acknowledgeth the great benefit which he had received by his Writings acquaints him with the peaceable estate of the Church of Saxonie but signifies withal that Excommunication was not used amongst them whereunto Calvin makes this Answer That he was glad to hear that the Church of Saxony continued in that condition but sorry that it was not so strengthned by the Nerves of Discipline as might preserve the same inviolated to the times to come He adds that there could be no better way of correcting vice then by the joynt consent of all the Pastors of one City and that he never thought it meet that the power of Excommunicating should reside in the Pastors onely that is to say not in conjunction with their Elders which last he builds on these three Reasons First in regard it is an odious and ungrateful Office next because such a sole and absolute power might easily degenerate into tyranny and finally because the Apostles had taught otherwise in it By which we see that as he builds his Discipline on the Word of God or at the least on Apostolical tradition which comes close unto it so he adventureth to commend it to the Lutheran Churches in which his Reputation was not half so great as amongst those which had embraced the Zuinglian Doctrines 31. But in the Zuinglian Churches he was grown more absolute his Writings being so highly valued and his person so esteemed of in regard of his Writings that most of the Divines thereof depended wholly upon his judgement and were willing to submit to any thing of his Prescription The Church of Strasbourgh where he had remained in the time of his exile received his Discipline with the first as soon as it was finally established in Geneva it self For it appeareth by the Letter which Gasper Oberianus sent to Calvin bearing date April 12. 1560. that the Eldership was then well setled in that Church and the Elders of it in a full possession of their power the exercise whereof they are desired to suspend in one particular which is there offered to his view This Gasper was chief Minister of the Church of Tryers so passionately affected to the name of Calvin that he accounted it for one of his greatest honours to be called a Calvinian Preacher Acquainting him with the condition of the Church of Tryers he tells him amongst other things that he found the people very willing to submit to Discipline and thereupon intreats him for a Copy of those Laws and Orders which were observed in the Consistory of Geneva to the end he might communicate them to such of the Senators as he knew to be zealously affected Calvin who was apt enough to hearken to his own desires sends him a large draught of the whole Platform as well relating to the choice of the Members either Lay or Ministers as to the power and jurisdiction which they were to exercise with all the penalties and particularities with reference unto crimes and persons which depended on it And having given him that account he thus closeth with him This summary saith he I had thought sufficient by which or out of which you may easily frame to your self such a form of Government as I have no reason to prescribe To you it appertains modestly to suggest those counsels which you conceive to be most profitable for the use of the Church that godly and discreet men who seldom take it ill to be well advised may thereupon consider what is best be to done Which words of his though very cautelously couched were so well understood by Oberianus that the Discipline was first admitted in that Church and afterwards propagated into those of the Neighbouring Provinces 32. He hath another way of screwing himself into the good opinion of such Kings and Princes as he conceived to be inclinable to the Reformation sometimes congratulating with them for their good success sometimes encouraging them to proceed in so good a work of which sort were his Letters to King Edward the Sixth to Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Secretary Cecil to the Prince Elector Palatine Duke of Wirâ—inburgh Lantgrave of Hesse But he bestirred himself in no place more then he did in Poland which though he never visited in person yet he was frequent in it by his Lines and Agents The Augustane Confession had been brought thither some years before of which he took but little notice But he had heard no sooner that the Doctrines of Zuinglius began to get some ground upon them under the Reign of Sigismund sirnamed Augustus when presently he posts his Letters to the King and most of the great Officers which were thought to encline that way Amongst which he directs his Letters to Prince Radzeville one of the Chief Palatines and Earl Marshal Spirtetus Castelan of Sunderzee and Lord high-Treasurer to Iohn Count of Tarnaco Castelan of Craco and Lord General of his Majesties Armies besides many other Castelans and persons of great power in the Affairs of that Kingdom In his first Letters to that King dated the fourth of December 1554 he seems to congratulate with him for imbracing the Reformed Religion though in that point he was somewhat out in his intelligence and thereupon exhorts him to be earnest in the propagating of the Faith and Gospel which in himself he had imprest and that he would proceed to reform the Church from the dregs of Popery without regard to any of those dangers and inconveniences which might follow on it But in his next address 1555 he comes up more close speaks of erecting a tribunal or throne to Christ setting up such a perfect Form of the true Religion as came neerest to the Ordinance of Christ. And we know well that in the meaning of his party the settling of Presbytery was affirmed to be nothing else then setting Christ upon his Throne holding the Scepter of the Holy Discipline in his own right-hand And somewhat to this purpose he had also written to the Count of Tarnaco whom in his first Letter he applauds for his great readiness to receive the Gospel But in his second bearing date the nineteenth of November 1558 he seems no less grieved that the Count demurred on something which he had recommended to him under pretence that it was not safe to alter any thing in the State of the Kingdom and that all innovations seemed to threaten some great danger to it which cautelousness in that great person could not relate to any alteration in the State of Religion in which an alteration had been made for some years before and therefore must refer to some Form of Discipline which Calvin had commended to him for the use of those Churches And no man can conceive that he would recommend unto them any other Form then that which he devised for the Church of Geneva 32. But Calvin did not deal by Letters onely in the present business but had his Agents in that Kingdom who busily
the Nobility began to apply themselves unto him and became his Creatures they then conceived it necessary to make head against him for fear of being brought to the like submissions First therefore they began to clash with him at the Councel-Table and to dissent from many things which he appeared in though otherwise of great advantage in themselves to the publick Service But finding that those oppositions did rather serve to strengthen his power thâ—n take any thing from it they misreport him to the King in their several Letters for a turbulent spirit a man of proud thoughts and one that hated the Nobility By whose depressing he aspired to more personal greatness then was consistent either with his Majesties safety or the Belgick Liberties And that being dâ—ne they generally traduce him by their Whisperers amongst the people to be the onâ—ly man that laboured for the bringing in of the Inquisition and for establishing the new Bishops in their several Sees under pretence of stopping the increase of Sects and Heresies And unto these reports of him he gave some fair colour by prosecuting the concernments of the Church with more zeal then caution lying the more open to the practices of the growing party by a seeming neglect of their intendments and a reliance onely on his Masters favour From hence it was that such as did pretend to any licentiousness in Life or Doctrine exclaimed against him as the Author of those severities wherewith the King had formerly proceeded against divers of them as on the other side they cryed up all the Lords which appeared against him as the chief Patriots of the Country the Principal Patrons and Assertors of the publick Liberty 20. The people being thus corrupted it was no hard matter for the Lords to advance the Project in rendring Granvel as unpleasing in the eyes of the King as they had made him odious in the sight of the people In order whereunto some of them shewed themselves less careful of the Cause of Religion by smothering the publication of his Majesties Edicts which concerned the Church in the Provinces under their command Others dealt under-hand with the common people perswading them not to yeild submission to those new Tribunals which onely served for the exercise of superstition and the Popes Authority And some again connived at the growth of Heresie by which name they called it by suffering the maintainers of those new opinions to get ground amongst them encouraged secretly some seditious practices and finally omitted nothing by which the King might understand by a sad experiment how much he had misplaced his favours and to what imminent danger he exposed the Netherlands by putting such Authority over them in the hands of a Forreigner Of all which practices the Cardinal was too intelligent and had too many Friends abroad to be kept in ignorance which made him carry a more vigilant eye upon their designes to cross their Counsels and elude their Artifices when any thing was offered to the prejudice of the publick Peace but in the end the importunity of his Adversaries became so violent and the breach had such a face of danger in the fight of the Governess that she moved the King for his dismission to prevent which he first retired into Burgundy and from thence to Rome preferred not long after to be Vice-Roy of the Realm of Naples and finally made President of the Council for Italy in the Court of Spain 21. In the mean time the Calvinists began to try their Fortunes in those Provinces which lay next to France by setting up two of their Preachers on the same day in two great Cities Valenciennes the chief City of Haynalt and Tournay the chief City of Flanders Gallicant In the first of which the Preacher having finished in the Market-place where he made his Sermon was followed in the Streets by no fewer then one hundred people but in the other by a train of six hundred or thereabouts all of them singing Davids Psalms of Marots Translation according to the custom of the Hugonots amongst the French Some tumults hereupon ensued in either City for the repressing whereof Florence of Momorancy Lord of Montigny being the Governour of that Province rides in post to Tournay hangs up the Preacher seizeth on all such Books as were thought Heretical and thereby put an end to the present Sedition But when the Marquess of Bergen was required to do the like at Valenciennes he told the Governess in plain terms that it was neither agreeable to his place or nature to put an Heretick to death All that he did was the committing of two of their Preachers to the common Prison and that being done he made a journey unto Leige to decline and business Which so incouraged the Calvinian party to proceed in their purposes that they threatned mischief to the Judges if any harm happened to the Prisoners But sentence at the seven months end being past upon them to be burnt and all things being made ready for the execution the Prisoners brought unto the Stake and the sire ready to be kindled there presently arose a tumult so fierce and violent that the Officers were compelled to take back their Prisoners and to provide for their own safety for fear of being stoned to death by the furious multitude But the people having once begun would not so give over for being inflamed by one of their company whom they had set up in the midst of the Market-place to preach an extemporary Sermon two thousand of them ran tumultuously to the common Goal force open the doors knock off the Shackles of the Prisoners restore them to their former Liberty and so disperse themselves to their several dwellings The news of which Sedition being brought to Brussels the Governess dispatcheth certain Companies of Foot and some Troopes of Horse with order to the Marquess of Bergen to appease the disorders in the Town But they found all things there so quiet that there was little need of any other Sword then the Sword of Justice by which some of the chief Ring-leaders of the Tumult and one of their Preachers who had unhappily fallen into their hands were sentenced to that punishment which they had deserved 22. The Calvinists conceiving by this woful experiment that it was not safe jesting with Edged-tools and that they were not of sufficient power for so great a business betook themselves to other courses And finding that some of the principal Lords were much offended at the exorbitant power of Granvel that others shewed no good affection to his Majesties Government and that the rest had no desire to see the new Bishops setled in their several Sees for fear of being over-powered by them in all publick Councils they seriously applyed themselves to foment those discords and make the rupture greater then at first it was The new Bishops being fourteen in number were in themselves so eminent in point of Learning and of a conversation so unblameable in the eyes
propositions as were made to him at the first by Count Lodowick his Ministers and alter by the Agent of the Prince himself He had sent some aid not long before to support the Hugonots But now his Souldiers being returned from France and grown burdensome to him are drawn together into a body and with the help of some others out of France and Germany compound an Army of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sends Prince Christopher a younger son under the conduct of Count Lodowick and his Brother Henry But they had scarce entred within the Borders of Gelderland where they expected an addition of fresh Forces from the Prince of Orange when they were set upon by Sanchio d' Avila before mentioned and routed with so great a slaughter that almost all the whole Army were either taken prisoners remedilesly wounded or slain outright and as for their three Generals Lodowick of Nassaw Grave Henry and the young Prince Christopher they were either slain fighting in the battail or trampled under the Horses Feet or finally stisled in the flight as they crossed the Fens the last more probable because their bodies were not to be found on the strictest search 43. But not withstanding this misfortune neither the Prince Elector nor the Prince of Orange could be moved to desert the Cause which by the temptation of revenge was grown dearer to them For after this we finde Prince Casimir another of the Palatine Princes in the Head of an Army raised for assisting the Confederates in the Belgick Provinces by which name they began to be commonly called after the death of Requesenes who had succeeded Alva in the publick Government but wanting time before his death to settle the command in some trusty hands till some Supreme Officer might be sent unto them from the Court of Spain the Government devolved for the present on the Council of State and was invaded afterwards by the States themselves whose Deputies assembling in the Council-house or Court of Brussels made up the body of that Council which governed all Affairs both of Peace and War But great contentions growing betwixt them and the Souldiers and those contentions followed on either side with great animosities the Prince of Orange had a most excellent opportunity for the establishing of his new Dictatorship over Holland and Zealand and some of the adjoyning Provinces of less name and note But being weary at the last of their own confusions and more impatient of the insupportable insolencies of the Spanish Souldiers an Association is first made in the Provinces of Brabant Flanders Artois and Haynalt By which it was agreed in Writing and confirmed by Oath that they should mutually assist each other against the Spaniards till they had cleared the Country of them And with these Provinces consisting for the most part of such as were counted Catholicks Holland and Zealand with the rest though esteemed heretical did associate also which Union is called commonly the Pacification of Gaunt because agreed on in that City and was so much insisted on by the Heads of the Leaguers that it was counselled by the Prince not to admit of Don Iohn for their Supreme Governour till he had ratified and confirmed that Association 44. But because there was no mention of maintaining the Kings Authority or preserving the Catholick Religion in the Originals of the League it was found necessary to provide for both by some explication to take away the envy and suspition of that great disloyalty which otherwise must have fallen upon them And by that explication it was thus declared viz. that they would faithfully from thenceforth maintain the League for the conservation of their most Sacred Faith and the Roman Catholick Religion for preserving the Pacification made at Gaunt for the expulsion of the Spaniards and their adherents their due obedience to the Kings most excellent Majesty being always tendered According to which explication it was confirmed by Don Iohn under the name of the perpetual Edict with the Kings consent who thought his own Authority and the Roman Religion to be thereby sufficiently provided for but he found the contrary For when the Prince of Orange was required to subscribe to the Pacification with the addition of two Clauses for constancie in this Religion and the Kings obedience he refused it absolutely assuring such as moved it to him that the Provinces under his command or consederacie with him were barred in Conscience from subscribing to the preservation of the Romish Faith And at this time it was that he merrily told the Duke of Arescot who was one of the Delegates that there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart He well foresaw that the agreement betwixt Don Iohn and the Estates of the Country would not long continue and he resolved to make some advantage of the breach whensoever it hapned Nor was he any thing mistaken in the one or the other for discontents and jealousies encreasing mutually between the parties Don Iohn leaves Brussels and betakes himself to the Castle of Namure for fear of an Assassinate as it was given out which was intended on his person which so incensed the Estates that by a general consent a Dictatorian or Soveraign power was put into the hands of the Prince of Orange by the name Ruart according to the priviledge and practice of the Brabanters in extreme necessities Invested with which power he instituteth a new face of Government both in Brussels it self and many of the Towns adjoyning modelled after the Example of Holland and Zealand He demolished also the great Fort at Antwerp which had been raised with so great Pride and Ostentation by the Duke of Alva The like done also in demolishing the Castles of Gant Vtrecht Lisle Valenciennes and some other places performed by such alacrity by them that did it as if they had shaken off the Yoke of some Forreign servitude An Oath was also framed for renouncing all obedience to Don Iohn their Governour and people of all sorts compelled to take it for the refusal whereof by the Iesuits of Antwerp a Rabble of Calvinian Zealots on the day of Pentecost forced open the doors of that Society plundred their houses of all things Sacred and Prophane and set the Father on board a Ship of the Hollanders with great scorn and insolencie to be landed in some other Country 45. The like done also to the Fathers of Tournay Bruges and Maestricht banished on the same account from their several Cities with whom were also exiled in some places Franciscan Fryars in others many secular Priests who would not easily be perswaded to abjure their Loyalty By whose departure divers Churches were left destitute and unprovided of incumbents to instruct the people which so increased the confidence and hopes of the Calvinians that they not onely petitioned the Estates for liberty of Conscience but for the publick use of Churches in their several Territories but being refused in their
but that to wait at her Chamber-door or elsewhere and then to have no further liberty then to whisper in her ear what he had to say or to tell her what others did speak of her was neither agreeable to his vocation nor could stand with his Conscience 38. At Midsummer they held a general Assembly and there agreed upon the Form of a Petition to be presented to the Queen in the name of the Kirk the substance of it was for abolishing the Mass and other superstitious Rites of the Romish Religion for inflicting some punishment against Blasphemie Adultery contempt of the Word the Profanation of Sacraments and other like vices condemned by the Word of God whereof the Laws of the Realm did not take any hold for referring all actions of Divorce to the Churches judgement or at the least to men of good knowledge and conversation for excluding all Popish Church-men from holding any place in Council or Session and finally for the increase and more assured payment of the Ministers Stipends but more particularly for appropriating the Glebes and Houses unto them alone This was the sum of their desires but couched in such irreverent coarse and bitter expressions and those expressions justified with such animosities that Lethington had much ado to prevail upon them for putting it into a more dutiful and civil Language All which the Queen knew well enough and therefore would afford them no better answer but that she would do nothing to the prejudice of that Religion which she then professed and that she hoped to have Mass restored before the end of the year in all parts of the Kingdom Which being so said or so reported gave Knox occasion in his preachings to the Gentry of Kyle and Galloway to which he was commissioned by the said Assembly to forewarn some of them of the dangers which would shortly follow and thereupon earnestly to exhort them to take such order that they might be obedient unto Authority and yet not suffer the Enemies of Gods 〈◊〉 to have the upper-hand And they who understood his meaning at half a word assembled themselves together on the 4 of September at the Town of Air where they entred into a common Bond subscribed by the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Boyd and Vâ—hiliry with one hundred and thirty more of Note and Quality besides the Provost and Burgesses of the Town of Air which made forty more The tenour of which Bond was this that followeth 39. We whose names are under written do promise in the presence of God and in the presence of his Son our Lord Iesus Christ that we and every one of us shall and will maintain the Preaching of his holy Evangel now of his mercy offered and granted to this Realm and also will maintain the Ministers of the same against all persons Power and Authority that will oppose themselves to the Doctrine proposed and by us received And further with the same solemnity we protest and promise that every one of us shall assist another yea and the while Body of the Protestants within this Realm in all lawful and just occasions against all persons so that whosoever shall hurt 〈◊〉 or trouble any of our bodies shall be reputed enemies to the whole except that the offender will be content to submit himself to the Government of the Church now established amongst us And this we do as we desire to be accepted and favoured of the Lord Iesus and accepted worthy of credit and honesty in the presence of the Godly 40. And in pursuance of this Bond they seize upon some Priests and give notice to others that they would not trouble themselves of complaining to the Queen of Council but would execute the punishment appointed to Idolaters in the Law of God as they saw occasion whensoever they should be apprehended At which the Queen was much offended but there was no remedy All she could do was once again to send for Knox and to desire him so to deal with the Barons and other Gentlemen of the West that they would not punish any man for the cause of Religion as they had resolved To which he answered with as little reverence as at other times That if her Majesty would punish Malefactors according to the Laws he durst assure her that she should finde peace and quietness at the hand of those who professed the Lord Iesus in that Kingdom That if she thought or had a purpose to illude the Laws there were some who would not fail to let the Papists understand that they should not be suffered without punishment to offend their God Which said he went about to prove in a long discourse that others were by God intrusted with the Sword of Justice besides Kings and Princes which Kings and Princes if they failed in the right use of it and drew it not against Offenders they must not look to finde obedience from the rest of the Subjects 41. It is not to be doubted but that every understanding Reader will be able to collect out of all the premises both of what Judgement Knox and his Brethren were touching the Soveraignty of Kings or rather the Supreme Power invested naturally in the people of a State or Nation as also from what Fountain they derived their Doctrine and to whose sentence onely they resolved to submit the same But we must make a clearer demonstration of it before we can proceed to the rest of our History that so it may appear upon what ground and under the pretence of what Authority so many Tumults and Discords were acted on the Stage of Scotland by the Knoxian Brethren It pleased the Queen to hold a Conference with this man in the pursuit whereof they fell upon the point of resisting Princes by the Sword the lawfulness whereof was denyed by her but maintained by him The Queen demands whether Subjects having power may resist their Princes Yea Madam answered Knox if Princes do exceed their bounds and do against that wherefore they should be obeyed there is no doubt but that they may be resisted even by power For said he there is neither greater honour nor greater obedience to be given to Kings and Princes then God hath commanded to be given unto our Fathers and Mothers and yet it may so happen that the Father may be stricken with a Phrensie and in some fit attempt the slaying of his Children In which case if the Children joyn themselves together apprehend their Father take the Sword out of his hand and keep him in Prison till his Phrensie be over-past it is not to be thought that God will be offended with them for their actings in it And thereupon he doth infer that so it is with such Princes also as out of a blind Zeal would murther the Children of God which are subject to them And therefore to take the Sword from them to binde their hands and to cast them into Prison till that they may be brought to a more sober minde is not
disobedience against them but rather is to be accounted for a just obedience because it agrees with the Word of God 42. The same man preaching afterwards at one of their General Assemblies made a distinction between the Ordinance of God and the persons placed by him in Authority and then affirmed that men might lawfully and justly resist the persons and not offend against the Ordinance of God He added as a Corollary unto his discourse That Subjects were not bound to obey their Princes if they Command unlawful things but that they might resist their Princes and that they were not bound to suffer For which being questioned by Secretary Ledington in the one and desired to declare himself further in the other point he justified himself in both affirming that he had long been of that opinion and did so remain A Question hereupon arising about the punishment of Kings if they were Idolaters it was honestly affirmed by Ledington That there was no Commandment given in that case to punish Kings and that the people had no power to be judges over them but must leave them unto God alone who would either punish them by death imprisonment war or some other Plagues Against which Knox replyed with his wooted confidence that to affirm that the people or a part of the people may not execute Gods Judgments against their King being an offender the Lord Ledington could have no other Warrant except his own imaginations and the opinion of such as rather feared to displease their Princes then offend their God Against which when Ledington objected the Authority of some eminent Protestants Knox answered that they spake of Christians subject to Tyrants and Infidels so dispersed that they had no other force but onely to cry unto God for their deliverance That such indeed should hazard any further then those godly men willed them he would not hastily be of counsel But that his Argument had another ground and that he spake of a people assembled in one Body of a Commonwealth unto whom God had given sufficient force not onely to resist but also to suppress all kinde of open Idolatry and such a people again he affirmed were bound to keep their Land clean and unpolluted that God required one thing of Abraham and his Seed when he and they were strangers in the Land of Egypt and that another thing was required of them when they were delivered from that bondage and put into the actual Possession of the Land of Canaan 43. Finally that the Application might come home to the point in hand it was resolved by this learned and judicious Casuist that when they could hardly finde ten in any one part of Scotland who rightly understood Gods Truth it had been foolishness to have craved the suppression of Idolatry either from the Nobility or the common subject because it had been nothing else but the betraying of the silly Sheep for a prey to the Wolves But now saith he that God hath multiplyed knowledge and hath given the victory unto Truth in the hands of his Servants if you should suffer the Land again to be defiled you and your Prince should drink the cup of Gods indignation the Queen for her continuing obstinate in open Idolatry in this great light of the Gospel and you for permission of it and countenancing her in the same For my assertion is saith he that Kings have no priviledge more then hath the people to offend Gods Majesty and if so be they do they are no more exempted from the punishment of the Law then is any other subject yea and that subjects may not onely lawfully oppose themselves unto their Kings whensoever they do any thing that expresly oppugnes God 's Commandments but also that they may execute Iudgement upon them according to Gods Laws so that if the King be a Murtherer Adulterer or an Idolater he should suffer according to Gods Law not as a King but as an Offender Now that Knox did not speak all this as his private judgement but as it was the judgement of Calvin and the rest of the Genevian Doctors whom he chiefly followed appears by this passage in the story It was required that Knox should write to Calvin and to the Learned men in other Churches to know their judgements in the Question to which he answered that he was not onely fully resolved in conscience but had already heard their judgements as well in that as in all other things which he had affirmed in that Kingdom that he came not to that Realm without their resolution and had for his assurance the hand-writing of many and therefore if he should now move the same questions again he must either shew his own ignorance or inconstancie or at least forgetfulness 44. Of the same Nature and proceeding from the same Original are those dangerous passages so frequently dispersed in most parts of his History By which the Reader is informed That Reformation of Religion doth belong to more then the Clergie and the King That Noblemen ought to reform Religion if the King will not That Reformation of Religion belongeth to the Commonalty who concurring with the Nobility may compel the Bishops to cease from their Tyranny and bridle the cruel Beasts the Priests That they may lawfully require of their King to â—ave true Preachers and if he be negligent they justly may themselves provide them maintain them defend them against all that do persecute them and may detain the profits of the Church-livings from the Popish Clergy That God appointed the Nobility to bridle the inordinate appetite of Princes who in so doing cannot be accounted as resisters of Authority and that it is their duty to repress the rage and insolency of Princes That the Nobility and Commonalty ought to reform Religion and in that case may remove from honours and may punish such as God hath condemned of what estate condition or honour soever they be That the punishment of such crimes as touch the Majesty of God doth not appertain to Kings and chief Rulers onely but also to the whole body of the people and to every member of the same as occasion vocation or ability shall serve to revenge the injury done against God That Princes for just causes may be deposed That of Princes be Tyrants against God and his Truth their subjects are freed from their Oaths of obedience And finally that it is neither birth right or propinquity of bloud which makes a King rule over a people that profess Iesus Christ but that it comes from some special and extraordinary dispensation of Almighty God 45. Such is the plain Song such the Descant of these Sons of Thunder first tuned by the Genevian Doctors by them commended unto Knox and by Knox preached unto his Brethren the Kirk of Scotland In which what countenance he received from Goodman and how far he was justified if not succeeded by the pen of Buchanan we shall see hereafter In the mean time the poor Queen must needs be in
the Kings Person and maintain his Power against the practices and attempts of a prevalent Faction which openly appeared in favour of his Mothers pretensions And in this course he much desired to keep the King when he had took the Government upon himself as before was said prevailing with him much against the mind of most of the Lords to send an Ambassador for that purpose Which put such fears and jealousies into the heads of the French on whom the Sâ—ots had formerly depended upon all occasions that they thought â—it to countermine the English party in the Court and so blow them up No better Engine for this purpose then the Lord Esme Stewart Seignieur of Aubigny in France and Brothers Son to Matthew the late Earl of Lenox the Young Kings Grandfather By him it was conceived that they might not onely work the King to the party of France but get some ground for re-establishing the old Religion or at least to gain some countenance for the Favourers and Professors of it With these Instructions he prepares to the Court of Scotland makes himself known unto the King and by the affability of his conversation wins so much upon him that no Honor or Preferment was thought great enough for so dear a Kinsman The Earldom of Lenox being devolved upon the King by the death of his Grandfather was first conferred on Robert Bishop of Orknay one of the Natural Sons of King Iames V. Which he to gratifie the King and oblige the Favorite resigned again into his hands in recompence whereof he is preferred unto the title of Earl of March. As soon as he had made this Resignation of the Earldom of Lenox the King confers it presently on his Cosin Aubigny who studied to appear more serviceable to him every day then other And that his service might appear the more considerable a report is cunningly spread abroad that the Earl of Morton had a purpose to convey the King into England by means whereof the Scots would forfeit all the Priviledges which they held France Morton sufficiently clear'd himself from any such practice But howsoever the suspicion prevailed so far that it was thought fit by those of the Adverse party to appoint a Lord-Chamberlain who was to have the care of His Majesties Person and that a Guard of twenty four Noblemen should be assigned to the said Lord-Chamberlain for that end and purpose Which Trust and Honor was immediately conferred on the Earl of Lenox who had been sworn to the Council much about that time and within less then two years after was created Duke 50. The sudden Preferments of this man being well known to be a professed Votary of the Church of Rome encouraged many Priests and Jesuits to repair into Scotland who were sufficiently practical in propagating the Opinions and advancing the interest of that Church Which gave occasion to the Brethren to exclaim against him and many times to fall exceeding foul on the King himself The King appears sollicitous for their satisfaction and deals so effectually with his Kinsman that he was willing to receive instruction from some of their Ministers by whom he is made a real Proselyte to the Religion then establish'd which he declared by making profession of his Faith in the great Church of Edenborough and his diligent frequenting the Church at their Prayers and Sermons But it hapned very unfortunately for him that some Dispensations sent from Rome were intercepted whereby the Catholicks were permitted to promise swear subscribe and do what else should be required of them if still they kept their hearts and secretly imployed their counsels for the Church of Rome Against this blow the Gentleman could find no buckler nor was there any ready way either to take off the suspicions or to still the clamors which by the Presbyterian Brethren were raised against him Their out-cries much encreased by the severities then shewed to the Earl of Morton whom they esteemed to be a most assured Friend as indeed he was to their Religion though indeed in all points not corresponding with them to the book of Discipline For so it was that to break off all hopes of fastning a dependance on the Realm of England Morton was publickly accused at the Council Table for being privy to the Murther of His Majesties Father committed to the Castle of Edenborough on the second of Ianuary removed to Dunbritton on the twentieth Where having remained above four moneths he was brought back to Edenborough in the end of May condemned upon the first of Iune and the next day executed His Capital Accuser being admitted to sit Judge upon him 51. This news exceedingly perplexed the Queen of England she had sent Bows and Randolph at several times to the King of Scots who were to use their best endeavours as well to lessen the Kings favour to the Earl of Lenox as to preserve the life of Morton For the effecting of which last a promise was made by Randolph unto some of his Friends both of men and money But as Walsingham sent word from France she had not took the right course to effect her purpose She had of late been negligent in paying those persons which had before confirmed the Scots to the English interest which made them apt to tack about and to apply themselves to those who would bid most for them And yet the business at the present was not gone so far but that they might have easily been reduced unto her devotion if we had now sent them ready money instead of promises for want whereof that Noble Gentleman so cordially affected to Her Majesties service was miserably cast away Which quick advice though it came over-late to preserve his life came time enough to put the Queen into a way for recovering Her Authority amongst the Scots of which more hereafter Nor were the Ministers less troubled at it then the Queen of England imputing unto Lenox the contrivance of so sad a Tragedy Somewhat before this time he had been taxed in the Pulpit by Drury one of the Brethren of Edenborough for his unsoundness in Religion and all means used to make him odious with the people For which committed by the Council to the Castle of Edenborough he was not long after at the earnest intreaty of his Fellow-Ministers and some promise on his own part for his good behaviour restored again unto his charge But after Mortons death some other occasions coming in he breaks out again and mightily exclaims against him insomuch that the King gave order to the Provost of Edenborough to see him removed out of the Town The Magistrate advises him to leave the Town of his own accord But he must first demand the pleasure of the Kirk convened at the same time in an Assembly Notwithstanding whose Mediation he was forced to leave the Town a little while to which he was brought back in Triumph within few moneths after A Fast was also kept by order of the said Assembly For the
shall hereafter treat of them as they come before us with reference to the Practises and Proceedings of their English Brethren And first beginning with the Scots it is to be remembred that we left them at a very low ebb the Earl of Goury put to death many of the Nobility exiled into Forreign Countreys and the chief Zealots of the Faction amongst the Ministers putting themselves into a voluntary Banishment because they could not have their wills on the King and Council England as nearest hand was the common Sanctuary to which some Lords and almost all the Refractory Ministers had retired themselves Much countenanced by Mr. Secretary Walsingham who had set them on work and therefore was obliged to gratifie them in some fit proportion To such of the Nobility as had fled into England he assigned the Isle of Lindisfarm commonly called the Holy Island not far from Berwick with order to the Lord Hundsdon who was then Governour of that Town to give them the possession of it But Hundsdon though he had less Zeal had so much knowledg of his Duty as to disobey him considering the great consequence of the place and that there was no impossibility in it but that the Scots might make use of it to the common prejudice if they should prove Enemies to this Crown as perhaps they might A matter which the Secretary would not have passed over in so light a manner but that an Ambassador was sent at the same time from the King of Scots by whom it was desired that the Fugitives of that Nation whatsoever they were might either be remitted home or else commanded not to live so near the Borders where they had opportunity more than stood with the good of that Kingdom to pervert the Subjects Which Reasonable Desire being yeelded unto the Lords and Great men of that Nation were ordered to retire to Norwich and many of the Ministers permitted to prepare for London Oxon Cambridg and some other places where some of them procured more mischief to the Church of England than all of them could have done to their own Countrey had they staid at Berwick 2. At London they are suffered by some zealous Brethren to possess their Pulpits in which they rail without comptroll against their King the Council of that Kingdom and their natural Queen as if by the practises of the one and the connivence of the other the Reformed Religion was in danger to be rooted out Some Overtures had been made at that time by the Queen of Scots by which it was desired that she might be restored unto the Liberty of her person associating with the young King in the Government of the Realm of Scotland and be suffered to have the Mass said in her private Closet for her self and her Servants The news whereof being brought to London filled all the Pulpits which the Scots were suffered to invade with terrible Complaints and Exclamations none of them sparing to affirm That her Liberty was inconsistent with Queen Elizabeth's Safety That both Kingdoms were undone if she were admitted to the joynt-Government of the Realm of Scotland and That the Reformed Religion must needs breathe its last if the Popish were permitted within the Walls of the Court. Which points they pressed with so much vehemence and heat that many were thereby inflamed to join themselves in the Association against that Queen which soon after followed Against their King they railed so bitterly and with such reproach one Davinson more than any other that upon complaint made by the Scottish Ambassador the Bishop of London was commanded to silence all the Scots about the City and the like Order given to the rest of the Bishops by whom they were inhibited from preaching in all other places But the less noise they made in the Church the more closely and dangerously they practised on particular persons in whom they endeavoured to beget an ill opinion of the present Government and to engage them for advancing that of the Presbyterian in the place thereof But this they had followed more successfully at the Act in Oxon where they are liberally entertained by Genebrand and the rest of the Brethren amongst which Wilcox Hen and Ackton were of greatest note And at this time a question was propounded to them concerning the proceeding of the Minister in his duty without the assistance or tarrying for the Magistrate How they resolved this question may be easily guessed partly by that which they had done themselves when they were in Scotland and partly by the Actings of their English Brethren in pursuance of it 3. For presently after Gelibrand deals with divers Students in their several Colledges to put their hands unto a paper which seemed to contain somewhat in it of such dangerous nature that some did absolutely refuse and others required further time of deliberation of which Gelibrand thus writes to Field on the 12 th of Ian. then next following I have already saith he entred into the matters whereof you write and dealt with three or four several Colledges concerning those amongst whom they live I find that men are very dangerous in this point generally favouring Reformation but when it comes to the particular point some have not yet considered of the things for which others in the Church are so much troubled others are afraid to testifie any thing with their hands lest it breed danger before the time and many favour the Cause of the Reformation but they are not Ministers but young Students of whom there is good hope if they be not cut off by violent dealing before the time As I hear by you so I mean to go forward where there is any hope and to learn the number and certifie you thereof c. But that these secret practises might not be suspected they openly attend the Parliament of this year as at other times in hope of gaining some advantage against the Bishops and the received Orders of the Church For in the Parliament of this year which began on the Twenty third of November they petitioned amongst other things That a Restraint might be laid upon the Bishops for granting of Faculties conferring of Orders as also in the executing of Ecclesiastical Censure the Oath Ex Officio permitting Non-residence and the like But the Queen would not hearken to it partly because of the dislike she had of all Innovations which commonly tend unto the worse but chiefly in regard that all such Applications as they made to the Parliament were by her looked on as derogatory to her own Supremacy So that instead of gaining any of those points at the hands of the Parliament they gained nothing but displeasure from the Queen who is affirmed by Stow to have made a Speech at the end of their Session and therein to have told the Bishops That if they did not look more carefully to the discharge of their Duties she must take order to deprive them Sharp words and such as might necessitate the Bishops to
by the Name of Calixtins from the use of the Chalice and Subutraque from communicating in both kinds against all opposers Their Adversaries in the Church of Rome reproached them by the Name of Adamites and sometimes of Piccards imputing to them many Heterodoxies and some filthy Obscenities of which they never proved them guilty In this condition they remained till the preaching of Luther and the receiving of the Augustin Confession in most parts of the Empire which gave them so much confidence as to purge themselves from all former Calumnies by publishing a Declaration of their Faith and Doctrine Which they presented at Vienna to the Arch-Duke Ferdinand about ten years before chosen King of Bohemia together with a large Apology prefixt before it By which Confession it appears that they ascribe no Power to the Civil Magistrate in the Concernments of the Church That they had fallen upon a way of Ordaining Ministers amongst themselves without recourse unto the Bishop or any such Superior Officer as a Super-intendent And finally That they retained the use of Excommunication and other Ecclesiastical Censures for the chastising of irregular and scandalous persons In which last Point and almost all the other Branches of the said Confession though they appeared as sound and Orthodox as any others which had separated from the Church of Rome yet by their symbolizing with Geneva in so many particulars it was no hard matter for the whole Body of Calvinianism to creep in amongst them the growth whereof inflamed them to such desperate courses as they now pursued 25. For this they laid a good Foundation in the former year 1609 when Matthias with his great Army was preparing for Prague they found the Emperor in some fear from which he could not be secured but by their assistance and they resolved to husband the conjuncture for their best advantage In confidence whereof they propose unto him these Conditions viz. That the free exercise of Religion as well according to the Bohemian as the Augustin Confession might be kept inviolable and that they which professed the one should neither scoff or despise the other That all Arch-bishopricks Bishopricks Abbotships and other Spiritual Preferments should be given to the Bohemians only and that Ecclesiastical Offices should be permitted to Protestant Ministers as in former times That it should be lawful for all men in their own Bounds and Territories to build Churches for their own Religion and that the Professors and Patrons of the Vniversity of Prague should be joyned to the Consistory as in former times That all Political Offices should be indifferently permitted unto men of both Religions With many other things of like weight and moment in their Civil Concernments But the Emperor was not yet reduced to that necessity as to consent to all at once He gratified them at the present with a Conformation of their Civil Rights but put off the Demands which concerned Religion to the next Assembly of Estates conniving in the mean time at the exercise of that Religion which he could not tolerate 26. But the Calvinian Calixtins or Confessionists call them which you will perceiving a strong Party of the Catholicks to be made against them appointed a General Assembly to be holden in the City of New Prague the 4 th of May to consult of all such Matters as concerned their Cause protesting publickly according to the common Custom of that kind That this Assembly though not called by the Emperor's Authority aimed at no other End than his Service only and the prosperity of that Kingdom that both the Emperor and the Kingdom too might not through the Perswasions of his Evil Councellors be brought to extream peril and danger This done they send their Letters to the new King of Hungary the Prince Elector Palatine the Dukes of Saxony and Brunswick and other Princes of the Empire beseeching them That by their powerful intercession with His Imperial Majesty they might be suffered to enjoy the exercise of their own Religion which they affirmed to differ in no material Point from the Confession of Ausberg Following their blow they first Remonstrate to the Emperor how much they had been disappointed of their hopes and expectations from one time to another and in fine tells him in plain terms That they will do their best endeavour for the raising of Arms to the end they might be able with their utmost power to defend him their Soveraign together with themselves and the whole Kingdom against the Practises of their Forreign and Domestick Enemies According to which Resolution they forthwith raised a great number both of Horse and Foot whom they ranged under good Commanders and brought them openly into Prague They procured also that Ambassadors were sent from the Elector of Saxony and the Estates of Silesia a Province many years since incorporated with the Realm of Bohemia to intercede in their behalf This gave the Emperor a fair colour to consent to that which nothing but extream necessity could have wrested from him 27. For thereupon he published his Letters of the 14 th of Iuly 1610 by which it was declared That all his Subjects communicating under one or both kinds should live together peaceably and freely and without wronging or reviling one another under the pain and penalty of the Law to be inflicted upon them who should do the contrary That as they who communicated under one kind enjoyed the exercise of their Religion in all points throughout the Kingdom of Bohemia so they which did communicate under both kinds should enjoy the field without the lett or interruption of any and that they should enjoy the same till a general union in Religion and an end of all Controversies should be fully made That they should have the lower Consistory in the City of Prague with Power to conform the same according to their own Confession That they might lawfully make their Priests as well of the Bohemian as of the German Nation and settle them in their several Parishes without lett or molestation of the Arch-bishop of Prague and that besides the Schools and Churches which they had already it might be lawful for them to erect more of either sort as well in Cities as in Towns and Countrey Villages He declared also that all Edicts formerly published against the free exercise of Religion should be void frustrate and of none effect and that no contrary Edict against the States of the Religion should either be published by Himself or any of his Heirs and Successors or if any were should be esteemed of any force or effect in Law and finally That all such of His Majesty's Subjects that should do any thing contrary to these His Letters whether they were Ecclesiastical or Temporal persons should be severely punished as the Troublers of the Common Peace 28. The passing of this Gracious Edict which the Confessionists were not slow of putting into execution exceedingly exasperated all those of the Catholick Party who thereupon called in the
best assistance to the lawful Ministers for the receiving and enjoying of their Glebes and Tythes With an Injunction to all Sheriffs Mayors and other Ministers of Iustice to be aiding to them and to resist by force of Arms all such as should endeavour to disturb them in their lawful possessions But this served rather for a Declaration of His Majesty's Piety than an Example of His Power For notwithstanding all this Care his faithful Subjects of the Clergy in all parts of the Realm were plundred sequestred and ejected for the Crime of Loyalty some of them never being restored and others most unjustly kept from their Estates till this present year Anno 1660. 32. In the other Proclamation he forbids the tendring or taking of the Covenant before remembred Which Proclamation being short but full of substance shall be recited in His Majesty's own words which are these that follow Whereas saith he there is a printed Paper entituled A Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religion the Honour and Happiness of the King the Peace and Safety of the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the 21 of September last to be printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make some specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against Vs and against the established Religion and Laws of the Kingdom in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and Endeavour to bring in Forreign Forces to invade this Kingdom We do therefore straightly charge and command all Our loving Subjects of what degree or quality soever upon their Allegiance that they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby forbid and inhibit them to impose administer or tender the said Covenant as they and every of them will answer the contrary at their utmost and extreamest perils Such was the tenour of this Proclamation of the 9 th of October which though it served for a sufficient testimony of His Majesty's Prudence yet it prevailed as little as the other did For as the Two Houses did extend their Quarters and enlarge their Power so were the Subjects forced more generally to receive this yoak and to submit themselves to those Oaths and Covenants which they could neitâ—â—r take for fear of God's and the King's Displeasure and dared not to refuse for fear of losing all which was dear unto them So that it was esteemed for a special favour as indeed it was for all those which came in on the Oxford Articles to be exempted from the taking of this leud and accursed Covenant by which they were to bind themselves to betray the Church and to stand no further to the King than as he stood for the defence of that Religion which they then allowed of and of those Liberties which they had acquired by what way soever 33. And to say truth it was no wonder that the Presbyterians should impose new Oaths when they had broken all the old or seize upon the Tythes and Glebes of the Regular Clergy when they had sequestred the Estates of the Loyal Gentry and intercepted the Revenues of the King and Queen And it would be no wonder neither that they should seize on the Revenues of the King and Queen when they were grown to such a high degree of impudence as to impeach the Queen of Treason and were resolved of having no more Kings to comptroll their Actions They had already voted for the making of a new Great Seal though so to do was made High Treason by the Statute of K. EDWARD the third that they might expedite their Commissions with the more Authority and add some countenance of Law to the present Warr. Which must be managed in the Name of the King and Parliament the better to abuse the people and add some Reputation to the Crime of their undertakings And being Masters of a Seal they thought themselves in a capacity of acting as a Common-wealth as a State distinct but for the present making use of His Majesty's Name as their State-holder for the ordering of their new Republick But long He must not hold that neither though that was locked up as a Secrete amongst those of the Cabala till it was blurted out by Martin then Knight for Berks. By whom it was openly declared That the felicity of this Nation did not consist in any of the House of STVART Of which His Majesty complained but without reparation And for a further evidence of their good intentions a view is to be taken of the old Regalia and none so fit as Martin to perform that Service Who having commanded the Sub-dean of Westminster to bring him to the place in which they were kept made himself Master of the Spoil And having forced open a great Iron Chest took out the Crowns the Robes the Swords and Scepter belonging anciently to K. EDWARD the Confessor and used by all our Kings at their Inaugurations With a scorn greater than his Lusts and the rest of His Vices he openly declares That there would be no further use of those Toys and Trifles And in the jollity of that humour invests George Withers an old Puritan Satyrist in the Royal Habiliments Who being thus Crown'd and Royally array'd as right well became him first marcht about the Room with a stately Garb and afterwards with a thousand Apish and Ridiculous actions exposed those Sacred Ornaments to contempt and laughter Had the Abuse been script and whipt as it should have been the foolish Fellow possibly might have passed for a Prophet though he could not be reckoned for a Poet. 34. But yet the mischief stayed not here Another visit is bestowed upon these Regalia not to make merry with them but some money of them Mildmay a Puritan in Faction and Master of the Jewel-House by his Place and Office conceived that Prey to belong properly to him and having sold the King must needs buy the Crowns But being as false to his new Masters as he was to his old he first pickt out the richest Jewels and then compounded for the rest at an easie rate The like ill fortune fell unto the Organs Plate Coaps Hangings Altar-Cloaths and many other costly Utensils which belonged to the Church all which were either broke in pieces or seized upon and plundered for the use of the State Amongst the rest there was a goodly Challice of the purest Gold which though it could not be less worth than 300 l. was sold to Allyn a decayed Gold-Smith but then a Member of the House at the rate of 60 l. The Birds being flown the Nest is presently designed to the use of the Soldiers who out of wantonness and not for want of Lodging in that populous City must be quartered there And being quartered they omitted none of those shameless Insolencies which had been acted by their Fellows in other Churches For they not only
of which two Prayers both for Words and Matter wholly left unto the building of the Preacher but the whole action to be sanctified by the singing of Psalms At all such Prayers the people to kneel reverently upon their knees In the Administration of Baptism a Declaration to be made in a certain Form not onely of the promises of the Grace of God but also of the Mysteries of that holy Sacrament Sureties or Witnesses to be required at the Baptizing of Infants The Lords Supper to be Ministred on the Lords day at the Morning-Sermon and that in sitting at the Table for no other gesture is allowed of the men sit first and the women after or below them which though it might pass well in the Gallick Churches would hardly down without much chewing by the Wives of England The publication of intended Marriages which we call the bidding of the Bains to be made openly in the Church and the said Marriages to be solemnized with Exhortation and Prayer No Holy-days at all allowed of nothing directed in relation unto Christian Burials or the visiting of the Sick or to the Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth all which were pretermitted as either superstitious or impertinent Actions 14. That naked Form of Worship which Calvin had devised for the Church of Geneva not beautified with any of those outward Ornaments which make Religion estimable in the sight of the people and by the which the mindes of men are raised to a contemplation of the glorious Majesty which they come together to adore All ancient Forms and Ceremonies which had been recommended to the use of the Church even from the times of the Apostles rejected totally as contracting some filth and rubbish in the times of Popery without being called to answer for themselves or defend their innocencie And as for the habit of the Ministry whether Sacred or Civil as there was no course taken by the Rules of their Discipline or by the Rubricks of the book of their publick Offices so did they by themselves and their Emissaries endeavour to discountenance and discredit all other Churches in which distinct Vestures were retained Whence came those manifold quarrels against Coaps and Surplices as also against the Caps Gowns and Tippets of the lower Clergie the Rochets and Chimeres of the Bishops wherewith for more then twenty years they exercised the patience of the Church of England But naked as it was and utterly void of all outward Ornaments this Form of Worship looked so lovely in the eyes of Calvin that he endeavoured to obtrude it on all Churches else Having first setled his new Discipline in the Town of Geneva Anno 1541 and crusht Perinus and the rest in the dancing business about five years after he thought himself to be of such confidence that no Church was to be reformed but by his advice Upon which ground of self-opinion he makes an offer of himself to Archbishop Cranmer as soon as he had heard of the Reformation which was here intended but Cranmer knew the man and refused the offer Which though it was enough to have kept him from venturing any further in the business and affairs of England yet he resoved to be of counsel in all matters whether called or not And therefore having taken Order with Martin Bucer on his first coming into England to give him some account of the English Liturgie he had no sooner satisfied himself in the sight thereof but he makes presently his exceptions and demurs upon it which afterwards became the sole ground of those many troubles those horrible disorders and confusions wherewith his Faction have involved the Church of England from that time to this 15. For presently on the account which he received of the English Liturgy he writes back to Bucer whom he requireth to be instant with the Lord Protector that all such Rites as savoured of superstition might be taken away and how far that might reach we may easily guess Next he dispatched a long Letter to the Protector himself in which he makes many exceptions against the Liturgie as namely against Commemoration of the dead which he acknowledgeth notwithstanding to be ancient also against Chrisme or Oyl in Baptism and the Apostolical Rite of Extream Vnction though the last be rather permitted then required by the Rules of that Book which said he wisheth that all these Ceremonies should be abrogated and that withal he should go forward to reform the Church without fear or wit without regard of peace at home or correspondencie abroad such considerations being onely to be had in Civil matters but not in matters of the Church wherein not any thing is to be exacted which is not warranted by the Word and in the managing whereof saith he there is not any thing more distasteful in the eyes of God then worldly Wisdom either in moderating cutting off or going backward but meerly as we are directed by his will revealed In the next place he toucheth on the Book of Homilies which very faintly he permits for a season onely but not allows of and thereby gave the hint to many others who ever since almost have declaimed against them But finding nothing to be done by the Lord Protector he tryes his Fortune with the King and with the Lords of the Council and is resolved to venture once again on Archbishop Cranmer In his Letter to the King he lets him know that in the State of the Kingdom there were many things which required a present Reformation in that to the most Reverend Cranmer that in the Service of this Church there was remaining a whole Mass of Popery which seemed not onely to deface but in a manner to destroy Gods publick Worship and finally in those to the Lords of the Council that they needed some excitements to go forwards with the Work in hand in reference to the Alteration for that I take to be his aim of the publick Liturgie 16. But not content to tamper by his Letters with those Eminent Persons he had his Agents in the Court the City the Uversities the Country and the Convocation all of them practising in their distinct and proper Circuits to bring the people to dislike that Form of Worship which at the first was looked on by them as an Heavenly Treasure composed by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost Their Actings of this kinde for bringing down the Communion-Table decrying the Reverent use of Kneeling at the Participation inveighing against the sign of the Cross abolishing all distinction of days and times into Fasts and Festivals with many others of that nature I purposely omit till I come to England Let it suffice that by the eagerness of their sollicitations more then for any thing which could be faulted in the book it self it was brought under a review and thereby altered to a further distance then it had before from the Rituals of the Church of Rome But though it had much
Realm of France What was taught afterwards in pursuance of Calvins Doctrines by Hottaman and him that calls himself Eusebius Philadelphos amongst the French by Vrsine and Pareus in the Palatine Churches by Buchanan and Knox amongst the Scots and by some principal Disciplinarians amongst the English we shall hereafter see in their proper places And we shall then see also what was done in point of practice first by the Princes on the House of Bourbon and afterwards by some great Lords of the Hugonot party against Francis the Second Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Lewis the Thirteenth Kings of France by William Prince of Orange and other of the Belgick Lords in the final abdication of King Philip the Second by the Hungarians and Bohemians in their revolting from the Princes of the House of Austria by the Rebellious Scots in deposing imprisoning and expelling of their rightful Queen and finally by the Genevian Faction in the Realm of England in their imbroylments of the Nation under Queen Elizabeth and that calamitious War but more calamitous in the issue and conclusion of it against Charles the First All which are built upon no other ground then this Doctrine of Calvin accommodated and applyed to their several purposes as appears plainly by the Answer of the Scots to Queen Elizabeth who justified the deposing of their natural and lawful Queen on those words of Calvin which they relyed on for the sole ground of that horrible Treason and their Indemnity therein of which more hereafter 26. In the mean time I shall content my self with the following passage faithfully gathered out of the Common Places of William Bucan Divinity-Reader in the small University of Lawsanna sâ—ituate on the Lake Lemane in the Canton of Berne and consequently a neer Neighbour to the Town of Geneva who treating in his forty one Chapter of the Duty of Magistrates propounds this question toward the close viz. What a good Christian ought to do if by a cruel Prince he be distressed by some grievous and open injury To which he thus returns his Answer That though Princes and Subjects have relation unto one another yet Subjects in the course of nature were before their Princes and therefore that such Princes if they usurp not a plain Tyranny in their several Kingdoms are not Superiour to the rest by nature in the right of Father hood but are setled by the suffrages and consent of the people on such conditions as originally were agreed between them and that it follows thereupon according unto Buchanans Doctrine that Subjects are not born for the good of their Kings but that all Kings were made to serve for the good of the people that it is lawful to defend Religion by force of Arms not onely against the assaults of such Forreign Nations as have no jurisdiction over us but also against any part of the same Common-wealth the common consent of the Estates being first obtained which doth indeavour to subvert it that no violence is to be offered to the person of the Supreme Magistrate though he play the Tyrant by any private man whatsover except he be warranted thereunto by some extraordinary and express command from the Lord himself but the oppression rather to be born with patience then that God should be offended by such rash attempts that the Protection of the Supreme Magistrate was to be required against the unjust oppressions of inferiour Officers and that in a free Common-wealth the Supreme Magistrate is rather to be questioned in a course of Law then by open Force that Subjects may lawfully take up Arms in defence of their Wives and Children if the Chief Magistrate make any violent assault upon them as Lyons and other brute Creatures sight to defend their young ones this last exemplified by that of Trajan giving the Sword to the Captain of his Guard with these following words Hoc ense pro me justa faciente injusta facienâ—e contra me utaris that is to say That he should use the Sword against him in defence of himself and for the protection of all those who in regard of his Office were subject to him that therefore it was well done by the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of the House had exercised more then ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Country that David might lawfully have killed Saul because he gave his Wife to another man expelled him from his native Country murdered the Priests for doing some good Offices to him and pursued him from one place to another with his flying Army but that he did forbear to do it lest he should give an Example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by ambition might be like enough to imitate 27. Such is the Commentary of Buchanus upon Calvins Text by which all Christian Kings are made accountable even in Civil Matters to the three Estates or any other ordinary Officers of their own appointing Which Doctrines being once by him delivered and inforced by others what else could follow thereupon but first an undervaluing of their transcendent Authority afterwards a contempt of their persons and finally a reviling of them with reproachful Language From hence it was that Calvin calls Mary Queen of England by the name of Proserpine assuring us that all the Devils in Hell were not half so mischievous and that Knox could not finde for her any better titles then that of Iezabel mischievous Mary of the Spaniards blood the professed enemy of God From hence it was that Beza calls Mary Queen of Scots by the names of Medea and Athaliah of which the one was no less infamous in the Sacred then the other was in the Heathen story that the English Puritans compared Queen Elizabeth to an idle slut who swept the middle of the room but left all the dust and filth thereof behind the doors that Didoclavius calls King Iames the greatest and most deadly enemy of the holy Gospel and positively affirms of all Kings in general that they are naturally enemies to the Kingdom of Christ. And finally from hence it was that the seditious Author of the base and unworthy Dialogue entituled Eusebius Philadelphus hath so bespattered the great Princes of the House of France that he hath made them the most ugly Monsters in their lusts and cruelty which ere Nature produced and could devise no fitter names for Queen Mary of Scotland then those of Medea Clytemnestra Proserpine with that of monstrum Exitiale in the close of all And that the late most mighty Monarch of Great Britain was handled by his Subjects of this Faction with no less scurrility then if he had been raised on high for no other purpose then to be made the mark against which they were to shoot their Arrows even most bitter words the object of all false tongues and calumnious Pens Thus do they deal with Kings and Princes as Pilate in the
Gospel did with Christ our Saviour adorned them in their Royal Robes with their Crowns and Scepters and then exposed them to the scorn of the common Souldiers the insolencies and reproaches of the raskal Rabble 28. Nor do they deal much better with them in reference to their power in Spiritual Matters which they make either none at all or such as is subservient onely to the use of the Church Calvin first leads the way in this as he did in the other and seems exceedingly displeased with King Henry the Eighth for taking to him the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England Of this he makes complaint in his Commentary on the 7 of Amos not onely telling us what inconsiderate men they were who had conferred upon him any such Supremacie but that himself was very much disquieted and offended at it And though he be content to yeild him so much Authority as may enable him to make use of the Civil Sword to the protecting of the Church and the true Religion yet he condemns all those of the like inconsiderateness who make them more spiritual that is to say of greater power in Sacred Matters then indeed they are The Supreme power according to the Rules of Calvins Platform belongs unto the Consistory Classes or Synodical Meetings to which he hath ascribed the designation of all such as bear publick Office in the Church the appointing and proclaiming of all solemn Fasts the calling of all Councils or Synodical Meetings the censuring of all misdemeanors in the Ministers of holy Church in which last they have made the Supreme Magistrate an incompetent Judge and therefore his Authority and final Judgement in such cases of no force at all Beza treads close upon the heels of his Master Calvin and will allow no other power to the Civil Magistrate then to protect the Church and the Ministry of it in propagating and promoting the True Worship of God It is saith he the Office of the Civil Magistrate to use the Sword in maintenance and defence of Gods holy Church as it is the duty of the Ministers and Preachers of it to implore their aid as well against all such as refuse obedience to the Decrees and Constitutions of the Church as against Hereticks and Tyrants which endeavoured to subvert the same In which particulars if the Magistrate neglects to do his duty and shall not diligently labour in suppressing Heresie and executing the Decrees of the Church against all opponents what can the people do but follow the Example of the Mother-City in taking that power upon themselves though to the total alteration and subversion of the publick Government For from the Principles and practice of these great Reformers it hath ever since been taken up as a Ruled case amongst all their Followers that if Kings and Princes should refuse to reform Religion that then the inferiour Magistrates or the Common people by the direction of their Ministers both may and ought to proceed to a Reformation and that by force of Arms also if need so require 29. That by this Rule the Scots did generally walk in their Reformation under the Regencie of Mary of Lorreign Queen-Dowager to Iames the Fifth and after her decease in the Reign of her Daughter we shall show hereafter And we shall show hereafter also that it was published for good Genevian Doctrine by our English Puritans That if Princes hinder them that travail in the search of this holy Discipline they are Tyrants to the Church and the Ministers of it and being so may be deposed by their subjects Which though it be somewhat more then Calvin taught as to that particular yet the conclusion follows well enough on such faulty Premises which makes it seem the greater wonder in our English Puritans that following him so closely in pursuit of the Discipline their disaffection unto Kings and all Soveraign Princes their manifest contempt of all publick Liturgies and pertinaciously adhering to his Doctrine of Predestination they should so visibly dissent him in the point of the Sabbath For whereas some began to teach about these times that the keeping holy of one day in seven was to be reckoned for the Moral part of the fourth Commandment he could not let it pass without some reproof for what saith he can be intended by those men but in defiance of the Jews to change the day and then to add a greater Sanctity unto it then the Jews ever did First therefore he declares for his own Opinion that he made no such reckoning of a seventh-day-Sabbath as to inthral the Church to a necessity of conforming to it And secondly that he esteemed no otherwise of the Lords-day-Sabbath then of an Ecclesiastical Constitution appointed by our Ancestors in the place of the Jewish Sabbath and therefore alterable from one day to another at the Churches pleasure Followed therein by all the Churches of his party who thereupon permit all lawful Recreations and many works of necessary labour on the day it self provided that the people be not thereby hindred from giving their attendance in the Church at the times appointed Insomuch that in Geneva if self all manlike exercises as running vaulting leaping shooting and many others of that nature are as indifferently indulged on the Lords day as on any other How far the English Puritans departed from their Mother-Church both in Doctrine and Practice with reference to this particular we shall see hereafter when they could finde no other way to advance Presbytery and to decry the Reputation of the ancient Festivals then by erecting their new Sabbath in the hearts of the people 30. It is reportred by Iohn Barkley in his Book called Parenesâ—s ad Scotos that Calvin once held a Consultation at Geneva for transferring the Lords day from Sunday to Thursday Which though perhaps it may be true considering the inclination of the man to new devices yet I conceive that he had greater projects in his Head and could finde other ways to advance his Discipline then by falling upon any such ridiculous and odious Counsel He had many Irons in the fire but took more care in hammering his Discipline then all the rest First by entitling it to some express Warrant from the holy Scripture and afterwards by commending it to all the Churches of the Reformation In reference to the first he lets us know in his Epistle to Farellus Septemb. 16. 1543. that the Church could not otherwise subsist then under such a Form of Government as is prescribed in the Word and observed in old times by the Church And in relation to the other he was resolved to make his best use of that Authority which by his Commentaries on the Scriptures his Book of Institutions and some occasional Discourses against the Papists he had acquired in all the Protestant and reformed Churches Insomuch that Gasper Ligerus a Divine of Witteberge by his Letters bearing date Feb. 27. 1554
as much disquieted and as apt for action as the Princes of the House of Bourbon for the former Reasons Many designs were offered to consideration in their private Meetings but none was more likely to effect their business then to make themselves the Heads of the Hugonot Faction which the two Chastilions had long favoured as far as they durst By whose assistance they might draw all affairs to their own disposing get the Kings person into their power shut the Queen-mother into a Cloyster and force the Guises into Lorrain out of which they came 5. This counsel was the rather followed because it seemed most agreeable to the inclinations of the Queen of Navar Daughter of Henry of Albret and the Lady Margaret before-mentioned and Wife of Anthony Duke of Vendosm who in her Right acquired the title to that Kingdom Which Princess being naturally averse from the Popes of Rome and no less powerfully transported by some flattering hopes for the recovery of her Kingdoms conceived no expedient so effectual to revenge her self upon the one and Inthrone her self in the other as the prosecuting this design to the very utmost Upon which ground she inculcated nothing more into the ears of her Husband then that he must not suffer such an opportunity to slip out of his hands for the recovery of the Crown which belonged unto her that he might make himself the Head of a mighty Faction containing almost half the strength of France that by so doing he might expect assistance from the German Princes of the same Religion from Queen Elizabeth of England and many discontented Lords in the Belgick Provinces besides such of the Catholick party even in France it self as were displeased at the Omni-Regency of the House of Guise that by a strong Conjunction of all these interesses he might not onely get his ends upon the Guises but carry his Army cross the Mountains make himself Master of Navar with all the Rights and Royalties appertaining to it But all this could not so prevail on the Duke her Husband whom we will henceforth call the King of Navar as either openly or under-hand to promote the enterprise which he conceived more like to hinder his affairs then to advance his hopes For the Queen-Mother having some intelligence of these secret practices sends for him to the Court commends unto his care her Daughter the Princess Isabella affianced to Philip the Second King of Spain and puts him chief into Commission for delivering her upon the Borders to such Spanish Ministers as were appointed to receive her All which she did as she assured him for no other ends but out of the great esteem which she had of his person to put him into a fair way for ingratiating himself with the Catholick King and to give him such a hopeful opportunity for solliciting his own affairs with the Grandees of Spain as might much tend to his advantage upon this imployment Which device had so wrought upon him and he had been so finely fitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King that he thought himself in a better way to regain his Kingdom then all the Hugonots in France together with their Friends in Germany and England could chalk out unto him 6. But notwithstanding this great coldness in the King of Navar the business was so hotly followed by the Prince of Conde the Admiral Colligny and his brother D' Andelot that the Hugonots were drawn to unite together under the Princes of that House To which they were spurred on the faster by the practices of Godfrey de la Bar commonly called Renaudie from the name of his Signiory a man of a most mischievous Wit and a dangerous Eloquence who being forced to abandon his own Country for some misdemeanors betook himself unto Geneva where he grew great with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistory and coming back again in the change of times was thought the fittest instrument to promote this service and draw the party to a body Which being industriously pursued was in fine effected many great men who had before concealed themselves in their affections declaring openly in favour of the Reformation when they perceived it countenanced by such Potent Princes To each of these according as they found them qualified for parts and power they assigned their Provinces and Precincts within the limits whereof they were directed to raise Men Arms Money and all other necessaries for carrying on of the design but all things to be done in so close a manner that no discovery should be made till the deed was done By this it was agreed upon that a certain number of them should repair to the King at Bloise and tender a Petition to him in all humble manner for the Free exercise of the Religion which they then professed and for professing which they had been persecuted in the days of his Father But these Petitioners were to be backed with multitudes of armed men gathered together from all parts on the day appointed who on the Kings denyal of so just a suit should violently break into the Court seize on the person of the King surprise the Queen and put the Guises to the Sword And that being done Liberty was to be Proclaimed Free exercise of Religion granted by publick Edict the managery of affairs committed to the Prince of Conde and all the rest of the Confederates gratified with rewards and honours Impossible it was that in a business which required so many hands none should be found to give intelligence to the adverse party which coming to the knowledge of the Queen-Mother and the Duke of Guise they removed the Court from Bloise a weak open Town to the strong Castle of Amboise pretending nothing but the giving of the King some recreation in the Woods adjoyning But being once setled in the Castle the King is made acquainted with the threatned danger the Duke of Guise appointed Lieutenant-General of the Realm of France And by his care the matter was so wisely handled that without making any noise to affright the Confederates the Petitioners were admitted into the Town whilst in the mean time several Troopes of Horse were sent out by him to fall on such of their accomplices as were well armed and ready to have done the mischief if not thus prevented 7. The issue of the business was that Renaudie the chief Actor in it was killed in the fight many of the rest slain and some taken Prisoners the whole body of them being routed and compelled to flee yet such was the clemencie of the King and the diâ—creet temper of the Guises in the course of this business that a general pardon was proclaimed on the 18 of March being the third day after the Execution to all that being moved onely with the Zeal to Religion had entred themselves into the Conspiracie if within twenty four hours they laid down their Arms and retired to their own Houses But this did little edifie with those hot spirits which had
the conduct of the Cause and had befooled themselves and others with the flattering hopes of gaining the Free exercise of their Religion It cannot be denyed but that they were resolved so to act their parts that Religion might not seem to have any hand in it or at the least might not suffer by it if the plot miscarried To which end they procured the chief Lawyers of France and Germany and many of the reformed Divines of the greatest eminence to publish some Writings to this purpose that is to say that without violating the Majesty of the King and the dignity of the lawful Magistrate they might oppose with Arms the violent Domination of the House of Guise who were given out for Enemies to the true Religion hinderers of the course of Justice and in effect no better then the Kings Jaylors as the case then stood But this Mask was quickly taken off and the design appeared bare faced without any vizard For presently upon the routing of the Forces in the Woods of Amboise they caused great tumults to be raised in Poictou Languedock and Provence To which the Preachers of Geneva were forthwith called and they came as willingly their Followers being much increased both in courage and numbers as well by their vehemency in the Pulpit as their private practices In Daulpheny and some parts of Provence they proceeded further seized upon divers of the Churches for the Exercise of their Religion as if all matters had succeeded answerable to their expectation But on the first coming of some Forces from the Duke of Guise they shrunk in again and left the Country in the same condition wherein first they found it Of this particular Calvin gives notice unto Bullenger by his Letters of the 27 of May Anno 1560 complaining much of the extreme rashness and fool-hardiness of some of that party whom no sober counsels could restrain from those ingagements which might have proved so dangerous and destructive to the cause of Religion Which words of his relate not onely to the Action of Daulphine and Provence but to some of the attempts preceding whatsoever they were by him discouraged and disswaded if we may believe him 8. But though we may believe him as I think we may the Pope and Court of France were otherwise perswaded of it Reinadoes going from Geneva to unite the party was as unlikely to be done without his allowance as without his privity But certainly the Ministers of Geneva durst not leave their Flocks to Preach Sedition to the French of Provence and Languedock if he had neither connived at it or advised them to it and such connivings differ but little from commands as we find in Salvian Once it is sure that the Pope suggested to the French King by the Bishop of Viterbo whom he sent in the nature of a Legate that all the mischief which troubled France and the Poyson which infected that Kingdom and the Neighbouring Countries for so I finde in my Authoâ— came from no other Fountain then the Lake of Geneva that by digging at the very Root he might divert a great part of that nourishment by which those mischiefs were fomented and that by prosecuting such a Forraign War he might evacuate those bad humours which distempered his Kingdom and therefore if the King be pleased to engage herein his Holiness would not onely send him some convenient Aids but move the Scotch King and the Duke of Savoy to assist him also But neither the Queen-Mother nor the Guise for the King acted little in his own affairs could approve the motion partly for fear of giving offence unto the Switzers with whom Geneva had confederated thirty years before and partly because none being like to engage in that War but the Catholicks onely the Kingdom would thereby lye open to the adverse party But nothing more diverted the three Princes from concurring in it then the impossibility of complying with their several interesses in the disposing of the Town when it should be taken The Duke of Savoy would not enter into the War before he was assured by the other Princes that he should reap the profit of it that belonging anciently to his jurisdiction But it agreed neither with the interest of France nor Spain to make the Duke greater then he was by so fair an addition as would be made to his Estate were it yeilded to him The Spaniard knew that the French King would never bring him into France or put into his hands such a fortified pass by which he might enter when he pleased As on the other side the Spaniards would not suffer it to fall into the power of the French by reason of its neer Neighbour-hood unto the County of Burgundy which both then was and ever since hath been appendant on the Crown of Spain By reason of which mutual distrusts and jealousies the Pope received no other answer to his motion in the Court of France but that it was impossible to apply themselves to matters abroad when they were exercised at home with so many concernments 9. This answer pinched upon the Pope who found as much confusion in the State of Avignion belonging for some hundreds of years to the See of Rome as the French could reasonably complain in the Bowels of France For lying as it did within the limits of Provence and being visited with such of the French Preachers as had been studied at Geneva the people generally became inclined unto Calvins Doctrines and made profession of the same both in private and publick nay they resolved upon the lawfulness of taking up of Arms against the Pope though their natural Lord partly upon pretence that the Country was unjustly taken from the Earls of Tholouse by the Predecessors of the Pope partly because the present Pope could prove no true Lineal Succession from the first Usurper but chiefly in regard that persons Ecclesiastical were disabled by Christs Commandments from exercising any Temporal Jurisdiction over other men Being thus resolved to rebel they put themselves by the perswasion of Alexander Guilatine a professed Civilian into the protection of Charles Count de Mont-brun who had then taken Arms against the King in the Country of Daulphine Mont-brun accepts of the imployment enters the Territory of Avignion with three thousand Foot reduceth the whole Country under his command the Popes Vice-Legate in the City being hardly able for the present to make good the Castle But so it happened that the Cardinal of Tournon whose Niece the Count had married being neer the place prevailed with him after some discourse to withdraw his Forces and to retire unto Geneva assuring him not onely of his Majesties pardon and the restitution of his Goods which had been confiscated but that he should have liberty of Conscience also which he prized far more then both the other By which Action the people were necessitated to return to their old obedience but with so many fears and jealousies on either side that many
years were spent before the Pope could be assured of the love of his Subjects or they relye upon the Clemency and good will of their Prince Such issue had the first attempts of the Calvinians in the Realm of France 10. In the mean time it was determined by the Cabinet Council in the Court to smother the indignity of these insurrections that the hot spirits of the French might have time to cool and afterwards to call them to a sober reckoning when they least looked for it In order whereunto an Edict is published in the Kings name and sent to all the Parliamentary Courts of France being at that time eight in all concerning the holding of an Assembly at Fountain-bleau on the 21 of August then next following for composing the distractions of the Kingdom And in that Edict he declares that without any evident occasion a great number of persons had risen and taken Arms against him that he could not but impute the cause thereof to the Hugonots onely who having laid aside all belief to God and all affection to their Country endeavoured to disturb the peace of the Kingdom that he was willing notwithstanding to pardon all such as having made acknowledgement of their errours should return to their Houses and live conformable to the Rites of the Catholick Church and in obedience to the Laws that therefore none of his Courts of Parliament should proceed in matters of Religion upon any manner of information for offences past but to provide by all severity for the future against their committing of the like and finally that for reforming all abuses in Government he resolved upon the calling of an Assembly in which the Princes and most Eminent Persons of the Kingdom should consult together the saâ—d Assembly to be held at his Majesties Palace of Fountain-bleau on the 21 of August then next following and free leave to be therein granted to all manner of persons not onely to propound their grievances but to advise on some expedient for redress thereof According unto which appointment the Assembly holds but neither the King of Navar nor the Prince of Conde could be perswaded to be present being both bent as it appeared not long after on some further projects But it was ordered that the Admiral Collignie and his brother D' Andelot should attend the service to the end that nothing should be there concluded without their privity or to the prejudice of their Cause And that they might the better strike a terrour into the Heart of the King whom they conceived to have been frighted to the calling of the present Assembly the Admiral tenders a Petition in behalf of those of the reformed Religion in the Dukedom of Normandy which they were ready to subscribe with one hundred and fifty thousand hands if it were required To which the Cardinal of Lorrain as bravely answered that if 150000 seditious could be found in France to subscribe that paper he doubted not but that there were a million of Loyal Subjects who would be ready to encounter them and oppose their insolencies 11. In this Assembly it was ordered by the common consent that for rectifying of abuses amongst the Clergy a meeting should be held of Divines and Prelates in which those discords might be remedied without innovating or disputing in matters of Faith and that for setling the affairs of the Kingdom an Assembly of the three Estates should be held at Orleance in the beginning of October to which all persons interested were required to come All which the Hugonots imputed to the consternation which they had brought upon the Court by their former risings and the great fear which was conceived of some new insurrections if all things were not regulated and reformed according unto their desires Which misconceit so wrought upon the principal Leaders that they resolved to make use of the present fears by seizing on such Towns and places of consequence as might enable them to defend both themselves and their parties against all opponents And to that end it was concluded that the King of Navar should seize upon all places in his way betwixt Bearn and Orleance that the City of Paris should be seized on by the help of the Marshal of Montmorency the Dukes Eldest Son who was Governour of it that they should assure themselves of Picardy by the Lords of Tenepont and Bouchavanne and of Britain by the Duke of Estampes who was powerful in it that being thus fortified well armed and better accompanied by the Hugonots whom they might presume of they should force the Assembly of the Estates to depose the Queen remove the Guises from the Government declare the King to be in his minority till he came to twenty two years of age appoint the King of Navar the Constable and the Prince of Conde for his Tutors and Governours which practice as it was confessed by Iaques de la Sague one of the Servants of the King of Navar who had been intercepted in his journey to him so the confession was confirmed by some Letters from the Visdame of Chartres which he had about him But this discovery being kept secret the Hugonots having taken courage from the first conspiracie at Amboise and the open profession of the Admiral began to raise some new commotions in all parts of the Kingdom and laying aside all obedience and respect of duty not onely made open resistance against the Magistrates but had directly taken arms in many places and practised to get into their hands some principal Towns to which they might retire in all times of danger Amongst which none was more aimed at then the City of Lyons a City of great Wealth and Trading and where great numbers of the people were inclined to Calvins Doctrine by reason of their neer Neighbourhood to Geneva and the Protestant Cantons Upon this Town the Prince of Conde had a plot and was like to have carried it though in the end it fell out contrary to his expectation which forced him to withdraw himself to Bearn there to provide for the security of himself and his Brother 12. But the King of Navar not being so deeply interested in these late designs in which his name had been made use of half against his will could not so much distrust himself and his personal safety as not to put himself into a readiness for his journey to Orleance To which he could by no means perswade the Prince and was by him much laboured not to go in person till they were certified that the King was sending Forces to fetch them thence which could not be without the wasting of the Country and the betraying of themselves unto those suspicions which otherwise they might hope to clear No sooner were they come to Orleance but the Prince was arrested of high Treason committed close Prisoner with a Guard upon him the cognizance of his Cause appointed unto certain Delegates his Process formed and Sentence of death pronounced against him which questionless had
been executed both on him and the King of Navar who was then also under a Guard if the death of the young King had not intervened on the fifth of December which put the Court into new Counsels and preserved their lives For the Queen wisely took into consideration that if these two Princes were destroyed there could be no fit counterpoise for the House of Guise which possibly might thereby be temped to revive the old pretensions of the House of Lorrain as the direct Heirs of Charles the Great For which they could not have a better opportunity then they had at the present the Eldest of her three Sons not exceeding ten years of age none of them of a vigorous constitution and therefore the more likely to want Friends in their greatest need Upon these apprehensions she sends secretly for the King of Navar and came at last to this agreement viz. that during the Minority of her son King Charles the Ninth the Queen-mother should be declared Regent and the King of Navar Lord-Lieutenant of France all supplications from the Provinces to be made to the Lord-Lieutenant but all Ambassadors and Letters of Negotiation from Forreign Princes to be presented to the Queen that the Prince of Conde the Visdame of Chartres with all other Prisoners of their party to be set at liberty and the sentences of their condemnations to be so declared null and void that the Queen-Regent should make use of her power and interest with the Catholick King for restoring to the King of Navar the entire possession of that Kingdom or at the least the Kingdom of Sardinia as a recompence for it And at last it was also yeilded though long first and published by the Edict of the 28 of Ianuary That the Magistrates should be ordered to release all Prisoners committed for matters of Religion and to stop any manner of Inquisition appointed for that purpose against any person whatsoever that they should not suffer any disputation in matters of Faith nor permit particular persons to revile one another with the names of Heretick and Papist but that all should live together in peace abstaining from unlawful Assemblies or to raise scandals or Sedition 13. By this Edict the Doctrines of Calvin were first countenanced in the Realm of France under the pretence of hindring the effusion of more Christian blood which carryed an appearance of much Christianity though in plain truth it was to be ascribed to the Queens ambition who could devise no other way to preserve her greatness and counterbalance the Authority of the House of Guise But the Hugonots not being content with a bare connivance resolved to drive it on to a Toleration and to drive it on in such a manner and by such means onely by which they had extorted as they thought these first concessions For thinking the Queen-Regent not to be in a condition to deny them any thing much less to call them into question for their future Actings they presently fell upon the open exercise of their own Religion and every where exceedingly increased both in power and numbers In confidence whereof by publick Assemblies insolent Speeches and other acts the like unpleasing they incurred the hatred and disdain of the Catholick party which put all places into tumult and filled all the Provinces of the Kingdom with seditious rumours so that contrary to the intention of those that governed and contrary to the common opinion the remedy applyed to maintain the State and preserve peace and concord in the Kings minority fell out to be dangerous and destructive and upon the matter occasioned all those dissentions which they hoped by so much care to have prevented For as the Cardinal informed the Council the Hugonots were grown by this connivance to so great a height that the Priests were not suffered to celebrate their daily Sacrifices or to make use of their own Pulpits that the Magistrates were no longer obeyed in their jurisdictions and that all places raged with discords burnings and slaughters through the peevishness and presumption of those who assumed to themselves a liberty of teaching and believing whatsoever they listed Upon which points he so enlarged himself with his wonted eloquence that neither the King of Navar nor any other of that party could make any Reply And the Queen-Mother also being silent in it it was unanimously voted by the Lords of the Council that all the Officers of the Crown should assemble at the Parliament of Paris on the thirteenth of Iuly there to debate in the Kings presence of all these particulars and to resolve upon such remedies as were necessary for the future At which time it was by general consent expresly ordered upon complaint made of the insurrection of the Hugonots in so many places that all the Ministers should forthwith be expelled the Kingdom that no manner of person should from thenceforth use any other Rites or Ceremonies in Religion that were not held and taught by the Church of Rome and that all Assemblies of men armed or unarmed should be interdicted except it were of Catholicks in Catholick Churches for Divine performances according to the usual Custom 14. The Admiral and the Prince of Conde finding themselves unable to cross this Edict resolved upon another course to advance their partie and to that end encouraged the Calvinian Ministers to petition for a Disputation in the Kings presence to be held between them and the Adversaries of their Religion Which Disputation being propounded was opposed by the Cardinal of Tournon upon a just consideration of those inconveniencies which might follow on it the rather in regard of the General Council then convened at Trent where they might safely both propose and dispute their opinions But on the other side the Cardinal of Lorrain being willing to imbrace the occasion for making a general Muster of his own Abilities his subtilty in Divinity and his art of speaking prevailed so far upon the rest that the suit was granted and a Conference thereupon appointed to be held at Poyssie on the tenth day of August 1561. At which time there assembled for the Catholick party the Cardinals of Tournon Lorrain Bourbon Armagnac and Guise with many Bishops and Prelates of greatest eminencie some Doctors of the Sorbon and many great Divines from the Universities The Disputants authorized for the other side were of like esteem amongst those of their own party and perswasions as namely Theodore Beza Peter Marâ—yr Francis de St. Paul Iohn Raimond and Iohn Vizelle with many other Ministers from Geneva Germany and others of the Neighbouring Countries But the result of all was this as commonly it happeneth on the like occasions that both parties challenged to themselves the Victory in it and both indeed were victors in some respects For the King of Navar appeared much unsatisfied by noting the differences of the Ministers amongst themselves some of them adhering to the Augustane and others to the Helvetian Confession in some points of Doctrine
which made him afterwards more cordial to the interest of the Church of Rome notwithstanding all the arguments and insinuations used by his Wife a most zealous Hugonot to withdaaw him from it But the Hugonots gave out on the other side that they had made good their Doctrines convinced the Catholick Doctors confounded the Cardinal of Lorrain and gotten License from the King to Preach Which gave such courage to the rest of that Faction that they began of their own Authority to assemble themselves in such places as they thought most convenient and their Ministers to preach in publick and their Preachings followed and frequented by such infinite multitudes as well of the Nobility as the common People that it was thought impossible to suppress and dangerous to disturb their Meetings For so it was that if either the Magistrates molested them in their Congregations or the Catholicks attemped to drive them out of their Temples without respect to any Authority they put themselves into Arms and in the middle of a full Peace was made a shew of a most terrible and destructive War 15. This being observed by those which sate at the Helme and finding that these tempests were occasioned by the Edict of Iuly it was resolved to stere their course by another winde For the Queen being setled in this Maxime of State That she was not to suffer one Faction to destroy the other for fear she should remain a prey to the Victor not onely gave order for conventing all the Parliaments to a Common-Council but earnestly sollicited for a Pacification which gave beginning to the famous Edict of Ianuary whereby it was granted that the Hugonots should have the Free exercise of their Religion that they might assemble to hearing of Sermons in any open place without their Cities but on condition that they went unarmed and that the Officers of the place were there also present Which Edict so offended the chief Heads of the Catholick party that a strict combination and confederacy was concluded on between the King of Navar the Constable and the Duke of Guise for maintenance of the Religion of the Church of Rome And this reduced the Queen-Regent to the like necessity of making a strict union with the Admiral and the Prince of Conde whereby she was assured of the power of the Hugonots and they became as confident of her Protection In which condition they were able to form their Churches to cast them into Provinces Classes and other subdivisions of a less capacity to settle in them their Presbyteries and Synodical Meetings grounded according to their Rules of Calvins Platform in Doctrine Discipline and Worship The Forms whereof being discribed at large in the former Book may there be found without the trouble of a repetition In so much that it was certified to the Fathers in the Council of Trent that the French Hugonots were at that time distributed into two thousand one hundred and fifty Churches each of them furnished with their proper and peculiar Preachers according to a just computation which was taken of them which computation was then made to satisfie the Queen-Regent in the strength of that party for which she could not otherwise declare her self unless she were first made acquainted with their power and numbers But being satisfied in those points she began to shew her self much inclined to Calvinism gave ear unto the Discourses of the Ministers in her private Chamber conferred familiarly with the Prince the Admiral and many others in matters which concerned their Churches and finally so disguised her self that the Pope was not able to discover at what port she aimed For sometimes she would write unto him for such a Council as by the Calvinians was desired at other times for a national one to be held in France sometimes desiring that the Communion might be administred under both kindes otherwhile requiring a Dispensation for Priests to Marry now solliciting that Divine Service might be said in the vulgar tongue then proposing such other like things as were wished and preached for by the Hugonots By which dissimulations she amused the World but gave withal so many notable advantages to the Reformation that next to God she was the principal promoter and advancer of it though this prosperity proved the cause of those many miseries which afterwards ensued upon it 16. For by this means the Preachers having free access into the Court became exceedingly respected in the City of Paris where in short time their followers did increase to so great a multitude as put the Prince of Conde into such a confidence that he assumed unto himself the managery of all great affairs Which course so visibly tended to the diminution of the King of Navar that he resolved by strong hand to remove him from Paris And to that end directed both his Messages and his Letters to the Duke of Guise to come in to help him The Duke was then at Iainville in the Province of Champaigne and happened in his way upon a Village called Vassey where the Hugonots were assembled in great numbers to hear a Sermon A scuffle unhappily is begun between some of the Dukes Footmen and not a few of the more unadvised and adventurous Hugonots which the Duke coming to part was hit with a blow of a stone upon one of his Cheeks which forced him with the loss of some blood to retire again Provoked with which indignity his Followers being two Companies of Lances charge in upon them with their Fire-looks kill sixty of them in the place and force the rest for preservation of their lives into several houses This accident is by the Hugonots given out to be a matter of design the execution done upon those sixty persons must be called a Massacre and in revenge thereof the Kingdom shall be filled with Blood and Rapine Altars and Images defaced Monasteries ruined and pulled down and Churches bruitishly polluted The Queen had so long juggled between both parties that now it was not safe for her to declare for either Upon which ground she removed the Court to Fountain-bleau and left them to play their own Games as the Dice should run The presence of the King was looked upon as a matter of great importance and either party laboured to get him into their power The City of Orleance more especially was aimed at by the Prince of Conde as lying in the heart of the Kingdom rich large and populous sufficiently inclined to novelty and innovations and therefore thought the fittest Stage for his future Actings Being thus resolved he first sends D' Andelot with some Forces to possess the Town and posts himself towards Fountain-Bleau with three thousand Horse But the Catholick Confederates had been there before him and brought the King off safely to his City of Paris which being signified to the Prince as he was on his way he diverts toward Orleance and came thither in a luckie hour to relieve his Friends which having seized upon one of the
Gates and thereby got possession of that part of the City was in apparent danger to be utterly broken by the Catholick party if the Prince had not come so opportunely to renew the fight but by his coming they prevailed made themselves Masters of the City and handselled their new Government with the spoil of all the Churches and Religious Houses which either they defaced or laid waste and desolate Amongst which none was used more coursely then the Church of St. Crosse being the Cathedral of that City not so much out of a dislike to all Cathedrals though that had been sufficient to expose it unto Spoil and Rapine as out of hatred to the name Upon which furious piece of Zeal they afterwards destroyed all the little Crosses which they found in the way between Mont-Martyr and St. Denis first raised in memory of Denis the first Bishop of Paris and one that passeth in account for the chief Apostle of the Gallick Nations 17. But to proceed to put some fair colour upon this foul action a Manifest is writ and published in which the Prince and his adherents signifie to all whom it might concern that they had taken arms for no other reason but to restore the King and Queen to their personal liberty kept Prisoners by the power and practice of the Catholick Lords that obedience might be rendred in all places to his Majesties Edicts which by the violence of some men had been infringed and therefore that they were willing to lay down Arms if the Constable the Duke of Guise and the Marshal of St. Andrews should retire from Paris leaving the King and Queen to their own disposing and that liberty of Religion might be equally tolerated and maintained unto all alike These false Colours were wiped off by a like Remonstrance made by the Parliament of Paris In which it was declared amongst other things that the Hugonots had first broke those Edicts by going armed to their Assemblies and without an Officer That they had no pretence to excuse themselves from the crime of Rebellion considering they had openly seized on many Towns raised Souldiers assumed the Munition of the Kingdom cast many pieces of Ordnance and Artillery assumed unto themselves the Coyning of Money and in a word that they have wasted a great part of the publick Revenues robbed all the rich Churches within their power and destroyed the rest to the dishonour of God the scandal of Religion and the impoverishing of the Realm The like answer was made also by the Constable and the Duke of Guise in their own behalf declaring in the same that they were willing to retire and put themselves into voluntary exile upon condition that the Arms taken up against the King might be quite laid down the places kept against him delivered up the Churches which were ruined restored again the Catholick Religion honourably preserved and an intire obedience rendred to the lawful King under the Government of the King of Navar and the Regencie of the Queen his Mother Nor were the King and Queen wanting to make up the breach by publishing that they were free from all restraint and that the Catholick Lords had but done their duty in waiting on them into Paris that since the Catholick Lords were willing to retire from Court the Prince of Conde had no reason to remain at that distance that therefore he and his adherents ought to put themselves together with the places which they had possessed into the obedience of the King which if they did they should not onely have their several and respective Pardons for all matters past but be from thenceforth looked upon as his Loyal Subjects without the least diminution of State or honour 18. These Paper-pellets being thus spent both sides prepare more furiously to charge each other But first the Prince of Conde by the aid of the Hugonots makes himself Master of the great Towns and Câ—ties of chief importance such as were Rouen the Parliamentary City of the Dukedom of Normandy the Ports of Diepe and New-haven the Cities of Angiers Towres Bloise Vendosme Bourges and Poictiers which last were reckoned for the greatest of all the Kingdom except Rouen and Paris after which followed the rich City of Lyons with that of Valence in the Province of Daulphiny together with almost all the strong places in Gascoigne and Languedock Provinces in a manner wholly Hugonot except Tholouse Bourdeaux and perhaps some others But because neither the Contributions which came in from the Hugonots though they were very large nor the spoil and pillage of those Cities which they took by force were of themselves sufficient to maintain the War the Prince of Conde caused all the Gold and Silver in the Churches to be brought unto him which he coyned into Money They made provision of all manner of Artillery and Ammunition which they took from most of the Towns and laid up in Orleance turning the Covent of the Franciscans into a Magazine and there disposing all their stores with great art and industry The Catholicks on the other side drew their Forces together consisting of 4000 Horse and six thousand Foot most of them old experienced Souldiers and trained up in the War against Charles the Fifth The Prince had raised an Army of an equal number that is to say three thousand Horse and seven thousand Foot but for the most part raw and young Souldiers and such as scarcely knew how to stand to their Arms And yet with these weak Forces he was grown so high that nothing would content him but the banishment of the Constable the Cardinal of Lorrain and the Duke of Guise free liberty for the Hugonots to meet together for the Exercise of their Religion in walled Towns Cities and Churches to be publickly appointed for them the holding of the Towns which he was presently possessed of as their absolute Lord till the King were out of his Minority which was to last till he came to the age of two and twenty He required also that the Popes Legate should be presently commanded to leave the Kingdom that the Hugonots should be capable of all Honours and Offices and finally that security should be given by the Emperour the Catholick King the Queen of England the State of Venice the Duke of Savoy and the Republick of the Switzers by which they were to stand obliged that neither the Constable nor the Duke of Guise should return into France till the King was come unto the age before remembred 19. These violent demands so incensed all those which had the Government of the State that the Prince and his Adherents were proclaimed Traytors and as such to be prosecuted in a course of Law if they laid not down their Arms by a day appointed Which did as little benefit them as the proposals of the Prince had pleased the others For thereupon the Hugonots united themselves more strictly into a Confederacie to deliver the King the Queen the Kingdom from the violence of their
Kingdom Normandy was in no small danger of being wilfully betrayed into the hands of the English who therefore were to be removed or at the least to be expulsed out of Rouen before the Kings Army was consumed in Actions of inferiour consequence The issue of which War was this That though the English did brave service for defence of the City and made many gallant attempts for relief thereof by their men and shipping from New-haven yet in the end the Town was taken by assault and for two days together made a prey to the Souldiers The joy of the Royalists for the reduction of this great City to the Kings obedience was much abated by the death of the King of Navar who had unfortunately received his deaths wound in the heat of the Seige and dyed in the forty fourth year of his age leaving behind him a young Son called Henry who afterward succeeded in the Crown of France And on the contrary the sorrow for this double loss was much diminished in the Prince of Conde and the rest of his party by the seasonable coming of four thousand Horse and five thousand Foot which Monsieur d' Andelot with great industry had raised in Germany and with as great courage and good fortune had conducted safely to the Prince 22. By the accession of these Forces the Hugonots are incouraged to attempt the surprizing of Paris from which they were disswaded by the Admiral but eagerly inflamed to that undertaking by the continual importunity of such Preachers as they had about them Repulsed from which with loss both of time and honour they were encountred in a set battel near the Câ—ty of Dreux in the neighbouring Province of Le Beausse In which battel their whole Army was overthrown and the Prince of Conde taken prisoner but his captivity sweetned by the like misfortune which befel the Constable took prisoner in the same battel by the hands of the Admiral who having drawn together the remainder of his broken Army retires towards Orleance and leaving there his Brother D' Andelot with the Foot to make good that City takes with him all the German Horse and so goes for Normandy there to receive such Monies as were sent from England But the Monies not coming at the time by reason of cross windes and tempestuous weather the Germans are permitted to spoil and plunder in all the parts of the Country not sparing places either Profane or Sacred and reckoning no distinction either betwixt Friends or Enemies But in short time the Seas grew passable and the Monies came an hundred and fifty thousand Crowns according to the French account together with fourteen pieces of Cannon and a proportionable stock of Ammunition by which supply the Germans were not onely well paid for spoiling the Country but the Admiral was thereby inabled to do some good service from which hâ— had been hindred for want of Cannon In the mean time the Duke of Guise had laid Siege to Orleance and had reduced it in a manner to terms of yeilding where he was villanously murdred by one Poltrot a Gentleman of a good Family and a ready Wit who having lived many years in Spain and afterward imbracing the Calvinian Doctrines grew into great esteem with Beza and the rest of the Consistorians by whom it was thought fit to execute any great Attempt By whom commended to the Admiral and by the Admiral excited to a work of so much merit he puts himself without much scruple on the undertaking entreth on the Kings service and by degrees became well known unto the Duke Into whose favour he so far insinuated that he could have access to him whensoever he pleased and having gained a fit opportunity to effect his purpose dispatched him by the shot of a Musket laden with no fewer then three bullets in the way to his lodging 23. This murder was committed on Feb. 24. an 1562. and being put to the Rack he on the Rack confessed upon what incentives he had done the fact But more particularly he averred that by the Admirall he was promised great rewards and that he was assured by Beza that by taking out of the world such a great persecutor of the Gospel he could not but exceedingly merit at the hands of Almighty God And though both Beza and the Admiral endeavoured by their Manifests and Declarations to wipe off this stain yet the confession of the murtherer who could have no other ends in it then to speak his conscience left most men better satisfied in it then by both their writings But as it is an ill wind which blows no body good so the Assassinate of this great person though very grievous to his friends served for an Introduction to the peace ensuing For he being taken out of the way the Admirall engaged in Normandy the Constable Prisoner in the City and the Prince of Conde in the Camp it was no hard matter for the Queen to conclude a peace upon such terms as might be equall to all parties By which accord it was concluded that all that were free Barons in the Lands and Castles which they were possessed of or held them of no other Lord then the King himself might freely exercise the Reformed Religion in their own jurisdictions and that the other which had not such Dominions might doe the same in their own Houses and Families only provided that they did not the same in Towns and Cities that in every Province certain Cities should be assigned in the Suburbs whereof the Hugonots might have the free exercise of their Religion that in the City of Paris and in all other Towns and places whatsoever where the Court resided no other Religion should be exercised but the Roman Catholick though in those Cities every man might privately enjoy his conscience without molestation that those of the Reformed Religion should observe the Holy Days appointed in the Roman Kalendar and in their Marriages the Rites and Constitutions of the Civil Law and finally that a general pardon should be granted to all manner of persons with a full restitution to their Lands and Liberties their Honors Offices and Estates Which moderation or restriction of the Edict of Ianuary did much displease some zealous Hugonots but their Preachers most who as they loved to exercise their gifts in the greatest Auditories so they abominated nothing more then those observances 24. After this followed the reduction of New-haven to the Crown of France and the expulsion of the English out of Normandy the Prince of Conde and some other leading men of the Hugonot faction contributing both their presence and assistance to it which had not been so easily done had not God fought more against the English then the whole French Armies for by cross winds it did not only hinder all supplyes from coming to them till the surrendry of the Town but hastened the surrender by a grievous Pestilence which had extreamly wasted them in respect of number and miserably dejected them
the Government both of Church and State Some Hugonots which afterwards were took in Gascoyne and by the Marshal of Monluck were exposed to torture are said to have confessed upon the Rack that it was really intended to kill the King together with the Queen and the two young Princes and having so cut off the whole Royal Line to set the Crown upon the head of the Prince of Conde But Charity and Christianity bids me think the contrary and to esteem of this report as a Popish Calumny devised of purpose to create the greater hatred against the Authors of those Wars 27. But whether it were true or not certain it is that the design was carryed with such care and closeness that the Queen had hardly time enough to retire to Meux a little Town twelve Leagues from Paris before the whole Body of the Hugonots appeared in sight from whence they were with no less difficulty conducted by the Switz whom they had suddenly drawn together to the Walls of Paris the Switz being charged upon the way by no fewer then eleven hundred Horse and D' Andelot in the head of one of the parties but gallantly making good their March and serving to the King and the Royal Family for a Tower or Fortress no sooner were they come to Paris but the Hugonots take a resolution to besiege the City before the Kings Forces could assemble to relieve the same To which end they possessed themselves of all the passes upon the River by which provisions came into it and burned down all the Wind-mills about the Town which otherwise might serve for the grinding of such Corn as was then within it No better way could be devised to break this blow then to entertain them with a Parley for an accommodation not without giving them some hope of yeilding unto any conditions which could be reasonably required But the Hugonots were so exorbitant in their demands that nothing would content them but the removing of the Queen from publick Government the present disbanding of the Kings Forces the sending of all strangers out of the Kingdom a punctual execution of the Kings Edict of Ianuary liberty for their Ministers to Preach in all places even in Paris it self and finally that Calice Metz and Havre-de-grace might be consigâ—ed unto them for Towns of caution but in plain truth to serve them for the bringing in of the English and Germans when their occasion so required The Treaty notwithstanding was continued by the Queen with great dexterity till the King had drawn together sixteen thousand men with whom the Constable gives battel to the Enemy on the 10 of November compels them to dislodge makes himself master of the Field but dyed the next day after in the eightieth year of his age having received his deaths wound from the hands of a Switz who most unmanfully shot him when he was not in condition to make any resistance 28. In the mean time the City of Orleance was surprised by the Hugonots with many places of great importance in most parts of the Realm which serving rather to distract then increase their Forces they were necessitated to seek out for some Forraign aid Not having confidence enough to apply themselves to the Queen of England whom in the business of Newhaven they had so betrayed they send their Agents to sollicite the Elector Palatine and prevailed with him for an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot to which the miserable Country is again exposed Encouraged with which great supplies they laid Siege to Chartres the principal City of La Beaue the loss whereof must of necessity have subjected the Parisians to the last extremities The chief Commanders in the Kings Army were exceeding earnest to have given them battel thereby to force them from the Siege But the Queen not willing to venture the whole State of the Kingdom upon one cast of the Dice especially against such desperate Gamesters who had nothing to lose but that which they carryed in their hands so plyed them with new Offers for accommodation that her conditions were accepted and the Germans once again disbanded and sent back to their Country During which broyls the Town of Rochel strongly sâ—ituated on a bay of the Ocean had declared for the Hugonots and as it seems had gone so far that they had left themselves no way to retreat And therefore when most other places had submitted to the late Accord the Rochellers were resolved to stand it out and neither to admit a Garrison nor to submit to any Governour of the Kings appointment in which rebellious obstinacy they continued about sixty years the Town being worthily esteemed for the safest sanctuary to which the Hugonots retired in all times of dangeâ— and most commodious for the letting in of a forraign army when they found any ready to befriend them in that cause and quarrel The standing out of which Town in such obstinate manner not only encouraged many others to doe the like but by the fame thereof drew thither both the Admiral and the Prince of Conde with many other Gentlemen of the Hugonot Faction there to consult about renewing of the war which they were resolved on To whom repaired the Queen of Navarre with the Prince her Son then being but fifteen years of age whom she desired to train up in that holy war upon an hope that he might one day come to be the head of that party as he after was And here being met they publish from hence two several Manifests one in the name of all the Hugonots in general the other in the name of that Queen alone both tending to the same effect that is to say the putting of some specious colour upon their defection and to excuse the breaking of the peace established by the necessity of a warre 29. This rapture so incensed the King and his Council that they resolved no longer to make use of such gentle medicines as had been formerly applyed in the like distempers which resolution was the parent of that terrible Edict by which the King doth first revoke all the former Edicts which had been made during his minority in favour of the Reformed Religion nullifying more particularly the last capitulations made only in the way of Provision to redress those mischiefs for which no other course could be then resolved on And that being done it was ordained and commanded That the exercise of any other Religion then the Roman Catholick ever observed by him and the King his Predecessors should be prohibited and expresly forbidden and interdicted in all places of the Kingdom banished all the Calvinist Ministers and Preachers out of all the Towns and places under his Dominion and within fifteen days upon pain of death to avoid the Realm pardoned through special grace all things past in matters of Religion but requiring for the future under pain of death a general Conformity to the Rites of the Catholick Church and finally ordained that no person should
be admitted to any office charge dignity or magistracy whatever if he did not profess and live conformable in all points to the Roman Religion And for a Preamble hereunto the King was pleased to make a long and distinct Narration of the indulgence he had used to reduce the Hugonots to a right understanding and of the ill requital they had made unto him by the seditions and conspiracies which they raised against him their bringing in of forraign forces and amongst others the most mortal enemies of the French Nation putting into their hands the strongest places and most flourishing parts of the Kingdom to the contempt of his authority the despising of his grace and goodness and the continual disquieting of his Dominions and the destruction of his subjects To counter-poise which terrible Edict the Princes and other Leaders of the Hugonots which were then at Rochel entred into a solemn Covenant or Association by which they bound themselves by Oath to persevere till death in defence of their Religion never to lay down arms or condescend to any agreement without the general consent of all the Commanders and not then neither but upon sufficient security for the preservation of their lives and the enjoying of that Liberty of Conscience for which they first began the war 30. But the Admiral well knowing that the business was not to be carried by Oaths and Manifests and that they wanted mony to proceed by arms advised the Rochellers to send their Navy to the sea which in a time when no such danger was expected might spoyle and pillage all they met with and by that means provide themselves of mony and all other necessaries to maintain the war Which Counsel took such good effect that by this kind of Piracy they were enabled to give a fair beginning to this new Rebellion for the continuance whereof it was thought necessary to sollicite their Friends in Germany to furnish them with fresh recruits of able men and Queen Elizabeth of England for such sums of money as might maintain them in the service And in the first of these designs there appears no difficulty the inclination of the Prince Elector together with the rest of the Calvinian Princes and Imperial Cities were easily intreated to assist their Brethren of the same Religion And the same spirit governed many of the people also but on different grounds they undertaking the imployment upon hope of spoil as Mercenaries serving for their Pay but more for Plunder In England their desires were entertained with less alacrity though eagerly sollicited by Odet Bishop of Beauvais a younger Brother of the Admiral who having formerly been raised to the degree of a Cardinal therefore called most commonly the Cardinal of Chastillon had some years since renounced his Habit and Religion but still kept his Titles By the continual sollicitation of so great an Advocate and the effectual interposing of the Queen of Navar Elizabeth was perswaded to forget their former ingratitude and to remember how conducible it was to her personal interest to keep the French King exercised in perpetual troubles upon which Reason of State she is not onely drawn to accommodate the Hugonots with Ships Corn Arms and Ammunition but to supply them with a hundred thousand Crowns of ready money for the maintaining of their Army consisting of fourteen thousand Germans and almost as many more of the natural French And yet it was to be believed that in all this she had done nothing contrary to the League with France which she had sworn not long before because forsooth the Forces of the Hugonots were raised to no other end but the Kings mere service and the assistance of the Crown against the Enemies of both and the professed Adversaries of the true Religion But neither this great lone of money nor that which they had got by robbing upon the Seas was able to maintainâ— War of so long continuance For maintainance whereof they were resolved to sell the Treasures of the Churches in all such Provinces as they kept under their Command the Queen of Navar ingaging her Estate for their security who should adventure on the purchase 31. I shall not touch on the particulars of this Warâ— which ended with the death of the Prince of Conde in the battel of Iarnar the rigorous proceedings against the Admiral whom the King caused to be condemned for a Rebel his Lands to be confiscatedâ— his Houses plundred and pulled down and himself executed in Effigie the loss of the famous battel of Mont-Contour by the Hugonots party Anno 1569 which forced them to abandon all their strong holds except Rochel Angoulesme and St. Ieanâ—d Angeli and finally to shut themselves up within Rochel onely after which followed such a dissembled reconciliation between the parties as proved more bloudy then the War The sudden and suspected death of the Queen of Navar the Marriage of the Prince her Son with the Lady Margaret one of the Sisters of the King the celebrating of the wedding in the death of the Admiral on St. Bartholomews day 1572 and the slaughter of thirty thousand men within few days after the reduction of the whole Kingdom to the Kings obedience except the Cities of Nismes Montauban and Rochel onely the obstinate standing out of Rochel upon the instigation of such Preachers as fled thither for shelter and the reduction of it by the Duke of Anjon to the last extremity the raising of the Siege and the Peace ensuing on the Election of that Duke to the Crown of Poland the resolution of the Hugonots to renew the War as soon as he had left the Kingdom and their ingaging in the same on the Kings last sickness In all which traverses of State there is nothing memorable in reference to my present purpose but onely the conditions of the Pacification which was made at the Siege of Rochel by which it was accorded between the parties on the 11 of Iuly Anno 1573 that all offences should be pardoned to the said three Cities on their submission to the King and that it should be lawful for them to retain the free Exercise of their Religion the people meeting in the same unarmed and but few in numberâ— that all the inhabitants of the said three Cities should be obliged to observe in all outward matters except Baptism and Matrimony the Rites and Holy-days of the Church that the use of the Catholick Religion should be restored in the said Cities and all other places leaving unto the Clergy and Religious persons their Houses Profits and Revenues that Rochel should receive a Governour of the Kings appointment but without Garrison renounce all correspondencies and confederacies with Forreign Princes and not take part with any of the same Religion against the King and finally that the said three Towns should deliver Hostages for the performance of the Articles of the present Agreement to be changed at the end of every three months if the King so pleased It
Tyrants of preceding times which comes up close to those irreverent and lewd expressions which frequently occur in Calvin Beza Knox c. in reference to the two Mary's Queens of England and Scotland and other Princes of that age which have been formerly recited in their proper places 35. The Royal Family being thus wretchedly exposed to the publick hatred he next applyes himself to stir up all the world against them both at home and abroad And first he laboureth to excite some desperate Zealot to commit the like assassinate on the King then Reigning as one Bodillus is reported in some French Histories to have committed on the person of Chilprick one of the last Kings of the Merovignians which he commemorates for a Noble and Heroick action and sets it out for an example and encouragement to some gallant French-man for the delivery of his Country from the Tyranny of the House of Valois the ruine whereof he mainly drives at in his whole designe And though he seem to make no doubt of prevailing in it yet he resolves to try his Fortune otherwise if that should fail And first beginning with their next neighbour the King of Spain he he puts them in remembrance of those many injuries which he and his Ancestors had received from the House of Valois acquaints him with the present opportunity which was offered to him of revenging of thoâ—e wrongs and making himself Master of the Realm of France and chalks him out a way how he might effect it that is to say by coming to a present Accord with the Prince of Orange indulging Liberty of Conscience to the Belgick Provinces and thereby drawing all the Hugonots to adhere unto him which counsel if he did not like he might then make the same use of the Duke of Savoy for whom the Hugonots in France had no small affection and by bestowing on him the adjoyning Regions of Lyonoise Dâ—ulphine and Provence might make himself Lord of all the rest without any great trouble The like temptation must be given to the Queen of England by putting her in minde of her pretences to the Crown it self and shewing how easie a thing it might be for her to acquire those Countries whose Arms and Titles she assumed with like disloyalty he excites the Princes of the Empire to husband the advantage which was offered to them for the recovering of Metz Toule and Verdun three Imperial Cities by this Kings Father wrested betwixt fraud and force from Charles the Fifth and ever since incorporated with the Realm of France If all which failed he is resolved to cast himself on the Duke of Guise though the most mortal and implacable enemy of the Hugonot Faction and makes a full address to him in a second Epistle prefixt before the Book it self in which he puts him in remembrance of his old pretensions to the Crown of France extorted by Hugh Capet from his Ancestors of the House of Loraigne offereth him the assistance of the Hugonot party for the recovery of his Rights and finally beseeches him to take compassion of his ruined Country cheerfully to accept the Crown and free the Kingdom from the spoil and tyranny of Boyes and Women together with that infinite train of Strangers Bawdes and Leachers which depend on them which was as great a Master-piece in the art of mischief as the wit of malice could devise 36. As for his Doctrines in reference to the common duties between Kings and Subjects we may reduce them to these heads that is to say 1. That the Authority of Kings and Supreme Magistrates is circumscribed and limited by certain bounds which if they pass their Subjects are no longer tyed unto their obedience that Magistrates do exceed those bounds when either they command such things as God forbiddeth or prohibit that which he commands that therefore they are no longer to be obeyed if their Commands are contrary to the Rules of Piety or Christian Charity of which the Subjects must be thought the most competent Judges 2. That there were companies and societies of men before any Magistrates were set over them which Magistrates were no otherwise set over them then by common consent that every Magistrate so appointed was bound by certain Articles and Conditions agreed between them which he was tyed by Oath to preserve inviolable that the chief end for which the people chose a Superiour Magistrate was that they might remain in safety under his protection and therefore if such Magistrates either did neglect that end or otherwise infringe the Articles of their first Agreement the Subjects were then discharged from the bond of obedience and that being so discharged from the bond of obedience it was as lawful for them to take up Arms against their King in maintainance of their Religion Laws and Liberties if indangered by him as for a Traveller to defend himself by force of Arms against Thieves and Robbers 3. That no Government can be rightly constituted in which the Grandeur of the Prince is more consulted then the weal of the People that to prevent all such incroachments on the Common Liberty the people did reserve a power of putting a curb upon their Prince or Supreme Magistrates to hold them in such as the Tribunes were in Rome to the Senate and Consuls and the Ephori to the Kings of Sparta that such a power as that of the Spartan Ephori is vested in the seven Electors of the German Empire which gives them an Authority to depose the Emperour if they see cause for it and that the like may be affirmed of the English Parliaments who oftentimes have condemned their Kings but he knows not whom 4. That by the first constitutions of the Realm of France the Supreme power was not entrusted to the King but the three Estates so that it was not lawful for the King to proclaim a War or to lay Taxes on the people but by their consent that these Estates assembled in a Common Council did serve instead of eyes and ears to a prudent Prince but to a wicked and ungoverned for Bit or Bridle and that according to this power they dethroned many of their Kings for their Lusts Luxuries Cruelty Slothfulness Avarice c. that if they proceeded not in like manner with the King then Reigning it was because they had an high esteem with scorn and insolence enough of his eminent Vertues his Piety Justice and Fidelity and the great commendations which was given of his Mothers Chastity and therefore finally which was the matter to be proved by those Factious Principles that it was altogether as lawful for the French to defend themselves their Laws and Liberties against the violent assault of a furious Tyrant so he calls their King as a Traveller by Thieves and Robbers Which Aphorisms he that listeth to consult in the Author may finde them from pag. 57. to 66. of the second Dialogue and part 1. pag. 8. 37. But notwithstanding these indignities
was the ruine of their Party and that they could not otherwise preserve their power then by open War The Prince of Conde seizeth on La Fere in Picardy and the King of Navar makes himself Master by strong hand on the City of Cahors which draws the King again from his Meditations under which must be covered his retirement from all publick business But La Fere being regained from the Prince of Conde the sacking of Cahors was connived at and the breach made up that so the Hugonots might be tempted to consume their Forces in the Wars of Flanders to which they were invited by their Brethren of the Belgick Provinces who had called in the Duke of Anjou against their King And so long France remained in quiet as that War continued But when the Duke returned after two or three years and that there was no hopes of his reverting to so great a charge the Hugonots wanting work abroad were furnished with this occasion to break out at home The Catholick League had now layn dormant for some years none seeming more Zealous then the King in the Cause of Rome But when it was considered by the Duke of Guise and the rest of the League that the Duke of Anjou being dead and the King without any hope of Issue the Crown must fall at last to the King of Navar it was resolved to try all means by which he might be totally excluded from the right of Succession For what hope could they give themselves to preserve Religion when the Crown should fall upon the head of an Heretick an Heretick relapsed and therefore made uncapable of the Royal Dignity by the Canon-Laws Of these Discourses and Designes of the Guisian Faction the King of Navar takes speedy notice and prepares accordingly thinking it best to be before-hand and not to be taken unprovided when they should come And to that end having first cleared himself by a Declaration from the crime of Heresie and now particularly from being a relapsed Heretick with many foul recriminations on the House of Guise he sends his Agents to sollicite the German Princes to come in to aid him against the oppressions of the League which seemed to aim at nothing but the ruine of the Realm of France which so exasperated those of the Guisian Faction that they prevailed by their Emissaries with Pope Sixtus the Fifth to Excommunicate the King of Navar and the Prince of Conde and to declare them both uncapable of the Royal Succession as relapsed Hereticks Which he performed in open Consistory on the ninth of September 1585 and published the sentence by a special Bull within three dayes after 41. The French King in the mean time findes himself so intangled in the Snares of the League and such a general defection from him in most parts of the Kingdom that he was forced by his Edict of the ninth of Iuly to revoke all former grants and capitulations which had been made in favour of the Hugonot party After which followed a new War in which the Switz and Germans raise great Levies for the aid of the Hugonots sollicited thereunto amongst many others by Theodore Beza who by his great Eloquence and extraordinary diligence did prevail so far that the Princes Palatine the Count Wirtemberge the Count of Montbelguard and the Protestant Cantons of the Switz agreed to give them their assistance Amongst whom with the helps which they received from the King of Denmark and the Duke of Saxony a mighty Army was advanced consisting of thirty two thousand Horse and Foot that is to say twelve thousand German Horse four thousand Foot and no fewer then sixteen thousand Switz For whose advance besides a general contribution made on all the Churches of France the sum of sixty thousand Crowns was levyed by the Queen of England and put into the hands of Prince Casimire before remembred who was to have the Chief Command of these Forreign Forces These Forreign Forces made much greater by the accession of eight thousand French which joyned unto them when they first shewed themselves upon the Borders Of which two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot were raised by the Signory of Geneva But before this vast Army could come up to the King of Navar the Duke of Ioyeuse gives him battel near a place called Coutrasse at which time his whole Forces were reduced to four thousand Foot and about two thousand five hundred Horse with which small Army encountred a great power of the Duke of Ioyeuse and obtained a very signal Victory there being slain upon the place no fewer then three thousand men of which the Duke of Ioyeuse himself was one more then three thousand taken prisoners together with all the Baggage Arms and Ammunition which belonged to the Enemy After which followed the defeat of the Germans by the Duke of Guise and the violent proceedings of the Leaguers against the King which brought him to a necessity of joyning with the King of Navar and craving the assistance of his Hugonot Subjects whose Arms are now legitimated and made acts of Duty In which condition I shall leave them to their better Fortunes first taking a survey of the proceedings of the Calvinists in the neighbouring Germany passing from thence to the Low Countries and after crossing over to the Isles of Britain The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB III. Containing Their Positions and Proceedings in the Higher Germany their dangerous Doctrines and Seditions their Innovations in the Church and alteration of the Civil Government of the Belgick Provinces from the year 1559 to the year 1585. 1. THe Doctrine of the Reformation begun by Luther and pursued by Zuinglius was entertained in many Provinces of the Higher Germany according as they stood affected to either party or were transported by the ends and passions of their several Princes But generally at the first they inclined to Luther whose way of Reformation seemed less odious to the Church of Rome and had the greatest approbation from the States of the Empire the Duke of Saxony adhered unto him at his first beginning as also did the Marquess of Brandenbourg the Dukes of Holsteine the two Northern Kings and by degrees the rest of the German Princes of most power and value except onely those of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria the three Elector Bishops the Duke of Cleve the Marquess of Baden and generally all the Ecclesiasticks which were not under the Command of the Lutheran States The Prince Electoâ— Palatine came not in to the party till the year 1546. At which time Frederick the Second though scarce warm in his own Estate on which he entred Anno 154â— took the advantage of the time to reform his Churches the Emperour being then brought low by the change of Fortune and forced not long after to abandon Germany Upon the 1â— of Ianuary he caused Divine Offices to be celebrated in the Mother-tongue in
in which they come up close to Calvin and the Rules of Geneva First therefore taking them for Zuinglians in the point of the Sacrament and Anti-Lutherans in defacing Images abolishing all distinction of Fasts and Festivals and utterly denying all set-Forms of publick Worship they have declared themselves as high in maintainance of Calvins Doctrines touching Predestination Grace Free-will c. as any sub-lapsarian or supra-lapsarian which had most cordially Espoused that Quarrel For proof whereof the Writings of Vrsine and Parcus Alsted Piscator and the rest Professors in the Schools of Heidelberg Herborne and Sedan being all within the limits of the Higher Germanâ— might be here produced did I think it necessary But these not being the proper Cognizances of the Presbyterians and better to be taken by their actings in the Synod of Dort then in scattered Tractates I shall take notice onely of those points of Doctrine which are meer Genevian in reference to their opposition to Monarchical Government a Doctrine not unwelcome to the Zuinglian Princes in either Germany because it gives them a fit ground for their justification not onely for proceeding to reform their Churches without leave of the Emperour whom they must needs acknowledge for their Supreme Lord but also for departing from the Confession of Ausberge which onely ought to be received within the bounds of the Empire 5. First then beginning with Vrsine publick Professor for Divinity in the Chair of Heidelberg he thus instructs us in his Commentary on the Palatine Catechism Albeit saith he that wicked men sometimes bear Rule and therefore are unworthy of honours yet the Office is to be distinguished from their persons and that the man whose vices are to be detested ought to be honoured for his Office as Gods Spiritual Ordinance which is a truth so consonant to the Holy Scriptures that nothing could be said more piously in so short a position But then he gives us such a Gloss as corrupts the Text telling us in the words next following That since Superiours are to be honoured in respect of their Office it is therefore manifest that so far onely we must yeild obedience unto their commands as they exceed not in the same the bounds of their Offices Which plainly intimates that if Princes be at any time transported beyond the bounds of their Offices of which the people and their popular Magistrates are the onely Judges the Subjects are not bound to yeild obedience unto their commands under pretence that they are past beyond their bounds and have no influence on the People but onely when they shine within the compass of their proper Spheres 6. More plainly speaks Parcus who succeeded him both in place and Doctrines out of whose Commentary on the 13 Chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans the following propositions were extracted by some Delegates and Divines of Oxon when the unsoundness of his Judgement in this particular was questioned and condemned by that University First then it was declared for a truth undoubted That Bishops and other Ministers or Pastors in the Church of Christ both might and ought with the consent of their several Churches to Excommunicate or give over to the power of Satan their Superiour Magistrates for their impiety towards God and their injustice towards their Subjects if they continued in those errours after admonition till they gave some manifest signs of their repentance 2. That subjects being in the condition of meer private men ought not without some lawful calling either to take arms to assault a Tyrant before their own persons be indangered or to deâ—end themselves though they be indangered if by the ordinary Magistrates they may be defended from such force and violence 2. That Subjects being in the condition of meer private men may lawfully take Arms to defend themselves against a Tyrant who violently shall break in upon them as a Thief or Ravisher and expedite themselves from the present danger as against a common Thief and Robber when from the ordinary Magistrates there appeareth no defence or succour 4. That such Subjects as are not meerly private men but are placed in some inferiour Magistracy may lawfully by force of Arms defend themselves the Common-wealth the Church and the true Religion against the pleasure and command of the Supreme Magistrate These following conditions being observed that is to say if either the Supreme Magistrate become a Tyrant practiseth to commit Idolatry or blaspheme Gods Name or that any great and notable injustice be offered to them as that they cannot otherwise preserve their consciences and lives in safety conditioned finally that under colour of Religion and a Zeal to Iustice they do not rather seek their private ends then the publick good And this last Proposition being so agreeable to Calvins Doctrines he flourisheth over and inforceth with those words of Trajan which before we cited out of Buchan when he required the principal Captain of his Guard to use the Sword in his defence if he governed well but to turn the point thereof against him if he did the contrary 7. Building their practice on these Doctrines we finde the Palatine Princes very forward in aiding the French Hugonots against their King upon all occasions In the first risings of that people Monsieur d' Andelot was furnished with five thousand Horse and four thousand Foot most of them being of the Subjects of the Prince Elector Anno 1562 when he had out newly entertained the thoughts of Zuinglianism and had not fully settled the Calvinian Doctrines But in the year 1566 when the Hugonots were upon the point of a second War he joyns with others of the German Princes in a common Ambathe by which the French King was to be desired that the Preachers of the Reformed Religion might Preach both in Paris and all other places of the Kingdom without control and that the people freely might repair to hear them in what numbers they pleased To which unseasonable demand the King though naturally very Cholerick made no other answer then that he would preserve a friendship and affection for those Princes so long as they did not meddle in the Affairs of his Kingdom as he did not meddle at all in their Estates After which having somewhat recollected his Spirits he subjoyned these words with manifest shew of his displeasure that it concerned him to sollicite their Princes to suffer the Catholicks to say Mass in all their Cities With which nipping answer the Ambassadors being sent away they were followed immediately at the heels by some of the Hugonots who being Agents for the rest prevailed with Prince Iohn Casimir the second Son of the Elector to raise an Army in defence of the common Cause To which purpose they had already furnished him with a small sum of money assuring him that when he was come unto their Borders they would pay down one hundred thousand Crowns more towards the maintainance of his Army Which promises perswading more then the greatest Rhetorick
power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
Bishops of Leige some to the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Rheims and Colen and others under the Authority of the Bishops of Munster Of which the first were in some sort under the Protection of the Dukes of Burgundy the three last absolute and independent not owing any suite or Service at all unto them By means whereof concernments of Religion were not looked into with so strict an eye as where the Bishops are accomptable to the Prince for their Administration or more united with and amongst themselves in the publick Government The inconvenience whereof being well observed by Charles the Fifth he practised with the Pope then being for increasing the number of the Bishopricks reducing them under Archbishops of their own and Modeling the Ecclesiastical Politie under such a Form as might enable them to exercise all manner of spiritual jurisdiction within themselves without recourse to any Forreign Power or Prelate but the Pope himself Which being first designed by him was afterwards effected by King Philip the Second though the event proved contrary to his expectation For this enlargement of the number of the Sees Episcopal being projected onely for the better keeping of the Peace and Unity of the Belgick Churches became unhappily the occasion of many Tumults and Disorders in the Civil State which drew on the defection of a great part of the Country from that Kings obedience 14. For so it was that the Reformed Religion being entertained in France and Germany did quickly finde an entrance also into such of the Provinces as lay nearest to them where it found people of all sorts sufficiently ready to receive it To the increase whereof the Emperor Charls himself gave no small advantage by bringing in so many of the Switz and German Souldiers to maintain his Power either in awing his own Subjects or against the French by which last he was frequently invaded in the bordering Provinces Nor was Queen Mary of England wanting though she meant it not to the increasing of their numbers For whereas many of the Natives of France and Germany who were affected zealously to the Reformation had put themselves for Sanctuary into England in the time of King Edward they were all banished by Proclamation in the first year of her Reign Many of which not daring to return to their several Countries dispersed themselves in most of the good Towns of the Belgick Provinces especially in such as lay most neer unto the Sâ—a where they could best provide themselves of a poor subsistance By means whereof the Doctrine of the Protestant and Reformed Churches began to get much ground upon them to which the continual intercourses which they had with England gave every day such great and manifest advantage that the Emperour was fain to bethink himself of some proper means for the suppressing of the inconveniences which might follow on it And means more proper he found none in the whole course of Government then to increase the number of the former Bishopricks to re-inforce some former Edicts which he made against them and to bring in the Spanish Inquisition which he established and confirmed by another Edict bearing date April 20. 1548. Which notwithstanding the Professors of that Doctrine though restrained a while could not be totally suppressed some Preachers out of Germany and others out of France and England promoting underhand those Tenents and introducing those opinions which openly they durst not own in those dangerous times But when the Emperour Charles had resigned the Government and that King Philip the Second upon some urgent Reasons of State had retired to Spain and left the Chief Command of his Belgick Provinces to the Dutchess of Parma they then began to shew themselves with the greater confidence and gained some great ones to their side whom discontent by reason of the disappointment of their several aims had made inclinable to innovation both in Church and State 15. Amongst the great ones of which time there was none more considerable for Power and Patrimony then William of Nassaw Prince of Orange invested by a long descent of Noble Ancestors in the County of Nassaw a fair and goodly Territory in the Higher Germany possest of many good Towns and ample Signories in Brabant and Holland derived upon him from Mary Daughter and Heir of Philip Lord of Breda c. his great Grand-fathers Grand-mother and finally enriched with the Principality of Orange in France accruing to him by the death of his Cozen Rene which gave him a precedencie before all other Belgick Lords in the Court of Brussels By which advantages but more by his abilities both for Camp and Counsel he became great in favour with the Emperour Charles by whom he was made Governour of Holland and Zealand Knight of the Order of the Fleece imployed in many Ambassies of weight and moment and trusted with his dearest and most secret purposes For Rivals in the Glory of Arms he had the Counts of Horne and Egmond men of great Prowess in the Field and alike able at all times to Command and Execute But they were men of open hearts not practised in the Arts of Subtilty and dissimulation and wanted much of that dexterity and cunning which the other had for working into the affections of all sorts of people Being advanced unto this eminencie in the Court and knowing his own strength as well amongst the Souldiers as the common people he promised to himself the Supreme Government of the Belgick Provinces on the Kings returning into Spain The disappointment of which hope obliterated the remembrance of all former favours and spurred him on to make himself the Head of the Protestant party by whose assistance he conceived no small possibility of raising the Nassovian Family to as great an height as his ambition could aspire to 16. The Protestants at that time were generally divided into two main bodies not to say any thing of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries who thrust in amongst them Such of the Provinces as lay toward Germany and had received their Preachers thence embraced the Forms and Doctrines of the Lutherâ—â— Câ—â—â—ches in which not onely Images had been still retained â—ogether with set-Forms of Prayer kneeling at the Communioâ— the Cross in Baptism and many other laudable Ceremonies of the Elder times but also most of the ancient Fasts and Fâ—â—tivals of the Catholick Church and such a Form of Eccleâ—â—tical Polity as was but little differing from that of Bishops which Forms and Doctrines being tolerated by the Edicts of Paussaw and Ausberg made them less apt to work disturbance in the Civil State and consequently the less obnoxious to the fears and jealousies of the Catholick party But on the other side such Provinces as lay toward France participated of the humour of that Reformation which was there begun modelled according unto Calvins Platform both in Doctrine and Discipline More stomacked then the other by all those who adhered to the Church of Rome or otherwise pretended to the peace
and safety of the Common-wealth For the French Preachers being more practical and Mercurial then the other were and not well principled in respect of Monarchical Government were looked upon as men more likely to beget commotions and alienate the peoples hearts from their natural Governour And at the first the Prince of Orange enclined most to the Lutheran party whose Forms and Doctrines had been setled by his Father in the County of Nassaw And for the clear manifestation of the good opinion which he harboured of them he Married Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony the greatest of the Lutheran Princes At which when the Dutchess of Parma seemed to be displeased he openly assured her of his Adhesion to the Catholick Cause and caused his Eldest Son which he had of that Marriage to be Baptized according to the Prescript of the Church of Rome but underhand promoted for a time the Lutheran Interest which he had sucked in as it were with his Mothers Milk But it was onely for a time that he so promoted it For finding the Calvinians to be men of another Metal more quick and stirring of themselves more easily exasperated against their Governours and consequently more fit to advance his purposes he made â—imself the great Protector of that faction and spared not to profess himself for such upon all occasions insomuch that being afterwards questioned about his Religion by the Duke of Arescot he discovered to him his bald head and told him plainly thâ—t there was not more Calvism on his head then there was Calvinism in his heart 17. But to make way for these designes there were two obstacles to be removed without which nothing could be done in pursuance of them King Philip at his going for Spain had left three thousand Spanish Souldiers the onely remainder of those great Armies which had served his Father and himself against the French in Garrison upon the Borders under pretence of shutting up the back-door against the French but generally thought to be left of purpose for a curb to the Natives in case of refractoriness or opposition unto his Commands They must be first removed and the Country cleared of all such rubs as otherwise would have made the way less passable unto private ends For though the King had put those Souldiers under the Command of two Lords of the Netherlands that is to say the Prince of Orange himself and the Count Egmont that they might rather seem to be the natural Militia of the Country then a power of strangers yet that device did little edifie amongst them for the two Lords especially the Prince of Orange expressed such contentment in the trust and honour which was therein conferred upon them that they excited the whole Country both to move the King before his going and the Governess after his departure to dismiss those Souldiers which could not be imposed upon them without breach of their Priviledges To this request the King had given a gratious answer and promised to remove them within four months after his going into Spain but secretly gave order to the Lady Regent to retain them longer till the new Bishops and the Inquisition were confirmed amongst them And she conceived her self so bound to those instructions and their â—etaining there so necessary for his Majesties Service that she delayed time as long as possibly she could Which being observed by those which were of greatest power and credit with the common people it was resolved that no more contribution should be raised on the several Provinces toward the payment of their wages and on the other side the Regent was so constant to her resolution that she took up money upon interest for their satisfaction But being wearied in the end by the importunity of all sorts of people counselled by her Husband the Duke of Parma to give way unto it and authorized at last by the King himself to hearken unto their desires she gives order to have them drawn out of their several Garrisons and Shipt at Flushing from thence to be transported into Spain with the first fair winde 18. The easie removing of this rub incouraged those who managed the designe for innovating in the Church and State to make the like attempt against the Cardinal Granvel whose extraordinary parts and power they were more affraid of then of all the Spaniards in the Country This man being of the â—erenots of Granvel in the Country of Burgundy was trained up by a Father of such large abilities that he was by Charles the Fifth made Chancellor of the German Empire and trusted by him in Affairs of the greatest moment And he declared himself to be such a quick proficient in the Schools of Learning that he became the Master of no fewer then seven Languages in all which he was able to express himself with a fluent eloquence and at twenty four years of age was made Bishop of Arras commended by his Father to the Emperour Charles and by him unto King Philip the Second he served them both with great fidelity and courage and had withall such a dexterity of dispatch in all concernments as if he had been rather born then made a States-man And unto these he added such a moderation in his pleasures such abstinence both from food and sleep when the case required it such extraordinary pains in accommodating all the difficulties which came before him and such a diligent observance of his Princes motions that his greatest Adversaries could not chuse but say that he was a Jewel fit to be owned by none but the greatest Kings By means whereof he so prevailed upon the King whilst he staid amongst them that he did nothing eitheâ— at home or abroad made neither Peace nor League with Kings or Nations concluded no Marriage quieted no Seditions acted nothing that related to Religion or the Church in which the counsels of this mâ—n were not influential The like Authority he held with the Dutchess of Parma not onely out of that report which the King made of him but her own election who found his counsel so applyable to all occasions that seldom any private or publick business came in agitation in which his judgement had not been previously required before it was openly delivered And though his previous resolutions in matters of counsel were carried with all imaginable care and closeness from the eyes of the Courtiers yet no man doubted but that all Affairs were tâ—ansacted by him imputing many things unto him as it often happeneth which he had no hand â—n 19. In the first risings of this man he was dâ—spised for an upstart by the Prince of Orange and some other great men of the Country not fearing any thing from him as an alien born unfurnished of dependants and who by reason of his caâ—ling could make no strong Alliance to preserve his Power But when they found that his Authority increased that all things bended to that point at which he aimed and that some of
Blessed Virgin and that too on the very Festival of her Assumption when the like outrages were committed in other places For not content to jeer and taunt them in the Streets as they passed along they follow them into the principal Church of that City where first they fall to words and from words to blows and from blows to wounds to the great scandal of Religion and the unpardonable prophanation of that holy Place 31. But this was onely an Essay of the following mischief For on the same day Sennight being not onely more numerous but better armed they flocked to the same Church at the Evening-Service which being ended they compel the people to forsake the place and possess themselves of it Having made fast the Doors for fear that some disturbance might break in upon them one of them begins to sing a Psalm in Marots Meter wherein he is followed by the rest that such a holy exercise as they were resolved on might not be undertook without some preparation which fit of Devotion being over they first pulled down a massie Image of the Virgin afterwards the Image of Christ and such other Saints as they found advanced there on their several Pedestals some of them treading them underfoot some thrusting Swords into their sides and others hagling of their Heads with Bills and Axes In which work as many were imployed in most parts of the Church so others got upon the Altars cast down the sacred Plate defaced the Pictures and disfigured the paintings on the Walls whilst some with Ladders climbed the Organs which they broke in pieces and others with like horrible violence destroyed the Images in the Windows or rather brake the Windows in despight of the Images The Consecrated Host they took out of the Pixes and trampled under their feet carouse such Wine as they brought with them in the sacred Chalices and greased their shooes with that Chrysome or anoynting Oyl which was prepared for some Ceremonies to be used at Baptism and in the visiting of the sick And this they did with such dispatch that one of the fairest Churches in Europe richly adorned with Statues and massie Images of Brass and Marble and having in it no fewer then seventy Altars was in the space of four hours defaced so miserably that there was nothing to be seen in it of the former beauties Proud of which fortunate success they brake into all other Churches of that City where they acted over the same spoils and outragious insolencies and afterwards forcing open the doors of Monasteries and Religious Houses they carryed away all their Consecrated Furniture entred their Store-houses seized on their Meat and drank off their Wine and took from them all their Money Plate and Wardrobes both Sacred and Civil not sparing any publick Library wheresoever they came a ruine not to be repaired but with infinite sums the havock which they made in the great Church onely being valued at four hundred thousand Ducates by indifferent rates The like outrages they committed at the same time in Gaunt and Oudenard and all the Villages about them the severalties whereof would make up a Volume let it suffice that in the Province of Flanders onely no fewer then four hundred Consecrated places were in the space of ten days thus defaced and some of them burnt down to the very ground 32. The news of these intolerable outrages being posted one after another to the Court at Brussels occasioned the Governess when it was too late to see her errour in sending back her Spanish Souldiers and yeilding to the improvident dismission of the prudent Cardinal by whose Authority and Counsel she had so happily preserved those Provinces in peace and quiet and then she found that she had good reason to believe all the information which Count Mansfield gave her touching a plot of the Calvinian party in France from whence came most of these new Preachers to imbroyl the Netherlands which till that time she looked on as a groundless jealousie But as it is in some Diseases that when they are easie to be cured they are hard to be known and when they are easie to be known they are hard to be cured so fared it at that time with these distempers in the Belgick Provinces which now were grown unto that height that it was very difficult if not almost impossible to finde out a remedy For having called together the great Council of State and acquainted them with the particulars before remembred she found the Counts of Mansfield Aremberg and Barlamont cheerfully offering their assistance to reduce the people to obedience by force of Arms but Egmont Horne and Orange whose Brother Count Lodowick was suspected for a chief contriver of the present mischief of a contrary judgement so that she could proceed no further and indeed she durst not for presently a secret Rumour was dispersed that if she did not so far gratifie the Covenanters and their adherents that every man might have liberty to go to Sermons and no man be punished for Religion she should immediately see all the Churches in Brussels fired the Priests murthered and her self imprisoned For fear whereof though she took all safe courses for her own security yet she found none so safe as the granting of some of their demands to the Chief Conspirators by which the Provinces for the present did enjoy some quiet But this was onely like an Intermission in the fit of an Ague For presently hereupon she received advertisement that those of the Reformed party were not onely suffered to take unto themselves some Churches in Machlin Antwerp and Tournay which till then had never been permitted but that at Vtrecht they had driven the Catholicks out of their Churches and at the Bosch had forced the Bishop to forsake the City as their holy Fathers in Geneva had done before them And in a word to make up the measure of her sorrows and compleat their insolencies she had intelligence of the like Tumult raised at Amsterdam where some of the Reforming Rabble had broken into a Monastery of the Franciscans defaced all Consecrated things beat and stoned out the Religious persons not without wounding some of the principal Senators who opposed their doings 33. Provoked with these indignities she resolves upon the last remedy which was to bring them to obedience by force of Arms and therein she had no small encouragement from the King himself and good assurance of assistances from such Princes of Germany as still adhered unto the Pope The news whereof so startâ—es the chief of the Covenanters that they enter into consultation of Electing a new Prince or putting themselves under the power of some potent Monarch by whom they might be countenanced against their King and priviledged in the cojoyment of their Religion It was advised also that three thousand Books of Calvinian Doctrine should be sent into Spain and dispersed in the chief Cities of it to the end that whiâ—st the King was busied in looking to his
confused Rabble of the Knoxian Brethren brake in upon them dismounted the Image brake off his head against the stones scattered all the Company pulled the Priests Surplices over their Ears beat down their Crosses and in a word so discomposed the Order of that mock-Solemnity that happy was the man who could first save himself in some House or other neither their Bag-pipes nor their Banners their Tabrets nor their Trumpets which made a Principal part in that days triumph though free enough from superstition in themselves could escape their fury but ran the same Fortune with the rest And though no diligence was wanting for finding out the principal actors in that Commotion yet as the story hath informed us the Brethren kept themselves together in such Companies singing of Psalms and openly encouraging one another that no body durst lay hands upon them 7. Finding by this experiment that they were strong enough to begin the work it was thought fit to call back Knox to their assistance to which end they dispatched their Letters to him in the March next following to be conveyed by one Iames Sym whom they had throughly instructed in all particulars touching their affairs In May the Letters are delivered the contents whereof he first communicateth to his own Congregation and afterwards to Calvin and the rest of the Brethren of that Consistory by whom it was unanimously declared unto him that he could not refuse that Vocation unless he would shew himself rebellious unto his God and unmerciful to his native Country He returned answer thereupon That he would visit them in Scotland with all convenient expedition and comes accordingly to Dieppe in October following where contrary to expectation he is advertised by Letters from some secret Friends that all affairs there seemed to be at a stand so that his coming to them at that time might be thought unnecessary Highly displeased with such a cooling Card as he did not look for he sends his Letters thence to the Nobility and principal Gentry in which he lets them know how much he was confounded for travailing so far in their Affairs by moving them to the most Godly and most Learned men by which he means Calvin and the Consistorians who at that time did live in Europe whose judgements and grave counsels he conceived expedient as well for the assurance of their own Consciences as of his own that it must needs redound both to his shame and theirs if nothing should succeed in such long consultations that he left his Flock and Family at Geneva to attend their service to whom he should be able to make but a weak account of his leaving them in that condiâ—ion if he were asked at his return concerning the impediment of his purposed Journey that he fore-saw with grief of spirit what grievous plagues what misery and bondage would most inevitably befal that miserable Realm and every Inhabitant thereof if the power of God with the liberty of his Gospel did not deliver them from the same that though his words might seem sharp and to be somewhat undiscreetly spoken yet wise men ought to understand that a true Friend can be no flatterer especially when the question is concerning the Salvation both of body and soul not onely of a few men but of States and Nations that if any perswade them for fear of dangers which might follow to faint in their intended purpose though otherwise he might seem to be wise and friendly yet was he to be accounted foolish and their mortal enemie in labouring to perswade them to prefer their worldly rest to Gods Praise and Glory and the friendship of the wicked before the salvation of their Brethren that they ought to hazard their own lives be it against Kings or Emperours for the deliverance of the people from spiritual bondage for which cause onely they received from their Brethren Tribute Honour and Homage at Gods Commandment Finally having laid before them many strong inducements to quicken them unto the work he ends with this most memorable Aphorism which is indeed the sum and substance of the whole Consistorian Doctrine in the present case that the Reformation of Religion and of publick enormities doth appertain to more then the Clergy or chief Rulers called Kings 8. On the receiving of these Letters they are resolved to proceed in their former purpose and would rather commit themselves and all theirs to the greatest dangers then suffer that Religion which they called Idolatry any longer to remain amongst them or the people to be so defrauded as they had been formerly of that which they esteemed to be the onely true preaching of Christ's Gospel And to this end they entred into a common Bond or Covenant in the name of themselves their Vassals Tenants and dependants dated upon the third of Decemb and subscribed by the Earls of Arguile Glencarne and Morton the Lords Lorne Ereskin of Dun c. the Tenour of which was as followeth viz. 9. We perceiving how Satan in his members the Antichrists of our time cruelly do rage seeking to overâ—hrow and destroy the Gospel of Christ and his Congregation ought according to our bounden duty to strive in our Masters cause even unto the death being certain of the victory in him The which one duty being well considerâ—d we do promise before the Majesty of God and his Congregation that we by his Grace shall with all diligence continualâ—y apply our whole power substance and our very lives to maintain set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God and his Congregation And shall labour according to our power to have faithful Ministers truely and purely to minister Christs Gospel and Sacraments to his people we shall maintain them nourish them and defend them the whole Congregation of Christ and every Member thereof according to our whole powers and waging of our lives against Sathan and all wicked power that doth intend tyranny or trouble against the aforesaid Congregation Vnto the which holy Word and Congregation we do joyn us and so do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Antichrist with all the Superstitious Abomination and Idolatry thereof And moreover shall declare our selves manifest enemies thereto by this our faithful promise before God testified to this Congregation by our subscription of these presents 10. Having subscribed unto this Bond their next care was to issue out these directions following for the promoting of the work which they were in hand with 1. That in all Parishes of that Realm the Common-prayer-book that is to say the Common-prayer book of the Church of England should be read upon the Sundays and Holydays in the Parish-Church together with the Lessons of the Old and New Testament by the same appointed 2. That preaching and interpretation of Scripture be had and used in private Houses without any great convention of the people at them till it should please God to put it into the heart of the Prince to allow thereof in publick Churches And
utterly to destroy the Town Man Woman and Childe to consume the same with â—ire and after to sow Salt upon it in signe of perpetual desolation And it is possible she might have been as good as her word if the Earl of Glencarne the Lords Vchiltrie and Boyd the young Sheriff of Air and many other men of eminent Quality attended by two thousand five hundred Horse and Foot had not come very opportunely to the aid of their Brethren Perth being thus preserved from the threatned danger but forced to receive a Garrison of the Queens appointment Knox leaves the Town and goes in company with the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward toward the City of St. Andrews In the way to which he preached at a Town called Craâ—le inveighs most bitterly against such French Forces as had been sent thither under the Command of Monsieur d' Osselle exhorting his Auditors in fine to joyn together as one man till all strangers were expulsed the Kingdom and either to prepare themselves to live like men or to dye victorious Which exhortation so prevailed upon most of the hearers that immediately they betook themselves to the pulling down of Altars and Images and finally destroyed all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry which they found in the Town The like they did the next day at a place called Anstruther From thence they march unto St. Andrews in the Parishâ—Church whereof Knox preached upon our Saviours casting the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple and with his wonted Rhetorick so inflamed the people that they committed the like outrages there as before at Perth destroying Images and pulling down the Houses of the Black and Gray-fryars with the like dispatch This happened upon the 11 of Iune And because it could not be supposed but that the Queen would make some use of her French Forces to Chastise the chief Ring-leaders of that Sedition the Brethren of the Congregation flock so fast unto them that before Tuesday night no fewer then three thousand able men from the parts adjoyning were come to Cooper to their aid By the accession of which strength they first secured themselves by a Capitulation from any danger by the French and then proceeded to the removing of the Queens Garrison out of Perth which they also effected Freed from which yâ—ke some of the Towns-men joyning themselves with those of Dundee make an assault upon the Monastery of Scone famous of long time for the Coronation of the Kings of Scotland and for that cause more sumptuously adorned and more richly furnished then any other in the Kingdom And though the Noblemen and even Knox himself endeavoured to appease the people and to stop their fury that so the place might be preserved yet all endeavours proved in vain or were coldly followed So that in fine a ter some spoyl made in defacing of Images and digging up great quantity of hidden goods which were buried there to be preserved in expectation of a better day they committed the whole House to the Mercie of Fire the flame whereof gave grief to some and joy to others of St. Iohn stones scituate not above a Mile from that famous Abby 14. They had no sooner plaid this prize but some of the Chiefs of them were advertised that Queen Regent had a purpose of putting some French Forces into Sterling the better to cut off all intercourse and mutual succours which those of the Congregation on each side of the Fryth might otherwise have of one another For the preventing of which mischief the Earl of Arguile and the Lord Iames Steward were dispatched away Whose coming so inflamed the zeal of the furious multitude that they pulled down all the Monasteries which were in the Town demolished all the Altars and defaced all the Images in the Churches of it The Abbey of Cambuskenneth near adjoyning to it was then ruined also Which good success encouraged them to go on to Edenborough that the like Reformation might be made in the capital City Taking Linlithgow in their way they committed the like spoyl there as before at Sterling but were prevented of the glory which they chiefly aimed at in the Saccage of Edenborough Upon the news of their approach though their whole Train exceeded not three hundred persons the Queen Regent with great fear retires to Dunbar and the Lord Seaton being then Provest of the Town staid not long behind But he was scarce gone out of the City when the Rascal Rabble fell on the Religious Houses destroyed the Covents of the Black and Gray-fryars with all the other Monasteries about the Town and shared amongst them all the goods which they found in those Houses In which they made such quick dispatch that they had finished that part of the Reformation before the two Lords and their attendants could come in to help them 15. The Queen Regent neither able to endure these outrages nor of sufficient power to prevent or punish them conceived it most expedient to allay these humours for the present by some gentle Lenitive that she might hope the better to extinguish them in the time to come which when she had endeavoured but with no effect she caused a Proclamation to be published in the name of the King and Queen in which it was declared That she perceived a seditious Tumult to be raised by a part of the Lieges who named themselves the Congregation and under pretence of Religion had taken Arms Thâ—t by the advice of the Lords of the Council for satisfying every mans Conscience and pacifying the present troubles she had made offer to call a Parliament in January then following but would call it sooner if they pleased for establishing an Vniversal Order in Affairs of Religion That in the mean time every man should be suffered to live at liberty using their own Consciences without trouble until further order That those who called themselves of the Congregation rejecting all reasonable offers had made it manifest by their actions that they did not so much seek for satisfaction in point of Religion as the subversion of the Crown For proof whereof she instanced in some secret intelligence which they had in England seizing the Irons of the Mans and Coyning Money that being one of the principal Iewels of the Royal Diadem In which regard she straightly willeth and commandeth all manner of persons not being Inhabitants of the City to depart from Edenborough within six hours after publication thereof and live obedient to her Authority except they would be holden and reputed Traytors 16. This Proclamation they encountred with another which they published in their own names for satisfaction of the people some of which had begun to shrink from them at the noise of the former And â—herein they made known to all whom it may concern That such crimes as they were charged with never entred into their hearts That they had no other intention then to banish Idolatry to advance true Religion and to defend the Preachers
into France yet afterwards with one thousand Foot and some remainders of his Horse he recovered Leith and joyned himself unto the rest of that Nation who were there disposed of Of all which passages and provocations the Chief Confederates of the Congregation were so well informed as might assure them that Queen Elizabeth would be easily moved for her own security to aid them in expelling the French and then the preservation of Religion and the securing of themselves their Estates and Families would come in of course 22. It was upon this Reason of State and not for any quarrel about Religion that Queen Elizabeth put her self into Arms and lent the Scots a helping hand to remove the French And by the same she might have justified her self before all the World if she had followed those advantages which were given her by it and seized into her hands such Castles Towns and other places of importance within that Kingdom as might give any opportunity to the French-Scots to infest her Territories For when one Prince pretends a Title to the Crown of another or otherwise makes preparations more then ordinary both by Land and Sea and draws them together to some place from whence he may invade the other whensoever he please the other party is not bound to sit still till the War be brought to his own doors but may lawfully keep it at a distance as far off as he can by carrying it into the Enemies Country and getting into his power all their strong Passes Holds and other Fortresses by which he may be hindred from approaching nearer But this can no way justifie or excuse the Scots which are not to be reckoned for the less Rebels against their own undoubted Soveraign for being subservient in so just a War to the Queen of England as neither the Caldeans or the wilde Arabians could be defended in their thieving or Nebuchadnezzar justified in his pride and Tyranny because it pleased Almighty God for tryal of Iobs faith and patience to make use of the one and of the other for chastising his people Israel The point being agitated with mature deliberation by the Councel of England it was resolved that the French were not to be suffered to grow strong so near the Border that the Queen could not otherwise provide for her own security then by expelling them out of Scotland and that it was not to be compassed at a less expence of bloud and Treasure then by making use of the Scots themselves who had so earnestly supplicated for her aid and succours Commissioners are thereupon appointed to treat at Barwick Betwixt whom and the Agents for the Lords of the Congregation all things in reference to the War are agreed upon The sum and result whereof was this That the English with a puissant Army entred into Scotland reduced the whole War to the Siege of Leith and brought the French in short time into such extremities that they were forced in conclusion to abandon Scotland and leave that Country wholly in a manner to the Congregation 23. These were the grounds and this the issue of those counsels which proved so glorious and successful unto Queen Elizabeth in all the time of her long Reign For by giving this seasonable Aid to those of the Congregation in their greatest need and by feeding some of the Chiefs amongst them with small annual Pensions she made her self so absolute and of such Authority over all the Nation that neither the Queen Regent nor the Queen her self nor King Iames her son nor any of their Predecessors were of equal power nor had the like Command upon them The Church was also for a while a great gainer by it the Scots had hitherto made use of the English Liturgie in Gods publick Worship the fancie of extemporary Prayers not being then taken up amongst them as is affirmed by Knox himself in his Scottish History But now upon the sence of so great a benefit and out of a desire to unite the Nations in the most constant bonds of friendship they binde themselves by their subscription to adhere unto it For which I have no worse a Witness then their own Buchanan And that they might approach as near unto it in the Form of Government as the present condition of the times would bear as they placed several Ministers for their several Churches as Knox in Edenborough Goodman at St. Andrews Aeriot at Aberdeen c. so they ordained certain Superintendants for their Ministers all the Episcopal Sees being at that time filled with Popish Prelates And happy it had been for both had they continued still in so good a posture and that the Presbyterian humour had not so far obliterated all remembrance of their old affections as in the end to prosecute both the Liturgie and Episcopacie to an extermination And there accrued a further benefit by it to the Scots themselves that is to say the confirmation of the Faith which they so contended for by Act of Parliament for by difficulties of Agreement between the Commissioners authorized on all sides to attone the differences it was consented to by those for the Queen of Scots that the Estates of the Realm should convene and hold a Parliament in the August following and that the said Convention should be as lawful in all respects as if it should be summoned by the particular and express command of the Kings themselves According to which Article they hold a Parliament and therein pass an Act for the ratification of the Faith and Doctrine as it was then drawn up into the Form of a Confession by some of their Ministers But because this Confession did receive a more plenary Confirmation in the first Parliament of King Iames we shall refer all further speech of it till we come to that They also passed therein other Acts to their great advantage first for abolishing the Popes Authority the second for repealing all former Statutes which were made and maintained of that which they called Idolatry and the third against the saying or hearing of Mass. 24. It was conditioned in the Articles of the late agreement that the Queen of Scots should send Commissioners to their present Parliament that the results thereof might have the force and effect of Laws but she intended not for her part to give their Acts the countenance of Supreme Authority and the Chief-leading-men of the Congregation did not much regard it as thinking themselves in a capacity to manage their own business without any such countenance For though they had addressed themselves to the King and Queen for confirmation of such Acts as had passed in this Parliament yet they declared that what they did was rather to express their obedience to them then to beg of them any strength to their Religion They had already cast the Rider and were resolved that neither King nor Queen should back them for the time to come The Qâ—een Regent wearied and worn out with such horrid insolencies departed this
of those uncomfortable times which she found amongst them Against Sunday being the 24 there were great preparations made for celebrating Mass in the Chappel-Royal of Holyâ—ood-House At which the Brethren of the Congregation were so highly offended that some of them cryed out aloud so as all might hear them That the Idolatrous Priests should dye the death according to Gods Law others affirming with less noise but with no less confidence That they could not abide that the Land which God by his power had purged of Idolatry should in their sight be polluted with the same again And questionless some great mischief must have followed on it if the Lord Iames Steward to preserve the honour of his Nation in the eye of the French had not kept the door which he did under a preâ—ence that none of the Scottish Nation should be present at the hearing of Mass contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf but in plain truth to hinder them by the power and reputation which he had amongst them from thronging in tumultuously to disturb the business 33. For remedy whereof for the time to come an Order was issued the next day by the Lords of the Council and Authorized by the Queen in which it was declared that no manner of person should privately or openly take in hand to alter or innovate any thing in the State of Religion which the Queen found publickly and universally received at her Majesties arrival in that Realm or attempt any thing against the same upon pain of death But then it was required withal that none of the Leiges take in hand to trouble or molest any of her Majesties Domestick Servants or any other persons which had accompanied her out of France at the time then present for any cause whatsoever in word deed or countenance and that upon the pain of death as the other was But notwithstanding the equality of so just an Order the Earl of Arrane in the name of the rest of the Congregation professed openly on the same day at the Cross in Edenborough That no protection should be given to the Queens Domesticks or to any other person that came out of France either to violate the Laws of the Realm or offend Gods Majesty more then was given to any other subjects And this he did as he there affirmed because Gods Law had pronounced death to the Idolater and the Laws of the Realm had appointed punishment for the sayers and hearers of Mass from which he would have none exempted till some Law were publickly made in Parliament and such as was agreeable to the Word of God to annul the former The like distemper had possest all the rest of the Lords at their first coming to the Town to attend her Majesty to congratulate her safe arrival but they cooled all of them by degrees when they considered the unreasonableness of the Protestation in denying that Liberty of Conscience to their Soveraign Queen which every one of them so much desired to enjoy for himself Onely the Earl Arrane held it out to the last He had before given himself some hopes of marrying the Queen and sent her a rich Ring immediately on the death of the King her Husband but finding no return agreeable to his expectation he suffered himself to be as much transported to the other extreme according to the natural Genius of the Presbyterians who never yet knew any mean in their loves or hatred 34. Iohn Knox makes good the Pulpit in the chief Church at Edenborough on the Sunday following in which he bitterly inveighed against Idolatry shewing what Plagues and Punishments God had inflicted for the same upon several Nations And then he adds that one Mass was more fearful to him then if ten thousand armed Enemies were landed in any part of the Realm on purpose to suppress their whole Religion that in God there was strength to resist and confound whole multitudes iâ— unfeignedly they depended on him of which they had such good experience in their former troubles but that if they joyned hands with Idolatry they should be deprived of the comfortable presence and assistance of Almighty God A Conference hereupon ensued betwixt him and the Queen at the hearing whereof there was none present but the Lord Iames Steward besides two Gentlemen which stood at the end of the Room In the beginning whereof she charged him with raising Sedition in that Kingdom putting her own Subjects into Arms against her writing a Book against the Regiment of Women and in the end descendâ—d to some points of Religion To all which Knox returned such answers or else so favourably reports them to his own advantage for we must take the whole story as it comes from his pen that he is made to go away with as easie a victory as when the Knight of the Boot encounters with some Dwarf or Pigmy in the old Romances All that the Queen got by it from the mouth of this Adversary was that he found in her a proud minde a crafâ—y wit and an obdurate heart against God and his Truth And in this Character be thought himself confirmed by her following actions For spending the rest of the Summer in visiting sâ—me of the chief Towns of her Kingdom she carried the Mass with her into all places wheresoever she came and at her coming back gave order for setting out the Mass with more solemnity on Alhallows day then at any time or place before Of this the Minâ—sters complain to such of the Nobility as were then Resident in the City but finde not such an eagerness in them as in former times For now some of them make a doubt whether the Subjects might use force for suppressing the Idolatry of their Prince which heretofore had passed in the affirmative as a truth infallible A Conâ—erence is thereupon appointed between some of the Lords and such of the Ministers as appeared most Zâ—alous against the Mass the Lords disputing for the Queen and urging that it was not lawful to deprive her of that in which she placed so great a part of her Religion The contrary was maintained by Knox and the rest of the Ministers who seeing that they could not carry it as before by their own Authority desired that the deciding of the point might be referred to the godly Brethren of Geneva of whose concurring in opinion with them they were well assured And though the drawing up of the point and the Inditing of the Letter being committed unto Ledington the principal Secretary was not dispatched with such poâ—â— haste as their Zeal required yet they shewed plainly by insisting on that proposition both from whose mouth they had received the Doctrines of making Soveraign Princes subject to the lusts of the people and from whose hands they did expect the defence thereof 35. A general Assembly being indicted by them about that time or not long after a question is made by some of the Court-Lords whether such Assemblies might be holden
very pleasing news to those of the Congregation who thought it more expedient to their Affairs that the Queen should not Marry at all or at least not Marry any other Husband but such as should be recommended to her by the Queen of England on whom their safety did depend In which regard they are resolved to oppose this Match though otherwise they were assured that it would make the Queen grow less in reputation both at home and abroad to Marry with one of her own subjects of what blood soever 51. And now comes Knox to play his prize who more desired that the Earl of Leicester as one of his own Faction should espouse the Queen then the Earl desired it for himself If she will Marry at all let her make choice of one of the true Religion for other Husband she should never have if he could help it And to this end he lays about him in a Sermon preached before the Parliament at which the Nobility and Estates were then assembled And having roved sufficiently as his custom was at last he tells them in plain terms desiring them to note the day and take witness of it That whensover the Nobility of Scotland who profess the Lord Iesus should consent that an Infidel and all Papists are Infidels saith he should be head to their Soveraign they did so far as in them lyes banish Christ Iesus from this Realm yea and bring Gods judgements upon the Country a plague upon themselves and do small comfort to her self For which being questioned by the Queen in a private conference he did not onely stand unto it without the least qualifying or retracting of those harsh expressions but must intitle them to God as if they had been the immediate Inspirations of the holy Ghost for in his Dialogue with the Queen he affirmed expresly that out of the preaching place few had occasion to be any way oâ—fended with him but there that is to say in the Church or Pulpit he was not Master of himself but must obey him that commands him to speak plain and flatter no flesh upon the face of the Earth This insolent carriage of the man put the Queen into passion insomuch that one of her Pages as Knox himself reports the story could hardly finde Handkerchiefs enough to dry her eyes with which the proud fellow shewed himself no further touched then if he had seen the like fears from any one of his own Boys on a just correction 52. Most men of moderate spirits seemed much offended at the former passage when they heard it from him in the Pulpit more when they heard of the affliction it had given the Queen But it prevailed so far on the generality of the Congregation that presently it became a matter of Dispute amongst them Whether the Queen might chuse to her self an Husband or whether it were more fitting that the Estates of the Land should appoint one for her Some sober men affirmed in earnest that the Queen was not to be barred that liberty which was granted to the meanest Subject But the Chief leading-men of the Congregation had their own ends in it for which they must pretend the safety of the Common-wealth By whom it was affirmed as plainly that in the Heir unto a Crown the case was different because said they such Heirs in assuming an Husband to themselves did withal appoint a King to be over the Nation And therefore that it was more fit that the whole people should chuse a Husband to one Woman then one Woman to elect a King to Rule over the whole people Others that had the same designe and were possibly of the same opinion concerning the imposing of a Husband on her by the States of the Realm disguised their purpose by pretending another Reason to break off this Marriage The Queen and the young Noble-man were too near of Kindred to be conjoyned in Marriage by the Laws of the Church her Father and his Mother being born of the same Venter as our Lawyers phrase it But for this blow the Queen did easily provide a Buckler and dispatched one of her Ministers to the Court of Rome for a Dispensation The other was not so well warded but that it fell heavy at the last and plunged her into all those miseries which ensued upon it 53. But notwithstanding these obstructions the Match went forwards in the Court chiefly sollicited by one David Risio born in Piedmont who coming into Scotland in the company of an Ambassador from the Duke of Savoy was there detained by the Queen first in the place of a Musician afterwards imployed in writing Letters to her Friends in France By which he came to be acquainted with most of her secrets and as her Secretary for the French Tongue to have a great hand in the managing of all Forreign transactions This brought him into great envy with the Scots proud in themselves and not easie to be kept in fair terms when they had no cause unto the contrary But the preferring of this stranger was considered by them as a wrong to their Nation as if not able to afford a sufficient man to perform that Office to which the Educating of so many of them in the Court of France had made them no less fit and able then this Mungrel Italian To all this Risio was no stranger and therefore was to cast about how to save himself and to preserve that Power and Reputation which he had acquired Which to effect he laboured by all means to promote the Match that the young Lord being obliged unto him for so great a benefit might stand the faster to him against all Court-factions whensoever they should rise against him And that it might appear to be his work onely Ledington the chief Secretary is dispatched for England partly to gain the Queens consent unto the Marriage and partly to excuse the Earl of Lenox and his Son for not returning to the Court as she had commanded In the mean time he carries on the business with all care and diligence to the end that the Match might be made up before his return Which haste he made for these two Reason first lest the dissenting of that Queen whose influence he knew to be very great on the Kingdom of Scotland might either beat it off or at least retard it the second that the young Lord Darnley for so they called him might have the greater obligation to him for effecting the business then if it had been done by that Queens consent 54. To make all sure as sure at least as humane Wisdom could project it a Convention of the Estates is called in May and the business of the Marriage is propounded to them To which some yeilded absolutely without any condition others upon condition that Religion might be kept indempnified onely the Lord Vehiltry one who adher'd to Knox in his greatest difficulties maintained the Negative affirming openly that he would never admit a King of the Popish Religion Encouraged
That the Iews dealt not so with any of their Princes and that there was no example to be found in Scripture to shew that subjects may so use their Governours as is there pretended To all these he returns his particular answers and in this sort he answereth to them that is to say That there is nothing more dangerous to be followed then a common custom That the example is but singular and concludeth nothing That as God placed Tyrants to punish the people so he appoints private men to kill them That the Kings of the Iews were not elected by the people and therefore might not deal with them as they might in Scotland where Kings depend wholly on the peoples Election And finally that there were sundry good and wholesome Laws in divers Countries of which there is no example in holy Scripture And whereas others had objected That by St. Pauls Doctrine we are bound to pray for Kings and Princes The Argument is evaded by this handsome shift That we are bound to pray for those whom we ought to punish But these are onely velitations certain preparatory skirmishes to the grand encounter the main battail followeth For finally the principal objection is That St. Paul hath commanded every soul to be subject to the higher Powers and that St. Peter hath required us to submit our selves to every Ordinance of man whether it be unto the King as to the Supreme or unto such as be in Authority by and under him And hereunto they frame their Answer in such a manner as if they knew Gods minde better then the Apostles did or that of the Apostles better then they did themselves 11. The answer is that the Apostles writ this in the Churches infancy when there were not many Christians few of them rich and of ability to make resistance As if said he a man should write to such Christians as are under the Turk in substance poor in courage feeble in strength unarmed in number few and generally subject unto to all kinde of injuries would he not write as the Apostles did who did respect the men they writ to their words not being to be extended to the body or people of the Common wealth For imagine saith he that either of the Apostles were now alive and lived where both the Kings and people did profess Christianity and that there were such Kings as would have their wills to stand for laws as cared neither for God nor Man as bestowed the Churches Revenues upon Iesters and Rascals and such as gibed at those who did profess the more sincere Religion what would they write of such to the Church Surely except they would dissent from themselves they would say That they accounted no such for Magistrates they would forbid all men from speaking unto them and from keeping their company they would leave them to their subjects to be punished nor would they blame them if they accounted not such men for their Kings with whom they could have no society by the Laws of God So excellent a proficient did this man shew himself in the Schools of Calvin that he might worthily have challenged the place of Divinity-Reader in Geneva it self 12. To put these Principles into practice a Bond is made at Stirling by some of the chief Lords of the Congregation pretended for the preservation of the Infant-Prince but aiming also at the punishment of Bothwel and the rest of the Murtherers The first that entred into this Combination were the Earls of Athol Arguile Morton Marre and Glencarne with the Lords Lindsay and Boyd to which were added not long after the Lords Hume and Ruthen this Ruthen being the Son of him who had acted in the Murther of David Risio together with the Lairds of Drumlanrig Tulibardin Seffourd and Grange men of great power and influence on their several Countries besides many others of good note The Earl Murray having laid the plot obtained the Queens leave to retire into France till the times were quieter committing to the Queen the Government of his whole Estate that so if his designe miscarried as it possibly might he might come off without the least hazard of estate or honour Of this conspiracie the Queen receives advertisement and presently prepares for Arms under pretence of rectifying some abuses about the Borders The Confederates were not much behind and having got together a considerable power made an attempt on Borthwick Castle where the Queen and Bothwel then remained But not being strong enough to carry the place at the first attempt Bothwel escaped unto Dunbar whom the Queen followed shortly after in mans apparel Missing their prey the Confederates march toward Edenborough with their little army and make themselves Masters of the Town But understanding that the Queens Forces were upon their march they betook themselves unto the field gained the advantage of the ground and thereby gave her such a diffidence of her good success that having entertained them with a long parley till Bothwel was gone off in safety she put her self into their hands without striking a blow 13. With this great prey the Confederates returned to Edenborough in the middle of Iune and the next day order her to be sent as Prisoner to Lâ—chlevin-house under the conduct of the Lords Ruthen and Lindsay by whom she was delivered in a very plain and sorry attire to the custody of Murray's Mother who domineered over the unfortunate Lady with contempt enough The next day after her commitment the Earl of Glencarne passeth to the Chappel in Halyrood house where he defaceth all the Vestments breaks down the Altar and destroys the Images For which though he was highly magnified by Knox and the rest of the Preachers yet many of the chief Confederates were offended at it as being done without their consent when a great storm was gathering towards them by the conjunction of some other of the principal Lords on the Queens behalf To reconcile this party to them and prevent the Rupture Knox with some other of their Preachers are dispatched away with Letters of Credence and instructions for attoning the difference But they effected nothing to the benefit of them that sent them and not much neither to their own though they had some concernments of self-interest besides the publick which they made tender of to their considerations A general Assembly at the same time was held in Edenborough with which upon the coming back of these Commissioners it was thought necessary to ingratiate themselves by all means imaginable And thereupon it was agreed that the Acts of Parliament made in the year 1560 for the suppressing of Popery should be confirmed in the next Parliament then following that the assignation of the Shires for the Ministers maintainance should be duly put in execution till the whole Patrimony of the Church might be invested in them in due form of Law which was conditioned to be done if it could not be done sooner in that Parliament also Some other points of huge
concernment to the Church were then also moved but they were onely promised without any performance It was also then agreed between them that all Noblemen Barons and other Professors should imploy their whole Forces Strength and Power for the punishment of all and whatsoever persons that should be tryed and found guilty of that horrible Murther of late committed on the King And further that all the Kings and Princes which should succeed in following times to the Crown of that Realm should be bound by Oath before their Inauguration to maintain the true Religion of Christ professed then presently in that Kingdom Thus the Confederates and the Kirk are united together and hard it is to say whether of the two were least execusable before God and man But they followed the light of their own principles and thought that an excuse sufficient without fear of either 14. The news of these proceedings alarms all Christendom and presently Ambassadors are dispatched from France and England to mediate with the Confederates they must not be called Rebels for the Queens Delivery Throgmorton for the Queen of England presseth hard upon it and shewed himself exceeding earnest and industrious in pursuance of it But Knox and self-interest prevailed more amongst them then all intercessions whatsoever there being nothing more insisted upon by that fiery spirit then that she was to be deprived of her Authority and Life together And this he thundred from the Pulpit with as great a confidence as if he had received his Doctrine at Mount Sinai from the hands of God at the giving of the Law to Moses Nor was Throgmorton thought to be so Zealous on the other side as he outwardly seemed For he well knew how much it might concern his Queen in her personal safety and the whole Realm of England in its peace and happiness that the poor Queen should be continued in the same or a worse condition to which these wretched men had brought her And therefore it was much suspected by most knowing men that secretly he did more thrust on her deprivation with one hand then he seemed to hinder it with both Wherewith incouraged or otherwise being too far gone to retire with safety Lindsay and Ruthen are dispatched to Lochlevin-house to move her for a resignation of the Crown to her Infant-Son Which when she would by no means yeild to a Letter is sent to her from Throgmorton to perswade her to it assuring her that whatsoever was done by her under that constraint would be void in Law This first began to work her to that resolution But nothing more prevailed upon her then the rough carriage of the two Lords which first made the motion By whom she was threatned in plain terms that if she did not forthwith yeild unto the desires of her people they would question her for incontinent living the murther of the King her tyranny and the manifest violation of the Laws of the Land in some secret transactions with the French Terrified wherewith without so much as reading what they offered to her she sets her hand to three several Instruments In the first of which she gave over the Kingdom to her young Son at that time little more then a twelve Month old in the second she constituted Murray Vice-Roy during his minority and in the third in case that Murray should refuse it she substitutes Duke Hamilton the Earls of Lenox Arguile Athol Morton Glencarne and Marre all but the two first being sworn Servants unto Murray and the two first made use of onely to discharge the matter 15. Thus furnished and impowered the Lords return in triumph to their fellows at Edenborough with the sound of a Trumpet and presently it was resolved to Crown the Infant-King with as much speed as might be for fear of all such alterations as might otherwise happen And thereunto they spurred on with such precipitation that whereas they extorted those subscriptions from her on St. Iame's day being the 25 of Iuly the Coronation was dispatched on the 29. The Sermon for the greater grace of the matter must be preached by Knox but the superstitious part and ceremony of it was left to be performed by the Bishop of Orknay another of the natural Sons of Iames the Fifth assisted by two Superintendents of the Congregation And that all things might come as near as might be to the Ancient Forms the Earl of Morton and the Lord Humes took Oath for the King that he should maintain the Religion which was then received and minister Justice equally to all the Subjects Of which particular the King made afterwards an especial use in justifying the use of God-fathers and God mothers at the Baptizing of Infants when it was questioned in the Conference at Hampton-court Scarce fifteen days were past from the Coronation when Murray shewed himself in Scotland as if he had dropt down from Heaven for the good of the Nation but he had took England in his way and made himself so sure a party in that Court that he was neither affraid to accept the Regencie in such a dangerous point of time nor to expostulate bitterly with his own Queen for her former actions not now the same man as before in the time of her glories For the first handselling of his Government he calls a Parliament and therein ratifies the Acts of 1560 for suppressing Popery as had been promised to the last general Assembly and then proceeds to the Arraignment of Hepbourne Hay and Daglish for the horrible murther of the King by each of which it was confessed at their execution that Bothwel was present at the murther and that he had assured them at their first ingaging that most of the Noble-men in the Realm Murray and Morton amongst others were consenting to it 16. And now or never must the Kirk begin to bear up bravely In which if they should fail let Knox bear the blame for want of well-tutoring them in the Catechism of their own Authority They found themselves so necessary to this new Establishment that it could not well subsist without them and they resolved to make the proudest he that was to feel the dint of their spirit A general Assembly was convened not long after the Parliament by which the Bishop of Orknay was convented and deposed from his Function for joyning the Queen in Marriage to the Earl of Bothwel though he proceeded by the Form of their own devising And by the same the Countess of Arguile was ordained after citation on their part and appearance on hers to give satisfaction to the Kirk for being present at the Baptism of the Infant-King because performed according to the Rites of the Church of Rome the satisfaction to be made in Stirling where she had offended upon a Sunday after Sermon the more particular time and manner of it to be prescribed by the Superintendent of Lothian And this was pretty handsome for the first beginning according whereunto it was thought fit by the Chief Leaders to
the King in â—â—rliament and the approving of the same deferred to a furâ—her time they took this not for a delay but a plain denyal and therefore it was agreed in the next general Assembly as before is said to put the same in execution by their own Authority without expecting any further confirmation of it from the King or Council Which that they might effect without fear of disturbance they first discharge the Bishops and Superintendents from intermedling in Affairs which concerned Religion but onely in their own particular Churches that so their Elderships according to this new establishment might grow up and flourish And then they took upon them with their own adherents to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction without respect to Prince or Prelate they altered the Laws according to their own appetite they assembled the Kings Subjects and injoyned Ecclesiastical pains unto them they made Decrees and put the same in execution they prescribed Laws to the King and State they appointed Fasts throughout the whole Realm especially when some of their Faction were to move any great enterprise they used very traytorous seditious and contumelious words in the Pulpits Schools and otherwise to the disdain and reproach of the King and being called to answer the same they utterly disclaimed the Kings Authority saying he was an incompetent Judge and that matters of the Pulpit ought to be exempted from the judgement and correction of Princes And finally they did not onely animate some of those that adhered unto them to seize upon the Kings person and usurp his power but justified the same in one of their general Assemblies held at Edenborough for a lawful Act ordaining all those to be excommunicated which did not subscribe unto the same This we take up by whole-sale now but shall return it by retail in that which follows 37. And first they begin with Mr. Iames Boyd Archbishop of Glasco a man of a mild and quiet nature and therefore the more like to be conformable to their commands requiring him to submit himself to the Assembly and to suffer the corruptions of the Episcopal Order to be reformed in his person To which proud intimation of their will and pleasure he returned this Answer which for the modesty or piety thereof deserves to be continued to perpetual memory I understand saith he the name Office and Reverence given to a Bishop to be lawful and allowed by the Scriptures of God and being elected by the Church and King to be Bishop of Glasco I esteem my Office and Calling lawful and shall endeavour with all my power to perform the duties required submitting my self to the judgement of the Church if I shall be tryed to offend so as nothing be required of me but the performance of those duties which the Apostle prescribeth Finding him not so tractable as they had expected they Commissionate certain of their Members to require his subscription to the Act made at Stirling for reformation of the State Episcopal by which it was agreed that every Bishop should take charge of some flock in particular And this they prest upon him with such heat and violence that they never left prosecuting the poor man till they had brought him to his Grave By none more violently pursued then by Andrew Melvin whom he had brought to Glasco and made Principal of the Colledge there gave him a free access to his House and Table or otherwise very liberally provided for him But Scots and Presbyterians are not won by favours nor obliged by Benefits For Melvin so disguised his nature that when he was in private with him at his Table or elsewhere he would use him with all reverence imaginable giving him the title of his Lordship with all the other honours which pertained unto him but in all particular Meetings whatsoever they were he would onely call him Mr. Boyd and otherwise carried himself most despitefully towards him 38. Their rough and peremptory dealing with this Reverend Prelate discouraged all the rest from coming any more to their Assemblies Which hapned as they could have wished For thereupon they agree amongst themselves upon certain Articles which every Bishop must subscribe or else quit his place that is to say 1. That they should be content to be Ministers and Pastors of a flock 2. That they should not usurp any criminal jurisdiction 3. That they should not vote in Parliament in the name of the Church unless they had a Commission from the general Assembly 4. That they should not take up for maintaining their ambition the Rents which might maintain many Pastors Schools and Poor but content themselves with a reasonable portion for discharge of their Offices 5. That they should not claim the title of Temporal Lords nor usurp any Civil Iurisdiction whereby they might be drawn from their charge 6. That they should not Empire over Presbyteries but be subject to the same 7. That they should not usurp the power of Presbyteries nor take upon them to visit any bounds that were not committed to them by the Church 8. That if any more corruptions should afterwards be tryed the Bishop should agree to have them reformed These Articles were first tendred to Patrick Adamson Archbishop of St. Andrews and Metropolitan of all Scotland against whom they had a former quarrel not onely because he was preferred elected and admitted to that eminent Dignity without their consent but had also exercised the Jurisdiction which belonged unto it in express and direct opposition unto their commands And first they quarrelled with him for giving Collation unto Benefices and for giving voice in Parliament not being authorized thereunto by the Kirk They quarrelled with him afterwards for drawing or advising the Acts of Parliament Anno 1584 which they conceived to be so prejudicial to the Rights of the Kirk and held the King so hard unto it that he was forced to counsel the poor Prelate to subscribe some Articles by which he seemed in a manner to renounce his Calling of which more hereafter They quarrelled with him again in the year 1589 for marrying one of the Daughters of the late Duke of Lenox to the Earl of Huntly without their consent wherein the King was also fain to leave him to their discretion And finally they so vexed and persecuted him from one time to another upon pretence of not conforming to their lawless pleasures that they reduced him in the end to extreme necessity published a false and scandalous Paper in his name as he lay on his death bed containing a Recantation as they called it or rather a renouncing of his Episcopal Function together with his approbation of their Presbyteries which Paper he disowned at the the hearing of it By which and many such unworthy courses they brought his gray hairs as they did some others of his Order with shame and sorrow to the Grave 39. Mention was made before of an Act of Parliament made in the time of the Interregnum before the Queens coming back from
ground whereof they alledged amongst other things not onely the oppression of the Church in general but the danger wherein the Kings Person stood by a company of wicked men who laboured to corrupt him in Religion as well as manners 52. But no man laid more hastily about him or came better off then Walter Belcanqual another Preacher of that City Who in a Sermon by him preached used some words to this purpose That within this four years Popery had entred into the Countrey and Court and was maintained in the Kings Hall by the Tyranny of a great Champion who was called Grace which Adjunct they gave ordinarily to their Dukes in Scotland but that if his Grace continued in opposing himself to God and his Word he should come to little Grace in the end The King at the first hearing of it gives order to the General Assembly to proceed therein Which being signified to Belcanqual he is said to have given thanks to God for these two things first For that he was not accused for any thing done against his Majestie and the Laws But principally because he perceived the Church had obtained some Victory And for the last he gave this reason That for some quarrel taken at a former Sermon the Council had took upon them to be Iudges of a Ministers Doctrine but now that he was ordered to appear before the Assembly he would most joyfully submit his Doctrine to a publick Tryal But those of the Assembly sending word to the King that they could not warrantably proceed against him without the business were prosecuted by some Accuser and made good by witnesses the King was forced for fear of drawing any of his Servants into their displeasures to let fall the cause But Belcanqual would not so give over The Kings desisting from the prosecution would not serve his turn unless he were absolved also by the whole Assembly who had been present at the Sermon This was conceived to be most reasonable and just for having put it to the vote his Doctrine was declared to be â—ound and Orthodox and that he had delivered nothing which might give just offence unto any person The King begins to see by these particulars what he is to trust to But they will presently find out another expedient as well for tryal of their own power as his utmost patience 52. A corrupt Contract had been made betwixt Montgomery before mentioned and the Duke of Lenox by which it was agreed That Montgomery should be advanced by the Dukes Intercession to the Archbishoprick of Glasgow and that Montgomery in requital of so great a favour should grant unto the Duke and his Heirs for ever the whole Estate and Rents of the said Archbishoprick upon the yearly payments of One thousand pound Scotch with some Horse Corn and Poultry No sooner had the Kirk notice of this Transaction but without taking notice of so base a Contract they censured him for taking on him the Episcopal Function The King resolves to justifie him in the Acceptation unless they could be able to charge him with unfoundess of Doctrine or corruption of manners Hereupon certain Articles are preferred against him and amongst others it was charged that he had said The Discipline was a thing indifferent and might stand the one way or the other That to prove the lawfulness of Bishops in the Church he had used the Examples of Ambrose and Augustine That at another time he called the Discipline and the lawful Calling of the Church the triefls of Policy That he said the Ministers were captious and men of curious brains That he charged them with sedition and warned them not to meddle in the disposing of Crowns and that if they did they should be reproved That he accused them of Pasquils Lying Backbiting c. And finally he denyed that any mention of Presbytery or Eldership was made in any part of the New Testament For which and other Errours of like nature in point of Doctrine though none of them sufficiently proved when it came to tryal it was resolved by the Assembly that he should stand to his Ministry in the Church of Stirling and meddle no further with the Bishoprick under the pain of Excommunication But not content with ordering him to give off the Bishoprick they suspend him on another quarrel from the use of his Ministry To neither of which sentences when he would submit as being supported by the King on one side and the Duke on the other they cited him to appear before the Synod of Lothian to hear the sentence of Excommunication pronounced against him This moved the King to interpose his Royal Authority to warn the Synod to appear before him at the Court at Stirling and in the mean time to desist from all further Process Pont and some others make appearance in the name of the rest but withal make this protestation That though they had appeared to testifie their obedience to his Majesties warrant yet they did not acknowledge the King and Council to be competent Iudges in that matter and therefore that nothing done at that time should either prejudge the Liberties of the Church or the Laws of the Realm Which Protestation notwithstanding they were inhibited by the Council from using any further proceedings against the man and so departed for the present 54. But the next general Assembly would not leave him so but prosecute him with more heat then ever formerly and were upon the point of passing their judgement on him when they were required by a Letter missive from the King not to trouble him for any matter about the Bishoprick or any other cause preceding in regard the King resolved to have the business heard before himself But Melvin hereupon replyed That they did not meddle with any thing belonging to the Civil Power and that for matters Ecclesiastical they had Authority enough to proceed against him as being a Member of their Body The Master of the Requests who had brought the Letter perceiving by these words that they meant to proceed in it as they had begun commanded a Messenger at Arms whom he had brought along with him to charge them to desist upon pain of Rebellion This moves them as little as the Letter and he is summoned peremptorily to appear next morning that he might receive his sentence Next morning he appears by his Procurator and puts up an appeal from them to the King and Council the rather in regard that one who was his principal Accuser in the last Assembly was now to sit amongst his Judges But neither the Appeal it self nor the Equity of it could so far prevail as to hinder them from passing presently to the Sentence by which upon the specification and recital of his several crimes he was ordained to be deprived and cast out of the Church And now the courage of the man begins to fail him He requires a present Conference with some of the Brethren submits himself to the Decrees of the Assembly
and promiseth neither to meddle further with the Bishoprick nor to exercise any Office in the Ministry but as they should license him thereunto But this inconstancie he makes worse by another as bad for finding the Kings countenance towards him to be very much changed he resolves to hold the Bishoprick makes a journey to Glasgow and entring into the Church with a great train of Gentlemen which had attended him from the Court he puts by the ordinary Preacher and takes the Pulpit to himself For this disturbance the Presbytery of the Town send out Process against him but are prohibited from proceeding by his Majesties Warrant presented by the Mayor of Glasgow But when it was replyed by the Moderator That they would proceed in the cause notwithstanding this Warrant and that some other words were multiplyed upon that occasion the Provost pulled him out of his Chair and committed him Prisoner to the Talebooth The next Assembly look on this action of the Provost as a foul indignity and prosecute the whole matter unto such extremity that notwithstanding the Kings intercession and the advantage which he had against some of their number the Provost was decreed to be excommunicated and the Excommunication formerly decreed against Montgomery was actually pronounced in the open Church 55. The Duke of Lenox findes himself so much concerned in the business that he could not but support the man who for his sake had been exposed to all these affronts he entertains him at his Table and hears him preach without regard unto the Censures under which he lay This gives the general Assembly a new displeasure Their whole Authority seemed by these actions of the Duke to be little valued which rather then they would permit they would proceed against him in the self-same manner But first it was thought fit to send some of their Members as well to intimate unto him that Montgomery was actually excommunicated as also to present the danger in which they stood by the Rules of the Discipline who did converse with excommunicated persons The Duke being no less moved then they demanded in some choler Whether the King or Kirk had the Supreme Power and therewith plainly told them That he was commanded by the King to entertain him whose command he would not disobey for fear of their Censures Not satisfied with this defence the Commissioners of the general Assembly presented it unto the King amongst other grievances to which it was answered by the King that the Excommunication was illegal and was declared to be so upon very good Reasons to the Lords of the Council and therefore that no manner of person was to be lyable to censure upon that account The King was at this time at the Town of Perth to which many of the Lords repaired who had declared themselves in former times for the Faction of England and were now put into good heart by supplies of money according unto Walsinghams counsel which had been secretly sent unto them from the Queen Much animated or exasperated rather by some Leading-men who managed the Affairs of the late Assemblies and spared not to inculcate to them the apparent dangers in which Religion stood by the open practices of the Duke of Lenox and the Kings crossing with them upon all occasions To which the Sermons of the last Fast did not add a little which was purposely indicted as before was said in regard of those oppressions which the Kirk was under but more because of the great danger which the company of wicked persons might bring to the King whom they endeavoured to corrupt both in Religion and Manners All which inducements coming together produced a resolution of getting the King into their power forcing the Duke of Lenox to retire into France and altering the whole Government of the Kingdom as themselves best pleased 56. But first the Duke of Lenox must be sent out of the way And to effect this they advised him to go to Edenborough and to erect there the Lord-Chamberlains Court for the reviving of the ancient Jurisdiction which belonged to his Office He had not long been gone from Perth when the King was solemnly invited to the House of William Lord Ruthen not long before made Earl of Gowry where he was liberally feasted but being ready to depart he was stayed by the Eldest Son of the Lord Glammis the Master of Glammis he is called in the Scottish Dialect and he was stayed in such a manner that he perceived himself to be under a custody The apprehensions whereof when it drew some tears from him it moved no more compassion nor respect from the froward Scots but that it was fitter for boys to shed tears then bearded men This was the great work of the 23 day of August to which concurred at the first to avoid suspiâ—ion no more of the Nobility but the Earls of Marre and Gowry the Lords Boyd and Lindsay and to the number of ten more of the better sort but afterwards the act was owned over all the Nation not onely by the whole Kirk-party but even by those who were of contrary Faction to the Duke of Lenox who was chiefly aimed at The Duke upon the first advertisement of this surprize dispatched some men of Noble Quality to the King to know in what condition he was whether free or Captive The King returned word that he was a Captive and willed him to raise what force he could to redeem him thence The Lords on the other side declared That they would not suffer him to be misled by the Duke of Lenox to the oppression of Himself the Church and the whole Realm and therefore the Duke might do well to retire into France or otherwise they would call him to a sad account for his former actions And this being done they caused the King to issue out a Proclamation on the 28. In which it was declared That he remained in that place of his own free-will That the Nobility then present had done nothing which they were not in duty obliged to do That he took their repairing to him for a service acceptable to himself and profitable to the Commonwealth That therefore all manner of persons whatsoever which had levied any Forces under colour of his present restraint should disband them within six hours under pain of Treason But more particularly they cause him to write a Letter to the Duke of Lenox whom they understood to be grown considerably strong for some present action by which he was commanded to depart the Kingdom before the 20 of September then next following On the receipt whereof he withdraws himself to the strong Castle of Dunbritton that there he might remain in safety whilst he staid in Scotland and from thence pass safely into France whensoever he pleased 57. The news of this Surprize is posted with all speed to England And presently the Queen sends her Ambassadors to the King by whom he was advertised to restore the Earl of Angus who had lived
obedient subjects The Kings escape was made in the end of Iune and in December following he calls a Convention of the Estates in which the subject of his Proclamation was approved and verified the fact declared to be Crimen laesae Majestatis or Treason in the highest degree For which as some were executed and others fled so divers of the Ministers that had been dealers in that matter pretending they were persecuted had retired into England For notwithstanding his Majesties great clemency in pardoning the Conspirators on such easie conditions they preferred rather the pursuing of their wicked purposes then the enjoying of a peaceable and quiet life For whether it were that they presumed on supplies from England of which they had received no inâ—â—obable hopes as afterwards was confessed by the Earl of Gowry or that they built upon the Kirk-Faction to come in to aid them as the General Assembly had required they begin in all places to prepare for some new Commotion but being deceived in all their hopes and expectations they were confined to several Prisons before the Convention of Estates and after it upon a further discovery of their preparations and intentions compelled to quit the Kingdome and betake themselves for their protection unto several Nations Onely the Earl of Gowry staid behind the rest and he paid well for it For being suspected to be hammering some new design he was took Prisoner at Dundee in the April following 1584 thence brought to Edenborough and there condemned and executed as he had deserved In the mean time the Kirk-men were as troublesome as the Lay-Conspirators Dury so often mentioned in a Sermon at Edenborough had justified the fact at Ruthen for which being cited to appear before the Lords of the Council he stood in maintainance of that which he had delivered but afterwards submitting himself unto the King on more sober thoughts he was kept upon his good â—ehaviour without further punishment But Andrew Melvin was a man of another metal who being commanded to attend their Lordships for the like offence declined the judgement of the King and Council as having no cognizance of the cause To make which good he broached this Presbyterian Doctrine That whatsoever was spoken in the Pulpit ought first to be tryed by the Presbyterie and that neither the King nor Council were to meddle with it though the same were treasonable till the Presbyterie had first taken notice of it But finding that the King and Council did resolve to proceed and had entred upon Examination of some Witnesses which were brought against him he told the King whether with greater Confidence or Impudence is hard to say That he preached the Laws both of God and man For which undutiful Expression he was commanded Prisoner to the Castle of Blackness Instead whereof he takes Sanctuary in the Town of Berwick where he remained till way was made for his return the Pulpits in the mean time sounding nothing but that the Light of the Countrey for Learning and Piety was forced for safety of his life to forsake the Kingdom In which Exile he was followed within few moneths after by Palvart Sub-Dean of Glasgow Galloway and Carmichiel two inferior Ministers who being warned to tender their appearance to the King and Council and not appearing at the time were thereupon pronounced Rebels and fled after the other Nor was the General Assembly held at Edenborough of a better temper then these Preachers were in which the Declaration made at the last Convention of Estates was stoutly crossed and encountred The King with the advice of his Estates had resolved the Fact of surprizing His Majesties person to be treasonable But the Brethren in the said Assembly did not onely authorize and avow the same but also esteeming their own judgement to be the Soveraign judgement of the Realm did ordain all them to be excommunicated that would subscribe unto their opinion 61. The King perceiving that there was no other way to deal with these men then to husband the present opportunity to his best advantage resolved to proceed against them in such a way as might disable them from committing the like insolencies for the time to come The chief Incendiaries had been forced to quit the Kingdom or otherwise deserted it of their own accords the better to escape the punishment which their crimes had merited The great Lords on whose strength they had most presumed were either under the like exile in the neighbouring Countries or else so weakned and disanimated that they durst not stir So that the King being clearly Master of the Field his Counsellors in good heart and generally the Lords and Commons in good terms of obedience it was thought fit to call a Parliament and therein to enact such Laws by which the honour of Religion the personal safety of the King the peace and happiness of the Kingdom and the prosperity of the Church might be made secure In which Parliament it was enacted amongst others things the better to encounter the proceedings of the Kirk and most Zealous Kirkmen That none of his Highness Subjects in time coming should presume to take upon them by word or writing to justifie the late treasonable attempt at Ruthen or to keep in register or store any Books approving the same in any sort And in regard the Kirk had so abused his Majesties goodness by which their Presbyterial Sessions the general Assemblies and other meetings of the Kirk were rather connived at then allowed an Act was made to regulate and restrain them for the times ensuing for by that Act it was ordained That from thenceforth none should presume or take upon them to Convocate Convene or assemble themselves together for holding of Councils Conventions or Assemblies to treat consult or determine in any matters of Estate Civil or Ecclesiastical excepting the ordinary judgements without the Kings special commandment 62. In the next place the Kings lawful Authority in causes Ecclesiastical so often before impugned was approved and confirmed and it was made treason for any man to refuse to answer before the King though it were concerning any matter which was Ecclesiastical The third Estate of Parliament that is the Bishops were restored to the ancient dignity and it was made treason for any man after that time to procure the innovation or diminution of the Power and Authority of any of the three Estates And for as much as through the wicked licentious publick and private Speeches and untrue calumnies of divers his Highness subjects I speak the very words of the Act to the disdain contempt and reproach of his Majesty his Council and proceedings stirring up his Highness subjects thereby to misliking sedition unquietness to cast off their due oâ—edience to his Majesty Therefore it is ordained that none of his subjects shall presume or take upon them privately or publickly in Sermons Declamations oâ— familiar Conferences to utter any false scandalous and untrue Speeches to the disdain reproach and contempt of
them without Rule or Order To give a check to whose forwardness the Queen sets out her Proclamation in the end of December but which she gave command That no Innovation should be made in the State of Religion and that all persons should conform themselves for the present to the practices of Her Majesties Chappel till it was otherwise appointed Another Proclamation was also issued by which all preaching was prohibited but by such onely as were licensed by her Authority which was not like to countenance any men of such turbulent spirits The news whereof much hastned the return of those Zealous Brethren who knew they might have better fishing in a troubled water then in a quiet and composed Calvin makes use also of the opportunity directs his Letters to the Queen and Mr. Secretary Cecil in hope that nothing should be done but by his advice The contrary whereof gave matter of cold comfort both to him and them when they were given to understand that the Liturgie had been revised and agreed upon That it was made more passable then before with the Roman Catholicks and that not any of their number was permitted to act any thing in it except Whitehead onely who was but half theirs neither and perhaps not that All they could do in that Conjuncture was to find fault with the Translation of the Bible which was then in use in hope that their Genevian Edition of it might be entertained and to except against the paucity of fit men to serve the Church and fill the vacant places of it on the like hopes that they themselves might be preferred to supply the same 13. And it is possible enough that either by the mediation of Calvin or by the intercession of Peter Martyr who wrote unto the Queen at the same time also the memory of their former Errors might have been obliterated if Knox had not pulled more back with one hand then Calvin Martyr and the rest could advance with both For in a Letter of his to Sir William Cecil dated April the 24 1559 he first upbraids him with consenting to the suppressing of Christs true Evangel to the erecting of Idolatry and to the shedding of the blood of Gods most dear children during the Reign of Mischievous Mary that professed Enemy of God as he plainly calls her Then he proceeds to justifie his treasonable and seditious book against the Regiment of Women Of the truth whereof he positively affirmeth that he no more doubteth then that he doubted that was the voyce of God which pronounced this sentence upon that Sex That in dolour they should bear their children Next he declares in reference to the Person of Queen Elizabeth That he could willingly acknowledge her to be raised by God for the manifestation of his glory although not Nature onely but Gods own Ordinance did oppugn such Regiment And thereupon he doth infer That if Queen Elizabeth would confess that the extraordinary Dispensations of Gods great mercy did make that lawful in her which both Nature and Gods Laws did deny in all women besides none in England should be more ready to maintain her lawful Authority then himself But on the other side he pronounceth this Sentence on her That if she built her Title upon Custom Laws and Ordinances of men such foolish presumption would grievously offend Gods Supreme Majestie and that her ingratitude in that kind should not long lack punishment To the same purpose he writes also to the Queen Herself reproaching her withal That for fear of her life she had declined from God bowed to Idolatry and gone to Mass during the persecution of Gods Saints in the time of her Sister In both his Letters he complains of some ill offices which had been done him by means whereof he was denyed the liberty of Preaching in England And in both Letters he endeavoured to excuse his flock of late assembled in the most godly Reformed Church and City of Geneva from being guilty of any offence by his publishing of the book the blame whereof he wholly takes upon himself But this was not the way to deal with Queens and their Privy Counsellors and did effect so little in relation to himself and his flock that he caused a more watchfull eye to be kept upon them then possibly might have been otherwise had he scribled less 14. Yet such was the necessity which the Church was under that it was hardly possible to supply all the vacant places in it but by admitting some of the Genevian Zealots to the Publick Ministery The Realm had been extreamly visited in the year foregoing with a dangerous and Contagious Sickness which took away almost half the Bishops and occasioned such Mortality amongst the rest of the Clergy that a great part of the Parochial Churches were without Incumbents The rest of the Bishops twelve Deans as many Archdeacons Fifteen Masters of Colledges and Halls Fifty Prebendaries of Cathedral Churches and about Eighty Beneficed-men were deprived at once for refusing to subâ—â—â—â— to the Queens Supremacy For the filling of which vacant places though as much care was taken as could be imagined to stock the Church with moderate and conformable men yet many â—ast amongst the rest who either had not hitherto discovered their dis-affections or were connived at in regard of their parts and learning Private opinions not regarded nothing was more considered in them then their zeal against Popery and their abilities in Divine and Humane studies to make good that zeal On which account we find the Queens-Professor in Oxford to pass amongst the Non-Conformists though somewhat more moderate then the rest and Cartwright the Lady Margarets in Cambridge to prove an unextinguished fire-brand to the Church of England Wittingham the chief Ring-leader of the Frankfort-Schismaticks preferred unto the Deanry of Durham from thence encouraging Knox and Goodman in setting up Presbyterie and sedition in the Kirk of Scotland Sampson advanced unto the Deanry of Christ-Church and not long after turn'd out again for an incorrigible Non-Conformist Hardiman one of the first twelve Prebends of Westminster deprived soon after for throwing down the Altar and defacing the Vestments of the Church And if so many of them were advanced to places of note and eminence there is no question to be made but that some numbers of them were admitted unto Countrey-Cures by means whereof they had as great an opportunity as they could desire not onely to dispute their Genevian Doctrines but to prepare the people committed to them for receiving of such Innovations both in Worship and Government as were resolved in time convenient to be put upon them 15. For a preparative whereunto they brought along with them the Genevian Bible with their Notes upon it together with Davids Psalms in English metre that by the one they might effect an Innovation in the points of Doctrine and by the other bring this Church more neer to the Rules of Geneva in some chief acts of Publick Worship For to
had begun to raise their thoughts unto higher matters then Caps and Tippets In order whereunto some of them take upon them in their private Parishes to ordain set Fasts and others to neglect the observation of the Annual Festivals which were appointed by the Church some to remove the holy Table from the place of the Altar and to transpose it to the middle of the Quire or Chancel that it might serve the more conveniently for the posture of sitting and others by the help of some silly Ordinaries to impose Books of Forreign Doctrine on their several Parishes that by such Doctrine they might countenance their Actings in the other particulars All which with many other innovations of the like condition were presently took notice of by the Bishops and the rest of the Queens Commissioners and remedies provided for them in a book of Orders published in the year 1561 or the Advertisements before mentioned about four years after Such as proceeded in their oppositions after these Advertisements had the name of Puritans as men that did profess a greater Purity in the Worship of God a greater detestation of the Ceremonies and Corruptions of the Church of Rome then the rest of their brethren under which name were comprehended not onely those which hitherto had opposed the Churches Vestments but also such as afterwards endeavoured to destroy the Liturgy and subvert the Goverment 18. In all this time they could obtain no countenance from the hands of this State though it was once endeavoured for them by the Earl of Leicester whom they had gained to their Patron But it was onely to make use of them as a counterpoise to the Popish party at such time as the Marriage was in agitation between the Lord Henry Stewart and the Queen of Scots if any thing should be attempted by them to disturb the Kingdom the fears whereof as they were onely taken up upon politick ends so the intended favours to the opposite Faction vanished also wiâ—h them But on the contrary we finde the State severe enough against their proceedings even to the deprivation of Dr. Thomas Sampson Dean of Christ-church To which dignity he had been unhappily preferred in the first year of the Queen and being looked upon as head of this Faction was worthily deprived thereof by the Queens Commissioners They found by this severity what they were to trust to if any thing were practised by them against the Liturgy the Doctrine of the Church or the publick Government It cannot be denyed but Goodman Gilbie Whittingham and the rest of the Genevian Conventicle were very much grieved at their return that they could not bear the like sway here in their several Consistories as did Calvin and Beza at Geneva so that they not onely repined and grudged at the Reformation which was made in this Church because not fitted to their Fancies and to Calvins Plat-form but have laboured to sow those Seeds of Heterodoxy and Disobedience which afterwards brought forth those troubles and disorders which ensued upon it But being too wise to put their own Fingers in the fire they presently fell upon a course which was sure to speed without producing any danger to themselues or their party They could not but remember those many advantages which Iohn Alasco and his Church of strangers afforded to the Zuinglian Gospellers in the time of King Edward and they despaired not of the like nor of greater neither if a French Church were setled upon Calvin's Principles in some part of London 19. For the advancement of this project Calvin directs his Letters unto Bishop Grindal newly preferred unto that See that by his countenance or connivance such of the French Nation as for their Conscience had been forced to flee into England might be permitted the Free Exercise of their Religion whose leave being easily obtained for the great reverence which he bares to the name of Calvin they made the like use of some Friends which they had in the Court. By whose sollicitation they procured the Church of St. Anthony not far from Merchant-taylors-Hall then being of no present use for Religious Offices to be assigned unto the French with liberty to erect the Genevian Discipline for ordering the Affairs of their Congregation and to set up a Form of Prayer which had no manner of conformity with the English Liturgy Which what else was it in effect but a plain giving up of the Cause at the first demand which afterwards was contended for with such opposition what else but a Foundation to that following Anarchy which was designed to be obtruded on the Civil Government For certainly the tolerating of Presbytery in a Church founded and established by the Rules of Episcopacie could end in nothing but the advancing of a Commonwealth in the midst of a Monarchy Calvin perceived this well enough and thereupon gave Grindal thanks for his favour in it of whom they after served themselves upon all occasions a Dutch-Church being after setled on the same Foundation in the Augustine Fryars where Iohn Alasco held his Congregation in the Reign of King Edward The inconveniences whereof were not seen at the first and when they were perceived were not easily remedied For the obtaining of which ends there was no man more like to serve them with the Queen then Sir Francis Knollis who having Married a Daughter of the Lord Cary of Hunsdon the Queens Cosin-German was made Comptroller of the Houshold continuing in good Credit and Authority with her upon that account And being also one of those who had retired from Frankfort to Geneva in the time of the Schism did there contract a great acquaintance with Calvin Beza and the rest of the Consistorians whose cause he managed at the Court upon all occasions though afterwards he gave place to the Earl of Leicester as their Principal Agent 20. But the Genevians will finde work enough to imploy them both and having gained their ends will put on for more The Isles of Guernsey and Iarsey the onely remainder of the Crown of England in the Dukedom of Normandy had entertained the Reformation in the Reign of King Edward by whose command the publick Liturgy had been turned into French that it might serve them in those Islands for their Edifications But the Reformed Religion being suppressed in the time of Queen Mary revived again immediately after her decease by the diligence of such French Ministers as had resorted thither for protection in the day of their troubles In former times these Islands belonged unto the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constance who had in each of them a Subordinate Officer mixt of a Chancellor and Archâ— Deacon for the dispatch of all such business as concerned the Church which Officers intituled by the name of Deans had a particular Revenue in Tythes and Corn allotted to them besides the Perquisites of their Courts and the best Benefices in the Islands But these French Ministers desiring to have all things modelled by the Rules of Calvin
Free Exercise of Gods true Religion and his promoting of his Gospel 17. These Premises being laid together he comes at last to this conclusion as to assure her in plain terms but with all humility That he could not with a safe Conscience and without the offence of the Majesty of God give his assent to the suppressing of the said Exercises much less send out any Injunction for the utter and universal subversion of the same that he might say with the Apostle That he had no power to destroy but onely to edifie that he could do nothing against the Truth but for it And therefore finally that if it were her Majesties pleasure for this or any other cause to remove him out of his place he would with all humility yeild thereunto and render again unto her Majesty that which he had received from her For to what purpose as he said should he endeavour to retain a Bishoprick or to gain the world with the loss and hazard of his Soul considering that he which doth offend against his Conscience doth but digg out his own way to Hell In which respect he humbly desires her to bear with him if he rather chuse to offend her earthly Majesty then the Heavenly Majesty of Almighty God But not content with such an absolute refusal and setting her at such a distance from Almighty God he takes upon him to advise her to discharge her self of the concernments of the Church or not to manage it at the least with so high a hand as she had done hitherto Fitter it was as he conceived it That all Ecclesiastical matters which concerned Religion the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church should be referred unto the Bishops and the Divines of this Realm according to the example of all Christian Emperours and the godly Princes of all ages in the times before her And this he further pressed upon her by her own Example in not deciding any questions about the Laws of the Realm in her Court or Palace but sending them to be determined by her Judges in the Courts of Westminster and therefore by the self-same Reason when any question did arise about the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church within her Dominions the ordinary way must be to refer the same to the Decision of the Bishops and other chief Ministers of the Church in Synodicall Meetings and not to determine of them in the Court by the Lords of her Council 18. But notwithstanding his refusal to conform to her will and pleasure on the one side and this harsh Counsel on the other which must needs be unwelcome to a Prince that loved and understood her own Authority so well as his Mistress did he might have kept his Bishoprick with her Majesties favour which he appeared so willing to resign unto her He might I say have kept them both having so many great Friends about the Queen who appâ—oved his doings if a breach had not happened about this time betwixt him and Leicester the mighty Patron and Protector of the Puritan Faction occasion'd by his denying at the Earls request to alienate his goodly House and Mannor of Lambeth that it might serve for a retiring place to that mighty favourite And hereunto he did contribute further as was said by others for refusing to grant a Dispensation to marry one which was too near of kindred to him clearly within the Compass of those degrees which seemed to him to be prohibited by the Word of God This Leicester thought he might command and was exceedingly vexed not to finde obedience in one who had been raised by him and depended on him Upon which ground all passages which bâ—fore were shut against his Enemies were now left free and open for them and the Queens ears are open to their informations as the passages were unto her person By them she comes to understand what a neglect there was of the publick Liturgy in most parts of the Kingdom what ruine and decay of Churches what innovations made already and what more projected by which she would be eased in time of all cares of Government and finde the same to be transferred to the Puritan Consistories She was told also of the general disuse of all weekly Fasts and those which annually were required by the Laws of the Realm and that instead thereof the Brethren had took upon them according to the Arrian Doctrine to appoint solemn and occasional Fasts in several places as at Leicester Coventry c. in defiance of the Laws and her own Prerogative Touching which last she gave another hot Alarm to Archbishop Grindal who in a long Letter did excuse the matter as not being done by his allowance or consent though it could not be denyed but that it had been done by his connivance which came all to one so that the Accusation being strong his Defences weak and no Friend left about the Queen who durst mediate for him for who durst favour him on whom Leicester frowned the Archi-Episcopal Jurisdiction was sequestred from him conferred upon four Suffragans of the Province of Canterbury and he himself confined to one of his Country-houses till the Queens â—â—rther pleasure should be signified to him Which Sequestration must needs happen before the beginning of the Convocation which was held this year the Pesidency whereof was then devolved on the Bishop of London by reason of Grindals incapacity to perform that Service 19. For on the sixteenth day of Ianuary it pleased the Queen to call a Parliament to be held at Westminster in which some things occurred of great importance in order to the Presbyterian History which we have in hand The Puritans following the Arrians in that particular as in many others had openly decryed all set and determinate Fasts but then ascribed more merit unto those of their own appointing then any Papists do to those of the Popes Ordaining They had also much took off the edge of the people from the Common-prayer-book but â—â—st especially from the Litany none of the meanest Pieces in it which â—ill that time was read accustomably in the House of Commons before the Members setled upon any business But in the beginning of this Parliament it was moved by one Paul Wentworth in the House of Commons that there might be a Sermon every Morning before they sate and that they would nominate some day for a solemn Fast. How the first motion sped I have nowhere found but may conclude by the event that it came to nothing because I never heard that any thing was done in puisance of it till the late Long Parliament where the like Toy was taken up for having Sermons every Morning in the Abbey-Church But that about the Fast being made when more then half the Members were not present at it was carried in the Affirmative by fifteen voices And thereupon it was ordered as the Journal tâ—llâ—â—h us That as many of the House as conveniently could should on the Sundâ—y fortnight following assemble and meet
Christ. A Form whereof he had drawn up in a little Book Which having past the approbation of some private Friends was afterwards recommended to the use of the rest of the brethren assembled together by his means for such ends and purposes by whom it was allowed of as most fit to be put in practice For being a new nothing and of Cartwrights doing it could not but finde many besides Women and Children to admire the Workmanship 25. This was the sum of Cartwrights Actings in order to the Innovations both in Government and Forms of Worship which heretofore he had projected Not that all this was done at once or in the first year onely after his return but by degrâ—â—s as opportunity was offered to him Yet so far he prevailed in the first year onely that a meeting of sixty Ministers out of the Counties of Essex Cambridge and Norfolk was held at a Village called Corkâ—il where Knewstubs who was one of their number had the cure of Souls Which Meeting was held May 8. Anno 158â— there to coâ—fer about some passages in the Common prayer-book what might be tolerated in the same and what â—eâ—used as namely Apparel Matter Form Holy-days Fastings Injunctions c. The like Meeting held at the Commencement in Cambridge then next ensuing And what they did resolve in both may be gathered partly from a passage in the Preface to a Book published in the year next following by William Reynods before mentioned In which he tells us That it had been appointed by the first Book of Common prayer That the Minister in the time of his Ministration should use such Ornaments in the â—hurch as were in use by Authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth And then saith he I appeal to the knowledge of every man how well that Act of Parliament is observed throughout the Realm in how many Cathedrals or Parishâ—Churches those Ornaments are reserved Whether every private Minister by his own Authority in the time of his Ministration disdain not such Ornaments using onely such Apparel as is most vulgar and prophane to omit other particular differences of Facts of Holy-days crossing in Baptism the visitation of the Sick c. In which their alterations are well known saith he by their daily practice and by the differences betwixt some Common prayer books which were last Printed as namely that of Richard Jugg before remembred from those which were first published by Supreme Authority In all which deviations from the Rule of the Church the Brethren walked on more securely because the State was wholly exercised at this time in executing the severity of the late Statute on such Priests and Jesuits as laboured to pervert the Subjects and destroy the Queen thereby to re-advance the Pope to his former Tyranny In which respect it was conceived to be a good Rule in the School of Policy to grant a little more liberty to the Puritan Faction though possibly it were done on no other score then that of their notorious enmity to the Popish party 26. About this time it also was that by the practices of Cartwright and his adherents their Followers began to be distinguished by their names and titles from the rest of the people First in relation to their Titles Thus those of his Faction must be called the Godly the Elect the Righteous all others being looked upon as carnal Gospellers the Prophane the Wicked And next in reference to their names Their Children must not be Baptized by the names of their Ancestors as Richard Robert and the like but by some name occurring in the holy Scriptures but more particularly in the Old Testament because meerly Hebrew and not prophaned with any mixture of the Greek or Roman concerning which there goes a story that an Inhabitant of Northampton called Hodgkingson having a Childe to be Baptized repaired to Snape before mentioned to do it for him and he consented to the motion but with promise that he should give it some name allowed in Scripture The holy action being so far forwards that they were come to the naming of the Infant they named it Richard which was the name of his Grandfather by the Mothers side Upon this a stop was made nor would he be perswaded to Baptize the Childe unless the name of it were altered Which when the God-father refused to do the Childe was carried back unchristened It was agreed by him and Cartwright in the Book of Discipline which they imposed upon the Islands That the Minister in Baptizing Children should not admit of any such names as had been used in the time of Paganism the names of Idols and the like Which Rule though calculated like a common Almanack for the Meridian of those Islands onely was afterwards to be observed on the like occasions in all the Churches of Great Britain Such was their humour at that time but they fell shortly after on another Fancie For taking it for granted because they thought so that the English Tongue might be as proper and significanâ— as the holy Hebrew they gave such names unto their Children as many of them when they came to age were ashamed to own Out of which Forge came their Accepted Ashes Consolation Dust Deliverance Discipline Earth Freegift Fight-the good fight-of-faith From above Ioy-again Kill-sin More-fruit More-tryal Praiseâ—God Reformation Tribunal The-Lord-is-neer Thankful with many others of like nature which onely served to make the Sacrament of Baptism as contemptible as they had made themselves ridiculous by these new inventions 27. Some stop they had in their proceedings which might have terrified them at the present from adventuring further but that they were resolved to break through all difficulties and try the patience of the State to the very utmost The Queen had entertained a treaty of Marriage Anno 1581 with Francis Duke of Anjow the youngest Son of Henry the Second and the onely surviving brother of Henry the Third then Reigning in France For the negotiating whereof Monsieur Simier a most compleat Courtier was sent Ambassador from that King By whom the business was sollicited with such dexterity that the Match was generally conceived to be fully made The Puritans hereupon begin to clamour as if this Maâ—ch did aim at nothing but the reduction of Popery the destruction of Religion here by Law established But fearing more the total ruine of their hopes and projects then any other danger which could happen by it The Queen took care to tye the Duke to such conditions that he could hardly be permitted to hear Mass in his private Closet and had caused Campâ—an to be executed at his being here to let him see how little favour was to be expected by him for the Catholick party Yet all this would not satisfie the zealous Brethren who were resolved to free themselves from their own fears by what means soever First therefore it was so contrived that as Simere passed between Greenwich and London before
against the Laws might very well afford them all his best assistances when Law and Liberty seemed to speak in favour of it But being there was nothing done by them which was more than ordinary as little more than ordinary could be done amongst them after they had betrayed their Countrey to the Power of Strangers We shall leave him to pursue their Warrs and return for England where we shall find the Queen of Scots upon the point of acting the last part of her Tragedy 13. Concerning which it may not be unfit to recapitulate so much of Her story as may conduct us fairly to the knowledg of her present condition Immediately on the death of Queen MARY she had taken on her self the Title and Arms of England which though she did pretend to have been done by the command of her Husband and promised to disclaim them both in the Treaty of Edenborough yet neither were the Arms obliterated in her Plate and Hangings after the death of that Husband nor would she ever ratifie and confirm that Treaty as had been conditioned On this first grudg Queen ELIZABETH furniâ—heth the Scots both with Men and Arms to expel the French affords them such a measure both of Money and Countenance as made them able to take the Field against their Queen to take her Prisoner to depose her and finally to compel her to forsake the Kingdom In which Extremity she lands in Cumberland and casts her self upon the favour of Queen ELIZABETH by whom she was first confined to Carlisle and afterwards committed to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury Upon the death of FRANCIS the Second her first Husband the King of Spain designed her for a Wife to his Eldest Son But the Ambition of the young Prince spurred him on so fast that he brake his Neck in the Career The Duke of Norfolk was too great for a private Subject of a Revenue not inferior to the Crown of Scotland insomuch that the Queen was counselled when she came first to the Throne either to take him for her Husband or to cut him off He is now drawn into the Snare by being tempted to a hope of Marriage with the Captive-Queen which Leicester and the rest who had moved it to him turned to his destruction Don Iohn of Austria Governour of the Netherlands for the King of Spain had the like design that by her Title he might raise himself to the Crown of England To which end he recalled the Spanish Soldiers out of Italy to whose dismission he had yeelded when he first came to that Government and thereby gave Q. ELIZABETH a sufficient colour to aid the Provinces against him But his aspirings cost him deer for he fell soon after The Guisards and the Pope had another project which was To place her first on the Throne of England and then to find an Husband of sufficient Power to maintain her in it For the effecting of which Project the Pope commissionated his Priests and Jesuits and the Guisards employed their Emissaries of the English Nation by Poyson Pistol open Warr or secret practises to destroy the one that so they might advance the other to the Regal Diadem 14. With all these Practises and Designs it was conceived that the Imprisoned Queen could not be ignorant and many strong presumptions were discovered to convict her of it Upon which grounds the Earl of Leicester drew the form of an Association by which he bound himself and as many others as should enter into it To make enquiry against all such persons as should attempt to invade the Kingdom or raise Rebellion or should attempt any evil against the Queen's Person to do her any manner of hurt from or by whomsoever that layed any claim to the Crown of England And that that Person by whom or for whom they shall attempt any such thing shall be altogether uncapable of the Crown shall be deprived of all manner of Right thereto and persecuted to the death by all the Queen 's Loyal Subjects in case they shall be found guilty of any such Invasion Rebellion or Treason and should be so publickly declared Which Band or Association was confirmed in the Parliament of this year ending the 29 th of March Ann. 1585 exceedingly extolled for an Act of Piety by those very men who seemed to abominate nothing more than the like Combination made not long before between the Pope the Spaniard and the House of Guise called the Holy League which League was made for maintenance of the Religion then established in the Realm of France and the excluding of the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde and the rest of the House of Bourbon from their succession to the Crown as long as they continued Enemies to that Religion The Brethren in this case not unlike the Lamiae who are reported to have been stone-blind when they were at home but more than Eagle-sighted when they went abroad Put that they might not trust to their own strength only Queen ELIZABETH tyes the French King to her by investing him with the Robes and Order of St. George called the Garter She draws the King of Scots to unite himself unto her in a League Offensive and Defensive against all the World and under colour of some danger to Religion by that Holy League she brings all the Protestant Princes of Germany to confederate with her 15. And now the Queen of Scots is brought to a publick Tryal accelerated by a new Conspiracy of Babington Tichborn and the rest in which nothing was designed without her privity And it is very strange to see how generally all sorts of people did contribute toward her destruction the English Protestants upon an honest apprehension of the Dangers to which the Person of their Queen was subject by so many Conspiracies the Puritans for fear lest she should bring in Popery again if she came to the Crown the Scots upon the like conceit of over-throwing their Presbyteries and ruinating the whole Machina of their Devices if ever she should live to be Queen of England The Earl of Leicester and his Faction in the Court had their Ends apart which was To bring the Imperial Crown of this Realm by some means or other into the Family of the Dudley's His Father had before designed it by marrying his Son Guilford with the Lady Iane descended from the younger Sister of K. HENRY the Eighth And he projects to set it on the Head of the Earl of Huntington who had married his Sister and looked upon himself as the direct Heir of George Duke of Clarence And that they might not want a Party of sufficient strength to advance their Interest they make themselves the Heads of the Puritan Faction the Earl of Leicester in the Court and the Earl of Huntingdon in the Countrey For him he obtaineth of the Queen the command of the North under the Title of Lord President of the Councel iu York to keep out the Scots and for himself the Conduct
which I hold under Her Majesty the defence of the Religion and the Rites of the Church of England to appease the Schisms and Sects therein to reduce all the Ministers thereof to Uniformity and to due Obedience and not to waver with every wind which also my Place my Person the Laws Her Majesty and the goodness of the Cause do require of me and wherein the Lords of Her Highness Privy Council all things considered ought in duty to assist and countenance me But How is it possible that I should perform what I have undertaken after so long Liberty and lack of Discipline if a few persons so meanly qualified as most of these Factious Sectaries are should be countenanced against the whole state of the Clergy of greatest account both for Learning Years Stayedness Wisdom Religion and Honesty and open Breakers and Impugners of the Law young in Years proud in Conceit contentious in Disposition should be maintained against their Governours seeking to reduce them to Order and Obedience Haec sunt initia Haereticorum ortus atque conatus Schismaticorum male cogitantium ut sibi placeant ut praepositum superbo tumore contemnant sic de Ecclesiâ— receditur sic altare profanum foris collocatur sic contra Pacem Christi Ordinationem atque Veritatem Dei Rebellatur The first Fruits of Hereticks and the first Births and Endeavours of Schismaticks are To admire themselves and in their swelling-pride to contemn any that are set over them Thus do men fall from the Church of God thus is a Forreign Unhallowed Altar erected and thus is Christ's Peace and God's Ordination and Unity rebelled against 20. For my own part I neither have done nor do any thing in these matters which I do not think my self in Conscience and Duty bound to do and which Her Majesty hath not with earnest Charge committed unto me and which I am not well able to justifie to be most requisite for this Church and State whereof next to Her Majesty though most unworthy if not most unhappy the chief Care is committed to me which I will not by the Grace of God neglect whatsoever come upon me there-for Neither may I endure their notorious Contempts unless I will become Aesop's Block and undo all that which hitherto hath been done It is certain that if way be given unto them upon their unjust Surmises and Clamours it will be the cause of that confusion which hereafter the State will be sorry for I neither care for the honour of this Place I hold which is onus unto me nor the largeness of the Revenue neither any Worldly thing I thank God in respect of doing my duty neither do I fear the displeasure of man nor the evil Tongue of the uncharitable who call me Tyrant Pope Knave and lay to my charge things that I never did or thought Scio enim hoc esse opus Diaboli ut servos Dei mendaciis laceret opinionibus falsis gloriosum nomen infamet ut qui Conscientiae suae luce clarescunt alienis Rumoribus sordidentur For I know that this is the work of that Accuser the Devil that he may tear in pieces the Servants of God with Lyes that he may dishonour their glorious Name with false surmises that they who through the clearness of their own Consciences are shining bright may have the filth of other men's slanders cast upon them So was Cyprian himself used and other godly Bishops to whom I am not comparable But that which most of all grieveth me and is to be wondered at and lamented is That some of those who give countenance to these men and cry out for a Learned Ministry should watch their opportunity and be Instruments and Means to place most unlearned men in the chiefest Places and Livings of the Ministry thereby to make the state of the Bishops and Clergy contemptible and I fear salable This Hypocrisie and Dissembling with God and Man in pretending one thing and doing another goeth to my heart and maketh me think that God's Judgments are not far off The day will come when all mens hearts shall be opened In the mean time I will depend upon Him who never faileth those that put their trust in Him 21. It may be gathered from this Abstract what a hard Game that Reverend Prelate had to play when such great Masters in the Art held the Cards against him For at that time the Earls of Huntington and Leicester Walsingham Secretary of Estate and Knolls Comptroller of the Houshold a professed Genevian were his open Adversaries Burleigh a Neutral at the best and none but Hatton then Vicechamberlain and afterwards Lord Chancellor firmly for him And him he gained but lately neither but gained him at the last by the means of Dr. Richard Bancroft his Domestick Chaplain of whom we shall have cause to speak more hereafter By his procurement he was called to the Council-Table at such time as the Earl of Leicester was in Holland which put him into a capacity of going more confidently on without checks or crosses as before in the Church's Cause A thing which Leicester very much stomacked at his coming back but knowing it was the Queen's pleasure he disguised his trouble and appeared fair to him in the publick though otherwise he continued his former Favours to the Puritan Faction Sure of whose countenance upon the perfecting and publishing of the Book of Discipline they resolved to put the same in practise in most parts of the Realm as they did accordingly But it was no where better welcome than it was in London the Wealth and Pride of which City was never wanting to cherish and support those men which most apparently opposed themselves to the present Authority or practised the introducing of Innovations both in Church and State The several Churches or Conventicles rather which they had in that City they reduced into one great and general Classis of which Cartwright Egerton or Traverse were for the most part Moderators and whatsoever was there ordered was esteemed for current from thence the Brethren of other places did fetch their light and as doubts did arise thither they were sent to be resolved the Classical and Synodical Decrees of other places not being Authentical indeed till they were ratified in this which they held the Supreme Consistory and chief Tribunal of the Nation But in the Countrey none appeared more forward than they did in Northampton-shire which they divide into three Classes that is to say the Classis of Northampton Daventry and Kettring and the device forthwith is taken up in most parts of England but especially in Warwick-shire Suffolk Norfolk Essex c. In these Classes they determined in points of Doctrine interpreted hard places of Scripture delivered their Resolution in such Cases of Conscience as were brought before them decided Doubts and Difficulties touching Contracts of Marriage And whatsoever was concluded by such as were present but still with reference to the better judgment of the
Kirk within this Realm or that presently bears or shall hereafter bear Office therein shall be charged by every particular Presbytery where their residence is to subscribe the Heads of the Discipline of the Kirk of their Realm at length set down and allowed by Act of the whole Assembly in the Book of Polity which is registrate in the Assembly-Books and namely the Heads controverted by Enemies of the Discipline of the Reformed Kirk of this Realm betwixt this and the next Synodal Assemblies of the Provinces under the pain of Excommunication to be executed against the Non-subscribers and the Presbyteries which shall be found remiss and negligent herein to receive publick rebuke of the whole Assembly And to the effect the said Discipline may be known as it ought to be to the whole Brethren it is ordained That the Moderator of each Presbytery shall receive from the Clerk of the Assembly a Copy of the said Book under his Subscription upon the Expences of the Presbytery betwixt this and the first day of September next to come under the pain of being openly accused in the face of the whole Assembly 41. This Preparation being made they present their whole desires to the King in the following Parliament convened at Edenborough in the Month of Iune 1592. In which it was proposed 1. That the Acts of Parliament made in the year 1584 against the Discipline of the Kirk and the Liberty thereof should be abrogated and annulled and a Ratification of the Discipline granted whereof they were then in practise 2. That the Act of Annexation should be repealed and restitution made of the Church's Patrimony 3. That the Abbots Priors and other Prelates bearing the Titles of Kirk-men and giving Voices for the Kirk without Power and Commission from the same should not be permitted in time coming to give Voice in Parliament or convene in the Name of the Kirk And 4. That a solid Order might be taken for purging the Realm of Idolatry and Blood wherewith it was miserably polluted On the second and third of these Desires the King took longer time of deliberation as being points of great concernment to Himself and others touching the main of their Estates But He resolved to give them satisfaction in the first and last It was answered therefore to the first part of the last Article That saying of Mass receiving of Iesuits Seminary Priests and Trafficking Papists against the King's Majesty and Religion presently professed should be a just cause to infer the pain of Treason with this Proviso notwithstanding That if the Iesuits and Seminary Priests did satisfie the Prince and the Church the foresaid Penalty should not be laid on the Receivers And to the second part thereof concerning Blood it was answered That the same should be remitted to the Courts of Justice In like manner it was answered to the first branch of their first Proposal That the said Statutes should be no ways prejudicial nor derogatory to the Priviledges that God had given to the spiritual Office-bearer in the Church concerning Heads of Religion matters of Heresie Excommunication Collation or Deprivation of Ministers or any such Ecclesiastical Censures grounded and having warrant of the Word of God But to the second branch thereof he gave his Plenary assent according to the tenor of the Act here following which in regard it contains the sum of all their Projects for life-time then past and the ground of all their Insolencies for the times ensuing it shall not grieve me to subjoyn nor be troublesome to the Reader to pass it over if he have not patience enough to go thorow with it Now the tenor of the said Act is as followeth At the Parliament holden at Edenborough June 5. in the Year of God 1592. 42. Our Soveraign Lord and Estates of this present Parliament following the Laudable and Good Example of their Predecessors hath ratified and approved and by the tenor of this present Act ratifies and approves all Liberties Priviledges Immunities and Freedoms whatsoever given and granted by His Highness his Regents in His Name or any of His Predecessors to the True and Holy Kirk presently established within this Realm and declared in the first Act of His Highness Parliament the 20 th day of Octob. 1579. And all and whatsoever Acts of Parliaments and Statutes made of before by His Highness and His Regents anent the Liberty and Freedom of the said Kirk and specially the first Act of Parliament holden at Edenborough the 24 th of October in the year of God 1581 with the whole particular Acts there mentioned which shall be as sufficient as if the same were here mentioned and all other Acts of Parliament made since in favour of the true Kirk and such like ratifies and approves the general Assemblies appointed by the said Kirk and declares That it shall be lawful to the Kirk and Ministers every year at least or oftner pro re natâ as occasion and necessity shall require to hold and keep general Assemblies providing that the King's Majesty or His Commissioners with Him to be appointed by His Highness be present at ilk general Assembly before the dissolving thereof to nominate and appoint time and place when and where the next general Assembly shall be holden And in case neither His Majesty nor His Commissioners be present for the time in that Town where the next general Assembly is holden then and in that case it shall be lesum to the said general Assembly by themselves to nominate and appoint time and place where the next general Assembly of the Kirk shall be kept and holden as they have been used to do in times by-past And also ratifies and approves the Provincial and Synodal Assemblies to be holden by the said Kirk and Ministers twice ilk year as they have been or presently are in use to do within every Province of this Realm And ratifies and approves these Presbyteries and particular Sessions appointed by the said Kirk with the whole Discipline and Jurisdiction of the same agreed upon by His Majesty in conference had by His Highness with certain of the Ministers convened to that effect of the which Articles the tenour followeth 1. Matters to be intreated in Provincial Assemblies 43. Their Assemblies are constitute for weighty matters necessary to be intreated by mutual consent and assistance of Brethren within the Province as need requires This Assembly hath Power to handle order and redress all things omitted or done amiss in the particular Assemblies It hath Power to depose the Office-bearers of the Province for good and just causes deserving deprivation And generally these Assemblies have the whole Power of the particular Elderships whereof they are collected 2. Matters to be intreated in the Presbyteries The Power of the Presbyteries is To use diligent labours in the bounds committed to their charge that the Kirks be kept in good order To enquire diligently of naughty and ungodly persons and to travel to bring them into the way
thoughts of restoring Episcopacy by passing over the Church-Lands to the use of the Crown And to make as sure of it as they could because a three-fold Cord is not easily broken they had before called upon the King to reinforce the Band or National Covenant which had been made for their adhaesion to the true Religion and renouncing Popery For so it was that some suspitions had been raised by the Presbyterians That the King was miserably seduced and enclined to Popery and that the Earl of Lenox had been sent from France for no other purpose but to work Him to it And thereupon the King gave order unto Mr. I. Craige being then a Preacher in the Court to form a short Confession of Faith wherein not only all the Corruptions of the Church of Rome in point of Doctrine but even those also which related unto Discipline and Forms of Worship were to be solemnly abjured Which Confession for example to others the King Himself with all His Court and Council did publickly both subscribe and swear Anno 1580. And the next year He required the like Oath and Subscription from all His Subjects for the securing of those Fears and Jealousies which the Kirk had of Him But in regard this general Confession was not found sufficient to hinder the encrease of Popery for want of some strict Combination amongst the Subjects which professed the Reformed Religion it was desired that a Solemn League or Band might be authorized by which they should be bound to stand to one another in defence thereof that is to say both of their Covenant and Religion against all Opponents The Guisian Papists had projected the like League in France to suppress the Gospel and why should they in Scotland be less zealous for the true Religion than the Guisian Papists for the false Upon which ground the King was easily entreated to consent unto it and first subscribed the Band Himself with all His Family An. 1589 which the next year he caused to be subscribed by all sorts of people as the General Assembly had desired 48. Now in this Covenant and Confession they did not only bind themselves to renounce the Pope together with all the Superstitions and Corruptions of the Church of Rome but in particular to continue in obedience to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Kirk of Scotland and to defend the same according to their vocation and power all the days of their lives And though it cannot be conceived that under those general words of Doctrine and Discipline there could be any purpose to abjure the Episcopal Government which was in being when that Confession was first framed and for many years after yet being now received and subscribed unto and their Presbyteries established by Act of Parliament it was interpreted by the Covenanters of succeeding times Anno 1638 to contain in it an express renouncing of Episcopacy as also of such Rites and Ceremonies as had been introduced amongst them by the Synod of Perth Anno 1618. The sad Effects whereof the King foresaw not at the present but He took order to redress them in the time to come For now the Temporal Estates of Bishops being alienated and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament Anno 1587. Episcopacy tacitly abjured by Covenant and that Covenant strengthned by a Band or Association Anno 1590. And finally their Presbyteries setled by like Act of Parliament in this present year Anno 1592. it was not to be thought that ever Bishops or Episcopacy could revive again though it otherwise happened It cannot be denied but that K. IAMES did much despise this Covenant commonly called the Negative Confession when He came into England for taking occasion to speak of it in the Conference of Hampton-Court he lets us know That Mr. Craige the Compiler of it with his renouncings and abhorrings his detestations and abrenounciations did so amaze the simple people that few of them being able to remember all the said particulars some took occasion thereby to fall back to Popery and others to remain in their former ignorance To which he added this short note That if he had been bound to that Form of Craige 's the Confession of his Faith must have been in his Table-Book and not in his Head But what a mean opinion soever K. IAMES had of it the Puritans or Presbyterians of both Kingdoms made it serve their turns for raising a most dangerous Rebellion against his Son and altering the whole Frame of Government both in Church and State which they new-molded at their pleasure and sure I am that at the first entring into this Band the Presbyterians there grew so high and insolent that the King could get no Reason of them in his just demands The King had found by late experience how much they had encroached upon his Royal Prerogative defamed the present Government and reviled his Person And thereupon as he had gratified them in confirming their Discipline so he required them not long after to subscribe these Articles that is to say That the Preacher should yeeld due obedience unto the King's Majesty That they should not pretend any priviledg in their Allegiance That they should not meddle in matters of State That they should not publikely revile His Majesty That they should not draw the people from their due obedience to the King That when they are accused for their Factious Speeches or for refusing to do any thing they should not alledg the inspiration of the Spirit nor feed themselves with colour of Conscience but confess their faults like Men and crave pardon like Subjects But they were well enough they thanked him and were resolved to hold their own Power let Him look to His. AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History OF THE PRESBYTERIANS LIB IX Containing Their Disloyalty Treasons and Seditions in France the Country of East-Friesland and the Isles of Brittain but more particularly in England Together with the severe Laws made against them and the several Executions in pursuance of them from the year 15â—9 to the year 1595. THus have we brought the Presbyterians to their highest pitch in the Kirk of Scotland when they were almost at their lowest fall in the Church of England these being at the very point of their Crucifixion when the others were chanting their Hosanna's for their good success The English Brethren had lost their principal Support by the death of Leicester though he was thought to have cooled much in his affections towards their Affairs But what they lost in him they studied to repair by the Earl of Essex whose Father's Widow he had married trained him up for the most part under Puritan Tutors and married him at the last to Walsingham's Daughter Upon these hopes they made their applications to him and were chearfully welcomed the Gentleman bâ—ing young ambitious and exceeding popular and therefore apt enough to advance their Interest and by theirs his own And he appeared the rather for them at the first to cry quits
the other two In whose behalf when it was moved by one Mr. Wroth That the House should be humble Suitors to Her Majesty for the releasing of such of their Members as were under restraint it was answered by such of the Privy-Councellors as were then Members of the House That Her Majesty had committed them for causes best known to Her self and that to press Her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an account for what she did of Her Royal Authority That the Causes for which they are restrained may be high and dangerous That Her Majesty liketh no such Questions neither did it become the House to deal in such matters Upon which words the House desisted from interposing any further in their behalf but left them wholly to the Queen by whom Wentworth was continued Prisoner for some years after 24. In the same Parliament one Morrise Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster proposed unto the House That some course might be taken by them against the hard courses of Bishops Ordinaries and other Ecclesiastical Judges in their several Courts towards sundry godly Ministers and painful Preachers who deserved more encouragement from them They also spake against Subscription and the Oath Ex Officio and offered a Bill unto the House against the imprisonment of such as refused the same Of this the Queen had present notice and thereupon sends for Coke then Speaker of the House of Commons but afterwards successively Chief Justice of either Bench to whom she gave command to deliver this Message to the House that is to say That it was wholly in Her Power to call to determine to assent or dissent to any thing done in Parliament That the calling of this was only that the Majesty of God might be more Religiously observed by compelling with some sharp Laws such as neglect that Service and that the safety of Her Majesty's Person and the Realm might be provided for That it was not meant they should meddle with matters of State or Causes Ecclesiastical That She wondered that any should attempt a thing so contrary to Her Commandment and that She was highly offended at it and finally that it was Her pleasure That no Bill touching any matters of State or for the Reformation of Causes Ecclesiastical should be there exhibited On the delivery of which Message Morrise is said to have been seized on in the House by a Serjeant at Arms but howsoever seized on and committed Prisoner kept for some years in Tutbury Castle discharged from his Office in the Dutchy and disabled from any Practise in his Profession as a common Lawyer Some others had prepared a Bill to this effect That in lieu of Excommunication there should be given some ordinary Process with such sute and coertion as thereunto might appertain that so the dignity of so high a Sentence being retained and the necessity of mean Process supplied the Church might be restored to its ancient splendor Which Bill though recommended somewhat incogitantly by one of the Gravest Councellors of State which was then in the House was also dashed by Her Majesty's express Command upon a Resolution of not altering any thing the quality of the times considered which had been setled in the Church both by Law and Practise Which constancy of Hers in the preserving of Her own Prerogative and the Church's Power kept down that swelling humour of the Puritan Faction which was even then upon the point of overflowing the banks and bearing down all opposition which was made against them 25. And that they might be kept the better in their natural Channel she caused an Act to be prepared and passed in this present Parliament for retaining them and others of Her Subjects in their due obedience By which it was Enacted for the preventing and avoiding of such Inconveniencies and Perils as might happen and grow by the wicked and dangerous Practices of Seditious Sectaries and Disloyal persons That if any person or persons above the age of sixteen years should obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chappel or usual place of Common-Prayer to hear Divine Service established or shall forbear to do the same by the space of a Month without lawful cause or should move or perswade any other person whatsoever to forbear and abstain from coming to the Church to hear Divine Service or to receive the Communion according to the Laws and Statutes aforesaid or to come or be present at any unlawful Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under pretence of Religious Exercise contrary to the Laws and Statutes made in that behalf or should at any time after forty days from the end of that Session by Printing Writing or express Words or Speeches advisedly and purposely go about to move or perswade any of Her Majesty's Subjects or any other within Her Highness Realms and Dominions to deny withstand or impugn Her Majesty's Power and Authority in causes Ecclesiastical united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm That then every person so offending and convicted of it should be committed unto Prison without Bail or Main-prise till he or they should testifie their Conformity by coming to some Church Chappel or other place of Common-prayer to hear Divine Service and to make open submission and declaration of the same in such form and manner as by the said Statute was provided Now that we may the better see what great care was taken as well by the two Houses of Parliament as by the Queen Her self for preserving the Honour of the Church the Jurisdiction of the Bishops and the Royal Prerogative in both it will not be amiss to represent that Form to the eye of the Reader in which the said Submission was to be delivered The tenour whereof was as followeth viz. 26. I A. B. do humbly confess and acknowledg That I have grievously offended God in contemning Her Majesty's godly and lawful Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing Divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting disordered and unlawful Conventicles and Assemblies under pretence and colour of exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same and do acknowledg and testifie in my Conscience That no person or persons hath or ought to have any Power or Authority over Her Majesty And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation or any colour of means of any Dispensation That from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform Her Majesty's Laws and Statutes in repairing to the Church and hearing Divine Service and do mine utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same 27. This Declaration to be made in some Church or Chappel before the beginning of Divine Service within three Months after the conviction of the said Offenders who otherwise were to abjure the Realm and to depart the same at such time and place as should be limited
remembrances if the Honour of the Church of England were not some way vindicated as well by the one as by the other Thus as before we brought the Presbyterians in Scotland to their greatest height in seeing their Discipline established by Laws and confirmed by Leagues so have we brought the English Puritans to their lowest fall by divers sharp Laws made against them some severe Executions done upon them for their transgressing of those Laws their principal Leaders humbled or cut off by the Sword of Justice and the whole Mackina of their Devices brought to utter ruine not the less active for all this to advance the Cause though after a more peaceful and more cunning way so much the more dangerous to this Church because less suspected but not so closely carried as to scape discovery And the first practise which they fell upon was this that followeth 36. It hath been an ancient Custom in the City of London to have three solemn Sermons preached on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the Easter-week at the place commonly called the Spittle being a dissolved Hospital not far from Bishops-Gate at which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen used to be present in their Robes besides a great concourse of Divines Gentlemen and other Citizens For the performance of which Work a decent Pulpit was erected in an open place which had been part of the Church-yard the ordinary Hearers sitting upon Forms before the Pulpit the Lord Mayor Aldermen and their Wives with other Persons of Quality in two handsome Galleries to which was added in the year 1594 a fair large House for the reception of the Governours and Children of the Hospital founded in the Grey-Fryers who from thenceforth were tyed to attend those Sermons At what time also the old Pulpit was taken down and a new set up with the Preachers face turned toward the South which had before been towards the West for so in former times the Pulpits were generally placed in all Churches of England to the end that the peoples faces in all acts of Worship might look toward the East according to the Custom of the Primitive times Which alteration seemed to be made upon design that without noise or any notice taken of it they might by little and little change the posture of Adoration from the East to the West or any other point of the Compass as their humour served In which first they were showed the way by Sir Walter Mildmay in his Foundation of the Chappel of Emmanuel Colledg 1585. Who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction gave order for this Chappel to stand North and South and thereby gave example unto others to affect the like Which brings into my mind a Project of Tiberius Gracchus one of the most Seditious of the Roman Tribunes for transferring the Supreme Power of the Commonwealth from the Lords of the Senate to the People For whereas formerly all Orators in the Publick Assemblies used to address their Speeches to the Lords of the Senate as the Supreme Magistrates this Gracchus turned his face to the common people and by that Artifice saith Plutarch transferred unto them the Supreme Majesty of the Roman Empire without Noise or Tumult 37. But it is now time to look back towards Scotland where we left them at their highest and the poor King so fettered or intangled by his own Concessions that he was not able to act any thing in the Kirk and very little in the State He had not very well digested their Refusal to subscribe to His Articles mentioned in the close of the former Book when he held an Assembly at Dundee in the end of April 1593 at what time the King being well informed of the low condition of the English Puritans sent Sir Iames Melvin to them with these two Articles amongst many others In the first of which it was declared That He would not suffer the Priviledg and Honour of his Crown to be diminished and Assemblies to be made when and where they pleased therefore willed them before the dissolution of the present Assembly to send two or three of their number by whom they should know His mind touching the time and place of the next Meeting And in the second it was required That an Act should be made inhibiting Ministers to declaim in the Pulpit against the proceedings of His Majesty and the Lords of His Council which He conceived He had good reason to desire in regard that His Majesty's good intentions were well known to themselves for maintaining Religion and Justice and of the easie access that divers of the Ministry had unto Him by whom they might signifie their Complaints and Grievances To the first of which two Articles they returned this Answer That in their Meetings they would follow the Act of Parliament made by Him in the year preceding And to the second they replyed That they had made an Act prohibiting all Ministers to utter in the Pulpit any rash or irreverent speeches against His Majesty or His Council but to give their Admonitions upon just and necessary Causes in fear love and reverence Which seeming to the King to serve then rather for a colour to excuse their Factiousness than to lay any just restraint upon it He turned a deaf Ear to their Petitions as well concerning his proceeding with the Popish Lords as against the erecting of Tythes into Temporall Lordships In this Assembly also they passed an Act prohibiting all such as professed Religion to traffick in any part of the Dominions of the King of Spain where the Inquisition was in force And this to be observed under the pain of Excommunication till His Majesty could obtain a free Trade for them without fear of any danger to their Goods or Consciences Which being complained of to the King and by Him looked upon as an Intrenchment upon the Royal Prerogative the Merchants were encouraged to proceed as formerly In opposition whereunto the Ministers fulminate their Censures till the Merchants generally made offer to forbear that Trade as soon as their Accounts were made and that their Creditors in those parts had discharged their Debts They pass'd another Order also in the said Assembly for putting down the Monday's Market in the City of Edenborough under pretence that the Sabbath was thereby prophaned Which so displeased the Shoo-makers and other Artificers that they came tumultuously to the Ministers Houses and threatned to turn them out of the City without more ado if ever that Act were put into execution For fear whereof that Project was dashed for ever after and thereby an occasion given unto the Court to affirm this of them That Rascals and Sowters could obtain that at the Ministers hands which the King was not able to do in matters far more just and reasonable To such audaciousness were they grown upon the filly confidence of their own establishment as to put limits upon Trade dispose of Markets and prostitute both King and Council to the lust of their Preachers
But we will let them run unto the end of their Line and then pull them back 38. And first We will begin with the Conspiracies and Treasons of Francis Steward Earl of Bothwell Son of Iohn Prior of Coldingham one of the many Bastards of K. Iames the Fifth who by the Daughter and Heir of Iames Lord Hepborn the late Earl of Bothwell became the Father of this Francis A man he was of a seditious and turbulent nature principled in the Doctrines of the Presbyterians and thereby fitted and disposed to run their courses At first he joyned himself to the banished Lords who seized upon the King at Sterling not because he was any way engaged in their former Practises for which they had been forced to flye their Countrey but because he would ingratiate himself with the Lords of that Faction and gain some credit with the Kirk But being a man also of a dissolute Life gave such scandal to all Honest and Religious men that in the end to gain the Reputation of a Convert he was contented to be brought to the Stool of Repentance to make Confession of his Sins and promise Reformation for the time to come Presuming now upon the Favour of the Kirk he consults with Witches enquires into the Liâ—e of the King how long he was to reign and what should happen in the Kingdom after his decease and more than so deals with the Witch of Keith particularly to employ her Familiar to dispatch the King that he might set on foot some Title to the Crown of that Realm For which notorious Crimes and so esteemed by all the Laws both of God and Man he was committed unto Ward and breaking Prison was confiscated proclaimed Traytor and all Intelligence and Commerce interdicted with him After this he projects a Faction in the Court it self under pretence of taking down the Power and Pride of the Lord Chancellor then being But finding himself too weak to atchieve the Enterprise he departs secretly into England His Faction in the Court being formed with some more Advantage he is brought privily into the Palace of Haly-Rood House makes himself Master of the Gates secureth the Fort and violently attempts to seize the King But the King hearing of the noise retired himself to a strong Tower and caused all the Passages to be locked and barred Which Bothwell not being able to force he resolves to burn the Palace and the King together But before Fire could be made ready the Alarm was taken the Edenbourgers raised and the Conspirators compelled with the loss of some of their Lives to quit the place 39. The next year he attempts the like at Falkland where he showed himself with a Party of six-score Horse but the rest of the Conspirators not appearing he retires again is entertained privately by some eminent Persons and having much encreased his Faction lives concealed in England The Queen negotiates his return and by the Lord Burrough her Ambassador desires the King to take him into Grace and Favour Which being denyed a way is found to bring him into the King's Bed-chamber together with one of his Confederates with their Swords in their hands followed immediately by many others of the Faction by whom the King is kept in a kind of Custody till he had granted their Desires At last upon the Mediation of the English Ambassador and some of the Ministers of Edenborough who were of Counsel in the Plot the King is brought to condescend to these Conditions that is to say That Pardon should be given to Bothwell and his Accomplices for all matters past and that this Pardon should be ratified by Act of Parliament in November following That in the mean time the Lord Chancellor the Lord Hume the Master of Glammir and Sir George Hume who were all thought to favour the Popish Lords should be excluded from the Court. And finally That Bothwell and all his Party should be held good Subjects But these Conditions being extorted were not long made good Agreed on August the 14 th and declared void by a Convention of Estates at Sterling on the 7 th of September Some Troubles being raised upon this occasion and as soon blown over Bothwell is cited to appear at Edenborough and failing of his day is declared Rebel which only served to animate him to some greater Mischief For being under-hand assisted by the English Ambassador he prepares new Forces desires the Lords which were of his Confederacy to do the like under pretence of banishing to Popish Lords but in plain truth to make the King of no signification in the Power of Government Accompanied with Four hundred Horse he puts himself into Leith to the great affrightment of the King who was then at Edenborough But understanding that the rest of his Associates were not drawn together it was thought good to charge upon him with the Bands of that City and some Artillery from the Castle before his Numbers were encreased Which Counsel sped so well that he lost the day and therewith all his hopes in Scotland and in England too 40. For Queen Elizabeth being sensible at the last of the great Dishonour which she had drawn upon her self by favouring such an Infamous Rebel caused Proclamation to be made That no man should receive or harbour him within her Dominions And the Kirk moved by her Example and the King's Request when they perceived that he could be no longer serviceable to their Ends and Purposes gave Order that the Ministers in all Places should disswade their Flocks from concurring with him for the time to come or joyning with any other in the like Insurrections against that Authority which was divested by God in His Majesty's Person The Treasons and Seditious practises of which man I have laid together the better to express those continual Dangers which were threatned by him to the King by which He was reduced to the necessity of complying with the desires of the Kirk setling their Discipline and in all points conforming to them for His own preservation But nothing lost the Rebel more than a new Practise which he had with the Popish Lords whereby he furnished the King with a just occasion to lay him open to the Ministers and the rest of the Subjects in his proper colours as one that was not acted by a Zeal to Religion though under that disguise he masked his Ambitious Ends. In fine being despised by the Queen of England and Excommunicated by the Kirk for joyning with the Popish Lords he was reduced to such a miserable condition that he neither knew whom to trust nor where to flye Betrayed by those of his own Party by whom his Brother Hercules was impeached discovered and at last brought to Execution in the Streets at Edenborough he fled for shelter into France where finding sorry entertainment he removed into Spain and afterwards retired to Naples in which he spent the short remainder of his Life in Contempt and Beggery 41.
About this time one of the Ministers named Rosse uttered divers Treasonable and Irreverent speeches against His Majesty in a Sermon of his preached at Perth for which the King craved Justice of the next Assembly and he required this also of them That to prevent the like for the times ensuing the Ministers should be inhibited by some Publick Order from uttering any irreverent speeches in the Pulpit against His Majesty's Person Council or Estate under the pain of Deprivation This had been often moved before and was now hearkned to with as little care as in former times All which the King got by it was no more but this that Rosse was only admonished to speak so reverently of His Majesty for the time to come as might give no just cause of complaint against him As ill success he had in the next Assembly to which he recommended some Conditions about the passing of the Sentence of Excommunication two of which were to this effect 1. That none should be excommunicated for Civil causes for any Crimes of leight importance or for particular wrongs offered to the Ministers lest the Censure should fall into contempt 2. That no summary Excommunication should be thenceforth used but that lawful citations of the Parties should go before in all manner of Causes whatsoever To both which he received no other Answer but That the Points were of too great weight to be determined on the sudden and should be therefore agitated in the next Assembly In the mean time it was provided That no Summary Excommunication should be used but in such occasions in which the Safety of the Church seemed to be in danger Which Exception much displeased the King knowing that they would serve their turn by it whensoever they pleased Nor sped he better with them when he treated severally than when they were in the Assembly The Queen of England was grown old and he desired to be in good terms with all his Subjects for bearing down all opposition which might be made against his Title after her decease To which end he deals with Robert Bruce a Preacher of Edenborough about the calling home the Popish Lords men of great Power and Credit in their several Countreys who had been banished the last year for holding some intelligence with the Catholick King Bruce excepts only against Huntley whom the King seemed to favour above all the rest and positively declared That the King must lose him if he called home Huntley for that it was impossible to keep them both And yet this Bruce was reckoned for a Moderate man one of the quietest and best-natur'd of all the Pack What was the issue of this business we shall see hereafter 42. In the mean time let us pass over into France and look upon the Actions of the Hugonots there of whose deserting their new King we have spoke of before And though they afterwards afforded him some Supplies both of Men and Money when they perceived him backed by the Queen of England and thereby able to maintain a defensive Warr without their assistance yet they did it in so poor a manner as made him utterly despair of getting his desired Peace by an absolute Victory In which perplexity he beholds his own sad condition his Kingdom wasted by a long and tedious Warr invaded and in part possessed by the Forces of Spain new Leagues encreasing every day both in strength and number and all upon the point of a new Election or otherwise to divide the Provinces amongst themselves To prevent which he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome goes personally to the Mass and in all other publick Offices which concerned Religion conformed himself unto the directions of the Pope And for so doing he gives this account to Wilks the Queen's Ambassador sent purposely to expostulate with him upon this occasion that is to say That Eight hundred of the Nobility and no fewer than Nine Regiments of the Protestant Party who had put themselves into the Service of his Predecessor returned unto their several homes and could not be induced to stay with him upon any perswasions That such of the Protestants as he had taken at the same time to his Privil-Council were so intent on their own business that they seldom vouchsafed their presence at the Council-Table so that being already forsaken by those on whom he relyed and fearing to be forsaken by the Papists also he was forced to run upon that course which unavoidable necessity had compelled him to and finally that being thus necessitated to a change of Religion he rather chose to make it look like his own free Act that he might thereby free the Doctrine of the Protestants from those Aspersions which he conceived must otherwise needs have fallen upon it if that Conversion had been wrought upon him by Dispute and Argument for hearkening whereunto he had bound himself when he first took the Crown upon him If by this means the Hugonots in France shall fall to as low an ebb as the Fortunes of their Brethren did in England at the same time they can lay the blame on nothing but their own Ingratitude their Disobedience to their King and the Genevian Principles that were rooted in them which made them Enemies to the Power and Guidance of all Soveraign Princes But the King being still in heart of his own Religion or at least exceeding favourable to all those that professed the same he willingly passed over all unkindness which had grown between them and by his countenance or connivence gave them such advantages as made them able to dispute the point with his Son and Successor whether they would continue Subjects to the Crown or not 43. In the Low-Countreys all things prospered with the Presbyterians who then thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledg By whose example the Calvinians take up Arms in the City of Embden renounce all obedience to their Prince and put themselves into the Form of a Commonwealth This Embden is the principal City of the Earl of East-Friesland situate on the mouth of the River Emns called Amasus by Latin Writers and from thence denominated Beautified with a Haven so deep and large that the greatest Ships with full sail are admitted into it The People rich the Buildings general fair both private and publick especially the Town-Hall and the stately Castle Which last being situate on a rising-ground near the mouth of the Haven and strongly fortified toward the Town had for long time been the Principal Seat of the Earls of that Province The second Earl hereof called Ezard when he had governed this Countrey for the space of sixty years or thereabouts did first begin to introduce the Doctrines of Luther into his Estates Anno 1525. But being old he left the Work to be accomplished by Enno his eldest Son who first succeeded in that Earldom and using the assistance of Hardimbergius a Moderate and Learned man established the Augustine Confession in the
wave the Declinatour or if they would declare at the least That it was not a general but a particular Declinatour used in the case of Mr. Blake as being in a case of Slander and therefore appertaining to the Church's Cognizance But these proud men either upon some confidence of another Bothwell or else presuming that the King was not of a Spirit to hold out against them or otherwise infatuated to their own destruction resolved That both their Pulpits and their Preachers too should be exempted totally from the King's Authority In which brave humour they return this Answer to his Proposition That they resolved to stand to their Declinatour unless the King would pass from the Summons and remitting the pursuit to the Ecclesiastical Judg That no Minister should be charged for his Preaching at least before the meeting of the next general Assembly which should be in their Power to call as they saw occasion Which Answer so displeased the King that he charged the Commissioners of the Kirk to depart the Town and by a new Summons citeth Blake to appear on the last of November This fills the Pulpit with Invectives against the King and that too on the day of the Princess's Christning at what time many Noble men were called to Edenborough to attend that Solemnity With whose consent it was declared at Blake's next appearance That the Crimes and Accusations charged in the Bill were Treasonable and Seditious and that his Majesty his Council and all other Judges substitute by his Authority were competent Judges in all matters either Criminal or Civil as well to Ministers as to other Subjects Yet still the King was willing to give over the Chase makes them another gracious Offer treats privately with some Chiefs amongst them and seems contented to revoke his two Proclamations if Blake would only come before the Lords of the Council and there acknowledg his offence against the Queen But when this would not be accepted the Court proceeds unto the Examination of Witnesses And upon proof of all the Articles objected Sentence was given against him to this effect That he should be confined beyond the North water enter into Ward within six days and there remain till his Majesty's pleasure should be further signified Some Overtures were made after this for an Accommodation But the King not being able to gain any reason from them sends their Commissioners out of the Town and presently commands That Twenty four of the most Seditious persons in Edenborough should forsake the City hoping to find the rest more cool and tractable when these Incendiaries were dismissed 23. The Preachers of the City notwithstanding take fire up on it and the next day excite the Noble-men assembled at the Sermon upon Sunday the fifteenth of December to joyn with them in a Petition to the King To preserve Religion Which being presented in a rude and disorderly manner the King demands by what Authoririty they durst convene together without his leave We dare do more than this said the Lord of Lindsey and will not suffer our Religion to be overthrown Which said he returns unto the Church stirrs up the people to a tumult and makes himself the Head of a Factious Rabble who crying out The Sword of the Lord and Gideon thronged in great numbers to the place in which the King had locked himself for his greater safety the doors whereof they questionless had forced open and done some out-rage to his Person if a few honest men had not stopt their Fury The Lord-Provost of the City notwithstanding he was then sick and kept his Bed applied his best endeavours to appease the Tumult and with some difficulty brought the people to lay down their Arms which gave the King an opportunity to retire to his Palace where with great fear he passed over all the rest of that day The next morning he removes with his Court and Council to the Town of Lintithgoe and from thence publisheth a Proclamation to this effect viz. That the Lords of the Session the Sheriffs Commissioners and Justices with their several Members and Deputies should remove themselves forth of the Town of Edenborough and be in readiness to go to any such place as should be appointed and that all Noble-men and Barons should return unto their Houses and not presume to convene in that or in any other place without License under pain of his Majesty's Displeasure The Preachers on the contrary are resolved to keep up the Cause to call their Friends together and unite their Party and were upon the point of Excommunicating certain Lords of the Council if some more sober than the rest had not held their hands 24. In which confusion of Affairs they indict a Fast For a preparatory whereunto a Sermon is preached by one Welch in the chief Church of that City Who taking for his Theam the Epistle sent to the Angel oâ— the Church of Ephesus did pitifully rail against the King saying That he was possessed with a Devil and that one Devil being put out seven worse were entred in the place and that the Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hands Which last he confirmed by the Example of a Father that falling into a Phrensie might be taken by the Children and Servants of the Family and tyed hand and foot from doing violence Which brings into my mind an usual saying of that King to this effect viz. That for the twelve last years of his living in Scotland he used to pray upon his knees before every Sermon That he might hear nothing from the Preacher which might justly grieve him and that the case was so well altered when he was in England that he was used to pray that he might profit by what he heard But all exorbitancy of Power is of short continuance especially if abused to Pride and Arrogance The madness of the Presbyterians was now come to the height and therefore in the course of Nature was to have a fall and this the King resolves to give them or to lose his Crown He had before been so afflicted with continual Baffles that he was many times upon the point of leaving Scotland putting himself into the Seignury of Venice and living there in the capacity of a Gentleman so they call the Patricians of that Noble City And questionless he had put that purpose in execution if the hopes of coming one day to the Crown of England had not been some temptation to him to ride out the storm But now a Sword is put into his hands by the Preachers themselves wherewith he is enabled to cut the Gordian-knot of their Plots and Practises which he was not able to untye For not contented to have raised the former Tumults they keep the Noble-men together invite the people to their aid and write their Letters to the Lord of Hamilton to repair unto them and make himself the Head of their Association A Copy of which Letter being showed unto the King by that
the Ambassadors of some Forreign States as if they had been a Common-wealth distinct from the Realm of France More than which they audaciously importuned the King of whose affection to them they presumed too far by their several Agents for liberty of going wheresoever they listed or sending whomsoever they pleased to the Councils and Assemblies of all Neighbouring-Estates and Nations which profest the same Religion with them This though it had not been the first was looked on as their greatest encroachment on the Royal Authority which in conclusion proved the ruin of their Cause and Party For what else could this aim at as was well observed by the King then reigning but to make themselves a State distinct and independent to raise up a new Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom and to make the Schism as great in Civil as in Sacred matters Which wrought so far upoa the Councils of his next Successor who had not been trained up amongst them as his Father was that he resolved to call them to a sober reckoning on the next occasion and to deprive them all at once of those Powers and Priviledges which they so wantonly abused unto his disturbance Of which we shall speak more hereafter in its proper place In the mean time let us cross over into Scotland where all Assairs moved retrograde and seemed to threaten a relapse to their old Confusions A general Assembly had been intimated to be held at Aberdeen in the Month of Iuly Anno 1604 which by reason that the King was wholly taken up with effecting the Union was adjourned to the same Month in the year next following In the mean season some of the more Factious Ministers hoping to raise no small advantage to themselves and their Party by the absence of so many persons of most Power and Credit began to entertain new Counsels for the unravelling of that Web which the King had lately wrought with such care and cunning The King hears of it and gives Order to suspend the Meeting till his further Pleasure were declared Wherein he was so far obeyed by the major part that of the fifty Presbyteries into which the whole Kingdom was divided Anno 1592 nine only sent Commissioners to attend at Aberdeen When the day came the Meeting was so thin and slender that there appeared not above one and twenty when they were at the fullest But they were such as were resolved to stand stoutly to it each man conceiving himself able in the Cause of God to make resistance to an Army The Laird of Lowreston commands them in the King's Name to return to their Houses to discontinue that unlawful Assembly and not to meet on any publick occasion which concerned the Church but by his Majesty's Appointment They answer That they were assembled at that time and place according to the word of God and the Laws of the Land and that they would not betray the Liberties of the Kirk of Scotland by obeying such unlawful Prohibitions Which said and having desired him to withdraw a while they made choice of one Forbes for their Moderator and so adjourned themselves to September following Lowreston thereupon denounced them Rebels and fearing that some new affront might be put upon him and consequently on the King in whose Name he acted he seeks for Remedy and Prevention to the Lords of the Council Forbes and Welch the two chief sticklers in the Cause are by them convented and not abating any thing of their former obstinacy are both sent Prisoners unto Blackness A day is given for the appearance of the rest which was the third day of October at what time thirteen of the number made acknowledgment of their offence and humbly supplicated that their Lordships would endeavour to procure their Pardon the rest remaining in their disobedience are by the Lords disposed of into several Prisons 19. But these proceedings did so little edifie with that stubborn Faction that the Lords of the Council were condemned for their just severity and all their Actings made to aim at no other end but by degrees to introduce the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church of England The King endeavours by a Declaration to undeceive his good people and reclaim these obstinate persons from the ways of ruin and intimates withall that a new Assembly should be held at Dundee in the Iuly following But this prevails as little as the former course Which puts the business on so far that either the King must be conformable to their present humour or they submit themselves to the King 's just Power The Lords resolve upon the last command them to appear at the Council-Table to receive their Sentence and nominated the 24 th of October for the Day of Doom Accordingly they came but they came prepared having subscribed a publick Instrument under all their hands by which they absolutely decline the Judgment of the King and Council as altogether incompetent and put themselves upon the tryal of the next Assembly as their lawful Judg. Before they were convented only for their Disobedience but by this Declinator they have made themselves Traytors The King is certified of all this and being resolved upon the maintenance of his own Authority gave order That the Law should pass upon them according to the Statute made in Parliament Anno 1584. Hereupon Forbes Welch Duncam Sharp Davie Straghan are removed from Blackness arraigned at an Assize held in Linlithgoe found guilty by the Jury and condemned to death but all of them returned to their several Prisons till the King's Pleasure should be known for their Execution The Melvins and some other of the principal Zealots caused Prayers and Supplications to be made in behalf of the Traytors though they had generally refused to perform that office when the King's Mother was upon the point of losing her life upon a more unwarrantable Sentence of Condemnation This brought forth first a Proclamation inhibiting all Ministers to recommend the condemned persons unto God in their Prayers or Sermons and afterwards a Letter to some Chiefs amongst them for waiting on His Majesty at the Court in England where they should be admitted to a publick Conference and have the King to be their Judg. 20. Upon this Summons there appear in behalf of the Church the Arch-bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow the Bishops of Orkney and Galloway together with Nicolson the designed Bishop of Dunkeeden And for the Kirk the two Melvins Colt Carmichall Scot Balfour and Watson The place appointed for the Conference was Hampton-Court at which they all attended on Septemb. 20. But the Kirk-Party came resolved neither to satisfie the King nor be satisfied by him though he endeavoured all fit ways for their information To which end he appointed four Eminent and Learned Prelates to preach before them in their turns the first of which was Dr. Barlow then Bishop of Rochester who learnedly asserted the Episcopal Power out of those words to the Elders at Ephesus recorded Acts 20.
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
having concluded a Truce of Twelve years with the States United wanted Employment for his Army and that he might engage that King with the greater confidence he reconciles himself to the Church of Rome and marries the Lady Magdalen Daughter to the Duke of Bavaria the most potent of the German Princes of that Religion which also he established in his own Dominions on the death of his Father This puts the young Marquess to new Counsels who thereupon calls in the Forces of the States Vnited the Warr continuing upon this occasion betwixt them and Spain though the Scene was shifted And that they might more cordially espouse his Quarrel he took to Wife the Sister of Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine and Neece of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange by his youngest Daughter and consequently Cousin-German once removed to Count Maurice of Nassaw Commander-General of the Forces of the Sates Vnited both by Sea and Land This kept the Balance eeven between them the one possessing the Estates of Cleve and Mark and the other the greatest part of Berge and Gulick But so it was that the old Marquess of Brandenbourgh having setled his abode in the Dukedom of Prussia and left the management of the Marquissate to the Prince his Son left him withall unto the Plots and Practises of a subtil Lady Who being throughly instructed in all points of Calvinism and having gotten a great Empire in her Husband's Affections prevailed so far upon him in the first year of their Marriage Anno 1614 that he renounced his own Religion and declared for Her 's which he more cheerfully embraced in hope to arm all the Calvinians both of the Higher and the Lower Germany in defence of his Cause as his Competitor of Newbourgh had armed the Catholicks to preserve his Interest 15. Being thus resolved he publisheth an Edict in the Month of February Anno 1615 published in his Father's Name but only in his own Authority and sole Command under pretence of pacifying some distempers about Religion but tending in good earnest to the plain suppression of the Lutheran forms for having spent a tedious and impertinent Preamble touching the Animosities fomented in the Protestant Churches between the Lutherans and those of the Calvinian Party he first requires that all unnecessary Disputes be laid aside that so all grounds of strife and disaffection might be also buried Which said he next commands all Ministers within the Marquissate to preach the Word purely and sincerely according to the Writings of the holy Prophets and Apostles the Four Creeds commonly received amongst which the Te Deum is to go for one and the Confession of Ausberg of the last Correction and that omitting all new glosses and interpretations of idle and ambitious men affecting a Primacy in the Church and a Power in the State they aim at nothing in their Preachings but the Glory of God and the Salvation of Mankind He commands also That they should abstain from all calumniating of those Churches which either were not subject to their Jurisdiction nor were not lawfully convicted of the Crime of Heresie which he resolved not to connive at for the time to come but to proceed unto the punishment of all those who wilfully should refuse to conform themselves to his Will and Pleasure After which giving them some good Counsel for following a more moderate course in their Preachings and Writings than they had been accustomed to in the times fore-going and in all points to be obedient to their principal Magistrate he pulls off the Disguise and speaks plainly thus 16. These are saith he the Heads of that Reformation which is to be observed in all the Churches of Brandenbourgh that is to say All Images Statua's and Crosses to be removed out of the place of publick Meetings all Altars as the Relicks of Popery and purposely erected for the Sacrifices of the Popish Mass to be taken away that in their room they should set up a Table of a long square Figure covered at all times with a Carpet of Black and at the time of the Communion with a Linnen Cloth That Wafers should be used instead of the former Hosts which being cut into long pieces should be received and broken by the hands of those who were admitted to communicate at the holy Table That ordinary Cups should be made use of for the future instead of the old Popish Chalice That the Vestments used in the Mass should be forborn no Candles lighted in any of their Churches at noon-day No Napkin to be held to those that received the Sacrament nor any of them to receive it upon their knees as if Christ were corporally present The sign of the Cross to be from thenceforth discontinued The Minister not to turn his back to the people at the Ministration The Prayers and Epistles before the Sermon to be from thenceforth read not sung and the said Prayers not to be muttered with a low voice in the Pulpit or Reading-Pew but pronounced audibly and distinctly Auricular Confession to be laid aside and the Communion not to be administred to sick persons in the time of any common Plague or Contagious Sickness No bowing of their knee at the Name of Iesus Nor Fonts of stone to be retained in their Churches the want whereof may be supplied by a common Bason The Decalogue to be repeated wholly without mutilation and the Catechism in some other points no less erroneous to be corrected and amended The Trinity to be adored but not exprest in any Images either carved or painted The words of Consecration in the holy Supper to be interpreted and understood according unto that Analogy which they held with the Sacrament and other Texts of holy Scripture And finally That the Ministers should not be so tyed to preach upon the Gospels and Epistles that were appointed for the day but that they might make choice of any other Text of Scriptures as best pleased themselves Such was the tenour of this Edict on which I have insisted the more at large to show the difference between the Lutheran and Genevian Churches and the great correspondence of the first with the Church of England But this Calvinian Pill did not work so kindly as not to stirr more Humours than it could remove For the Lutherans being in possession would not deliver up their Churches or desert those Usages to which they had been trained up and in which they were principled according to the Rules of their first Reformation And hereupon some Rupture was like to grow betwixt the young Marquess and his Subjects if by the intervention of some honest Patriots it had not been closed up in this manner or to this effect That the Lutheran Forms only should be used in all the Churches of the Marquissate for the contentation of the people and that the Marquess should have the exercise of his new Religion for Himself his Lady and those of his Opinion in their private Chappels 17. But the
at first refused to yeeld to these hard Conditions yet in the next year Anno 1606 upon a second Treaty with the Estates of that Kingdom it was agreed upon by the Commissioners on both sides That the free exercise as well of the Reformed as of the Romish Religion should be permitted to all men in the Realm of Hungary as in the time of Maximilian the Father and Ferdinand the Grandfather of the present Emperor Which Articles were more fully ratified in the Pacification made at Vienna on the fourteenth of September then next following In which it was expresly cautioned and capitulated That the Calvinian Religion should from thenceforth be exercised as freely as either the Lutheran or the Romish In managing which Negation between the Parties Matthias the Arch-Duke who hitherto had secretly encouraged the Hungarian Gospellers was not only present but openly gave both countenance and consent unto it 21. The gaining of this point put them upon a hope of obtaining greater even to the abrogating of all Laws and Ordinances for the burning of Hereticks and whatsoever else were contrary to their Religion as also to the nominating of the Palatine or Principal Officers and to the making of Confederacies with their neighbour-Nation During the agitating of which matters Botscay dyes in Cassovia but leaves his Faction so well formed that they are able to go on without their Leader An Assembly of the States of Hungary is called by the Emperor at Presburgh in the middle of August Anno 1607 but nothing done for want of the presence of Arch-Duke Matthias who was appointed by the Emperor to preside therein Which hapned also to the like Assembly of Estates of the Dukedom of Austria and of the whole Empire the next year at the City of Ratisbone Matthias in the mean season had his own Designs apart For at such time as the Assembly of the Estates was held at Ratisbone he makes a journey unto Presburgh convocates thither the Estates of Hungary confirms the Pacification made before at Vienna suffers them to confederate with their Neighbours of Austria and makes himself the Head of that Confederation By vertue whereof he commands the people of both Countreys to put themselves into Arms pretending an Expedition into Moravia but aiming directly against Prague the chief Town of Bohemia where the Emperor RODOLPHVS then resided Whom he so terrified with his coming with an Army of Eighteen thousand that he consented to deliver the Crown of Hungary into the hands of Matthias to yeeld unto him the possession of all that Kingdom and to discharge his Subjects from their former Allegiance upon condition that the Estates of that Realm should chuse no other King but the said Arch-Duke Which Agreement being made the 17 th of Iune 1608 Matthias is accordingly Crowned King of Hungary and Illisachius a profest Calvinian and one of the principal Sticklers in these Agitations is made Palatine of it 22. By this Transaction the whole Dukedom of Austria and so many of the Provinces subordinate to it as were not actually possessed by the Arch-Duke Ferdinand are consigned over to Matthias Many Inhabitants whereof professing the Calvinian Forms and Doctrines which only must be called the Reformed Religion and building on the late Confederation with the Realm of Hungary presumed so far upon the patience of their Prince as to invade some publick Churches for the exercise of it But they soon found themselves deceived For Matthias having somewhat of the States-man in him and being withall exasperated by the Pope's Nuncio interdicts all such publick Meetings He had now served his turn in getting the possession of the Crown of Hungary and was not willing to connive at those Exorbitances in his Austrian Subjects over whom he challenged a more absolute Soveraignty than over any of the rest which he had cherished for self-ends in the Kingdom of Hungary The Austrians on the other side who professed the Reformed Religion refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to him if they might not exercise their Religion in as free a manner as the Hungarians were permitted to do by the Pacification And thereupon they presently give Order to their Tenants and Vassals to put themselves into Arms appoint a general Assembly of the Protestant and Reformed States to be held at Horn and there resolve to extort that by way of Force which they could not hope to gain by Favour Some pains was took by Maximilian the Arch-Duke another of the Emperor's Brothers to accord the difference who offered them in the name of the King to tolerate the free exercise of their Religion without the Cities and that in the bestowing of the publick Offices there should be no exception taken at them in regard of their difference in Religion and withall gave them many Reasons why such a general Liberty as they desired could not be granted by the King with reference to his Honour Conscience or particular safety 23. But this reasonable Offer did not satisfie the Reformed Party for so the Calvinians must be called by whom the Hungarians and Moravians are sollicited to associate with them till they had compassed their desires And upon confidence thereof refused more obstinately to take the Oath than before they did levying new Forces for the Warr and quartering them in great numbers round about the City of Crema the chief City of the Vpper Austria But in the end upon the intervention of the Moravian Ambassadors the new King was content to yeeld to these Conditions following viz. That the Nobility in their Castles or Towns as also in their City-Houses should for themselves and their people have the free exercise of their Religion That the free exercise of Preaching might be used in the three Churches of Iserdorf Trihelcuincel and Horn. That the like freedom of Religion might be also exercised in all those Churches in which they enjoyed the same till the King 's late Edict and that the Councellors of State and other publick Officers should from thenceforth chose promiscuously out of both Religions Upon the granting of which Articles but not before they did not only take the Oath of Allegiance but gave him a Magnificent Reception in the Town of Lintz which hapned on the 17 th of May 1609. 24. No sooner were the Austrians gratified in the point of Religion but the Bohemians take their turn to require the like concerning which we are to look a little backward as far as to the year 1400. About which time we find a strong Party to be raised amongst them against some Superstitions and Corruptions in the Church of Rome occasioned as some say by reading the Works of Wickliff and by the Diligence of Piccardus a Flemming born as is affirmed by some others from whom they had the Name of Piccards cruelly persecuted by their own Kings and publickly condemned in the Council of Constance they continued constant notwithstanding to their own Perswasions Distinguished also from the rest of the Bohemians
Saxon Weimar were taken Prisoners the Bohemian Ordnance all suprised Prague forced to yeeld unto the Victor the King and Queen compelled to flye into Silesia from whence by many difficult passages and untravelled ways they came at last in safety to the Hague in Holland Nor is it altogether unworthy of our observation That this great Victory was obtained on a Sunday morning being the 8 th of November and the 23 d Sunday after Trinity in the Gospel of which day occurred that memorable passage Reddite Caesari qua sunt Caesaris that is to say Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesars Which seemed to judgâ— the Quarrel on the Emperor's side Hereupon followed the most Tragical or rather most Tyranical Execution of the chief Directors who had a hand in the Design the suppressing of the Protestant Reformed Religion in all the Emperor's Estates the falling back of Bethlem Gabor into Transylvania the proscribing of the Prince Elector and his Adherents the transferring of the Electoral Dignity together with the Upper Palatinate on the Duke of Bavaria the Conquest of the lower Palatinate by the King of Spain and the setting up of Popery in all parts of both In which condition they remained till the restoring of Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector to the best part of his Estate by the Treaty of Munster 1648. 35. Such was the miserable end of the Warr of Bohemia raised chiefly by the Pride and Pragmaticalness of Calvin's Followers out of a hope to propagate their Doctrines and advance their Discipline in all parts of the Empire Nor sped the Hugonots much better in the Realm of France where by the countenance and connivance of King HENRY the 4 th who would not see it and during the minority of LEWIS the 13 th who could not help it they possessed themselves of some whole Countreys and near Two hundred strong Towns and fortified places Proud of which Strength they took upon them as a Commonwealth in the midst of a Kingdom summoned Assemblies for the managing of their own Affairs when and as often as they pleased Gave Audience to the Ministers of Forreign Churches and impowred Agents of their own to negotiate with them At the same Meetings they consulted about Religion made new Laws for Government displaced some of their old Officers and elected new ones the King's consent being never asked to the Alterations In which licentious calling of their own Assemblies they abused their Power to a neglect of the King's Authority and not dissolving those Assemblies when they were commanded they improved that Neglect to a Disobedience Nay sometimes they run cross therein to those very Edicts which they had gained by the effusion of much Christian Blood and the expence of many Hundred thousand Crowns For by the last Edict of Pacification the King had granted the free exercise of both Religions even in such Towns as were assigned for Caution to the Hugonot Party Which liberty being enjoyed for many years was at last interrupted by those very men who with so much difficulty had procured it For in an Assembly of theirs which they held at Loudun Anno 1619 they strictly commanded all their Governours Mayors and Sheriffs not to suffer any Jesuit nor those of any other Order to preach in any of the Towns assigned to them though licensed by the Bishop of the Diocess in due Form of Law And when upon a dislike of their proceedings the King had declared their Meetings to be unlawful and contrary to the Publick Peace and had procured the Declaration to be verified in the Court of Parliament they did not only refuse to separate themselves as they were required but still insisted upon terms of Capitulation even to a plain justifying of their actings in it 36. These carriages gave the King such just offence that he denied them leave to send Commissioners to the Synod of Dort to which they had been earnestly invited by the States of the Netherlands For being so troublesome and imperious when they acted only by the strength of their Provincial or National Meetings what danger might not be suspected from a general Confluence in which the Heads of all the Faction might be laid together But then to sweeten them a little after this Refusal he gave them leave to hold an Assembly at Charenton four miles from Paris there to debate those points and to agree those differences which in that Synod had been agitated by the rest of their Party Which Liberty they made such use of in the said Assembly that they approved all the Determinations which were made at Dort commanded them to be subscribed and bound themselves and their Successors in the Ministry by a solemn Oath Not only stedfastly and constantly to adhere unto them but to persist in maintenance thereof to the last gasp of their breath But to return to the Assembly at Loudun They would not rise from thence though the King commanded it till they had taken order for another Assembly to be held at Rochel the chief place of their strength and the Metropolis or principal City of their Common-wealth Which General Assembly being called by their own Authority and called at such a time as had given the King some trouble in composing the Affairs of Bearn was by the King so far disliked and by especial Edict so far prohibited that they were all declared to be guilty of Treason who should continue in the same without further Order Which notwithstanding they sate still and very undutifully proceeded in their former purposes Their business was to draw up a Remonstrance of their present Grievances or rather of the Fears and Jealousies which they had conceived on the King's journey into Bearn This they presented to the King by their own Commissioners and thereunto received a fair and plausible Answer sent in a Letter to them by the Duke Des Diguiers by whom they were advised to dissolve the Assembly and submit themselves unto the King Instead whereof they published a Declaration in defence of their former Actions and signified a Resolution not to separate or break up that Meeting until their Grievances were redressed 37. It hapned at the same time that the Lord of Privas a Town in which the Hugonots made the strongest Party married his Daughter and Heir to the Viscount of Cheylane and dying left the same wholly unto his disposal Who being of different perswasions from the greatest part of his Vassals altered the Garrison and placed his own Servants and Dependents in it as by Law he might This moved the Hugonots of the Town and the Neighbouring Villages to put themselves into a posture of Warr to seize upon the places adjoining and thereby to compel the young Noble-man to forsake his Inheritance Which being signified to the King he presently scored this insolence on the account of the Rochellers who standing in defiance of his Authority was thought to have given some animation unto the Town of Privas to commit
those out-rages Doubly affronted and provoked the King resolves to right Himself in the way of Arms. But at the instant request of Des Diguiers before remembred who had been hitherto a true Zealot to the Hugonot Cause he was content to give them Four and twenty days of deliberation before he drew into the Field He offered them also very fair and reasonable Canditions not altogether such as their Commissioners had desired for them but far better than those which they were glad to accept at the end of the Warr when all their strengths were taken from them But the Hugonots were not to be told that all the Calvinian Princes and Estates of the Empire had put themselves into a posture of Warr some for defence of the Palatinate and others in pursuance of the Warr of Bohemia Of which they gave themselves more hopes than they had just cause for In which conjuncture some hot spirits then assembled at Rochel blinded with pride or hurried on by the fatality of those Decrees which they maintained to be resolved upon by God before all Eternity reject all offers tending to a Pacification and wilfully run on to their own destruction For presently upon the tendry of the King's Proposals they publish certain Orders for the regulating of their Disobedience as namely That no Agreement should be made with the King but by the consent of a General Convocation of the Chiefs of their Party about the payment of their Soldiers Wages and intercepting the Revenues of the King and Clergie toward the maintenance of the Warr. They also Cantoned the whole Kingdom into seven Divisions assigned to each of those Divisions a Commander in Chief and unto each Commander their particular Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and other Officers with several Limitations and Directions prescribed to each of them for their proceeding in this service 38. This makes it evident that the King did not take up Arms but on great necessities He saw his Regal Authority neglected his especial Edicts wilfully violated his Gracious Offers scornfully slighted his Revenues Feloniously intercepted his whole Realm Cantoned before his face and put into the power of such Commanders as he could not trust So that the Warr being just on his part he had the more reason to expect such an issue of it as was agreeable to the Equity of so good a Cause He had besides all those Advantages both at home and abroad which in all probability might assure him of the End desired The Prince Elector Palatine had been worsted in the Warr of Bohemia and all the Princes of the Union scattered to their several Homes which they were hardly able to defend against so many Enemies so that there was no danger to be feared from them And on the other side the King of Great Britain whom he had most cause to be afraid of had denied assistance to his own Children in the Warr of Bohemia which seemed to have more Justice in it than the Warr of the Hugonots and therefore was not like to engage in behalf of strangers who rather out of wantonness than any unavoidable necessity had took up Arms against their Lawful and Undoubted Soveraign At home the Rochellers were worse befriended than they were abroad I mean the Common-wealth of Rochel as King LEWIS called it The whole Confederacy of the Hugonots there contrived and sworn to they had Cantoned the whole Realm into seven Divisions which they assigned to the Command of the Earl of Chastillon the Marquess De la Force the Duke of Soâ—bize the Duke of Rohan the Duke of Trimoville the Duke Des Diguer and the Duke of Bouillon whom they designed to be the Generalissimo over all their Forces But neither he nor Des Diguers nor the Duke of Trimoville nor Chastillon would act any thing in it or accept any such Commissions as were sent unto them Whether it were that they were terrified with the ill success of the Warr of Bohemia or that the Conscience of their duty did direct them in it I dispute not now So that the Rochellers being deserted both at home and abroad were forced to rely upon the Power and Prudence of the other three and to supply all other wants out of the Magazine of Obstinacy and Perversness with which they were plentifully stored Two instances I shall only touch at and pass over the rest The town of Clerack being summoned the 21 of Iuly 1621 returned this Answer to the King viz. That if he would permit them to enjoy their Liberties withdraw his Armies and leave their Fortifications in the same estate in which he found them they would remain his faithful and obedient Subjects More fully those of Mount Albon on the like occasion That they resolve to live and dye not in obedience to the King as they should have said but in the Vnion of the Churches Most Religious Rebels 39. Next let us look upon the King who being brought to a necessity of taking Arms first made his way unto it by his Declaration of the second of April published in favour of all those of that Religion who would contain themselves in their due obedience In pursuance whereof he caused five persons to be executed in the City of Tours who had tumultuously disturbed the Hugonots whom they found busied at the burial of one of their dead He also signified to the King of Great Britain the Princes of the Empire and the States of the Netherlands That he had not undertook this Warr to suppress the Religion but to chastise the Insolencies of Rebellious Subjects And what he signified in words he made good by his deeds For when the Warr was at the hottest all those of the Religion in the City of Paris lived as securely as before and had their accustomed Meetings at Charenton as in times of peace Which safety and security was enjoyed in all other places even where the King's Armies lodged and quartered Nay such a care was taken of their preservation that when some of the Rascality in the City of Paris upon the first tydings of the death of the Duke of Mayenne who had been slain at the Siege of Mont-albon amongst many others breathed nothing but slaughter and revenge to the Hugonot Party the Duke of Mounbazon being then Governour of the City commanded their Houses and the Streets to be safely guarded so that no hurt was done to their Goods or Persons And when the Rabble being disappointed of their Ends in Paris had run tumultuously the next day to Charenton and burned down their Temple an Order was presently made by the Court of Parliament for the re-edifying it at the King 's sole Charges and that too in a far more beautiful Fabrick than before it had But in the conduct of the Warr he governed not his Counsels with like moderation suffering the Sword too often to range at liberty as if he meant to be as terrible in his Executions as he desired to be accounted just in his Undertakings But
possibly this may be excused though not defended as being done in hot blood when the spirits of the Soldiers were enflamed with anger by reason of the loss of so many of their Chief Commanders occasioned by the holding out of the obstinate Party or the loss of their Fellows and could not easily be quenched but by the blood of their Enemies 40. I shall not touch upon the particulars of this Warr which was quick and violent and as succesful on the King's part as he could desire Let it suffice that within the compass of Eighteen Months or thereabouts he stript them of no fewer than One hundred of their strongest places so that their whole strength was reduced in a manner to two Towns only that is to say the strong Town of Montalbon and the Port of Rochel the rest submitting one by one at the first demand A Peace is thereupon concluded before Montpellier agreeable enough to the Will of the Victor and with security enough to the vanquished Party if all Conclusions had been kept with as great a constancy as they had been agreed upon with a seeming alacrity By which Accord the said two Towns were to be held in caution for three years only and the last seemed much over-awed by the Fort of K. Lewis erected by the Count of Soiscons when he lay before it For the demolishing of which Fort the King was earnestly sollicited by their Commissioners and for the not granting whereof when it was desired he was accused for violating the Pacification which he had made with them before Montpellier and solemnly confirmed in the Courts of Parliament And on the other side the King complained as sensibly against the Hugonots in regard they had not setled the Ecclesiasticks in their lawful Possessions nor admitted those of the Roman-Catholick Religion unto Civil Offices in any of their Towns and Territories as by the Articles of that Pacification they were bound to do So that the Wound seemed rather to be skinned than healed and suddenly became more dangerous than at first it was For those of Rochel being somewhat blocked up by Fort Lewis toward the Land practised with the Duke of Soubize to grow strong by Sea and make up a Fleet consisting of Eleven men of Warr besides lesser Vessels enter the large Haven of Blavet in Bretagne seize upon all the Ships which they found therein and amongst others six of great strength and beauty belonging to the Duke of Nevers By the accession of this Strength they seize upon the Isles of Rhe and Oleron with all the Shipping in the same and having gathered together a Navy of no fewer than Seventy Sail they infest the Seas and interrupt the course of Traffick 41. For the repressing of these Pyrates for they were no better the King sends out the Duke of Montmorency with a Naval Power hires Twenty men of Warr of the States of Holland and borrows Eight tall Ships of the King of England With which he gives battel to Soubize beats him at Sea and forceth him to flye dishonourably from the Isle of Rhe which the French presently possess and begin to fortifie For the removal of whose Forces from that Island which blockt up their Haven the Rochellers mediate by Soubize with K. CHARLES of England betwixt whom and his Brother of France some disgust had hapned for sending back the French of both Sexes whom the Queen brought with her For hereupon the French King seizeth upon all the English Ships which traded on the River of Bourdeaux and the English to revenge the wrong sets out a Fleet of Thirty sail all Men of Warr commanded by the Earls of Denbigh and Lindsey with an intent to steer for Rochel and relieve that Town But being encountred with cross winds they came back again and leave the prosecuting of the Action to the Duke of Buckingham Who the next year sets forward with a puissant Army consisting of Ten thousand men and wafted over in One hundred and fifty Sail of Ships all fit for Service His Design was for the recovering of the Isle of Rhe and relieving Rochel Both which he might have compassed without any great difficulty if he had not lost the opportunities which he gained at his landing passed by the Fort of La Pre as not worth the taking and suffering himself to be complemented out of the storming of St. Martins when it was at his mercy For the French Forces entring by the Fort of La Pre compelled him to an unsafe Retreat but of a great part of his Army and sent him back with far less Honour than he brought a-long with him 42. But the Relief of Rochel is not so given over A strong Fleet is prepared for the year next following to be commanded by the Duke who gave himself more hopes of good Fortune in it than his Fates assigned him For being villanously slain at Portsmouth when he was almost ready to embark his Soldiers the Conduct of the Action is committed to the Earl of Lindsey who very cheerfully and couragiously undertook the Service But the French had blockt up the Haven of Rochel with Piles and Ramparts and other most stupendious Works in the midst of the Ocean that it was utterly impossible for the Earl to force his passage though he did most gallantly attempt it Which being observed by those of Rochel who were then besieged to Landward by the King in Person and even reduced unto the last extremity by Plagues and Famine they presently set open their Gates and without making any Conditions for their preservation submitted absolutely to that Mercy which they had scorned so often in their prosperous Fortunes The King thus Master of the Town dismantleth all their Fortifications leaves it quite open both to Sea and Land commands them to renounce the Name of Rochel and to take unto the Town the Name of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary But herein his Command found but small compliance the Name of Rochel still remaining and that of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary almost as soon forgotten as it had been given After which followed the surrendry of Nismess and Montalbon two impregnable places the first of which had been re-fortified in these last Commotions For What Town could presume of standing out against the King when Rochel had been forced to submit to Mercy 43. See now to what a low condition these hot Calvinian spirits have reduced themselves by their frequent Insolencies how different their Affairs were at the end of this Warr from that Felicity which they enjoyed when they first began it Before the beginning of the Warr Anno 1620 they were possessed of well-near Two hundred strong Towns and Castles well fortified for their personal safety besides many fair Houses and large Territories which they had in the Villages in which their Pleasures and their Profits were a-like consulted they slept all of them under their own Vines and their own Fig-trees neither