who attaqued it Conditio non impleta liberat fidem say the Civilians A condition not fullfilled takes off all Engagement Rochel had said to the King of France you shall be my King if you build no Fort upon my Territory but not otherwise and the King of France consented or rather swore to a solemne Treaty that he would not be Master of Rochel but upon this condition So that from the moment in which he had broken the condition agreed upon and accepted of he put Rochel into its orignal right The Rochellers are no longer his subjects and therefore if they shut the gates of their Town against him if they defend themselves as well as they can against his invasion if they call in their friends for succour they do it in their own right and it is to do them open wrong it is traducing them
Concordat bore in express terms that the Duke of Guise should have in charge to deface intirely the name of the Family and Race of the Bourbons Henry the Third said he to me could he be suspected of Heresie or an â—ider of Hereticks Never was any man more linked to the Catholick Church than he Yet the House of Guise had sworn his ruin They would have shaved him which they highly threatned him with and they one day writ upon the Chappel of the Battes to the Augustins of Paris these four French Verses The Bones of those who here lye dead Like Cross of Burgundy to thee are shown And make appear thy days are fled And that thou surely lose thy Crown They are of the same sense with those two Latin Verses which were found set upon the Palace Dyal Qui dedit ante duas unam abstulit altera nutat Tertia tonsoris nunc facienda manu He that gave two has taken one the other Shakes but the Barber still shall give another The Faction of the House of Guise caused this to be done And this poor Prince after a thousand delays and troubles resolved at length to make that execution so famous in our History it is that of the Duke and Cardinal of Guise who were executed at the States of Blois That Prince must needs have seen his ruin approaching and inevitable to come to that since that he well foresaw that this blow would raise him so many storms and give him so much trouble Who knows not that the Faction of Rome and of Spain had a Design of raising the House of Lorrain to the Throne of France for the excluding the House of Bourbon In the year 1587. the Pope sent to the Duke of Guise a Sword engraven with flames telling him by the Duke of Parma that amongst all the Princes of Europe it only belonged to Henry of Lorrain to bear the arms of the Church and to be the Chief thereof Almost all the Kingdom was engaged in that Spirit of revolt The King found no oâ—her support than the King of Navar and of his Hugonotes It was Chastillon the Son of the Admiral de Coligny who saved the King from the hands of the Duke of Mayenne at Tours This Chief of the League cryed to him retire ye white Scarfs retire you Chastillon it is not you we aim at it is the Murderer of your Father And in truth Henry the Third then Duke of Anjou was President in the Council when the Resolution was taken of making the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in which the Admiral Coligny perished But his Son forgetting that injury to save his King answered those Rebels You are Traytors to your Country and when the Service of the Prince and State is concerned I know how to lay aside all revenge and particular interest he added that after the Assassinate committed by the League in the person of Henry the Third Henry the Fourth was ready to see himself abandoned by his most faithful Servants because of the Protestant Religion which he made profession of which appears by a Declaration that this Prince made in the form of an Harangue to the Lords of his Army on the 8 th day of August 1589 in which he says that he had been informed that his Catholick Nobility set a report on foot they could not serve him unless he made profession of the Roman Religion and that they were going to quit his Army Nothing but the firmness and fidelity of the Hugonots upheld this wavering Party He must be said my Gentleman the falsest of men who dissembles the Ardour and Zeal with which those of our Religion maintained that just Cause of the House of Bourbon against the attempts of the League And to prove said he that their interest was not the only cause of their fidelity we must see what they did when Henry the Fourth turned Roman Catholick It cannot be said but that they then strove to have a King of their Religion However there was not one who bated any thing of his Zeal and Fidelity the King was peaceable possessour of the Crown the League was beaten down he was Master in Paris he was reconciled to the Court of Rome when the Edict of Nantes was granted and published Our Hugonots were no longer armed nor in a condition of obtaining any thing by force of arms Since that the Change of Religion had reduced all the Roman Catholicks to him he would have been in a State of resisting their violence It was the sole acknowledgment of the King and of good Frenchmen that obliged all France to give Peace to a Party that had shed their Blood with so much Zeal and Profession for the preserving the Crown and the restoring it to its legitimate Heirs I acknowledge that we did our Duty but are not those to be thanked who do what they ought How is it possible that these things are at present worn out of the memory of men I am certain that if the King was made to read the History of his Grand-father he would preserve some inclinâ—tion for the Children of those who sacrific'd themselves for the glory of his House No man can be ignorant of the necessary dependance that must be between the Roman Catholick Clergy and the Court of Rome This Court is the Head the Clergy is the Body the Ecclesiasticks and Monks are the Members and all these Members move by the Orders of the Head Again I have no Design to chocque the Gentlemen of the Clergy whose persons I respect I do not doubt but that they have good French Hearts But in fine they have their Maxims of Conscience they are of a Religion and they must follow its Principles Now the Principles of their Religion binds them to the Holy see and its preservation preferably to all things moreover Interest deceives the Hearts and Minds of men Their Interest obliges them to take the Popes part who is their Preserver and Protectour and what they do out of interest they perswade themselves that they do it out of Conscience First it may be said of the Monks that all the Houses they have in France are so many Citadels that the Court of Rome has in the Kingdom Those great Societies have withdrawn themselves from the jurisdiction of the Bishops they depend immediately on the Holy See they have all their Generals of Orders at Rome and those Generals who are Italians and Spaniards are the Soul of the Society they are obliged to follow their Opinions and their Orders the Italian Divinity is the Divinity of the Cloisters Thus the King may reckon that all the Monks look upon him as the Pope's Subject as being lyable to be Excommunicated his Kingdom put under an Ecclesiastical Censure his Subjects dispensed and released from the Oath of Allegiance and his States given by the Pope to another Prince And every time that this happens they will believe themselves obliged out of Conscience to obey the Pope If in
those Orders of Monks there happen to be some particular men who follow other Principles it is certain that they are in no Number so that the Body of the Monks is absolutely in the Interests of the Court of Rome and by consequence in that of Spain Thus you see already a considerable Party of whose Fidelity the Kings of France cannot be assured And what is this Party One may say that it is all France for the begging Monks and the Jesuits are Masters of all the Consciences they are Confessors they are Directors they persuade what they will to those that are devoted to them The House of Bourbon ought not to doubt of this truth if it never so little calls to mind the endeavours that were used by the Monks for the forcing from it the Crown when the Raâ—e of the Valois came to fail It is against this so considerable Party that the State ought to take its Precautions in preserving that other Party which can never be of intelligence with this it is that of the Reformed History tells us how impossible it is to be long without having Disputes with the Court of Rome It is always attempting and we are obliged to defend our selves against its enterprises It is capable of setting great Engines a going of making Engagements and Alliances It had twenty times like to have ruined Germany it has dethroned great Emperours it has likewise caused great troubles in France and one cannot be too secure against its ambition Par. I fancy that your Hugonot's Advocate would not spare the rest of the Clergy and that he endeavoured to prove that wâ— can be no more assured of their Fidelity than of that of the Religious Prov. What you have already heard may make you easily imagine that for the giving the more force to what he had to say against our Divines he prevented what might have been objected If you understood these matters Sir said he to me you could tell me that our Clergy of France teach a Divinity wholly different from that of Rome that all make profession of maintaining the Liberties of the Gallicane Church the principal Articles of which are 1. That the King of France cannot be Excommunicated by the Pope 2. That an â—cclesiastical Censure cannot be laid upon their Kingdom 3. That it cannot be given to others 4. That the Pope has nothing to do with the Temporality of Kings 5 That he is not Infallible 6. That he is inferiour to the Council These you would tell me are the Maxims of the Sorbonne that have often censured the contrary Propositions This Divinity is maintained by the Authority of the Parliaments who have often declared the Bulls of the Pope abusive null scandalous and impious and have appealed from the Execution of these Bulls when they found them contrary to the Liberties of the Gallicane Church The Estates assembled at Tours during the League caused the Bul 's of Excommunication to be burnt by the hands of the Executioner that had been published against Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth This looks great and magnificent if you please but these fair appearances have no foundation I do not speak of the Divinity of the Parliaments which is that of the Politicians I speak of the Divinity of the Clergy Once more added he I do not at all doubt of the Fidelity of the Divines of France to their King but they shall never perswade me that this Fidelity and Zeal for their Prince is without exception and I make no other exception agaiâ—st it than what they themselves make Will you hear them speak Read the Harangue that Cardinal du Perron made to the third Estate in the name of all the Clergy of France in the Assembly 1616. and remembeâ— that it is not the Cardinal du Perron who speaks it is the Clergy of France assembled in a Body who speak by the mouth of that Cardinal All France struck with a sense of the two horrible Parricides that had been committed in the persons of the two late Kings both of them assassinated out of a false Zeal for Religion would draw up a form of an Oath and establish a Fundamental Law of the State which all the Subjects were to swear to and this Law imported that every one should swear to acknowledge and believe that our Kings as to their Temporalities do not depend on any but God that it is not lawful for any cause whatsoever to assassinate Kings that even for causes of Heresie and of Schism Kings cannot be Deposed nor their Subjects Absolved from their Oath of Allegiance nor upon any other pretence whatsoever This Law methinks is the security of Kings this is a Doctrine which all the Hugonots are ready to sign with their Blood What did the Clergy of France do thereupon It formally opposed that Law Works of Cardinal du Perron p. 600 and following they were willing to acknowledge the Independancy of Kings in regard of the Temporalty they consented that Anathema should be pronounced against the assassinates of Kings But they would never pass the last Article that for what cause soever it was a King cannot be Deposed by the Pope stript of his States and his Subjects absolved from the Oath of Allegiance He who spoke for them alledged all the examples of Emperours and of Kings who had been Deposed and Excommunicated by Popes upon account of refusing Obedience to the Holy See and approved them he alledged the Example of St. Vrban the Second who Excommunicated Philip the First and laid an Ecclesiastical Censure upon his Kingdom because he had put away his Wife Bertha Daughter of a Count of Holland to Marry Bertrade Wife of Foulques Count d' Anjou then still alive He made use of the testimony of Paul Emile who said that Pope Zacharias discharged the French from the Oath of â—ideâ—iâ—y that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were noâ— Hereticks yet the Clergy of France approved their having been stript of their States by the Popes which makes appear that the Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Censure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any â—â—â—er cause as well as that of Heresie Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establâ—sh on the other that the Pope may in certain cases Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance In fine this is the result of that Famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are obliged to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick or Apostate Princes when once absolved from their Allegiance the Politick Christian Laws do not permit them any thing more than whaâ— is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clâ—ndestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a
Pope has declared a Prince deprived of his Sâ—ates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet with him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one â—an be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maxims For in fine Kings are not infallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Intâ—rdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects accoâ—ding to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the Frenâ—h Divinity does not receive these Maxims so fatal to the safety of Kiâ—gs Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Rütres or the German Protestants the Sorboâ—ne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a private determination which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the adminiâ—tration from a suspected Tutor This was known by the King he sent for the Sorbonne some days after and complained of it After the death of the Princes of Guise which happen'd at Blois the Sorbonne did much worse they declared and caused to be published in all parts of Paris That all the People of that Kingdom were Absolved from the Oaths of Fidelity that they had sworn to Henry of Valois hereâ—ofore their King they raâ—ed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unitâ— aâ—m and contribute to make War against him as a Tyrant If I would add to that the Story that I know this Gentleman told you concerning the Death of the late King of England we should find that the Sorbonne has â—ver been of the same Opinion This is the truth of it every time that our Kings affairs shall carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress their discontents while matters go well for the Court of France but if things turn other ways the Maxims of our Divines against the King will be sure to break out Every sincere person will allow â—haâ— it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes I was willing to read all these passages to you out of The Policy of the Clergy of France because the Author of that excellent piece proves there exceedâ—ng well all that I prâ—mâ—sed to shew you for the close of our Conferences which is that the Papists are truly Guilty of the Conspiracies and Rebellions which Monsieur Maimbourg would falsly fasten upon the Hugonots Of this the Murder of Henry the Third that of Henry the Fourth the violence of the League the several attempts against Queen Elizabeth King Iames and our holy Martyr Charles the Firâ—t not to mention the late Plot that has made such a noise in the World are undeniable proofs But you have seen likewise which ought to awaken the Protestant Princes to a purpose that all these black attempts have not been the fruit of impatience and human frailty under the temptation of some severe persecution but the natural Consequence and effect of the Principles of the Roman Religion as we are assured by those very men who pass for the Oracles of this Religion For you have seen just now out of Authentick pieces that the Pope the Cardinals and all the Divines of Italy who are the Pillars of the Roman Catholike Religion all the Regulars of France who draw after them more then three fourths of the French Papists and the Sorbonne it self when the rod is not over it own publickly that the Pope may Excommunicate Kings when he judges them Hereticks or countenancers of Heriticks to interdict their Kingdoms absolve their subjects from their Allegiance and expose them to the fury of all the World You have also seen that the whole Clergy of France was of this opinion by the mouth of Cardinal Perron so that this pernicious Doctrine is the vowed Faith of the whole Popish Gallican Church as well as of the Court of Rome the great depository of the Roman Religion and all its misteries From whence evidently follows what the Author of The Policy of the Clergy of France infers That there is no safety for the Crown nor for the life of Kings whether they be Protestants themselves or only protect such as are whilst they are beset with Papists so that there is not the same reason to tolerate Popery in Protestant Kingdoms as there is to toâ—erate Protestants in Popish Kingdoms Monsieur Maimbourg would make us believe that all this is but a poor shift And to convince us of it he says that we need but to consider these two things First that there are not to be found more detestable Conspiracies then those the Hugonots have made against their Kings c. Secondly that it is by no means thâ— belief of the Roman Catholicks princes that a Pope may depose Princes though they were Heretiâ—ks acquit their subjects from their Allegiance and bestow their Dominions upon those that can first take them But I have evidently shewed you the falsness of the first assertion and for the second it is expresly disproved by those undeniable proofs the Author of The Policy of the Clergy has produced to shew that the Roman Catholicks hold that belief which Monsieur Maimbourg afâ—irms they do not You say Monsieur Maimbourg that it is by no means your belief that a Pope can depose Princes c. At this rate the Pope who is the head of your Church this head for whose infallibility you have so much disputed knows not the belief of your Church for he believes that by the principles of the Church of Rome he has the power which you seem to deny him The Cardinals the Bishops and all the Divines of Italy all your Regulars all your Clergy of France speaking by the mouth of your Cardinal du Perron your Sorbonne it self so renowned for its great number of able men did not know in so important a case what was the belief of your Church For they have all held that it believes the Pope can depose Princes c. At least he should have given some answers to the Authentick Acts and notorious matters of fact which the Author of The Policy of the Clergy had quoted to this purpose To say nothing of all this and to think it enough to say at randome It is by no means our belief that a Pope may depose Princes even though they were Hereticks c. this is to pass the sentence of an unjust judge who rather then fairly to confess his errour makes no conscience of denying
of Conde in the Civil Wars during the minority of Lewis XIV I am confident the Papists would cry out against it as a great and foul Injustice done to their Church And yet why do they continually use the Protestants thus unreasonably I presume this may serve for a full Justification in reference to the Spirit of Rebellion imputed upon the account of what passed in the beginning of the Reign of Lewis XIII They cannot wrong them more than to make their Religion answerable for the weakness of some of them who were disapproved by the wisest among them who have more reason to be considered than a few who acted contrary to the Principles of the Protestant Religion as they are contained in their Confession of Faith established by their most eminent Divines as I shewed you at our third Conference So that I suppose Sir it will be needlâ—ss to run through all the several troubles which followed the first down to the year 1629. This may answer the whole Yet methinks said I you should not have done before you have said something particularly of Rochel It s Rebellion and Siege have made too great a noise in the World and perchance that which happened about this Town is what has raised the greatest cry against the French Protestants as Commonwealthsmen and Traytors Therefore I shall no more question their Loyalty and you will enable me to defend them sufficiently under the Reign of Lewis XIII as well as under those that went before if you can set me right in the excuse of Rochel It will be no hard matter for me says our Friend to satisfie you in this Point And we English are particularly obligâ—d to make out the innocence of the Protestants in this affair If any be to blame we are For it was we that engaged them in this last War But God be thanked they can charge us with nothing To make it the clearer to you we must take the Business a little higher Rochel did belong to the Kings of England being a part of their Dominion by the Marriage of Eleanor Countess of Poitou in the year 1152. with Henry II. when he was yet but Duke of Normandy But the King of France Lewis VIII assaulted and took it by force in the year 2224. It fell again into the hands of our Kings who were the rightful Lords of it in the year 1359. by the Peace of Bretegny as part of the Ransome for Iohn King of France who was taken Prisoner at the Battle of Poitiers by Edward Prince of Wales But in the year 1372. the Rochellers were so unhappy as to withdraw their Allgiance from their natural Lord our King Edward III. And to compleat their Revolt they put themselves under the powâ—r of the French King This occurrence ought to be observed though I shall say nothing of it but in Mezeray's own words This Town says he having shaken off the English Yoke desired to come under the French upon condition of preseâ—ving that liberty it had acquired by its own means And therefore it delivered it self up to the King it made so good a Bargain for it self which was agreed by Letters under the Broad Seal and the Seals of his Peers that the Castle should be demolished and that there never should be any within or near the Town c. The same Historian touches upon this in another place In consideration says he that Rochel came voluntarily into France the King Charles V. seeing that the Townsmen having of themselves quitted the Power they were under to the great hazard of their Lives could either continue free or give themselves up to whom they pleased granted them all the Priviledges they could dâ—â—â—re as That they might Coin Florins Mony of a mixt Metal 〈◊〉 the Castle should be demolished and that no other should be built in their Town And by other Letters he promises them that their Walls and Forts should stand and that he would raise none upon them He goes on with the other great Immunities that were granted to Rochel by this King and by his Successors not sticking to declare ingenuously that Henry II. and Francis I. by sometimes placing their Governors and Garisons had infringed their Priviledges He adds ' That the Rochellers looked upon this as a violation and always waited for a more favourable occasion to restore themselves to their original Right By this you see that Rochel did not deliver it self up to France but upon Conditions and so were to continue their Obedience no longer than the Articles stipulated by the Rochellers and accepted by the King of France were observed It appears that one of these Articles says expresly That they were never to build Castle or Fort either in or about the Town Notwithstanding contrary to this Agreement they raise a Fort before Rochel in time of the War which was in the Years 1621 1622. And though they promised by the Articles of Peace which were afterwards agreed upon that this Fort should be slighted yet it always continued which was the cause of those troubles that followed in the Years 1625 1626. the Rochellers being no longer obliged to keep touch with the King of France because he had broke the Treaty by vertue of which alone they became his Subjects The Affairs of Europe disposing the late King our Soveraign Lord Charles I. to interpose for a Pacification The Rochellers and such other Protestants of France as had engaged in their Quarrel agreed to refer all their Concerns to him And he obtained it for them a second time that this Fort which was so great an eye-sore to Rochel should be demolished for which he was Guarantee by an Authentick Declaration that his Embassadors gave in Writing I will read it to you We Henry Rich Baron of Kensington â—arl of Holland Captain of the Guards to the King of Great Britain Knight of the Order of the Garter and Counsellor of State and Dudley Carleton Knight Counsellor of State and Vicechamberlain of His Majesties Houshold Embassadors Extraordinary from His said Majesty to the Most Christian King To all present and to come Greeting It so falling out that Montmartin and Manial Deputies-General of the Reformed Churches of France and other particular Deputies of the Dukes of Rohan and Soubise with those of several Towns and Provinces who were engaged with them have made their Peace with the Most Christiaâ— King By our advice and interposition it is agreed and consented to 〈◊〉 the said King their Soveraign And the Deputies have released many things which they esteemed very important for their security and all conformable to their â—dicts and Declarations which they had express order to insist upon at the Treaty of Peace and which they had resolutely persisted in saving the obedience they owe and desire to pay their King and Soveraign and saving the respect and deference they would shew to the so express Summons and Demands of the most Serene King of Great Britain our Master in