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 Clergy whose persons I respect I do not doubt but that they have good French Hearts But in fine they have their Maximes 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 makes illusion in Hearts and Minds Their Interest obliges them to take the Popes part who is their Preserver and Protectour and what they do out of interest they persuade 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Houses they have in France are as many Citadels that the Court of Rome has in the Kingdom Those great Societies have withdrawn themselves from the Dominion of the Bishops they depend immediately on the Holy See they have all their Generals of Orders at Rome and those Generals who are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 Fidelity 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 happens to be some particular One who follow other Principles it is certain that they are in no Number and do not hinder 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 Race 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 one is obliged to defend ones self 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 we can be no more assured of their Fidelity than of that of the Religious Prov. What you have already heard may make you easily divine 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 holding for 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 Ecclesiastical Censure cannot be laid upon their Kingdome 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 Maximes 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 Court of Parliament assembled at Tours during the League caused the Bulls of Excommunication to be burnt by the hands of the Executioner that had been published against Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth This is all sine and magnificent if you please but these fair appearances have no stock 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 against it than what they themselves make Will you hear they themselves speak Read the Harangue that Cardinal du Perron made to the third Estate in the name of all the Clergy of France in the States 1616 and remember 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 seised with an horrour 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 of Religion would draw up a Formulary of Oath and establish a Fundamental Law of the State which all the Subjects were to swear to and this Law bore that every one should make Oath of ac-acknowledging and believing that our Kings for their Temporalities do not depend on any one soever but on God that it is not lawful for any cause soever to assassinate Kings that even for causes of Heresie of Schism Kings cannot be Deposed nor their Subjects Absolved from their Oath of Fidelity nor upon any other pretext soever 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 divers 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 Fidelity 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 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 repudiated 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 dispensed the French from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were not 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 Consure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any other cause as well as that or Heresâ—e Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establish on the other that the Pope may in certain occasions Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity In sine this is the result of that famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are constrained to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick Princes or Apostates from their Fidelity to whom they have been Absolved the Politick Christian Laws does not permit them any thing more than what is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clandestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a Pope has declâ—â—ed a Prince deprived of his â—tates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one can be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maximes For in fine Kings are not insallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Interdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects according to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps that the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the French Divinity does not receive these Maximes so fatal to the safety of Kings Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because that Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Resisters or the German Protestants the Sorbonne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a secret Result which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the administration from a suspected Tutour 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 heretofore their King they razed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unite arm 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 ever been of the same Opinion Let things be told as they are every time that our Kings shall have assairs that will carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress the discontents while that affairs go well for the Court of France but if things turn otherways the dictates of our Divines against the King will not fail to break out Every sincere person will allow that it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes By example in that the King has now lately had with the Pope upon the account of the Regality and of the Vrbanists the publick has seen a Letter from the Clergy Addressed to the King when he departed to visit the Frontiers of the Low-Countries In that Letter these Gentlemen promise the King let whatever be the issue of his Disputes with the Pope they will be always inviolably fixed to his Majesties Interests But we know from good hands that the Archbishop of Paris and the Sieur Rose Secretary of the Cabinet are the sole Authors of that Letter the Bishops have almost openly disavowed it And this makes it apparent enough that in this Dispute they were of the Popes side Must it not then be confessed that it is the King's Interest to preserve the only Party that makes Oath of Fidelity to him without exception and without reserve that can never have engagements contrary to his Service either with Spain or the Court of Rome or with the revolted Clergy favouring the Enemies of the State And it is well known that in the time of Henry the Third while that all the Corporations of the Kingdom were in an actual Rebellion against their Prince the Hugonot was the only one which remained Loyal If it was necessary to add any thing more pursued our Civil Lawyer for to prove that it is the King's Interest to protect the Reformed in his States one might say that the Alliances that have been made with Foreign Protestants have not been disadvantageous to the State Since the year 1630 its engagements with England Holland Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg have been a great help towards its humbling the House of Austria Cardinal Richlieu successfully employed the King of Sweden for to punish the pride to which that House was mounted after the defeat of the Palatine House that had accepted the Crown of Bohemia And it is well enough known that the Protection that the King gave the Protestants in his Territories facilitated those Foreign Engagements and Alliances Thus our Orator ended and made a pause at this place Par. He has forgot a great Article That which is against the Peace of a State is ever against his Interests who governs it Nothing is more incompatible with Peace than diversity of Religions Prov. He did not forget it but he thought he had said enough for one time and referred what he had more to say till the next day This morning sour Gentleman returned and as what was said is fresher in my memory perhaps I shall give you a more exact account I know very well continued our Hugonot Civil Lawyer that I am to
as Bedlow I find he would be very Eloquent and that he would succeed admirably well in composing the Character of a Stage-Hero Let us speak seriously one must have renounced all Modesty to dare to maintain that all this great action is only a Comedy and a Fiction Par. But as concerning Father le Cheise whom your Hugonot spoke of in the affair of Coleman I have admired how the English have aspersed him by the publication of Colemans Tryal For this Father is every where therein in the middle beginning and the end and it is upon him that the most convincing proofs turn that are produced against Coleman It appears that this F. Jesuit was of the Party and that he was engaged very deep into the design of re-establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in England by fire and by the effusion of Blood Prov. My Gentleman made me that remark and told me thereupon Methinks that the King's Equity ought to move him not to hearken to such a Man in what regards the Interests of the Subjects of the Reformed Religion What may not the Protestants of France fear from a Man who has been so deeply engaged in the design of cutting the Throats of so many millions of Protestants What Counsels may not he give to the King against us who would have set whole Rivers of the Blood of our Brethren aslowing and make a St. Bartholomew beyond the Seas Though he was innocent of the Affair of England the advices he gives against us ought to be suspected For it is clear that he ought to have a great resentment of the fierce accusations that have been formed against him and that he would have the intention to revenge himself on the Protestants of France for the outrages that he might pretend to have receiv'd from the Protestants of England Wherefore it is certain that the King ought to consider him as our declared enemy and as a passionate enemy and not as a zealous Catholick However this Father Jesuit brags he is the Master of all the King's Resolutions in what concerns us It is he if he may be believed to whom the Catholick Church is indebted for all the severe Declarations that have been made against us And when the Declaration was obtained which forbids Catholicks to turn to the Reformed Religion he entred into the Assembly of the Clergy with that Declaration in his hand with a triumphing air and said Here is the piece that has been so long a solliciting it is I that have obtained it If this man be so powerful over the King's mind as he brags he is the Protestants of France could not be secure of their lives We know from good hands added he that the Members of the Council are not too well satisfied in that the affairs His Majesty was used to consult them about and believe them in are at present put into the hands of a Jesuit Par. For my part I avow to you I am not too well perswaded no more than you that this Conspiracy of the English Catholicks is a fiction But I endeavour to perswade it to others because that I wish it were so for the honour of the Catholick Religion which never ought to inspire such Designs Prov. Be it as it will my Hugonot Gentleman concluded from all this that a Protestant Prince can never be assured of the Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects On the contrary said he the Protestants are subject to their Prince out of Conscience and out of a Principle of their Religion They acknowledge no other Superiour than their King and do not believe that for the cause of Heresie it is permitted either to kill a legitimate Prince or to refuse him obedience Par. You might have asked him if what the English do at present against the Duke of York agrees well with that Divinity Because that he is said to be Catholick they would declare him uncapable of succeeding his Brother Prov. I had not time to propose to him that difficulty for he prevented it It is true said he to me that the troubles which are in England seem to tend towards the refusing Obedience to the Duke of York because he is a Catholick When a Soveraign is mounted upon the Throne by legitimate means it seems said I to him that he ought at least to have as much priviledge as his Subjects and enjoy as well as them the Liberty of Conscience That is true answered he me when he has not bound his hands by his own Laws But by the Laws of the Kingdom of England which are the Laws of the King as well as of the State the King is obliged not to suffer any other Religion in the State than the Protestant Religion These Laws cannot be repealed but by the Parliament jointly with the King because that in that Kingdom for the making or repealing Laws the King can do nothing without the Parliament nor the Parliament without the King Wherefore if the Parliament is against the Repealing of these Laws if they must subsist and while that they subsist the King has not power to establish in his Family a different Religion from that of the State You know said he to me that the people of England have great Priviledges and that the Kings have not the Right to do all that they please Particularly added he when there is a Prince to be established the States of the Kingdom who are obliged to be careful of the Preservation of the Religion are authorized to take all their Sureties that no change may be made therein Thus they must either remove from the Throne if they have the Right to do so he who would mount into it to ruin the Religion or at least they ought to bridle his Authority for the hindring him from making changes The Religion of Henry the 4th before he turned Catholick was an Obstacle to his establishment upon the Throne which he would never have surmounted though he was the legitimate Heir of the Crown Par. This man is very knowing He certainly came prepared upon the matter For extempore he could not have given to his reasons so great an air of likelihood Prov. He came without doubt prepared and I likewise perceived that he daily consulted people more knowing than himself For he cleared and argued strongly the next day upon such points as I had found him weak in the day before One of the points of which he spoke to me with the most zeal and passion was that of good Faith They oppose against us said he to me the English and Holland Catholicks But what has been promised to those people that has not been performed The United Provinces of the Low Countries are entred into the Union with this Condition of not suffering any other Religion in their States than the Protestant Though England was reformed under Edward the 6th afterwards under Elizabeth by several Acts of Parliament which are the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom it was ordered that no other Religion should
years that the Latins are in Schism with the Greeks and all the pains that the Popes and Eastern Emperours have given themselves at several times have not been able to extinguish this Schisme If Prudence Cares and Vigilance have not been able to bring to pass the ruine of Sects that were not founded upon Truth and who had violated Charity by their Separation they ought not to hope to ruin the Party of the Reformed which is supported by Truth has purged the Church of so many errours and has in no manner violated Charity in separating it self from a Church that chose rather to chase away from its bosome than suffer any Reformation The conclusion of all that great affair will make appear that those who have Sworn the ruin of the Hugonots fall upon God himself which will not be for their advantage Par. This new Preacher carries it very high but what did you answer to all this Prov. As he had more advantage over me than I had over my Gentleman I was obliged to suffer the match being unequal But I resolved to let the discourse continue and to retain the principal things he should oppose me with to be informed of by you Is any thing of these Facts false that this man laid thus as I have recited them Par. No But though the Facts that he told you be true it is not certain that the Conclusions he draws from thence are very good which we will examine at one time But for the present I will not interrupt you Prov. Since you desire it I will continue to tell you what I can remember of a Conversation which appeared to me in some places something above my Capacity I hear continued our Civil Lawyer that this Gentleman has obliged himself to prove to you that the course they take at present in France against our poor Protestants is quite contrary to the Interests of the King and State Give me leave Sir to represent you several things upon that point First is it not true that it is against the Kings Interests to depopulate the Kingdom There are still in France near two Millions of Souls of the Reformed Religion If all these persons were away their absence would certainly make a considerable Breach There is no body but knows that the force of States depends on the multitude of Inhabitants It is this that makes the United Provinces so powerful It is incredible that so little a State can resist so powerful Enemies and carry it's name to the end of the World which only proceeds from the prodigious multitude of Inhabitants which are there It is this that makes Arts flourish there Necessity being the Mother of Industry It is the cause of the Commerce because the Territory being too little to nourish so many Men they have been obliged to go seek to the very ends of the World the necessaries that their own Country could not furnish them with And in seeking wherewith to keep them alive and that they might not be famished address has made them find out immense Riches The King knows very well that the force of a Prince consists in the multitude of Subjects Wherefore he has made several Declarations in favour of those to whom God grants great Families and who thereby the more contribute to populate the Kingdom He has ordered that those Victuallars who have have two Children should enjoy exemption from all Taxes Imposts Subsidies Collects and quartering of Souldiers It is his will that the Nobles who have the same number of living Children have two thousand Livers of yearly pension out of the publick Revenues and for the exciting young people to marry themselves betimes he orders by another Declaration that the young married shall not be subject till the age of five and twenty years to any publick Charges It is to this intent that such diverse Declarations have been made by his Majesty which forbid all his Subjects to leave the Kingdom and go inhabit else-where By all these Courses the King would get and keep Subjects But his Majesty by the Declarations which have been made against the Reformed has lost twenty times more Subjects than he can have gained or kept by those other ways which his prudence or that of his Ministers had suggested to him It will be made appear to him if he pleases that within these fifteen years his Declarations against the Hugonots have drove away of them out of France above sixty or fourscore thousand All the Frontiere Provinces of England Holland and Germany as Normandy Campagne and Picardy are already sensible of this particularly the City of Amiens Since the Temple has been taken from the Hugonots of that City it is certain that the most part of their Merchants have retired themselves into forreign Countries and that they have carried with them at least twelve or fourteen hundred thousand Livers of Riches out of the Kingdom and which will never return into it In case they would but make the least attention upon this point it would appear that it is impossible but that the Kingdom will be deserted by this Course It is certain that all the Reformed who lose their Goods and Estates by what is called the disgraces of Fortune do quit the Kingdom because that their Religion hinders them from recovering themselves by any means In chacing away all those who bear the Arms of the Guards du Corps of the Musqueteers and the Gendarmes and all the Kings Household in taking the Commissions from several thousands of Commissaries who lived upon their Commssions in neglecting the Officers and refusing them advancement In a word in taking away as they do the means of subsisting from an infinite number of Hugonots who cannot subsist of themselves they are drove out of the Kingdom and all forreign Countries are seen covered with French-men who seek for employ and the means of subsisting that are refused them in their own Country I looked upon it as a certain thing that of 50 thousand that the Rigour which is exercised against us reduces into this estate there are not five hundred who turn Catholicks all the others are as many lost Subjects for the King They are much deceived if they believe that little is lost in losing people who have hardly any thing For it is certain that the Armies of a State are almost wholly composed of such sort of people It is the industry of such persons who keep up Commerce and Arts. There is a City upon the Frontiers of Champagne which formerly belonged to the Dukes of Bouillon touching which I am informed they make great brags to the King that when he took possession of it that City was almost wholly Protestants and that at present the number of the Catholicks much surpasses that of the others But they tell not the King what was told me that the severity with which they treated the Reformed has obliged them to retire that the Catholicks which they fill the City with are Beggers and
several Months in Prison but that he purged himself and yet was silenced by a decree of the Parliament of Greneble I know nothing of the particulars of his business if you are informed of them I pray you tell me what they are Prov. You have divined him it is the same his adventure has something very singular The Hugonots of Dauthine had kept a Fast in all their Churches and the Synod that had ordered it had enjoyned all the Ministers that belonged to it assisted with their Ancients to visit Families and put them in mind of what had been promised God on the Fast day These are the terms of the Article which was Printed and Divulged This Minister did not fail to execute this Order in his District It was during the heat of the War with Holland The Religious of St. Anthony who had lain in wait for him a long time laid hold on this occasion to insinuate themselves with the Court to his Cost They writ to M. le Tellier then Secretary of State that something was contriving against the Kings Service that the Hugonots had celebrated a Fast through all Dauphinate that there was a Plot Couched under this Fast and that Devotion was only the pretext of it That the Minister of had held secret Assemblies at the Houses of the Principals of his Parish that he had prayed God for the success of the Hollanders Arms and that he had gathered great sums of Money from those of of his Party to send to the Prince of Orange Par. Good Could this come into rational Heads though all the Hugonots of the Kingdom should have contributed to this gathering it would not have been sufficient to have furnished Oats to the Cavallry of the Army the Prince of Orange Commanded They can hardly maintain the six or seven hundred Ministers they have since the Seal and Subvension Moneys were taken from them that were destined to that use without any thinking of gatherings for forreign Countries Prov. I knew very well you would also cry out upon this Yet as strange and as unlikely as the thing is it caused this Minister a great deal of trouble There came Orders from the King to seize his Person He was kept in Prison for above four Months false Witnesses were raised to maintain the Accusation and if he had not had the Address to Convince them in the Confrontation he would certainly have passed his time very ill Par. This is horrible It is rather fury than zeal But it is with our Religious as with Angels when they are Corrupted they are Devils There is no manner of ill but what they are capable of Those of St. Anthony surpass in this all the other Orders They have appropriated to themselves vast Riches of St. Lazarus under pretext of Serving the sick Monsieur de Louvois who is chief of this Order designs to make them restore these Goods and to apply them to the Hall of Mars destined to the maintenance of the maimed without doubt these Reverend Fathers to fence off this 〈◊〉 with which they were threatned and to insinuate themselves into the Kings favour bethought themselves of giving this advice to the Court and sacrificing this Minister to their Interest Prov. You have hit the mark and methinks so many Monks ought not to be suffered The Policy of France observes there are too many It would be convenient to retrench at least the two thirds of them and to apply the Revenues of their Houses which are immense to the necessities of the State and to the ease of the people And the other Thirds Wings ought likewise to be clipped and hindred from growing great by forbidding them as is done at Venice to acquire stocks and receive considerable Gifts and Legacies It is the same with their Fraternities as with the Den of Esops Lyon all goes in and nothing comes out and it is not otherwise possible but that at length they must become yet more powerful and formidable Par. I am impatient to know the issue of this Process I beg you would tell it me Prov. The false Witnesses were freed for a Years absence from the Province and the Religious for some Reprimands from the Judges As for the Minister he was fined without any Note of Infamy and condemned to pay the Charges by reason of the visits he had made which they called Assemblies and the silencing of his Ministry too happy to have thus escaped from the Snare that was laid him I saw the Sentence in Print and fixed up by Order of the Bench. You see by all these Stories that all manner of ways are tryed for the tiring out those people their ruin comes on apace consider how many Declarations there be against them within these two Years Par. Two things are the cause of this The first is the Peace while the King has less forreign Affairs he employs himself in the reforming the disorders that may be in the State and in the Religion Moreover the disputes the King has had with the Pope has obliged him to appear severe against the Hugonots Prov. What Mozeray has observed in the Life of Henry the 2d is very true that the disputes of the Kings of France with the Popes have ever cost the Hugonots dear As soon as a Prince thinks of defending himself against the enterprizes of the Court of Rome he is accused of being an Abettor of Heresie and Princes to clear themselves of this suspicion redouble their severity against the Hereticks Par. You see that the Pope in the Briefs he has written to the King praises him for his zeal against Heresie and gives him joy for having destroyed so many Temples and the King on his part to appease the Pope has not failed to make him observe that in few Weeks he has made three very strong Declarations against the Hugonots Prov. Since we are fallen upon this tell me in short what were the disputes the King had with the Pope Par. There were two The first was upon the account of the Regality and the second upon the account of the Urbanists The Regality is a Right our Kings have over vacant Bishopricks upon the Decease or the Demission of those who possessed them During the vacancy the Fruits of them belong to the King and even till that the new Bishop has taken the Oath of Fidelity in Person all the Benifices which would be at the Bishops Nomination are at the Kings The most part of the Bishopricks in France have submitted to this Right However there are some who pretend not to be in the Regality and amongst others those of Guyenne and Languedock Of which kind is the Bishoprick of Pamiers near the Pyrences The King pretended he had the Right of Regality over that Bishoprick the Bishop pretended not His Temporals were seized on of which he complained to the Pope who proceeded so far in this affair as to threaten the King to make use of the Arms of the Church against him The
cost the Lives of all those who should make Information and pass Sentence Oates and Bedlow are false Witnesses They are then false Witnesses of an admirable Character false Witnesses who agree perfectly well amongst themselves and never contradict one another But for all this they are false Witnesses who have concerted their business very ill If it is a Conspiracy it is a trick invented for the dishonouring the Society of the Jesuits to hang and quarter their Companions Methinks these false Witnesses ought to understand themselves something better On the Seventeenth of December five that were Accused were brought to be Examined and have their Tryal Whitebread the Provincial of the Jesuits William Ireland John Fenwick Thomas Pickering and John Grove Oates and Bedlow were produced against them as Witnesses These two Witnesses were found to know enough and to have said enough to cause three of those persons to be condemned Ireland Pickering and Grove Oates equally charged the five but Bedlow knew not enough to cause Whitebread and Fenwick to be condemned insomuch that they were obliged to send back to Prison these two last both of them Jesuits and to put off their Tryal till farther Information This is strange these two false Witnesses are great Fools Whitebread is the chief of the Conspiracy the Provincial of the Jesuits he whom they had the most reason to ruine and they are so imprudent as not to be of intelligence to tell one another what is capable of causing him to be condemned this is not to be comprehended Oates is a false Witness he says too much to be believed as is reported It must be confessed that if the Depositions of that Man are false it is the strangest and most unheard of thing in the World All the examples of fury of past Ages wrapt together do not approach that which is observed in this false Witness Never was there a link of such terrible Crimes as that Man charges the Accused with They have says he burnt London several times they would assassinate the King the Princes the Grandees and almost two thirds of the Inhabitants of the Kingdom overturn the State destroy the Religion change the Government and to that intent set whole Rivers of blood a flowing Is it credible that there is so wicked a Man in the World as to charge those that are innocent with so many Crimes Perhaps that a passion of revenge might move a Man to lay so Infernal a train to satisfie himself for some outrage he had received But what outrage does there appear that Oates and Bedlow had received from the Roman-Catholicks The most part of those that are accused maintain that Oates and Bedlow are unkown to them If they are unknown to them they have not then done them any outrage which might more them to so prodigious a revenge Moreover by the Testimony of those amongst the accused who confess they know their Accusers it is certain that both of these Witnesses were Roman-Catholicks They had not changed their Religion had it not been for the horrour of the Plot they had not become Apostates had not they been pricked in their Consciences they had not any other reason to be pushed on by a spirit of hatred against the Catholick Religion and against those who profess it wherefore it was only the horrour of the Fact which struck them and obliged them to prevent so horrible effusion of blood Methinks that false Witnesses should not charge themselves with so great a number of Facts lest they should be exposed to contradict one another There needed no more to be said than in two or three Articles that such People have Conspired against the State and against the Religion and might have been executed after that manner But it appears that Oates 〈◊〉 â—ourscore heads of accusation and makes a History of more than fifteen years well pursued and well 〈…〉 It is requisite to have an 〈◊〉 â—â—â—…tion that has hardly the like â—â—â—…vent such a Romance so well purâ—â—â—â—… I likewise find that those Witneâ—â—s are very bold to invent such horrible Depositions against People who so well know how to make use of the Knife for the dispatching their Enemies as appears by the Death of Godfrey The good Nature of those good Fathers would be very great if they did not revenge themselves on Oats and Bedlow in case that their Depositions were true but it is hardly credible that it would reach so far as to let two Impostors live peaceably who had charged them with the most horrid Calumnies that Hell had ever imagined And if they have a design to destroy them it is hard if they do not succeed in it sooner or later The King's Safe-guards and the Protection of the Parliament will little help them Wherefore if Oates and Bedlow were false Witnesses they are great Fools to expose themselves into so great a danger in this life for the damning themselves also in the other In fine my Hugonot Gentleman told me What have we to do with Oates and Bedlow to prove the Truth of that Conspiracy Let us take them if you will from off the Scene and judge of the business by Coleman's Letters to Father le Cheise and to some others These Letters have been acknowledged the accused have not denied them There is one to the Pope's Nuncio at Brussels Dated the 9th of August 1674. which says in proper terms That their design advanced apace and that they should quickly see the ruine of the Protestant Party Is any thing of more force than what Coleman says to Father le Cheise in one of the Letters he wrote to him We have undertaken a great Work it is no less than the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the entire subversion of that pestilent Heresie which has for so long a time rul'd over this Northern part of the World And we have never had so great hopes since the Reign of Our Queen Mary And towards the end of the Letter he powerfully sollicites Father le Cheise to obtain succours of Money and Arms for putting in execution this great Design It is perhaps by the way of Preaching that Coleman pretended to Convert those three Kingdoms Arms and Money are very necessary to give efficacy to Grace and Preaching It is certainly in that spirit of Zeal and well regulated Devotion that Coleman says Though I had a Sea of Blood and a thousand Lives I would willingly lose them all for the execution of this Design and if to bring it to pass it was requisite to destroy an hundred Heretick Kings I would do it These words are pretty strong It is Bedlow who has reported them and says he heard them If he invented them in cold Blood and without being moved with Anger I find him admirable in the art of feigning Passions For it must be avowed that these expressions give us a lively image of a Man the most moved and the most concerned that has ever been seen For a Man of War
it oblige the Emperour to violate his Faith But the Ecclesiastical Tribunal that had not given any word made John Hus his Process Prov. That distinction seems pleasant to me I have heard say that the Church does not put its hand into blood When John Hus was convicted of Heresie by the Council he was delivered without doubt to the secular Arm to be burnt Those Secular Judges were not they Imperial Judges Thus the Emperour violated his safe Conduct in permitting his Judges to put a Man to Death to whom he had promised all security But what do they say of Jerome of Prague to whom the Council it self had given a safe Conduct and yet was burnt Par. They say that the Council in the safe Conduct that was given to Jerome of Prague had inserted this Clause Salva Justitia that thus they had only promis'd to warrant Jerome of Prague from violence and not from the arrests of Justice But I avow to you that all this is not capable of justifying the Conduct of that Council Neither does it pass in France for a Rule that they will follow If they do not keep with the Hugonots all that has been promised them it is not that they ground themselves upon the Morality and the Conduct of the Council of Constance They do not pretend to depart from good Faith they make profession of keeping the Edict of Nantes Do you not see this at the Head of all the Declarations which are made against them And now lately in that by which the Catholicks are forbidden to embrace the P. R. Religion upon pain of Confiscation of goods loss of Honour and Banishment though that never any Declaration was made that was more contrary to the Edicts of Nantes We have one called Bernard and another Lawyer of the City of Poictiers called Tilleau who have made large Commentaries upon the Edict of Nantes for to make appear that without formally revoking that Edict the Hugonots may be deprived of all that Edict grants them in giving to every one of the Articles Interpretations and Glosses that would never have been imâ—â—â—…ed And these are the 〈…〉 Prov. This is good for anâ—â—…ing But after all this does not satisfie the Conscience and one is no less convinced of having violated his word For those who obtain Arrests against the Hugonots according to the Glosses of Bernard and Tilleau are well perswaded that they are Glosses of Orleans which overturn the Text. But do you know what I told my Hugonot to stop his Mouth upon these Infractions in the Edicts Par. Perhaps you told him that one is not obliged to keep a word that has been extorted by violence that the Hugonots have obtained those Edicts by main force That ours were constrained to yield to the misery of the times but that at present the King is in Right of Nulling those promises Our Advocates plead daily thus at the Bars and there are likewise grave Authors who write it Prov. You have guessed right but thereupon my Hugonot grew strangely passionate Ah! this is said he a cruelty we cannot suffer This is our strength and they are so bold as to attacque us in this part as if it was our weak side It is true that we were armed some years before that the Edict of Nantes was made But in favour of whom did we bear those Arms It was to establish the Illustrious branch of Bourbon upon the Throne that belonged to it VVe shall ever be proud of having shed the purest of our Blood to restore to France it 's legitimate Kings there was a design of depriving it of After this growing more cool he made me an abridgement of the History of the League He made me see that the House of Lorrain in that time aimed less at Heresy than at the Crown He made me remember that from the time of Charles the 9th the Princes of that House caused a Book to be Printed for the proving their Genealogy and to make appear that they were descended in a direct Line from the Second Race of our Kings for the making way to the Crown He acquainted me that there was at the same time a Concordat passed between the Duke of Guise the Duke of Montmorency and the Marshall de St. Andrew which was called the Triumvirate One of the Articles of that Concordat boar 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 aider 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 a Burgundy Cross to thee are shown Do make appear thy days are fled And that thou shalt 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 nutas Tertia tonsoris nunc facienda manu 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 rasing the House of Lorrain upon 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 other support than the King of Navar and of his Hugonots 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 you 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