io>

-00

*-.

&**¥**£■

A

Q^h

'wurfau

*$

:fM9,

ji>~?:«. i

Presented to the

LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

from

the estate of

DOROTHY M. STAPLEY

t^

^*-s

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

University of Toronto

http://www.archive.org/details/crosscrownorsuffOOmcca

!M tea

Di T"

i

J|IM«

1

i"! !C

CROSS AND CROWN

OR, THE

SUFFERINGS AND TRIUMPHS

OF

THE HEROIC MEN AND WOMEN

WHO WERE PERSECUTED

THE RELIGION

JESUS CHRIST.

JAMES D. McCABE,

Author of History of the World; Path-ways of the Holy Land; Planting the Wilderness, etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ON STEEL BY SARTAIN AND ILLMAN.

1 These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'' — Rev. VII, 14.

JONES BROTHERS & CO.:

CINCINNATI, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO.

T. N. JAMES & CO., Houston, Tejcas ; J. C. CHILTOX & CO., Detroit, Mich. W. H. McCLAIN, Des Moines, Iowa ; J. M. OLCOTT, Indianapolis.

1881.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,

BY J. T. JONES,

la the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

AUG 3

/ Of

Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:

And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment:

They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword : they wandered about in sheepskins and goat- skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented:

(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

Hebrews xi. 35-38. 3

PREFACE.

f HE spectacle of human beings suffering for the truth is the sublimest sight that can be witnessed on earth. In the

h providence of God this has been the means of strength- ening and spreading the very principle which has at times seemed to expire with the martyr. It was thus with Christianity in the days of the primitive Church, the history of which is an almost unbroken record of martyrdom. The proudest and most fruitful triumphs of that Church were won at the stake, in the arena, and on the scaffold. " In this con- flict," said the great Napoleon, summing up the triumphs of the religion of Christ, "all the kings and all the forces of the earth were arrayed on one side. Upon the other I see no army, but a mysterious energy, individuals scattered here and there, in all parts of the globe, having no other rallying sign

than a common faith in the mysteries of the Cross On

the one side we see rage and all the furies of hatred and violence ; on the other there is gentleness, moral courage, infinite resigna- tion. For three hundred years the spirit struggled against the brutality of sense, the conscience against despotism, the soul against the body ; virtue against all the vices. The blood of Christians flowed in torrents. They died kissing the hand which slew them. The soul alone protested, while the body surren^

6 PRE FA CE.

dered itself to all tortures. Everywhere Christians fell, and* everywhere they triumphed."

A- it was with primitive Christianity, so it was with Protest- antism, the reassertion of the great and simple truths of that pure epoch against the errors with which the Roman Church, for its own selfish ends, had obscured the faith delivered by bur blessed Saviour to his Apostles, and by them to the early Church. The precious heritage which we enjoy of Gospel truth and reli- gious freedom was won for us by our fathers with blood and suffering. Papal Rome, following the example of her Pagan predecessor, struggled fiercely to crush the truths which the Re- formers, after much labor, succeeded in rescuing from the dun- geons of superstition and ignorance, to which they had been consigned. Rome, conscious that her pretensions were not sus- tained by the Word of God, had taken the Bible from the people, and had hidden it so effectually that she thought herself safe for all time ; and it was a task of the greatest difficulty for the Reformers to regain possession of that blessed charter of our religion and make it free to all men. In defence of a free Bible they went to the stake gladly, counting themselves happy to suffer persecution and death so that those who survived or came after them might enjoy the rights purchased with their blood. In all the countries of Europe the fires blazed, and the groans of the martyrs went up to God, but everywhere the principles for which they died have triumphed. To-day Protestantism is the controlling influence in the world. The Great Powers (including our own free land) which control the destinies of the world by the sword are Protestant ; the nations whose ships

PREFACE. 7

cover every sea, and bring the countries of the earth into closer and more binding relationships with each other are Protestant ; the nations whose institutions are freest and most substantial, and in which the greatest amount of individual comfort and happiness is experienced, are Protestant; the intellect of the world is Protestant, civil and religious freedom are Protestant, the printing press is Protestant, the public schools are Protestant, the capital which controls the great monetary and industrial en- terprises of the world is Protestant ; the great mining enter- prises, the founding of colonies and the peopling of new worlds — in short, all those things which go to make up what men call the " glories of the nineteenth century, the great era of progress and enlightenment," are Protestant. They are the results of the labors and the sufferings of the noble men and women of the Reformation, who lived and died to win religious freedom and an open Bible, to break down the barriers which Rome had placed in the path of free thought and mental expansion, and to open the way for the fulfilment of man's true destiny. Had they failed in their efforts, had the Bible remained a sealed book, we of to-day would have been still in the depths of mediaeval superstition and barbarism. The tyranny of Rome made man a mere beast of the field. The Reformation gave him the Bible, which taught him that he was the child of God, the heir to the most glorious of promises, and by raising him to a true concep- tion of his dignity and power, made it possible for him to fulfil his noble destiny.

It is fitting then that the storv of the sufferings of those to whom we owe so much should ever be kept in remembrance,

g PREFACE.

because it is by watching these trials that we can best under- stand the principles of which they were the assertion. There is, however, a tendency to ignore these things, and to regard with disfavor any attempt to call attention to the martyrdoms of the Reformers.

There never has been a time, however, when a proper appre- ciation of the spirit and principles of the Reformers was so necessary as at present. Among a certain class of Protestants there is manifested a strong desire to revive many of the errors against which the martyrs protested with their lives, to sacrifice all the substantial results of the Reformation. The author of the persecutions, the great disseminator of error, the Church of Rome, still survives, and holds the same policy it pursued in the days of our fathers. In our own land, and in England, cir- cumstances have compelled it to present itself in a purer and better form than in lands where its authority is undisputed, but its policy is still the same, and those who control it are men ignorant of our institutions and the spirit of our people, and hostile to them. The Church of Rome in America is directed from Italy, by men unfitted by education, aspirations, and mode of thought to control an American institution. Already it has begun, stealthily and with great adroitness, its attacks upon our institutions. It has struck openly at the Bible, and would ban- ish it from every household if it could. It has exerted itself to destroy our public school system, and openly declares its hostil- ity to any system of secular education. It is seeking to enrich itself by the acquisition of property, and is constantly interfer- ing in our political questions by influencing the Roman Catho-

PREFA CE. 9

lie vote in favor of those men who will sustain it in its aggres- sions. It is aiming at political power, with the avowed object of breaking down the institutions which Americans regard as the strongest bulwarks of their liberty — the free Bible, the free- press, and the free school.

These things are true, and it is no argument against them that the people of the Roman Catholic Church are American citizens. The danger is real. The Roman Catholic Church is not an American institution — it is a foreign establishment which has been introduced among us, and which has no sympathy with our institutions or our national spirit. The principle upon which every American Church stands immovable, and upon which our Constitution itself rests, is the right of every man to read and examine God's Word for himself, and to interpret it by the standards of his own judgment and conscience. The Church of Rome utterly repudiates this right, sets up the decrees of its councils and the bulls of its popes, and requires implicit obedi- ence to them on pain of damnation, punishing disobedience to them with persecution wherever it is strong enough to do so ; and these bulls and decrees extend to things temporal as well as spiritual. The mass of the members of that Church in this country are people of foreign birth, as yet unimbued with the American spirit, and accustomed to hear the priest before the magistrate. They are ignora-nt, and very many of them have no opportunity of improving their condition. Yet were they all learned and native born, the ease would hardly be different. The Church is a different thing from the people. The Church sets itself up above them, and insists on unreasoning obedience.

10 PREFACE.

Its allegiance is not due to the law, but to an infallible Pope, whose mandates are above the civil law. He must be blind, in- deed, who cannot seethe danger which must attend the intrigues of such a Church in this country.

The question arises, how can this danger be met and averted? By proscribing the Roman Catholic Church, or by persecuting its members? That indeed would be to commit the very crime against which the Christian religion is a protest. The true remedy is this. Let us acquaint ourselves so thoroughly with the principles of the Reformers that we may be able to make them our guides through life, and to defend them from the attacks of Rome and its allies — those " degenerate sons of worthy sires " who are doing the work of Rome under the guise of Protestantism, and who, as one of the most zealous of the Ro- mish clergy has well said, carry a Romanist heart under a Pro- testant gown. Let us strive to make intolerance and cruelty odious ; let us hold fast to our open Bible ; let us maintain our noble free school system, and discountenance all efforts to give to it a denominational cast ; let us keep out of political power all men who are the sworn subjects of a foreign potentate ; let as keep the line drawn deep and wide that separates the Church from the State ; let us bring into our daily life, and live up to them, those great principles of the Reformation which are the very basis of our civil and religious freedom, and we need not fear for the future.

There is need however that we should understand these prin- ciples, and that we should live up to them. This is a Protest- ant country, and we must keep it so. It is time that we knew

PREFACE. 11

hotter than we do what the Reformers did for as, what they died to maintain, and what it is that Rome seeks to wrest from us. We can learn this only from a study of their lives and doctrines.

The present work is offered to the public in the hope of sup- plying a portion of this need. It does not claim to be a History of the Reformation, nor a series of complete biographies of the Reformers. The great German movement is not embraced in this recital, the object being not to present a History of the Re- formation, but to call attention to the most vital principles of the Protestant cause, and to impress these principles on the mind of the reader by the relation of some of the most striking instances of Protestant martyrdom, and the instances given are those which are most likely to attract the general reader by the beauty and dramatic interest of the subject. The work is di- vided into three parts, each separate and complete in itself, and vet all bearing upon the main design of the volume. The story of the Vaudois Christians, the Huguenots, and the English Church is first told concisely and as briefly as possible, so that in each case the narrations of individual martyrdoms may be the better understood by the reader. It is believed that enough has been written to accomplish the object already stated, and it is hoped that the work may be blessed in its effects upon the minds of its readers.

No effort has been made to plead the cause of any particular denomination. The cause is that of Christ and His Church — a cause dear to every Christian of whatever denomination. Neither is this book designed as a partisan attack upon the

12 PREFACE.

Church of Rome. The history of the Protestant Church is a series of facts, and these have been stated without partiality, and that they present Rome as the enemy of the truth is not the fault of the writer.

Why should not we dwell upon the memory of the heroes of our Church ? We erect statues and monuments to the pa- triots who gave us our civil freedom, and we are never weary of recounting their deeds or uttering their praise. Why, then, should we not tell the story of the brave and patient Christian men and women who died for our religious freedom, who gave us the Bible at the cost of their lives, and who brought Christ back to us as our personal Saviour and friend ? A nobler, sweeter, and more solemn story is not to be found in all the range of history, or one which appeals to us more directly or powerfully.

Let us then cherish the memory of these Saints of the Pro- testant Church, let us make their names as household words, and when our children ask us of them, let us tell them with thankful and reverent hearts the sweet story of their lives, and so prepare those who are to come after us to hold fast that which our fathers won for us with their blood.

J. D. McC, Jk.

CONTENTS.

THE VAUDOIS.

1.

HISTORICAL SKETCH DF THE 1IDD01S CHURCH.

Description of the Vaudois Valleys — Origin of the Vaudoia Churcli — Constitution of that Church — Its Ministry — Its Kitual — Its Creed — Early History — Hostility of Rome — Growth of the Papacy — The Vaudois refuse to submit to the Romish Church — First persecutions of the Vaudois — The Pope proclaims a crusade against them — The trials of the Church — The Era of the Reformation — Efforts of Rome to destroy Protestantism — Terrible sufferings of the Vaudois — John Louis Paschal — The Jesuits — Hostility of the House of Savoy to the Vaudois — War declared — The Count of Trinity enters the Valleys— The Roman Catholics commit their women to the protection of the Vaudois — The Solemn Covenant — Sufferings of the Valley Christians — Battle of the Pra del Tor — The Vaudois victorious — Return of Peace — The Priests harass the Valleys — War with France — The Plague — Death of the Pastors — Aid from Geneva — Efforts of the Jesuits — Fresh persecutions — The Propaganda — A barbarous edict — The flight to the mountains — War in the Valleys — Exploits of Jana- vel — Baseness of the Roman Catholic, army — The" Piedmontese Easter" — Massacres of the Vaudois — Horrible Scenes — Protests of the Protestant Powers of Europe — A hollow peace — Capture of the whole Vaudois population — Banishment of the Vaudois — The "Glorious Return " — The Exiles cross the Alps and regain their Valleys — Siege of the Balsille — A noble defence — Escape of the garrison — Peace — The Vaudois allowed to return — Perfidy of the Duke of Savoy — The Duke and the Pope — The French Revolution — Napoleon protects the Vaudois — The Restoration — Renewed sufferings — Justice at last — The law of 1848 — Great rejoicings — Scene in Turin jg

THE MARTYRS OF VAL LOUISE. 113

III. JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL 120

IV.

MARTIN GONIN 138

13

14 CONTENTS.

V. BARTHOLOMEW HECTOR 147

VI. JOAN MATHURIN 159

VII. SEBASTIAN BAZAN 167

PABT II.

THE HUGUENOTS.

r. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN FRANCE.

The Reformation in France — Cause3 of it — The Bible unknown to the people — Invention of the art of Printing — The Bible circulated through the agency of this art — Translation of the Scriptures — Demand for the Bible — Effect of reading the Scriptures — The Reformation at Meaux — Palissy's description of the Reformers of Saintes — The Church of Rome prohibit* the reading of the Bible — The Inquisition established in France — The War against the Bible and the Printing Press — Persecutions of the Reformed — The Bible Venders — Rise of the Huguenot party — The Priests set the King against the Huguenots — Destruction of Merindol and Cabrieres — Spread of the Reformed Religion— The Psalms of Marot — Singing in public forbidden — Charles IX — Massacre at Vassy — The Religious Wars — Peace — Mar- riage of the King of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois — The Huguenots in Paris— Signs of Trouble — Attempted Assassination of Coligni — Massacre of Saint Bartholomew — Horrible Scenes— Massacres in the Provinces— The Work of the Jesuits — Rejoicings in Rome— In- dignation of the Protestant Powers— Remorse and Death of Charles IX.— The Civil Wars — Accession of Henry IV.— The Edict of Nantes— Conspiracies of the Jesuits— Richelieu's policy toward the Huguenots— Prosperity of the Huguenots after the Edict of Nantes— So- cial and political condition of the Huguenots— Louis XIV. becomes King— His enmity to the Reformed— The Jesuits succeed in establishing their influence over him — Injustice to the Huguenots— Flight of the Reformed from France— Cruel policy of Louis— Severe per- secutions of the Reformed in France— Emigration forbidden— The Dragonnades— Extraor- dinary conversions — Activity of the Jesuits— A corrupt bargain— Marriage of the King — Revocation of the Edict of Nantes— Efforts to exterminate the Huguenots— Terrible suffer- ings of the Reformed— Effects of the Revocation— The Galley Slaves— Hostility of the Romish Church to the Working Class— Decline of French literature and power— The reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.— The Revolution— The Huguenots under Napoleon— Subse- quent history of the Flench Protestants— Their present condition 177

CONTENTS. 15

II. JEAN BRUGIERE 274

III. PHILIPPA DE LUNZ 279

IV. DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET 292

V. CLAUDE BROUSSON 316

VI. JEAN MARTEILHE- Tlie Huguenot Galley Slave 335

VII. THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE 368

VIM. FULCRAND REY 378

PABT ITT.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

Introduction of Christianity into Great Britain— The Early British Church— St. Patrick— The Church of Iona — Gregory the Great sends Augustine to England — Conversion of the King of Kent — Designs of Rome against the British Church — Resistance of the Britons — The Re- venge of Rome — Establishment of the Papal Supremacy in England — Efforts of the English to retain their liberty — King John's submission to the Pope — The Parliament asserts the rights of the King and the people — The Early Reformers — John Wycliffe— State of the Romish Church at this period — Doctrines and labors of Wycliffe — His persecutions — The Bible first given to the people — The Bomish clergy try to take the Bible from them — The Gospel preached in England — Death of Wycliffe — The Lollards — The first persecution in England — Cruelty of the Romish clergy — Martyrdom of Lord Cobham — Other Martyrs — Reign of Henry VIII. — Henry's desires induce him to assist the Reformers — Explanation of the support given by Henry to the Reformation — Fall of Wolsey — Cromwell and Cran- mer — The King declares himself head of the Church — The rupture with Rome — The effect

16 CONTENTS.

of the circulation of the Bible — Spread of the Information — The Bible made free — Tricks of the Romanists — The Nun of Kent — Suppression of the Convents — Shameful condition of the religious houses — The new Articles of Religion — The Roman Catholic insurrection — Tricks of the priests exposed to the people — The Pope excommunicates Henry — The Inter- dict— Th'' Martyr? of this reign — The Six Articles — Bishop Gardiner — His efforts to destroy Queen Catharine — Martyrdom of Anno Askew — Death of Henry — Edward VI. — The boy King — Progress of the Reformation — The work of Cranmer — Changes in the Church — Death of Edward — Bloody Mary — Her character — The Queen a Romanist — The Romish religion restored — Flight of the Protestant, clergy — The burning of John Rogers — The Reign of Terror begun — Martyrdoms dining this reign — Tyranny of the Queen and cruel- ties of the clergy — The people come to hate the Queen — Horrors of the reign of Romanism — Martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer — The 6cene in St. Mary's Church — Death of the vic- tim— Effect of this Martyrdom — Bonner's last victims — Hatred of the Queen — Her Death — Accession of Elizabeth — The Reformation accomplished — Tho new Bishops — Plots of the Romanists — Reign of James IL — Final failure of Romanism in England 395

LORD COBHAM 484

III. ANNE ASKEW 506

IV. LAURENCE SAUNDERS 532

V. ROWLAND TAYLOR 543

VI. RAWLINS WHITE 563

VII.

WILLIAM HUNTER 573

VIM. HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. . . 587

PART T.

THE VAUDOIS.

THE VAUDOIS.

i.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE VAUDOIS

CHURCH.

Description of the Vaudois Valleys — Origin of the Vaudois Church — Constitution of that Church — Its Ministry — Its Ri- tual— Its Creed — Early History — Hostility of Rome — Growth of the Papacy — The Vaudois refuse to submit to the Romish Church — First Persecutions of the Vaudois — The Pope pro- claims a Crusade against them — The Trials of the Church — The Era of the Reformation — Efforts of Rome to destroy Protestantism — Terrible sufferings of the Vaudois — John Louis Paschal— The Jesuits— Hostility of the House of Savoy to the Vaudois — War declared — The Count of Trinity enter9 the Valleys— The Roman Catholics commit their Women to the Protection of the Vaudois— The Solemn Covenant— Suf- ferings of the Valley Christians— Battle of the Pra Del Tob —The Vaudois Victorious— Return of Peace— The Priests

HARASS THE VALLEYS— WAR WITn FRANCE— THE PLAGUE— DEATH

of the Pastors— Aid from Geneva— Efforts of the Jesuits- Fresh Persecutions— The Propaganda— A Barbarous Edict— The flight to the Mountains — War in the Valleys— Exploits of Janavel — Baseness of the Roman Catholic Army — Thb "Piedmontese Easter" — Massacre of the Vaudois — Horrible Scenes — Protests of the Protestant Powers of Europe — A hollow Peace — Capture of the whole Vaudois Population — Banishment of the Vaudois— u The Glorious Return " — The Exiles cross the Alps and regain the Valleys— Siege of the balsille — a noble defence — escape of the garrison — peace —

19

oo CROSS AND CROWN.

The Vaudois allowed to return — Perfidy of the Duke of Savoy — The Duke and the Pope — The French Revolution — Napoleon protects the Vaudois — The Restoration — Renewed Sufferings — Justice at last — The Law of 1848 — Great Rejoic- ings—Scene in Turin.

N the Italian side of the higher Alps, the moun- tains fall gradually into the rich valleys and plains of Piedmont, from the Mediterranean to the borders of Switzerland. The scenery of this portion of Italy is exceedingly grand and beautiful. Three valleys of great interest and beauty open from the mountainsin to the Piedmontese plains. "Through each a rapid stream or mountain torrent, fed by per- petual snows and glaciers, rushes with a varying current, and mingles at length with the stately Po. Two of the vales, Lucerna and Perouse, widen as they descend from the crags above, and melt into the general softness of the Italian scene. Lucerna, the most beau- tiful, the most fertile, possesses unrivalled charms. Its thick and almost perpetual foliage, its groves of mul- berry trees, its woods of chestnut, the waving fields of wheat, its vineyards climbing up the mountain side, its temperate air, its countless hamlets, its innocent and happy people, seem to rest in perfect peace beneath the shelter of the encircling Alps. It would indeed be a paradise, exclaimed the historian Leger, if it were not so near the Jesuits at Turin. San Martino, the third val- ley, is haply less beautiful. It is a wild ravine pierced by a fierce mountain torrent, the Germanasca. On each side of the stream the huge Alps shoot upward, and

THE VAUDOIS. 2J

ranges of inaccessible cliffs and crags frown over the narrow vale beneath. Its climate is severe, its people hardy. In the upper part of the valley winter is almost perpetual, the snow lies for eight or nine months on the ground, the crops are scant}-, the herbage faint and rare, the shrill cry of the marmot, the shriek of the eagle, alone disturb the silence of the Vaudois Sabbath ; and in the clear bright air the graceful chamois is seen leaping from peak to peak of his mountain pastures." These valleys, says Dr. William Beattie, " are situated on the French and Italian frontiers, and combine, to a certain extent, the peculiarities of each. They belong to that division of the Alps, described in ancient geogra- phy as the Cottian range, or great barrier between Pied- mont and Dauphiny, and occupy the space where these mountains, laying aside their more savage aspect, are softened down into picturesquely wooded hills, green pastures, vine-covered slopes, and those fertile tracts stretching along the rivers, which yield a rich territory for the plough. Their situation has been defined with still greater precision by a native historian, who defines them as situated on the western confines of Piedmont, and included between the French frontier of Briancon, and the Italian provinces of Pignerol, Susa, and Saluzzo. Their extent is about twelve Italian miles from east to west, and nearly the same in the direction opposite, thus occupying a square of twenty-four French leagues. Taking the town of Pignerol as a point of survey, the spectator observes four different valleys diverging before

22 CROSS AND CROWN.

him, namely : that of Pragela or Clusone, towards the north, with Perouse or St. Martin at its further ex- tremity; on the west, the valley of Luzern, of which Angrogne is only a branch ; and on the south that of Rora, the least considerable, but the most elevated of the four which, collectively, form the Vallees Vaudoises, or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont." *

Within this little area, scarcely larger than the Dis- trict of Columbia, has existed from remote times a peculiar race of people, rarely numbering more than twenty thousand. They have retained their primitive appearance and manners to a greater degree than almost any other European community. They have always been noted for the simplicity and purity of their lives, and their absolute freedom from the ignorance, super- stition, and vice which have cursed the countries around them. The men are tall, well-made, graceful in action, vigorous and hardy. The women are fair, endowed with a native grace and refinement, and have always been noted for their chastity and modest deportment. Both sexes are frank, hospitable, peaceful and forbear- ing in disposition.

Soon after the introduction of Christianity into Italy by the Apostles, the people of these valleys became converts to the faith preached by St. Paul. They ac- cepted and taught the doctrines of the Apostles, and

*The Waldenses or Protestant Valleys of Piedmont, Bauphiny, And ike Ban Be La Roche. By "William Beattie, M. L>. London : George Virtue. 1838. page 7.

TUB VAUDOIS. 23

practised the simple rites or usages as described by Justin or Tertullian. They acknowledged the Holy Scriptures as their sole rule of faith, and rejected all that was not taught in the books of the New Testament. From the days of Constantine to the present time, they have never changed their faith, and have never altered in any important particular their religious observances.

Muston, in his " Israel of the Alps," to which the reader is referred for a most interesting and exhaustive history of the Vaudois, says : " Here, let me remark, we have one of the strongest intrinsic proofs of the apostolic descent of the Vaudois, for the Church of Rome was also, in its origin, the Apostolic Church, being under the guidance of St. Paul, and if the Vaudois had been separate from it from the beginning, they could not have been apostolic themselves ; if they had sepa- rated from it at a later period, without previously hav- ing had any independent existence, their existence wrould have dated only from that separation. But, on the contrary, they had existed from the commencement of the common life ; that life had been preserved among their mountains ; they might probably believe that it was also preserved elsewhere ; and wThen its corruptions became so striking, that the primitive apostolical char- acter of the Church of Rome was completely effaced, they refused to give it the name of Catholic, and showed in what it had departed from true Catholicity.

" It may, perhaps, be said that there were no Chris- tians in the Alps in the time of the Apostles. But the

2 A CROSS AND CROWN.

Apostolical Church did not die with the Apostles ; in the era of the martyrs the seeds of it were sown all over Italy. The Ambrosian office,* which the Vaudois were reproached for having retained after it had been abol- ished elsewhere, was not set up except in the Fourth Century; and the Epistle to the Laodiceans, which they preserved in some of their manuscripts, also leads us back to the same date.

" That the Vaudois, notwithstanding their small number, remained the representatives of the Universal Church, and were the precursors and not the disciples of the Reformation, is entirely owing to the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ. It may be that they did not understand it always so well as the Reformers; that they shared in some of the religious forms of the Romish Church; that they even admitted doctrinal articles which we do not admit at the present day (the distinc- tion, for example, betwixt mortal and venial sins) ; it is not their infallibility for which we would contend, but that which gave them their strength, their unity, their perseverance in the Gospel, in one word, their in- dividuality as a Church, at once Catholic when viewed with reference to the Bible, and Protestant when viewed

* St. Ambrose was Bishop of Milan from A. d. 374 to a. d. 397. He was one of the most eloquent of all those who protested against the corruptions and usurpations of the Church of Rome. St. Augustine was his disciple. Both acknowledged but two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. St. Ambrose denied the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, and openly denounced the worship of images as Paganism.

THE VAUDOIS. 23

in reference to Catholicism ; their maintenance of the absolute authority of the Word of God, and of the doc- trine of Salvation by Jesus Christ. The Vaudois, therefore, are not schismatics, but continued inheritors of the Church founded by the Apostles. This Church then bore the name of Catholic, and was persecuted by the Pagans. Afterwards, becoming powerful and per- secuting in its turn, it underwent a vitiation of its very nature in Catholicism, whilst it was preserved in the Vaudois Valleys simple, free, and pure, as in the time of persecution." *

From their residence in the Valleys, these Christians were termed Vaudois, or people of the Valleys. This term did not at first designate them as a religious sect, but was given to them merely because of their dwelling places. When Rome had launched against them her persecuting power, it became a term of reproach among Roman Catholics, and was, says Muston, " synonymous with magician or infidel." The Vaudois themselves called themselves only by the name of Christians.

" Their Pastors were designated Barbas. j- It was in the almost inaccessible solitude of a deep mountain pass that they had their school, where the whole influences of external nature were opposed to anything soft or

* The Israel of the Alps : A Complete History of the Waldenses of Pied- mont and their Colonies. By Alexis Muston, D.D. Translated by Rev. John Montgomery, A.M. 2 vols. Blackie & Son, London, 1S66. Vol. i. pp. 12, 13.

t Literally an uncle-^a, term always commanding respect in South- ern France.

26 CROSS AND CROWN.

yielding in the soul. They were required to commit to memory the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, the general epistles, and a part of those of St. Paul. They were instructed, moreover, during two or three succes- sive winters, and trained to speak in Latin, in the Ro- mance language, and in Italian. After this they spent some years in retirement, and then were set apart to the holy ministry by the administration of the Lord's Supper, and by imposition of hands. They were sup- ported by the voluntary contributions of the people. These were divided annually in a general synod ; one part was given to the ministers, one to the poor, and the third was reserved for the missionaries of the Church.

" These missionaries always went forth two and two, to wit, a young man and an old one. The latter was the Regulor, and his companion the Coadjutor. They traversed Italy, where they had stations organized in many places, and secret adherents in almost all the towns

" Each pastor was required to become a missionary in his turn. The younger ones were thus initiated into the delicate duties of evangelization — each of them being under the experienced guidance of a man of years, who, according to the discipline of his Church, was his superior, and whom he was bound to obey in everything as a matter of duty, and not merely out of deference. The old man, on his part, thus made his preparation for repose, by training for the Church successors worthy of it

THE VAUDOIS. 27

and of himself. His task being accomplished, he could die in peace, with the consolatory assurance of having committed the sacred trust of the Gospel into prudent and zealous hands.

" Besides this, the Barbas received instructions in some trade or profession, by which they might be able to provide for their own wants. Some were hawkers, the others artisans, the greater part physicians or sur- geons, and all were acquainted with the cultivation of the soil, the keeping of flocks, to the care of which they had been accustomed in their early years. Very few of them were married ; and their perpetual missions, their poverty, their missionary tours, their life always spent amidst warfare and dangers, make it easy to un- derstand the reason of their celibacy.

" In the annual synod, which was held in the Val- leys, inquiry was made concerning the conduct of the pastors, and changes of residence were made amongst them. The Barbas actually employed in the ministry were changed from place to place every three years — two of them always exchanging places with another, except the aged men, who were no longer removed. A general director of the Church was named at each Synod, with the title of President, or Moderator. The latter title became more prevalent, and continues to this day.

" The Vaudois Barbas were bound to visit the sick, whether sent for or not. They nominated arbiters in disputes : they admonished those who behaved ill, and if remonstrances produced no effect, they went the

CROSS AXD CROU'X.

length of excommunication ; but it was very rare. Their preaching, catechizing, and other exercises of in- struction and devotion, were generally similar to those of the Reformed churches, except that the worshippers pronounced, with a low voice, the prayer which preceded and that which followed the sermon. The Vaudois likewise had hymns, which they only sung in private; and which, moreover, agrees with what we know of the customs of the primitive Church.

" Their doctrines were equally analogous, or rather were remarkably identical with those of the apostolic times, and of the earliest fathers of the Church. They may be briefly summed up in these few words : The absolute authority and inspiration of the Bible — the Trinity in the Godhead — the sinful state of man — and free salvation by Jesus Christ — but, above all, faith working by lover *

Such was the organization, and such were the doc- trines of the Apostolic Church of the Valleys of Pied- mont.

The Church of Rome began by degrees to add to and change the faith and practices it had received from the Apostles. As it became strong and powerful it became corrupt. It began to neglect spiritual things, and to strive for temporal power, and each innovation upon, each addition to its ancient faith and practice was made for the deliberate object of obtaining and enforcing the

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. i. pp. 18, 19, 20.

THE VAUDOIS. 29

supremacy it claimed over the kingdoms of the world. The pretensions of the Roman Church were stoutly re- sisted by the bishops and clergy of other lands. St. Ambrose, the famous Bishop of Milan, though he was subsequently forced to submit, always protested against the Bishop of Rome styling himself the successor of St. Peter, declaring that nobody could pretend to call him- self the successor of St. Peter unless he had the faith of St. Peter, and he openly denounced Pope Liberius as an Arian. Philastrius, Bishop of Brescia, a# contempo- rary of St. Ambrose, Gaudentius, successor to Philas- trius, Rufinus of Aquileia, and others of equal import- ance, sustain St. Ambrose in his views, and unquali- fiedly condemn many things upon which the Church of Rome now insists. Mansuetus, Bishop of Milan, A. d. 677, denied the supremacy of the Pope, and in support of his assertion that the Pope was not the head of the Church, " directs attention to the fact that the Councils of Nice, Constantinople, Chalcedon, and many others, had been convoked by the emperors, and not by the Pope."

Rome, however, was not dismayed by this opposition, and did not for a single moment desist from her efforts to subdue the world. She began by attacking the dio- ceses nearest to the Eternal City. When arguments could not prevail, bribery and corrupt practices were resorted to. Various superstitions and mystical observ- ances were invented to impress and control the weak- minded ; a gorgeous ritual was established to take captive

SO CROSS AND CROWN.

the imagination ; unlawful powers were vested in the clergy, to bind them more closely to the Pope. The Word of God — that great protest against the Roman innovations — was taken from the people and shut up, and learning and mental culture of all kinds were dis- couraged. The whole object of Rome was to make men so weak, so ignorant, so superstitious that they should not be able to detect the impositions practised upon them. Learning was almost driven from Europe and confined to the followers of Mahomet. The Pope and his adherents boldly struck at the Kings and Princes of Europe, well knowing that if they could reduce them to submission they could rely upon the civil arm to compel the obedience of the common people. It was an age of ignorance, and men were superstitious. Then, as now, Rome worked by means of these qualities. It is known to the reader how well she succeeded. For eight hun- dred years the contest was carried on. Kings and min- isters might change their policy, Rome never wavered, and at last the Pope was successful. The Church was supreme. Emperors and Kings bowed in humble sub- mission to the Pontiff, who was the supreme lord of Europe. No one dared openly to oppose the Pope. He silenced all opposition with the axe, the sword, the torch, or the rack. Yet, at the very summit of its tem- poral triumph, the Roman Church was rotten to the core. It was the most corrupt institution on earth. It had departed from the pure faith committed to it by the Apostles, and had inaugurated a reign of corruption

THE VAUDOIS. 31

and oppression such as has no parallel in history. Apostolic Christianity sought to raise man from the dust ; the faith of Rome degraded him to the level of the beasts of the field.

During all these centuries the Vaudois Church con- tinued to exist, nestled under the shadow of its moun- tains, and safe in its obscurity. The Popes had greater things to think of than the subjugation of these Chris- tians of the Valleys. They had kings and dominions to subdue. The Vaudois, on their part, beheld with horror the gradual departure of the Roman Church from its primitive purity and simplicity. Warned by the career of Rome, this mountain Church clung with greater faith than ever to the authority and teachings of the Scriptures. It refused from the first to recognize the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, stoutly denied that the Pope was the head of the Church, and refused to submit to his authority. When the worship of ima- ges was established, in the ninth century, the Vaudois refused to join in it, and denounced it as idolatrous. They rejected the Mass from the first as abhorrent to the pure doctrines of Christianity, and unconditionally refused to worship the Virgin. They maintained that there was but one Mediator between God and sinful man — our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ — and denied that either the Virgin or the Saints had any power to help men, or to hear their prayers. They rejected the Pope's claim to supremacy over Kings, and held to the absolute independence of every State within its own

32 CROSS AND CROWN.

limits. Seemingly they took no share in the great struggle which was going on around them in all parts of Europe, but in reality they were exercising a power- ful influence upon the world. Their missionaries were everywhere, proclaiming the simple truths of Christi- anity, and stirring the hearts of men to their very depths. In Hungary, in Bohemia, in France, in Eng- land, in Scotland, as well as in Italy, they wrere work- ing with tremendous, though silent power. Lollard, who paved the way for Wycliffe in England, was a missionary from these Valleys. The Albigenses, whose struggle with Rome forms one of the most touching episodes of history, owed their knowledge of the truth to the Vaudois missions. In Germany and Bohemia the Vaudois teachings heralded, if they did not hasten, the Reformation, and Huss and Jerome, Luther and Calvin did little more than carry on the work begun by the Vaudois missionaries.

It is difficult to point out the exact time at which Rome first directed her attention to the Vaudois. There is still preserved a Vaudois poem, called The Noble Lesson, dating from the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, which relates instances of persecution previous to that time ; but it is believed that the first general persecution of the Vaudois occurred about the year 1209. This was more of a political than a religious warfare. It was brought about by the hostility of the Emperor Otho IV. to the Duke of Savoy. The duke had refused to support him against

THE VAUDOIS. 33

his rival, Philip of Swabia, and, in revenge, the Em- peror authorized the Archbishop of Turin, who was a Prince of the Empire, to destroy the Vaudois, who were the subjects of the Duke of Savoy, by force of arms. Very little was accomplished, however, by this effort, and the primitive Church continued to exist in safety down to the very period of the Reformation. " The Vaudois," says Muston, " are the chain which unites the reformed churches with the first disciples of our Saviour. It is in vain that Popery, renegade from evangelical verities, has a thousand times sought to break this chain ; it resists all her efforts. Empires have crumbled — dynasties have fallen — but this chain of scriptural testimony has not been broken, because its strength is not from men, but from God."

This pure Church, existing so near to the Eternal City, was a constant rebuke to the Papacy, and repeated efforts were made to win the mountain Christians over to the faith of Rome. All were unsuccessful, however, and the Roman Catholic Church began the attempt to conquer the consciences of the Vaudois, which for five hundred years it carried on without remorse, only to meet with a crushing defeat in the end.

About the year 1308 an attempt was made by the Inquisitors to force the Valley of Angrogna into Romanism, but the inhabitants rose in arms, and chased them from the Valley.

In 1472 Amadeus IX., Duke of Savoy, died, leaving his throne to his widow Yolande, the sister of Louis XI.

34 CROSS AND CROWN.

of France. On the 23d of January, 1476, "without having previously found any fault with the Vaudois," the duchess, instigated by the priests, commanded the Lords of Pignerol and Cavour to use any means within their power to compel the Vaudois to enter the Church of Rome. The Vaudois, on their part, demanded that the Romish Church should be restored to its primitive purity. The duchess then called upon her great vas- sals to join her in more decisive measures ; but before she could put her designs in force, she was seized and carried off by the Duke of Burgundy, who feared she would give assistance to her brother, the King of France, with whom he was at war.

Yolande was succeeded by her second son, Charles I., who resolved to continue the work his mother had begun. In 1485, he caused an investigation of the doctrines and practices of the Vaudois to be made, and in 1486 he laid the result of this investigation before the Pope. This report showed the Pope how wide was the difference between his own faith and that of the mountain Church, and how great the danger to Rome of allowing this leaven of truth to remain undisturbed in the very heart of Europe.

Pope Innocent VIII. was alarmed for his Church. He bad not believed that so much truth had been left in the world, and he resolved to destroy it. Pope, though he was, his personal character was infamous. Bound by his vows to a life of celibacy, he was yet the

-- within

Church

; rimitive

cw : bat before tn ned

the Kin? of

*&m of the

top to Home ^ Indian

•

THE VAUDOIS. 35

father of eight illegitimate children.* The humblest Vaudois could show a cleaner record than this Pontiff. Nevertheless, Innocent resolved that the Yaudois should no longer exist, and, in 1487, he proclaimed a general crusade against them, and summoned all the Catholic powers of Europe to take up arms for their extermi- nation, " absolving beforehand all who should take part in this crusade from all ecclesiastical penalties, general or special, setting them free from the obligation of vows which they might have made, legitimating their possession of goods which they might have wrongfully acquired, and concluding with a promise of the remis- sion of all sins to every one who should slay a heretic. Moreover, he annulled all contracts subscribed in favor of the Yaudois, commanded their domestics to abandon them, forbade any one to give them any assistance, and authorized all and sundry to seize upon their goods."

The execution of the orders of the Pontiff was intrusted to Albert Cattanee, or, as he is generally called, Albertus de Capitaneis, archdeacon of Cre- mona, who was made Legate. Under his orders there was assembled an army of adventurers, brigands, rob- bers, and assassins from all parts of Italy, who were attracted by the hope of plunder; and to this force the King of France and Duke of Savoy added a column of 18,000 regular troops. The Legate began his opera-

* An old distich of that period thus refers to this fact : " Octo nocens genuit tolidemque puellas; Hunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrem.^

36 CROSS A SD CR 0 WN.

tions by sending into the Vaudois settlements a host of monks as missionaries, hoping to convert the people by their preaching. These missionaries were unsuccessful, however; and then the army was directed upon the Valleys of Angrogna and Pragela. The Vaudois were but poorly armed, but they met the invaders, at every point and routed them with great slaughter. In the Val Louise, in France, however, Cattanee was more successful, and he put the entire population, some 3000 persons, to the sword.

From this time the Vaudois never knew any rest. Their peaceful valleys became the scene of a constant struggle. The monks and priests took care that the persecutions thus begun by the command of the Pope should never cease. Many of them established them- selves in the Valleys, under the protection of the civil authorities, and the Inquisition was, somewhat later, established at Pignerol and Turin. The Vaudois vil- lages were visited with fire and sword. Several of the Barbas were seized, condemned and burned at the stake, and the people were over and over again forced to abandon their pleasant homes and take refuge in the mountains, in order to escape the cruelty of the priests and the soldiers whom they brought with them. Yet scarcely any embraced the Roman faith. It was a season of fearful trial to them, but they endured it all, " as seeing Him who is invisible." In all the accounts of the persecutions which have come down to us we read that the priests were the most active and intole-

THE VAUDOIS. 37

rant. The people of Rome themselves were so indig- nant at the cruelties practised by order of the Pope that they burned down the Papal Palace, upon the death of Paul III *

Thus the time passed on until the Reformation dawned upon the world. The Vaudois were well pleased at this general awakening of the human mind. They entered into correspondence with the Reformers in various parts of Europe, and sent several of their Barbas to them to instruct them. The Reformers on their part, admitted the antiquity of the Vaudois rites and the purity of their faith, and treated the mountain Church with the greatest respect. On the 12th of September, 1532, a Synodal Assembly was held at Angrogna. It was attended by a number of deputies from the Reformed Churches in France and Switzer- land. Among them was William Farrel, of France, to whom we shall refer again in another part of this work. He manifested the greatest interest in the manuscript copies of the Bible which the Vaudois had preserved from the earliest times, and at his instance the entire Bible was translated into French, and sent as a free gift from the Vaudois to the French Church.

But while the Reformation brought the Vaudois into active correspondence with the Reformers of Europe, it also brought to them a double share of persecution at the hands of Rome. Martyrdoms innumerable now

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. i. p. 93.

38 CROSS AND CROWN.

occurred. " There is not a town in Piedmont," said a Vaudois Barba, writing about this time, " in which some of our brethren have not been put to death." In 1540, the Jesuits began the warfare which they have since waged upon civilization. In 1545, the Council of Trent assembled. In the deliberations of this body the Jesuits took an active part, and ultimately succeeded in overcoming all opposition, and in reorganizing and consolidating the Church of Rome upon their own plan. By the decrees of this Council, the Pope was placed above all earthly sovereigns, and his commands were made superior to the laws of any civil State. A rigid priestly despotism was enforced upon the Roman Catholic world, and liberty of conscience was denounced as the deadliest of all sins. Opinions and manners were to be decided in Rome for all the world. There was not a relation of life, a thought of the mind, a feeling of the heart that was to be free from the tyran- nical direction of Rome. Men were not to be allowed liberty of any description, and the decrees of Rome were to be enforced by the most barbarous persecutions. The Inquisition was set up again, with the full sanction of the Council, and by means of this terrible weapon the Church reduced Italy to universal obedience, every- where silencing opposition with persecution. In Venice the Protestants were drowned in the Adriatic Sea, and in Rome they were burned. In Germany, Charles V., at the command of the Pope and the " Fathers of the Church," began the first of the great religious wars

THE VAUDOIS. 39

which spread ruin, sorrow, and death all over his fair domain. In France the King, at the instance of the Church, drove the Huguenots into open revolt, and in other parts of Europe, the Inquisition and the Jesuits marked their progress by the blood of the martyrs who died under their cruelties.

The Vaudois were the especial objects of the hatred of Rome, and this period of their history is marked by many martyrdoms. The Pope and the Jesuits found time to note almost each individual Vaudois who re- fused to submit to them, and in October, 1566, the Pontiff threatened to break off diplomatic relations with the Duke of Savoy if he refused to put to death a poor Protestant named George Olivet. " Jordan Tertian was burned alive at Suza ; Hyppoly te Rossier was burned at Turin ; Villermin Ambroise was hanged on the Col de Meane; Ugon Chiamps, of Fenestrelle, was taken at Suza, and conducted to Turin, where his bowels were torn out, and flung into a basin, without his sufferings being terminated even by this frightful torture. Peter Geymonat, of Bobi, died at Lucerna, with a living cat in the interior of his body ; Mary Romaine was buried alive at Roche-Plate ; Madeleine Fontane suffered the same fate at St. John ; Michel Gonet, a man almost a hundred years of age, was burned alive at Sarcena ; Susanna Michelin, at the same place, was left in a dying state upon the snow. Bartholomew Frache, having been hacked with sabres, had his wounds filled with quicklime, and expired in this manner at Fenil

40 CROSS AND CROWN.

Daniel Michelin had his tongue torn out at Bobi, for having praised God. James Baridon died, covered with brimstone matches, which they had fastened between his fingers, and about his lips, his nostrils, and all parts of his body. Daniel Revel had his mouth filled with gunpowder, which was set on fire, and the explosion of which tore his head in pieces. Mary Mounin was taken in the Combe of Liousa, the flesh of her cheeks and of her chin was removed, so that the jaws were exposed, and in this way she was left to die. Paul Gamier was slowly mangled at Rora; Thomas Mar- guet mutilated in an indescribable manner at the Fort of Mirabouc, and Susanna Jaquin cut in pieces at La Tour. A number of young women of Taillaret, in order to escape outrages still more dreadful to them than death, flung themselves from a precipice, and per- ished among the rocks. Sarah Rostagnol was cleft up through the middle of her body, and was left in a dying state on the road from Eyrals to Lucerna. Anne Charbonnier was impaled alive, and borne in this state like a banner from St. Jean to La Tour. At Paesane, Daniel Rambaud had his nails torn out, then his fin- gers cut off, then his feet and hands were severed by blows of hatchets, and then his arms and legs were separated from his body upon each refusal that he made to abjure the Gospel.

" There is not a rock in the Vaudois Valleys which may not be looked on as a monument of death, not a meadow but has been the scene of some execution, not

THE VAUDOIS. 41

a village but has had its martyrs. No history, however complete, can contain a record of them all.

"In 1560 many of the Reformed or Vaudois of Piedmont were made prisoners, having been surprised in the very act of social prayer and religious assemblies beyond the limits of the actual territory of the Vaudois Valleys ; and by a procedure more wortny of Mahome- tans than of Christians they were condemned to be burned three days after their incarceration, without pleadings, without examination, without the formalities of trial, and simply on the strength of the accusation alone. However, if they made profession of Popery, they were set at liberty ; but if they refused to go to Mass their heresy was demonstrated ; in that case they had these three days allowed them to abjure, and if they did not yield, an end was put to their life.

" Many prisoners also perished without its ever being known what became of them. . . ."

One of the most notable of these Vaudois martyrs was the eloquent and gifted young preacher, John Louis Paschal. He was captured in Calabria, in the kingdom of Naples, whither he had' gone as a missionary. He was taken to Rome and there condemned to death. He was kept in prison for a long time, his tormentors using every effort to induce him to recant, but he could not be moved either by fear or bribes. In September, 1560, he was taken to the square of St. Angelo, and there burned in the presence of Pope Pius IV. and the great dignitaries of the Roman Church. When his body was consumed, his ashes were thrown into the Tiber.

42 CROSS AND CROWN.

The great square of Turin was the scene of many martyrdoms. The victims were guilty of but one offence, that of maintaining the Gospel as they had received it from the Apostles. At many of these sad scenes, the people of Turin, moved with sympathy for the sufferers, wept bitterly, but the priests, especially the Jesuits and Franciscans, were pitiless. Rome had become drunk with the blood of the saints, and the followers of Ignatius Loyola were proof against the feeling of pity. Some of the monasteries kept in their pay hired bands of ruffians and cut-throats, whom they sent into the Vaudois Valleys for the especial purpose of " exterminating the heretics." These wretches per- formed their work well. They murdered old men and children, with the most barbarous cruelty, they ravished women and then killed them, and burned villages and laid waste farms and vineyards. To all these acts the priests gave their sanction. Murder, rape, arson, and robbery, were perfectly lawful in their eyes when used against the Vaudois. The priests prevented the Dukes of Savoy from knowing the actual condition of their subjects. They described the Vaudois as rebels, sorce- rers, despisers of all religion, and as the greatest ene- mies to God and man the earth contained. Again and again did the Piedmontese sovereigns, seeking to inves- tigate the matter for themselves, discover the falseness of these charges. The priests, however, did not aban- don them, but continued to poison the mind of the duke against his subjects, and the duke, who was too

THE VAUDOIS. 43

often weak and superstitious, the slave of the priests, allowed the " Holy Church " to have its own way, and placed all his power at its command.

All the ingenuity, all the cruelty of Rome, however, could not conquer the consciences of the Christians of the Vaudois Valleys. These brave men and women could suffer hardship, persecution, and even death, but they could not deny the religion which sustained them in the midst of these trials. Scarcely any abandoned the primitive faith. They defended themselves as well as they could against the attacks of the priests and their hirelings, and, at length, in despair, appealed to their sovereign for justice and protection. They pro- tested that they had ever been loyal to. their sovereign, that they were honest and virtuous people, who feared God, and scrupulously obeyed the civil law, and that all they desired was to be allowed to live in peace and be permitted to worship God as their consciences required them. Their appeal was treated with con- tempt, and the Duke of Savoy joined the Pope and the kings of France and Spain, in the new crusade against the Yaudois, which the Pope had succeeded in organ- izing in 1560.

Before proceeding to open war, however, the Duke of Savoy, influenced by his nephew, Philip, Count of Racconis, who was disposed to befriend them, attempted to win the people of the valleys over to Romanism by sending missionaries among them. The Yaudois, on their part, refused to listen to the monks, or to attend

44 CROSS AND CROWN.

Mass. They drew up a formal statement of their reli- gious doctrines and practices, and forwarded it to the duke. They assured him of their loyalty to him, and asked that they might be permitted to publicly discuss their own faith and that of the Romish Church with the missionaries who were to be sent among them, offering to abandon their doctrines if they were proved to be erroneous. The duke sent this statement to Rome, with an intimation that he thought their request for discussion was only fair. Pope Pius IV. made answer, " I wrill never permit that points which have been canonically decided should be opened to discus- sion. The dignity of the Church requires that every one should submit himself to her constitutions, disput- ing nothing ; and the duty of my office is to proceed with all rigor against those who do not choose to be in subjection thereto."

There being no hope of a peaceable conversion of the Vaudois, the duke wTas compelled to proceed to hostili- ties. The Papal Nuncio and the priests gave Emma- nuel Philibert no rest, and about the beginning of the month of October, 1560, imperiously demanded that he should obey the orders of the Pope, and begin the war at once. The duke weakly complied. He organized a strong army under the command of the Count of Trinity, an able general. "He levied troops," says Muston, "in Piedmont, promised a full pardon to all condemned persons, fugitives from justice, vagabonds, and outlaws, who should enrol themselves as comba-

THE VAUDOIS. 4,}

tants against the Vaudois, in whose sight persecuting fanaticism already permitted its triumphant joy to break out. Their friends at a distance repaired to the Valleys to persuade those who were dear to them to leave the scene of danger. The inhabitants of the plain took away the infants they had sent thither to be nursed. Catholics of kind and humane disposition, who had relatives in the mountains, entreated those whom they loved to abjure rather than suffer them- selves to be destroyed. It seemed that all was on the point of being consumed in a total and inevitable destruction. The consternation was general."

The Count of Lucerna, a powerful noble, was strongly attached to the Vaudois, and he exerted all his influ- ence with them to induce them to yield to the demands of the Pope, or at least to send away their pastors,, and to allow the Mass to be said in their Valleys until the storm had blown over. They thanked him for the interest he had shown in their behalf, but refused to take his advice. " We must, above all," they said, " do that which the love of God and of truth directs us. If the circumstances in which we are placed are serious, our duties are still more serious. The times may change, but the Bible never changes, and our con- sciences cannot be altered."

" Let your pastors, at least, go and hide themselves for a few days," said the count. " They will come and celebrate Mass at Angrogna ; you will not attend it ; the duke will be satisfied, and the armies will be withdrawn."

4G CROSS AND CROWN.

"But why this hypocrisy?" asked the Vaudois. " Must we do good as men do evil, concealing it ? No ! May God protect us ! We will not be ashamed of His ministers, for then He would be ashamed of us."

The count was overcome with grief at the failure of his efforts. He regarded the Vaudois as lost.

Meanwhile the army under the Count of Trinity was rapidly organized. The count published a proclama- tion, which was posted in all the villages, that the Vaudois country would be ravaged and destroyed by fire and sword if the people did not embrace the Eoman Catholic faith. On the 1st of November, 1560, the army commenced its march, and encamped at Bubiano, a village of the Plain of Piedmont. It was made up of adventurers, and was without discipline. From the commencement of the march, the soldiers began to commit all sorts of excesses, and, believing themselves to be already in the Vaudois country, made Catholics as well as Protestants the victims of their outrages.

The Vaudois, on their part, were not idle. At the first warning of the danger which threatened them, they began to gather together their possessions most necessary to their subsistence, and to take measures for their common protection and safety. The pastors redoubled their labors. The religious assemblies were never more largely attended. A day of solemn fasting and prayer was observed, after which all joined in the public celebration of the Lord's Supper, as a preparation for their coming trials. This done, they collected their

THE VAUDOIS. 47

flocks and herds, and abandoning their homes in the Valleys, set out for retreats which had been designated in the fastnesses of the high mountains. They gave up everything to their persecutors but their faith, and that they took with them to the mountains. There in caves and fissures of the rocks they hid themselves until they could prepare more substantial habitations. " Thus," says Gilles, "did these poor people prepare, with in- credible resolution and cheerfulness, to receive from the hand of God all the afflictions with which it might seem good to Him to afflict them. Nothing was to be heard from vale to mountain but the psalms and hymns of those who transported the sick, the infirm, the aged, the women and children to the securest retreats of their rocks." " So for eight days," adds Richard, " you could see nothing but people passing and repassing on these rugged paths, diligently bearing luggage and little arti- cles of furniture ; and among these worthy people none regretted his property, so resolute were they to await patiently all the good pleasure of God."

The Count of Racconis, Philip of Savoy, touched by the heroism of the Vaudois, wrote to his uncle, the duke : " These unhappy people persist in their opinions, but they are not willing to take up arms against their sovereign; some of them are going away from the place, others courageously await martyrdom in the midst of their families — a marvellous sight, and very piteous to behold."

The army continued to advance, carrying every-

48 CROSS AXD CROWN.

thing before it, and visiting its outrages upon Catho- lics and Protestants alike. The Catholic inhabitants of the country, now reduced to despair, "and desi- ring/' says Muston, "to secure the maidenly chastity of their daughters from the brutal grossness of that law- less soldiery, did a thing worthy of the most admired times. Knowing the rigid purity of the morals of the Yaudois, the strength of their fastnesses, and the devo- tedness of those who were to defend them, they saw no refuge for their children more safe than these very retreats, and did not hesitate to confide the honor of their families to the virtuous fidelity of the Vaudois cottagers. Accordingly many of them took their trem- bling wives and children, and left them amongst these heroic mountaineers.

" It was surely wonderful to see these young Catholic women committed with confidence to the care of the Protestants, at the moment when Catholicism was march- ing in arms against them. But this confidence was not misplaced. The Vaudois defended the sacred charge which had been intrusted to them with as much courage and respect as their own families. Without for a mo- ment entertaining the thought of making precious host- ages of these young people who were in their hands, and of taking advantage of the circumstance against their adversaries, they generously exposed themselves in their defence, concealing them instead of exposing them to danger ; and after having preserved them from out- rage, they restored them to their friends, without dream-

THE VAUDOIS. 49

ing of any recompense. Incredible as this fact may appear, all the historians of the times, Gilles, Richard, De Thou, and Crespin, make mention of it; and it affords the most beautiful testimony which their adver- saries could have rendered to the virtue and generosity of the Vaudois."*

The Catholic army was at first successful. The Vaudois were but poorly armed, and had not contem- plated a forcible resistance at the outset; but seeing that death or apostasy was to be their fate, they took up arms, and fortifying the mountain passes, made a stout resistance to their foes. A few victories supplied in a great measure their deficiency in weapons, and thus they managed to hold the Count of Trinity in the lower Valleys until the winter wrapped the mountains in snow and froze the streams. The Vaudois, being natives of the country, found less trouble than their adversaries in carrying on a winter campaign. They would issue frequently from their refuges, and falling upon detached parties of the Catholic soldiery, would drive them into the plains below, or hurl them headlong over the cliffs. In one or two instances five or ten men held a moun- tain pass against a regiment. Fifty Vaudois once defeated twelve hundred soldiers. The crusaders defil- ing through some difficult pass would be often startled, and put to flight with heavy loss, by a furious avalanche of stones and heavy trees hurled down upon them by the Vaudois from the heights above.

4 * The Israel of the Alps. Vol. i. p. 252.

50 CROSS AXD CROWN.

Yet, even though successful in so many encounters, the Vaudois were themselves great sufferers. Their con- dition was very pitiful. Their places of refuge were lo- cated high up in the mountains in the midst of snow and ice, and their dwelling places were rude huts of stone which scarcely protected them from the inclemency of the weather. Far below them they could see their pleasant Valleys and comfortable homes in the possession of the Romish soldiers, while their simple churches were used by the priests for the celebration of the Mass. Yet no one wavered. All were resolved to endure unto the end, to suffer anything rather than abandon the truth. They were well aware that with the returning spring their ene- mies would make another effort for their destruction, and they took measures to ensure their common safety. On the 21st of January, 1561, they held a solemn assembly on the hill of Sibaoud, a platform of snow " over against the mountains of Sestrieres and of the chain of Guine- vert, where the Clusone takes its rise from the glaciers." In order to reach the meeting place, the delegates had to cross the mountains by unfrequented paths, which the snow had rendered almost impassable. On the previous day proclamation had been made throughout the Valleys that the inhabitants must, within twenty-four hours, " make up their minds to go to Mass, or to endure all the penalties reserved for heretics — the stake, the gal- leys, the rack, the gibbet, and all the other corollaries of Catholicism." The Vaudois leaders at once resorted to prayer for guidance and assistance. When they rose

THE VAUDOIS. 51

from their knees, the delegates of Pragela and of the Valley of Lucerna stood up and pronounced this solemn Covenant, which was sworn to by the who^ assembly in the midst of the ice and snow by which they were surrounded :

" In the name of the Vaudois churches of the Alps, of Dauphiny, and of Piedmont, which are all here united, and whose representatives we are, we promise, with our hands upon the Bible, and in the presence of God, that all our Valleys will courageously stand by one another in what relates to religion, without prejudice to the obedience due to their lawful superiors. We promise to maintain the Bible, entire and without admixture, according to the usage of the true Apostolic Church, steadfastly continuing in this holy religion, although it be at the peril of our lives, in order that we may be able to leave it to our children intact and pure, as we have received it from our fathers. We promise aid and succor to our persecuted brethren, and not to regard individual interests, but the common cause, and not to wait upon men, but upon God."

Simple and sublime words, and worthy of the noble men by whom they were uttered.

United by this Covenant, the Vaudois renewed their efforts to meet the Romish army. They increased the strength of their fortifications, established new posts and a code of signals, by which news of importance could be rapidly communicated from point to point, and hurried forward the preparation of pikes and such other

52 CROSS AND CROWN.

weapons as they could procure. Their best marksmen were organized into what was called a Flying Company, whose duty it was to be in readiness to march with speed to any point threatened by the enemy. Two pastors were detailed to accompany this force, in order to conduct religious worship for them, and to prevent them from needlessly shedding blood in the excitement of battle.

In the month of February, 1561, the Count of Trinity again put his army in motion, this time directing his efforts against the Valley of Angrogna. At the upper end of this valley was the spot the Vaudois had chosen as a stronghold. It was called the Pra Del Tor. Pra Del Tor, says Muston, " is not situated on a height, but in a deep recess amongst the mountains. It is the bottom of a valley, savage and austere as the peaks of the Alps, remote from observation, and free from bustle as a nook of the forest. The steep mountain slopes bring down into this deep dell the headwaters of the torrent of Angrogna, which escapes amongst the rocks. This verdant basin, surrounded with frightful precipices, seems a dark crater, yawning at the feet of the traveller who views it from the lofty peaks, and looks like an oasis in the desert when he has descended into it. A difficult path, which winds among and around the rocks, is the only outlet by which visitors can enter or depart from it." It was along this path, so difficult, and so capable of defence, that the Count of Trinity was obliged to march his army. The capture of Pra

THE VAUDOIS. 53

Del Tor would have been a great gain to the crusaders, for here the Vaudois had placed their families for safety. Here had long been established their seminary at which their Barbas were trained, and here they had collected their principal supplies of food and arms. They fully appreciated the importance of the position, and fortified the defile leading to it as far as their limited resources would allow them.

The Count of Trinity continued his march up the valley, and early in February reached the entrance to the Pra Del Tor. On the 14th of February, he made a sharp attack with two columns upon the Yaudois defences. The first column was met with determination by the Vaudois and put to flight. At this moment the other column was seen painfully making its way along the mountain side. The defenders allowed this force to become entangled in the ravine, and then falling upon it cut it to pieces. Its commander was knocked down with a stone, and his head was cut off with his own sword. The entire force would have been destroyed by the Vaudois, but for the interference of the pastor of the Flying Company, who, in order to give the fugitives a chance to escape, rushed into the fight, and called upon his men to unite with him in thanks to God for the victory they had won.

During the battle the Vaudois families which had taken refuge in the Pra Del Tor remained in constant prayer to God for success. Their prayer was answered, and they were saved. The victory threw into the

54 CROSS AND CROWJY.

hands of the Vaudois large quantities of arms, armor, and ammunition, which had been abandoned by their enemy in their flight, and which they greatly needed.

Beaten at the Pra Del Tor, the Count of Trinity fell back into the lower Valley, burning and ravaging as he went; the Vaudois followed him, and endeavored, by throwing up a series of intrenchments across this part of the Valley, to hold him back ; but in a few days he advanced again, and by the vigor and success of his movements obliged them to abandon the lower Valley, and confine their defence to the upper portion and the mountains.

On the 17th of March, 1561, the Sabbath day, the Count of Trinity renewed the attack upon Pra Del Tor, with a force of 7000 men. The soldiers displayed great gallantry, and the attack was conducted with skill and vigor, but it was unsuccessful. The soldiers made charge after charge, but only to be hurled back by the heroic Vaudois. Even the Spanish infantry, the flower of the whole force, was routed with terrible loss. The Count of Trinity burst into tears as he beheld the sufferings of his troops, while the men themselves began to murmur and to refuse to continue the fight, exclaiming, "God fights for them, and we do them wtoikjT

The Vaudois might have followed up their victory by a pursuit which would have utterly destroyed the Roman Catholic army ; but they did not take this step. " The principal leaders, and especially the ministers,"

THE VAUDOIS. 55

says Gilles, " would not consent to that pursuit, for they had resolved from the beginning, that when in the last extremity they were forced to defend themselves by arms, they would keep always within the limits of legitimate defence, both out of respect for their superiors, and in order to spare human blood, and that in every victory granted to them by the God of armies, they would use their victory as moderately as possible."

The Count of Trinity now proposed a truce, to which the Yaudois consented. On the night of the lGth of April, without giving notice to the Yaudois of the termination of the truce, he put his army in motion towards the Pra Del Tor, hoping to take its defenders by surprise, and capture the place by the suddenness of his treacherous attack. The religious habits of the Yaudois now stood them in good service. It was their custom to begin every day with public prayer, and to conclude this exercise before sunrise. As they came forth from their place of worship on the morning of the 17th of April, the first rays of the sun lit up the gloom of the valley, and revealed the Romish soldiers in motion down the side of the mountain.

The Yaudois at once divined their intentions, and the alarm was sounded. Six resolute men posted them- selves in the defile leading to the Pra Del Tor, at a point where it was so narrow that only two men could march abreast. As the enemy appeared around a bend in the rocks, these intrepid marksmen opened fire upon them. The first two who appeared were shot down,

56 CROSS AXD CROWN.

and the two who followed them. This brought the column to a halt, and for a quarter of an hour the six brave men held the army in check.

The delay thus gained was of the highest importance. It gave the other Vaudois time to rally at the point of danger, and these now gathered in great numbers along the sides of the mountains which enclosed the defile. The Catholic army had now gotten fairly into the pass, and had become so entangled in it that it could not move either way. The head of the column had halted irresolutely unable to pass the point swept by the fire of the six heroes, and the remainder of the troops had crowded up from the rear, unable to deploy in conse- quence of the narrowness of the pathway.

Suddenly, at a given signal, the sides of the moun- tain seemed to quiver, and from either hand there descended upon the soldiers a mass of huge rocks and logs, which crushed whole companies where they stood. The Catholics were seized with a sudden panic, hun- dreds were swept over the cliffs into the abyss below. The army wavered, and turned to flee, followed all the way along that dreadful path of death by the fatal shower of stones which filled the whole Valley with its thunderous sound. The rout was complete, and the Vaudois, springing forward in pursuit, chased the cru- saders into the lower Valley. The Vaudois lost not a man ; but the Catholics were terribly cut up.

This last victory was decisive. The soldiers were completely disheartened by their want of success, and

THE VAUDOIS. 57

vowed they would never march into the mountains again. They deserted in great numbers, and the ( 'ouut of Trinity fell siek. The Duke of Savoy, glad to put an end to the war, recalled his army, and made peace with the Vaudois on the -3th of June, 1561. By the terms of this treaty, he granted the Vaudois am- nesty for past offences ; liberty of conscience, and the right to conduct their worship in public in their own Valleys, with permission to such as had abjured to return to their own Church ; he restored all confiscated property of the Vaudois ; gave leave to the banished and fugitives to return to their native country ; and released his prisoners.

This treaty was greeted with a howl of rage by the Roman Catholic clergy. The Nuncio protested against it, and the Pope complained bitterly of it to the Consistory. Nothing would satisfy the Pon- tiff and the Jesuits but the total annihilation of the Vaudois.

The treaty was nominally observed, however, and for nearly one hundred years there was a practical peace in the Vaudois Valleys. By this is meant that there were no general persecutions such as had driven the mountaineers to arms. The Dukes of Savoy were not, it is true, the best of sovereigns to these faithful people ; but had they been left to manage their own affairs in peace, they would have allowed the Vaudois .ill the freedom they asked or desired. The Roman Catholic Church would not let the duke manage his

58 CROSS AXD CROWN.

own affairs. It surrounded him with a host of priests and dignitaries, all of whom were sworn to carry out as far as possible the Jesuitical programme with respect to the Yaudois, and while it did not succeed in excit- ing a general persecution during this period, it did suc- cessfully conduct a number of petty attacks, which effectually prevented the Yaudois from ever feeling a sense of security. The Yaudois w7ere heavily taxed, but they paid all the imposts cheerfully. They were annoyed in every conceivable way ; they were forbid- den to carry on certain employments, or to reside beyond the limits of their Yalleys ; their Barbas were seized and burned at Turin and at Pignerol ; but though they frequently met force with force, they entertained no thought of rebelling against their prince. The Jesuits sent missionaries among them, who not only undertook to preach to them, but offered rich rewards to all who wrould embrace the faith of Koine. Neither their preachings nor their bribes could effect anything, however. Jesuitism was powerless against Christianity. The Jesuits practically discour- aged labor ; they taught that falsehood and deceit were excusable when used for the cause of the Romish Church ; they tolerated immorality in men and women who wrere outwardly " good Catholics ; " they sanc- tioned or winked at assassination, robbery, and violence, when the perpetrators were " faithful sons of the Church." Every means was justifiable with them where the end was such as they approved, and they

THE VAUDOIS. 59

did not scruple to make use of crime, violence, and sin — of every attribute of hell — to accomplish their ends. The Vaudois, on the other hand, taught that labor was honorable and idleness sinful. They encour- aged education, and set their faces sternly against igno- rance. They demanded and exhibited to the world a high degree of purity of manners and thought. Crime was almost unknown among them, while it was rife in all parts of Europe. Among them were heard no sneers at female virtue, such as might be heard in any aristocratic assemblage of Europe at that period, for every Vaudois maiden and matron was absolutely chaste, and the Vaudois men set the purity of their women above all value. They scorned to use wrong- means to attain legitimate objects. They required that every action should be shaped according to the pure pattern of the Gospel, and they were willing to die rather than depart from the truth. The contrast between their condition and the state of the Roman Catholic people of Europe at this time, affords the best argument in their favor that could be given.

Thus the Vaudois Church continued to exist until near the middle of the seventeenth century. It had held the faith uncontaminated for all that time, and for six hundred years had maintained it successfully against Rome. This century was to witness momentous events in its history. Its troubles began in 1630, when a French army entered the Piedmontese Vallej-s to oppose the Duke of Savoy's projects upon Montferrai .

(30 CROSS AND CROWN.

The Vaudois were warmly in sympathy with their sovereign, and sent to him begging him to assist them in their resistance of the French ; but the duke did not send the desired succor, and they were forced to submit to the French, who treated them severely both as Piedmontese and as Protestants. Here again we see the hand of Pome making their sufferings greater. •• The monk Bona venture, already mentioned, went to the two parties alternately, saying to the Duke of Savoy. • The Vaudois occupy strong positions in the mountains, and cannot surrender without disloyalty. but the Catholics dwelling in an open country, cannot resist an armed enemy, and must be excused in the event of their capitulating.' To the French, again, he said. • The Catholics will make haste to surrender, but the Vaudois are a rebellious race, who will resist you. and merit all severitv." " *

The French brought with them a scourge more terri- ble than their army — the plague, which had made fearful ravages in France. This broke out in the Val- ley of Perouse. and swept rapidly over all the Vaudois settlements. Great numbers of the Vaudois fell vic- tims to it. and nearly all the pastors died. The Church was almost without leaders, and there was no time to train up others to supply the places of the dead. Pas- tors were wanted at once, and in this emergency the A audois were obliged to send to Geneva for new pas-

* T\( Urm* :f Hue Alps. Vol. i. p. 312.

THE VAUDOIS. CA

tors, there being only three pastors engaged in active duty left in all the Protestant Valleys. The plague swept off 10,250 Vaudois.

In consequence of the introduction of the Genevese pastors, a gradual change took place in the outward form of the Vaudois Church, and it was not long before a modified Calvinistic system of government was adop- ted. The ancient catechism of the twelfth century was replaced by one of modern compilation ; the pastors were no longer called Barbas; the ruling elder was styled a moderator, and the ministers were trained at Geneva instead of at Pra Del Tor, as formerly. It must not be supposed, however, that the Vaudois became Cal- vinists. They made no change in their faith, and did not in the slightest degree alter their ancient ritual. The changes were entirely in the outward system of government, and in no way affected those things for wThich they had contended so long.

The Jesuits, who had kept a close watch over the Vaudois, now endeavored to profit by the death of the pastors. They sought to introduce their priests into the Valleys, and to convert the people to their doctrines • but in vain. In 1650 an organization was established in Turin, called the " Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and for the Extirpation of Heretics." ( Con- gregatio de propaganda fide et extirpandis h&reticis.) It was commonly known as The Propaganda* u To be

* The Propaganda was established at Rome in 16-50. In the other countries, to which it spread rapidly, it was known simply as " The

02 CROSS AND CROWN.

engaged in it was all that was necessary to obtain a plenary indulgence ; persons of great note enlisted them- selves, princes and artizans took their places together in its ranks ; there was no one who did not need indul- gences, or at least there was no one who had not some need of pardon As there was a plenary indul- gence for the Propagandists, the women also desired to have their share. They formed a special council ; and thenceforth the Propaganda was composed of two coun- cils— one of men and another of women. The institu- tion was founded at Turin under the high favor of a royal ordinance. The Archbishop of that city, and the Marquis of St. Thomas, Minister of the Crown, were the presidents of the former of these councils. The Marchioness of Pianesse was president of the latter. She had spent her youth in dissipation, and sought to expiate her past faults by the extremeness of her new zeal. Being a woman of strong passions, and easily led awa}T, but perhaps also of a noble and generous disposi- tion, it was no difficult matter for her spiritual direc- tors to impel her into a wrrong course, which they could teach her to regard as that of duty. Mankind, in gen- eral, are more easily swayed by a command issued in the name of truth, than by £>roof of the truth. Herein lies the secret of the power of Popery.

" ' These ladies,' says Leger, ' divide the towns into

Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith." It was only in Piedmont that it added the words " and for the Extirpation of Here- tics."

THE VAUD01S. 63

districts, and each visits her district twice a week, sub- orning simple girls, female servants and children, by their cajoleries and fair promises ; and causing trouble and annoyance to those who do not choose to listen to them. They have their spies everywhere, who inform them of all Protestant families in which there is any domestic disagreement; and then they profit by the division to blow the fire of disagreement as much as possible, to separate the husband from his wife, and the wife from her husband, the child from his father and mother, promising them, and in fact bestowing upon them, great advantages, if they engage to attend Mass. Frequently they impel them to institute law-suits against one another, and if once they have a hold of them by this handle, they never let them go until they have either recanted or are ruined. They know the merchant who is unprosperous in business, the gentle- man who has gambled away or squandered all that he had, and in general all families who fall into necessi- tous circumstances. And to seduce them with their dabo tibi, these ladies never fail to propose apostasy to these persons when they are almost desperate. They make their way into the very prisons, and accomplish the release of criminals who give themselves up to them. And as they employ great sums of money in keeping all this machinery in motion, and paying those who sell their souls to them for bread, they make regu- lar collections, and do not fail to visit all families in good circumstances, shops, taverns, gambling houses.

64 CROSS AND CROWN.

etc., demanding alms for the extirpation of Heresy. And if any person of condition arrives at an inn, they lose no time in paying their respects to him with an empty purse in their hands. To conclude, they meet in most of the towns twice a week, to compare accounts of what they have done, and to concert plans for what they are to do. If it so happen that they have need of the secular arm or of an order of Parliament, it is rarely that they' do not succeed in obtaining it. The councils of the lesser towns give in reports to those of the metropolitan towns, the latter to the council of the Capital, and those of the capitals to that of Rome, where is che great spider that holds the threads of all this web.' " *

It was all in vain, however. A few insignificant persons, who could well be spared by the Vaudois Church, apostatized ; children were torn from their parents and shut up in convents ; but the Propaganda could show no convert worthy of its efforts. Baffled and enraged, the Propaganda resolved to have recourse to the old weapons of Rome — the sword, the torch, and the rack. It called in the Inquisition to its aid, and these two infernal powers made ready to exterminate the Vaudois since they could not convert them.

The Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel II., was not naturally a cruel man or a persecutor. When urged to be merciful to the Vaudois, he said he would willingly be more lenient to them, but " their adversaries will

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. i. pp. 331, 332.

THE VAUDOIS. 65

not leave me in peace without having obtained some satisfaction." The priests gave him no rest, and in 1G55 obtained from him an order commanding that all the inhabitants of the Vaudois towns in the lower Val- leys should either attend Mass or remove to the upper Valleys included in the communes of Bobi, Villar, Angrogna, and Rora. They were allowed three days to come to a decision. If they refused to become Roman Catholics they were given twenty days in which to sell their lands and other immovable possessions. The Roman Catholic worship was ordered to be cele- brated in every Protestant commune, and the penalty of death was denounced against any one who should endeavor to dissuade a Vaudois from becoming a Roman Catholic.

The Vaudois at once began to comply with this order, and to prepare to remove to the mountains. It was a terrible winter. The snow lay thick over all the country, and rendered the roads along much of their course impassable. The swollen torrents had in many places inundated the country, and in others they were frozen into dangerous masses of ice. It seemed almost madness to undertake to reach the communes assigned the Vaudois by this terrible route. Yet no one hesi- tated. At the appointed time the Christians abandoned their homes and possessions in the lower Valleys, and set out for the mountains. It was a mournful proces- sion that went up the frozen heights — old men and women, little children and sick persons — leaving their

66 CROSS AND CROWN.

comfortable nomes behind them, to face hardships and privations for Christ's sake. They waded through the icy waters, climbed the frozen peaks, and at length reached the homes of their impoverished brethren of the upper Valleys, where they were warmly welcomed. There were no apostates, however. Whole cities and villages in the lower Valleys were abandoned, fruitful sections were rendered desolate, people of wealth were reduced to the greatest poverty. Suffering and sorrow reigned over all the Vaudois country. Yet, away up in the high Valleys of the Alps, the Vaudois Church found refuge and rest. The truth was again triumph- ant. The Jesuits were again baffled.

The Jesuits were enraged at their want of success, and caused the Duke of Savoy to be informed that the Vaudois, so far from obeying his orders to retire to the mountains, were preparing to resist him by force of arms. The duke at once sent a strong body of troops, under the Marquis of Pianesse, into the Valleys to compel obedience, and turned the Vaudois over to the Propaganda, to be dealt with as the priests should see fit. The priests were delighted, and at once set the army in motion. About the same time the Vaudois of several of the Valley towns burned the habitations of the monks in those places, who had driven them to madness. A priest was also assassinated at Fenil. These acts were at once seized upon by the Propa- ganda as pretexts for the cruelties upon which it had resolved.

THE VAUDOIS. tf

Meanwhile the arm}- of the Marquis of Pianesse ad- vanced into the Valleys. It continued to move on toward the upper Valleys in which the Vaudois had taken refuge. Its progress was resisted, and Pianesse was obliged to resort to treachery to gain his object. He proposed to the Vaudois of the upper Valleys to cease their resistance, assuring them that if they would consent to receive his troops among them, they should be respected in all their rights and possessions. He said he only wished to keep them out of the lower Valleys, that he had no right or wish to molest them in the upper Valleys. " You may render a service to your country and to me," he added, "by engaging your respective communes each to receive and to lodge only one of the regiments which have been sent hither. By thus receiving them without resistance, not only will the localities which shall receive them be secure from all violence, but it may be also that the prince, touched with this proof of confidence, wTill display less rigor in the exclusion pronounced against the towns of the plain."

Leger and Janavel, the former the historian, and the latter one of the bravest leaders of the Vaudois, ener- getically but vainly opposed the design of the Roman Catholic commander, in whom they had no faith. Their brethren, however, fell into the snare, and agreed to it. Pianesse that same evening put his troops in motion, seized all the mountain passes, and installed them in the hamlets.

68

CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

The Marquis of Pianesse was the husband of the lady who has been mentioned as the president of the female council of the Propaganda. She had died some time before this, and on her death-bed had implored him to spare no efforts to exterminate the heretics. From this time he surrendered himself entirely to the will of the Jesuits. He had no orders from the Duke of Savoy for the barbarous and perfidious course upon which he now entered. The infamous proceeding was either his own device or that of the Jesuits. The history of that order warrants us in charging the responsibility for it upon them as well as upon him. In this responsibility the whole Church of Rome must share. It was the author of this Piedmontese Easter, as it was of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Pianesse had resolved from the first upon the plan which he now proceeded to execute. His offers to the Vaudois had been designed simply to lull their suspi- cions and give him an opportunity to plant his troops in their midst. I give the remainder of the sad story as it is related by Muston :

" In their eagerness to obtain possession of the strongest positions of our mountains, whilst two regi- ments pursued the ordinary route of Villar and Bobi, and a third that of Angrogna, a special detachment began to ascend the hills of Champ-la-Rama and of Coste Roussine, in order to arrive sooner at Pra Del Tor. This detachment, on its way, set fire to the scat- tered houses of Le Taillaret ; the smoke was seen, and

THE VAUDOIS. 69

the cries of the fugitives and shouts of the persecutors were heard from the colette of Rora, on which a fire was immediately kindled as a signal of distress. It was immediately perceived from all the heights of Angrogna, whither the greater part of the fugitives from the plain had retired, who had been compelled to quit Bubiano, Campillon, etc., in consequence of the edict of Gastaldo of 25th of February. The people of Angrogna them- selves, also, soon saw the rapid march of the invading detachment, which, directing its course towards the Pra Del Tor, triumphantly descended by the slope of the mountain. There soon appeared, besides, near the Gates of Angrogna and the Pausa del Morts, the regi- ment of Grancey, which alone had been expected. Then, perceiving the treachery, they kindled in turn their signal of distress, and the cries — ' To Perouse ! to Perouse! to the Vachere ! Every one save himself! There are traitors ! God help us ! Let us fly ! ' — were raised, and ran along, spreading like an electric flame over the vast flank of these mountains, from which the men in a condition to carry arms retired in haste to the heights of the Vachere, and thence by the Valley of Pramol to those of Perouse and Pragela, which then appertained to France.

" On the side of Bobi the alarm was less prompt, for the regiments of Bagnola and Petitbourg (of which the former was to be quartered at Bobi, and the latter at Le Villar) arrived peaceably by the ordinary road. Apprehension was excited when the soldiers, instead 01

70 CROSS AXD CROWN.

remaining at Bobi, were seen to ascend to Sarcena and Ville Neuve ; victims had already been slaughtered as they came, but the knowledge of these isolated murders could not be spread, and the officers everywhere mani- fested an intention to maintain a severe discipline amongst their troops.

" Even at Angrogna, where they found only some women, old men, and children — feeble guardians of their deserted houses — they at first abstained from any excess. De Pianesse contented himself with taking up his position there, and giving rest to his troops, without seeming to think of remaining in the place more than two or three days, according to the terms of his agree- ment with the deputies. Thus seeking to gain the confidence of the Vaudois women and children, these new-comers persuaded them to recall their husbands and brothers who had taken flight, protesting that no harm would be done to them. Some of them came back, to their cost. ' Non servanda fides liazreticis] said the Council of Constance. 'Ad extirpandos hcereticos !' cried the Propaganda.

" From the head of the valley downwards, in vil- lages and hamlets, on the highways and rocks, the Propaganda, by the help of the bad faith which its Church authorizes, had now introduced its soldiers, or posted its assassins. Accordingly the veil was raised. On Saturday, Easter Eve (24th April, 1655), at four o'clock in the morning, the signal for a general massacre of the Vaudois was given to these perfidious troops, from the summit of the Castle of La Tour.

THE VAUDOIS. 71

"The soldiers, apprized beforehand, had risen early; they were fresh and active ; they had slept under the roofs of those whose throats they were to cut. Those whom the Vaudois had received, lodged and fed with such confidence, who ought to have protected them, were now at the same moment throughout the whole Valley, and with the same fanaticism, transformed into base assassins. Rome carries off the palm for conver- sions of this kind.

"And now, how can we give an idea of the horrors which ensued ? It would be necessary to be able, with one glance, to include at once the whole country, to penetrate into all apartments, to be present at all exe- cutions, to distinguish in this vast voice of anguish and desolation, each particular cry of a heart or of a living being torn in pieces. Little children, Leger says, were torn from the arms of their mothers, dashed against the rocks, and cast carelessly away. The sick or the aged, both men and women, were either burned in their houses, or hacked in pieces; or mutilated, half-murdered and flayed alive, they were exposed in a dying state to the heat of the sun, or to flames, or to ferocious beasts; others were tied, in a state of nakedness, into the form of balls, the head between the legs, and in this state were rolled down the precipices. Some of them, torn and bruised by the rocks from which they had re- bounded, remained suspended from some projecting rock or the branch of some tree, and still groaned forty-eight hours afterwards. Women and young girls

72 CROSS AND CROWN.

were violated, empaled, set up naked upon pikes at the corners of the roads, buried alive, roasted upon lances, and cut in pieces by these soldiers of the faith, as by cannibals : then, after the massacre, the children which had survived it, and were found wandering in the woods, were carried away ; or children were forcibly taken from what remained of their afflicted family, to be conveyed into the dwellings of these butchers, and into the monasteries, like lambs taken to the slaughter- house ; and, finally, the massacre and the removal of the children were succeeded by conflagration — the monks, the propagandists, and the zealous Catholics running from house to house with resinous torches, or incendiary projectiles, and ravaging in the midst of the fires, these villages now filled with corpses.

" ' Two of the most infuriated of these fire-raisers,' says a work of the period, ' were a priest and a monk of the order of St. Francis, who marched about, escorted by troops ; and if there was any hidden cottage which had not fallen into their hands on the first occasion, they might be seen repassing on the morrow ; and to finish their work the priest had only to discharge his carbine, loaded with an artificial fire which stuck to the walls.'

" Such was the frightful, unparalleled, unprecedented scene which was then presented in these regions of despair. 'And let it not be said,' adds the historian Leger, ' that I exaggerate things upon account of the persecutions which I myself personally have endured ;

THE VAUDOIS. 73

I have travelled from one neighborhood to another to collect the authentic testimonies of the survivors, who deponed what things they had seen before two notaries who accompanied me. In some places fathers had seen their children torn through the midst by the strength of men's arms, or cut through with swords ; in other places mothers had seen their daughters forced or mur- dered in their presence. Daughters had witnessed the mutilation of the living bodies of their fathers ; brothers had seen the mouths of their brothers filled with pow- der, to which the persecutors set fire, making the head fly in pieces; pregnant women had been ripped up, and the fruit of their womb had been seen taken living from their bowels. What shall I say ? 0 my God ! the pen falls from my hands. Dead bodies lay scat- tered about, or were planted upon stakes ; portions of children, torn in quarters, had been flung into the mid- dle of the road ; brains were plastered against the rocks ; trunks of human bodies were to be seen desti- tute of arms and limbs, or bodies half-flayed, or with the eyes torn out of the head, or the nails torn off the toes; others were fastened to trees with the chest opened, and without heart or lungs; here might be seen bodies of women still more horribly mutilated; there graves scarcely filled up, where the earth seemed to give forth the groans of the unhappy victims who had been buried alive ; everywhere misery, terror, deso- lation, and death. These are the things which I can tell!'

74 CROSS AXD CROWN.

" The universal destruction of the Yaudois houses by fire followed the massacre of their inhabitants. In many hamlets, the witness of the martyrs proceeds, not one single cottage remained standing, so that the beauti- ful Valley of Lucerna then presented only the aspect of a burning furnace, where cries, which became more and more unfrequent, attested that a people had lived.

"All these noble and courageous persons, thus put to death, might have saved their lives by abjuring their religion; and the torments inflicted upon many of them w^ere still prolonged in prison without making them yield. Ten years, twenty years afterwards, there were still in the galleys of the sovereign, galley slaves who were martyrs. In the dungeons of Villefranche and of Turin there were forgotten victims whose tor- tures, firmness and joyful death, Heaven alone could know." *

The treachery and cruelty of the Marquis de Pianesse were warmly applauded by the priests, and especially by the Jesuits, but they found no other defenders. These men had deliberately planned this dreadful massacre, and it was but natural they should rejoice over it. Throughout all Europe, however, even in Catholic countries, the news was received with an outcry of horror and indignation. Cromwell, then at the head of the English Commonwealth, protested in most energetic terms against such cruelties, and the Protestant powers warmly interceded for justice to the

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. i. pp. 347-351.

■.:-

• Maine

lived.

pat

m :v

aqjuring

U

upon many

tfitkt Ami

IT£

d

Ireadful

* ioold rejoice

-veil in

■Mid wirJi an

.•:

and the

:<

i m

THE VADUOIS. "75

Vaudois. The English ambassador, Sir Samuel Mor- land, boldly told the Duke of Savoy to his face that, " Were all the Neros of past and future times to view these fields of carnage and infamy, they would con- clude that they had never seen anything but what was good and humane in comparison with these things." The Duke of Savoy endeavored to disown the cruelties, and to throw the odium of them upon the French officers who had belonged to De Pianesse's army. A number of these, however, declared under oath that they had refused to take part in the brutalities, and had thrown up their commands rather than do so. The truth is, that the massacre was the work of the priests who had planned and brought it about. De Pianesse was their tool.

Such of the Vaudois as managed to escape the massa- cre took refuge in the highest mountains, in caves and in the midst of ice and snow, and many passed into the French territory. Two of their leaders, Janavel and Jahier, collected each a strong body of followers, and opposed a stubborn resistance to the Catholic troops. The Duchess of Savoy endeavored to induce the French king to refuse shelter to the fugitives, and in spite of the efforts of Janavel and Jahier, it seemed that the Vaudois Church was on the eve of total destruc- tion. Louis XIV., however, showed kindness to the fugitives, and those who had taken up arms succeedec1 better than they had ventured to hope. The Protestant Powers of Europe renewed their intercessions, and in

76 CROSS AND CROWN.

August, 1655, the Duke of Savoy was induced to put a stop to the war. A treaty with the Vaudois was signed at Pignerol in that month, by which they were allowed to return to their upper Valleys, and were granted some of their former privileges. Under the sanction of this treat}', the remnant of the Vaudois came back to their Valleys, and endeavored to restore them to something like their old-time prosperity. The treaty allowed Mass to be said in every valley, but the Protestants were not required to attend.

For eight years there was a sort of peace in the Val- leys. The Vaudois exerted themselves to repair their misfortunes, and the Jesuits busied themselves with annoying and persecuting the poor people. Neither the Duke of Savoy nor the priests respected the treaty, and in 16G3 they succeeded in driving the Vaudois again into resistance. Hostilities went on with inter- vals of peace until 1680, when the Savoyard ruler again consented to be merciful to the Vaudois. This farce was continued until 1685, in which year Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes, and threw himself into the arms of the Jesuits. He followed this revoca- tion by a barbarous persecution of the Protestants of France, and induced — we might say obliged — the Duke of Savoy to begin a fresh persecution of the Vaudois. The Protestant Powers, foreseeing the storm, addressed renewed representations to the Duke of Savoy. They could obtain nothing but an intimation that the Vau- dois would not be molested if they would consent to

THE VAUD01S. 77

quit the country. This the mountaineers refused to do, though they were offered places of refuge in Pro- testant lands. They were devotedly attached to their homes, and they refused to abandon them until driven from them. They met together in solemn assembly, partook of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and prepared to defend themselves.

A strong force of Piedmontese and French soldiers, under General Catinat, one of the best commanders of his day, entered the Valleys. The Yaudois made a desperate resistance, but they were unsuccessful. Their heroic leader, Janavel, was no longer with them. He was wounded, and an exile in Switzerland, from which country he vainly sought to guide them with his advice. The Papal soldiers were everywhere success- ful. The Valleys were again laid waste. The most horrible cruelties — cruelties which fully equalled those already related, and which are not recorded in full here only because the repetition of such horrors is too pain- ful— marked this war. By the summer of 1686 the entire Vaudois population, with the exception of such as had been massacred, were prisoners in the hands of the Papal troops. Fourteen thousand Christians were thrown into the dungeons of Turin and the other Pied- montese towns. The Inquisition was kept busy. Fresh martyrs were added to the long list of the Vau- dois witnesses for the truth, and the priests were con- stantly occupied with devising and administering tor- tures to the captives. Disease broke out in the over-

78 CROSS AXD CROWX.

crowded prisons, and large numbers perished miserably in this way. Out of the fifteen thousand Vaudois who occupied the Valleys at the beginning of the persecu- tion, twelve thousand fell victims to the malice and cruelty of Rome. When the prisons were thrown open, only three thousand of the captives came forth, sad, emaciated, and almost broken-hearted, but still true to their ancient faith.

It was the winter of 1G86-7 — a winter memorable for its extreme severity. The Rhone was frozen to its bed, and the Alps were almost impassable. The poor captives were collected in detachments, and, in spite of the rigor of the weather, driven across Mont Cenis into Switzerland. They were not even suffered to depart in peace, for, in many instances, their children were torn from them at the instigation of the Jesuits, and sent to the convents. They suffered terribly in cross- ing the mountains. All were insufficiently clothed, and some were half naked. All Geneva came out to meet them, — " these generous confessors of our Lord Jesus Christ," as an eye-witness of the scene styles the exiles, — the citizens received them tenderly, and con- tended with each other for the privilege of taking them to their homes. The exiles entered the town, escorted by the citizens, singing with a grave and sad voice the mournful psalm, " 0 God, why hast Thou cast us off?"

They were given such things as they needed, and found a pleasant and safe refuge in the beautiful and noble city which had itself done so much for the truth.

THE VAUDOIS. 79

They were invited by the Protestant States to settle amongst them. Some accepted these invitations, and passed into Holland, Germany, and England, but the majority still lingered at Geneva.

In the Vaudois Valleys silence and desolation reigned. The villages were deserted, the farms and vineyards lay untilled, and the few cattle and sheep that were left wandered about without the herdsman's care. After a considerable interval a colony of Roman Catho- lics was sent to take possession of the lands. A host of priests came with them, and the Protestant churches were pulled down or converted into Romish chapels. The priests had their own way now in the Valleys, which had resisted them so long, and for the first time since the introduction of Christianity into Italy the Mass was said and the Virgin was worshipped in these upper nooks of the Alps. For three years the Catholics held undisputed possession of the territory they had won by such foul means.

Meanwhile the Vaudois exiles had not forgotten their country. In the lands in which they had taken refuge they were safe from persecution, and were urged to settle themselves permanently ; but they could not abandon the hope of one day returning to their beloved Valleys. As the time passed on, this longing increased, and a number of them determined to make an effort to recover their homes at any cost. They sought and readily obtained the co-operation of their old leader, Captain Janavel. Janavel was too old and infirm to

80 CROSS AND CROWN.

accompany them, but lie entered into the plan with an enthusiasm which he communicated to his countrymen, and was thenceforward the guiding spirit of the whole movement, though the immediate execution of it was entrusted to their pastor Henry Arnaud. Their active preparations attracted the attention of the Swiss authorities, who managed to learn enough of their plans to be able to put the Duke of Savoy on his guard, and Swiss, French, and Piedmontese troops were posted along the route by which it was supposed they would attempt to return, for the purpose of intercepting them. It seemed impossible that they should be able to break through the strong force thus planted in their way ; but undismayed by this, and by the efforts of the Swiss authorities, who sought to compel them to desist from their attempt, they resolved to set out for their own country. The unconquerable spirit of Janavel seemed to have entered into each man, and it made a hero of him.

On the night of the 16th of August, 1689, the Vau- dois who were to take part in the expedition embarked at the forest of Nyon, near Geneva, and crossed Lake Leman in a fleet of seventeen boats. On the morning of the 17th they landed at the Castle of Ivoire, on the border of Savoy. They were one thousand strong, and immediately after landing were organized into nineteen companies. As Arnaud did not possess sufficient knowledge of warfare, a Captain Turrel was chosen to direct the military movements. Janavel had furnished

THE VAUDOIS. 81

Arnaud with explicit instructions as to the best means of conducting the enterprise, and had accompanied the adventurers to the spot from which they began their march. As soon as they landed, they knelt in fervent prayer, and the aged warrior implored the assistance and protection of Almighty God in their effort to recover their homes.

As the authorities were alarmed, and time was pre- cious, they set off at once, marching rapidly in the direction of the Alps. In order to avoid the military forces which had been stationed along their route, they left the most frequented roads, and ascending the streams to their sources, took the most difficult and dangerous paths that could be found. They crossed Mont Blanc through snow up to their knees, clambering from glacier to glacier, and moving along the edge of precipices where the footway was so narrow that a single false step would have resulted in the adventurer being dashed into the abyss below. They overcame the resistance of the towns along their way by threatening to destroy them entirely if they were compelled to force a passage, and by paying for such supplies as they demanded, where a free passage was accorded them. Where hostile garrisons were encountered, sudden sur- prises and attacks were resorted to, and thus the road was cleared. They suffered severely from fatigue and the cold, but pressed on without halting longer than was necessary to obtain rest and sleep. They managed to procure scanty supplies of food from the peasants on

82 CROSS AND CROWX.

the way, some of which was given to them, and some of which they bought.

On the seventh day of their march, August 24, 1689, they reached the summit of Mont Cenis, and here cap- tured the mules and baggage of Cardinal Angelo Banuzzi, who was on his way to Rome. " What the Vaudois suffered in passing the Great and the Little Mont Cenis," says Arnaud, "surpasses imagination. The ground was covered with snow ; they had to descend the mountain of Tourliers rather by a precipice than by a road ; and, to complete their misery, night having surprised them, numbers of them remained scattered on the mountain, overcome with fatigue and sleep." In this extremity they were almost disheartened. The Piedmontese soldiers of the garrison of Exilles harassed them greatly by rolling down stones upon them, and flinging hand-grenades into their midst as they climbed the mountain side. Nevertheless they pressed on, con- soling themselves, says Arnaud, " with the thought that it is not by might, nor by skill, nor by number of men that God executes His marvellous designs ; and so, call- ing upon His name, they resumed their march." At last they stood upon the summit of the mountain of Tourliers, and sounding their clarions to gather those who had fallen behind and those who had strayed from the line of march, they prepared to descend to encoun- ter the troops who held the Valleys below.

They were now almost in sight of their homes. They were eight hundred strong, having lost the rest of their

TFIE VAUDOIS. 83

number by capture, death in battle, and the fatigues of the march. Their route now lay through the wildest and most inaccessible portions of the Alps, along the most frightful precipices, through dangerous snows, and half-frozen mountain streams. At night the}'' bivou- acked amid the ice and snow, and their food consisted of only chestnuts and water. Every morning and eve- ning they gathered around their heroic pastor, Henry Arnaud, and engaged in fervent prayer, and thus refreshed, they went onward.

As they approached the Valley of the Dora, the peas- ants met them with reports of heavy forces of troops through which they must cut their way, and mocked them with the hopelessness of their effort. In the vicinity of the town of Salabertrans their requests for food were met with the reply that they would not need food if they attempted to enter that place. It was night as they approached the town. The Dora is here crossed by a single bridge, over which they must pass to reach their mountains. This bridge was held by a column of 2000 French troops, whose bivouac fires they soon perceived. It was necessary to force a passage through this detachment, for there was no retreat for the adventurers. They at once made their prepara- tions for the attack, and then, falling on their knees, offered a fervent prayer to God, " asking not life, but victory." The French made a gallant, but vain resist- ance. The impetuosity of the Vaudois was irresistible, and after two hours sharp fighting they carried the

g4 CROSS AXD CROWN.

bridge, and put the French to flight, inflicting upon them a loss of 700 men. Their own loss was but twenty-two. As the moon rose over the valley, the Yaudois gathered such of the munitions and arms of their enemies as they could not carry with them into a pile and set fire to them. A terrible explosion shook the valley, and was answered by the triumphant shout of the victors, " Glory to the God of armies, who has delivered us from the hands of our enemies."

'•'Ordinary courage," says Muston, "would now have demanded some repose, for the Vaudois had marched on unintermittingly for three days and three nights without proper sleep, and almost without food, sleeping only for a few hours at a time, and having for nourish- ment nothing but bread and water. But in the appre- hension that new troops might come upon them and take them in the rear, they resolved to set out again at once. The mountain which remained to be crossed separates the Valley of the Dora from that of Pragela. The moon was up ; the way was free from danger ; but human strength is not unlimited, and some soldier was continually falling at the foot of a tree, overcome with fatigue and sleep. The rear guard had much difficulty in awakening them again ; and, after all, there remained some of them who were forgotten, and who were never seen more."

When the sun rose the next morning, August 25th, 1689, the exiles assembled on the summit of the moun- tain. Behind them they could see the mountains over

THE VAVD01S. 85

which they had passed ; at their feet lay spread out the highest part of the Valley of Pragela, and in the far distance they could see the radiant peaks of the Alps that shut in their native Valleys. Animated by the sight, they burst into a psalm of triumph, and the pastor, Arnaud, calling them to their knees, uttered this prayer of thanksgiving : " 0 Lord, my God, Thou who didst bring back the sons of Jacob from the land of bondage to that of their ancestors, 0 God of Israel, God of our fathers ! be pleased to accomplish and to bless Thy Work in us, Thy feeble servants. May the light of the Gospel never be extinguished in these mountains, where it has so long shined ; and grant that our hands may rekindle it and maintain it there. And to Thee alone, 0 heaventy Father, with Jesus Thine only Son, our Saviour, and the Holy Ghost, our Comforter, be honor, praise, and glory, now and forever. Amen !" Meanwhile, the news of the approach of the Vaudois spread terror through the Valley of Pragela. The Roman Catholic priests, remembering the cause they had given the adventurers for revenge, abandoned their parishes and fled as the Vaudois descended into the Valley. The latter, however, stayed not for vengeance, but pressed on, and that night encamped at the foot of the Col du Pis, in the village of Jossand. The next morning they continued their march, and halting for a time at the Alpage of Le Pis, descended the mountain into the Valley of San Martino that night by the light of torches.

86 CROSS AND CROWN.

On Tuesday, 27th of August, they reached the Bal- sille, the post which Janavel had directed them to make their stronghold. They took a number of prisoners here, and hid the arms thus captured among the rocks. On the 2Sth they went to Pral, where they celebrated divine worship — the first gathering for such a purpose since the expulsion of the Vaudois.

The exiles now set themselves to work to clear their Valleys of the Catholics who had settled in them since the expulsion of the rightful owners, and for a while all was favorable to them. They were everywhere victo- rious. With the hope of starving them into submission, the Duke of Savoy ordered the country to be desolated. In compliance with this command, the flocks and cattle were driven out of the upper Valleys, the harvests were burned in the fields, and the splendid groves of chestnut and walnut trees were destroyed. The duke also sent a strong military force against them. The adventurers lived on nuts, herbs, and roots, and upon the secret stores of corn and other provisions which they had buried in the earth previous to their expulsion. Still they were reduced to great hardships, and it was only by sustaining themselves by constant prayer that they managed to exist at all. They did hold out, however, for two months against a force of twenty thousand well equipped and plentifully supplied troops under Catinat. By the middle of October they were reduced to such straits that it seemed their undertaking must fail. To add to their troubles, Turrel, their commander, deserted

THE VAUDOIS. 87

them, and sought safety in flight. The winter was coming on, and it seemed impossible for them to exist until the spring. It was a period of great darkness and sore trial to the Alpine Church, and it seemed that the pure Christian faith was about to disappear forever from the scene where it had so long existed. In this hour of calamity, Henry Arnaud, the pastor of the little Church, and since Turrel's desertion, its military leader, was its chief support. He was resolved never to leave the Valleys alive, and by his prayers and counsels he encouraged his followers to stand by him. When everything seemed lost he remembered the advice of Janavel, who had instructed him, when it came to the worst, to take refuge on the Balsille, and there hold out until help should come from on high. He communi- cated this advice to his followers, and they unanimously approved it.

The Balsille is a rugged and imposing mountain, or mass of rocks, which rises at the upper end of the Valley of San Martino. " It consists," says Dr. William Beattie, "of a conical mass of rocks, resting at the angle where two valleys unite — namely, that of the Germanasca, terminating in the Col du Pis; and another, traversed by a torrent which descends from Mount Guinevert. Thus situated, it is difficult of access from all but one point, which is just above the small village of Balsille. The approach from this village is very steep, and when protected by strong- barricades must have presented difficulties of the most

88 CROSS AND CROWN.

formidable character." At the foot of this lofty peak a branch of the Gennanasca dashes in a sharp curve, making of the mountain a sort of promontory. The Balsille is isolated from the other heights, but on either hand it is commanded by the nearly inaccessible peaks of Le Pis and Guinevert. Thus situated, it is well nigh impregnable, but it affords nothing but shelter to those taking refuge on it. Only a few stunted shrubs cover its summit, and the earth yields scarcely any vegetation. The weather is severe here at all seasons ; and the winter is very trying.

The Vaudois were at Rodoret when they.came to the determination to take refuge on the Balsille. It was the 22d of October, and no time was to be lost. Their enemies held every known road leading to the Valley of San Martino, but there was a dangerous path along the very summit of the mountains by which they could pass to the Balsille without descending to the Valley below. It was a terrible route, but the only one open to them, and they could only traverse it at night. They spent the greater part of the night in prayer, and two hours before day set out in the deep darkness for their place of safety. It was so dark that they were obliged to fasten strips of white cloth upon the shoul- ders of the guides in order to distinguish them, and some of the guides fastened to their backs pieces of phosphoric wood. Several times they were obliged to crawl along the sides of the precipices on their hands and knees. They all passed over the mountain in'

THE VAUDOIS. 89

safety, however, and reached the top of the Balsille without once encountering the enemy. The next day tiny had no food, for they found in their new refuge nothing but a stern mass of rocks. A foraging party was sent out into the neighborhood and succeeded in secur- ing a few vegetables. They found an old mill close by, which they repaired sufficiently to enable them to grind corn enough to make bread. About the same time they discovered that the last year's harvest had not been gathered in the Valley of Pral, and that it lay beneath the snow. During the winter they reaped this, after first clearing away the ice and snow which covered it.

Immediately upon reaching the Balsille they set to work to fortify it. They were greatly exhausted by their hard service since their departure from Switzer- land, but they performed now an amount of bodily labor which seems almost incredible. They threw up seven large intrenchments, one above another, on the side of the mountain, building them of trees, rocks, and earth. They established communications between these barriers, and between them and the summit of the mountain, by means of deep trenches and covered ways. They also constructed a species of " bomb-proofs," in which they could take shelter from the artillery fire of their adversaries. On the top of the mountain they built a strong fort, which they surrounded with a triple wall. For their own comfort and protection against the weather, they dug eighty chambers or caves in the mountain side.

90 CROSS AND CROWN.

The Catholic commander was greatly surprised at the escape of the Vaudois from Rodoret, and for a time could not tell where they had gone ; but at length news reached him of their presence on the Balsille, and he put his army in motion for that place, arriving before it on the 29th of October. The enemy made a desperate attempt to carry the position, but were driven off with heavy loss by the Yaudois marksmen, and before they could renew their attempt the winter came upon them. The troops suffered so severely from their exposure to the rigor of an Alpine winter that they were obliged to abandon their advanced positions and take refuge in the lower Valleys.

The winter was passed by the Yaudois Church on its lonely rock. The heroes were sustained in the midst of their trials and dangers by their constant and unmo- lested religious exercises. The ancient ritual of the Yaudois was used on every occasion. Henry Arnaud preached twice on every Sabbath, and each morning and evening led his followers in prayer. The garrison now numbered only about four hundred, but all were natives of the country, and devotedly attached to it and to their religion. They sent out frequent expeditions into the Valleys, often going as far as Lucerna and Angrogna, and harassed the Catholic settlers and brought in sup- plies for the fortress. They constantly looked for aid from their friends in Switzerland, but none came. Expeditions were once or twice formed to go to their relief, but they were intercepted by the enemy. No-

THE VAVD01S. 91

thing remained for the Christian soldiers, but to be ready to resist unaided the combined armies of France and Savoy when the spring should return, and they did not shrink from the prospect.

Hostilities began again in April, 1690. The Mar- quis de Pareilles, one of the commanders of the forces sent against the Vaudois, offered them liberal terms if they would surrender. Arnaud called a meeting of his followers, and laid the offer before them. It was unani- mously decided to refuse it. " Certainly," wrote Ar- naud, in answer to the marquis, "your Excellence ought not to think it strange if our people are bent

upon returning to their own homes The very

birds, which are creatures destitute of reason, return at their proper times, to seek their nest and habitation unforbidden ; and yet this is to be forbidden to men created in the image of God." He also wrote to the marquis a defence of his countrymen, setting forth the persecutions they had endured, and vindicating their right to their Valleys. He declared they had submitted to every burden laid upon them, and had only taken up arms in self-defence.

On Sunday, April 30th, 1690, while Arnaud was preaching to his men, the French and Piedmontese army, under Catinat, was seen approaching the Bal- sille. Catinat now seized the commanding peaks of Le Pis and Guinevert, and after the most persistent efforts, in which his men displayed an endurance and resolution worthy of the Vaudois themselves, succeeded

92 CROSS AND ChOWN.

in establishing a strong infantry force on each moun- tain. From these peaks the soldiers opened a distant and ineffectual fire upon the fort. At the same time the French commander sent a column of five hundred picked men under Colonel de Parat, to storm the Vau- dois intrenchments from the direction of the village of the Balsille. The French ascended the rugged slope of the mountain in the face of a sharp fire, and made the attack with great gallantry and vigor. They sought in vain to tear away the ramparts of the Vau- dois, and thus open a passage to the fort, but they were met by a storm of bullets and a shower of huge stones rolled down upon them, which broke them and hurled them in confusion to the base of the mountain. The commander of the storming party was wounded and made prisoner, and the attack was an utter failure on the part of the French. Thus closed the 2d of May.

General de Catinat, overwhelmed with mortification at the failure of his effort against' the Balsille, relin- quished the immediate command of the army to the Marquis de Feuquieres, and retired to Les Clos, " as he did not think proper to expose his hope of the baton of a Marshal of France to the risk of a second defeat by the unexpected valor of a handful of mountaineers."

The new commander resolved to try the effect of artillery upon the works on the Balsille, and by almost superhuman efforts succeeded in planting a battery of twelve pound guns on the summit of Guinevert, and by the 13th of May was ready to open fire on the Vau-

THE VAUDOIS. 93

dois, twelve days having been spent by this powerful army in its preparations for reducing a fort held by but four hundred men. The French Commander could not but feel an involuntary respect for those who had ren- dered themselves so formidable, and he sent them an- other offer of honorable capitulation, promising them 500 louis per man, and safe conducts to any foreign country they might wish to retire to. This offer was also rejected, and that night the Vaudois made a vigor- ous sortie, in which they inflicted severe damage upon the besiegers.

Early the next morning, May 14th, the French artillery opened fire on the Balsille. The Vaudois intrenchments, strong as they were against an infantry attack, were not capable of withstanding such a test, and crumbled away rapidly before the accurate discharges of the enemy's battery. By midday the bastions were almost in ruins. The French then made a determined effort to carry by storm the works thus weakened. Three strong columns of infantry ascended the moun- tain from as many different directions, in spite of the constant fire and the fall of heavy stones with which the Vaudois met them. The defenders were gradually beaten back from the outer works, and though they prolonged the resistance until nightfall, were eventually driven within the citadel or fort on the top of the moun- tain. The French now feeling sure that their victims could not escape, proceeded to surround the fort, and postponed the final attack until the morning.

94 CROSS AND CROWN.

" The Vaudois, seeing themselves so closely beset, considered that the hand of God alone could save them from that of their adversaries. They invoked His aid, continued their resistance till night; and then profit- ing by the mists, which on rainy days arise towards evening from the deep glens, when these protecting veils began to enfold the heights, they issued from their retreat, and, under the guidance of Captain Pou- lat, who was a native of these mountains — under the invisible but real protection of the Almighty — envel- oped in these dark and humid clouds, by the confused and distant light of the enemy's fires, on icy or moist slopes of almost perpendicular rocks, over which they were compelled to pass, they held their way, one after another, in single file across the gaping crevasses above the deep chasms of the German asque, dragging them- selves along on their bellies, clinging to the asperities of the mountain, or to bushes or roots hanging from the rocks, resting from time to time, continually pray- ing to God, and never yielding to despair. After all this, they digged steps in the hardened snow to climb by, and gained the northern slope of Mount Guinevert, where they turned the posts of the enemy,* some of whom challenged them as they passed ; and then pant- ing, exhausted, half-dead with fatigue, but blessing the Lord for so miraculous a deliverance, they arrived at the base of the glaciers of Le Pelvoux.

" At sunrise next day they appeared to the aston- ished eyes of the enemy, like eagles that had flown

THE vaudois. 95

from their eyry, on mountain tops much higher than the Balsille, and than all the posts occupied by the assailing army. The Marquis de Feuquieres made haste to send a detachment after them, but it was too late ; when this detachment moved the fugitives were at La Salse, above Macel ; when it was at La Salse they were at Rodoret ; when the enemy were at Rodoret the indefatigable Vaudois were on the mountain of Galmon. which commands the whole Valley of Pral ; and thus fleeing from peak to peak, keeping always at a distance from the enemy, and still increasing the distance by their superiority in strength, courage, and perfect knowledge of the localities, the glorious fugitives arrived above Servins, where they paused for prayer. Arnaud pronounced, with a loud voice, the words of supplication and thanksgiving, but his troop was dying of fatigue and hunger. Then these rude children of the Vaudois mountains put snow into their mouths to refresh themselves, and chewed green shoots of fir trees to support their strength; after which they pursued their march, mounted the heights of Pral, where the talc is now obtained, and arrived towards evening at the summit of the Roccabianca, one of the spurs of the Cornaout — the culminating point of the mountains which separate the Valley of Lucerna from that of St. Martin. From thence they descended to Fae't, where they did not arrive till after midnight, having made their way down dangerous precipices, clinging to small shrubs,, and aiding one another by joined hands.

96 CROSS AND CROWX.

" Notwithstanding the extraordinary fatigues of this day of superhuman marches, the Vaudois set out again before dawn on Saturday, the 17th of May, to pass over the mountain which now separated them from Rioclaret. Their object was to pass by the heights of Augrogna to the celebrated retreat of their ancestors, the Pra Del Tor, which is as deeply sunk among the mountains as the Balsille, which they had quitted, is ele- vated above the Valley. But they soon perceived that the enemy followed in their track ; therefore, changing the direction of their route, they proceeded towards Pramol, in order to get some provisions." * The Valley of Pramol was peopled by the Roman Catholic settlers, whom the Duke of Savoy had sent there after the expulsion of the Vaudois. The village of Pramol was held by a small Piedmontese garrison. The fugitives at once attacked this force, defeated it, killed fifty-seven of the men, and took the commander and three of the officers prisoners.

This fight occurred on the 17th of May, and on the same day the Vaudois, who had been in ignorance of what had been transpiring in the world around them during the winter, learned from their captives that Spain, Austria, and England had declared war against France, and that the Duke of Savoy had been given until the 20th of May to decide between the allies and France. Greatly encouraged by this news, they pushed on to Angrogna, where, the next day, they learned that

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. ii. pp. 71, 72.

THE VAUDOIS. 97

Victor Amadous had decided in favor of the allies, and that he was willing to grant peace and protection to the Vaudois if they would join his standard in the approach- ing war. This they gladly promised to do, for they had never been disloyal to their sovereign. The French were in the Valleys, however, and pressed them to join their ranks ; but they not only rejected these overtures, but maintained a constant warfare against the French, winning many successes, until the middle of June, when the invaders abandoned the Valleys for operations else- where. During this time the Vaudois suffered many hardships and privations, and encountered many dan- gers. Throughout the war, however, they continued faithful to their sovereign, and rendered good service to him. In July, 1696, Savoy withdrew from the league against France, and made a private peace with that power.

Janavel had told his brethren to wait for aid from on high, and it had come. Victor Amadeus, in order to attach the Vaudois more firmly to his cause, permitted them to return to their old homes, and in May, 1694, issued a decree re-establishing them in their Valleys, and granting them toleration in religion. In conse- quence of this decree they came back joyfully from the distant lands in which they had taken refuge, from Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and England. San Martino, Perouse, and Lucerna again welcomed their rightful owners. The Apostolic Church of the moun- tains was once more set up in its ancient seat, this time

98 CROSS AND CROWN.

never to be removed again. The heroic men under Arnaud had brought about all this. But for their efforts the exile of the Vaudois would have been per- petual. Their heroism and devotion had changed the lot of their Church at the very moment when its pros- pects seemed darkest. Well might the Vaudois call their readmission to their homes The Glorious Return. They were joined on their arrival by a number of their brethren who had embraced Catholicism in 1686. Out of 424 such families 421 now returned to their ancient faith, the Duke of Savoy having given them leave to do so.

As a matter of course, the return of the Vaudois and the privileges granted to them, gave great offence to the Pope and the Jesuits. The Pontiff at once protested against the decree of the duke, and on the 19 th of Au- gust, 1694, the tribunal of the Inquisition, presided over by Innocent XII. in person, issued a decree annul- ling the edict of the Duke of Savoy. This remarkable document concluded as follows: "Wherefore his holi- ness, in his zeal for the house of God, and according to the duty of the pastoral charge which has been en- trusted to him from on high, .... has cassed, annulled, invalidated, and condemned the above cited edict and all that it contains as being monstrous, impious, detes- table, .... ordaining that this edict .... shall be reputed as never having been framed nor issued, .... and enjoining all archbishops, bishops, inquisitors, etc., to act as hitherto against the heretics, without regard

THE VAUDOIS. 99

to this deed, .... which is declared to be abrogated in virtue of the present decree."

The Duke of Savoy, seeing that the independence of his crown was at stake, at once caused the Piedmontese Senate to pass a law (2d September, 1694) prohibiting, under penalty of death, the publication or execution of the decree of the Inquisition within the dominions of Savoy. The same law confirmed all the privileges granted to the Yaudois. The duke also caused his ambassador to inform the Pope of what he had done, and to assure him that no sovereign in Europe would any longer suffer such abuse of power on the part of the Holy See. Spain and Austria both sustained the duke, and made similar protests. The Pope became alarmed, and seeing that he had gone too far, ordered his Nuncio not to publish the decree of the Inquisition at Turin.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, Yictor Amadeus did not hesitate, a little later, to violate the faith he had pledged to the Yaudois, and to become once more their persecutor. Meanwhile he suffered them to re-establish themselves in their Yalleys, and admitted their troops into his army. The Yaudois were not slow to bring back by their labors some degree of their former pros- perity, and to re-establish their Church in its ancient home. They increased in numbers rapidly, and were greatly assisted by contributions of money from England and other countries.

The priests watched this growth with a jealous eye,

100 CROSS AXD CROWX.

and as far as they dared, maintained a policy of con- stant infringement of the edict of the Duke of Savoy. They annoyed the Yaudois in every conceivable way, and zealously exerted themselves to win over the duke from his liberal policy to their own cruel programme. In the end they were successful. Four years after the edict of toleration and protection, and two years after the peace, the priests made a conquest of the duke. In the spring of 1698 a Jesuit, attended by a number of monks, visited in succession all the Valleys of the Yaudois. His observations were summed up in a report addressed to the Pope, who upon its receipt despatched the Marquis de Spada to Turin, where he had a conference with the Papal Nuncio. Louis XIY. was at this time engaged in persecuting the French Protestants of Dauphiny, many of whom had taken refuge in the Yaudois Yalleys. By the treaty of peace with France, Yictor Amadeus had consented to expel the French Protestants from the Yaudois Yalleys, and not to allow any of them to settle in his dominions. By the same treaty he had promised " not to permit the pretended Reformed religion in the territories which have been ceded to him." These territories were the Yalleys of Perouse and Pragela, in which the duke had pledged himself by the edict of May 23, 1694, to allow religious freedom " for ten years after the termination of the war." The Jesuits were the true authors of this article of the treaty, and were determined that it should be but the beginning of a

THE VAUDOIS. 101

new crusade against the Vaudois. Soon after the visit of the Pope's emissary to Turin, the Duke of Savoy issued, July 1st, 1698, an edict expelling all the French Protestants from his dominions, and forbidding the Vaudois from holding any communication on mat- ters of religion with the subjects of the King of Franco. The greater part of the French Protestants who had sought shelter in the Valleys, were connected with the Vaudois either by blood, by marriage, or by common interest, and the blow was regarded, as indeed it was meant, as aimed at the whole Church. In consequence of this cruel decree, above 3000 persons left their homes in the Valleys, and wandered into foreign lands. The decree expelled all who were not natives of the Valleys. The Church at this time numbered thirteen pastors. Seven of these were of foreign birth, and were obliged to quit their charges.

We have seen how lightly Victor Amadeus held the pledges he had made in favor of the Vaudois. The priests were urgent that he should disregard them entirely; but though they could never bring him to consent to the utter extermination of the Vaudois, they met with no opposition from him in their efforts to harass and destroy them. He permitted, if he did not cause, various disabilities to be laid upon them, and converted them into a proscribed and cruelly perse- cuted class once more. They were forbidden to prac- tise certain avocations, to hold property beyond certain limits, or to settle out of their Valleys for any purpose

102 CROSS AND CROWN.

whatsoever. They were obliged to stand by and see their children seized and carried off to Turin by the priests to be educated in the Romish faith, and if they dared to offer any resistance to these cruel measures, they were condemned to a severe punishment. Under Victor Amadeus II. and III., their condition was no better. " This state of distress continued for many years. The Vaudois Church, nevertheless, seemed to acquire strength. The inhabitants of these regions regarded them with friendship. Not a few of the magistrates, appointed to govern them, even proved their protectors. . . . These severe measures were fol- lowed by proceedings still more vexatious ; even crimi- nal attempts remained unpunished — cruelties were from time to time openly perpetrated, or being shrouded in mystery, inspired the greater alarm. The protection of foreign powers did no more than repair these inju- ries— it did not prevent them. Distrust everywhere prevailed; the complaints of the Vaudois were no longer listened to." On the 20th of June, 1730, even more stringent measures were put in force against them. At this time all the- Protestants of foreign birth were expelled a second time from their Valleys, and, with a few exceptions, all the Protestant natives of Pragela were likewise expelled. All through the eighteenth century the priests maintained their bitter warfare upon the Vaudois, who were even prohibited from holding family worship in their own dwellings. There was good reason for all this hostility. Pro-

THE VAUDOIS. 103

testantism had become a power in the world. The hold of Rome upon the minds and consciences of the most enlightened nations of Europe had been effectu- ally shaken off. In those countries which still remained faithful to the Pope, the tyranny and cruelty of Rome had driven so many men from the Church that infi- delity and immorality were frightfully common. In France Rome had succeeded in making a Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists possible, and had paved the way for the great outburst of popular fury which was soon to take place. The little mountain Church still re- mained a living reproach to her, and a faithful witness of Apostolic truth. Small and feeble, persecuted and trampled upon though it was, its moral influence throughout Europe was tremendous. Protestant pow- ers were pleading for it with the Sardinian King, Pro- testant gold was being sent to sustain it in its adver- sity. It was more than a reproach to Rome. It was a living proof that the Papacy could not destroy the true Church, therefore, Rome both feared and hated it. The French Revolution was followed by war between Piedmont and France. The Duke of Savoy, now known as the King of Sardinia, at once called on the Vaudois to rally to his standard, and committed to them the defence of their own frontier. In spite of the perse- cutions they had endured at his hands, they responded promptly to the king's command, and were soon at the post of danger. Of course, they were thus obliged to leave their families in their villages, while they en- camped on the ridge of the Alps to oppose the enemy.

1 04 CR OSS A ND CR 0 WN.

There "remained in the Valleys below only the women, the children, the aged, and the infirm — ' feeble defenders,' says M. Monastier. Catholic fanaticism conceived the idea of a new St. Bartholomew's Day against these Protestant families, thus deprived of their natural protectors, who were occupied in the defence of their country. The execution of this plot was to have taken place in the night between the 14th and loth of May, 1793. The list of the conspirators contained more than 700 names. A column of assassins, assembled at Lucerna, was on a signal given to spread itself over the communes of St. John and La Tour, consuming all with fire and sword. The house of the priest of La Tour, his church, the Convent of the Recollets, and the houses of a few Catholics of the place, were filled with murderous villains, ready alike for pillage or for massacre.

" But there were also some generous Catholics, who refused to take part in this odious wickedness. These worthy men were better than Catholicism. Don Bri- anza, priest of Lucerna, not only refused to join the con- spirators, but he hastened also to make this conspiracy known to those whose existence was menaced. Cap- tain Odetti, of Cavour, likewise ran to warn the Vau- dois, and to defend the friends he had among them.

"An urgent message was immediately sent to Gene- ral Gaudin, asking him to bring down his troops from the mountains, or at least to permit the Vaudois legion to go and preserve their own homes from invading assassins. The brave general, unable to believe in such

THE VAUDOIS. 105

perfidy and cruelty, attached no importance to the revelation which was made to him. A new messenger was despatched to him without more effect. A third arrived and presented the list of the conspirators. The general could not believe in it. Moreover, he had his orders ; he could not abandon his post, nor consent to the withdrawal of a part of his troops ; and this third emissary also returned without any success. Seventeen persons went to him in succession. Time pressed ; the alarm was given ; the Vaudois troops, boiling with indignation, were all impatience to run to the succor of their families. At last the magistrates of La Tour and Le Villar themselves came to assure General Gau- din of the reality of this atrocious conspiracy, and to entreat for protection. He then adopted his resolution.

"It wras the eve of the fatal day; a report was spread of an approaching attack of the French; the troops fell back, and the Vaudois companies took posi- tion in their respective communes. But the troops of St. John and La Tour being at a greater distance from their homes than the rest, and more impatient to return to them, descended the mountains with such rapidity that many of the soldiers lost on the way some part of their baggage. The delay of a moment to pick up from the ground anything that might have fallen from their hands would have seemed to them to endanger the ex- istence of that which was dearest to them, and of which the loss would have been irreparable.

" The conspirators, seeing these irritated and warlike

106 CROSS AND CROWN.

troops arrive, made their escape by the gate of the Convent of the Recollets, which looks out upon the torrent of the Angrogna. The list of their names, drawn up by themselves, was sent to the Duke of Aosta (afterward Charles Emmanuel IV.), who had manifested some regard for the Vaudois ; but none of these traitors were prosecuted. The king even re- proached General Gaudin for having permitted his troops to abandon their position. ' Sire,' replied he, ' it is the most glorious day of my life, for I have not had to shed blood, but have prevented the effusion of it.' He was nevertheless dismissed from the service. But if he incurred court disgrace, he became the object of the liveliest gratitude to the Vaudois, who owed to him their preservation." *

The French, hearing of this conspiracy, sent messen- gers to the Vaudois, promising them large rewards if they would open their Valleys to them. The Vaudois indignantly refused the offer. All the persecutions they had endured had never made them traitors to their country, and they were still true Piedmontese.

Under Napoleon I. the Vaudois enjoyed genuine free- dom for the first time for centuries. The great con- queror was deeply impressed with the heroism which the mountain Church had displayed, and he confirmed them in their ancient privileges, and protected them in all their rights until the sword he had wielded so well fell powerless from his grasp. In no part of Europe

* The Israel of the Alps. Vol. ii. pp. 309-10-11.

THE VAUDOIS. 107

was his downfall lamented so bitterly as in the Vaudois Valleys. Whatever he had been to others, he had been a friend and protector to the mountain Church.

With the Restoration of 1814-1815, Victor Em- manuel IV. ascended the throne of Sardinia. With him came also the Jesuits, who made the Pope once more supreme in Turin. The Vaudois at once made their submission to the king, and asked for a confirma- tion of their ancient privileges. The sovereign was personally in favor of kindness to them, but he was a slave to the Jesuits, whose policy is unchanging. They prevented the king from carrying out his good inten- tions towards his Protestant subjects, and procured from him a series of edicts more worthy of a sovereign of the middle ages than one of the nineteenth century. From this time until 1848 the Vaudois were cruelly persecuted by Victor Emmanuel and his successors, the Jesuits being the true authors of these barbarous mea- sures. They were subjected to indignities, deprivations, and cruelties hardly surpassed by any of their former sufferings. They were prohibited from holding any public office, and were obliged to discontinue their labors on Catholic festivals. They were forbidden to hold land beyond certain limits,, or to make converts to, their faith, to build new churches except in the most incovenient locations, to marry Roman Catholic wives or husbands, or to lend their Bibles to Roman Catholics for their perusal. At the same time Roman Catholic missions were established in their midst, and the Jesuits

108 CROSS AXD CROWX.

were left free to annoy them with attempts to convert them to the faith of Rome.

Rome had committed her old error once more. She had set herself against the spirit of liberty that was revolutionizing the world, and she was destined to another ignominious failure. Italy was beginning to feel the life-giving warmth of the principle that was spreading over Europe, and the Jesuits were losing their power at Turin. The Sardinian Reformers won a decisive victory in the accession of Charles Albert to the throne. The new king was pledged to the cause of progress, and he resolved to signalize the beginning of his reign by proclaiming liberty of conscience through- out the kingdom. A petition was drawn up at Turin, headed by the gifted Marquis D'Azeglio — the states- man, poet, and artist — praying the king to grant liberty and equality to the Vaudois and the Jews. Many liberal priests and ecclesiastics signed this appeal. An overwhelming popular sentiment manifested itself in all parts of the kingdom in favor of the Vaudois. The journals pleaded their cause with power and success, and the mention of their name at dinners and public assemblies was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. To crown it all, the king, on the 17th of February, 1848, issued a decree granting freedom to the Vaudois, and placing them on a footing of equality with his other subjects.

The Vaudois received the glad tidings with simple gratitude. In all their persecutions they had mani-

THE VAUDOIS. 109

fested an unshaken loyalty to the House of Savoy, and they were now sincere in their expressions of devotion to their liberal king. In all parts of their Valleys hymns of thanksgiving and praise were heard. In every village processions, with gay banners and patri- otic songs, marched through the streets. Illuminations gleamed through all the Valleys, and bonfires blazed from every mountain peak. These demonstrations were not confined to the Vaudois alone. Their Catholic brethren joined heartily in them. Only the Jesuits and the priests, as a class, looked coldly on. They indeed had little cause for joy, for they well knew that freedom in Sardinia meant their expulsion from that kingdom — an event which soon after took place. The Vaudois appointed a deputation to proceed to Turin to render to the king their thanks for his goodness to them, and the sovereign appointed the 2Sth of Feb- ruary, 1848, for their reception.

And now Turin was to witness a wonderful sight. For three centuries the beautiful city had been the scene of the unremitting persecutions of the mountain Christians. From its gloomy dungeons procession after procession had passed to the grand square, where, in the midst of its splendid palaces, a "noble army of martyrs " had offered up their lives in testimony of the truth as they had received and kept it. Here had gathered, to begin their march, the armies which had carried sorrow, destruction, and death so often into the Valleys. Here were the prisons in which thousands

HO CROSS AND CROWN.

had died in obscurity, and from which the groans of the captives had gone up to God for so many centuries. Not even Rome itself had been more terrible to the Vaudois, more filled with bitter and painful memories to them than Turin. For long years it had been the chief witness of their sufferings. It was now to be the chief witness of their triumph.

On the 27th' of February, 1848, the Vaudois deputa- tion set out for the capital. On the way they were welcomed with delight at every town and village, and with vivas for " Our Vaudois brethren," and for " Liberty of conscience." They met a hearty welcome at Turin, its citizens, without distinction of faith or class, turning out to receive and provide them with quarters.

The next day an immense procession marched through the streets of Turin. First came a band of young girls clothed in white, with blue girdles, and bearing each a little banner in her hand. Then came the six hundred Vaudois deputies, and after them thousands of Piedmontese, rejoicing over the dawn of freedom in their country. As the Vaudois passed along, the city rang with cheers. Men rushed from the crowd into the ranks of the procession and embraced the mountaineers in their delight. Even the liberal priests cheered them. The great procession defiled before the royal balcony, and more than 30,000 banners saluted the king as they passed by. Turin had rarely beheld such a spectacle.

THE VAUDOIS. HI

The Vaudois were amazed as well as delighted. One of their number, writing from the scene, thus expresses their feelings : " Dear brother ! who would have said that we would have seen all this ? Who would have said that on the very castle square, where, in former times, the piles were raised for our martyrs, and the crowd gathered to witness their death, such a multitude would this day have welcomed the Vaudois with such acclamations of love and fraternity ? Verily, it is God who has done all these things ! To Him be the glory and the thanksgiving ! and may His blessing ever rest upon our pleasant native land ! "

The long war of eight hundred years between Rome and the mountain Church was ended. The truth had prevailed, and the Vaudois were for. the first time since they refused to submit to the claims of the Papacy in the possession and enjoyment of a real and substantial freedom. In that freedom they have not since been disturbed. The growing power and independence of Sardinia, the formation of the Italian kingdom, the radical changes which have since occurred in the old world, have been but so many guarantees of their safety. The Pope no longer wields the sceptre of tem- poral power, and though Jesuitism has not yet ceased scheming to fasten its mediaeval yoke upon the mind and conscience of the nineteenth century, we may be very sure that Rome will meet with her usual failure in her present and future efforts to turn the world back. Therefore we may regard the triumph of the Vaudois

112 CROSS AXD CROWX.

Church as complete, and its future as safe from the attacks of its old enemy.

Still sheltered in its lovely Valleys, the mountain Church lives ©n, maintaining the same faith it received from the Apostles, using its ancient ritual, and affording to the world the most remarkable instance on record of the indestructibility of the truth. No human power could have carried this little flock so securely through the trials and temptations we have been considering, and from which we have seen it emerge unscathed. These men trusted in the Lord, and He delivered them. It was His arm that led them along the dreary way, through which they have come into the possession of their rest. Because they kept the Word of His pa- tience, He also kept them from the hour of temptation.

II.

THE MARTYRS OF VAL LOUISE.

|N the western slope of the Cottian Alps, within the limits of the old French Province of Dauphiny, is the picturesque defile known as Val Louise. It descends from Mount Pelvoux, whose snow-capped summit attains an altitude of 13,468 feet above the sea, to the basin of the River Durance. It is a bold and rugged ravine, abounding in fine scenery, but with little to attract those whose souls are not in sympathy with the sterner beauties of nature. A few settlements exist in the Valley, the principal of which is a village called La Ville de Val Louise. The inhabitants are poor, simple in their mode of life, and earn their subsistence chiefly by tending flocks, and cultivating the limited area of arable ground accessible to them. Cut off from the world by the lofty mountains which surround them, they know but little of what is passing in Europe, and take little interest in any but their own affairs.

Within this mountain valley the faith of the Vaudois Christians found a welcome very soon after its intro- duction into Piedmont. The simple but powerful truths of Christianity appealed to these rude mountaineers

8 113

114 CROSS AXD CROWN.

with a force which can hardly be imagined by those of ns who live at the present day. The religion of the Prince of Peace became their rule of life, and while the kingdoms of the world were warring and struggling without, within the Val Louise there was peace and love. There was little need for the strong arm of the law here, for the mountain Christians yielded an implicit obedience to those in authority over them. To honor and obey their prince was as much a religious duty with them as to fear God. Lawlessness and crime were unknown among them. Beyond their mountains no rights were respected but those of the great nobles who were strong enough to maintain them, and no one could feel sure that he would not be stripped of his possessions by another more powerful than himself. Within the Val Louise each man was honest, and no one dreamed of despoiling his neighbor of his goods. If one lacked any of the necessities of life, the others were ready to share their scanty stores with him. Love and charity were the rule of all. Beyond the moun- tains woman was but little better than a slave, in spite of the boasted chivalry of Europe. She was held to be scarcely anything but a creature formed for the purpose of ministering to the gratification of men's lusts, and female virtue was almost a myth. In the Val Louise, the purity of t(ie maiden and wife was the basis of the simple social life of the mountaineers. There was not a woman but would have proved a Lucretia in the hour of trial, nor a man who would not have died in defence of that purity which all held so dear.

THE MARTYRS OF VAL LOUISE. H5

So the little Church of the Val Louise existed, simple and pure, a light in the midst of the darkness which overshadowed the world. Its pastors kept it true to the faith of Christ; and Rome, which had begun to put forth her audacious claims, had too much to do to carry on her war upon the great of the earth to give heed to this little nook of the Alps.

The meetings of the Church were held from time to time in the open air, or in one of the huts of the village. The worship was simple, and was similar to that of the Yaudois of Piedmont. It went on with- out molestation until the thirteenth century, when Rome, having consolidated her power, resolved to silence every voice which did not join in her praise. Between 1238 and 1243, the agents of the Pope crossed the Alps and appeared in the Yal Louise. They came, they said, for the purpose of converting the mountain- eers to the faith of Christ; but their demand was, " Acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope ; receive the Mass. " The mountaineers heard the demand with amazement. The Bishop of Rome, they declared, was a local prelate, and had no authority over them, and as for the Mass and the other doctrines taught by the priests, they were idolatrous and repugnant to the Word of God. In vain the priests argued and persuaded. The Yaudois Christians met them at all points with the uncompromising statement, " We reject these things because they are condemned by the Bible." Argument being in vain, the priests called in the power of the State.

1 1 G CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

The Bishop of Embrun, in whose diocese the Valley lay, was made chief persecutor. The Yaudois were seized, imprisoned, tortured, burned ; but they kept their faith pure to the last, and died calling on the name of the Master in whose cause they suffered.

Soon after this persecution, one of the Vaudois brethren of the Valley of Lucerna, in Piedmont, Chabert by name, purchased from the Dauphin John II., a good house in the principal village of the Valley, and presented it to the people of that place, to be used by them as a church. They held peaceable possession of it until the year 1348.

One bright morning in the year last mentioned, there might have been seen winding along the rugged road which borders the foaming Durance, a band of armed men, approaching from the direction of .Embrun, and descending into the peaceful Valley. The sight, so un- usual and so startling, alarmed the inhabitants ; the news spread rapidly, and soon a crowd had collected in the principal village to await the arrival of the troops, who came straight on into the place. They halted in front of the church. They were accompanied by a number of priests, and the leader of the party informed the village folk that they had come by order of the Archbishop of Embrun to destroy the Vaudois Church of the Val Louise, which church, he declared, was a shame and a disgrace to the land. The villagers besought him to spare their church, assuring him that they were honest and harmless people, and had wronged no one. The

THE MARTYRS OF YAL LOUISE. 117

officer had no discretion. His orders were positive. The church was fired, and in a little while nothing remained of it but a heap of smouldering ashes. The priests then informed the people that the Archbishop forbade the rebuilding of the church on pain of excom- munication.

This wicked deed was not accomplished without remonstrance on the part of the Vaudois. These remonstrances, however, availed nothing. They were the cause of further affliction to the mountaineers. Twelve of those who had been most prominent in their efforts to save the church were seized by order of the priests, and conveyed to Embrun, to be tried by the Archbishop for heresy.

Arrived at that place they were thrown into prison, and allowed to lie there for some days. They were then brought before the Archbishop, who questioned them concerning their faith. This they stated plainly and without equivocation. They were then asked if they would acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope, and accept the Roman Catholic doctrines of the Mass, the Sacrament, the worship of the Virgin and the Saints, and Confession. They refused to accept either or any of these doctrines. The religion they professed had been transmitted to them unimpaired through a succession of faithful ministers from the days of the Apostles. They desired to live and to die in it. As for the doctrines offered for their acceptance, they were errors, and they could not admit them without doing

118 CROSS AND CROWN.

violence to their consciences, and sinning against God, whose written Word, the Holy Bible, gave no warrant for them. In consequence of this refusal they were subjected to cruel tortures. But they remained firm, praying to God in their agony to keep them faithful unto death. Unable to make apostates of these Chris- tians, the Archbishop condemned them to death as heretics.

The square in front of the Cathedral of Embrun was appointed for their execution. A large pile of wood and reeds was erected in the centre of the square, and on the appointed day a vast concourse of people assembled to witness the martyrdom. The martyrs were led from their prisons under a strong guard, and were attended by a number of monks, who mingled their exhortations with cruel reproaches and taunts. Each of the Vaudois was dressed in a yellow robe, on which were painted red flames, symbolical of those of hell. Upon reaching the scene of their suffering, they received the curse of the Romish Church, which, the priests declared, cut them off from all hope of Heaven. Their heads were then shaved, their feet were made bare, and ropes were passed about their necks. Then from out the dark Cathedral tower came floating the deep tones of the bell which tolled their funeral knell, and the Romish clergy chaunted the dirge appointed for such occasions.

As for the martyrs, they stood calm and cheerful, paying no heed to these sounds of hate and vengeance,

THE MARTYRS OF VAL LOUISE. H9

but lifting their hearts in prayer, and asking for strength to suffer bravely for Christ's sake ; and when they spoke to each other they uttered only words of comfort and cheer. When the dirge was finished, the priests again exhorted the Vaudois to accept the faith of Rome, and again did the latter refuse to purchase their lives at the sacrifice of the truth. The execu- tioners advanced. One by one the victims were seized and strangled. Their lifeless bodies were then thrown on the burning pile, and in a little while the twelve faithful witnesses for Christ were but a heaj) of ashes, which the monks scattered to the four winds of heaven.

When the news of the martyrdom reached the hamlets of Val Louise, there was sore weeping and sorrow among those to whom the martyrs wrere bound by the ties of love and kindred ; but the mourners did not sorrow as those without hope. In the depth of their grief they thanked God that their loved ones had not betrayed His Cause, and prayed that their example might be a lesson and a warning to the Church to be faithful unto death, that having passed unscathed through the fire of persecution, it might receive, with these its beloved martyrs, the Crown of life, which God has promised to those who suffer for His sake.

III.

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL.

WO young men of the Vaudois Valleys chanced to meet one day in a hostelry at Turin. Their conversation turned upon the affairs of their Valleys, and they expressed their regret that their cwn country offered so few inducements to them. The population was so large that the soil could not supply the wants of the people, and these young men were of the opinion that it would be necessary for them to seek employment elsewhere. A Calabrian noble- man, lodging at the same inn, overheard their conver- sation, and questioned them concerning their own coun- try and their wishes. He then described to them the advantages of the Province of Calabria, in which he held large possessions, and said to them, " My friends, if you choose to come with me, I will give you delight- ful plains instead of your rocks." The young men were pleased with his offer, and agreed to accept it provided they could first obtain the consent of their families. This condition was approved by the noble, and he authorized them to extend his offer to as many of their friends as would go with them.

Returning to their homes, they made known the 120

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. ] 21

nobleman's proposition, and the people of the Valleys sent commissioners into Calabria to examine the coun- try before deciding upon the offer made them. These soon returned with glowing accounts of the land. " In that country," says Gilles, the historian, "there were beautiful streams and little hills, clothed with all sorts of fruit trees growing promiscuously, according to the soil which they affected, such as olive and orange trees. In the plains were vines and chestnuts; along the lower hills, walnuts, oaks, beeches, and other hard wood trees ; on the slopes and crests of the mountains, larches and firs. Everywhere were to be seen in abundance lands fit for cultivation, with few to cultivate them."

The Valleys of Piedmont, on the other hand, were overcrowded, and a number of the Vaudois families resolved to accept the offer of the Calabrian noble. Preparations were made for their departure. The young people who contemplated marriage made haste to perform their contracts, and those who had posses- sions to dispose of, found ready purchasers for them. It was painful to sunder the ties that bound them to their kindred and to their old homes, but all felt that it was better they should go. The whole Vaudois popu- lation accompanied them to the base of the mountains, and there took a tearful leave of them, all kneeling in solemn prayer, and asking God's favor and protection for the emigrants. Then the Bible was solemnly com- mitted to them, and they were charged to hold fast the faith of their fathers. The people of the Valleys then

122 CROSS AND CROWN.

went back to their homes, and the emigrants began their march towards the South.

The Province of Calabria lay in the southern portion of the Kingdom of Naples. It took the emigrants twenty-five days to reach it, and their journey was accomplished at the cost of considerable hardship and man}* privations. Upon reaching Calabria, they were well received by the great lords of that country, who granted them land upon the most favorable conditions. They required the Yaudois merely to pay them as lords of the soil a certain annual rent, and then left them to manage their agricultural matters as they pleased. They were also granted the right of organiz- ing independent communities, of selecting their own civil and ecclesiastical rulers, and of levying and collect- ing such rates as they might see fit to impose upon themselves. This was great liberty for that period, and the Vaudois caused the agreement to be written out in ful^ and signed by the contracting parties. This settle- ment was made in Calabria, about the year 1340 ; and this Charter of the Vaudois, if it may be so called, was subsequently confirmed by the King of Naples, Ferdi- nand of Arragon.

The Yaudois settlement prospered in a marked degree. Their lands soon became noted as the best cultivated and most productive in the kingdom. They paid their rents and taxes punctually, yielded a prompt and cheerful obedience to the laws, carried on their schools, and by their intelligence and education

JOIIN LOUIS PASCHAL. 123

attained a vast superiority over the ignorant natives by whom they were surrounded. They increased rapidly in numbers, and within half a century after their arri- val in Calabria had built the towns of Borgo d'Oltra- montani, and St. Xist, and several villages and hamlets. The excellent manner in which they cultivated their lands gained them the favor of the nobles, whose reve- nues were greatly increased thereby. Their example also began to be followed by the native Calabrians, and the agriculture of the province attained a degree of per- fection unknown before their arrival. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the Vaudois were joined by some of their brethren from the French Valleys, and even as late as the year 1500 they received additions from the Valleys of Piedmont. In all Italy there could not be found a happier, more enlightened, or more pros- perous community than the Vaudois settlement in Calabria.

Nor were the spiritual interests of these people neglected. They were regularly visited by the Pied- montese Barbas, appointed by the Vaudois Synod. These pastors came two and two — an old man and a young assistant. They were changed every two years. Setting out from the Piedmontese Valleys, they made a regular circuit of the Peninsula. If, in going to Cala- bria, they passed to the right of the Apennines, by way of Genoa and Naples, they returned by the opposite side of the mountains, through the cities of the west coast of the Adriatic to Venice and Milan, and thence

124 CROSS AND CROWN.

back to Piedmont. These visits were anxiously looked for by the Calabrian Church, and they were the means of keeping it informed of the history of the brethren in other parts of Italy.

The Romish clergy from the first regarded the Vau- dois with hostility. They would have persecuted them without remorse had it not been to their interest to tolerate them. " Already, at different times, says Per- rin, ' the clerical race had made complaint that these ultramontanes did not live religiously, like other peo- ple ; but the seigneurs restrained the cures, saying that these cultivators of the soil came from distant and unknown regions, where, perchance, the people were not so much addicted to the ceremonies of the Church ; but that in the main they were remarkable for honesty, charitable towards the poor, punctual in paying their rents, and full of the fear of God ; that therefore there was no reason why their consciences should be troubled about a few processions, images, or lights, which they had less than the other people of the country.' This restrained those who looked upon them with ill will, and prevented for a time the murmurs of their neigh- bors, who, not having been able to draw them into alliances by intermarriage, became jealous when they saw their lands, their cattle, and their labors more blessed of Heaven than their own. Thus they remained in liberty, prospering as the people of God, even in the land of bondage. The priests themselves, says Meille, had never levied such large tithes as since the Vaudois

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. 125

had come to make the country productive. To drive them away, would have been to render themselves poor, and they held their peace." *

Thus matters went on until the period of the Refor- mation. The Vaudois continued to prosper, but the enmity of the Romish clergy to them increased every year. As the fanaticism of the priests grew, their self- interest had less weight with them, and their hostility at length culminated in open war against the Vaudois. In 1561, Rome turned a horde of savage monks and soldiers against the Vaudois, and massacred them in the cruellest manner. A few managed to escape to their brethren in Piedmont, but the Vaudois Church in Calabria was utterly exterminated. The circumstances of this massacre were so atrocious that when the news reached the city of Rome, the people were so exaspe- rated by the recital that they burned the palace of the Pope to the ground.

Previous to this, however, it was the fortune of the Calabrian Vaudois to give to the Church one of its most eminent and revered martyrs. Hearing that the Vau- dois of Peidmont had erected churches for public wor- ship, the Calabrian brethren determined to do likewise, and to secure a pastor who should remain with them permanently. The more sagacious of the community argued against this policy, declaring that it would but increase the hostility of the Romish clergy, and be sim-

* Muston.

126 CROSS AND CROWN.

ply a source of misfortune to them. This advice was not taken, however, and the brethren sent one of their number to Geneva to secure a permanent pastor for their Church. The messenger was Mark Uscegli. He reached Geneva in safety, and laid the request of the Calabrian Church before the elders of that place. After due consideration, the elders decided to grant the prayer of the Italians, and to send them a permanent pastor. They selected for this position, which they knew would be one of great danger, a gifted and eloquent man, who had abandoned the profession of arms, to become a preacher of the Gospel. He was John Louis Paschal, a native of Coni, in Piedmont.

Paschal was a young man, and had but recently entered the ministry. He was full of enthusiasm, and eager to do service in his Master's cause. Two days before his nomination to the Calabrian pastorate, he had been betrothed to Camilla Guarina, a young woman of Piedmont, who, like himself, had fled to Geneva to be able to worship God in peace. Upon being informed of his selection to the dangerous post, he hastened to her, and asked her consent to leave her and go to Calabria. The poor girl overwhelmed with grief could only exclaim, " Alas ! so near to Rome, and so far from me ! " She was a true child of the Vaudois, however, and she bade him do his duty and trust in God to bring them together again. Paschal then formally accepted the mission confided to him, and soon after set out for Calabria, where he arrived in the spring of 1559.

JOHN LOUIS PAS CIIA L. 127

The Calabrian brethren received their young pastor with great affection, and were well pleased to obtain a teacher who united so much zeal to such high intellec- tual gifts. They desired that he would follow the prac- tice of the Church at Geneva, and preach the Gospel to thein openly and in public, and his own zeal induced him to yield to their wish. His preaching was emi- nently acceptable to them. They crowded around him enthusiastically, "with the joyous affection of brethren, and always hungering the more for the word of life, the more that he multiplied it to them, like the bread broken by the Lord."

These public preachings gave great offence to the priests, and they at once endeavored to excite the pas- sions of the ignorant multitude by telling them that a Lutheran had come among them to destroy the country with his heretical doctrines. They demanded that Pas- chal and all his adherents should be put to death, and they succeeded to such an extent in inflaming the people against the Vaudois that there was danger of bloodshed. Perceiving the danger, the Marquis Salva- tor Spinello, principal feudal lord of the Vaudois, who was at that time visiting Foscalda, a little town close by, sent a message to the Vaudois, asking them to send him a deputation of their people to explain the matter to him. The Vaudois at once entreated Pas- chal, as their minister, to accompany their deputies, and to explain to the marquis their reasons for acting as they had done. Paschal signified his willingness to

128 CR OSS A XD CR 0 WN.

do so, and in July, 1559, set out with his friends for Foscalda.

Upon reaching that town, they went to an inn. They were met there by one of the marquis's own household, who was secretly a friend of their doctrines. Being informed of the danger which threatened them, he wished to save them. Addressing himself to Pas- chal, whose conduct he perceived would govern that of the others, he said :

" Listen to me. You have powerful enemies. The best defence of the feeble is to keep out of their way. I advise you, therefore, to go back without presenting yourselves."

" What ! " exclaimed Paschal, " shall I skulk away without defending myself, without contending for the truth, without pleading for my beloved Church ?"

" The only object of pleading is to gain a cause," said the prudent friend ; " in this instance it can only be gained by keeping silence."

" That would not only be feeble, but shameful," said the young minister warmly. " The Christian is not tc measure his strength, but to do his duty. Moreover, the help of God cannot fail us in this conflict ; where is there more strength than in His Word?"

" Its strength," said his friend sadly, " goes for no- thing with those who do not listen to it. Take heed ! you will not be judged according to the Word of God, but according to that of men."

" Then," replied the undaunted pastor, " the honor

JO UN L 0 UIS PA SCRAL. 129

of defending the Word of God is better than that of triumphing over men."

" You will defend it better by preaching it to your churches, which desire it, than by exposing it to the contempt of those who wish to suppress it."

" But it is my churches themselves which are called to account, and their pastor ought to be there."

All warnings, and arguments were useless. Paschal had determined that he would speak plainly to the mar- quis, and he was so sure of the excellence of his cause, that he could not help believing that he would be sent back to his charge in peace, he and his companions being found guiltless of wrong. Moreover, he thought it not impossible that, by a forcible statement of the truths of Christianity, he might open the eyes of the marquis himself to a knowledge of the errors of Rome, and show him the way of eternal life. To accomplish this was in his estimation worth any risk.

At the appointed time he and his companions pre- sented themselves before the marquis. He had ex- pected to be confronted with the priests who had accused him, and to be allowed an opportunity to defend his faith. He now perceived his error. The marquis was in full sympathy with the priests, and had summoned the Vaudois before him merely to draw Paschal into his power. Neither he nor the priests desired to argue with the Vaudois pastor, but merely to silence him. It was a cunningly laid plot, and it was thoroughly successful. Paschal was rudely cut

130 CROSS AND CROWN.

short in his remarks by the marquis, who ordered the Vaudois deputies to return to their homes. Paschal and Mark Uscegli were excepted from this order, and were made prisoners. They were at once thrown into a dungeon, where they were kept for eight months, without being allowed to communicate with their friends. They were confined in the same dungeon, however, and during this sad imprisonment, they com- forted each other with Christian consolations.

From Foscalda they were removed to Cosenza, where they were imprisoned for more than a month. Here Mark Uscegli, or as Paschal affectionately calls him, Marquet, or " Little Mark," was put to the torture to make him abandon his faith and embrace that of Rome. He steadfastly refused, and from this time we hear no more of him. The inference is that he died a victim of Romish cruelty.

In April, 1560, Paschal was sent from Cosenza to Naples, in company with twenty-two galley slaves. He was heavily ironed, and his fetters were so painful to him that he could not rest. By bribing the officer in charge of the detachment with all the money he possessed, he induced him to loosen the fetters a little, and in this way secured some modification of his suffer- ings. Nine days were occupied in the voyage to Naples, and during this time he preached repeatedly to his fel- low prisoners, exhorting them, and proclaiming the ful- ness and the necessity of the salvation which is by Jesus Christ.

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. 131

From Naples he was conveyed to Rome that he might be immediately dealt with by the Inquisition. He entered the city by the Appian Way, passing in by the Gate of Ostium. It was along this route that St. Paul had passed under the escort of his Roman guard. Along this route hundreds of the martyrs of the Primi- tive Church had gone to death and immortality. And now, fourteen centuries later, another martyr passed through the famous gateway, and trod the hard streets of the Eternal City, following in the steps of those early witnesses for Christ. He was conducted to the Tower of Nona and cast into a strong dungeon. No one was allowed to hold communication with him, except the Inquisitors, who continually urged him, without effect, to recant.

His brother, Bartholomew Paschal, was at this time living at Coni. He was a Roman Catholic, but was devotedly attached to John Louis, and he now deter- mined to make an effort to see him, and to try to save him. He procured a letter of recommendation from the Governor of Coni to the Count of Trinity, then resid- ing in Rome. Upon arriving in that city, he presented this letter, and through the influence of the count, obtained permission to visit his captive brother. It was also hoped by the Papal authorities that he would be able to induce John Louis to recant.

He was ushered into a damp and gloomy dungeon, which was so dark that he could scarcely distinguish the objects in it. Yet by the dismal light he could see

J 32 CROSS A XD CR 0 WN.

that the martyrs arms were tied tightly with small cords which cut and inflamed his flesh. He was pale and emaciated, but calm and resolute. The Inquisi- tor who accompanied Bartholomew pointed in silence to the captive, and the new comer, making himself known, bent down to embrace the sufferer. At the same time he burst into tears at the sad sight.

" My brother," said Paschal, cheerfully, " why do you distress yourself so much ? Know you not that a leaf cannot fall from a tree without the will of God ? "

" Hold your peace, you heretic," cried the Inquisitor, roughly.

Controlling his emotion, Bartholomew said to him :

" Is it possible, my brother, that you are obstinate in disowning the Catholic faith, which everybody else holds?"

" I hold that of the Gospel," was the answer.

" Think you, then," said the Inquisitor, " that God will condemn all those who do not follow the doctrine of Luther and Calvin ? "

" It is not for me to determine," replied Paschal, "but I do know that He will condemn those who, knowing the truth, do not profess it."

" You speak of truth," said the Inquisitor, sneeringly. "You disseminate errors."

" Prove me that by the Gospel," said Paschal, quickly.

The Inquisitor paid no heed to this remark, but con- tinued :

" You would have done far better to have remained

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. 133

still in your own house, enjoying your inheritance, and dwelling among your brethren, instead of rushing into heresy, and losing all that you had."

" I have nothing to lose upon the earth," he replied, earnestly, " that I must not lose sooner or later, and I acquire an inheritance in Heaven, which all the powers of the earth shall not be able to take from me."

The Inquisitor then put an end to the interview, and Paschal was left alone in the darkness and misery of his dungeon. There was not even straw to lie upon, and he was beginning to suffer from fever. Yet in all this wretchedness he retained his constancy. In the darkness and silence of his prison he could commune with the Master whose faithful witness he was, and it pleased God to give him strength to endure it all.

The next day he was summoned before the members of the Holy Office, who for more than four hours urged him to abandon the faith for which he was being pun- ished, and to accept that of Rome in its place. They advanced every argument they were possessed of, but they could obtain no concession. Faint and worn with hunger and suffering, he met their every argument, and baffled every device to entrap him into a surrender of his belief. For three days this scene was repeated daily. Then finding him inflexible, the Inquisitors allowed his brother to approach him once more. Bar- tholomew earnestly entreated him to yield a little, and not to bring upon his family the disgrace of a con- demnation.

134 CROSS AXD CROWN.

"Must I honor my Saviour less than them," said Paschal, reproachfully, " that I am to become per- jured to Him?"

" You will honor Him in your heart, although you remain in the Church," said Bartholomew.

" If I am ashamed of Him on the earth," said the heroic sufferer, " He will deny me in Heaven."

"Ah, my dear brother," urged Bartholomew, " return to the bosom of your family, we would all be so happy to have you there."

" Would to God," exclaimed Paschal, with emotion, " that we were all met again, united in the Saviour's love ! for my native skies would be pleasanter to me than the vaults of this prison. But if I remain here, it is because Jesus abides with me, and my Saviour is better to me than my family."

" Would it be to lose Him to come with us ? " asked Bartholomew, awed by this outburst.

" Yes," was the reply, " for the gate of my dungeon will not open except by means of an abjuration, and that would be the loss of my soul."

" Your friends, then, are nothing to you ? "

" Jesus says, he that is not ready to give up his father or his mother for my sake, is not worthy of me."

Bartholomew then told him he would give him half of all his possessions if he would make his peace with the Pope and go back with him to Coni ; but Paschal, at these words, burst into tears, and begged him to

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. 135

desist, that to hear him utter such words afflicted him more grievously than the fetters with which he was bound. " The world," said he, " passeth away, with the lusts thereof, but the Word of God endureth forever. God grant me such strength that I may never forsake Him."

" Three days after," says Bartholomew, in his narra- tive, " I found means to speak with him again, and when the monk was proceeding to exhort him anew, he said to him : 'All your arguments are founded upon human prudence, but do not shut your eyes to the grace of God, for you will be inexcusable before Him.' The monk was very much astonished and said, ' God have mercy on us!' '0 that He may,' added the prisoner. But the day following, without uttering a word, he made a sign to me that I should begone, hav- ing perceived that the Inquisitors had begun to suspect me ; and so I left him without speaking, and returned to Piedmont."

And now the martyr was left alone to prepare for that death which he knew could not be very far distant. His sufferings increased as his bodily strength diminished, but his firmness remained unshaken. Convinced that the end was near, he wrote to his affi- anced bride a touching and beautiful letter. " The affection which I bear to you," he wrote, " increases with the increase of my love to God ; and the more that I have made progress in the Christian religion, the more also have I loved you." Then giving her to

136 CROSS AND CROWN.

understand that his death might soon be expected, he continued : " Console yourself in Jesus Christ ; and let your life be an exhibition of His doctrine."

Paschal had been a prisoner in Rome since the middle of May, and during that time his sufferings had been very great. The end was now at hand. On Sunday, the 8th of September, 1560, he was conducted under guard from his prison to the Convent Delia Minerva. There he was informed of his sentence, which was that he should be burnt at the stake the next day. He was once more urged to recant, but he declared that he confirmed with a steadfast and joyful heart all the answers he had previously given ; and raising his eyes to heaven, he gave thanks to God that He had called him to the glory of martyrdom. He was then taken back to his prison, where he passed the night in prayer.

The next morning, September 9th, he was led to the great square of the Castle of St. Angelo. Close by the bridge over the Tiber a pile of inflammable wood had been prepared. On one side of the square, on a platform raised above the ground, sat Pope Pius IV., and around him were grouped the cardinals, bishops and priests of his Church — all come to gloat over the agonies of the martyr.

Paschal had walked in silence from his prison ; but now, seeing the great dignitaries and vast multitude that had gathered to witness his death, he broke forth into a strain of great eloquence, " and began to pro-

JOHN LOUIS PASCHAL. 137

claim the ineffable sweetness of the Gospel of Christ." The people listened in wonder and admiration. The Pope became troubled, and the priests began to mur- mur. The only sound heard in the great square was the voice of the martyr, uttering in clear, firm tones, his dying testimony. There were murmurs of sympa- thy in the crowd, and the Pope's brow darkened. The Inquisitors, recovering from their surprise at the sud- denness and force of Paschal's words, ordered him to be strangled, to silence his voice. The executioners seized him, tightened the fatal cord about his neck, and a few minutes later his lifeless body was flung upon the burning pile, which reduced it to ashes. The ashes were carefully gathered up and thrown into the Tiber, which bore them sfowly into the bosom of the ocean.

Rome had silenced the voice of the young pastor, but she could not destroy the story of his life, nor the lesson of his martyrdom. They were very precious to the Church for which he died, and they comforted and consoled it in hours of bitter trial, and gave it courage to hold fast to the truth which he had sealed with his blood.

IV. MARTIN GONIN.

N the year 1532, the Synod of the Vaudois Church was held in the Valley of Angrogna. At this meeting it was resolved that the Church should send to Geneva, in Switzerland, and procure a sup- ply of printed Bibles and religious books to be distributed among the Vaudois of Piedmont, there being a great necessity for such publications. The priests and the Roman Catholic authorities maintained a strict watch over the frontiers for the purpose of excluding the Bible and the religious publications of the Protestants from Italy, and it was a work of no little difficulty to introduce such books into the dominions of Savoy. The task of bringing them over the Alps was confided to discreet and daring men, not unfrequently to the Barbas, or pastors themselves. They brought them packed in their luggage or in bales or boxes of goods, and even with this precaution it was necessary to avoid the common routes, and follow the remotest and most perilous mountain paths. To be captured on such an expedition was fatal to the Bible vender, for death was the penaHy awarded by Rome to all who sought to give the Word of God to the common people.

138

MARTIN G0N1N. 139

Among those who had successfully crossed the moun- tains, and had distributed the Bible and the books of instruction sanctioned by the Church, was the pastor of Angrogna, Martin Gonin. A man of unflinching courage and great bodily endurance, he was also pru- dent and discreet. He was well acquainted with the mountains, in which his whole life had been passed, and he was full of zeal in the great work undertaken by the Church. After his return from the mission we have mentioned, he continued to reside in the Valley of Angrogna for a number of years, in the exercise of his ministry. Towards the close of the year 1535, he in common with other pastors, felt the need of procur- ing a new supply of religious books, which could be obtained only at Geneva. To procure them it would be necessary to send one of their number to Geneva, and as the selection of the books would be a matter of considerable importance, they would have to choose some one whose experience and knowledge of the wants of the people should enable him to make a proper selection. The undertaking was one of great danger, and it was admitted that he who should attempt it would take his life in his hand. Martin Gonin at once volunteered to make the journey, and his offer was accepted.

He waited until near the close of February, 1536, and then set out in company with another Vaudois, John Girard, who was going to Geneva for the purpose of founding a printing office, especially with a view

X 40 CR OSS AXD CR 0 WN.

to supplying the wants of his own countrymen. They travelled by the usual roads, but they incurred no spe- cial danger, for the snows lay so heavy upon the Alps as to render them almost impassable. Few travellers dared to venture along the dangerous roads, and in con- sequence of this, they were but imperfectly watched by the Piedmontese troops. Gonin and his companion met with no adventures on their journey, and reached Geneva in safety. They were warmly received by the Church at that place, and the pastor had no difficulty in making a selection of the books that were needed. This done he set out on his return, leaving Geneva late in March.

The King of France and the Duke of Savoy were now at war with each other, and the French had seized upon Bresse, Savoy, and the greater part of Piedmont. To return by the way he had come from Angrogna would have been fatal to the pastor, for the road was held along almost its entire length by the soldiers of the King of France, from whom no Protestant could hope for mercy if captured. Therefore, Gonin resolved to pass through France, and to endeavor to reach the Vaudois Valleys of Dauphiny, where he was sure of a warm welcome and assistance, and from which he could easily pass back to his own Valley. The first part of his journey was accomplished in safety, but as he was nearing the borders of Dauphiny, he was seized by a detachment of soldiers which he happened to en- counter, and was sent as a prisoner to Grenoble, on

MARTIN GO MX. 141

suspicion of being a spy of the Duke of Savoy. Upon reaching that city he was examined by some of the officers of the Parliament of Grenoble. He answered their questions so readily and frankly that they were entirely convinced of his innocence of the charge, and ordered him to be released.

Before making known to the prisoner the order of his judges, the jailor into whose hands Gonin had fallen, resolved to rob him of such valuables as he might have on his person. He accordingly stripped him of his garments, and made a thorough search of them. In the lining of Gonin's coat, he discovered several written papers which the pastor had neglected to destroy after his capture. These were simply letters of affectionate counsel and encouragement addressed by the pastors of Geneva to their Christian brethren of the Vaudois Valleys, and which Gonin had undertaken to convey to their destination. The jailor, wishing to secure favor with the judges, at once laid these letters before them, and they, after reading the papers, recalled their order of release, and commanded him to put Gonin in prison again.

For two days the pastor lay in his filthy dungeon, not knowing what would be his fate, but strongly sus- pecting that his name was to be added to the long roll of the martyrs of his Church. The thought did not dismay him, for while life was sweet to him, he was not unwilling or afraid to lay it down for his Master's sake.

142 CROSS AND CRO WN.

On the third day he was again summoned before his judges. The charge against him this time was that he was a Lutheran.

" I am not a Lutheran/' he replied, when called upon to speak in his defence, " for Luther did not die for me, but Jesus Christ only, whose name I bear."

" What is your doctrine ? " asked one of the judges sharply.

" That of the Gospel," replied the pastor, calmly.

" Do you go to mass ? "

" No."

" Do you acknowledge the authority of the Pope ? "

" No."

" Do you acknowledge that of the King ? "

" Yes," replied the pastor, promptly ; " for the powers that be are ordained of God."

" But the Pope is also one of the powers that be," said the chief judge, quickly, hoping to entrap the pastor in his own words.

" Only by the support of the devil," rejoined Gonin.

This bold answer threw the judges in a fury, and they angrily ordered the pastor to be silent. Gonin then told them that he held no doctrines for which he ought rightfully to be imprisoned or to suffer punish- ment, and declared that, if they would allow him an opportunity, he would prove his opinions by the Bible^ They were resolved to show him no mercy, however. They had heard enough, they said, and would proceed no farther with the examination. They denounced him

MARTIN GONIN. 143

with great violence as an accursed heretic, and com- manded him to be put to death.

They were obliged, however, to execute their sentence with great caution. Grenoble had already been affected to a considerable extent by the doctrines of the Re- formation, and the Lords of Bonne, Villars, Mailhet, Bardonanche, and other powerful gentlemen of the vicinity were greatly inclined to the Reformed doctrines. The judges and the priests were afraid that a public execution might bring these nobles to the rescue of Gonin, and that he might by his words addressed to the people who should collect to witness his death, so move them in his behalf that the Romish Church would be deprived of its victim. Therefore it was resolved that his death should be secret, and the executioner was ordered to strangle him at night and cast his body into the River Isere.

Conveyed back to his dungeon, the venerable Barba gave himself up to prayer. He prayed for the advance- ment of the work in which he was engaged, for the con- version of all men to the true faith of Jesus Christ, for his own family thus doomed to sorrow, and for his struggling countrymen. There was no thought of fear, no vestige of a wish to save his life by a recantation. For him to die was gain. There was no need of priest, or absolution, or masses for this brave soul. He had fixed his faith on the Rock of Ages, and in the gloom of his dungeon he was in close communion with his Saviour and the supreme Head of his Church.

144 CR OSS A ND CR 0 WN.

It pleased God that he should not linger long. On the night of the 26th of April, 1536, the pastor was aroused from his prayer by the sound of heavy foot- steps descending the stone stairway leading to his dungeon. They came nearer and nearer, and at last paused at the door. There was a rattling of keys, the bolts shot back, allowing the massive door to swing open. The pastor, well knowing the meaning of the sounds, rose to his feet, and stood calm and serene, awaiting his murderers. The light of a lantern borne by one of the men revealed the executioner and several assistants standing in the doorway.

" I see plainly what you come for," said the pastor, calmly, as the men paused on the threshold, as if un- willing to enter ; " but do you think to deceive God ? "

" In what ? " asked several, astonished by his solemn words.

" You intend to throw me into the river when there is nobody to see," he answered ; " but will not God see you?"

The executioner burst into a brutal laugh, and with- out replying to the martyr, said to his men :

" Get your ropes ready."

" And you, poor sinners," said Gonin, turning to the prisoners who had been confined with him, and to whom his words during his captivity had been full of comfort, " remember that there is pardon in one only, that is in Jesus Christ ; and were your souls red even as crimson, He could make them white as snow."

MARTIN GONIN. 145

" What is the meaning of this ? " asked one of his companions in misfortune.

" The stains most indelible, even according to human laws," he replied, " can be washed out by Him. Repent and be converted, for the kingdom of God is at hand."

" Are the ropes ready ? " asked the executioner, inter- rupting him.

Receiving an affirmative answer, he ordered his men to seize the pastor and bind him. Gonin made no re- sistance, but suffered the ruffians to tie his arms and hands behind his back. This done, they led him up the damp stairway into the prison yard. The night was clear and cool. The stars shone brightly in the heavens, giving an abundance of light for the consumma- tion of the wretched deed. Out of the prison enclosure, and through the narrow and dark streets of the silent town, the murderers led their victim. Soon the rush of the swift current of the Isere was heard, and in a few minutes the river itself lay before them sparkling brightly in the clear starlight. They paused at the water's edge, and the executioner fastened one end of a long rope to Gonin's ankle. The pastor now asked leave to pray. This was granted him, and kneeling at the brink of the river, he commended his soul to his Maker. Then, turning to the executioner, he said he was ready to die.

The executioner, without speaking, immediately tied

a small cord around the pastors neck. Into this he

inserted a stick, a few turns of which deprived the 10

146 CROSS AND CROWN.

pastor of the power of breathing. He fell heavily to the ground, and the executioner bending over him, completed the strangulation. Then the motionless body was thrown into the river. The coolness of the water partially restored the martyr to consciousness. His limbs moved convulsively, and there were quiverings all through his body. Anticipating this, the execu- tioner had retained his hold of one end of the cord he had tied to Gonin's ankle, and with this he kept the body floating until the water and the cord together ended the victim's sufferings. Then when all was over, he released the line. The swift current of the Isere at once caught the body in its embrace, and whirling it around and around, bore it rapidly away towards the Rhone. It was only a lifeless corpse that the cold waters held in their embrace, for the soul of the martyr had " winged its flight to Heaven's high chancery," there to receive not only the martyr's crown of glory, but to stand an accusing witness against that corrupt Church which had become drunk with the blood of the Saints.

V. BARTHOLOMEW HECTOR.

'N the month of July, 1555, there came into Piedmont from Geneva, a vender of Bibles, named Bartholomew Hector. He was a native of Poitiers, in France, and after his conversion to the Reformed faith had settled with his family in Geneva, that he might enjoy his religion in peace and safety. In order to earn a living he had undertaken the sale and distribution of Bibles, and in the discharge of his duty, he passed from place to place, carrying with him the precious treasure of the Word of God. His journeys were attended with great danger, and he was often forced to resort to various disguises in order to pass unharmed through the midst of the dan- gers with which the Church of Rome encompassed the path of those who sought to diffuse a knowledge of the Gospel. Yet he passed through them all in safety. Wherever he went, he found a ready sale for his Bibles, for the people were awakening to a sense of their dependence upon the holy book. He was wel- comed in the castle of the noble, and in the humble cottage of the peasant. The powerful lord and the simple herdsman sought his books, and read them with

U7

148 CROSS AND CROWN.

avidity. The joy with which all classes welcomed the Bible strengthened the humble vender to pursue his work with greater energy. He soon ceased to look upon himself as a mere vender of books. He was a missionary, a veritable messenger of glad tidings, car- rying the priceless truths of Christianity to people who were hungering and thirsting after the truth. It was a noble work, and one worth all the danger which attended it. The money which he was to receive for his Bibles influenced him but little ; it was the know- ledge that he was carrying the guide to eternal life to the people that sustained him in his weary mountain journeys. He was doing the work of God.

In July, 1555, he came into Piedmont, and devoted himself to circulating the Bible through the Yaudois Valleys. He met with a ready sale for all he could supply, and having already visited a number of Yau- dois villages and hamlets, he climbed the mountains of Angrogna, and continued his work among the herds- men of highest peaks. He stopped first at the Alp of La Vachere, one of those lovely spots to which the Yaudois shepherds conduct their flocks in summer.

Here, during a brief period, the mountain is free from snow. Myriads of exquisite flowers spring forth in a few days after the snow disappears, and as if by magic these lofty peaks robe themselves in all the beauty and richness of their annual vegetation. The shepherds received the vender of Bibles with delight, bought several books from him, and sent him next day

BARTHOLOMEW HECTOR. 149

to a higher Alp, that of Infcrnet, which looks down on the Vaudois stronghold of Pra Del Tor. Here a fresh welcome met him. These shepherds, separated for the time from the companionship and influence of the Church in the Valleys below, were necessarily cut off from all spiritual nourishment until their return to the Valleys. They were doubly glad to obtain the Bible, and were doubly in need of it. They represented to Bartholomew Hector the absolute need of the Scriptures among their brethren, and he resolved to abandon entirely the villages where the pastors could minister to the wants of the people, and confine his labors exclu- sively to the herdsmen of the mountains, who needed him most. From the Alp of Infernet he determined to proceed to that of Laouzoun, and thence to make his way into the Valley of St. Martin. It was a long and a dangerous journey. Not only was the road difficult, but it lay through the possessions of some of the bit- terest enemies of the Vaudois and most zealous parti- sans of Rome. Yet, in spite of the danger, the vender of Bibles determined to proceed, animated and strength- ened by the thought of the good he would do, should he succeed in reaching his destination.

On his way down into the Valley he was obliged to pass Rioclaret. The lords or seigneurs of this place were named Truchet. They were Roman Catholics, and enemies of the Vaudois. Suspecting the real character of Bartholomew Hector, they arrested him ; but not wishing to deal with him themselves, they sent

150 CROSS AND CROWN.

him to Pignerol. At this place he was cast into prison, and a list of the books found with him was sent to the Senate of Turin. His only crime was sell- ing the Bible to the people — a heinous offence in the eyes of Rome.

For seven months he was suffered to lie forgotten in the dungeons of Pignerol. At last, on the 8th of March, 1556, he was summoned before the judges of that place.

" You have been caught selling heretical books," they said to him, sternly.

" If the Bible contains heresies in your estimation," he said, calmly, " in mine it contains the truth."

" But they make use of the Bible to keep the people from going to Mass," said one of the judges.

" If the Bible keeps them from it," said Hector, " it is because God does not approve of it j for the Mass is a piece of idolatry."

This was a bold declaration, and it aroused the anger of the judges, who denounced him as an infamous heretic, and told him sharply that there was no salva- tion out of Christ's Church.

" Out of Christ," said the vender of Bibles, " I grant there is no salvation, and by His grace I will not for- sake Him."

The judges were too angry to hear him further, and he was taken back to prison. He passed the night in prayer and communion with God. The next day the judges again called him before them. One of them

BARTHOLOMEW HECTOR. 151

said to him that it was a shame for a man to deny the truth as he had done, whereupon the vender of Bibles said he would prove his doctrines were based upon the Bible, if permission were granted him.

" We will hold no discussion with error," was the reply.

" But judges are appointed to discern between error and truth," said Hector. " Permit me then to prove that I am in the truth."

" If you are not in the Church," said the president of the court, " you are not in the truth."

" I am in the Church of Christ, and I prove it by the Gospel."

" Return to the Church of Rome if you would save your life," exclaimed one of the judges, interrrupting him.

The vender of Bibles answered simply :

" Jesus says : ' He who would save his life shall lose it, and he who shall lose his life for my sake, shall live forever.' "

Disconcerted by this reply the judge said, sharply :

" Think of the abjuration which is required of you : it is the only means left you of saving yourself."

" What about the saving of my body if I lose my soul ? "

Threats and arguments were in vain. The vender of Bibles was a Christian man, and he preferred death to apostasy. Unable to shake his resolution, the judges decided that he should be sent to Turin, and be dealt

152 CROSS AND CROWN.

with by the courts of that city, and accordingly he was conveyed thither in chains.

The new judges were inclined to be merciful. The simple and manly declarations of Bartholomew Hector, his innocence of any actual crime, and the artlessness of his manner, all inclined them in his favor. But they dared not acquit a man who had gained the enmity of Rome without first compelling him to abjure his faith. They offered him several chances for his life, but the Vaudois Christian would accept of no compromise. At last his judges said to him :

" If you are resolved not to abjure your faith, at least you may retract your former declarations." " Prove to me," said he, " that they are erroneous." " It is not proving that is in question, but living," said they.

" My life is in my faith," was the heroic reply ; " it is it which has made me speak."

Though they could not acquit him, the judges were unwilling to take this brave and good man's blood upon their heads by a direct condemnation. . They accord- ingly declared that as he had been placed on trial for heresy, an offence against the Church rather than a crime against the State, it was proper that he should be turned over to the Holy Inquisition, to be examined and dealt with as the Inquisitors should see fit. This decision was arrived at on the 28th of March, 1556, and Bartholomew Hector was at once committed to the prison of the Holy Office.

BA R TIIOL OME W HE CTOR. 1 53

On the 27th of April, he was summoned before the Inquisitors. Here he was permitted to indulge in a more elaborate defence than had been allowed him before the civil tribunals. His words were so forcible and earnest, his manner so meek and respectful, that the Inquisitors were troubled. They adjourned the case, and adjoined with themselves for the trial of it the Vicars-General of the Archbishopric of Turin and the Abbey of Pignerol.

Before this tribunal, thus strengthened, the poor captive was placed to answer again to the charge of heresy. The Inquisitors told him that they only asked for a simple retraction of his religious opinions. If he would make that, his life should be spared. The same offer had been made before this to great and powerful kings and lords. Some had asked time to consider, and had made the desired confession at the end of this period ; others had assented to the proposal on the spot. Not so with this simple vender of Bibles. He had drunk too deeply of the living waters he had carried to others to be in doubt as to his duty. He heard his judges patiently, and then turning upon them a face which shone as an angel's, he answered :

" I have said the truth. How can I change my words and make a retraction ? Can a man change the truth as he would change his garment?"

The Inquisitors were perplexed. They decided that his sentence should be postponed, in order that he might have time to reflect and abjure. Then they

154 CROSS AND CROWN.

sent him back to prison. He did indeed reflect, as lie had been charged to do, but reflection only brought with it a deeper conviction of the truth of his religious belief. He was constant in prayer to God, and strength was given him to be faithful unto death. The time thus allowed him expired on the 28th of May, but find- ing him still unshaken, the Inquisitors prolonged it until the 5th of June, and again until the 10th of that month. Each time he was brought before them they exhorted him again to recant, and each time he repeated his simple refusal to abandon the truth. His life was full of trouble, he said, and he was willing to depart and be with Christ. The Inquisitors then ordered him to be turned over to the civil tribunals to be dealt with according to the law. His gentle and manly behavior had so touched them that they departed from their usual course, and recommended him to the mercy of the judges who were to pass sentence upon him.

The law was express, and awarded one unvarying punishment to those convicted of the crime of heresy — death. The vender of Bibles was taken before the judges on the 19 th of June, and by them sentenced to be burned alive in the square of the Castle of Turin on a market day. Subsequently, in consideration of the recommen- dation of the Inquisitors, the court ordered the execu- tioner to strangle the victim during the kindling of the pile. The martyr listened calmly to the reading of the sentence, and said meekly :

" Glory be to God, for that He has thought me worthy to die for His name."

BARTHOLOMEW HECTOR. 155

Many persons came to him in prison to urge him to recant, promising if he would do so to procure a revo- cation of his sentence. To all these he addressed him- self with power, urging them to repent and embrace the faith of Jesus Christ as set forth in His Gospel. They listened in spite of themselves, moved to the very depths of their souls. The Inquisitors commanded him to cease his exhortations, and told him they would have his tongue cut out if he attempted to speak to the people on his way to the stake.

On the next market day, the vender of Bibles was led from his prison to the great square which had wit- nessed the death of so many of his brethren in the faith. The streets were filled with a silent, sympa- thizing throng, for his story had gone abroad, and had elicited a degree of pity unusual under such circum- stances. In spite of the barbarous threat of having his tongue cut out, Hector spoke constantly to the people during his whole walk from the prison to the stake, proclaiming to them the atoning merits of Christ, and urging them to repent and be saved through the blood of their Redeemer.

Arrived at the stake there was a pause. The pile had been erected in the centre of the square, the spot consecrated by the blood of many Yaudois martyrs. Around it were gathered a body of the soldiers of the Duke of Savoy, and back of these were dense masses of the people come to see the martyr die. The priests of the persecuting Church were there, wailing the

156 CROSS AND CROWN.

Miserere, and from the dark tower of the castle the huge bell tolled the victim's death knell. The day was bright and balmy. The soft Italian sky bent down lovingly over the beautiful city as if holding to the martyr's view a faint earthly glimpse of the glories which lay beyond it. Far in the distance rose the snowy pinnacles of the Alps which shut in the Vaudois Valleys, where Christian men and women were mourning for their martyr brother, and praying that he might be strengthened to endure death for Christ's sake. Within the square the faces of men wore an anxious troubled look, but the countenance of the vender of Bibles was calm and peaceful. The world was fast fading from him ; Heaven was opening on his sight.

With a firm, steady step he mounted the pile, and turned to the executioner to await his action. At this moment there was a commotion in the throng, a half- suppressed murmur of applause, and an officer of the ducal court made his way through the mass to the stake. A breathless silence reigned throughout the square, every ear being strained to catch the meaning of this unlooked for interruption. Approaching the stake the officer called out to Hector that he had come to save him. The vender of Bibles turned to him in surprise, and the officer added that his judges were willing to give him yet one more opportunity to escape. He need only say : " I disavow all heresy," and his life and liberty would be given him even then. Such an avowal would commit hirn to nothing, and would

B A R THOL OME W HECTOR. ] 57

leave him free to shape his subsequent course as he pleased. The officer urged him not to reject the mercy of the court, but to accept their offer, and save his life.

The look of surprise with which the martyr had turned to the new comer, had gradually deepened into an expression of intense sadness. To this faithful Christian man this last offer was but the old tempta- tion under a new form. It was in his e}Tes an abso- lute recantation of his faith, an actual betrayal of the Saviour who had died for him. This was no time for unholy compromises. Instead of returning an answer to the messsenger of the court, he fell on his knees on the pile on which he was to die, and clasping his hands and raising his eyes to Heaven, he exclaimed in a loud voice :

" 0 Lord ! give me grace to persevere unto the end ; pardon those whose sentence is now to separate my soul from my body ; they are not unjust, but blind. 0 Lord ! enlighten by Thy Spirit this people who are around me, and bring them very soon to a knowledge of the truth."

At these words the people, who had waited in a pain- ful suspense, to see how the martyr would receive the offer of pardon, burst into a loud sob, and there were some who cried out that it was a shame to put to death so good a man who gave such evidence of being a Christian. The officers, fearful of the effect of this feeling, ordered the executioner to put his victim to

1 58 CR oss AND CR o WN.

death without delay. The martyr was seized, thrown down upon the pile and strangled, and at the same moment the flames shot up enveloping the stake and the victim from the gaze of the multitude. The next instant it was all over. The soul of the vender of Bibles had passed through the pearly gates into the New Jerusalem, to receive its reward from the hands of Him who has said : " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne." Rome had killed the body, but the Gospel of Christ had saved the soul of Bartholomew Hector.

VI.

JOAN MATHURIN. ^HE town of Carignan stands on the left bank of

the River Po, south of Turin, and beyond the actual limits of the Vaudois Valleys. Being near to them, however, it contained during the sixteenth century, a number of Vaudois who had been tempted by the prospect of profitable employment to settle in it in spite of the edict which confined them to their Valleys. For some time the Piedmontese authori- ties suffered these persons to remain unmolested ; but at length the Romish priests, finding that the Vaudois were assembling secretly for prayer, determined to exterminate them. The persecution began in 1560. Without giving them any warning, the priests caused them to be seized and imprisoned as contumacious heretics. They were not allowed any examination or opportunity of defending themselves. They were seized on suspicion, condemned on suspicion, and were burned within three days after their arrest. They could save their lives by one means only — by abjuring their religion and going to Mass.

The first person thus seized in Carignan was a French refugee named Mathurin. He had come from the

159

^ 60 CROSS AND CRO WN.

Vaudois Valleys of France, and had married a woman of the Vaudois Valleys of Piedmont. He was a plain and simple workingman, who cared little for the great matters going on around him, and whose only desire was to earn a living for his family and to worship God in peace. He was detected in the act of conducting family prayer in his own house, and for this " terrible crime " was sentenced to be burned alive. The com- missioners urged him to abjure his religion and save his life ; but he refused.

" We give you three days to reflect," said they ; " but after that time you will be burned alive if you do not come to Mass."

The family of Mathurin were plunged in great grief by his arrest and sentence. His wife, Joan Mathurin, went at once to the commissioners, and asked to be allowed to see her husband.

" We will grant your request," they replied, " pro- vided that you do not harden him in his errors."

" I promise," she replied, " that I will not speak to him except for his good."

The commissioners interpreting this promise as an intimation that she meant to persuade him to recant, conducted the wife to the dungeon where her husband was confined. Mathurin was overjoyed at seeing her again. The commissioners remained to witness the interview, curious to see if a man could withstand the tender pleadings of a young and beautiful wife to whom he was bound by the deepest affection. But they had

JOAN MATHURIN. 161

entirely misunderstood the promise of the Vaudois wife. She devotedly loved her husband, and the prospect of his death filled her heart with anguish. She was a worthy daughter of the martyrs, however, and her greatest fear had been that her husband would prove weak in the hour of trial, that the thought of leaving her would tempt him to forsake the path of duty ; and she had come to urge him to be firm, to do his duty to his God and his Church, and if necessary, to die with him.

"Accordingly," saj-s Gilles, by whom the martyrdom is related, " she exhorted him, in presence of the com- missioners, as earnestly as possible, steadfastly to perse- vere in his religion, without putting the death of the body, which is of brief duration, in the balance against the eternal salvation of his soul."

The commissioners were furious when they heard her words, and bitterly reproached her for having deceived them. She paid no heed to them, however, but holding her husband's hand in her own, she went on gently, but firmly :

" Let not the assaults of the wicked one make you abandon the profession of your hope in Jesus Christ."

"Exhort him to obey us, or you shall both be hanged," cried the commissioners.

Again unheeding them, she said to her husband :

"And let not the love of this world's possessions

make you lose the inheritance of Heaven."

" Heretical she devil," cried one of the magistrates, 11

1(32 CROSS AXD CROWN.

" if you do not change your tone, you shall be burned to-morrow."

Turning full upon her persecutor, and looking him calmly in the face, the brave Christian woman asked him :

" Would I have come to persuade him to die rather than to abjure, if I could myself seek to escape death by apostasy?"

"You should fear at any rate the torments of the pile," said the magistrate, abashed by her manner and words.

" I fear Him who is able to cast both body and soul into a more terrible fire than that of your billets."

" Hell is for heretics," exclaimed one of the commis- sioners. " Save yourselves by renouncing your errors."

" Where can the truth be if not in the Word of God?" she asked.

" This will be the destruction of you both," said one of the magistrates, yielding to his admiration and pity.

The face of the Vaudois wife lighted up with a sud- den and overwhelming joy, and turning to her hus- band, who had not released her hand, but had clung to her as if all his strength lay in her, she said to him tenderly :

" Blessed be God, because having united us in life, He will not separate us in death."

One of the commissioners, a cruel and fanatical man, here broke into a savage laugh, and exclaimed exultingly :

" Instead of one, we shall have two of them to burn."

«ie fcim to die ratlsf
Innboftlier/.

slot of the cov MHOg your errors,

fcimiration and pitv withasrf

i taniog to ^ ^

adclnii?* ^jbe said to fc

united usinli^

k T*I Mid & ^\ ind esd^

I

!

t

■

i

I

JOAN MATHURIX. 1(J3

" I will be thy companion to the end," said the heroic woman, quietly, speaking to her husband rather than to the commissioners.

"Will you come to Mass and have your pardon?" asked the magistrates once more.

" I would rather go to the pile, and have eternal life," was her answer.

"If you do not abjure," said one, sternly, "Mathurin shall be burned to-morrow, and you three days after."

" We shall meet again in Heaven," she said, meekly.

" Think of the delay that is still granted you," said the magistrate, who had appeared to pity her.

" The length of it is of no consequence, for my reso- lution is for life," she answered.

" Say, rather, it is for death," he said, sadly.

" The death of the body is but the life of the soul," was her response.

One of the most violent of the magistrates, he who had exulted over the prospect of burning two, instead of one, now exclaimed brutally :

" Have you nothing else to say to us, you damned obstinate wretch?"

" Nothing," she answered, meekly ; " except that I beseech you not to put off my execution for three days, but to let me die with my husband."

The magistrates consulted together for a few mo- ments, and then one of them said to her :

"Be it so. You will both be burned at the same stake to-morrow."

1(34 CROSS AXD CROWN.

With this they departed. The heavy door of the dungeon clanged behind them, and the husband and wife were left alone — yet not alone, for God was with them to cheer and comfort them. Mathurin had from the first made up his mind to die rather than abjure, and the heroism of his noble wife confirmed him in this resolution. He did not oppose her determination to die with him. It was better to enter upon their rest together than for one to live on exposed to the bitter malice of a persecuting Church. And above all, it was very sweet to pass their last hours on earth together, and to be able to cheer and encourage each other as they should go down hand in hand into the valley of the shadow of death. They spent their last night in prayer, and in tender communion with each other. The brave wife had her reward on earth, for she saw her husband grow strong and cheerful, and even rejoice with her at the fate which was to unite them for all eternity. Her presence made the gloomy cell seem full of light to him, and her beloved face shone upon him through the darkness as the face of an angel. Never had either been so dear to the other; never had their love been so full, so pure, so free from earthly taint as on this eve of martyrdom.

The next day, being the 2d of March, 1560, a stake was set up in the public square of Carignan, and around it was heaped a pile of fagots ready for light- ing. A crowd of townspeople had gathered around the pile, and prominent among them were the priests and

JO A N MA TIIURIN. \ Q 5

monks of the Church which had brought about this terrible deed. It was late in the afternoon when the deep tones of the Cathedral bell announced the ap- proach of the condemned. A few minutes later a detachment of men at arms entered the square, and halted at the stake. Then came a band of monks chaunting the requiem for the dead, and after them, hand in hand, erect, calm, and even smiling, came Joan Mathurin and her husband. A murmur of pity ran through the throng, but was quickly suppressed as the priests turned abruptly to discover who had dared to pity the victims of the " Holy Church." The mar- tyrs paid no heed to the chaunting or exhortations of the priests. They spoke to each other only to exhort to still greater firmness, and they did not quail when the executioner came to lead them to the stake. Hand in hand they mounted the pile, and submitted to be chained to the fatal post. The slanting rays of the declining sun lighted up the scene with a soft and sub- dued radiance, encircling the heads of the innocent vic- tims of cruelty and superstition with a halo of light. Then the executioner fired the pile. The flames flared up wildly, hiding the martyrs from view. Through the mingled glare of the flames and gloom of the smoke could be heard the calm, patient voice of Joan Mathu- rin bidding her husband be of good cheer, for the gates of Heaven were opening on her sight. Then there was silence, broken only by the roar of the flames. The sun went down and the soft twilight came steal-

166 CROSS AND CROWN.

ing on. The crowd still hung silent and sad about the spot. The monks had ceased their Miserere, and the peals of the great Cathedral bell had died away. The flames still hissed and leaped around the devoted pair. Not a cry nor a groan of pain had escaped them. Locked in each other's arms they had yielded to the devouring element. When the moon arose, only a heap of smouldering embers and a mass of blackened bones remained to show the spot from which the Vau- dois wife and her husband had passed hand in hand into the Kingdom of God.

VII.

SEBASTIAN BAZAN.

lURING the occupation of Piedmont by the French, from 1536 to 1559, a number of the towns of that country had pastors of the Vau- dois faith. Among these was the town of Pancarlier. In this town dwelt a wealthy and noble family named Bazan, who were converts to the creed of the Vaudois. When liberty of conscience was forbidden to the people, they left their native place and went to the Vaudois Valley of Lucerna, in the early part of the seventeenth century. They fixed their residence at La Tour, where Sebastian Bazan, the eldest son, had already spent some years for the purpose of receiving religious instruction. The Bazan family then consisted of Sebastian, his family, his two brothers and their families, and their aged mother. Gilles, the Vaudois historian, who was an intimate friend of Sebastian Bazan, says: "He was a very zealous defender of the Protestant religion, a man of sincerity, and an enemy of all vice, so that the enemies of virtue and of truth could not easily endure him ; but for the rest, he was a man held in great and universal esteem, and of good reputation."

167

168 CROSS AND CROWN.

The activity of Bazan in behalf of his religion earned him the bitter enmity of the monks, who were resolved to take advantage of the first opportunity to make him suffer for his opposition to them. This opportunity at length presented itself. Matters of importance called him to the town of Carmagnola, on the 26th of April, 1622. He made no secret of his journey, though he was aware of the enmity of the monks, and appeared openly in the town. Word was immediately conveyed to the monks of Carmagnola of his presence there, and they determined to seize him as a heretic. Bazan was known to be a brave man, and it was admitted by his enemies that he would sell his life dearly if attacked. Therefore they resolved to proceed against him with a force which would render resistance hopeless. Accordingly, they collected a strong body of armed men, and, proceeding to the inn where Bazan was lodging, surrounded him on all sides. His attempt at resistance was overcome, and he was seized, bound, and conveyed to the prison of the town.

He remained there a captive for several months, during which time his friends exerted themselves ener- getically to obtain his release. He was permitted to communicate with his family, and did not lack for Christian comfort and counsel. After remaining at Carmagnola for a few months, he was transferred to the prisons of the Senate of Turin. Soon after his arrival there, he wrote to his friend Gilles :

" What favors God has granted me in your letters

SEBASTIAN BAZAX. 1(]9

and your prayers ; for every good thing comes to us from God, even the blessing of friendship, and it is He who endows his own with strength and hopefulness in their trials, such as our adversaries cannot credit, who accordingly seek to make us yield by long imprison- ments, and by perpetually urging us to abjure ; but I am assured that the Lord will never forsake me, and will sustain me to the end. Be so good as to visit my family, and exhort my wife to remain constant in the fear of God. She has need to be affectionately admon- ished, and gently remonstrated with, which you know better how to do than I to write about it." Then com- mending himself to the prayers of his friend, he con- cluded : " May God work with His own hand to bring us to perfection, that resting on His holy promises, we may triumph gloriously with our Cajrtain, Jesus Christ, in His glorious heavenly Kingdom. From the prisons of Turin, this 14th of July, 1622."

This was the language and this the spirit of the man who had lain for three months in a Romish dungeon, and whose sagacity assured him that the probability was that he would only leave it to meet a martyr's death. He had some hope, however, at the time this letter was written, that his case would be submitted to the Duke of Savoy, from whom he had reason to expect justice. To his disappointment, he was not brought before the duke, but was ordered by the Senate of Turin to be turned over to the Inquisition for examina- tion, and was accordingly transferred to the dungeons

170 CROSS AND CROWN.

of the Holy Office. From this time the fate of Sebas- tian Bazan was sealed. No captive ever emerged from the gloomy dungeons of the Inquisition to regain life and liberty except by the sacrifice of his conscience ; and this price Bazan was not willing to pay. Yet the Inquisitors received him with apparent kindness, hope- ing by good treatment to win him over to an abjuration. They argued with him, professed the utmost regard for his soul, but all in vain. The prisoner was firm. He had embraced the faith of Jesus Christ, and he had no need of the superstitions of Rome. When the Inquisi- tors found that their entreaties accomplished nothing, they had recourse to threats. The most terrible punish- ments were promised him if he still persisted in his refusal to abjure, but all with the same result. He was then subjected to the cruellest tortures, and racked until it seemed that his body would be pulled in pieces, but he bore his sufferings with a firmness which no human power could have given him. The Inquisitors only desisted because they feared he would die under the tortures, and that they would thus be deprived of the pleasure of burning him. They left him, bruised and sore, with his joints swollen and dislocated by the terrible strain to which they had been subjected, to languish in his dungeon. They expected that he would yield at length to the sufferings of his body and to the horror and despair of his gloomy prison, and consent to anything in order to save his life. They little knew the man they were dealing with. Sebastian Bazan did

SEBASTIAN BAZAN. 171

not lean on an arm of flesh. His trust was in God, and it was the Almighty arm which sustained him in his moments of greatest weakness, and which led him boldly along the rugged path of martydom.

Yet the friends of the captive had not yet abandoned the hope of saving him. Urgent appeals were made in his behalf. The gallant Marshal Lesdiguieres, of France, when he heard of the sufferings of Bazan, wrote to the Duke of Savoy, who was under obligations to him, asking the life and liberty of the brave sufferer. He said :

" I have been accustomed to address my supplica- tions to your highness, certain beforehand of not being refused. I request of your highness the life and liberty of one called Sebastian Bazan, detained in the prisons of your city of Turin. He is a man with whom no fault can be found, except as to his religious opinions ; and if those who profess the same religion with him ought to be punished with death, then great Christian princes, and even your highness yourself, will have great difficulty in repeopling your dominions. The King of France has granted peace throughout all his kingdom to those of that religion, and I boldly counsel your highness, as your very humble servant, to take the same way. It is the surest means of firmly estab- lishing tranquillity within your dominions."

Lesdiguieres wrote a second time to the duke, with whom other men of importance made intercession in behalf of the prisoner. The duke, inclined to be mer-

172 CROSS AND CK 0 WN.

ciful in this case, insisted that the Inquisition should comply with these humane appeals, and give its captive his freedom. But the Inquisition was more powerful than the Duke of Savoy within his own dominions. The Inquisitors met his demand with the reply that the *case was no longer in their hands. They said, with affected humility and regret, that the matter had been submitted to the Pope for his decision, and that until the pleasure of the Pontiff was made known, they dared not set Sebastian Bazan free. They had fully decided upon his death, and the reference to Rome was a mere mockery — a trick meant to baffle the merciful efforts of the duke, who was obliged to submit.

For a year and a half Bazan was kept in prison. His enemies were not able to triumph over him at any period of this long captivity, for he bore his sufferings with a calm resignation which astonished them, and submitted to the severest tortures with the courage and firmness of a Christian hero. At last, on the 22nd of November, 1623, he was visited by the officers of the Inquisition, and informed that the judgment of the Holy Office had been confirmed at Rome, and that he would be burned alive the next day.

" I am contented to die," he said, calmly and bravely, " since it is the will of God, and will be, I trust, for His glory. But as for men, they have pronounced an unjust sentence, and they will soon have to give an account of it."

The Inquisitors laughed at his closing words then ;

SEBA STIAN BA ZAN. \ 73

but that night they recalled them with surpise and uneasiness, for the Chief Inquisitor, he who had been most active in the persecution, and who had pronounced the sentence of death upon Bazan, died suddenly that evening, in the very flush of strength and health.

The next day, November 23rd, the martyr was led to the great square of Turin, to die for his faith. Before leaving the prison he had been bound, and a gag had been forced into his mouth to prevent him from speaking to the people who had crowded the square to witness his death.

The vast throng was silent, as he approached the stake in company with the creatures of the Inquisition, for his story was well known in Turin, and considerable sympathy had been awakened by it for him. With a firm step the martyr ascended the pile, followed by the executioner, who proceeded to chain him to the stake. At this moment, the gag fell from his mouth, and he exclaimed with a loud voice :

"People, it is not for a crime that I am brought hither to die ; it is for having chosen to conform myself to the "Word of God, and for maintaining His truth in opposition to error."

A great sob broke from the multitude, giving evi- dence of their sympathy with him. The Inquisitors perceiving this, made haste to silence the martyr's voice by ordering the executioner to light the pile. The torch was applied, and the flames shot up around the victim of Rome, completely hiding him from view.

174 CROSS AND CROWN.

Then out of the fire and smoke came the voice of Sebas- tian Bazan, singing in loud, clear tones the exquisite hymn of Theodore Beza, which the Vaudois Christians sing after the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Loud and strong the voice of the martyr soared above the terrible fire, not faint with suffering and pain, but clear and triumphant with holy joy and heaven-given

strength : —

Laisse-moi desormais, Seigneur, aller en paix, Car selon ta promesse, Tu fais voir h mes yeux Le salut glorieux Que j 'attendais sans cesse. *

The people broke into uncontrollable weeping, and

as the smoke cleared away every eye was strained to

catch a glimpse of the martyr as he stood in the midst

of the bright red flames, his hands clasped, and his eyes

fixed on the sky, beyond which he saw his eternal

home. Then the dense column of smoke shot up again,

and the voice grew fainter and fainter, faltering out

feebly the words of the hymn.

Tu fais voir h, mes yeux

Le salut glorieux

Que j 'attendais sans cesse.

Another burst of flame and smoke, and then the

brave voice was silent, and the fire worked its will.

Yes, the voice was silent on earth, but in Heaven it

was singing the song of the Redeemed.

* A beautiful and touching version of the words of Simeon upon beholding the infant Saviour. See St. Luke ii. 29, 30.

PART II.

THE HUGUENOTS.

THE HUGUENOTS.

i.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROTEST- ANT CHURCH IN FRANCE.

The Reformation in France — Causes op it — The Bible Unknown to the People — Invention of the Art of Printing — The Bible Circulated through the Agency of this Art — Translation of the Scriptures — Demand for the Bible — Effect of Reading the Scriptures — TnE Reformation at Meaux — Palissy's De- scription of the Reformers of Saintes — The Church of Rome prohibits the Reading of the Bible — The Inquisition estab- lished in France— The War against the Bible and the Printing Press — Persecutions of the Reformed — The Bible Venders — Rise of the Huguenot Party — The Priests set the King against the Huguenots — Destruction of Merindol and Cabrieres — Spread of the Reformed Religion — The Psalms of Marot — Singing in Public forbidden — Charles IX. — Massacre at Vassy — The Religious "Wars — Peace — Marriage of the King of Navarre and Marguerite of Valois — The Huguenots in Paris — Signs of Trouble — Attempted Assassination of Coligni — Mas- sacre of St. Bartholomew — Horrible Scenes — Massacres in the Provinces— The Work of the Jesuits— Rejoicings in Rome —Indignation of the Protestant Powers — Remorse and Death of Charles IX.— The Civil Wars— Accession of Henry IV.— The Edict of Nantes — Conspiracies of the Jesuits— Richelieu's Policy towards the Huguenots — Prosperity of the Huguenots after the edict of nantes— social and political condition of the Huguenots— Louis XIV. becomes King — His enmity to the Reformed — The Jesuits succeed in establishing their Influence over him — Injustice to the Huguenots — Flight of TnE Reformed from France — Cruel Policy of Louis — Severe Persecutions of the Reformed in France — Emigration for- 12 177

78 CROSS AXD CROWN.

BIDDEN — TlIE DrAGONXADES — EXTRAORDINARY CONVERSIONS — AC- TIVITY of the Jesuits — A Corrupt Bargain — Marriage of the King — Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — Efforts to Ex- terminate the Huguenots — Terrible Sufferings of the Re- formed— Effects of the Revocation — The Galley Slaves — Hostility of the Romish Church to the Working Class — De- cline of French Literature and Power — The Reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. — The Revolution — The Huguenots under Napoleon — Subsequent History of the French Protestants — Their Present Condition.

:pi N each country of Europe the Reformation had

its distinctive features. In France it was pecu- Lc: £ p liarly a national movement. The French, in

common with the rest of the world, were wak- ing up from the moral and intellectual stupor of the previous century, and were beginning to lose faith in the religion of Rome. The keen intellect of the nation had come to doubt the traditions and authority of a Church which had so many marks of fallible human workmanship upon it, and men found it hard to believe in the purity of a clergy whose daily lives proved them as dissolute and careless of the spiritual part of religion as the most blase men of the world. They saw the clergy protected in their outrages by a libertine king, who burdened the country with a weight of taxes levied for the purpose of supporting him in his licentious pleasures. They saw a small privileged class of nobles and gentry oppressing the great mass of the people, disregarding their rights, and punishing with merciless rigor any attempt at resistance. They saw their sovereign, nominally an independent monarch, really the slave of an Italian prince, and their country's

THE HUGUENOTS. 179

freedom held subject to the will of a foreigner. It was a gloomy picture that presented itself to the thinkers of the age, and they could see no relief from the abasement into which France was plunged, for Rome and the clergy set themselves sternly against all efforts in behalf of mental and moral improvement. The clergy assumed to be the teachers of the people, but they were in reality their masters, and their whole power was exerted to sink the land deeper in the depths of superstition. Turning to Rome, the real " power behind the throne " of France, matters were infinitely worse. For many decades the Papal throne had been filled by a succession of ambitious and unscru- pulous men who cared more for their temporal than their spiritual interests, using the latter mainly to promote the former. They had exerted themselves chiefly to bring emperors and kings into a state of vassalage to them, and had spared no arts however cor- rupt to strengthen their power in foreign lands, and so well had they succeeded that scarcely a European sove- reign dared to act for the interests of his country when they were opposed to those of Rome. These Popes and their followers had by degrees built up the mighty fabric of a Church which claimed to be infallible, but which men saw to be utterly corrupt. They claimed to rest their pretensions upon the Word of God, yet they kept that Word concealed from the people, and punished the study of it with severe penalties. Licen- tiousness and crime reigned in every part of the Church.

180 CR OSS A ND CR 0 WX.

The religious houses were the centres of the grossest immoralities. The Pope himself was sometimes a doubter of the divinity of the Christ whose Vicar he claimed to be. He and his followers had deluged the world with an amount of superstition under which the pure truths of Christianity had almost entirely disappeared. They had nearly destroyed the doctrine of the mediatorial power of the Saviour, and for it had substituted the intercession of a host of saints. They assumed the power of forgiving sins for a pecuniary compensation, they urged the people to put their faith in wooden and marble images, which they supplied with ingenious machinery for shedding tears, groaning and grimacing, calling these impostures miracles. Instead of holding up the Lamb of God alone as the true object of adoration, they compelled the people to adore a set of old nails, pieces of wood, grinning skulls and hideous bones, to which they attributed miraculous power. In short, the Church of Rome was rotten to the core. It appeared to men to be simply a vast engine for extort- ing money from them, and for depriving them of their freedom in every relation of life. From the Pope to the humblest friar, it was utterly corrupt. Men endowed with the capacity of thinking, could not fail to recognize its degradation. It was no longer some- thing to look up to, something worthy of and compel- ling reverence ; it had sunk below men. It was the most corrupt institution in existence. It blighted every reform, and seemed anxious only to drive the world

THE HUGUENOTS. 181

back into barbarism. The result was inevitable. Religion fell into contempt, and atheism began to pre- vail.

How long this would have continued, it is impossi- ble to say, had it not pleased God at this time to pro- vide men with a means of ascertaining the truth and of spreading the knowledge of it. The Holy Scrip- tures had all this while remained in the libraries and monastaries of Europe, a sealed book to the masses, and accessible only to a privileged few, who were mainly interested in keeping them from the people. The only Bibles then in existence were manuscript copies, written by skilful copyists on vellum. It took a rapid writer ten months to copy the sacred books, and as but comparatively few okthose who had access to the Bible were capable of performing this work, there were not many copies in existence. These copies com- manded immense prices. The lowest price paid for a Bible in France was six hundred crowns. Generally speaking, a Bible was worth as much as a landed estate, and there were many rich colleges and monas- teries that did not feel themselves able to purchase a single copy. So scarce had the holy book become that its language was utterly unknown to the people, and to the majority of the clergy and the learned men.

It pleased God to make known at this period the art of printing, one of the greatest blessings He has ever deigned to bestow upon the world. Until the inven- tion of printing, the most profound thinker saw his

182 CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

influence limited to his immediate circle of friends; but the new art made it possible for men to speak to and act upon the world at large. It enabled books to be multiplied rapidly, in such numbers, and at such mode- rate cost that .all mankind were brought into nearer and more intimate relations with each other. I do not propose to describe the discovery or the gradual growth of the art, but merely to speak of the influence which it exercised upon the minds of men with regard to matters of religion.

The early printers confined themselves chiefly to multiplying copies of the Bible. They found no diffi- culty in disposing of these at prices sufficiently high to compensate them for their labor. The demand was largely in excess of the supply, but it came from the learned alone, for these first copies were printed in the Latin language, which was not understood by the com- mon people. The effect of the study of the Scriptures upon these first 'readers was all-powerful. They at once found an infallible rule of life and faith, and in many lands men set to work simultaneously, and with- out concert with each other, to translate the Scrip- tures into the language of their respective countries. These translations were at once given to the public by the printers. In 1471 an Italian version of the Bible appeared. It was followed by a Bohemian version in 1475, a Dutch version in 1477, a French version in 1477, and a Spanish (Valencian) version in 1478. Thus, at the opening of the fifteenth century, the

THE HUGUENOTS. 1.83

Bible was accessible to many persons in all the princi- pal countries of Europe. The demand for it was very great. " At first it could only be read to the people ; and in the English cathedrals, where single copies were placed, chained to a niche, eager groups gathered round to drink in its living truths. But as the art of print- ing improved, and copies of the Bible became multi- plied in portable forms, it could then be taken home into the study or chamber, and read and studied in secret."

We of the present day, to whom the Bible is the most familiar of books, can form no adequate concep- tion of the feverish eagerness with which the people of the sixteenth century turned to the Blessed Book for information and relief; nor can we conceive of the value which they set upon it. They were very sore from the abuses they had received at the hands of the Church, and they turned eagerly to the Scriptures to see if such things were sanctioned by the Word of God. Each one had a personal motive in reading the Bible, apart from the yearning for something better than the corrupt religion of Rome, which men now felt. As they read their doubts were confirmed, they were astonished, delighted. They found the teachings of God and His Holy Word one thing, and the claims and practices of the Roman Church another. The Bible gave no warrant for the sale of indulgences, the robbery of the people by the priests, the tortures administered by Rome to those who dared oppose her

184 CROSS AND CROWN.

-will. It did not teach the doctrine of the supremacy of the Pope, the intercession of the Virgin or the saints, the worship of images or relics. It taught that each man was to be saved by his individual faith in the atoning blood of Christ, and his individual love for Christ. It condemned many practices which Rome insisted upon. It demanded of Christians a sin- cere effort to live purely and blamelessly, and set its face sternly against the vices which had become cha- racteristic of the Roman Church. In short, a perusal of the Scriptures satisfied men that the simple religion of Christ and His Apostles was a very different thing from the faith and practice of the Roman Church. The people who had walked so long in darkness at length saw the light — " the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

"An eager demand for the Scriptures had by this time sprung up in France. Several translations of portions of the Bible appeared there toward the end of the fifteenth century; but these were all superseded by a version of the entire Scriptures, printed at Ant- werp, in successive portions, between the years 1512 and 1-530. This translation was the work of Jacques le Fevre or Faber, of Estaples, and it formed the basis of all subsequent editions of the French Bible.

" The effects were the same wherever the book ap- peared and was freely read by the people. It was followed by an immediate reaction against the super stition, indifferentism, and impiety which generally >

THE HUGUENOTS. 185

prevailed. There was a sudden awakening to a new religious life, and an anxious desire for a purer faith less overlaid by the traditions and inventions, and cor- ruptions which impaired the efficacy and obscured the simple beauty of Christianity. The invention of print- ing had also its political effects; and for men to be able to read books, and especially the Scriptures, in the common tongue, was itself a revolution. It roused the hearts of the people in all lands, producing commotion, excitement, and agitation. Society became electric, and was stirred to its depths. The sentiment of right was created, and the long down-trodden peasants — along the Rhine, in Alsace, and Suabia — raised their cries on all sides, demanding freedom from serfdom, and to be re- cognized as men."*

The results of this general reading of the Bible were not long in showing themselves. The work of the Reformation began among the common people. The town of Meaux lies fifty miles to the north-east of Paris, and, at the time I write of, was but a short dis- tance from the frontier of Flanders. It was noted for its manufactures of woolen cloth and other mate- rials, and its population consisted chiefly of mechanics and artisans. Very few priests were to be found in the town, the majority of the clergy being non-resi- dents. Jacques le Fevre, who had translated the four Gospels into French, devoted himself to the spiritual

* Smiles's Huguenots, pp. 24, 25.

156 CROSS AND CRO WN.

care of the people of Meaux, and was joined by Wil- liam Farrel, a brilliant and devoted Reformer. These men preached to the workingmen of Meaux, and dis- tributed among them copies of the Gospels for their own reading, and even succeeded in winning over to the new doctrines, as they were called, the Bishop of Meaux, who urged them to go on preaching to the people, often uniting with them himself. The effect was marked. A total reformation of morals and man- ness took place in Meaux. The licentiousness, coarse- ness, drunkenness, and disorder which had formerly prevailed in the place, disappeared as if by magic. The people became more industrious than ever, more courteous and kind to each other, neater and more cleanly in their habits, and more attentive to their religious duties. The town became noted throughout France for its piety and orderliness, and its example began to affect even distant communities.

Nor was Meaux the only place thus changed by the spreading of the knowledge of the Gospels. Bernard Palissy has left us this picture of the change thus brought about in the town of Saintes, in the south-west of France.

" The progress made by us was such, that in the course of a few years, by the time our enemies rose up to pillage and persecute us, lewd plays, dances, ballads, gormandizings, superfluities of dress and head-gear, had almost entirely ceased. Scarely was any bad language to be heard on any side, nor were there any more crimes

fed

joined by WU-

and k. ■ for their

l *inniDc* over to

thing to the

The effect'

formerly

ttd u if by magic. tm duo ever, more ier, setter and more

:

Lange thus

■ I

soch, that in the

morecrimes

	.
■	'
	•
-	■
'
'	*
- 7 ■	'
. .
	'

THE HUGUENOTS. 187

and scandals. Lawsuits greatly diminished; for no sooner had any two persons of The Religion fallen out, than means were found of bringing them to an agree- ment; moreover, very often, before beginning any law- suit, the one would not begin it before first exhorting the other. When the time for celebrating Easter drew near, many differences, discussions, and quarrels were thus stayed and settled. There were then no questions among them, but only psalms, prayers, and spiritual canticles ; nor was there any more desire for lewd and dissolute songs. Indeed, The Religion made such pro- gress, that even the magistrates began to prohibit things that had grown up under their authority. Thus they fprbade innkeepers to permit gambling or dissipation to be carried on within their premises, to the enticement of men away from their own homes and families.

" In those days might have been seen, on Sundays, bands of workpeople walking abroad in the meadows, the groves and the fields, singing psalms and spiritual songs, or reading to and instructing one another. There might also be seen girls and maidens seated in groups in the gardens and pleasant places, singing songs on sacred themes ; or boys accompanied by their teachers, the effects of whose teachings had been so salutary, that those young persons not only exhibited a manly bearing, but a manful steadfastness of conduct. Indeed, these various influences, working one with another, had already effected so much good, that not only had the habits and modes of life of the people been reformed,

188 CROSS AND CROWX.

but their very countenances themselves seemed to be changed and improved."

Day by day the number of Bible readers increased, and day by day the work of improvement went on, until it seemed that France was on the eve of a great moral and social as well as a religious regeneration.

Rome now took the alarm. It made but little dif- ference to the priests and monks that the manners and morals of the people were being improved. They saw only that their own power was at stake. The Mass was deserted, and their revenues were diminished. Their hold upon men was being loosened, and they re- solved to put a stop to the practices which were so dangerous to the Church. As soon as the news of the change which reading the Bible had brought about reached Rome, the Pope gave orders to put a stop to such readings, and to destroy the Bible readers. From that time it became the traditional policy of the Church of Rome to exterminate the supporters of the Reforma- tion in France. In 1525, Clement VII. established, or enlarged the Inquisition in France, conferring upon it " Apostolical Authority " to try and condemn heretics. The king, also, urged on by the clergy, became the enemy of the Reformed. Royal edicts were issued commanding the extermination of heretics in every part of the kingdom.

The priests and their adherents promptly availed themselves of the licence thus allowed them, and be- gan a fierce war of extermination against the Reformed,

THE HUGUENOTS. 189

•which was continued for many generations. "Wherever congregations of the Reformed were found assembled for religious worship, they were attacked and butchered on the spot, or reserved for death at the stake. Neither age nor sex was spared, and the cruellest torments were inflicted upon men, women, and children, merely be- cause they dared to read God's Holy Word in their own tongue. Some were fortunate enough to escape to Hol- land and Switzerland, but many fell victims to the cruelty of Rome.

The Bible itself came in for a large share of the anger of the Romanists. The Pope and the clergy denounced the Holy Book as the vilest of all publications, and the cause of all the mischief. Wherever a Bible printed in the common tongue was found, it was consigned to the flames. Men who were suspected of printing, selling, or circulating the Scriptures were seized and burnt. In Paris alone, during the first six months of the year 1534, twenty men and one woman were burned for this cause. The Romanists even made war on the art of printing itself. They denounced it as of the devil, and endeavored to destroy it. The printers were every- where anathematized as the enemies of God and the Church, and were seized and murdered upon the slightest pretext.

Their efforts were in vain, however. Printing had become a necessity to men, and it was impossible to destroy it. So with their attempts to keep the Bible from the people. The Word of God was a greater

190 CROSS AND CROWN.

necessity to men than the art of printing, and those who had become possessed of a Bible regarded it as their most priceless treasure. It comforted them in trial and adversity, and taught them a higher and a purer Chris- tianity than Rome had ever dreamed of. So dear was the sacred book to these old-time readers, that men risked life and fortune to obtain and preserve a copy of it. They were willing to fight for it, and if necessary to die rather than surrender it. The demand for Bibles increased rapidly in spite of the persecutions to which the readers were subjected. The creatures of the In- quisition and the royal officers invaded every part of France, and wherever they went they burned Bibles in great numbers. Germany, Holland, and Switzerland, however, were full of printing presses, and these multi- plied copies of the Bible and the works of Luther and Calvin even more rapidly than the Roman Catholics could destroy them. English, French, Dutch and Ger- man Bibles came pouring from these fruitful presses. The officers of the King of France watched the frontiers closely to see that none of these came into the kingdom, but in spite of their vigilance the country was flooded with them. Pious and daring men, in the disguise of pedlars, would cross the border with Bibles concealed in their packs or on their persons, and penetrate far into the interior, where they would dispose of their books to nobles and peasants, by each of whom the Bible was eagerly sought. These Bible-sellers ran a serious risk, for the monks and the creatures of the Inquisition were

THE 11 UG UENOTS. ] <j 1

constantly on the watch for them. Many were de- tected, and were cruelly put to death. In 1535, the priests of the Sorbonne in Paris obtained a decree from the king ordering the total suppression of printing1 in France. Their efforts to turn the world back were vain, however. Bibles and religious books came into France regularly and in great numbers, and the Re- formed grew stronger and more numerous every day. They fell in numbers in all parts of France, but their blood seemed to bring others to their religious standard. The cruellest persecutions could not control the con- sciences and reason of men.

At length Rome seemed to have exhausted her perse- cuting energy. There was a lull in the war against the Reformed, and during this period they assumed the character of a distinct party, and became known as i: The Huguenots," the name which they have since borne.* They rapidly increased in numbers, and, being compelled by the hostility of the king and

* " The origin of the term Huguenot is extremely obscure. It was at fust applied to them as a nickname, and like the Geux of Flanders, they assumed and bore it with pride. Some suppose the term to be derived from Huguon, a word used in Touraine to signify persons who walk at night in the streets — the early Protestants, like the early Christians, having chosen that time for their religious assem- blies. Others are of opinion that it was derived from a French and faulty pronunciation of the German word Eidgenossen, or Confede- rates, the name given to those citizens of Geneva who entered into an alliance with the Swiss Cantons to resist the attempts of Charles III.. Duke of Savoy, against their liberties. The confederates were called Eignots, and hence, probably, the derivation of the word Huguenots. A third surmise is that the word was derived from one Ungues, the name of a Genevese Calvinist." — Smiles's Huguenot's, p. 29.

192 CROSS AND CROWN.

clergy to combine for their mutual safety and protec- tion, gradually came to be a strong party in the State, with definite- aims and a recognised leader. So rapidly did they increase that some of the leading men of France allied themselves with them in the hope of augmenting their own power and influence in the State. Others there were, even princes of the blood, who became sincere converts to the Huguenot doctrines, and rendered good service to the cause.

The priests and their adherents exerted themselves to the utmost to inflame the king against the Huguenots. They appealed to his bigotry and superstition, and also declared to him that the Reformed were becoming so powerful that they would surely seek to overthrow the throne itself. " If the secular arm," said the Cardinal de Lorraine to Henry II., who had succeeded his father, Francis I., "fails in its duty, all the malcontents will throw themselves into this detestable sect. They will first destroy the ecclesiastical power, after whicl) it will be the turn of the royal power." Such arguments had the desired effect. The brief respite which had followed the death of King Francis came to an end, and Henry II. became a cruel persecutor of the Reformed. In 1559 a royal edict was published, declaring the crime of heresy punishable by death, and forbidding the judges to remit or mitigate the penalty. The former persecutions were instantly revived in all parts of France, and the monks took good care that the civil officers were not remiss or lenient in the per-

THEMUGUENOTS. 193

formancc of their dreadful duties. The last year of Henry's fleign and the entire period of that of his suc- cessor, Francis II., were marked by the most dreadful cruelties. The Huguenots were driven from their churches and places of meeting, their religious edifices were destroyed, and they were forced to assemble at night in subterranean vaults, in the forests, in the mountains, and in caves. Those who possessed Bibles were obliged to conceal them with the utmost care. When they undertook to read them, they did so at the risk of their lives. In spite of the care taken to con- ceal their movements, they were often surprised at their meetings by the royal troops, and were slain on the spot or captured. But few of the captives escaped punishment. The Protestant towns of Cabrieres and Merindol, in the South of France, were utterly destroyed. Every house was levelled to the ground, and the people of all ages and both sexes', were ruthlessly butchered in the streets. Four hundred women and children who had sought refuge in a church were killed without mercy in the sacred place. Twenty-five women took refuge in a cave. The Papal Legate kindled a fire at the entrance with his own hands, and smothered them all. An entire congregation of Protestants was cap- tured in Paris. They were imprisoned in the terrible Chatelet, and were offered pardon and freedom if they would desert the Reformed faith, and go to hear the Mass. They unanimously refused. After a long and dreary imprisonment, the most prominent of the cap-

13

194 CROSS AND CROWN.

tives were taken to the Place Maubert, in September, 1558, and executed in the presence of a large and applauding crowd, the king himself looking ou from a neighboring window. The tongues of the victims were first cut out, they were strangled, and their bodies burned. One of these victims was Philippa de Lunz, a young, beautiful, and wealthy widow of twenty-two years. The remainder of the prisoners were confined in the monasteries, but were ultimately released at the- intercession of the Protestant Princes of Europe. The Pope was indignant at this, and complained bitterly that there were no more executions.

But persecutions could not check the spread of the truth. The Huguenots increased in strength in spite of the cruel laws against them. " The spectacle of men and women publicly suffering death for their faith, expiring under the most cruel tortures rather than deny their convictions, attracted the attention even of the incredulous. Their curiosity was roused ; they desired to learn what there was in the forbidden Bible to inspire such constancy and endurance ; and they too read the book, and in many cases became followers of The Religion. The new views spread rapidly over all France. They not only became established in all the large towns, but penetrated the rural districts, more especially in the South and South-east of France. The social misery which pervaded those districts doubtless helped the spread of the new doctrines among the lower classes. But they also extended among the learned

TIIE HCGUEXOTS. 195

and the wealthy. The heads of the house of Bourbon, Antoine, Duke of Vendome, and Louis, Prince of Conde, declared themselves in favor of the new views. The former became the husband of the celebrated .Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, daughter of the Protestant Margaret of Valois, and the latter became the recognized leader of the Huguenots. The head of the Coligni family took the same side. The Montmo- rencies were divided ; the Constable halting between the two opinions, waiting to see which should prove the stronger ; while others of the family openly sided with the Reformed. Indeed it seemed at one time as if France were on the brink of becoming Protestant. In 1561 the alarmed Cardinal de Sainte-Croix wrote to the Pope : ' The kingdom is already half-Huguenot.' " The fears of the cardinal induced him to exaggerate the strength of the Huguenots. They were growing steadily, but they were still fearfully outnumbered, and were at the mercy of their persecutors.

In their hours of suffering the Reformed found great comfort in the Psalms of Clement Marot. This good man translated the Psalms of David into French verse for the use of his persecuted countrymen, and they were sung in all parts of France. When the Hugue- nots could no longer meet together for worship they could sing, and oftentimes in the most public and crowded promenades of Paris some daring Reformer would sing in a clear, bold voice one of the Psalms of Marot, and the strain would be caught up by others

]96 CROSS AND CROWX.

until it rose loud and strong in a grand harmonious chorus. Even the Roman Catholics were not proof against the charm of these sacred melodies, and they would join with right good will in the singing. The king and the great nobles often came to these prome- nades especially to hear the Huguenot Psalms, and his Majesty and the members of the Court each had a favorite psalm. Catharine de Medicis selected : " 0 Lord, rebuke me not," and the king's mistress, the beautiful Diana of Poitiers, chose the " De Profundis." The priests, from the first, regarded this singing with distrust, for they saw that it was but another method on the part of the Huguenots of expressing their reli- gious feelings in public, and they at length procured an edict forbidding the singing. A little later the sacred melodies were hushed in the awful cries of the day of St. Bartholomew, and when they were heard again they were raised as the battle-hymns of armies fighting for religious freedom.

In 1560, Charles IX., a mere boy, came to the throne of France. He was king in name alone, the real power being exercised by his mother, Catharine de Medicis, of infamous memory. Catharine was one of the most bigoted of women, and the slave and tool of the priests. Hence the Roman Catholic historians have endowed her with all the saintly virtues. She was an unscru- pulous, bad woman. She was guilty of many crimes, and was despised even by those who fawned upon her most. She loved power, and scrupled at nothing to

THE HUGUENOTS. 197

obtain and to retain it. She even debased and debauched her own children in order to render them subservient to her will, and as long as she lived she was a curse and a scourge to France. An Italian by birth and training, her sympathies were always with the Pope, and she would have utterly destroyed France, could she have done so, to gain but a smile of approval from the Holy Father.

Charles was but ten years old at the time of his accession to the throne. He was too young to reign, and his mother was the real ruler of France. The country was in a dreadful state. The finances were exhausted, the nobles were utterly beyond the control of the crown, and the common people wrere discontented. Fortunately for France, Michael de l'Hopital was Chan- cellor of the realm. He was a man of great genius and incorruptible life, and he had been filled with hor- ror by the persecutions of the Reformed. Upon the assembling of the Parliament or States General, in December, 1560, De l'Hopital exhorted men of all parties to rally around the young king, condemned the persecutions of the previous reigns, and declared that henceforth there should be no distinction made between men of the Roman Catholic and Reformed faiths. In future they should be known only as Frenchmen. There was much opposition to these wise views on the part of the Roman Catholics, but in the end De l'Hopi- tal prevailed. A conference was held between the king and the Reformed leaders at Yassy, in August,

198 CROSS AND CROWX.

1561, and though nothing definite resulted from this council, the desperate condition of the royal finances inclined the Court party to listen to the advice of the Chancellor, and to refrain from persecuting the Hugue- nots. In January, 1562, a royal edict was issued, guaranteeing to the Protestants liberty of worship, and it seemed that the Court was on the eve of accord- ing justice to the Reformed.

The Pope and the priests were resolved, however, that Protestantism should not secure a footing in France. It had already freed England, Scoland, and half of Germany from Papal tyranny, and the Pope was determined to continue the war against it in France. Pope Pius IV. was furious when informed of the conference at Vassy, and declared that Catharine de Medicis had betrayed him. The edict granting liberty of worship offended him still more, and it soon became understood among the Romanists that the Pope desired them to disregard the royal command; consequently the edict was not respected, and in many districts of France Protestant congregations were as- saulted and broken up by Roman Catholic mobs. The Crown was not strong enough to enforce its orders, and the Huguenots found that they were still at the mercy of their enemies.

On Christmas day, 1562, a congregation of three thousand Huguenots assembled for religious worship at the town of Vassy, in the district of Champagne. Vassy was one of the possessions of the House of

THE HUGUENOTS. 199

Guise, the heads of which were the most powerful leaders of the Roman Catholic party. During the reign of Francis II., the Duke of Guise, and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, had been the real rulers of France, and were the true authors of the barbarity with which the Reformed had been treated. They had been temporarily deprived of their power upon the death of King Francis, but they were con- stantly watching for an opportunity of resuming their intiuence at Court, and bringing the king and queen- mother under their sway. They even cherished de- signs upon the Crown itself. In religion they were fanatics, and were dreaded by the Huguenots as their most formidable and cruel persecutors. The old duchess, the mother of these princes, resided in the Castle of Vassy. She was furious at the idea of a congregation of heretics daring to assemble for worship so near to her home, arid she complained of their proceedings to the Bishop of Chalons, and threatened the people themselves with the vengeance of her son, the Duke of Guise, if they dared to continue their meetings. The Huguenots replied that the king had granted them liberty of worship, and continued to meet in public, undismayed by the threat of the duchess.

On Sunday, March 1, 1563, the Huguenot congre- gation assembled again for worship in a large barn at Vassy. They numbered about twelve hundred per- sons, having come in from all parts of the surrounding

200 CROSS AND CROWN.

country. On the previous evening the Duke of Guise, accompanied by his wife, and his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, had halted at Danipmarten, on their way to Paris, whither they were going to take part in the effort to destroy the Protestants. They resumed their march towards Vassy the next day, and as they came near the town, they heard a church bell ringing. Turning to a follower, the duke asked : " What noise is that?" " They are calling the Huguenots to their sermon," was the reply. "Huguenots! Huguenots!" exclaimed the duke, fiercely. " S'death ! I will hugue- notize them before long." He marched into the town at the head of his retainers, between two and three hundred in number and fully armed, and halted at the convent, where he partook of dinner, that meal being then eaten in the forenoon. He then marched his men to the barn in which the Huguenots had assembled. The duke's men at once began to abuse the people of the congregation as " heretics, dogs, and rebels." Two shots were fired at persons on the platform, others followed, and three persons were killed and several wounded. The Huguenots were unarmed, and unable to make any resistance. They therefore endeavored to shut the doors of the building ; but these were broken open by Guise's men, who rushed in and continued their assault. The Huguenots replied with a volley of stones, one of which struck the Duke of Guise en the cheek, and he, smarting with the pain, called out to his men to put all the heretics to the sword, and

THE HUGUENOTS. 201

to Bpare none. His orders were faithfully executed. Fifty persons were killed on the spot, and two hundred were wounded, many of these hurts being mortal. The majority of the congregation escaped from the building and sought safety in flight. A number were overtaken and shot down in the streets of the town, and it is probable that very few would have escaped had not the younger Duchess of Guise implored her husband to put a stop to the massacre.

"When the killing was ended, the duke walked about surveying the scene. Some one handed him a book which had been picked up in the barn. He examined it curiously, having never seen anything like it before. Handing it to his brother,, the Car- dinal of Lorraine, he exclaimed : " Here is one of the cursed Huguenot books ! "

The cardinal glanced at it, and smiled : " There is not much harm in it," he said, " for it is the Bible of the Holy Scriptures."

The duke was confused, but burst out angrily : "What! The Holy Scriptures ! It is fifteen hundred years since Jesus Christ suffered death and passion, and but one since this book has been printed. Do you call it the Gospel ? By God's death it is worth nothing."

" My brother is in the wrong," quietly observed the cardinal, as he turned away.

The duke then sent for the local magistrate, and sternly reprimanded him for allowing the Huguenots

202 CROSS A XD CR 0 WN.

to meet in the town. The judge sheltered himself behind the royal edict granting liberty of worship, declaring that he must obey the orders of the king. "Detestable edict!" exclaimed Guise, his eyes flashing with anger. Striking the hilt of his sword with his hand, he cried : " This shall soon cut it to pieces."

The news of the massacre spread rapidly over the kingdom, and was everywhere received with delight by the Romanists. The clergy from their pulpits openly praised the deed, and compared it with the action of Moses in exterminating the worshippers of the Golden Calf. A fortnight after the massacre, Guise entered Paris, and was received in triumph. He was met at the St. Denis gate by the provost of merchants, and he rode into the city at the head of a body of twelve hundred gentlemen on horseback. The citizens received him with loud cheers, hailing him as the defender of the faith and the saviour of the coun- try. All Catholic France prepared to rise against the Huguenots. The queen-mother, foreseeing the storm, and being herself unfriendly to the Guises, endeavored to escape with the king from Paris, but was followed by the duke and an armed force, and though no out- ward violence was used, she was compelled to return with the king to the Louvre. From that time until his death, Guise was master of France.

The Roman Catholics now rose against the Hugue- nots all over France. The latter, having relied upon the royal edict for protection, were unprepared for

THE HUGUENOTS. 203

resistance, and the most dreadful massacres followed. At Paris, at Senlis, at Amiens, at Meaux, at Chalons, at Troyes, at Bar-sur-Seine, at Epernay, at Nevers, at Mans, at Angers, at Blois, and many other places, Huguenot blood flowed like water. At Tours the dead were so numerous that the banks of the Loire were covered with the corpses of men, women, and children. In Provence the Reformed wrere subjected to the most terrible tortures before being put to death. Thousands of them perished in various parts of France. Wherever these scenes of carnage occurred, the priests and monks were found foremost and most merciless in the dreadful work. When others wrere content to spare, they for- bade mercy, and preached extermination as a religious duty.

The Huguenots had been taken by surprise, and were at first unprepared to resist; but at length, the leaders being convinced that they must take up arms if they would save their own lives and those of their brethren, the Prince of Concle and the Admiral de Coligni took the field. Until now the Huguenots had been good subjects of the king, and had entertained no thought of rebelling against him ; but now that they were brought face to face with the real policy of the Roman Catholic Church, they had no alternative but to resist or to abandon their religion. A bloody civil war ensued, in which the Duke of Guise and the Prince of Conde were both killed. The former was assassinated and the latter was shot after his surrender to the roval

204 CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

forces at Jarnac. The war lasted ten years, and France was desolated and torn to pieces. The industry of the nation was almost destroyed ; the factories were closed, and the burdens of the people were greatly multiplied. Both sides had good cause to regret the war, for the Huguenots frequently repaid their adversa- ries in their own coin, and meted out cruelty to them unsparingly. Frequent truces were made, and the leaders on both sides would have made peace without any hesitation, from a very early period in the struggle. Even Catharine herself would have granted religious toleration had she been free to do so, so heartily did she desire peace. But the Pope and the Italian faction cared nothing for the sufferings of France. They were willing that that unhappy land should be blotted from the face of the earth if they could only destroy Pro- testantism with it. They had brought on the civil war, and they bitterly opposed all efforts to bring it to a close upon any other condition than the absolute sub- mission and recantation of the Huguenots. Pius IV. and V. would hear no whisper of mercy. They were naturally cruel, and they took a savage delight in the tales of horror that came to them from France. The groans of the dying and tortured Huguenots were as music to their ears, and they spared no means in their power to increase the sufferings of the unhappy king- dom.

At length, however, not even the influence and power of the Pope could keep alive the war. Both

I •» 1

IJJ 1* m\

ftke"d

-

'•

'

€3

5±=

fcij

THE HUGUENOTS. 205

Bides had exhausted themselves too much to continue the struggle, and peace had become a necessity. The country was in no condition to support either army ; and although Coligny, the Huguenot leader, had been able to collect reenforcements to an extent sufficient to enable him to threaten Paris, it was plain that a cessa- tion of the war would be more to the interests of the Huguenots than the capture of the metropolis. Catha- rine and the Pope found themselves mastered by cir- cumstances, and the former was forced to consent* to tonus which were excessively repugnant to her. A treaty was signed at St. Germains in 1570, by which liberty of worship was guaranteed to the Protestants. They were accorded equality before the law, the universities were thrown open to them, aud the four principal towns of Rochelle, Montauban, Cognac, and La Charite were given up to them as pledges for the execution of the treaty. These terms were not granted willingly by Catharine, but she could not help herself. The Huguenot leaders would accept no other. They were willing to fight to the death, to endure any sacri- fices for their religion, and the queen was not able to carry on the war.

Catharine consented to the treaty merely to gain time. She had now become a sincere ally of the Guises, aud had fully determined sooner or later to strike a crushing blow at the Huguenots and utterly destroy them. For the present, however, she exerted herself to carry out the terms of the treaty, and to

206 CROSS AXD CROWX.

lull the Protestants into a false sense of security. She was outwardly very friendly to them, and declared that her dearest wish was to heal the religious dissensions of the country, and do justice to all the subjects of the king. She succeeded so well in this that she partially disarmed the suspicions of the Huguenots, and even induced the Pope himself to believe that she meant to do justice to the Protestants, and thus drew upon her- self the disfavor of the Pontiff. In secret, however, she was concerting measures with the bigoted Philip II. of Spain to destroy Protestantism in France by the aid of the Spanish army, and she sent private messages to the Pope assuring him that she would yet prove her- self a true daughter of the Church. Philip urged her to lose no time in destroying the heretics, and to strike at them at once, promising her the assistance of his army. Catharine assured the Duke of Alva, the mes- senger of the Spanish King, that she was as desirous as his Catholic majesty of destroying the Reformed party, but that it was necessary to temporize for the present. About this time she received a powerful assistance in carrying out her plans. In 1540 the Order of the Jesuits which had been organized by Ignatius Loyola, a fanatical Spanish soldier and monk, was formally recognized by the Pope, and established at Eome. " Under the Jesuits, the Romish Church, reorganized and redisciplined, became one of the most complete of spiritual machines. They enjoined implicit obedience and submission. Against liberty, they set up authority.

THE HUGUENOTS. 207

To them the individual was nothing, the Order every- thing. They were vigilant sentinels, watching night and day over the interests of Rome. One of the first works to which they applied themselves was the extir- pation of the heretics who had strayed from her fold. The principal instrument which they employed with this object was the Inquisition ; and wherever they succeeded in establishing themselves that institution was set up, or was armed with fresh powers. They tolerated no half measures. They were unsparing and unpitying ; and whenever a heretic was brought before them, and they had the power to deal with him, he must recant or die.

" The first great field in which the Jesuits put forth their new-born strength was Flanders, which then formed part of the possessions of Spain. The pro- vinces of the Netherlands had reached the summit of commercial and manufacturing prosperity. They were inhabited by a hardworking, intelligent, and enterprising people — great as artists and merchants, painters and printers, architects and iron workers — as the decayed glories of Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent testify to this day. Although the two latter cities never completely recovered from the injuries inflicted on them by the tyranny of the trades-unions, there were numerous other towns, where industry had been left comparatively free, in which the arts of peace were cultivated in security. Under the mild sway of the Burgundian Dukes, Antwerp became the centre of the

208 CROSS AND CROW1V.

commerce of Northern Europe ; and more business is said to have been done there in a month than at Venice in two years when at the summit of its grandeur. About the year 1550 it was no uncommon sight to see as many as 2500 ships in the Scheldt, laden with mer- chandise for all parts of the world.

" Such was the prosperity of Flanders, and such the greatness of Antwerp, when Philip II. of Spain suc- ceeded to the rich inheritance of Burgundy on the resignation of Charles V. in the year 155G. Had his subjects been of the same mind with himself in reli- gious matters, Philip might have escaped the infamy which attaches to his name. But a large proportion of the most skilled and industrious people in the Nether- lands had imbibed the new ideas as to a reform in reli- gion which had swept over Northern Europe. They had read the newly translated Bible with avidity ; they had formed themselves into religious communities, and appointed preachers of their own ; in a word, they were Protestants.

" Philip had scarcely succeeded to the Spanish throne than he ordered a branch of the Inquisition to be set up in Flanders, with Cardinal Grenvelle as Inquisitor General. The institution excited great opposition among all classes, Catholic as well as Protestant ; and it was shortly followed by hostility and resistance, which eventually culminated in civil war. Sir Thomas Gresham, writing to Cecil from Antwerp, in 1566, said : ' There are above 40,000 Protestants in this

THE nUGUEXOTS. 209

town which will die rather than the Word of God Bbould be put to silence.'

'• The struiio-je which now bec;an was alike fierce and determined on both sides, and extended over many years. The powerful armies which the king directed against his revolted subjects were led by able generals, by the Duke of Alva, by Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, and many more ; and although they did not succeed in establishing the Inquisition in the Nether- lands, they succeeded in either exterminating or ban- ishing the greater part of the Protestants south of the Scheldt, at the same time that they ruined the indus- try of Flanders, destroyed its trade, and reduced the Catholics themselves to bes^arv. Brusres and Ghent became crowded with thieves and paupers. The busy quays of Antwerp were deserted, and its industrious artisans, tradesmen, and merchants fled from the place, leaving their property behind them a prey to the spoiler.

" The Duke of Alva carried on this frightful war of extermination and persecution for six years, during which he boasted that he had sent 18,000 persons to the scaffold, besides the immense numbers destroyed in battles and sieges, and in the unrecorded acts of cruelty perpetrated on the peasantry by the Spanish soldiery. Philip heard of the depopulation and ruin of his pro- vinces without regret ; and though Alva was recalled, the war was carried on with increased fury by the generals who succeeded him. What mainly comforted

14

210 CROSS AND CROWN.

Philip was, that the people who remained were at length becoming terrified into orthodoxy. The eccle- siastics assured the Duke of Parma, the Governor, that notwithstanding the depopulation of the provinces, more people were coming to them for confession and absolution at the last Easter than had ever come since the beginning of the revolt." *

The Jesuits had been the leading spirits in these terrible deeds in Flanders, and they were prepared to repeat their course in any country that refused uncon- ditional submission to Rome. They were introduced into France soon after their formal recognition by the Pope, and, under the patronage and protection of the Cardinal de Lorraine, they soon obtained a firm foot- hold in the kingdom to which they have been ever since a curse and a scourge. They proved ready and powerful assistants in Catharine's infamous plot against the Reformed, and entered heartily into her plan. Plow much of the affair was devised by Catharine, and how much by the Jesuits, it is impossible to say, but we may safely suppose that the queen-mother had shrewd coun- sellors from the ranks of the order, and we know that the Jesuit Fathers spared no means of winning the king and people over to the terrible scheme when it was fairly resolved upon.

The treaty of 1570 gave France a breathing spell of nearly two years, as it was scrupulously respected by both parties. The king and the queen-mother pro-

* Smiles'3 Huguenots, pp. 60-63.

TEE nUGUENOTS. 211

tected the Protestants in the free exercise of their re- ligion, and the country showed signs of recovering from the civil war. The Pope looked on with open disfavor. Nothing but the death or conversion of the last Hugue- not would satisfy him.

Catharine now proposed that, in order to cement the now bonds between the religious parties in the king- dom, her daughter, Marguerite de Valois, should wed Henry of Beam, the young King of Navarre, and re- cognized leader of the Huguenots. The mother of Henry had reared her son in the strictest school of the Reformed faith, believing that he would one day be called upon to place himself at the head of his perse- cuted countrymen, and at first received Catharine's proposal with distrust. The Admiral de Coligni and some other Huguenots, however, regarded it with favor, and, though they had not much faith in Catharine's friendship for their party, believed that the proposed marriage might be of benefit to the country, and, at length, the Queen of Navarre was brought to take the same view of the matter. The consent of all parties being obtained, there remained but one difficulty in the way. Henry of Navarre was a Protestant and Marguerite was a Catholic. Between such a pair no priest of the Church of Rome could celebrate a marriage without a special dispensation from the Pope. Pious V. was at once applied to for such a dispensation, but he refused it. Charles IX. declared that if the Pope would not consent to the marriage, he would have his

212 CROSS AND CROWN.

sister married in '"'open conventicle," by a Huguenot preacher. Catharine solved the difficulty by forging a dispensation in the name of the Pontiff. *

Everything being prepared, the king and the queen- mother invited the Huguenot leaders to come up to Paris and take part in the festivities which were to mark the occasion. Some were distrustful of the dark woman, and excused themselves from going to the capital. Others, more trusting, could not believe that the King of France would allow harm to befall them on such an occasion, and great numbers, including the heroic Queen of Navarre, hastened to Paris, where they were welcomed by the Court. The Queen of Navarre reached Paris about the first of May. Catharine pro- fessed the greatest delight at her arrival ; but on the 9th of May, the Queen of Navarre died suddenly. The Roman Catholic historian Davila, says : " The first stroke of this execution was lanced against the Queen of Navarre, who, on account of her sex and royal con- dition, was poisoned, as it is thought, by means of cer- tain gloves which were presented to her, the poison of which was so subtile, that very soon after she had handled them, she was seized with a violent fever, of which she died four days afterwards. Her death, so sudden and unexpected, caused suspicions among the Huguenots ; and the king, who knew that the force of the poison had affected the brain alone, ordered the

* Smiles 's Huguenots, p. 64.

THE HUG UEXO TS. 213

body to be opened, which was found perfect ; but they did not touch the head under pretence of humanity ; and on the testimony of those of the profession, the re- port circulated that she died a natural death through the malignity of the fever."

The death of the Queen of Navarre delayed the mar- riage for some time. Her son succeeded formally to her crown, and a few weeks later set out for Paris, where he arrived about the 1st of August, accompanied by a noble retinue of gentlemen, among whom was his cousin, the Prince of Conde. Navarre and Conde were warmly welcomed by the king, and were lodged in the Palace of the Louvre, in which the Court was then re- siding. Some time previous to this, the Admiral de Coligni had reached the capital with his followers, and had taken lodgings in the street of Bresse, not far from the palace. The King of France received the admiral with the greatest honor, called him his father, and as- sured him of his desire to be guided by his advice in the settlement of the national troubles. His object was to deceive the veteran soldier and statesman, and to lull his suspicions, if he had any. He was entirely suc- cessful. The generous Huguenot could not bring him- self to doubt the sincerity of his sovereign, and he embraced with eagerness what he believed was a chance for repairing the damages done by the war.

During the first fortnight in August, the Huguenots came up to Paris in great numbers, brilliant and gallant gentlemen and beautiful ladies, and warriors who had

214 CROSS AND CROWN.

proved themselves brave men and able soldiers on many a stubborn field, trusting in the honor of the King of France. Some, indeed, were suspicious of the coining harm, for notwithstanding the profuse hospitalities and welcomes of the Court and the nobles, the Protestant leaders could not shut their eyes to the fact that the citizens of Paris were bitterly hostile to them. Revels and feasts were given in great numbers by the king and queen and the great nobles, at which every Huguenot was welcomed with delight ; but the people were cold and stern in their treatment of the Reformed. The priests had been busy among them, impressing upon them the duty of exterminating the Huguenots, and as- suring them that they would soon have an opportunity of performing this duty ; and the priests had done their work so well, that it needed but a word from some Catholic leader of influence to raise the whole city against the Reformed. Some of the Huguenot leaders went to Coligni, and informed him of their fears, and begged him to leave the city at once. The admiral, still trusting in the faith of the king, laughed at them, and urged them to stay with him until the wedding festivities were over.

On the 18th of August 1572, the marriage was cele- brated with great pomp at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Henry was nineteen years old, handsome, gene- rous, witty, and manly, in every way a worthy husband for so fair a bride. Marguerite was near the same age, and was beautiful and accomplished. Both were mag-

THE HCGUENOTS. 215

nificently attired, and each was greeted with cheers by the citizens, some of whom forgot their religious hatred in their enjoyment of the gay spectacle. A handsome pavilion had been erected in the front of the cathedral, and around it were gathered the King and Queen of France, the queen-mother, the great dignitaries of the Church of Rome, and the nobles and gentry of France, both Huguenot and Roman Catholic, and an immense concourse of people. Cannon boomed, bells rang out from every steeple, and banners floated upon the soft summer breeze. The marriage was performed with great ceremony, and then Henry led his bride into the cathedral to hear Mass. He immediately withdrew with Conde, Coligni, and the other lords, and walked up and down the open space near the church until Mass was done. Then the entire party repaired to the palace of the Archbishop of Paris, where a grand dinner was served.

The marriage was followed by several days of revelry and feasting at the Louvre. Catharine and the Roman Catholic leaders were resolved that there should be no indication of their real design until all was in readiness for the fatal blow, and they showered the rarest of pleasures upon their doomed guests. Meanwhile they proceeded rapidly with their preparations for their blow at the Huguenots. Orders were sent to the Governor of Lyons not to allow the messenger who bore the tidings of the marriage to proceed on his way to Rome until the 24 th of August. On the day after the

216 CROSS AND CROWN.

marriage a secret council was held at the Louvre, at which the final arrangements for the dreadful enterprise were perfected. Charles IX. was a weak-minded, indo- lent king, entirely subject to the will of his unprinci- pled mother. He entered into the plan of exterminating the Huguenots with extreme reluctance, for he had conceived a genuine respect and admiration for Coligni. Catharine, the Duke of Guise, and the priests urged him by every means in their power to give his sanc- tion to their scheme. They brought to him false stories of the admiral's hostility to him, and so inflamed him against the Reformed that he not only gave his consent to the plan of Catharine and the Jesuits, but declared he would give 50,000 crowns to any one who would kill Coligni. The queen-mother and her friends were in high glee, and resolved to strike the blow before the king could change his mind. Charles, it seems, had made this offer more in a fit of rage than in earnest, and the queen-mother, aware of this, resolved to com- mit him to the scheme at once. The Duke of Guise was summoned, and he obtained a man willing to assassinate the admiral. This ruffian, on the 22nd of August, concealed himself in a house near the admi- ral's lodgings, and fired upon him as he was returning from the presence of the king. Coligni was struck with two balls, one of which carried away one of his fingers, the other struck him in the arm. Some of his attendants conveyed him to his hotel, while others broke into the house from which the shots had been

THE HUGUENOTS. 217

fired, and though they could not prevent the escape of the assassin, they obtained convincing proofs that he had been employed to do his work by the queen- mother and the Duke of Guise.

The news of the attempted murder of Coligni startled the Huguenots from their fancied security, and they came in great numbers to the quarters of the admiral, both to defend him from further harm, and to concert measures for their mutual safety. They were thor- oughly alarmed, and were convinced that this was but the beginning of an attempt to ruin their entire party. Charles IX. was at once informed of the attempt on Coligni's life, and professed to be very much incensed thereat. He sent the admiral word that he was com- ing to see him, and the same afternoon paid him a visit. Catharine accompanied him, as did also his brother, the Duke of Anjou; they fearing that Coligni might by his manly and noble conversation entirely alienate the king from their scheme. They passed to the admiral's chamber through apartments filled with Huguenot gentlemen who had gathered there for their leader's protection, and the countenances of these stern men plainly showed the plotters that their intended victims suspected the truth. Charles was deeply im- pressed by the admiral's language, and assured him of his grief and indignation at the cowardly assault upon him, and of his determination to find out and punish the guilty parties. Catharine, fearing the effect of the admiral's words, hurried the king away, and Charles

218 CEO SS AND CROWN.

went back to the Louvre more than half resolved to be a king indeed and do justice to his subjects.

The King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde waited upon Charles, and asked permission to leave the city, as their lives were not safe in Paris. The king, irresolute, begged them to remain, assuring them that no harm should befall them. The Huguenot gentry gathered in the house of Coligni and the chamber of the King of Navarre. Could they have carried the admiral with them, they would have left the city on the 23rd of August, but the surgeon, a Huguenot, declared that to move the sufferer would be fatal. They contented themselves with sending a deputation to the king to ask for justice, and guarding their leaders with increased vigilance.

" The day after the attempt to kill Coligni was a dreadful interval for the king and his mother. His conduct from the first displayed all the irresolution and want of thought which accompanies crime. In his eagerness to deceive the King of Navarre, he had appointed persons to investigate the assassination ; the information which they procured caused in turn still greater uneasiness. It was impossible to prevent Mau- revel's (the assassin) employers from being known, and a council was summoned at the Louvre ; the behaviour of Charles IX. at this council was consistent with the rest of his actions. As he approached the fatal mo- ment, his conscience appears to have assailed him, and he hesitated to carry the plan into effect. The queen

THE HUG UENOTS. 21 9

entreated him to take firm measures to preserve her and the Duke of Anjou from the vengeance of the Huguenots, who already accused them of the assassina- tion of Coligni. De Retz told the king that such was the irritated state of the Protestants, that he, as well as Guise, would be sacrificed to their vengeance. Soon after intelligence was brought that the Huguenots were preparing to cany Coligni out of Paris ; if he should escape, their whole design would be frustrated, and a civil war become unavoidable ; especially as the Hugue- nots had threatened to rise en masse to obtain justice. Catharine perceived the wavering state of her son's mind ; she informed him that couriers had already been sent off to Germany and Switzerland for troops, and that, in the unprovided state of the Government, his ruin was certain if another war broke out. The wretched king, whose mind was so framed that he blindly followed the impulse of the moment, and who the minute before had felt a repugnance to consent to the death of so many subjects, was then so much inflamed by the solicitations and assertions of his coun- cillors, that he experienced all the anger which could be called into action by a recollection of the past, a dread of the future, and the vexation of failing in an attempt to punish the leaders of the sect so hateful to him. He became more eager than any to execute the resolution, already taken in secret council, to make a general massacre of the Huguenots. This could not safely be deferred any longer, as some of them were

220 CROSS AND CROWX.

quitting Paris every hour, and the dawn of the next morning was to behold the consummation of this inhu- man scene.

" At first there was no exception whatever from the massacre, and Charles consented to destroy one branch of his own family : ' It was deliberated,' says the Arch- bishop of Paris, ' if they should not murder the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde with the others, and all the murderers were for their death ; neverthe- less, by a miracle, they resolved on sparing them.' ' The Duke of Guise,' says Davila, ' wished that in killing the Huguenots they should do the same with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde ; but the queen-mother and the others had a horror of dipping their hands in royal blood.' ' Indubitably,' says Bran- tome, ' he was proscribed, and set down on the red list, as they called it ; because, said they, it was necessary to dig up the roots, such as the King of Navarre, the Prince of Conde, the admiral, and other great persons.' It was also proposed to kill the Montmorencies, who, although Catholics, were very much connected with the Huguenots ; but the marshal could not be drawn from Chantilly, and was beyond their reach; so the council concluded that to destroy the younger branch and leave the elder to revenge their death, would only increase the chances of a civil war. De Retz, however, main- tained that they should all be killed."

The 23rd of August was passed by the queen-mother and her supporters in maturing their plot. It was

THE nUGUESOTS. 221

agreed that the great bell of the palace should sound the signal, and that as soon as this was done bands of armed Romanists should fall upon the Protestants and put them to death, without respect to age or sex, the object being to destroy every Huguenot in Paris. The admiral was to be killed first. The public arms in the Hotel de Ville and the royal arsenals were distributed among the Roman Catholic citizens, and the priests did good work in preparing them to use these weapons. The Royal Guard was increased by bringing reinforce- ments from the suburbs, and was held in readiness to assist in the murders. The Catholics were to be distin- guished by wearing white scarfs around their left arms, and white crosses on the front of their hats.

During the afternoon of the 23rd, the king rode through the streets of Paris accompanied by the Cheva- lier d' Angouleme ; and the queen-mother, to disarm suspicion, held her court as usual. Neither gave any outward indication of the dreadful crime they had in contemplation.

During the day the city was much excited. The Huguenots carefully remained in doors, their appear- ance in the streets beins; attended with considerable risk to them. They maintained their watch over the King of Navarre and the admiral, and by thus collect- ing at these two points unconsciously facilitated the plans of their enemies. " It is strange," says White, " that the arrangements in the city, which must have been attended with no little commotion, did not rouse

222 CROSS AND CROWN.

the suspicions of the Huguenots. Probably, in their blind confidence, they trusted implicitly in the king's word that these movements of arms and artillery, these postings of guards and midnight musters were intended to keep the Guisian faction in order."

Paris wxas not then, as now, a city of broad streets and handsome public squares. Its thoroughfares were narrow and crooked, the houses were high and as a rule not well built, and there was scarcely a distance of a hundred yards but could be held against all comers by those first gaining possession of the street. All through the 23rd of August, the Roman Catholic leaders were busy posting their forces in commanding positions, and in preparing the citizens to make common cause with them against the detested Huguenots.

The day wore away, and the sultry August night came on. A deep and unusual stillness hung over the city, broken only by the heavy tread of armed men as they marched to the positions assigned them. The King of Navarre kept his apartments at the Louvre, surrounded by a large number of his friends and adhe- rents. All were suspicious, and when the captain of the Royal Guard came to warn those who wished to leave the Palace to do so, as the gates were about to be closed for the night, no one stirred from his place. The admiral's house had been furnished with a guard by the King of France, and the Huguenots had some- what relaxed their vigilance there, and had nearly all departed for their lodgings. The famous surgeon

THE HUGUENOTS. 223

Ambrose Par6, the king's medical attendant, and the admiral's chaplain, remained to watch over the suf- ferer, and towards morning Coligni fell into a heavy slumber.

A little after midnight the queen-mother rose from her bed, and went to the king's chamber. She was attended only by the Duchess of Nemours, one of the most bloodthirsty of the conspirators. Charles was pacing his room in the deepest agitation and uncer- tainty. Too weak to form and maintain a resolution either for or against the massacre, he shrank from giving the signal for so much violence. He swore fiercely at one moment that he would call on the Huguenots to protect him against his own family, and the next moment he burst out into a torrent of reproaches against his brother, the Duke of Anjou, who had entered the room, but who did not dare to reply. In a little while, the remaining leaders of the plot, Guise, Nevers, Birague, De Retz, and Tavannes, entered the room. They were greatly embarrassed by the king's irresolution. Catharine alone was equal to the emergency. Assuming a sternness which she knew would subdue her weak minded son, she exclaimed : " It is too late to retreat, even were it possible. We must cut off the rotten limb, hurt it ever so much. If you delay, you will lose the finest opportunity God ever gave man of getting rid of His enemies at a blow." Then she added in a low tone, as if speaking to herself, M Mercy would be cruel to them, and cruelty merciful."

224 CROSS AND CROWN.

The stern and determined manner of his mother sub- dued the king, and he hastily gave the order to begin the bloody work. The Duke of Guise, resolved that he should have no time to repent, at once hurried from the apartment, and a few minutes later set out from the Louvre at the head of a strong force of the Guard. His first duty was to despatch the admiral.

Coligni had fallen into a heavy sleep, feeling secure in the protection of the guard which Charles had placed over his house, and the surgeon dozed in his great chair by the bedside. A deep silence reigned throaghout the house. The night passed wearily away. Between three and four o'clock on the morning of August 24th, a heavy and rapid tramping was heard in the street without. It was followed by a loud knock- ing at the gate, and the imperious command to " Open, in the king's name." La Bonne, supposing it to be a message from the Louvre, at once drew back the bolt, and was killed on the spot by the assassins, who rushed into the house. The domestics made a feeble effort to bar the entrance, but were unsuccessful, and were nearly all killed by the guard. The admiral was awakened by the uproar, and at once supposed that his enemy, the Duke of Guise, had attacked the house. He made his attendants lift him from his bed. Then wrapping his robe de chambre about him, he sat down to await the arrival of his assassins. Cornaton now rushed into the room, and the surgeon asked him the meaning of the noise. Turning to the admiral, he replied in a

THE IICGUEXOTS. 225

Voice of great emotion : " Sir, it is God calling us to himself. They have broken into the house, and wo can do nothing."

U.I have long been prepared to die," said Coligni ; u but you must all flee for your lives, if it be not too late ; you cannot save me ; I commit my soul to God's mercy. "

The attendants at once left the room, leaving the admiral alone with the surgeon, Ambrose Pare, who would not desert him. Only two of the attendants suc- ceeded in making their escape over the adjoining roofs.

The admiral and the surgeon, calm and silent, re- mained in the chamber. The noise and trampling on the stairs and in the ante-rooms increased, and in a few moments the door was dashed in, and the murderers, headed by Cosseins and Behm, sprang into the room. They had expected to meet with resistance, and paused Involuntarily at the sight of the two unarmed men be- fore them. Coligni had risen to his feet, and was standing confronting them sternly. Behm, a powerful German soldier, was the first to recover his self-posses- sion. Pointing his sword to the admiral's breast, he asked : " Are you not Coligni ? "

" I am," replied the heroic old man ; " but, young

man, you should respect my gray hairs, and not attack

a wounded man. Yet, what matters it ? You cannot

shorten my life except by God's permission."

Behm answered him with a blasphemous oath, and 15

226 CROSS AND CROWN.

plunged his sword into the admiral's breast. Others also struck him, and the martyr fell to the floor. Benin now ran to the window, and shouted to the Duke of Guise, who was waiting impatiently in the courtyard below : " It is all over." The duke called to him : " Monsieur d'Angouleme will not believe it unless- he sees him." The murderer at once raised the body from the ground, and bore it to the window. The admiral was not quite dead, and made a faint effort at resistance. " Is it so, old fox ? " cried Behin. Then drawing his dagger, he stabbed the dying admiral several times, and tossed the body through the window to the pave- ment below. It was so mutilated and covered with blood that it could scarcely be recognized. The Bastard of Angouleme stooped down, and wiped the blood from the face. Guise glanced at the corpse, and gave the body a kick, exclaiming brutally, " Yes, it is he, I know him well." Then turning to his followers, who came pouring out of the house, he cried, " Well done, my men ! We have made a good beginning. Forward — by the king's command." Then mounting his horse he led his men to repeat their work elsewhere. The admiral's head was cut off, and carried to the Louvre. When Guise left the presence of the king, the con- spirators, afraid to separate, repaired to a room over- looking the Place Bassecour, and taking their stations by a window, listened anxiously for the sounds which should tell them that the attack on the admiral's house had begun. Charles was overwhelmed with agitation,

THE I1UGUEN0TS. 227

and more than once seemed on the point of relenting. Suddenly a pistol shot was heard in a neighboring street, ar.d the king, terrified by the sound, hastily summoned a messenger, and sent him to the Duke of Guise with orders to desist from his attempt. In a little while the man returned with this message from the duke : " It is too late. The admiral is dead." The agitation of the king now increased, and Catharine, fearing that Guise's disobedience would enrage the king, and cause still further embarrassment, resolved to com- mit her son so deeply that he could not withdraw. It had been agreed that the massacre should begin at the sound of the matin bell from the palace, but she decided to anticipate the signal, and at once sent orders to the priests of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, immediately oppo- site the Louvre, to sound the signal from the bell of that church. We may imagine the joy with which the ecclesiastics obeyed her order.

As the hoarse tones of the huge bell came rolling out of the great tower, ushering in the dreadful day of St. Bartholomew, there was a pause, and then from every belfry in the city the infernal signal was caught up and repeated, proving beyond doubt that the mas- sacre was premeditated. Paris, until now so silent and peaceful, became, as if by magic, full of confusion and strife. Lights gleamed from every house, and torches lit up the darkness of every street. In a marvellously short space of time, the streets were filled with men bearing arms in their hands, and white crosses on their

228 CROSS AND CROWN.

hats. On every side resounded the crashing of musketry, the falling of doorways beneath the heavy blows dealt them, the shouts of the mob thus suddenly turned into savages, and the groans and cries of their victims, while high over all rose the hoarse clanging of the church bells, which the priests rang to stimulate the people to their work. It seemed as if a legion of devils had been suddenly turned into the quaint old streets. The priests were everywhere among the mob, urging them to kill without mercy, and steeling their hearts against the appeals of their victims. Even women took part in the dreadful carnage, and, forgetting their sex, be- came the cruellest of the cruel. As the sun rose red and struggling with the light of the torches, his rays revealed a scene which has rarely been equalled in horror in the history of the world. As the awful sounds of the massacre reached the ears of Charles IX., the last feeling of humanity died out of his heart.

Within the walls of the Louvre itself, and within the hearing of the king and his mother, occurred one of the foulest incidents of the bloody work of the day. Early in the morning the King of Navarre left his apartments, accompanied by the Huguenot gentlemen who had kept watch over him during the night, to seek the presence of the King of France, to demand justice for the assault on the admiral. They were all in ignorance of the dreadful work that was going on outside, and were not a little surprised when, at the foot of the stairway leading to the courtyard, they

n

of mas ite heavy blows dealt

*&dy turned uito ::ms. while k church

iBulate the people to

kpon of devils had

'k nob, urging them c their hearts against t» Tomen took part

.a rosered

-quailed in

lean of Charles E, ;;,: Lis heart. md witoin i aotheTi occurred one |

. .rre left bii

when,

'

.

THE HUGUENOTS. 229

were halted in the king's name. The King of Navarre was arrested by the Royal Guard, and his attendants were at once disarmed, without any effort at resistance on their part. A list of Navarre's attendants had been carefully made out. An officer of the Guard called out the names one by one, and as each gentleman answered to his name, he was required to make his way through a double line of Swiss mercenaries toward the court- yard. As he passed out the palace-door, he was cut down without warning. In a short while two hundred corpses were piled up under the palace windows, and the stones of the courtyard were slippery with the best blood of France. The victims were stripped and plun- dered by the Swiss as they fell, and in the afternoon the ladies of Catharine's Court, " inspected and laughed at the corpses as they lay stripped in the courtyard, being especially curious about the body of Soubise, from whom his wife had sought to be divorced on the ground of nullity of marriage."

The King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde were conducted to Charles's chamber. They found the half crazy King of France in a furious rage, but notwith- standing this, they began to reproach him for his breach of faith. Charles commanded them to be silent, and to abandon their religion or die. Navarre demanded time to consider, but Conde declared he would not change his religion. The King of France then swore that, if in three days they had not made up their minds to apostatize, he would have their

230 CROSS AND CROWN.

heads. Meanwhile he kept them close prisoners in the palace.

Marguerite, the Queen of Navarre, writes as follows of her experience on the day of St. Bartholomew : " I was awoke by a man knocking at the door, and calling Navarre! Navarre! The nurse, thinking it was my husband, ran and opened it. It was a gentleman named Leran, who had received a sword cut in the elbow, and a spear thrust in the arm ; four soldiers were pursuing him, and they all rushed into my chamber after him. Wishing to save his life, he threw himself upon my bed. Finding myself clasped in his arms, I got out on the other side, he followed me, still clinging to me. I did not know the man, and could not tell whether he had come to insult me, or whether the sol- diers were after him or me. We both shouted out, being equally frightened. At last, by God's mercy, Captain de Nangay of the Guards came in, and seeing me in this condition, could not help laughing, although commise- rating me. Severely reprimanding the soldiers for their indiscretion, he turned them out of the room, and granted me the life of the poor man who still clung to me. I made him lie down, and had his wounds dressed in my closet until he was quite cured. While changing my night-dress, which was all covered with blood, the captain told me what had happened, and assured me that my husband was with the king and quite unharmed. He then conducted me to the room of my sister of Lorraine, which I reached more

THE HUGUENOTS. 231

dead than alive. As I entered the ante-room, the doors of which were open, a gentleman named Bourse, running from the soldiers who pursued him, was pierced by a halberd three paces from me. I fell almost fainting into Captain de Nanc,ay's arms, imagin- ing the same thrust had pierced us both. Being some- what recovered, I entered the little room where my sister slept. While there, M. de Miossans, my hus- band's first gentleman, and Armagnac, his first valet de chambre, came and begged me to save their lives. I went and threw myself at the feet of the king and the queen, my mother, to ask the favor, which they at last granted me."

It was the Sabbath, but the massacre went on all day. The houses and lodging places of the Huguenots had been carefully registered, and were easily found. They were broken open, and the inmates were shot down or killed with the sword or axe. No quarter was given. Little children fared as badly as their parents, and the women were frequently outraged before being murdered. The priests -were everywhere, urging on the savage work. The commander of the military forces, Marshal Tavannes, rode through the streets with his sword dripping with gore, shouting to the murder- ers : " Kill ! kill ! blood letting is as good in August as in May."

" The massacre, commenced on Sunday, was continued through that and the two following days. It is impos- sible to assign to each day its task of blood — in all but

232 CROSS AND CROWN.

a few exceptional cases, we know merely that the vic- tims perished in the general slaughter. Writing in the midst of the carnage, probably not later than noon of the 24th, the Nuncio Salviati says : ' The whole city is in arms ; the houses of the Huguenots have been forced with great loss of lives, and sacked by the populace with incredible avidity. . . You can see nothing in the street but white crosses in the hats and caps of every one you meet, which has a fine effect.' The Nuncio says nothing of the streets encumbered with heaps of naked, bleeding corpses, nothing of the cart- loads of bodies conveyed to the Seine, and then flung into the river, ' so that not only were the waters in it turned to blood,' but so many corpses grounded on the bank of the little island of the Louvre, that the air be- came infected with the smell of corruption. The living, tied hand and foot, were thrown off the bridges. One man, probably a rag-gatherer, brought two little children in his creel, and tossed them into the water as carelessly as if they had been blind kittens. An infant, as yet unable to walk, had a cord tied around its neck, and was dragged through the streets by a troop of children nine or ten years old. Another played with the beard, and smiled in the face of the man who carried him ; but the innocent caress exasperated instead of soften- ing the ruffian, who stabbed the child, and with an oath threw it into the Seine. Among the earliest victims was the wife of the king's plumassier. The murderers broke into her house on the Notre Dame bridge, about

TEE HUGUENOTS. 233

four in the morning, stabbed her, and flung her still breathing into the river. She clung for some time to the wooden piles of the bridge, and was killed at last with stones, her body remaining for four days entangled by her long hair among the woodwork. The story goes that her husband's corpse being thrown over, fell against hers, and set it free, both floating away together down the stream. Madeleine Brie,onnet, widow of Theobald of Yverin, disguised herself as a woman of the people, so that she might save her life, but was betrayed by the line petticoat which she hung below her coarse gown. As she would not recant, she was allowed a few moments' prayer, and then tossed into the water,

" The houses on the bridge of Notre Dame, inhabits principally by Protestants, were witnesses to many a scene of cruelty. All the inmates of one house were massacred, except a little girl, who was dipped, stark naked, in the blood of her father and mother, and threatened to be served like them if she turned Hugue- not. The Protestant booksellers and printers were

jarticularly sought after. Spire Niquet was burned over a slow fire made out of his own books, and thrown lifeless, but not dead, into the river. Oudin Petit fell

. victim to the covetousness of his son-in-law, who was a Catholic bookseller ; Rene Bianchi, the queen's per- fumer, is reported to have killed with his own hands a young man, a cripple, who had already displayed much skill in goldsmith's work. This is the only man whose death the king lamented, ' because of his excellent

934 CROSS AND CROWN.

workmanship, for his shop was entirely stripped.' One, woman was betrayed by her own daughter. Another, whose twenty-fifth pregnancy was approaching its term, was exposed to tortures unutterable. Another pregnant woman was drowned, after she had been compelled to walk over the face of her husband. Another woman, in a similar state, was shot as she tried to escape by the roof of her house, and the immature fruit of her womb was dashed against the wall. Frances Baillet, wife of the queen's goldsmith, seeing her husband and her son murdered, leaped out of the window, and broke both her legs by falling into the court beneath. A neighbor had compassion on her, and hid her in his cellar ; but being ' less brave than tender-hearted,' he was frightened by the threats of the assassins, and gave up the poor woman to them. The brutes dragged her through the streets by the hair, and in order to get easily at her gold bracelets, they chopped off both her hands, and left her all bleeding at the door of a cook- shop. The cook, annoyed by her groans, ran a spit into her body, and left it there. Some hours later, her mutilated remains were thrown into the river, and dogs gnawed her hands which had been left in the streets.

" Few of the Huguenots attempted any resistance, though many of them were veteran soldiers. Had they done so, the whole body might have found time to rally. As it was, they were equally unable to defend them- selves, or to fly; their faculties seemed benumbed . . . Three men only in Paris are recorded as having fought

Tin: huguenots. 235

for their lives. Taverny, a lieutenant of Marechaussee, stood a regular siege in his house. For eight or nine hours he and one servant kept the mob at bay, and when his leaden bullets were exhausted, he used pellets of pitch. As soon as these were spent, he rushed out, and was overwhelmed by numbers. His wife was taken to prison ; but his invalid sister was^ dragged naked through the streets, until death ended her suffer- ings and her ignominy. Guerchy also struggled unsuc- cessfully for his life, his only weapon being a dagger against men protected with cuirasses. Soubise also fought like a hero — one against a host — and died beneath the windows of the queen's apartments, among the earliest of the victims.

" Mezeray wrrites that 700 or 800 people had taken refuge in the prisons, hoping they would be safe 'under the wings of justice;' but the officers selected for this work had them brought out into the fitly-named ' Valley of Misery,' and there beat them to death with clubs, and threw their bodies into the river. The Venetian ambassador corroborates this story, adding that they were murdered in batches of ten. ... A aold-beater named Crozier, one of those prison murderers, bared his sinewy arm and boasted of having killed 4000 persons with his own hands. Another man affirmed that unaided he had ' dispatched ' eight}' Huguenots in one day. On Tuesday a butcher, Crozier's comrade, boasted to the king that he had killed 150 the night before Coconnas, one of the mignons

236 CROSS AND CROWN.

of Anjou, prided himself on having ransomed from the populace as many as thirty Huguenots, for the pleasure of making them abjure and then killing them with his own hand, after he had ' secured them for hell.'

" About seven o'clock the king was at one of the windows of his palace, enjoying the air of that beautiful August morning, when he was startled by shouts of 'kill! kill!' They were raised by a body of 200 Guards, who were firing with much more noise than execution at a number of Huguenots who had crossed the river : ' to seek the king's protection,' says one ac- count ; ' to help the king against the Guises,' says another. Charles, wrho had just been telling his mother that ' the weather seemed to rejoice at the slaughter of the Huguenots,' felt all his savage instincts kindle at the sight. He had hunted wild beasts, now he would hunt men ; and calling for an arquebuse, he fired at the fugitives, who were fortunately out of range." *

Such were some of the horrors that were crowded into these three eventful August days. It would be impossible to describe all. Six thousand persons are believed to have perished in Paris alone, and among these were some of the noblest and best of the king's subjects. When the city became calm again, a feeling of horror fell upon it, and even among the Catholics there were many who did not hesitate to condemn the bloody deed, while they rejoiced that heresy was rooted

* Ttie Massacre of St. Bartholomew. By Henry White, pp. 417 to 435.

THE HUGUENOTS. 237

out in the capital. The massacre had hardly ceased before Catharine and her fellow-conspirators found that they had committed a terrible political blunder, and had inllieted upon the kingdom a wound which would require for its healing more skill than they could com- mand. They endeavored to throw the blame upon the Duke of Guise, but that nobleman refused to bear it, and they finally induced the king to assume in a public speech the responsibility of it, and to declare that it was a political and not a religious act. The Papal Nuncio, Salviati, at once pronounced this declaration to be " false, in every respect," and added that a man of the least " experience in worldly matters would be ashamed to believe it."

Almost immediately upon the beginning of the mas- sacre in Paris, Charles, at the instance of his mother and the conspirators, sent messengers to the different cities and towns of the kingdom, with orders to the Governors thereof to put all the Huguenots in those places to death, the object being to exterminate the Reformed in the entire kingdom. In nearly every instance these orders were obeyed with barbarous alacrity, and in the pro- vincial towns blood flowed as freely as it had done in Paris. In some cases, however, the provincial offi- cers were merciful. The municipal authorities of Nan- tes refused to authorize the massacre, and the Gov- ernor of Alencon, Matignon, by name, threatened to turn the garrison against the city if a Huguenot was injured, and consequently there was no blood shed in

238 CROSS AND CROWN.

these places. In Auvergne the Huguenots were protec- ted in every place but one. The Governor of Bayonne, upon the receipt of the royal order, wrote to the king : " Sire, I have communicated your majesty's commands to the faithful inhabitants and garrison of this city. I have found among them many good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one executioner." The noble answer of James Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux, deserves to be recorded. When the king's lieutenant brought him the order he had received for the massacre of all the Hugue- nots in the city, the bishop exclaimed : " No, no, sir — I oppose, and will always oppose the execution of such an order, to which I cannot consent. I am pastor of the church of Lisieux, and the people you are comman- ded to slay are my flock. Although they are wanderers at present, having straj-ed from the fold which has been confided to me by Jesus Christ, the supreme Pastor, they may nevertheless return, and I will not give up the hope of seeing them come back. I do not read in the Gospel that the shepherd ought to suffer the blood of his sheep to be shed ; on the contraiy, I find that he is bound to pour out his own blood and give his own life for them. Take the order back again, for it shall never be executed so long as I live." In Burgundy there was but little blood shed, the authorities refusing to execute the royal orders in most instances. The Roman Catholics at Senlis refused to join in the mas- sacre. The Governor of Dieppe also refused to obey the order. At Nismes, the authorities closed the gates

THE HUGUENOTS. l';;;>

and placed a guard of citizens over them to keep out strangers. This done, they called on all the people, both Catholic and Huguenot, to unite in preserving the peace of the city, and to assist in defending each other. They thus kept the Romanists in ignorance of the actual condition of affairs until the period of danger was ended.

Tn other parts of France the scene was different. At Saumur all the Huguenots in the town were killed. The royal messenger reached Angers on the 29th of August, at daybreak. He at once caused the gates of the town to be shut, and passing into the house of a Huguenot gentleman, killed him as he lay in his sick- bed. He next called on the pastor, La Riviere, with whom he had long been on friendly terms. He found him in his garden. Embracing him in the usual man- ner, he said : " I have the kings orders to put you to death instantly." The minister asked for a few mo- ments delay to collect his thoughts and pra}\ This was granted him, and when he had concluded his prayer, Montsoreau, for such was his murderer's name, killed him on the spot. The assassin then went and killed two other ministers, and having succeeded in arousing the fury of a portion of the Roman Catholic population, made a general attack on the Huguenots. The magis- trates finally compelled him to desist, and the massacre was stopped. At Orleans, Lyons, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Troyes, Meaux, Rouen, and other places, blood flowed freely. No mercy was shown the unhappy Huguenots.

240 CR °SS A ND OR 0 WN.

They were shot down, or hacked to pieces, or thrown into the river, or beaten to death, or burned. The most fearful cruelties were perpetrated. In Lyons alone 4000 people were killed, and at Aries the Rhone became so putrid with the corpses floating down from Lyons that the people were unable for several days to drink its waters. At Bordeaux the most eloquent of the Jesuit preachers, Father -Auger, exerted himself to urge on the massacre. " Who," he cried, " executed the divine judgments at Paris ? The Angel of the Lord. And who will execute them in Bordeaux ? The Angel of the Lord, however man may try to resist him."

At length the storm of blood and ruin spent its force. There was a lull all over France, and men sat down to count the number of the victims. In all the kingdom there was mourning and suffering. The Duke of Sully says that 70,000 Huguenots were slain during the mas- sacre, though other writers place the number as high as 100,000, while others again bring it as low as 10,000. It was a blow which reacted upon the heads of those who struck it. It weakened France in a marked degree, for many veteran soldiers were among the victims, and consequently strengthened her rival, Spain. When Philip II. received Catharine's letter informing him of the dreadful event, he laughed aloud, for the first and only time in his life.

Catharine also wrote to the Pope informing him of the massacre. The news created the most profound excitement in Rome. A triumphal salute was fired

THE HUGUENOTS. 241

from the Castle of St Angelo, the bells rang out from every steeple, bonfires gleamed from all the seven hills of Rome, and the city was brilliantly illuminated. Gregory XIII., and his Cardinals and a host of the clergy went in solemn state to the Church of St. Louis, where the Cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum. " A pompous Latin inscription in gilt letters over the entrance, describes Charles as an avenging angel sent from Heaven ('angelo percussore divinitus immisso')to sweep his kingdom from heretics. A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre ; and in the Vatican may still be seen three frescoes by Vasari describing the attack upon the admiral, the king in council plotting the massacre, and the massacre itself. Gregory sent Charles the golden rose; and four months after the massacre, when humane feelings might have been sup- posed to have resumed their sway, he listened com- placently to the sermon of a French priest, the learned but cankered Muretus, who spoke of ' that day so full of happiness and joy when the most holy father re- ceived the news and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.' " *

But if Rome and Spain approved and praised the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, the event aroused a general feeling of horror in other parts of Europe. The German Emperor, Maximilian II., the father of Charles' wife, sternly denounced the affair, and in this

* The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, p. 466. 16

242 CROSS AND CROWN.

condemnation he was joined by all the Protestant Princes of Northern Europe. In England the news was received with outspoken indignation and horror. For some days Queen Elizabeth refused to receive the French Ambassador. At length she summoned him to Richmond, where the Court was staying. Fenelon, the French Ambassador, says Hume, in describing his reception by the English Queen, " a man of probity, abhorred the treachery and cruelty of his Court, and even scrupled not to declare that he was now ashamed to bear the name of Frenchman ; yet he was obliged to obey his orders, and make use of the apology which had been prescribed to him. He met with that recep- tion from all the courtiers which he knew the conduct of his master had so well merited. Nothing could be more awful and affecting than the solemnity of his audience. A melancholy sorrow sat on every face ; silence, as in the dead of night, reigned through all the chambers of the royal apartment; the courtiers and ladies, clad in deep mourning, were ranged on each side, and allowed him to pass without affording him one salute or favorable look till he was admitted to the queen herself." Lord Burghley told the Ambassador bluntly, that " the Paris massacre was the most horrible crime which had been committed since the crucifixion of Christ."

Charles IX., who had been driven into giving his consent to the murders, by his infamous mother, paid a fearful price for his share in the transaction. Horrified

THE HUGUENOTS. 243

at the violence which reigned in the city, he broke down on the second day of the massacre. He became a prey to alternate fits of violence and remorse. Ambrose ran', his surgeon, who had been exempted by the royal order from the massacre at Coligni's house, was never allowed to quit his side. To the surgeon, the king ex- claimed in an agony of grief: "I do not know what ails me. For these two or three days past, both mind and bod}T have been quite upset. I burn with fever : all around me grin pale blood-stained faces. Ah ! Am- brose, if they had but spared the weak and innocent ! " From the time of the massacre his health failed, and he was little more than a maniac. Yet so strong was his hatred of his brother the Duke of Anjou, and his abhor- rence of his mother, that he clung with feverish tenacity to his crown. He heard voices in the air calling to him, reproaching him for his cruelty, and his sleep and even his waking moments were haunted by visions of the bleeding victims of the dreadful days of St. Bartholo- mew. For some months before his death he could scarcely rest at all. Music was employed to soothe him, but it soon lost its effect. His agony was so great that he began to spit blood, and a bloody sweat oozed from the pores of his skin. Indeed, he saw nothing but blood, waking or sleeping. His room was peopled with Hugu- enot ghosts, and his conscience gave him no rest. His Huguenot nurse, who had reared him from his infancy, watched over him with unceasing devotion. One night she heard him sobbing bitterly, and she drew back the

244 CROSS AND CROWN.

curtains of his bed to ask the cause of his grief. " Oh, nurse," he exclaimed, weeping, " my dear nurse, what bloodshed and murder ! Oh, that I should have fol- lowed such wicked advice. Pardon me, 0 God, and have mercy on me. What shall I do ? I am lost ! I am lost ! " The nurse endeavored to soothe him, and told him that the principal responsibility for the crime rested upon those who drove him to it, and urged him to believe that God would pardon him if he was truly penitent. On the day before his death, Catharine came to him with the news of the capture of one of the Hu- guenot leaders. " Madame," said the dying king, " such things affect me no longer. I am dying." He expired on the 30th of May, 1574, whispering faintly as his spirit took flight : " If Jesus my Saviour would number me among his redeemed — " " a late and involuntary testimony to the exhortations of his pious nurse." It was rumored that his mother had poisoned him, to se- cure the crown for her favorite son the Duke of Anjou, who succeeded to the throne as Henry III., and there is good reason to believe Catharine guilty of the murder of the son whose soul she had so industriously labored to destroy.

The massacre of St. Bartholomew struck a terrible blow at the Huguenots, but it did not utterly destroy them. Among those who succeeded in escaping were some of the principal leaders of the party, and to these was soon added the Prince of Conde, who had managed to get away from the Court. These at once took up

'■"'

,

I

■

THE HUGUENOTS. 245

arms for their common* protection, and in many cases were successful in defeating the royal troops sent against them. Thus began again the religious wars, which raged with but little intermission- until the succession of the King of Navarre to the throne of France, as Henry IV., in 1594. The country was greatly weak- ened by these struggles, but the wise and vigorous measures of Henry IV. brought back peace and pros- perity. In order to secure the perfect repose of the country, Henry, who cared but little for religion of any kind, publicly abjured Protestantism, and embraced the faith of Rome. He followed this change of faith by the wisest and most salutary act of his reign. In 1598, he issued an edict, known as the Edict of Nantes, by which after a period of sixty years of persecution, the Huguenots were placed on an equality with other Frenchmen., By this edict, persons of the Reformed faith were protected in the free and public enjoyment and profession of their religious belief. They were ad- mitted to public employment ; the schools and universi- ties were thrown open to them ; they were allowed rep- resentatives in the provincial parliaments, and certain cities in the kingdom were granted to them as pledges for the execution of this treaty.

This act of justice was the principal cause of the pros- perity which afterward dawned upon France, and was mainly acceptable to all Frenchmen. It gave great offence to the Pope and the Jesuits, however. Clement VIII. protested against it, declaring that "a decree

246 CROSS AND CROWN.

which gave liberty of conscience to all was the most accursed that had ever been made." The Jesuits made frequent attempts upon King Henry's life, and at length he was assassinated by one of their order, on the 14th of May, 1610. Jesuitism thus won another tri- umph, but at a terrible cost to France. Henry was cut off in the midst of plans which, could he have lived to carry them out, would have changed for the better all the subsequent history of his country.

Under his son and successor, the Edict of Nantes continued to be practically respected, the wars with the Huguenots which marked this period being more politi- cal than religious in their causes and character. Riche- lieu had the genius to perceive the wisdom of Henry's policy, and the firmness to enforce it, while he com- pletely crushed the Huguenots as a political party. The Huguenots, after Richelieu's triumph, and during a great portion of the next reign, became noted for their loyalty to the king, and steadfastly refused to take part in any insurrection against him as long as he treated them with justice.

Being placed on a footing of equality with the rest of the king's subjects, the Huguenots applied themselves with diligence to their secular affairs, and the districts in which they were most numerous soon became known as the most prosperous in France. They gave less time than the Roman Catholics to the celebration of saints' days and festivals, and their labor was consequently more continuous than that of their neighbors. The

TEE HUGUENOTS. 247

Huguenot pastors and . leaders continually urged upon their people the duty of being industrious. The Re- formers were also sober, earnest and faithful men. Their persecutions had aroused in them the highest qualities, and these were of incalculable value to them in their commercial pursuits. Numerous manufactories sprang up in all parts of France, and became noted for their silks, velvets, paper, and other articles, all the product of Huguenot skill and industry. France seemed on the point of becoming the most powerful manufactu- ring country in the world. The Reformers were excel- lent farmers and vine-dressers, and their farms and vineyards returned them abundant rewards for their labors. Wherever the land gave evidence of more than usually skilful culture, the owner was almost sure to be one of the Reformed. The Huguenots were noted for their integrity as well as their industry. " The Hugu- enot's word was as good as his bond, and to be ' honest as a Huguenot,' passed into a proverb. This quality of integrity — which is essential in the merchant who deals with foreigners whom he never sees — so charac- terized the business transactions of the Huguenots, that the foreign trade of the country fell almost entirely into their hands. The English and Dutch were always found more ready to open a correspondence with them than with the Roman Catholic merchants, though re- ligious affinity may possibly have had some influence in determining the preference. And thus at Bordeaux, at Rouen, at Caen, at Metz, at Nismes^ and the other

248 CROSS AND CROWN.

great centres of commerce, the foreign business of France came to be almost entirely conducted by Huguenot merchants." *

The Reformed set themselves sternly against idleness and ignorance. They were all possessed of more or less education, and this gave them a great advantage over the Roman Catholics, comparatively few of whom could read or write. Many of the most gifted orators, writers, and poets of the day were Huguenots. The great statesman Colbert, was a member of this faith, and he may be said to have recreated France. His wise reforms, however, were overturned by the king, who squandered money faster than Colbert could raise it for him, and thus entailed upon the country a crush- ing debt.

It seemed clear that if France was to be raised to the summit of the prosperity Colbert desired for her, it must be the Huguenots who would carry her there; and indeed they seemed about to do it, in spite of the king's extravagance. Louis XIV. from the very first regarded the Reformed with open dislike, and finally became their bitterest persecutor, notwithstanding the fact that they were his best subjects. Louis was an intensely vain and ambitious man. He aspired to be a new Caesar. At first he was successful. The armies of Spain and Holland were defeated, and the king won great glory for himself and his country, and made

* Tlie, Huguenots. By Samuel Smiles, p. 135.

THE HUGUENOTS. 249

heavy increases in the taxes of his subjects to pay for these achievements. He found Germany a more difficult power to deal with, and as he advanced in years he reaped a plentiful harvest of defeats, which made the taxes of the people still heavier. As the king grew older and his troubles increased he became a more merciless foe to the Reformed.

Rome had never been pleased with the toleration accorded to the Huguenots, and the Jesuits had labored diligently to renew against them the policy of exter- mination. As they obtained more and more influence over Louis XIV. they became bolder in their demands. They exerted all their arts to win him over to their favorite scheme, and succeeded so well that the king never was able to perceive that he was but the tool of the worst enemies of his country. The Jesuits cared nothing for France, and they were willing that the kingdom should be sunk into the depths of ignorance and poverty, if they could succeed in extirpating heresy. In 1661, a series of edicts was published, greatly curtailing the privileges of the Reformed. Their conferences were declared to be suppressed. They were still permitted to worship in their churches, but the singing of their psalms in their private houses was forbidden. The priests were authorized to enter the chambers of sick Protestants, and endeavor to convert them to the faith of Rome. Protestant children were invited to declare themselves against the religion of their parents, and boys of fourteen and girls of twelve years

250 CROSS AND CROWN.

were declared entirely free from parental control on condition of their embracing Catholicism. Huguenots were made incapable of holding public offices, and in some parts of the kingdom they were not permitted to carry on the ordinary trades. In 1666, Anne of Austria, the mother of the king, died, and as her last request urged her son to exterminate heresy within his dominions. The priests exhorted him to obey the wishes of his mother, and the king determined to com- ply with their request, hoping by completely destroy- ing the Reformed to compromise with Heaven for his life of debauchery and sin.

The Huguenots quickly took the alarm, and aban- doning their possessions, or selling them where they could find purchasers, they left the country, in many instances, and sought safety in Holland, in Switzerland, and in England, carrying with them their industry and skill to enrich the places of their exile. The king met this with an edict which forbade French subjects from going abroad without his express permission, under penalty of confiscation of their goods and property.

The Protestants now numbered a million and a half of people, and they could have made a dangerous resistance had they been so minded ; but they merely met together and prayed that the king's heart might be softened toward them. They were devoutly attached to their religion, and they were guiltless of any crime against the State. They were guilty, however, of refusing to submit to the tyranny of Rome, and this

THE HUGUENOTS. 251

sealed their doom. Their persecutions were multiplied. They were forbidden to print books without the sanc- tion of magistrates of the Romish faith. Protestant teachers were forbidden to teach children anything but reading, writing, and arithmetic. Huguenot children were kidnapped by the Roman Catholic priests, and the parents were severely punished if they ventured to complain. Protestant churches were pulled down, and such ministers as dared to hold meetings amid the ruins of these churches were made to do penance with a rope around their neck, after which they were banished from the kingdom. They could only bury their dead at daybreak or at nightfall, and were forbidden to sing their psalms. Every annoyance as well as persecution was heaped upon them, Louis and the priests hoping to drive them to a resistance which would give them a pretext for exterminating them at one blow. The Huguenots, however, bore their trials patiently, praying to God that He would yet change the king's heart, and asking only to be allowed to worship God in their own way in peace.

The king, however, became more cruel as he grew older. When sickness and the fear of death made him turn from his mistresses to the priests, the latter were not slow to increase his " religious zeal." His confes- sor, Pere la Chaise, was a Jesuit, and his last mistress, whom he subsequently married. Madame de Maintenon, was the creature of the priest. These two received their inspiration from the Jesuits and Rome, and kept

252 CROSS AND CROWN.

the king firm in his cruelties. Finding that he could not shake the constancy of the Reformed, the "great king " went a step farther.

" In 1683, the year of Colbert's death, the military executions began. Pity, terror, and anguish had by turns agitated the minds of the Protestants, until at length they were reduced to a state almost of despair. Life was made most intolerable to them. All careers were closed against them, and Protestants of the work- ing class were under the necessity of abjuring or starv- ing. The mob, observing that the Protestants were no longer within the pale of the law, took the opportunity of wreaking all manner of outrages upon them. They broke into their churches, tore up the benches, and, placing the Bibles and hymn-books in a pile, set the whole on fire; the authorities usually setting their sanction on the proceedings of the rioters by banishing the burned-out ministers, and interdicting the further celebration of worship in the destroyed churches.

" The Huguenots of Dauphiny were at last stung into a show of resistance, and furnished the king with the pretext which he wanted for ordering a general slaughter of those of his subjects who would not be 'converted' to his religion. A large congregation of Huguenots assembled one day amid the ruins of a wrecked church to celebrate worship and pray for the king. The Ptoman Catholics thereupon raised the alarm that this meeting was held for the purpose of organizing a rebellion. The spark thus kindled in

THE nUGUENOTS. 253

Dauphiny burst into flame in the Viverais and even in Languedoc, and troops were brought from all quarters to crush the apprehended outbreak. Meanwhile the Huguenots continued to hold their religious meetings, and a number of them were found one day assembled outside Bordeaux, where they had met to pray. There the dragoons fell upon them, cutting down hundreds, and dispersing the rest. ' It was a mere butchery,' says Rulhieres, ' without the show of a combat.' Several were apprehended and offered pardon if they would abjure ; but they refused and were hanged.

" Noailles, then Governor, seized the opportunity of advancing himself in the royal favor by ordering a general massacre. He obeyed to the letter the cruel orders of Luvois, the king's minister, who prescribed desolation. Cruelty raged for a time uncontrolled from Grenoble to Bordeaux. There were massacres in the Viverais and massacres in the Cevennes. An entire army had converged on Nismes, and there was so hor- rible a dragonnade that the city was ' converted ' in twenty-four hours

" Like cruelties followed all over France. More Protestant churches were pulled down, and the pro- perty that belonged to them was confiscated for the benefit of the Roman Catholic hospitals. Many of the Huguenot land-owners had already left the kingdom, and others were preparing to follow them. But this did not suit the views of the monarch and his advisers ; and the ordinances were ordered to be put in force

254 CROSS AXD CROWN.

-which interdicted emigration, with the addition of condemnation to the galleys for life of heads of fami- lies found attempting to escape, and a fine of three thousand livres against any person found encouraging or assisting them. By the same ordinance, all con- tracts for the sales of property made by the Reformed one year before the date of their emigration were declared nullified. The consequence was that many

landed estates were seized and sold

" Thus were the poor Huguenots trodden under foot — persecuted, maltreated, fined, flogged, hanged, or sabred; nevertheless, many of those who survived still remained faithful. Toward the end of 1684 a painful incident occurred at Marennes, in Saintonge, where the Reformed religion extensively prevailed, notwithstand- ing the severity of the persecution. The Church there comprised from 13,000 to 14,000 persons; but on the pretence that some children of the new converts to Romanism had been permitted to enter the building (a crime in the eye of the law), the congregation was ordered, late one Saturday evening, to be suppressed. On the Sunday morning, a large number of worshippers appeared at the church doors, some of whom had come from a great distance — their own churches being already closed or pulled down — and among them were twenty-three infants brought for baptism. It was win- ter ; the cold was intense ; and no shelter being per- mitted within the closed church, the poor things were mostly frozen to death on their mothers' bosoms. Loud

THE HUGUENOTS. 255

sobbing and wailing rose from the crowd ; all wept, even the men; but they found consolation in prayer, and resolved in this, their darkest hour, to be faithful unto the end, even unto death." *

All, however, were not so firm. The soldiers sent against the Huguenots were the most reckless and brutal of their class, and they were allowed the utmost licence. The horrors of the dragonnades, as these mili- tary executions were termed, cannot be fully related here. They are too abominable to bear repetition. It is sufficient to say that many yielded to them and were " converted." A refusal to recant was invariably followed by death or imprisonment. In September, 1G85, Luvois wrote : " Sixty thousand conversions have been made in the district of Bordeaux, and twenty thousand in that of Montauban. So rapid is the progress, that before the end of the month ten thousand Protestants will not be left in the district of Bordeaux, where there were 150,000 on the 15th of last month."

" In the meantime, while these forced conversions of the Huguenots were being made by the dragoons of De Louvois and De Noailles, Madame de Maintenon con- tinued to labor at the conversion of the king himself. She was materially assisted by her royal paramour's bad digestion, and by the qualms of conscience which from time to time beset him at the dissoluteness of his past life. Every twinge of pain, every fit of colic,

* Smiles.

256 CROSS AND CROWN.

every prick of conscience, was succeeded by new resolu- tions to extirpate heresy. Penance must be done for his incontinence, but not by himself. It was the virtu- ous Huguenots that must suffer vicariously for him ; and, by punishing them, he flattered himself that he was expiating his own sins. ' It was not only his amours which deserve censure,' says Sismondi, although the scandal of their publicity, the dignities to which he raised the children of his adultery, and the constant humiliation to which he subjected his wife, add greatly to his offence against public morality. . . He ac- knowledged in his judgments, and in his rigor toward his people, no rule but his own will. At the very mo- ment that his subjects were dying of famine, he re- trenched nothing of his prodigalities. Those who boasted of having converted him, had never repre- sented to him more than two duties — that of renoun- cing his incontinence, and that of extirpating heresy in his dominions.

" The farce of Louis's conversion went on. In Aug- ust, 1684, Madame de Maintenon wrote thus: 'The king is prepared to do everything that shall be judged useful for the welfare of religion ; this undertaking will cover him with glory before God and man ! ' The dragon ades were then in full career throughout the southern provinces, and a long wail of anguish was ris- ing from the persecuted all over France. In 1685, the king's sufferings increased, and his conversion became imminent. His miserable body was already beginning

THE HUGUENOTS. 257

to decay ; but he was willing to make a sacrifice to God of what the devil had left of it. Not only did he lose his teeth, but caries in the jaw-bone developed itself; and when he drank, the liquid passed through his nos- trils. In this shocking state, Madame de Maintenon became his nurse.

" The Jesuits now obtained all that they wanted. They made a compact with Madame by which she was to advise the king to revoke the Edict of Nantes, while they were to consent to her marriage with him. Pere la Chaise, his confessor, advised a private marriage, and the ceremony was performed at Versailles by the Arch- bishop of Paris, in the presence of the confessor and two more witnesses. The precise date of the transaction is not known, but it is surmised that the edict was re- voked one day, and the marriage took place the next. The Act of Revocation was published on the 22d of October, 1685. It was the death knell of the Hugue- nots." *

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was greeted with a shout of joy from the Roman Catholic world. The Pope wrote to Louis congratulating him, and thanking him in the name of the Church. Religious processions paraded the streets of Rome, going from shrine to shrine, offering up thanks for the inauguration of the new era of persecution. Rejoicings were held in all parts of France, and the Roman Catholic clergy were almost beside themselves with delight.

* Smiles. 17

258 CROSS AND CROWN.

Under the protection of the Edict of Nantes, France had embarked in a career of prosperity such as she had never known before, and had attained such a position of wealth and importance that she seemed about to sur- pass all her rivals. All this had been brought about by the Huguenots, and to them the king was really more indebted than to any other class of his subjects. Louis cared little for this, however, and his Jesuit advisers were utterly reckless of the consequences of the step they had induced him to take.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought many serious afflictions upon the Reformed, among others, "the demolition of all the remaining Protestant temples throughout France, and the entire proscription of the Protestant religion ; the prohibition of even private worship under penalty of confiscation of body and pro- perty ; the banishment of all Protestant pastors from France within fifteen days ; the closing of all Protestant schools ; the prohibition of all Protestant parents to in- struct their children in the Protestant faith ; the injunc- tion upon them, under a penalty of five hundred livres in each case, to have their children baptized by the parish priest, and brought up in the Roman Catholic religion ; the confiscation of the property and goods of all Protestant refugees who failed to return to France within four months ; the penalty of the galleys for life to all men, and of imprisonment for life to all women, detected in the act of attempting to escape from France."

This brutal edict of revocation was a declaration of

THE HUGUENOTS. 259

war by one of the strongest military powers of Europe upon a defenceless party. It was an open avowal that the day of mercy had departed. It was an outrage upon religion and humanity, upon morality and virtue. It stands as one of the cruellest acts recorded in history, and its only defender is the Church of Rome, its true author.

There followed this edict a period of horror which is almost too painful for description. The Jesuits were determined that the Reformed should feel the full weight of their vengeance, and they had induced the king to forbid his subjects to attempt to escape from their persecutions. The fierce soldiery of the French army, and thousands of mercenaries hired abroad, were turned against the Huguenots in all parts of France, and the most dreadful cruelties followed. Every Huguenot dwelling was invaded by these savage dra- goons, from the hut of the herdsman to the castle of the noble, and their occupants were subjected to the gross- est outrages. Men and women were murdered at their own firesides, little children were snatched from their parents' arms, and put to death in their sight, and wives and maidens were ravished amidst the ruins of the homes which had once been theirs. The king and the priests were fully cognizant of all these things and encouraged them. The Huguenots were forbidden to bury their dead, or to comfort them when dying. The bodies of those who died without the last offices of the Roman Church, were removed from their dwellings by

260 CROSS AND CROWN.

the public hangman and thrown into the common •sewer. Those who refused the viaticum when sick, were punished if they recovered, with the galleys or imprisonment for life, and the confiscation of all their property.

The king and the Jesuits found that, with all their power, they could not conquer the consciences of the Huguenots. A few, indeed, did recant, and embrace the Roman faith, but many of these went back to the Reformers at the first opportunity. The great mass of the Huguenots, however, stood firm, and gave to the world one of the sublimest spectacles of religious hero- ism and constancy ever witnessed. They were treated without mercy, and were subjected to a trial which fully tested their faith, but they endured all. There was but one means of seeking relief — to fly from the country. They were tenderly attached to their native land, and the thought of leaving it filled them with intense grief. To stay, was to suffer, and to die ; to fly was almost as bad in their eyes. Indeed, flight was very difficult. The frontiers were strongly guarded, and the coast was vigilantly watched. Those who fell into the hands of the guards were sent to the galleys, but were first led in heavy chains through the princi- pal Huguenot towns, to terrify those of their brethren who contemplated emigration.

Yet in spite of all the dangers, thousands fled from the country. There are many narratives preserved to us of their adventures on the way. Some are exceed-

THE HUGUENOTS. 261

ingly touching, and all are deeply interesting. They abandoned all their possessions, and fled, glad to save their lives and their consciences. They adopted all manner of disguises, and fled by unfrequented roads. They travelled mostly at night, and in small parties, or singly. A family flying from the kingdom would generally separate, and travel singly, after appointing a rendezvous across the nearest frontier. They had great difficulty in eluding the guards along the frontier. Some succeeded in bribing the soldiers to let them pass ; others fought their way across the border. The emigration finally came to be conducted on a regular system. Itineraries were prepared and secretly dis- tributed, in which the safest routes and best hiding places were set forth, and in this way substantial aid was rendered to the fugitives.

Many were shot down by the soldiers and the Roman Catholic peasantry, and many were captured. The prisoners, after being heavily chained and led through the principal towns, were sent to the galleys. These galleys were vessels usually one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet wide. They were used for the purpose of guarding the coasts, and sometimes ventured to attack English vessels which came too near the shore. Along each side of the galley ran a bench to which the slaves were fastened by a heavy chain around one leg, this chain being of sufficient length to allow them to sleep on the deck. They were com- pelled to remain here night and day, exposed to all the

262 CROSS AND CROWN.

extremes of heat and cold. They were half-fed, half- clothed, and were treated with the greatest brutality. Their business was to row the vessel about, two or more being assigned to each oar. When they did not row fast enough they were cruelly beaten by the petty officer placed over them, who was armed with a heavy whip for that purpose. The galley slaves were usually the most infamous criminals, and the punishment was the most degrading that could be inflicted. It was, therefore, a refinement of cruelty worthy of the Jesuit fathers who encouraged it, to send to these fearful floating prisons the Huguenots who refused to abandon their faith. The purest and gentlest of men, whose goodness all admitted, were sent here and chained in company with the vilest criminals. They were kept here in some cases as long as twenty years. The Pro- testant pastors were invariably sent to the galleys when captured. Noblemen were often found in the ranks of the galley slaves, their sole offence being their religion. Men of profound learning and admitted piety were to be seen here toiling at the oar. The old and the young soon sank beneath the cruel treatment inflicted upon them, and death mercifully closed their sufferings. The more hardy, however, endured longer. When, after a lapse of many years, the Protestant powers of Europe induced the French King to release the Huguenots from the galleys, they came forth hag- gard, emaciated, covered with sores and bruises, and fit only for the hospital or the grave. Over each gal-

TEE HUGUENOTS. 263

ley was placed a Jesuit priest, as chaplain. He ex- hausted his ingenuity in devising fresh torments for the Huguenots. To each captive he constantly held out the offer of pardon and freedom if he would aban- don his religion. Scarcely any accepted the infamous offer.

Those who succeeded in escaping from France found a secure refuge in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, in Holland and Germany, and in England. Man}' even crossed the ocean and emigrated to America. In all Protestant countries they were received with sym- pathy, and were encouraged to establish themselves and carry on the industries they had practised in their own land. Geneva was especially prominent in wel- coming and caring for the exiles. St. Francis de Sales, filled with fury at the accounts of the generosity of the citizens to the Huguenots, demanded the destruc- tion of Geneva.

The exact number of persons who fled from France is not known, but it was very great. Vauban, the great engineer, writing a few years after the Revoca- tion, said that " France had lost a hundred thousand inhabitants, sixty millions of money, nine thousand sailors, twelve thousand tried soldiers, six hundred officers and its most flourishing manufactures." At the time he wrote, the emigration had not assumed the proportions it afterwards attained. Sismondi states that the emigrants numbered from three to four hun- dred thousand, and he gives it as his opinion that as

264 CROSS AND CROWN.

many more died in prison, on the scaffold, in the gal- leys, or in their attempts to escape.

The emigration almost destroyed the industry of France. Thousands of acres of land remained uncul- tivated, entire villages were deserted, and many of the large towns lost fully half their population. " The skilled Dutch cloth-weavers whom Colbert had induced to settle at Abbeville, emigrated in a body, and the manufacture was extinguished. At Tours, where some 40,000 persons had been employed in the silk manu- facture, the number fell to little more than 4000 ; and instead of 8000 looms at work, there remained only about 100 ; while of 800 mills, 730 were closed. Of the 400 tanneries which had before enriched Lorraine, Weiss says there remained but 54 in 1698. The popu- lation of Nantes, one of the most prosperous cities of France, was reduced from 80,000 to less than one half, and a blow was struck at its prosperity from which it has not to this day recovered. The Revocation proved almost as fatal to the prosperity of Lyons as it did to that of Tours and Nantes. That city had originally been indebted for its silk manufactures to the civil and religious wars of Sicily, Italy, and Spain, which occa- sioned numerous refugees from those countries to settle there and carry on their trade. And now, the same persecutions which had made the prosperity of Lyons threatened to prove its ruin. Of about 12,000 artisans employed in the silk manufacture of Lyons, about 9000 fled into Switzerland and other countries. The

*

THE HUGUENOTS. 265

industry of the place was for a time completely pros- trated. More than a hundred years passed before it was restored to its former prosperity, and then only to suffer another equally staggering blow from the vio- lence and outrage which accompanied the outbreak of the French Revolution."*

The industry thus lost to France was transplanted to other countries. England, Holland, Switzerland, and Protestant Germany were enriched by the skill and labor of the exiles. New branches of manufacture and commerce were established in those countries, which have grown steadily until the present day. The real loss of France in this respect can be under- stood only by computing the gain to the countries thus benefited. Thus did the exiles more than repay the kindness and hospitality with which they were met by the strangers to whom they fled for shelter.

* Smiles. A writer in Harper's Magazine says :

" Nothing is more remarkable in history than the constant hos- tility the Church of Rome has always shown toward the working- classes — the fatal result of Catholic influence upon industry and thrift. Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp, under the rule of Alva and the Jesuits, saw their commerce and manufactures sink forever, and their laboring-classes fly to Amsterdam and Leyden. Spain and Italy, under the destructive activity of the Popes and the Inquisi- tion, were soon reduced from the highest prosperity to a low rank in commerce and trade. Swarms of monks and nuns took the place of honest laborers, and industry was extirpated to maintain the cor- rupted Church. It was only when England ceased to be Catholic that it began to lead the world in letters and in energy ; it was when Germany had thrown off the papal rule that it produced a Goethe or n Schiller, and in the present day the traveller is everywhere struck

266 CROSS AND CROWN.

Nor was the commercial loss the only one experi- enced by France. Many of the most gifted men of the nation were Huguenots. The best of the schoolmas- ters were of the same faith. Others there were who were neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic. They were, however, men of broad minds and liberal ideas, and they looked with horror upon any species of perse- cution. They joined the fugitives, and left their native land, where liberty of thought was a crime against the Jesuit masters of France. The result was that igno- rance began to increase in the kingdom. The Roman Church, never a true friend to education, discouraged the teaching of the people, and for knowledge dealt out to them only superstition. Some of the best and bravest generals of France were Huguenots. These left the country, which thus lost their services.

by a remarkable dissimilarity. In Catholic Ireland all is sloth and decay, empty pride and idle superstition. In Protestant Ireland all is life, energy, and progress. A Catholic canton of Switzerland is always noted for its degraded laboring-class, their indolence and vice. The Protestant cantons abound in all the traits of advance. The Bomagna and the Papal States, so long as they remained under the rule of the Popes, were the centres of sloth, improvidence, and crime, and brigands ruled over desolate fields that might have glowed with abundant harvests. In France, under Louis XIV., the whole energy of the Jesuits and the king was directed to the ruin of the laboring-classes, and their vigorous efforts were followed by a signal success. Seldom has so dreadful a revulsion fallen upon the industrial population of any nation. It was as if the factories of Lowell or Manchester were suddenly closed, and half their popula- tion murdered or sent into exile ; as if every Protestant were driven from Xew York, and every warehouse plundered in Boston.'1

THE HUGUENOTS. 267

111 consequence of the flight of the most intelligent and industrious part of the population, France fell into a decay. During his last years Louis XIV. reaped a part of the results of his crime. This period of his reign was one of constant humiliation to him. His armies were constantly defeated, the best soldiers of France being found in the armies of Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The genius of the Huguenot Colbert no longer directed the finances of the kingdom, and ruin and beggary were gathering strength in all parts of the land. Paris was full of mendicants. The country was drifting rapidly into bankruptcy. The mental vigor of the nation had been blasted. Litera- ture scarcely existed. The mental despotism of Rome weighed down every man of thought, and at length produced a Voltaire and a Rousseau. Nothing flour- ished but Jesuitism. The terrible order was triumphant, but it was at the cost of the glory and power of France. The Church was exultant, but France lay prostrate in the dust.

The priests believed that they had succeeded in exterminating the Huguenots ; but such was not the case. During sixty-four years of Jesuit rule (from 1700 to 17G4) the Huguenots who remained in France are believed to have numbered over one million of people. They dared not show themselves in public as Huguenots, or conduct their religious organizations with their former freedom. Many of the pastors returned and resumed their former charges. Everything had to

268 CROSS AND CROWN.

be done in secret, however. The meetings were held at night in subterranean vaults, in caves, in the forests, and in the mountains. The reading of the Bible by individuals could only be carried on by stealth in the most private places, and that at the risk of the life of the reader. The Jesuits kept a vigilant watch over the Reformed. Many were detected and were executed or sent to the galleys. They bore their sufferings with their customary fortitude. Eighteen Huguenot pastors were publicly burned during the reign of Louis XV. The Jesuits made war on the Protestant libraries, and in 1727 induced the king to issue a decree commanding all his subjects to give up their Protestant books. All that were thus surrendered were publicly burned. " There was an end for a time of political and religious liberty in France. Freedom of thought and freedom of worship were alike crushed ; and then the new epoch began — of mental stagnation, political depravity, religious hypocrisy and moral decay. . . . The policy of Louis XIV. had succeeded, and France was at length ' converted.' Protestantism had been crushed, and the Jesuits were triumphant. Their power over the bodies and souls of the people was as absolute as the law could make it. The whole education of the country was placed in their hands, and what the character of the next generation was to be depended in a great measure upon them. Not only the churches and the schools, but even the national prisons were controlled by them. They were the confessors of the bastiles, of

THE HUGUENOTS. 2G9

■which there were twenty in France, where persons could be incarcerated for life on the authority merely of lettres de cachet, which were given away or sold. Besides the bastiles and the galleys, over which the Jesuits presided, there were also the State prisons, of which Paris alone contained about thirty, besides con- vents, where persons might be immured without any sentence. ' Surely never,' says Michelet, ' had man's dearest treasure, liberty, been more lavishly squan- dered.' "

Thus, through the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. the Huguenots continued to exist in secret, encountering persecutions and trials at almost every step. They remained true to the faith for which their ancestors had borne so many sufferings, and when the Revolution gave them liberty to conduct their worship in public again, they emerged from their Jiiding places an organized and faithful Church.

The persecutions of the Huguenots reacted with ter- rible force upon the clergy of the Roman Church. The people saw and shuddered at the cruelty of the priests. They beheld the Church a corrupt, blood-stained insti- tution, which had grown fabulously rich off the plun- der stolen from its Huguenot victims. Nine-tenths of the evils from which the kingdom suffered could be traced directly to the tyranny and intolerance of the priests. The monasteries were the abodes of laziness and dissoluteness, and dark tales were told of the con- vents. Rome had goaded France to the verge of human

270 CROSS AXD CROWN.

endurance, and the common people, nominally Catho- lics, were driven into practical Atheism. They came to regard the clergy with a detestation deeper even than that which they felt for the nobles.

When the great storm of the Revolution burst upon France, the people rose in all parts of the land against the Church. The sacred edifices were sacked and destroyed, priests, monks, and nuns were massacred with great cruelty, and hunted through the country like wild beasts. Many of them wrere guillotined, and others were chained as the Huguenots had been, and sent to Rochelle and the Isle of Aix. All the suffer- ings of the Huguenots were now visited unsparingly upon the priests, and they were made to drain the bitter cup of misery they had once proffered to the lips of others. It must not be supposed, however, that the persecutors were Huguenots. They were those who had been Roman Catholics, but who had been driven by the priests into being enemies to all religion. Rome had sown France, as a ploughed field, with ignorance and misery. It now reaped the terrible harvest it had done so much to bring to fruition. The Reign of Ter- ror was the legitimate consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the persecutions which fol- lowed it.

A second emigration from France now set in — this time of priests and nobles. France lost a large pro- portion of its people, but it did not experience any of the sad consequences which had followed the flight of

THE HUGUENOTS. 271

the Huguenots from their native land. The former emigration almost ruined France, as we have seen ; the latter merely freed it from two classes which had rested like a blight upon the country. The second emigration was actually a blessing to France, as it prepared the way for the new march of progress and enlightenment upon which that country embarked at the close of the Revolution.

Under the Republic the Huguenots were allowed freedom of conscience and worship. Napoleon I. pro- fessed to grant them toleration, but he was not their friend. The Restoration gave them a nominal freedom. Before this freedom had been fairly secured to them, a succession of fearful cruelties was practised by the royal officers and Roman Catholic inhabitants of Nismes and Uzes upon the Protestants of those places.* The Roman • Catholics of this part of France exerted themselves to the utmost to prevent the grant of liberty of worship to the Protestants, and the terrible events of this last persecution equal in barbarity and horror any of those which we have already recorded. Similar scenes occurred in Languedoc and the Vaucluse. The priests gave abundant evidence that they were still true to the traditional cruelty of Rome, and it required a conside- rable exhibition of force on the part of the king to

* For a detailed account of this persecution, the reader is referred to A History of the Huguenots. By W. S. Browning. Philadelphia : Lea & Blanchard. 1845. pp. 420 to 437.

272 CROSS AXD CROWN.

counteract their influence, and execute the law grant- ing religious freedom to the Protestants.

Under the Second Empire the Protestants enjoj-ed greater liberty in France than they had ever known. Towards the close of the reign of the Emperor Napo- leon III., however, the Jesuits began to increase in numbers and power in France. They succeeded in winning over the empress to their cause, and, thus strengthened, began their old policy of intriguing for absolute power in the empire. They gradually obtained the possession and control of the schools and colleges of the country, and from that moment the standard of popular education began to decline. The Jesuits dared not at once destroy the system of popular education which had sprung up in France under the direction of the State, but they set themselves to work to gradually lower the standard of the common schools and even of the University. They introduced text-books which often taught the reverse of the actual facts of history, and little by little endeavored to change the course of instruction so as to increase their own power. They sought to destroy everything like mental vigor and original inquiry, well knowing that the spread of free and genuine knowledge would be fatal to them. For- tunately for France, the empire fell in time to check them ; but there is grave reason to fear they may yet afflict that unhappy land as grievously as they have done in former days. While they had the power under the Second Empire, the Jesuits spared no means of

THE HUGUENOTS. 273

annoying and embarrassing the Huguenot clergy. Their avowed object is to do away with toleration in religion, and to make it impossible for a Protestant to worship in public in France. Rome has not abandoned her old policy of cruelty. She desists from it now merely because she is not strong enough to defy public opinion by enforcing it ; but she still cherishes the hope that the day may return when the expiatory fires wall again blaze in the towns of Protestant lands, and the groans of dying heretics make sweet music in the ears of the Supreme Pontiff, who calls himself infallible.

It is a significant fact, and one which ought to be well considered by the Protestants of every land, especially of France, that at the Congress of the Roman Catho- lic Bishops of Germany, France, Belgium and England, at Malines, in 1863, Archbishop Deschamps had the boldness to excuse the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and to defend the persecution of the Huguenots.

Neither has the Church of Rome definitely aban- doned the Inquisition as a means of punishing heresy.

18

II.

JEAN BRUGIERE.

HE reign of Francis I., the " chivalrous king of France," was marked by many cruelties to the people who had embraced the Reformed religion. The dawning of the intellectual greatness of France, to which the knowledge of the Scriptures contributed so much, was watched by the clergy with the keenest jealousy. Anything calculated to weaken the despotism they had established over men, was, of course, distasteful to them, and they exerted themselves to destroy the spread of intelligence at the outset. The people who embraced the Reformed religion, made education a Christian duty. Ignorance was to them the mother of all the vices, and they set their faces sternly against it. Consequently, in the eyes of the priests, learning and Protestanism were almost synony- mous terms. Beza tells us that during this reign all learning was suspected, and that in consequence of their intellectual superiority to their brethren, many " good Catholics " were regarded as heretics. Learning, how- ever, was not the only offence punished by the priests, who seem to have taken a pleasure in inventing pretexts for torturing and killing people. Men were liable to

274

JEAN BRUGIERE. 275

be condemned for failing to kneel at the sound of the Ave Maria bell, for not lifting their caps on passing images of saints and other holy personages, which stood at nearly every street corner, and for eating meat on fast days. Clement Marot, the psalmist, was detected in the act of eating some bacon during Lent. He was imprisoned, and narrowly escaped the stake. The saddest scenes were constantly being enacted in Paris and the other cities of France. Victims were every day led to the stake, and it was a relief to the country when Francis, yielding to the terrible disease which his life of debauchery had fastened upon him, died, and thus weakened for a time the power of the persecutors. One of the last victims who was martyred during this reign was a man named Jean Brugiere. He was accused of heresy, and was imprisoned. Being deter- mined not to abjure his religion, and at the same time being desirous of saving his life, he endeavored to make his escape. He was successful, and wa§ able so far to elude the royal officers that he enjoyed his liberty for some time in peace. He was at length discovered, notwithstanding his precautions, and was again arrested and imprisoned, but he made his escape a second time. This was repeated several times, and at last the officials having secured him, bound him heavily with chains, and conveyed him to Paris where the prisons were stronger. He was brought to trial in Paris, and being found guilty of rejecting the religion and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, was condemned to be

276 ' CROSS AND CROWN.

burned alive. The Court ordered that the sentence should be carried into effect at Issoire, a town in the south of France. He was at once conveyed from Paris to Montferrand, where he was detained until the time appointed for his martyrdom. Here the Chief Inqui- sitor, Ory, undertook to discuss with him the question of the real presence, hoping to win him over to the Romish view of that question. Brugiere was firm, how- ever, and all the arguments, and even the threats of the Inquisitor, were in vain.

" If you deny," said Ory, in despair of moving him, " that the body of our Lord is in the Host, when the priest has pronounced the sacramental words, you deny the power of God, who can do everything."

" I do not deny the power of God," answered Bru- giere, " for we are not disputing whether God has power or not to do it, so much as what He has done in His Holy Sacrament, and what He desires us to do."

There being no hope of converting him, there was nothing left to the priests but to hasten forward his execution. From Montferrand, which is now a suburb of the flourishing city of Clermont-Ferrand, to Issoire, is a distance of twenty-six miles. On the 2nd of March, 1547, Jean Brugiere was led out from his prison, and given in charge of the guards who were to convey him to the stake. A number of priests accompanied him. They passed quickly over the road between the two places, and soon reached Issoire, which lies in a deep valley on the River Creuze. Here the martyr

JEAN BRUGIERE. 277

passed his last night on earth, and the next day, March 3rd, was put to death.

A number of priests had accompanied him from the fortress of Montferrand, and these went with him to the stake. All the way they urged him to recant and save himself, but he answered firmly that he was not afraid to die, and could not be induced to peril his soul by a recantation.

The stake had been set up in the market-place, and a crowd of people had collected about it to witness the execution. The}'' were silent and thoughtful, and regarded the martyr with a curious interest. One of the priests approached Brugiere as he reached the stake, and held the crucifix to his lips, urging him to call on the Virgin and the saints to sustain him. The martyr gently thrust him aside, saying, with a smile :

" Let me think of God before I die. I am content with the only advocate He has appointed for sinners."

Then turning to the executioner, bade him, with a cheerful voice, do his duty. The calmness and serenity of the martyr evidently disconcerted the executioner, for he went about the work of chaining him to the stake in an awkward, hesitating manner. Suddenly he slipped and fell full length at Brugiere's feet. The latter, smiling, held out his hand to assist him to rise, saying :

" Cheer up ! M. Pouchet, I hope you are not hurt."

The executioner soon completed his task, and then descending to the ground, applied the fire to the pile.

278

CROSS AND CROWN.

As the dry wood kindled, Brugiere raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed in a tranquil voice, which was audible in all parts of the square :

•■ Oh, Heavenly Father, I beseech Thee, for the love ,of Thy Son, that Thou wilt be pleased to comfort me in this hour by Thy Holy Spirit, in order that the work begun in me may be perfected to Thy glory and to the benefit of Thy poor Church."

The flame and the smoke soon silenced him. Yet he uttered not a cry nor a groan. Little by little the fire did its work, and at length the brave, patient soul took its flight from the charred and blackened body, to be clothed in Heaven in the new robes which had been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

When it was all over, the crowd which had watched the sad scene in the deepest silence, went sadly away, pitying the brave sufferer, praising his patience and firmness, and wondering if, after all, he was not right in his belief who could die like a Christian, as this man had done.

The parish priest of Issoire, who had taken no part in the persecution, but who had witnessed the martyr- dom, was profoundly moved by the spectacle. As he went home, he said, earnestly :

" May God give me grace to die in the faith of Brugiere."

III.

PHILIPPA DE LUNZ.

URING the reign of Henry II. Paris was a very different city from the gay and beautiful capital of to-day. The streets were narrow and crooked, unpaved, and unlighted at night. The houses were tall, dark, and picturesque, and were constructed with a view to securing the inmates from the annoy- ances which the constant street brawls would have inflicted upon them but for this precaution. There were but few windows looking into the streets, and the only lights to be seen along the thoroughfares were the' lamps which burned before the images of the Virgin and the saints at the street corners, and which served as guides to the belated pedestrian. The construction of the streets, the arrangement of the buildings, and the gloom which enshrouded them at night gave ample opportunity for the brawls and scenes of violence which were of constant occurrence. Within the city crime and lawlessness were rife. The great nobles set the common people the example of violence, and the latter were not slow to profit by the lesson. During the reign of Henry II. Paris was noted for its lawlessness. The persecutions which had been put in force against the

279

2S0 CROSS AND CROWN.

Reformers had been attended with so many scenes of violence and wrong that the people had become to a certain extent demoralized, or rather trained to dis- regard the rights of others.

This state of affairs was made worse by the effect upon the people of the national disasters. The French army in Italy, under the Duke of Guise, was being steadily beaten by the Spanish, under the Duke of Alva, and the kingdom itself had been invaded by the best army of Spain, led by the great Duke of Savoy, Em- manuel Philibert. This force penetrated as far as the town of St. Quentin, within one hundred English miles of Paris. The Constable Montmorency marched to the relief of the place, but was terribly defeated and taken prisoner on the 10th of August, 1557. So com. plete was his defeat that there was scarcely any force left to bar the road to Paris against the Spaniards. On the 27th of August, the fortress of St. Quentin sur- rendered, and the Spaniards were absolute masters of north-eastern France. These reverses, coming so quickly upon each other, threw Paris into a fever of excitement.

The priests, finding that the national troubles had had the effect of drawing off attention from the Re- formers, and thus for a time giving them a respite from suffering, now resolved that these very troubles should be the means of renewing the persecution in a more violent form than it had yet assumed. They declared from their pulpits and on the streets that such disasters

PHILIP PA DE LUNZ. 281

were direct punishments from heaven for permitting heretics to live in France. " God is punishing us," they cried, " because we have not avenged his honor." The only way to regain the divine favor, they said, and to avert fresh disasters at the hands of the Spaniards, was to renew the effort to exterminate the heretics, and to show them no mercy. Their furious appeals to the people were entirely successful. The Parisians were wrought up to such a pitch of frenzy and apprehension that they were ready to follow the priests in any act of cruelty to the Reformed.

On the left or south bank of the Seine, in one of the suburbs of the city, stood a house belonging to one of the Reformers. This gentleman being sincerely at- tached to his religion, had, sometime previous, offered his house as a place of religious meeting to his brethren in the faith. The offer had been accepted, and several meetings had been held there. The suspicions of the Catholic neighbors had been aroused by the unusual number of persons coining to the house, and the priests had caused it to be closely watched. At last they were satisfied that it was one of the secret places of worship used by the Reformers. They at once pre- pared to raise the populace against the "Lutherans," as they termed the Reformers, and to attack the house at the next meeting, and massacre all who should be found within it.

On the night of the 4th of September, 1557, a meet- ing of the Reformed was held at this house. It was

982 CROSS AND CROWN.

attended by nearly four hundred persons. The ma- jority of the men were persons of rank, or gentle- men of wealth and position, and the women were nearly all of the upper classes, some of them being ladies in attendance upon the queen. They were con- stantly receiving new additions to their number, and the meeting in question was one of the largest they had ever held. Sentinels were posted at the doors to guard against a surprise, and the worship began. It was conducted quietly, and with great caution, and at the close of it all present partook of the Lord's Supper. Then a hymn was sung, a prayer was said, and the meeting was brought to a close. The worshippers lin- gered for a few minutes after the services were over, to exchange friendly greetings, and were about to separate, wdien one of the sentinels rushed in, pale and breathless, and cried out that the Rue St. Jacques, the street in front of the house, was filled with a large mob headed by a number of monks. From the win- dows of the house, the worshippers could see the mob filling up the street, armed and provided with blazing torches, and could hear the hoarse cry of " Death to the traitors ! Down with the Lutherans ! " At the same moment the mob surged heavily toward the house, and a sharp attack was made upon the doors, with the intention of forcing them.

A few of the gentlemen of the congregation were armed, their rank entitling them to wear swords. They at once sprang to the door, and resolutely held

PU1LIPPA DE LUNZ. 283

the crowd at bay. By the direction of these gentle- men the elders and the women passed into the gardens, hoping to escape through them into the fields which lay behind them. To their dismay, however, they found that the garden gates were held by armed men, whose torches they could see gleaming beyond the walls. Which ever way they turned, they could see the glare of hostile torches, and hear the hoarse cry of " Death to the Lutherans ! " The priests had resolved to do their work well, and had surrounded the place on all sides, cutting off every avenue of escape. There was no other course for the fugitives but to return to the house and await the result of the attack. Accord- ingly they made their way back without delay.

Their reappearance in the house greatly disheart- ened the gentlemen who had undertaken the defence. It showed them the completeness of the plans of the priests, and convinced them that unless they could secure aid from without there was no hope of defeating the attack of the mob. The fate in store for them was death at the hands of the rioters — perhaps worse treat- ment for the women. The mob now was very formid- able, and might at any moment break in the doors and overcome the efforts of the defenders. If the defence could be protracted until morning it would accomplish nothing, for as soon as the gates of the city should be opened the whole of the rabble of Paris would come pouring out to join in the attack, and the massacre which would ensue. There was but one thing to do to

284 CROSS AND CROWN.

gain relief — to seek the protection of the magistrates at once. It would be better to fall into the hands of the civil authorities than into those of the mob. Several gallant gentlemen volunteered to go immediately to the Hotel de Ville to inform the magistrates of their danger. They took a tender leave of their friends within, and drawing their swords, and tightening their belts, prepared to start on their dangerous mission. The doors were suddenly thrown open, and the hand- ful of brave men threw themselves gallantly into the crowd, clearing a passage through it with their keen rapiers. The suddenness and vigor of their attack completely disconcerted the cowardly ruffians, and the mob opened right and left and gave them an almost undisputed passage. Gaining the street, they hastened along it to the city gate, losing one of their number in the effort, and at last reached the Hotel de Ville, where they gave warning of the danger which threat- ened their friends.

Those left in the house could hear the shouts and cries in the street as their friends passed out, but they were unable to tell whether they had succeeded in reaching the city. The rioters continued their attack all through the night, accompanying it with the most blasphemous cries and insulting threats. The priests stood by, urging them to continue their work, and to root out heresy from the land. All through the long night, the worshippers waited in a trembling suspense. They made constant prayer to God, and at times one

PHILIPPA DE LUNZ. 285

of their number would read aloud some consolatory chapter of the New Testament to cheer and strengthen them. Frequently the voice of the reader was drowned in the furious yells of the mob.

At last the morning came. The day broke over Paris, and the city gates were opened. In a short while other rioters ripe for murder and plunder would come to the aid of those already engaged in the attack, and then a few minutes would end it all. Already the heavy door was quivering beneath the blows which were dealt it. The next instant it fell with a crash, and with a loud cheer the mob dashed into the build- ing. The worshippers gave themselves up as lost, but at this moment the quick, clanging step of men at arms was heard, and a detachment of the City Guard came up at a run and took possession of the house, expelling the rioters, and making prisoners of the Re- formers. The latter were formed in line under the escort of the soldiers, and marched off to prison. The crowd followed them all the way, pelting them with mud and stones, and insulting them with the coarsest taunts and jeers. They were conducted to the Grand Chatelet, the most terrible prison in Paris, and there thrown into filthy dungeons, from which the vilest criminals had been removed to make way for them. These dungeons were so dark and gloomy that the light of day scarcely ever penetrated to them. They were so small that they were utterly incapable of accommodating the large number of prisoners thus

236 CROSS AND CROWN.

suddenly thrown into them, and the captives were crowded so close together that they could neither sit nor lie down.

The Reformed Church of Paris was thrown into the greatest consternation and grief by the arrest and im- prisonment of so many of its members. Every family addressed itself to God in prayer for the delivery of the martyrs. A petition was presented to the king, praying for mercy to the captives, but he threw it aside without noticing it.

The priests and their followers were exultant at their success in capturing so many heretics. They were considerably vexed at the delay of the civil authorities who were in no hurry to bring the prison- ers to trial, and they busied themselves with keeping alive the popular fury against the poor captives, so that there might be no chance of their escape. They denounced them and all who sympathized with them from their pulpits and in private, and kept the walls of the city covered with inflammatory placards. They were anxious that the whole number of prisoners should be compelled to abjure their faith or be burned, and they gloated with barbarous joy over the prospect of burning so many heretics at once.

The prisoners wTere kept in the Chatelet for nearly a year, and then were brought out for trial. They were guilty of heresy, and of violating the law w7hich for- bade such assemblies as they had been engaged in under penalty of death. They admitted their guilt.

PHILIP PA DE LUNZ. 287

They were then offered their lives and liberty if they would abjure their faith and be reconciled to the Church of Rome. They unanimously refused the offer, and were sent back to prison, from which a number of them passed to martyrdom.

One of the captives taken at the meeting was a young widow of good family and great beauty. She was named Philippa de Limz, and was only twenty- two years old. Her husband had been dead but a short time, and had been a devoted member of the Reformed Church. His last charge to her had been to be true to her faith, and to endure persecution and even death, rather than abandon it. Throughout her short widowhood, she had been conspicuous for her devotion to the Church, and had shrunk from no danger which attended the exercise of her religion. During the attack of the mob she had displayed unsual firmness, exhorting the timid to be brave, and all through her long imprisonment she had set a noble example to her fellow-captives of patient and un- daunted suffering for Christ's sake. Her relatives and friends in Paris made great efforts to save her from the fate which awaited her, and she was several times called before the judges and questioned, in the hope of inducing her to recant and save her life. She was not willing to accept any compromise, however. Her religion, she said, had been full of the sweetest comfort to her. It had sustained her amid the sorrows of her widowhood, and the trials of her captivity, and

288 CROSS AND CROWN.

she was assured that it would reunite her with her husband in the Kingdom of God. Not for all the world would she exchange it for life, or for any thing her judges could offer her. Finding all their efforts in vain, the judges sentenced her to be burned. Then she was taken back to prison.

On the 27th of September, 1558, after an imprison- ment of more than a year, Madame de Lunz was led out to die. Before leaving the prison, she put off all signs of mourning from her dress, and arrayed herself in the best garments left her. One of her companions, in surprise, asked her the meaning of this act, and of her joyful air.

"Why should I not rejoice?" she said. "I am going to meet my husband."

She was conducted to the entrance of the prison by the jailor, and there she found Nicholas Clinet, a schoolmaster, and Taurin Gravelle, an advocate, both elders in the Reformed Church, who were to suffer death in company with her. A tumbril was in wait- ing at the prison gate to convey them to the stake, and the street without was filled with a noisy, exultant mob which had collected to follow the victims to their death. By the terms of their barbarous sentence their tongues were to be cut out before leaving the prison, in order to prevent them from praying aloud, or address- ing the people on their way to the stake. As Madame de Lunz approached, the executioner seeing all of his victims present, laid his hand upon one of the men, and

nilLIPPA DE LUNZ. 280

ordered him to submit to the sentence of the court. The next moment he had seized the martyr's tongue and cut it off at the roots. The other victim shared the same fate. Then, turning to Madame de Lunz, he said to her, roughly :

" Put out your tongue, woman!"

She did so immediately, and the executioner, struck with admiration for her intrepidity, exclaimed :

" Come ! that's well done, truande ; you are not afraid, then ?"

" As I do not fear for my body," she replied, firmly, "why should I fear for my tongue ?"

The next moment the wretch threw her bleeding tongue at her feet.

Thus mutilated, the martyrs were thrust into the cart, and bound with the same chain. The cart jolted heavily over the rough streets, causing them no little suffering. They were powerless to speak to each other, and they each passed the time in prayer. The crowd followed the cart, yelling and hooting, and brutally calling to the victims to speak to them, and in this rabble, mingling with the vilest of the vile, were the priests and monks of the Church of Rome whose bloody work this was.

The spot appointed for the execution was the Place

Maubert. A pile of fagots had been thrown up in the

centre, and around this was gathered a crowd of the

very scum of Paris, dancing, singing, and screaming

for blood. At a distant window overlooking the scene, 19

290 CROSS AND CROWX.

stood the king, accompanied by a number of priests, who had brought him there to witness the execution.

Madame de Lunz, by a refinement of cruelty, was reserved unto the last. The two men were placed on the pile before her, and burned to death. As the flames seized their bodies already weakened by pain and loss of blood they gave utterance to the most pierc- ing shrieks, and writhed in horrible agony. Madame de Lunz all this while maintained her firmness un- shaken. Shutting her eyes* to the tortures of her companions, she found comfort and support in earnest prayer.

At length her turn came. Two of the executioners approaching her, seized her roughly in their arms, tear- ing her clothing from her as they did so, and shame- fully exposing her person. Holding her in their arms they thrust her feet into the glowing coals of the pile on which her companions had died, and held them there until they were burnt through to the bone. Then reversing her position they placed her head downward, and held her so until her scalp was burned off and her eyes scorched out. Even then she was alive, and was supporting her sufferings with heaven- given strength. Finding that they had not killed her, and being sickened with their horrid work, the wretches strangled her, and threw her body into the flames, which soon consumed it.

That night the priests boasted throughout Paris that they had sent another heretic to hell. It was a boast

philippa be lunz. 291

worthy of its authors. But theirs were not the only thanks that ascended to heaven for the martyrdom of the brave woman and her companions. The prayers of the Church for which she had died were full of thanksgivings for that God, in His infinite mercy, had seen fit to give them the example of her life and death, that those who were left behind might be encouraged by it to be true to their duty even though it should lead them to a similar fate.

IV.

DUMONT DE BOSTAOUET.

BOUT eight leagues from the town of Dieppe, in i5 Nothern France, in the old Province of Nor- vl- I) mandy, stood the ancient chateau of La Fonte- laye. It was a fine old pile, standing in the midst of a large domain, and had for centuries been the ancestral home of the noble family of De Bosta- quet. At the period of which we write, the middle of the seventeenth century, the owner of the domain was Isaac Dumont de Bostaquet, a worthy representa- tive of his ancient house. He had been well educated in his youth, and had served with considerable distinc- tion in the French army as an officer of Norman horse. After some years of military life, he had sold his com- mission, had settled down on his estates, and had married. Since then he led the life of a country gentleman of fortune and education. He had been married three times, and his family consisted of six daughters and one son by his first wife, six children by his second wife, and two sons and three daughters by his third wife.

He had been educated in the Reformed faith, and being a man of education had devoted himself to the

292

10

.. : Fonte-

•■

middle

008, and M

hadt ^ ooo-isted of ax

j4*J

frith, »*'

I

:

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 293

study of its doctrines. He was therefore well grounded in the history and theology of the Reformation, and withal a faithful student and zealous defender of the Sacred Scriptures, and his religious convictions were of a character not easily shaken. He was regarded by his brethren of the Reformed faith as one of their leaders, and his influence among them was very great. Hap- pily for him, the location of his home exempted him from any very active participation in the questions of the day. He heard from time to time rumors of the troubles with which other portions of the Church were visited, but he and his neighbors were allowed to exercise their religion in peace.

About the year 1661, however, these rumors began to increase. The persecution of the Huguenots became more general and open, and there were signs that Normandy would not long escape the malice of the Jesuits. The Roman Catholics, encouraged and pro- tected by the king, had already begun to demolish Protestant churches in various parts of the country, and it was intimated that there were several in Nor- mandy which would soon share the same fate. One of those thus doomed was the church of Lindeboeuf in which De Bostaquet and his family worshipped. The indignation of the old soldier was aroused by this rumor, and he set out for Paris at once, for the purpose of procuring a royal order forbidding the demolition of the church. He was warmly received by his old com- mander, Marshal Turenne, who aided him in submit-

294 CROSS AND CROWN.

ting his request to the king's ministers. The ministers put him off with vague promises, and being unable to accomplish anything satisfactory, he set out on his return home.

Upon reaching his chateau he was informed that his mission to the capital had been utterly useless, for the Romanists had destroyed the church at Lindebceuf during his absence. Indignant at this, he called on the local authorities, and protested vigorously against the outrage. The magistrates heard him with the courtesy due to his rank, and then told him that they could afford him no satisfaction. The king, they in- formed him, was determined to make the exercise of the Protestant worship impossible in France, and thus compel all Frenchmen to conform to the king's religion. De Bostaquet was not ready to abandon his faith yet, and he at once fitted up a temporary chapel in his chateau of La Fontelaye, where he assembled the con- gregation that had worshipped at Lindebceuf. Here for many years the Huguenots of the district conducted their worship in peace and safety, and when emergency required it the master of the chateau preached to them, baptized their children, and performed the other offices of religion.

During all this while the persecutions of the French Protestants increased, as we have related elsewhere. Church after church was pulled down, and so many restrictions were laid upon the Huguenots, that it became almost impossible to conduct their worship

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 295

with any degree of publicity. De Bostaquet was not a heedless observer of the signs of the times, and he saw that the Church in France was falling upon evil days. He frequently contemplated disposing of his property, and emigrating to Holland, where he could enjoy his religion in peace ; but his large posessions and numerous family bound him to his old home by ties which could not be easily severed. His wife and children were bitterly opposed to leaving their country, and he was compelled to remain, and await the trial of his faith, which he saw approaching.

At last the evil day came. The king revoked the Edict of Nantes, and turned the Jesuits and the dragoons upon France to compel the Huguenots to become Romanists. Until now Normandy had been free from the visitations of the troops, but now a regiment of cuirassiers was sent into the province, and the work of converting the Huguenots was formally begun. The method of conducting these conversions was as follows. The parish priest, or some other zealous Papist, would hand to the officer commanding the dragoons a list of the names of the Protestants residing in the parish. To each one of these a com- missary would be sent to ask if the person was willing to abjure his faith and embrace Romanism. If the answer was a refusal to recant, it was reported by the commissary to the military commander, who at once sent a detachment of dragoons to take up their quar- ters in the house of the heretic. The troops were

296 CROSS AND CROWN.

at liberty to demand what they chose from the master of the house, who was obliged to furnish it to them on pain of imprisonment and confiscation of his property. The troops had orders to make their de- mands as burdensome as possible. They insulted, and sometimes brutally outraged, the female members of the family, and punished any interference of their male relatives with blows. They broke up the furni- ture, destroyed the provisions, stole the plate, jewels and money of the family, and conducted themselves in the most brutal and offensive manner towards every member of the household. Any resistance to these outrages was a crime against the king and was severely punished, if indeed the offender was unfortu- nate enough to escape death on the spot at the hands of the soldiers. The Roman Catholic Church had with devilish ingenuity devised this system of torture as most likely to shake the constancy of those who resis- ted its demands. It was a most efficacious system. Thousands of conversions were made in a single day at the mere sight of the dragoons, who were feared and cursed all over France as much as ever the priests had been. As soon as a person subjected to the torments of the dragoons signed his abjuration, the soldiers were removed and sent to torture some one else.

Upon the receipt of news of the advance of the dragoons, De Bostaquet called a meeting of the Protes- tant gentry of the neighborhood, to consider what was best to be done. They met at his chateau, and he

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 297

declared to them his firm resolve to leave France if the king should continue the barbarous measures he had inaugurated. All present praised his resolution, but all declined to accompany him. His eldest son, who had been married a few months before, refused to go with him. His wife, on the eve of another confine- ment, declared that it would be impossible for her to accompany him, and his children, with tears, added their entreaties to hers, that he would not leave them. Thus entreated, De Bostaquet was obliged to abandon his intention to fly, feeling that it was, after all, his duty to remain and protect his family.

In a few days intelligence was received at La Fonte- laye that the dragoons, under the Marquis de Beau- pre Choiseul, had occupied the city of Rouen, and that the quartering of the dragoons upon the people had converted nearly every Protestant in the city; that the office of the king's representative was daily thronged with persons eager to sign their abjurations, the only means of ridding themselves of the soldiers. These tidings filled De Bostaquet with the gravest concern, and he determined to go to Rouen, and satisfy himself of the condition of affairs .there. Upon reach- ing that city he found the dragoons in full posses- sion. Every one was in the greatest consternation. He did not see a cheerful countenance in the city. The people seemed anxious to rid themselves of the soldiers at any cost, and in nearly every instance where this method of conversion had been tried he

298 CROSS AND CROWN.

found it had been successful. Even his brother-in-law, M. de Lamberville, whom he had regarded as one of the staunchest Protestants in the kingdom, had given way and abjured. The soldiers were brutal and inso- lent, and he could not wonder at the feverish anxiety of the people to be rid of them, although he thought the. price paid for this exemption too dear. At every step he beheld some scene or heard some tale of violence and outrage which aroused his indignation and excited his apprehension for the fate of his own family.

He quitted the city with a heavy heart, though glad to escape from witnessing scenes which filled him with the profoundest grief. Upon reaching La Fontelaye his family surrounded him with eager questions as to what he had witnessed in Rouen. His recital of the horrors of the dragonnades in that city filled them with the deepest concern, but they declared they would remain faithful to their religion whatever might be the consequences. De Bostaquet cherished the hope that, as he belonged to the nobility, he would escape the indignity to which those inferior to him in rank had been subjected, and -that no troops would be quartered in his family. He was soon undeceived, however. The Sieur Chavel, of Rouen, had thirty horsemen quartered upon him until he and his lady abjured. De Bostaquet had hardly received this information, which put an end to his hope, when a message arrived from the commandant at Rouen that unless he and

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 299

his family should sign their abjuration within a given time, twenty-five dragoons would be quartered in his chateau. The crisis had now come, and he must meet it. He was in an agony of dread and indecision. His wife was near her confinement, and he feared the effect of the presence of the brutal soldiery upon her; his family consisted largely of daughters, and he trembled at the thought of admitting these wretches into his home. Once there he could not control them, and he had seen enough in Rouen to make him dread the worst. It was a sore trial to him. In the midst of this hesitation the thought occurred to him that by signing the abjuration required of him he would not relinquish his faith, or be compelled to attend Mass. The act of signing was merely a form, merely a disagreeable price to pay for exemption from the dragonnade. Influenced by this false reasoning, De Bostaquet wavered, and at length yielded. He went to Dieppe with his eldest son, and signed his abjuration. He had no peace within himself after this. He did not intend to go to Mass or to give up his religion, and he felt that he had put his signature to a lie. In his own eyes he felt degraded. He reproached him- self bitterly for his weakness, and as he went back home, could scarcely look his neighbors in the face for very shame. But his neighbors were as weak them- selves. All his intimate friends signed the abjuration, even his father-in-law, who was so crippled with the gout that he could scarcely hold a pen. His mother-

300 CROSS AND CROWN.

in-law also signed, but she was so shocked and grieved by the sin she felt she had committed, that she fell ill and died. In a short while a company of dragoons made their appearance at La Fontelaye, and required the abjuration of each member of the family. De Bostaquet's wife, his mother, his sons and daughters, and his servants were all compelled to sign with their own hands.

" The sad state to which my soul was reduced," says De Bostaquet, in his memoirs, " and the general deso- lation of the Church, occasioned me the profoundest

grief. All feeling equally criminal, we no longer

enjoyed that tranquillity of mind which before had made us happy. God seemed to have hid himself from us : and though by our worship, which we continued publicly to celebrate, we might give evidence of the purity of our sentiments and the sincerity of our repentance, my crime never ceased to weigh upon my mind, and I bitterly reproached myself for having set so bad an example before my family as well as my

neighbors But I could not entertain without

grief the thought of my children being exposed to the danger of falling a prey to those demons, who might any moment have carried them away from me. I was constantly meditating flight; but the flesh fought against the spirit, and the fear of abandoning this large family, together with the difficulty I saw before me of providing a subsistence for them in a foreign land, held me back ; though I still watched for a favorable

D UMONT DE BOS TA Q UK T. oq 1

opportunity for escaping from France by which time I hoped to be enabled to provide myself with money by the sale of my property."

De Bostaquet's wish to fly from France was now shared by his whole family. All were anxious to go, and to go with the least possible delay. But in those days travelling was very difficult, and the removal of so large a family a most formidable undertaking. Be- sides, Louis XIV. having resolved that his Huguenot subjects should not escape, but should remain where he could torment them, had caused the coast to be vigi- lantly watched, and every road leading to the frontier was held by an armed force. De Bostaquet might well be appalled at the prospect of carrying such a family as his out of the kingdom, but as he lived so near to the coast, he hoped to be able to find a ship whose master would be willing to land them on the English shore. He endeavored to send his daughters away first, so that he might make sure of their safety, and went several times with them to ports on the Channel, hoping to find a ship. He did not succeed, and he found that the coast was even more strictly guarded than he had supposed. The only result of these jour- neys was the betrayal of his scheme to the Command- ant of Dieppe, who being friendly to him sent him a private warning, informing him of the risk he ran of being informed against, and of having his property confiscated, and himself sent to the galleys. The danger was now great indeed. The ladies of the

302 CROSS AND CROWN.

family became more urgent in their entreaties, declar- ing that their consciences would not permit them to withhold the public profession of their real faith any longer. They felt their present condition to be one of degradation, and they were resolved to escape from it at any risk. De Bostaquet at once began the task of converting his property into money ; but before he had made satisfactory arrangements for so doing, the family resolved to fly without delay. The feast of Pentecost was at hand, and on that day the peasantry detailed to guard the coast would be withdrawn to take part in the festivities. It was resolved that the father should conduct his daughters and some of the children, and his mother to the coast, see them safe on board the ship in which they hoped to cross over to England, and then return to the chateau, to watch over his wife during her approaching confinement, and to conclude the sale of his property.

Pentecost Sunday came bright and clear. The whole family assembled together for morning worship, and invoked the protection and blessing of God for their enterprise. The rest of the morning was passed in the final preparations for the journey and in taking leave of those who were to remain behind, and after dinner the fugitives began their flight. The party consisted of De Bostaquet, his aged mother, the grown daugh- ters, and a number of the younger children, including the youngest son. They proceeded without adventure to the village of La. Habere, where they passed the

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 303

night, De Bostaquet pressing on to St. Aubin, to en- gage passage Tor them in an English vessel about to sail from that port. He reached St. Aubin in safety, and arranged with the master of the vessel to take them on board. The vessel was to lie off the coast near Flainville, and to send a boat at a designated time to a spot on the shore, where the fugitives were to be in waiting. Having accomplished this, De Bos- taquet returned to his family, who had gone on to Luneray.

The next night at ten o'clock, the fugitives set out from Luneray for the coast, accompanied by a number of friends and many others who like themselves were trying to escape from France. De Bostaquet led the way, with his sister mounted behind him on a pillion. Next came his son-in-law De Renfreville, with his wife behind him, and De Bostaquet's mother, an old lady of eight}', was given a gentle pony led by two peas- ants. The rest of the party were also mounted, and the rear was brought up by a valet, who rode another nag, and who was armed with a musketoon. They took the road for St. Aubin, and on their way thither were joined by some of their relatives : M. de Mont- cornet, an old officer of the French army, and M. de Bequigny, De Bostaquet's brother-in-law, who was accompanied by a German valet with a young lady behind him on a pillion. On their route, they encoun- tered more than three hundred persons bound for the seacoast, some for St. Aubin and some for Quiberville.

304 CEOSS AND CROWN.

These were mostly peasants, there being only a few persons of quality among them. The night was clear and cool, and the whole party pushed forward rapidly, hoping to gain the coast at the appointed time. They passed through the village of Avremenil, the inhabit- ants coming out to see them go by, and to wish them God-speed. Just beyond this place De Bostaquet re- ceived a message that his sister-in-law, Madame de Koncheraye, with her three children and one of his own daughters, and a young lady from Rouen, were approaching in a carriage to join them. As they begged him to wait for them, he checked the pace of his party, and in a short while the ladies arrived. The route was then continued through Flainville, and at length the seashore was reached. The coast guard station was empty, and there were no signs of the guard in any quarter. Encouraged by this, the party alighted from their horses, and sat down on the hard dry sand to rest. De Bostaquet was greatly disap- pointed at seeing no signs of the vessel. The ship was at that moment hovering off the coast, hidden from them by the darkness, and waiting for a signal from them to send her boats ashore. De Bostaquet had not supposed that a signal would be required, and consequently none was given. The party remained waiting on the sands for some time, and at length De Bostaquet began to suspect that the master of the ship had failed to fulfil his agreement. He now went to speak to his sister-in-law, who had remained in her

DUMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 305

carringe, which had not been able to get within several hundred yards of the shore. While he was there the party on the shore was surprised and attacked by the coast guard and the peasantry, who had returned to their stations. What followed is thus related in his own words :

"A peasant called out to me that there was a great disturbance going forward ; and soon after I heard the sound of drums beating, followed by the discharge of musketry. It immediately occurred to me that it must be the coast guard returned to occupy their post, who had fallen upon our party, and I began to fear that we were irretrievably lost. I was on foot alone, with my little son, near the carriage. I did not then see two horsemen coming down upon us at full speed, but I heard voices crying with all their might, ' Help ! help ! ' I found myself in a strange state of embarrassment, without means of defence, when my lackey, who was holding my horses on the beach, ran towards me with my arms.

" I had only time to throw myself on my horse, and call out to my sister-in-law in the carriage to turn back quickly, when I hastened, pistol in hand, to the place whence the screams proceeded. Scarce was I clear of the carriage when a horseman shouted, < Kill ! kill ! ' I answered, < Fire, rascal ! ' At the same mo- ment he fired his pistol full at me, so near that the dis- charge flashed along my left cheek and set fire to my peruke, but without wounding me. I was still so near

20

306 CROSS AND CROWN.

the carriage that both the coachmen and the lackey saw my hair in a blaze. I took aim with my pistol at the stomach of the scoundrel, but happily for him, it missed fire, although I had primed it afresh before leaving Luneray. The horseman at once turned tail, accompanied by his comrade. I then took my other pistol, and followed them at the trot, when the one called out to the other, ' Fire ! fii*e ! ' One of them had a musket, with which he took aim at me, and as it was nearly as light as day, and I was only two or three horse-lengths from him, he fired and hit me in the left arm, with which I was holding my bridle. I moved my arm quickly to ascertain whether it was broken, and putting spurs to my horse, gained the crupper of the man who had fired at me, who was now on my left, and as he bent over his horse's neck I discharged my pistol full into his haunch. The two horsemen at once disappeared and fled.

" I now heard the voice of De Bequigny, who, em- barrassed by his assailants on foot, was furiously de- fending himself; and without losing time in pursuing the fugitives, I ran up to him sword in hand, encoun- tering on the way my son-in-law, who was coming toward me. I asked him whither he was going, and he said he was running in search of the horses, which his valet had taken away. I told him it was in vain, and that he was flying as fast as legs could carry him, for I had caught sight of him passing as I mounted my horse. But I had no time to reason with him. In a

DVMONT DE BOSTAQUET. 307

moment I had joined De Bequigny, who had with him only old Montcornet, my wife's uncle ; but, before a few minutes had passed, we had scattered the canaille, and found ourselves masters of the field. De Bequigny in- formed me that his horse was wounded, and that he could do no more ; and I told him that I was wounded in the arm, and that it was necessary, without loss of time, to ascertain what had become of the poor women. " "We found them almost in the same place that we had left them, but abandoned by everybody ; the at- tendants and the rest of the troop having run away along the coast, under the cliffs. My mother, who was extremely deaf through age, had not heard the shots, and did not know what to make of the disturbance, thinking only of the vessel, which had not yet made its appearance. My sister, greatly alarmed on my re- proaching her with not having quietly followed the others, answered that my mother was unable to walk, being too much burdened by her dress ; for, fearing the coldness of the night, she had clothed herself heavily. M. De Bequigny suggested that it might yet be possible to rally some of the men of our troop, and thereby res- cue the ladies from their peril. Without loss of time, I ran along the beach for some distance, supposing that some of the men might have hidden under the cliffs through fear ; but my labors were useless — I saw only some girls, who fled away weeping. Considering that my presence would be more useful to our poor women, I rejoined them at a gallop. M. De Bequigny, on his

308 CROSS A ND OR 0 WN.

part, had returned from the direction of the coast guard station, to ascertain whether there were any persons lurking there, for we entertained no doubt that it was the coast guard that had attacked us; and the two horsemen with whom I had had the affair confirmed me in this impression, for I knew that such men were appointed to patrol the coasts, and visit the posts, all the night through. On coining up to me, Bequigny said he feared we were lost ; that the rascals had rallied to the number of about forty, and were preparing for another attack.

" We had no balls remaining with which to reload our pistols. Loss of blood already made me feel very faint. De Bequigny's horse had been wounded in the shoulder by a musket shot, and had now only three legs to go on. In this extremity, and not knowing what to do to save the women and children, I begged him to set my mother on horseback. He tried, but she was too heavy, and he set her down again. M. De Mont- cornet was the only other man we had with us, but he was useless. He was seventy-two, and the little nag he rode could not be of much service. De Bequigny's valet had run away, after having in the skirmish fired his musketoon and wounded a coast guardsman in the shoulder, of which the man died. The tide, which be- gan to rise, deterred me from leading the women and children under the cliffs ; besides I was uncertain of the route in that direction. My mother and sister con- jured me to fly instantly, because, if I was captured,

D UMONT DE BOSTAQ UET. 309

my ruin was certain, while the worst that could happen to them would be confinement in a convent.

" In this dire extremity my heart was torn by a thousand conflicting emotions, and overwhelmed with despair at being unable to rescue those so dear to me from the perils which beset, them, I knew not what course to take. While in this state of irresolution, I found myself becoming faint through loss of blood. Taking out my handkerchief, I asked my sister to tie it around my arm, wrhich was still bleeding ; but wanting the nerve to do so, as well as not being sufficiently tall to reach me on horseback, I addressed myself to the young lady from Caen, who was with them, and whom they called La Rosiere. She was tall, and by the light of the moon she looked a handsome girl. She had great reluctance to approach me in the state in which I was ; but at last, after entreating her earnestly, she did me the service which I required, and the farther flow of blood was stopped.

" After resisting for some time the entreaties of my mother and sister to leave them and fly for my life — seeing that my staying longer with them was useless, and that De Montcornet and De Bequigny also urged me to fly — I felt that at length I must yield to fate, and leave them in the hands of Providence. My sister, who feared being robbed by the coast guard on their return, gave me her twenty louis d'ors to keep, and praying heaven to preserve me, they forced me to leave them and take to flight, which I did with the greatest

310 CROSS AND CROWN.

grief that I had ever experienced in the whole course of my life."

Accompanied by his friend, De Bequigny, De Bosta- quet lied along the shore for some distance. The sand greatly impeded their progress, but on the way they fell in with De Bequigny's valet, and De Bostaquet's little daughter Judith. The valet was ordered to take up the child in front of him, and they rode on, leaving the sea shore by a road leading from the water into the country. De Bostaquet rode in front with drawn sword. They had scarcely entered the new road when they en- countered a party of six horsemen, who halted and seemed irresolute whether to attack or not. Seeing De Bostaquet's determined attitude, however, they wheeled about and galloped off, and the fugitives continued their flight as rapidly as De Bequigny's wounded horse would allow them. At length they reached Luneray, where they went to the house from which they had set out on the previous night. De Bostaquet left his little daughter here, and the journey was resumed to St. Laurent, where a Huguenot surgeon was found, who dressed the old soldier's wound, and probed it. This operation caused the latter great suffering, but the sur- geon failed to find the ball, and concluded that it was firmly lodged between the two bones of the forearm. De Bostaquet sorely needed rest, and his wound gave him very great pain, but he could not think of tarrying here; so leaving the place as soon as possible, he hastened back to his chateau of La Fontelaye.

D UMONT DE BOSTAQ UE T. 3 1 j[

Upon reaching his domain, he went to the house of one of his tenants in whom he could confide, not daring to enter his own house lest the authorities should re- ceive intelligence of his presence and seize him. A message to his wife brought her and her children to his side. She was dismayed at seeing him pale, covered with blood, his arm in a sling, and suffering greatly. No time was to be lost, however. He gave her hasty instructions as to what she was to do in his absence, and how she was to convert their property into money. Then embracing her and his daughters ten- derly, and committing them to the protection of God, he mounted his horse again, and accompanied by a friend named St. Foy, he rode off through the night to the northward, hoping to escape through Picardy, Artois, and Flanders, into Holland. One last look at the home which he was never to see again, and which was henceforth to be a stranger's, and this exile for Christ's sake turned his back forever on La Fontelaye.

De Bostaquet knew the country between his home and Flanders thoroughly, and besides, had many friends and relatives, both Huguenot and Roman Catholic, in Normandy and Picardy. The first night after leaving home was passed beneath the roof of a Roman Catholic relative, who not only gave them shelter, but sent for a surgeon to dress the arm of the sufferer. The wound was again probed, but no ball could be found, and the pain caused by it was becoming greater every hour. The fugitives rode all the next day, and when night

312 CROSS AND CROWN.

came halted at Grosmesnil. Here they sent for a skilled army surgeon, who again probed the wound, but with no better result. De Bostaquet here heard a distorted account of his fight with the coast guard, and learned that the royal officers were making extraordinary efforts to capture him. This convinced him that his only safety lay in continuing his flight, and in spite of the pain and exhaustion caused by his wound, he pressed on the next morning, going through Belozane to Neuf- chatel, in Normandy. Here he took leave of St. Foy, thinking it better to continue his journey alone. After parting from his friend he rode on to Foucarmont, which he reached before the moon had set. He was obliged to stop here, for his arm had become greatly swollen and inflamed, and was causing him such pain that he could not go farther. A surgeon was sent for, who dressed the wound, but said he was afraid of gangrene. By the next morning, however, the inflammation had sub- sided, and the journey was resumed. Arriving near Abbeville, De Bostaquet passed that city on his left, and made for the Pont-de-Remy, where he crossed the Somme, and entered Picardy. He soon reached Prou- ville, where he was warmly received by M. de Mont- huc, a friend and a Protestant. His arm had become more painful than ever, and the inflammation had grektly increased. M. de Monthuc sent for his own surgeon, who found the wound black, swollen, and amrrv-looking. He probed it again for the ball without finding it, and positively ordered the sufferer to remain

DTMONT DE BOSTAQCET. 313

perfectly quiet and to partake of a low diet for several days. De Bostaquet consented to comply with this in- junction, and remained with his friend for two days, during which time he was joined by old De Montcornet, who was also flying to Holland. On the third day De Bostaquet was astonished to find the bullet for which the surgeons had so often probed his arm, in one of the fingers of his heavy gauntlet where it had lodged at the first. This discovery greatly relieved his mind, for he had feared that the ball had lodged in the wound and was irritating it.

A few days more were devoted to rest, and then he set out again, accompanied by old M. Montcornet. Their route lay by Le Quesnel and Doullens, along the highroad of Hesdin, through the forest of the Abbey of Sercan, and by the Arras road to La Guorgues, where they crossed the frontier into Flanders, after which they proceeded to Courtrai. They met with many adventures and hairbreadth escapes. Some of the streams which crossed their route were so well watched that they were obliged to avoid the bridges and swim their horses across. They were beset by robbers, and had consider- able difficulty in ridding themselves of them, and were forced to resort to every available expedient to avoid the guards and the royal officers. At length they ar- rived at Courtrai, but they did not yet think themselves safe. That city was still a possession of the King of Spain, and the priests were all-powerful there. They would not be entirely out of danger until they were

31-1 CROSS AND CROWN.

safe within the dominions of the Prince of Orange. They hastened on from Courtrai to Ghent, where, for the first time since the commencement of their flight, they slept with the consciousness that they were be- yond the reach of their persecutors. At Ghent the fugitives separated. Montcornet went to Maestricht to join his son, who was an officer of the garrison of that place, and De Bostaquet passed on to Holland, where he was hospitably received by the Prince of Orange, who gave him the same rank in the Dutch army that he had held in the French service. As a captain of dragoons he accompanied William to England, and readered him good service in that country and in Ire- land, being especially distinguished at the battle of the Boyne.

As for the ladies who had been left behind on the beach, their fate was pitiable indeed. They were at once surrounded and taken prisoners by the coast guard, and turned over to the civil authorities to be punished for their attempt to escape. They were each heavily fined, and were sentenced to be confined in convents, some for a term of years, and some for life. The gentlemen and men-servants who accompanied them (the most of whom had escaped) were sentenced to the galleys for life, and their property and goods confiscated to the use of the king.

This confiscation put a stop to the efforts of Madame de Bostaquet to dispose of her husband's property. She and her children were turned out of doors, and she

D UMONT DE BOSTAQ HE T. 315

was at length obliged to separate from some of them. At last, after many adventures, she and a son and daughter of her husband succeeded in escaping by sea and in reaching Holland, where they were cared for by friends. De Bostaquet had been cruelly tortured by numerous rumors concerning their fate, and the news of their safe arrival fdled him with joy. After the final overthrow of James II., and the establishment of William and Mary on the throne, he brought his wife and children to England, and there resided with them until his death.

These brave exiles for the cause of Christ gave up home, fortune, and kindred, and endured hardships and dangers of every kind, suffering gladly for the sake of Him whose sincere followers they were, thus affording a noble example of courage and patience which was not lost upon those who held the faith for which they endured these persecutions.

V.

CLAUDE BROUSSON.

HE old city of Nismes, in the south of France, was the scene of many tragic and affecting *)££§ incidents connected with the persecutions of the French Protestants. There is scarcely a stone of its buildings but could tell its tale of horror, and bear witness to the patience and firmness with which the Cevenol Huguenots endured the sufferings which were sent upon them to try their faith. Again and again were the savage dragoons turned against the city ; again and again were the Protestants cut down with the- sword or trampled to death beneath the horses' hoofs, or burned, or hanged, or quartered, or flayed alive ; again and again were they driven by thousands to sign the abjurations which in their hearts they despised. No device of the priests could entirely extirpate them. They continued to exist in secret, attending Mass merely to save themselves from violence, and then holding their religious meetings in secret, hearing the word of God preached by their own pastors, and celebrating the sacraments according to the pure custom of the primitive Church. No risk could induce them to abandon their secret worship, and

316

CLAUDE BROUSSOX. 317

since they were willing to incur this danger, they were never without men willing to brave the greater peril of becoming their pastors. They met and conducted their worship in the vaults and cellars of the city, in the forest, in the neighboring mountains, and in caves. The meeting was always at night, and was conducted with the greatest secresy, every precaution being taken to guard against a surprise.

One day towards the close of the year 1685 it was whispered among the members of the church at Nismes and in the vicinity of that place, that the Pastor Brousson had arrived, and would preach the next night at a place where many religious gatherings had been held before, and which was believed to be secure from the observation of the Catholics. The news spread rapidly among the Reformed, and it was resolved by them that the meeting should be attended by all who could possibly go. It was known that attendance upon the meeting would be a hazardous undertaking, for the priests and the military had been unusually vigilant of late. The pastor who was to minister to the people on this occasion was one of the most gifted of all the Cevenol preachers, and the Intendant Baville had offered a large reward to anyone who would take him alive and deliver him over to the authorities for punishment. Nevertheless, despite the risk, despite the distance to be traversed in order to reach the place of meeting, the people resolved to go. Even the women did not shrink from the undertaking.

318 CR OSS AND CR 0 WN.

In order not to arouse the suspicions of the Catholics, a larger number of Protestants than usual attended Mass on the morning of the appointed day. At the same time they dug up the hymn books they had buried for safe keeping, and also the arms which had been likewise concealed.

About eight or ten miles to the southwest of Nismes is a fertile district lying at the very foot of the Ceven- nes mountains, known as the Vaunage. It is one of the most charming valleys of the South of France, and from the slope of the mountains one can see the whole valley at his feet with the land gradually falling away until it meets the blue outline of the Mediterra- nean in the far distance. Towards the mountains there are sharp, rugged gorges, picturesque denies, and caverns innumerable. At the time of which we write there was a very large Protestant population in the valley and along the mountain slopes, and there was scarcely a ravine or a cavern which had not been used by them as a place of worship.

The place appointed for the present meeting was a wild ravine not far from the town of Vergeze, which is eight miles from Nismes. It was entered from the direction of the town by a narrow pathway winding amongst the cliffs, which towered up on each side and almost seemed to shut in the sky. The upper end of the ravine was somewhat wider, and the rocks pro- jected so far over the sides as almost to form a cavern. A small stream trickled from the rocks at the upper

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 3^9

end, and went gurgling down the gorge to its mouth. A few stunted evergreens and mountain shrubs grew along the sides of the rocks, but they only added to the general sternness and ruggedness of the place. At the lower end there was but one means of enter- ing or leaving the gorge, but at the upper end there were several pathways over the cliffs, some of which the Reformed had cut with great labor to facilitate their escape in case of an attack from the mouth of the glen.

The night appointed for the meeting was bleak and dark. A cold, drizzling rain was falling, against which no covering seemed proof. The Huguenot worshippers hailed the inclemency of the night with joy, however, for they knew it would aid them more effectually in concealing their movements. Few persons but those in the secret would be abroad on such a night, and they would incur less risk than usual of meeting any of their enemies, or of being seen by them. The dark- ness came early, and towards nightfall the Reformed began to leave their homes, and take their way to- wards the glen we have described. Those who resided at Nismes left the city before sunset, in order to avoid suspicion. From all parts of the Yaunage there came worshippers of all ages and both sexes, moving silently and cautiously through the darkness, and often paus- ing to listen and to survey the scene, to make sure they were not followed — all bending their steps to- wards the mouth of the glen. Arriving at the entrance

320 CROSS AND CROWN.

to the defile, they were halted, and, upon giving the proper password, were suffered to pass on by the senti- nels who had been placed there to watch over the safety of the meeting, and give warning of the ap- proach of danger. Other sentinels were posted along the sides of the cliffs and at the summit, from which they could .note the approach of the dragoons from any quarter.

By ten o'clock several hundred men, women, and even children, had assembled at the upper end of the gorge. The wind whistled sharply along the sides of the rocks, the rain fell incessantly, causing great discomfort to the worshippers, many of whom were drenched to the skin. Yet all were brave and cheer- ful, willing to bear any hardships so they might enjoy their worship without interruption from their enemies. A few dim lanterns lit up the scene, and served to make visible to the worshippers the rock, at the extreme upper end of the gorge, occupied by the pastor as a pulpit. In front of this rock, a large flat stone had been placed to serve as a table, and on this were set the vessels containing the bread and wine to be used in the celebration of the Lord's Sup- per. They were covered with a coarse mantle belong- ing to one of the worshippers, to protect them from the rain. Close by, clad in the rough dress of a peas- ant, and distinguished as regarded his garb only by the black skull-cap which he wore under his hat, stood the pastor, conversing in low, earnest tones with

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 321

a group of the brethren who surrounded him. Close by and leaning against the cliff, listening eagerly to the pastor, was his assistant, young Fulcrand Rey, of Nisines, who in a few months more was to pass to his Father's House through the bloody gates of mar- tyrdom. He seemed to be utterly unconscious of the storm, and his gaze never wandered from the face of the beloved pastor, whose words he drank in eagerly. The pastor was a remarkable man. He was tall, finely formed, and though but thirty-eight years old, had acquired, in consequence no doubt of his life of constant sacrifice and danger, a gravity and dignity of demeanor well suited to his holy calling. His face was strongly marked, indicating great firmness and devotion, as well as courage, and there rested upon it an expression of gentleness and sweetness which fully accounted for the passionate affection with which his followers regarded him.

At the hour of ten, the time appointed, the worship began. Two of the brethren stood up on the rock, each holding a lantern in his hand. Between them they held up a heavy cloak, and under this Fulcrand Rey took his place, with the Bible in his hand, the sacred book being sheltered by the cloak from the falling rain. He read in his clear sweet voice one of those tender addresses with which the Saviour on the night of His betrayal comforted the Apostles, and pre- pared them for the great sacrifice He was about to make :

21

\

322 CROSS AND CROWN.

" Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me.

" In my Father's house are many mansions : if it Mere not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."

Had they not need of such comfort, these brave . Christian men and women, who had come out into the desert through the night and the storm, to hear such blessed words, and to renew again in the midst of their persecutors their spiritual union with their Lord ?

" Peace I leave with you," read the young minister in his sweet, soothing tones, which brought tears to the eyes of all who heard him. "My peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

The rain fell with a dreary, monotonous plash, the little stream swollen with the fall of water, dashed hoarsely down the gorge, and the storm howled wildly among the rocks. But the worshippers heard it not. Their ears were deaf to all sounds but the tones of the reader, and their souls were drawing from the tender words of Christ the comforts some of them were so soon to need.

When the reading of the Bible was ended a hymn was sung, one of those glorious songs of Clement Marrot, and the volume of praise soared up high above the storm, and floating over the cliffs in a full grand chorus, caused the sentinels to tremble lest it

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 323

should draw down upon them the dreaded dragoons who might be thus apprised of their presence in the glen. But the worshippers cared not for this. They had forgotten the danger in the fervor of their religious joy, and they sang as only people can sing whose mouths have long been closed by tyranny. A prayer followed the hymn, — a brief and earnest appeal to the Throne of Grace for protection and pardon. Then the pastor advanced to the front of the pulpit rock, and waving back the men who would have sheltered him with the cloak, bared his head to the storm, and for a moment gazed in silence on the throng before him.

In a clear, firm voice, he read his text — those memo- rable words of Jesus, so applicable to these, his later followers : " He that endureth to the end shall be saved." (Matt. x. 22.) Salvation, he told them, was promised alone to those who fight without ceasing the fight of faith. He told them of the Apostles, the martyrs, the confessors of the primitive Church, how they braved persecution and suffering, and death, re- sisting all temptations to abandon their Lord, and counting themselves blessed above their fellows when chosen to die for His name. Then he spoke of the courage of the martyrs of their own day — many of whom were their kindred and friends — how they went gladly to the stake, enduring to the end, and passing from earthly suffering to everlasting joy in Heaven. Then he traced the miseries of the cowardly apostates, who fell off from the faith in the hour of trial, their

324 CROSS AND CROWN.

anguish and remorse on earth, and their eternal damna- tion hereafter. He exhorted his hearers to stand firm, and not to be driven from their duty by any threat or fear of persecution. They might suffer on earth, but they would rejoice forever more in Heaven. His hear- ers were profoundly affected. Strong men wept, and sobs and groans of penitence, and vows of future fidelity were heard on all sides.

The rain had now almost ceased to fall, and the pastor, upon the conclusion of his sermon, removed the covering from the bread and wine, and solemnly con- secrated them for the communion. Then the whole congregation prostrated themselves in prayer, beseech- ing God to pardon them for their past sins, and to strengthen them to be faithful to His name in the future, even though they should be called on to suffer and to die for it.

The prayer was ended, and there was a brief pause, broken only by the sobs of the kneeling worshippers. Suddenly there was a sound of heavy footseps towards the mouth of the glen, followed by a confused noise, and from the sides of the cliff the loud voices of the sentinels came ringing down : " The dragoons ! the dragoons ! Save yourselves without delay."

In an instant the lights were extinguished, and the worshippers were upon their -feet. They stood irreso- lute for a moment, but a heavy discharge of musketry was poured into them from the mouth of the ravine, and by the flash of the guns they could see the dreaded

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 325

dragoons struggling with .and cutting down the devoted sentinels who sought to stay their passage. The next instant the worshippers were clambering up the hidden paths along the sides of the cliff, each one seeking to secure his own escape. The greater part were fortunate enough to gain the summit, from which they passed easily to the open country, but a large number fell into the hands of the dragoons. About fifteen or twenty were killed in the melee, and the soldiers, finding it impossible to secure any more, conducted their prisoners to Nismes, to be punished for the heinous crime of worshipping their Maker. The two pastors were among those who escaped. At the very first sign of danger, they had been seized by two of the brethren, who had charged themselves with that duty, and hurried up the cliffs to the open country, from which they succeeded in gain- ing a place of refuge in the mountains. There they waited a few days, until the excitement attending the affair had subsided, and then resumed their labors afresh.

The elder of the two pastors, the one whose elo- quence had so moved the congregation in the glen, was Claude Brousson. He was born at Nismes in 1647, and was educated as an advocate. Upon entering upon the practice of his profession he established himself at Toulouse. He had been trained in the Reformed religion, and was a devoted member of the Huguenot Church. As long as he dared do so, he boldly advocated the rights of the Huguenots in the

326 CROSS AND CROWN.

courts, and when this could no longer be done openly, he became the leader of a secret committee which met at his house to consult as to the course to be pursued by the Reformed. This becoming known to the au- thorities, his arrest was ordered, and he was obliged to escape for his life. The inhabitants of Nismes were forbidden under pain of death to receive him, and he was obliged to encounter the greatest hardships in his efforts to reach the Cevennes, where he was sure of meeting with friends. He was successful, however, and from the Cevennes passed into Switzerland, where he fixed his residence at Lausanne, being joined there by bis wife and child. He resumed the practice of his profession, and his abilities and personal character stxm brought him into such prominence that he was sent by the Protestant cantons of Switzerland on a mission to the Prince of Orange, respecting a league of evan- gelical union for the safety of the Reformed Faith in every country where it was professed; a project which failed at the time, but was afterwards realized in the league of Augsburg. He returned home sadly disap- pointed with the result of his journey.

This mission had the effect of calling Brousson's attention more particularly to the condition of his Huguenot brethren in Southern France. In the Cev- ennes' region the case was especially sad. The few pastors who remained in that region were living in caves and in the forests, hunted, driven from place to place, and exposed to the greatest dangers. The

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 327

people were almost entirely without spiritual care, and they were constantly beset by hordes of priests and monks who were seeking by every species of argument and intimidation to make them desert their religion. More pastors were needed in the Cevennes, and Brousson felt that it was his duty to enter the field thus opened to him. He was devoted to his wife and his child, and the former earnestly opposed his design. To leave them caused him the greatest strug- gle he had ever known, yet he could not take them with him ; he must go alone. He could not hesitate. His duty was plain. God called him, and he must obey. Commending his dear ones to the protection of his Master, he tore himself away, and set out on his journey.

Upon reaching the Cevennes, he was ordained a min- ister by Vivens and Gabriel, two fugitive pastors, and at once entered upon his life-work. For nearly a Year he lived in a cavern amongst the rocks, in the midst of the most frightful precipices. His life was one of constant toil and hardship, but he did not shrink from his work. He travelled back and forth throughout the entire province of Languedoc, visiting every place in which there was a congregation, preaching regu- larly three times a week and often every day. His life was in constant peril, but he did not regard this. He preached, baptized, celebrated the rite of marriage, visited the sick, buried the dead, administered the Lord's Supper, and performed all the duties of an

328 CROSS AND CROWN.

active ministry, oftentimes within hearing of the drums of the troops sent' out to capture him. His eloquence was all-powerful, and it did much to keep the people true to their religion.

Baville, the Intendant of Languedoc, was greatly alarmed by the effect of the pastor's eloquence. He falsely accused him of endeavoring to excite an insur- rection in the province, and offered a reward of five hundred louis d'ors for his head. Brousson wrote to him, indignantly denying the charge, and saying, " My design is not to cause trouble. I do harm to no one. I hold the assembly of my congregations without arms; I travel without arms ; and, like a lamb, unprotected." He thus labored among the Cevenols for a number of years.

At length one of his dearest friends, Yivens, the pastor from whose hands he had received ordination, was cruelly put to death by order of Baville. The Intendant caused Brousson to be warned that he would be the next victim; but the pastor without heeding the threat, wrent on with his work. When sorely pressed, he would retire to his cavern, and there re- main until the danger had passed by. It is wonder- ful how he escaped, and was able to continue his labors for so long a time; but he not only passed unharmed through the dangers which surrounded him, but found time and opportunity to compose in his cavern many valuable religious treatises adapted to the wants of his people. Here also he wrote his most

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 329

celebrated work, " The Mystic Manna of the Desert," which was subsequently published in Holland. Some- times his enemies watched him so closely that he could not reach the places he had promised to visit for the purpose of preaching. He accomplished his object partially, however, by dictating short and instructive Bentences, which were cut in wood or stone, and con- veyed to these places, and passed from hand to hand and carefully concealed. At length, however, the per- secution became so iierce and unrelenting that he was obliged to fly from Languedoc. He returned to Swit- zerland, where he had once more the happiness of being with his wife and child. This was in 1696.

He was greatly in need of rest, and he remained in Switzerland for nearly a year, endeavoring to build up his health, which had been greatly enfeebled by his hard life. "Whilst there reports reached him of the sufferings of his people in Languedoc, who were being persecuted by Baville with unusual severity. He felt that he must go back, and he once more bade adieu to his family, and late in 1697 set out on his return to France. He was detained in Dauphiny during the winter by the snow. While there he preached con- stantly to the Yaudois of that region, who had been for many months without a pastor. In the spring of 169S he passed into Vivarais, going from village to vil- lage and preaching to large -crowds. Thence he made his way into the Cevennes, and on the 28th of April, reached the vicinity of Nismes.

330 CROSS AND CROWN.

Baville was promptly informed of his arrival, and increased the reward offered for his head. His pres- ence was discovered in Nismes, and spies were at once set upon his track. He had great difficulty in getting beyond the walls, but having accomplished this, set out for his refuge in the mountains. He was so hotly pursued that he was obliged to take shelter in the house of a friend, who concealed him in an old well on the place. At the side of this well, and near the bottom, there was a niche just large enough to afford a hiding place for a man. Brousson was directed to conceal himself in this niche. He had scarcely done so when the soldiers arrived at the house. One of them immediately descended into the well to search for Brousson ; but, coming suddenly from the full light of the sun into the gloom of the pit, he did not perceive the niche, and was drawn up again by his companions without having discovered the fugitive.

Baville, knowing that Brousson's preaching was one of the principal reasons of the firmness with which the Huguenots maintained their faith, now resolved to secure him at any cost. He beset his path with spies, and with pretended friends, who only waited an oppor- tunity to betray him. The pastor, perceiving his dan- ger, resolved to go into Poitou for a season, and accord- ingly set out thither. He was provided with letters of recommendation to the principal persons of the Re- formed faith along his route. One of these was to a young Hugnenot lady living near Pau. By an unfor-

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 33}

tunate mistake he delivered the letter to a lady of the same name, who had become an apostate, and thus betrayed himself. She at once took the letter to the consul, and Brousson being warned of his danger fled from the place. He was pursued, and captured at Ole- ron. Upon being asked his name, he frankly avowed it, and joyfully held out his hands to receive the chains with which they bound him. He was con- ducted back to Pau, and imprisoned in the castle, which, during the reign of the heroic Queen of Na- varre, the mother of Henry IV., had been the strong- hold of the Reformation, but which was now a Romish prison. The Governor of the castle, De Pinon, treated Brousson with great kindness during his stay there.

Baville upon being informed of the arrest of the pastor, ordered him to be removed to Montpelier, where he was residing as Governor of Languedoc. De Pinon displayed great emotion in parting with him, and asked the escort which was to convey him to Montpelier to show him every possible indulgence. Tli is they did. They put no chains on him, and guarded him but negligently, he having pledged his word that he would not attempt to escape. During the journey he had several opportunities of regaining his freedom ; but he had given his word to his guards, and not even to save his life would he break his pledge.

Upon reaching Montpelier, he was imprisoned in the citadel, and on the 4th of November was brought to

332 CROSS AND CROWN.

trial before a court presided over by Baville himself. The hall was crowded with priests and monks, officers and lawyers, all curious to see the famous pastor of the desert of whom they had heard so much. They expected that he would make an eloquent defence, but they were disappointed. He refused to plead in his own behalf, believing such a course unworthy of the cause for which he knew he was to suffer. He an- swered the questions put to him frankly and concisely, and without the least manifestation of fear or embar- rassment. He said he had done no harm to man ; that his religion wras that of the Reformed Church; he feared God, and as a minister of His Word had returned to France to console his unhappy brethren in the faith. Baville was greatly disconcerted by his language and manner, and not knowing what to say, asked him :

" What were the motives of your conduct in the Cevennes?"

"To preach the Gospel after the example of the Apostles," replied the pastor, calmly.

The trial was a mere form ; the prisoner was accused of rebellion against the State, but he indignantly denied this, and there was not the slighest shadow of evidence against him on this point. His crime was preaching the pure Word of God, and for this he must die. He had dared to oppose Rome, and there was no mercy for him. He was sentenced to be tortured upon the rack, then to be broken upon the wheel, and then to be

CLAUDE BROUSSON. 333

hanged upon the gibbet. Baville's conscience seems to have smitten him when this infamous sentence was laid before him for his approval, for he altered it mate- rially, and ordered that the victim should be made to see the rack only, and then should be hanged, after which his lifeless body should be broken on the wheel. Brousson heard the sentence in silence, and then bow- ing his head prayed to God that He would have mercy on his judges and forgive them.

The pastor passed the greater part of the night in prayer, after which he fell into a calm sleep. The next day, November 5th, 1698, he was led between two soldiers to the place of execution. According to the terms of his sentence, he was taken to look upon the rack. He was calm and serene, and he gazed upon the dreadful instrument a moment, and then raised his eyes to Heaven in silent prayer. He was accompanied by some of the judges who had sentenced him, and they were pale and trembling. From the rack he was led to the scaffold. Ascending it, he endeavored to speak to the people, but his voice was silenced in the roll of drums. He then knelt down, and clasping his hands, prayed fervently, after which he rose, calm and smiling, and delivered himself to the executioner, who was so much agitated that he could scarcely perform his terrible work. A few moments more, and it was all over. Then the lifeless body of the pastor was placed upon the wheel, and broken.

Said the executioner a few days later: "I have

334 Ci2 OSS A ND CR 0 WN.

executed above two hundred condemned persons ; but none ever made me tremble as did Monsieur de Brous- son."

Said one of his judges, who stood by his side to see the sentence properly carried out :

"I could have fled away rather than have put to death such an honest man. I could, if I dared, speak much about him — certainly he died like a saint."

VI.

JEAN MARTEILHE.

THE HUGUENOT GALLEY SLAVE.

NE of the most celebrated of the members of the Reformed religion who suffered the punishment of the galleys was Jean Marteilhe, whose admir- able memoirs afford us the most perfect account we possess of the cruelties endured by the Huguenot martyrs condemned to the living death of the galleys.

Jean Marteilhe was born at Bergerac, a small town in the province of Perigord, in 1684. His parents were trades-people, and had been from their infancy trained in the Reformed faith, in which they reared their chil- dren. His childhood was passed in obscurity, and nothing occurred to him to break the monotony of his life until the year 1699, when he was fifteen years of age.

The peace of Ryswick having given to Louis XIV. an opportunity of turning his dragoons against his own subjects, he yielded to the entreaties of the Jesuits, and gave the priests leave to begin again, with the assist- ance of the troops their savage warfare against the Hu- guenots. The town of Bergerac lay within the domains of the Duke de la Force, a powerful noble, and a pupil

335

336 CROSS AND CROWN.

of the Jesuits. In 1699, the duke obtained from the king leave to repair to his estates in Perigord " in order to convert the Huguenots." Upon reaching his castle of La Force, about a league from Eergerac, accompanied by four Jesuit priests and a body of guards, he began his labors by seizing all the members of the Reformed faith he could lay his hands on, and subjecting them to the most terrible tortures, without any form of trial, in order to make them recant. Some of these poor crea- tures died under the tortures inflicted upon them, and others signed their abjurations in order to escape a like fate. The duke was warmly applauded for his " pious work " by the priests and monks of the neighborhood, but the people hated him bitterly. He then went to Versailles to give an account to the king of his efforts. Louis was so well pleased with his cruelties that he gave him leave to attempt the conversion of the whole province of Perigord. In 1700, he came back and es- tablished his residence at Bergerac, accompanied by the four Jesuits who had urged him on in his former bru- tality, and a regiment of dragoons. The soldiers were at once turned loose upon the Huguenots of the pro- vince, with full licence to commit any outrages upon them, and they promptly availed themselves of this permission.

Twenty-two of these dragoons were quartered in the house of the Marteilhe family. Not satisfied with this, the duke caused the father to be ai rested and imprisoned at Perigueux. Two of the younger children were seized

JEA N MA R TEIL HE. 337

and sent to a convent, and the mother, left alone in the midst of the wretches, was forced to sign her abjuration. Jean Marteilhe managed to escape from the house be- fore the dragoons entered it. He was then but sixteen years of age, but young as he was, he was sufficiently well instructed in the doctrines of his faith to be re- solved to adhere to them. He knew that to return to his home would be but to fall into the hands of the dragoons, and he also knew that he could not remain in Bergerac without being discovered by the soldiers. There was but one thing to do — to escape from the town. That, however, was not easy, for every road leading from the place was strongly guarded, the duke and the Jesuits being resolved that none of the Huguenots should slip through their fingers. Still, Marteilhe resolved to make the attempt, and that night in company with a lad of the town, about his own age, and like himself, a Huguenot, he succeeded in leaving Bergerac. They walked all night through the woods, and in the morning found themselves at Mussidan, a small town about four leagues from their home. They could not remain here, for they were within reach of their enemies at Bergerac, and might be seized at any time. The question was whither would they go? They had heard from their friends that the Huguenots were safe, and were sure of finding friends in Holland, and that seemed to them the only asylum open to them. They had a very vague idea of the country, and of the route to be traversed in order to reach it ; but to Hol-

22

338 CROSS AND CROWN.

land they determined to go. Between them and the Dutch frontier lay almost the whole of France, a dis- tance of more than five hundred miles, for Bergerac is only about seventy miles from Bordeaux. This distance they would be forced to traverse on foot, and their purses contained only ten pistoles, a sum equal to about one hundred francs. " We resolved," says Marteilhe, " whatever the perils might be, to continue our journey as far as Holland, resigning ourselves wholly to the will of God in the prospect of all those dangers which presented themselves to our imagination ; and as we implored the Divine protection, we made a firm resolu- tion not to imitate Lot's wife in looking back, and that, whatever might be the result of our present enterprise, we would remain firm and constant in confessing the true Reformed religion, even at the risk of the punish- ment of the galleys, or of death." From Mussidan they took the road to Paris, beginning their journey late in October. They met with no adventure, and reached Paris on the 10th of November.

They had acquaintances of their own faith in the city, and to them they betook themselves for advice and assistance. They asked, to be told the easiest and least dangerous route to the Flemish frontier, and one of their friends wrote down for them a little itinerary as far as Mezieres, which town then stood on the bor- ders of the Spanish Netherlands, and on the edge of the great forest of Ardennes. This friend warned them to be cautious upon approaching Mezieres, that their only

JEAN MARTEILIIE. 339

danger would be in entering it, as all strangers were halted and examined at the gates. No one was stopped or questioned in going out, however. After leaving Mezieres, they were to pass through the forest of Ar- dennes to Charleroi, where there was a Dutch garrison and commander who would protect them, that place being outside of the French territory.

They set out from Paris for the frontier, and at last reached- Mezieres, which they succeeded in entering without being stopped or questioned. They proceeded to an inn, and took lodgings in it. The landlord was absent at the time, and his wife received them. When the landlord returned, he demanded of the youths their tickets of permission to stop in the town, which all strangers were obliged to procure from the Governor. As they could not produce these vouchers, he told them they must go with him to the Governor. In order to gain time, they consented to do this, but asked him to delay the matter until the next morning, to which he agreed. Early the next day they succeeded in making their escape from the city, and in reaching Charleville, a small town in the vicinity. From Charleville, they entered the forest of Ardennes, and becoming bewildered by the numerous roads which intersected each other at its verge, they asked a peasant to direct them to Char- leroi. This man advised them to avoid the forest en- tirely, as it was very dangerous to those unacquainted with it, and to take another route, which he pointed out to them. They followed his advice, and succeeded

340 CROSS AND CROWN.

in reaching a town called Couve, within the territory of the Prince of Liege. This place wras beyond the French territory, and was held by a Dutch garrison and commander, to whom the fugitives might have applied for protection had they known they were no longer on French soil. They were discovered by a gamekeeper of the Prince of Liege, who determined to betray them to the French authorities if they should re-enter France, and pass by Mariembourg on their way to Charleroi. It was their intention to avoid Mariembourg, and to take another road, but the presence of a military officer travelling along the road they designed taking, caused them to abandon their first intention, and go to Mari- embourg. Here they were betrayed by the gamekeeper, who hoped to be rewarded for his villany by the French. They were arrested and conveyed before the Governor of the place. They acknowledged that they were Hu- guenots, but endeavored to conceal the fact that they were trying to escape from the kingdom. They had been found on the frontiers, however, without passports, and the authorities were convinced that they were en- deavoring to leave the kingdom. Their case was reported to the king, who ordered the Parliament or Court of Tour- nay, within whose jurisdiction they had been captured, to sentence them to the galleys for life. Sentence was ac- cordingly passed upon them, and they were conveyed to the prison of Tournay.

They were treated very cruelly during the journey to Tournay, and upon reaching that place, their lot was

JEAN MARTEILHE. 341

no better. The cure of the parish visited them about once a fortnight for the purpose of endeavoring to con- vert thorn to Romanism, but he seems to have depended more upon starving them than upon arguing with them. Meanwhile, they were confined in a dark, loathsome dungeon, on the floor of which was a little damp straw filled with vermin, which served as their bed. Their food consisted of but a pound and a half of bread and a jug of water per day, and they soon became so thin and weak that they were obliged to stay near the door of their cell, through a hole in which their food was thrown to them as if they had been dogs. If they had staved farther from the door, says Marteilhe, they Would not have been able to crawl to it to receive their food, because of their great weakness. They sold to the jailor for a little bread, their coats, waistcoats, and all their shirts save the one they had on. That one soon fell to rags, and left them almost naked. In this miserable state, they were visited by the parish priest, who mocked them, and asked them tauntingly if they were not weary of suffering these torments. When they told him in reply that they were resolved to be faithful to their religion to the end of their lives, he told them brutally that they deserved no pity, that their misery was deserved, and would continue until they should fully renounce the errors of Calvin.

They obtained some relief at length. Two of their fellow-townsmen from Bergerac, arrested in the attempt to escape, were sent to the same prison. These were

342 CROSS AND CROWN.

men of consequence, and being provided with money, purchased for the famishing youths a supply of meat and wine which greatly revived them.

The town of Tournay lies on both sides of the river Scheldt. The portion lying on the south side of the stream was at this time within the diocese of the Bishop of Cambrai. That on the north side is within the dio- cese of Tournay. The prisoners at this time were con- fined on the south side of the river. The Bishop of Tournay, having heard that they were not properly looked after by the parish priest, sent one of his chap- lains to visit them. " This chaplain," says Marteilhe, " was a good old priest, who had more honesty than the- ology— at least so it seemed to us, for after having told us that he was sent by the bishop, he added, ' it was in order to convert you to the Christian religion.' "We replied that we were Christians, both by baptism, and by our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ' What,' said he, ' You are Christians ? And what are your names ? ' taking his tablets in which our names were written out of his pocket, thinking he had made some mistake. We told him our Christian names and sur- names. ' It is you indeed,' said he, ' to whom I am sent, but you are not what I thought, for you say you are Christians, and his lordship sent me to convert you to Christianity. Bepeat to me, if you please, the articles of your faith.' ' Very willingly, sir,' said I, and at the same time I repeated the Apostles' Creed. ' What ! ' cried he, 'you believe that ?' and having replied in the

JEAN MA R TEILHE. 343

affirmative, 'And I too,' said he; 'his lordship the bishop has been trying to make an April fool of me' — for that day was in fact the 1st of April, 1701. He took leave of us very quickly, much put out that his bishop should have played such a trick on a man of his age and character. My readers may judge whether this good ecclesiastic had studied and examined the dif- ferent sects of Christianity."

The bishop did not send the old man a second time, but the next day the prisoners received a visit from the Grand Vicar of the diocese of Tournay, who after this, visited them constantly. He was a man of learning and zeal, and labored diligently to induce them to enter the Roman Church. He was also very kind to them in relieving their wants with money and clothing. The parish priest happening to meet him in the cell, thus engaged, became very angry and ordered him out of his parish. Upon this, the Bishop of Tournay had the boys removed to the prison of the Beflfroi, which lay within his diocese. Here they were visited by many Protest- ants, who came to exhort them to persevere. The Grand Vicar continued his kindness to them, and at length made them the following proposition. " We will dispense with our belief," said he, " in the greater part of those doctrines which seem to you to be errors — such as the invocation of saints and of the Virgin, re- spect for images, belief in a purgatory, faith in indul- gences and pilgrimages — if you will only submit to be- lieve faithfully in transubstantiation and the sacrifice

344 CROSS AND CROWN.

of the Mass, and will abjure the errors of Calvin." The youths at once refused to entertain his proposal for a moment, and the vicar, in despair of converting them, gradually discontinued his visits.

From Tournay they were taken in chains to Lille to join the chain of galley slaves assembling there. They were thrown into the terrible prison of Saint Pierre, in the midst of a gang of convicts consisting of the most desperate characters in France. There they were searched, and their money and religious books taken from them. They only escaped maltreatment at the hands of their fellow prisoners, by paying the sum of two crowns to the wretches to leave them in peace.

It was the custom of the jailors to enter the prison every evening, accompanied by a guard, to make sure that the prisoners were not endeavoring to escape. Upon one occasion Marteilhe asked a turnkey to leave him a small piece of candle. The man refused, and as he went out overheard the prisoner say he was sorry he had not snatched it from his hand. He reported this to the jailor. " The next morning," says Marteilhe, " as I was sleeping on my bit of straw; I was suddenly- aroused by several blows from the flat side of a sword. I started up, and saw the jailor, sword in hand, the four turnkeys, and all the soldiers of the guard, armed to the teeth. I asked them why they ill-treated me thus. The jailor only replied by giving me twenty more blows with the sword, and the turnkey with the candle-end gave me such a terrible box on the ear that

JEA N MA R TEILHE. 345

he knocked me down. Having got up again, the jailor told me to follow him, and perceiving that it was to do me more injury, I refused to obey him until I knew by whose orders he treated me thus ; for that if I had de- served it, the grand provost alone could have me pun- ished. Then they gave me so many blows that I fell down a second time. The four turnkeys now took me up, two by the legs and two by the arms, and carried me out of the dungeon, dragging me like a dead dog down the steps of the tower into the courtyard, where they opened the door of another staircase which led underground. Then they pushed me down these steps, of which there must have been twenty-five or thirty, at the bottom they opened a cell with an iron gate, called 1 the dungeon of the sorceress.' They forced me in here, shut the door on me, and went away. I could see no more in this horrible dungeon than if I had my eyes shut. I groped a few steps to find a little straw, and then sunk down to my knees in water as cold as ice. I turned back, and leaned against the door, where the ground was higher and less damp. By groping about I found a little straw upon which I sat, but I had not been there two minutes, when I felt the water coming through the straw. I then firmly believed that they had buried me alive, and that this dungeon would be my tomb if I remained there twent}'-four hours. Half an hour after, the turnkey brought me some bread and water. I rejected his pitcher and his bread, saying : "Go tell your butcher of a master that I will neither eat nor drink till I have spoken to the grand provost.' "

346 CROSS AND CROWN.

This firm language terrified the jailor, who knew he would have to answer to the grand provost, if his prisoner should die, and he had him brought to his own apartments, where he washed the blood from him, dressed his bruises, and gave him a good breakfast and a glass of wine. Then he put him in a clean, dry cell. Soon after this Marteilhe was put back in the tower with the other galley slaves. His friends in Bergerac, who had been informed of his fate, now managed to interest the grand provost of Flanders in his behalf. This personage showed considerable kindness to him and to Daniel le Gras, his companion. They were, by his order, placed in a clean and airy room, and pro- vided with good beds. Marteilhe was put in charge of the alms donated by the charitable citizens for the prisoners, and it was his duty to distribute them according to the necessities of the inmates of the prison.

They remained in these pleasant quarters for six weeks, after which they were sent to Dunkirk, to be placed in the galleys. Here Marteilhe was separated from his companion, and assigned to the galley L'Heu- reuse, the flag ship of the squadron of six galleys lying in that port, and which was commanded by Captain de la Pailleterie.

The French galleys were long, low vessels, with one deck, propelled by oars and sails. They had two masts with lateen sails. The largest vessels of this class were about 1C6 feet long by 32 feet broad, with

JEAN MARTE1LUE. 347

20 pairs of oars. They were armed with cannon, which were usually placed in the bow and stern, with a few along the sides, and were provided with soldiers and sailors, besides the convicts appointed to work the oars. They were capable of carrying 1000 men and provi- sions and ammunition for two months. There was a cabin astern for the captain, and some slight accommo- dations in the forward part for the under officers, but the galley slaves were chained night and day to their benches, six to each oar. They slept on the benches, or under them, as they pleased. Each convict was naked to the waist, in order that he might be the more exposed to the lash of the Comite, or Sous- Com ite, whose business it was to flog them with a large whip to make them row more vigorously. These und^r officers were usually cruel and brutal men. Their station was on a bridge or plank which ran the length of the vessel over the heads of the rowers, and from which they could easily reach them with their whips. The prisoners suffered greatly from these blows, but much more from exposure to the weather in their half- naked condition. The punishment of the galleys was the worst and most infamous known to the French law, and until the religious persecutions, had been inflicted only upon felons; so that it was a refinement of cruelty on the part of the Jesuits to induce the king to condemn the pious Huguenots to this living death.

Almost upon his arrival at Dunkirk, Marteilhe had a narrow escape from the punishment of the bastinado.

348 CROSS AND CROWN.

A convict on the bench to which he was chained, having been refused money by him, informed the Sous- Comite that Marteilhe had uttered execrable blas- phemies against the Virgin Mary and all the saints of Paradise. The Sous-Comite at once ordered the ac- cused to prepare to receive the bastinado, but fortuately for him the Comite interfered, and upon investigation the charge discovered Marteilhe's innocence. He there- upon returned Marteilhe to his bench, and flogged his accuser. Though Marteilhe escaped the bastinado, many of his Huguenot brethren received it during their confinement in the galleys, and it may not be amiss to quote here his description of it. " The unfortunate victim," says he, " is stripped naked from his waist upwards ; then they make him lie upon his face, his legs hanging over his bench, and his arms over the bench opposite. Two convicts hold his legs, and two others his arms, his back is bare and exposed, and the Comite, who is behind him, every now and then strikes a muscular Turk, who is also stripped, to urge him to scourge the back of the poor victim with all his strength, which he does with a coarse, thick rope. As the Turk knows there will be* no mercy for him if he spares, in the least, the poor wretch who is to be so cruelly punished, he applies his blows with his whole force, so that each cut raises a bruise an inch in height. Those who have to suffer this punishment can rarely endure more than ten or twelve blows with- out losing the power of speech and motion. This does

JEAN MARTEILHE. 349

not hinder them from continuing to strike the poor body, which neither moves nor utters a cry till the number of blows ordered by the major are accom- plished. Twenty or thirty blows are only for slight offences; I have seen fifty, eighty, and even a hundred given ; in such cases the victims scarcely ever recover. After the poor patient has received the appointed number, the barber or surgeon of the galley comes to rub his lacerated back with strong vinegar and salt, to make the miserable body regain its sensibility, and to prevent gangrene from coining on." *

* One of the cruellest cases of this kind was that of M. Sabatier, sentenced to the galleys of Marseilles for his religion. He was de- tected in the act of distributing money to his Huguenot brethren in the galleys, and though an old man, was ordered to be bastinadoed until he confessed from whom he had received the money, or until he died. He refused to betray the friend who had placed the money in his hands, and was beaten until he was speechless and senseless. The surgeon of his galley then declared that he would die if he were struck again. "With the hope of reviving him and forcing him to con- fess his secret, they rubbed his back with vinegar and salt. The pain of this application was so great that he regained his conscious- ness, but he was still so weak that it was evident that he would die under the first blow. They then conveyed him to the hospital, intend- ing to beat him again when he had recovered his strength. He lay for a long time at the point of death, and when he recovered was such a wreck that his tormentors dared not touch him lest they should kill him at once. He lived but a few years longer, and was so feeble that he could not speak above a whisper, and his mind was so affected that he could not carry on the simplest conversation. Previous to his torture he had been noted for his meek and gentle behaviour and the patience with which he endured his servitude. The chief instiga- tors and promoters of the cruelties inflicted upon him were the Jesuit missionaries of Marseilles.

350 CROSS AND CROWN.

About a fortnight after his arrival at Dunkirk, Marteilhe was assigned to the galley La Palme, com- manded by the Chevalier de Langeron Maulevrier. The Com lie of this vessel was regarded as the most brutal official in the squadron, but Marteilhe found favor with him. " There were five of the Reformed faith in his galley," says he. /' He treated all of us equally, not one of the five ever received the least ill treatment from him. On the contrary, when the opportunity presented itself, he renderd us a service." But to the other convicts he was a perfect demon.

When Marteilhe had been about a year in the gal- leys, the squadron made an attack on a Dutch ship of war which had become becalmed near the French coast. The vessel was captured after a brief engage- ment. This was the Huguenot's first experience in warfare. Two years later he was also present at an attack on the galleys by the Dutch Admiral Almonde, in which the French suffered severely. For six years he continued to serve in the galley La Palme, chained to his bench and working at the oar like a common felon, and suffering much from exposure and the hard labor required of him. He was compelled to be pres- ent in several battles, and once came near being ship- wrecked.

During this time he was supplied with money by friends in France and in the Protestant countries of Europe, who sent their remittances through a banker of Dunkirk. All these sums were placed in the hands

JEAN MARTE1LHE. 351

*f Marteilhe, who distributed them among the Hugue- nots in the various galleys, using as his messenger, a Turk whose religion, says Marteilhe, taught him that he would find favor with God for exercising charity at the peril of his life. Finally the chaplain of the galley conceived a friendship for the sufferer for conscience sake, and secured for him a remittance which the banker through whom it was sent had determined to retain. He even offered to receive and pay over to Marteilhe in future, all moneys which his friends should send him. This good man was a Dominican monk. He never treated any of the five Huguenots in the galley with severity, but, on the contrary, showed them many kindnesses. This gave great offence to the Jesuit chaplains of the other galleys, who were brutal wretches, and they determined to punish him for his humanity. They accordingly drew up a memorial to the Bishop of Ypres, accusing the chaplain of being a heretic, of loving and favoring the Huguenots, and of leaving them in peace instead of endeavoring to com- pel them to enter the Roman Church. The bishop at once commanded the chaplain to appear before him and answer to these charges. Upon his compliance with this command, the bishop informed him of the charges against him, and sternly asked what he had to say in his defence.

"My lord," said the chaplain, with firmness, "if your highness orders me to exhort them, to press them to listen, and to conform to the Roman Church, that is

352 CROSS AND CROWN.

what I do ever j day, and no one can prove the con- trary ; but if you order me to imitate the other chap- lains, who cruelly persecute these poor wretches, I shall to-morrow set out for my convent." The bishop replied that he was satisfied with his defence, and cen- sured the Jesuit chaplains for their cruelty.

In September, 1708, the squadron of galleys at Dun- kirk were placed under, the command of a renegade English officer named Smith, for the purpose of mak- ing a descent upon the English coast, and burning the town of Harwich. The vessels left Dunkirk on the 5th, and reached the mouth of the Thames on the same day. There they encountered a squadron of thirty-five merchant ships convoyed by a thirty-six gun frigate, making for the Thames. It was at once resolved to abandon the expedition to Harwich, and endeavor to secure the merchantmen. The galley La Palme, and another, were directed to attack the frigate, while the others endeavored to secure the merchant ships. A sharp fight now ensued, in which the galleys were so badly handled by the English frigate that they were compelled to signal for assistance. The galleys in chase of the merchantmen were at once recalled and sent to the relief of those engaged. Seeing that he was no match for the six galleys, the English captain endeavored to prolong his defence in order to give, time to the ships under his care to enter the Thames. This he succeeded in doing, when he surrendered his frigate, the French already having carried the upper decks.

JEAN MARTEILHE. 353

The galleys, though successful, had suffered so much tli at they were obliged to return to Dunkirk.

Marteilhe was severely wounded in this engagement, and many of the galley slaves were killed. The con- vict rowers of the galleys were always chained to their benches. The only part they took in battle was to propel the vessel with their oars. They were always exposed to the fire of the enemy, and were compelled to receive it without making any effort to protect them- selves. It was a hard fate for those being punished for actual crimes ; a terrible persecution to those who were subjected to it only on account of their religion. We quote the captive's vigorous description of the manner in which he received his wounds.

" The frigate having seized us with her grappling

irons, we were exposed to the fire of her artillery ; and

our bench, on which were five convicts and a Turkish

slave, happened to be just opposite to one of the guns

of the frigate, which I perceived to be loaded. Our

broadsides were touching, consequently this gun was so

near to us that, by raising myself a little, I could have

touched it with my hand. This unpleasant neighbor

made us all tremble ; my companions lay down quite

flat, thus thinking to escape its fire. On examining

this cannon, I perceived, from the manner in which it

was pointed, that its discharge would bear directly

upon our bench, and that, lying down, we must receive

it upon our bodies. Having made this observation, I

determined to stand straight up on my bench. I could 23

354 CROSS AND CROWN.

not get away ; I was chained to it ; what else could I do? I must resign myself to pass under the fire of this cannon. As I was attentive to all that was pas- sing on board the frigate, I saw the gunner, with his lighted match in his hand, begin to touch the gun at the bows of the frigate with the fire, and then go from gun to gun till he came to the one which pointed upon our vessel; I then lifted up my heart to God, and uttered a short but fervent prayer, as a man who expects the stroke of death. I could not take my eyes off the gunner, who kept gradually approaching our gun, as he applied his match in succession to the others. Now he came to this fatal gun ; I had the courage to watch him put the portfire to the gun, still standing straight up, and commending my soul to my Saviour. The cannon fired ; I was suddenly stunned and thrown prostrate, not upon the bench, but in the centre of the galley, as far off as my chain could extend. Here I lay, stunned and unconscious, stretched across the body of the lieutenant, who was killed, for I know not how long, but I imagine it must have been a considerable time. At last, however, I regained my senses. Rais- ing myself from the lieutenant's body, I returned to my bench. It was night, and I saw neither the blood nor the carnage which was upon the bench, by reason of the darkness. I first thought that my comrades were still lying down for fear of the cannon. I did not know that I was wounded, feeling no pain, and I said to my companions, 'Get up lads, the danger is

JEAN MARTEILHE. 355

over.' But I received no answer. The Turk on the bench, who had been a Janissary, and who had boasted that he was never afraid, remained prostrate like the others, and I said jokingly, ' What, Isouf ! this is the first time you have been afraid. Come, get up;' and at the same time I took him by the arm to help him. But oh ! horror! which makes me still shudder when I think of it — his arm, separated from his bod}-, remained in my hand. With terror I let fall the arm of this unhappy fellow, and perceived that he, as well as the four others, were literally hewn in pieces, for all the shot from the gun had fallen upon them. I sat down upon the bench.

" I had not been long in this attitude when I felt something cold and damp streaming down upon my body, which was naked. I put my hand to it, and felt distinctly that it was wet, but could not in the darkness distinguish if it was blood. But I soon found that it was, and streaming from a large wound which went quite through my shoulder. I felt another on my left leg, below the knee, as deep as the one in my shoulder, and a third, nearly a foot long and four inches broad in my stomach. I was losing an -im- mense quantity of blood, without being able to get assistance from any one, all around me being dead, as well in my bench as in the two adjoining ones, so that of the eighteen men who were in these three benches, I alone had escaped with my three wounds. I was then obliged to wait for assistance till the combat was over

356 CROSS AND CROWN.

" The first thing done on board our galley was to throw the dead into the sea, and carry the wounded into the hold. But God knows how many wretches were thrown into the sea as dead who were not really so ; for in this darkness and confusion they took for dead those who had only fainted, either through fear or loss of blood from their wounds. I found myself in this extremity, for when the argoasins came to my bench to unchain the dead and wounded, I had fallen down in a fainting fit, and lay motionless and uncon- scious among the others, bathed in their blood and my own. These argousins at once concluded that all belonging to this bench were dead. They only un- chained them and threw them into the sea, without further examining whether they were dead or alive ; it was quite enough if they did not hear them cry out or speak. They unchained me to throw me into the sea, judging me to be dead. Now it must be remembered that I was chained by the left leg, and that it was in this leg that I was wounded. One argousin seized me by this leg to drag me up, while another was unfastening the bolt of the iron ring which held my chain. The latter, happily for me, put his hand upon my wound, which caused me so great pain that I raised a great cry, and I heard the argousin say, ' This man is not dead ; ' and imagining at once that they were going to throw me into the sea, I exclaimed (for this pain had brought back my consciousness) , ' No, no ; I am not dead.' They took me down to the bottom of the hold

JEAN MARTEIL11E. 357

among the other wounded, and threw me down upon a cable. What a strange place of repose for a wounded man agonized with pain."

Three days after the battle the galleys arrived at Dunkirk, and Marteilhe, exhausted with loss of blood, and with his wounds gangrened, was conveyed to the hospital. Here his friend the banker secured for him the personal services of the chief surgeon, who was a man of skill, and through whose efforts he recovered, after a confinement of three months.

By the law of France, all galley slaves wounded in battle were given their freedom. Marteilhe was denied this privilege. He was a Huguenot, and the king and the Jesuits cut him off from that which was willingly accorded to the meanest criminal. Although unfit for service at the oar, in consequence of his wounds, he was sent back to his galley, and chained again to his bench. In a little while, however, thanks to the kind- ness of the Comite. he was given the place of secretary to the captain. This freed him from his hard service at the oar, and gave him the privilege of living in the cabin, where his duties were merely clerical. Here he remained until October, 1712, nearly four years. He was well fed, was free from his chain, with only an iron ring around his ankle. He had a good bed and perfect rest, while the others were laboring at the oars. The commander of the galley became quite fond of him, as did his nephew, the major of the six galleys, who also made the Huguenot his secretary. Marteilhe

358 CROSS AND CROWN.

exerted himself to merit their favor, and discharged his duties with an energy and efficiency which aston- ished as well as delighted them.

In the year 1712, Dunkirk was given up to the English. The French navy, however, was reduced to such straits that it was impossible for the galleys in that harbor to put to sea, and it was agreed between the French and English Governments that the galleys and the gangs of slaves should remain in that port until the spring. The English officers and soldiers of the garrison, being Protestants, manifested great inter- est in the Huguenots confined in the galleys, and came in crowds to see them, and converse with them, justly regarding them as martyrs for their religion. The Jesuit chaplains, endeavored to prevent these visits, but the English reminded the French commander that they were masters of the place, and of the galleys as long as they remained in the port. The officers urged Lord Hill, the English commander, to call the attention of Queen Anne to the sufferings of these heroic Chris- tians, and to endeavor to secure their release through her. Lord Hill sent a message to the prisoners, assuring them of his sympathy, and at the same time secretly urged the French naval commander to send all the Huguenot 'galley slaves away by sea, and even placed a vessel at his service for this purpose. The sufferings of twenty-two poor prisoners were nothing to this great English lord. He was not willing to be annoyed by the appeals of his officers in their behalf, and as he feared

JEAN MARTE1LHE. 359

that his soldiers would release them by force, and thus create fresh trouble with France, he was anxious to get them out of the way as soon as possible. Accordingly, on the 1st of October, 1712, the twenty-two Huguenot captives were placed in a fishing smack provided by Lord Hill, and furnished with a pass by him, without which she could not have left the harbor, and con- veyed to Calais, whence they were sent, loaded with chains to Havre-de-Grace. Here they were confined in the prison of the town, where they were visited by crowds of people. Many of these were Protestants, others were those who had recanted and gone over to Rome rather than suffer persecution. These new con- verts wept bitterly at the sight of the captives, and in the presence of the priests declared their sorrow for their apostasy. The priests became alarmed at this display of sympathy, and caused the Court to order the prisoners to be sent on to Paris.

They reached Paris on the 17th of November, 1712, and were imprisoned in the terrible dungeons of the Tournelle. Marteilhe describes it as the most fearful prison he had ever seen. " It is," says he, " a large dungeon, or rather a spacious cellar, furnished with huge beams of oak, placed at the distance of about three feet apart. These beams are about two feet and a half in thickness, and are so arranged and fixed in some way to the floor, that at the first sight one would take them for benches, but their use is a much more uncomfortable one. To these beams thick iron chains

360 CROSS AND CROWN.

are attached, one and a half feet in length, and two feet apart, and at the end of these chains is an iron collar. When the wretched galley slaves arrive in this dungeon, they are made to lie half down, so that their heads may rest upon the beam ; then this collar is put round their necks, closed, and riveted on an anvil with heavy blows of a hammer. As these chains with collar are about two feet apart, and as the beams are generally forty feet long, twenty men are chained to them in file. This cellar, which is round, is so large, that in this way they can chain up as many as five hundred men. There is nothing so dreadful as to behold the attitude and postures of these wretches there chained. For a man so bound cannot lie down at full length, the beam upon which his head is fixed being too high ; neither can he sit, nor stand upright, the beam being too low ; I cannot better describe the posture of such a man than by saying he is half-lying, half-sitting, part of his body being upon the stones or flooring, the other part upon this beam. . . . One hears in this horrible cavern only groans and mournful lamentations, capable of softening any other hearts than those of the ferocious officials of this terrible place. The scanty relief of uttering these lamenta- tions is even denied to the pitiable slaves, for every night five or six brutes of turnkeys form the guard in the dungeon, and they fall without mercy upon those who speak, cry, groan, or lament, barbarously striking them with huge ox-bones." Many of those confined

JEAN MARTEILHE. 361

in this awful place died, and many more who survived were injured for life by their sufferings there.

Marteilhe and his companions were chained in this barbarous manner, and kept in this position for three days, during which time, he says, they came near dying, especially the old men. At length one of their friends residing in Paris paid the governor of the prison to chain them near the window where they could enjoy the fresh air. They were then fastened to the floor by chains long enough to permit them to stand up or lie down, and this was a great relief to them.

Marteilhe had been a prisoner for twelve years, ten of which had been passed in the galleys. He was now given to understand that he and his companions were to be sent to Marseilles, to be placed in the gal- leys at that place. On the 17th of December they set out from Paris, with the rest of the gang, about four hundred in number. The galley slaves were chained by the neck in couples, with a thick chain about three feet long, in the middle of which was a round ring. After being secured by the neck, they were placed in files of two, and a long and thick chain was passed through all the rings, the whole gang being thus fast- ened together. The friends of the Huguenot captives purchased from the officer in charge of the chain an exemption for their brethren from flogging during the journey, and paid him an additional sum to provide wagons for those who should be unable to walk.

362 CROSS AND CROWN.

The chain left Paris about four o'clock in the after- noon, and halted for the night at Charenton. Here the prisoners were stripped, and kept standing for several hours in the bitter cold, while their clothing- was searched, under the pretext of looking for money, knives, files, or tools which might be used in breaking or cutting the chain. Some of the poor captives were terribly frozen, and some died on the spot. The Hu- guenots escaped unharmed. Marseilles was reached on the 17th of January, 1713, after a terrible journey of one month, during which all the convicts Buffered very greatly. The Huguenots reached their destina- tion in good health, in spite of their sufferings. " I suffered more," says Marteilhe, " than I had done dur- ing the twelve previous years of my imprisonment and servitude at the galleys."

Marteilhe was placed on board the Grande Reale, with the other Huguenots, and they made with those already on that vessel, forty galley slaves suffering on account of their religion. They were here directly under the supervision of the Jesuit missionaries. These priests exerted all their arts to make the mar- tyrs abandon their faith, and finding their efforts use- less, applied themselves to the task of rendering their lot more painful. They even undertook to force the Huguenot prisoners to fall on their knees uncovered, and remain in this attitude of devotion every time Mass was said on board the galleys, and they caused all who refused to do this to be punished with the

the after-

ton. Here standing for

ieir clothimr

in breaking

The Hu-

wDm was reached

rible journey

JEAN MARTEILHE. 363

bastinado. When this was reported to the ambassa- dors of the Protestant powers at the French Court, they addressed a remonstrance to the king. Even Louis was shocked at the cruelty of the Jesuits, and ordered its instant cessation, declaring that it had been done without his knowledge. The missionaries constantly offered pardon and liberty to the Huguenots if they would conform to the Romish Church, but their offers were always refused ; whereupon they de- clared that no Huguenot should be released until he recanted.

Meanwhile the Protestant powers of Europe were exerting themselves to secure the release of the poor captives. Their efforts were at length successful. In 1713, the Queen of England requested of the French King the release of those Huguenots who had been sent to the galleys for their religion. Under the cir- cumstances this request amounted to a demand, which Louis was in no condition to refuse. It was a dis- agreeable necessity to him, and a severe check to his Jesuit advisers. He replied with the best grace he could that the prisoners would be released on condi- tion of their leaving his dominions forever; and to- wards the end of May, 1713, orders were sent from Paris to the Governor of Marseilles to release one hundred and thirty-six of the Huguenot galley slaves, who were named in the order. There were over three hundred such sufferers in the galleys at this place, and the rest were not released until a year

3(34 CROSS AXD CROWN.

later. Marteilhe's name was on the list sent down from Paris.

The governor, upon the receipt of the order of the king, summoned the Jesuit missionaries, and communi- cated it to them. The priests were furious, and said that the king had been betrayed and over-reached, and that to release the Huguenots would be an eternal blot upon the Romish Church. They induced him to keep the order from those affected by it, for a fortnight, and at once despatched a messenger to Versailles, urging the Court to recall the order. The secret, however, leaked out, and those whose names were mentioned in the order became aware that their release had been or- dered. Three weeks passed away, but no orders came from the king to detain the captives. The missionaries were furious, and demanded of the governor another week in order to send another message to Versailles. Again they failed to receive the reply they expected, and the governor, afraid to delay any longer the execu- tion of the royal order, told them he could listen to them no longer. The king gave the released prisoners the privilege of leaving the kingdom by any means they liked, but the Jesuits induced the governor to in- form them that they would be compelled to quit France by sea. The Jesuits believed, that as the poor prison- ers would not be able to find a ship in the harbor to take them to England or Holland, they would be ob- liged to remain in Marseilles for a considerable time, during which the priests hoped to be able to devise seme means of returning them to their captivity.

JEAN MARTEILUE. 365

The governor at last communicated to the fortunate onea the order for their release, and gave them permis- sion to go about the harbor and search for a vessel to take them away. They succeeded in finding one, but the Jesuits, unable to persecute them in any other way, compelled them to go to the expense of hiring two others. They threw every obstacle in their way, and were overcome with rage and mortification at finding they could not prevent their departure. The superior of the Jesuits, Father Garcin, was so filled with anger and disappointment, that he left Marseilles, rather than witness the release and departure of his victims.

At length, on the 17th of June, 1713, Marteilhe in company with thirty-five others, comprising the detach- ment to sail in the first vessel, was formally released from his long captivity. They were detained in the harbor for three days, by unfavorable weather, and on the 21st put to sea. On the 24th they reached Villa- franca in the kingdom of Sardinia, from which place they made their way to Turin. At Turin they were admitted to an audience with King Victor Amadeus, who rendered them great assistance in their journey to Geneva, to which city they were all bound. They crossed the Alps safely, and arrived in the vicinity of Geneva on a Sunday morning.

" We wished," says Marteilhe, " to go on without stopping, so great was our ardor to be as soon as possible in a citv which we regarded as our Jerusalem. But our postilion told us that the gates of Geneva were

366

CROSS AND CROWN.

never open on Sunday till after Divine service, that is, till about four o'clock in the afternoon. We were obliged, therefore, to remain in the village till that time, when we all again mounted our horses. As we approached the town, we perceived a great concourse of people coming out of it. Our postilion appeared surprised, but was much more so when arriving at the Plain-Palais, a quarter of a league from the town, he perceived three carriages coming to meet us, surrounded by halberdiers, and an immense crowd of people of both sexes and all ages, who followed them. A servant of the magistracy now advanced towards us, and begged us to alight that we might salute with respect and de- corum their excellencies of Geneva, who came to meet us and bid us welcome. We obeyed. The three car- riages having approached, a magistrate and a minister descended from each, and came to embrace us with tears of joy, and with such pathetic expressions, con- gratulations, and praise for our constancy and resigna- tion, that they far surpassed what we deserved. ■ We replied by praising and magnifying the grace of God, which alone had sustained us in our great tribulations. After these hearty greetings, their excellencies gave permission to the people to approach. Then was seen the most touching spectacle that can be imagined, for several inhabitants of Geneva had relations at the gal- leys, and these good citizens were ignorant whether those for whom they had sighed for so many years were amongst us. As soon then, as their excellencies

JEAN MARTEILHE. 3C7

gave the people permission to approach, one heard only a confused noise : ' My son ! my husband ! my brother ! are you there?' Imagine the embraces given to those of our party who were among the recognized."

The martyrs were warmly received in Geneva, and were taken by the citizens to their homes, where they were treated with the most affectionate consideration, the good people thinking that they could not do enough to testify their regard for those who had suffered so much for their common faith. Marteilhe did not re- main long in Geneva, but fastened on to Frankfort, from which place he passed into Holland, where he ultimately settled. He was received with the warmest affection by the Dutch Church, which had become ac- quainted with his sufferings, and was always treated with the consideration to which his heroism entitled him, wherever he went. He lived to a good old age, and, having married, died, leaving a family behind him. The French Church has always cherished his memory, and still mentions with pride and veneration, the name of the boy of sixteen, who chose to go to the galleys rather than deny his faith, and there suffer persecution, rather than betray his Lord.

VII.

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE.

HE persecutions of the Protestants of France did not cease with the death of Louis XIV. Under his successor, Louis XV., some of the cruellest of their sufferings occurred. Rome being the author of their woes, it made but little difference who was king or minister, so long as the priests, and espe- cially the Jesuits, were supreme at Court. Their policy was unchanging, and they offered to the Huguenots but two alternatives, submission or death.

It was during the reign of Louis XV., towards the close of the year 1761, that the pastor Francis Rochette was arrested in the south of France for preaching the Gospel to the Huguenots of that region. When charged with his offence, he frankly acknowledged it, and was committed to prison, to await his trial. It was a ter- rible crime in the eyes of the priests to preach Jesus Christ as the only Mediator and Advocate for sinful man, and they were determined that the young minister should die.

Among the friends of the pastor were three young men of noble birth, named Grenier, who had for some time been members of his congregation, and who were

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE. 369

resolved that he should not perish if they could save him. They were fully aware of the risk they ran in attempting to rescue one who had been condemned for heresy, but they were not deterred by this consideration from making the effort. A plan was accordingly ar- ranged for the escape of the pastor, but just as it seemed on the eve of success, it was betrayed, and the three friends of the captive were themselves arrested and thrown into the prison in which their pastor lay. They were all allowed to remain there unnoticed for several months, the Jesuits hoping by means of this close con- finement to weaken their resolution, and prepare them to apostatize.

On the 17th of February 1762, they were brought to trial before the Parliament of Toulouse. They ac- knowledged that they were guilty of the charges brought against them, and were in consequence con- demned to death. The pastor was to be hanged, and the three brothers, the eldest of whom was not twenty- two years old, were to be beheaded. The sentence was to be carried into effect on the 19th of the month, two days after the trial.

The prisoners had long expected this fate, and had been for some time prepared for it, and after being re- manded to prison, devoted themselves to preparing for death. As they occupied the same cell, they were able to comfort and encourage each other with their pious exhortations and prayers. They were not left in peace, however, for they were immediately beset by a number

24

370 CROSS AND CROWN.

of priests, who came, they said, to prepare them for death, and to exhort them to be reconciled to Rome. The prisoners assured the priests that they had no need of them ; that they were ready to die, and were rejoiced to sacrifice their lives in the cause of God and the truth. The priests then renewed their efforts and as- sured the captives that they were authorized by the Attorney General to promise them their lives and liberty if they would recant. All four of the prisoners with one voice, unhesitatingly rejected this offer, and M. Rochette earnestly begged of the priests that they would put an end to their useless importunities, and not continue to trouble him and his friends in their last moments, but suffer them to die in peace, at the same time expressing to them his thanks for their well meant zeal in behalf of himself and his fellow-prisoners. One of the priests brutally told him that he would surely be damned for his obstinate refusal to listen to them. M. Rochette replied tranquilly that they were going to appear before a more equitable Judge, the Jud^e who had shed His blood for their salvation. Then turning to his fellow-captives, he exhorted them to be strong and to persevere in the true cause. An- other priest interrupted him, and said that the Church alone bad power to remit sins, and that the crime of heresy was without forgiveness unless repentance and atonement were made before death. The pastor closed the conference by telling them that the Protestant re- ligion acknowledged no such power, and looked for the

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE. 371

pardon of sins to one source only — the mercy of God, in Jesus Christ.

The priests then went away, and the Huguenot mar- tyrs gave themselves up to prayer. The soldiers ap- pointed to guard them were placed in the cell with them, as was customary in those days. Upon the conclusion of their prayers, the prisoners turned to these men, and thanked them for the kind treatment they had received from them, and asked pardon for any offence they might have given them. The soldiers overcome by this appeal, and full of sympathy for the heroic suf- ferers whose fate they sincerely deplored, burst into tears. The pastor approaching one of them, said earnestly :

"My good friend, are you not ready and willing to die for your king ? Why then do you pity me, who am going to death for God ? "

The next afternoon about one o'clock, the priests re^ turned. Having but a few hours longer to live, the prisoners were desirous of passing that time in prayer, and requested them to retire, but the priests refused.

" It is from a concern for your salvation that we are here," said they.

Upon hearing this, the youngest of the brothers Ore- nier said to them :

" If you were at Geneva, at the point of death from disease, for there nobody is put to death on account of religion, would you choose to be teased and importuned in your last moments by four or five Protestant minis-

372 CROSS AND CROWN.

ters, under the pretence of zeal for your salvation ? Do, therefore, as you would be done by."

This mild but pointed rebuke had no effect. The prisoners retired to a corner of their cell to pray, but the priests followed them, thrusting crucifixes before their faces, and annoying them with appeals and threats.

" Speak," said the eldest of the Greniers, " speak of Him who died for our sins and rose again for our justifi- cation, and we will listen to you ; but do not trouble us with your vain superstitions."

About an hour later, the officers appointed to super- intend their execution arrived at the prison, and had the martyrs brought from their dungeon to the prison yard. There they were placed in a wagon, and con- ducted under a strong escort to the gate of the Cathe- dral. Here the wagon was made to stand still, and the pastor was ordered to step to the giound, and on his knees to ask pardon of God, the king, and the law, for having continued to preach the doctrines of his religion in opposition to the royal edict. He refused twice to do this, and was then told by the officials that that which was required of him was only a formality to which every prisoner condemned to be hanged was cbliged to submit. The pastor replied that he would neither acknowledge nor submit to any formality that was contrary to the dictates of his conscience.

Upon hearing this answer the officials fell upon him, and striking him violently forced him to leave the

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE. 373

wagon. He then fell upon his knees, and clasping his hands exclaimed :

" I humbly ask of Almighty God the pardon of all my sins, in the full persuasion of obtaining the re- mission of them through the blood of Christ. With respect to the king, I have no pardon to ask of him, having never offended him. I always honored and loved him, as the father of my country. I always have been to him a good and faithful subject ; and, of this my judges themselves appeared to be fully con- vinced. I always recommended to my flock, patience, obedience, and submission. If I have acted in opposition to the laws which prohibited our religious assemblies, I did this in obedience to the laws of Him who is the King of kings. With respect to public justice, I have nothing to say, but this, that I never offended it ; and I most earnestly pray that God will vouchsafe to par- don my judges."

The officers were as much offended as astonished at these words, and declared that they were not sufficient, but that the pastor must confess his crime and ask pardon for it. The martyr, however, knowing the injustice of his sentence, and seeing the desire of his enemies to humiliate his Church as well as himself, refused to make any further confession, declaring that he had said all he intended saying, and the officers were obliged to relinquish their effort. The three noblemen having been exempted from hanging because of their rank, were not, for a similar reason, required to make any confession.

374 CROSS AND CROWN.

From the cathedral the wagon and its escort set off for the place of martyrdom. The usual place of execu- tion had not been selected for this occasion, but the scaffold had been set up in one of the smallest squares of the city, in order that only a few people should witness the tragedy. The streets from the cathedral to the scaffold were lined on both sides with troops, the authorities pretending that this precaution was neces- sary to prevent the Protestants from rescuing the pris- oners. There was no danger of this, however, for the small number of Protestant families residing in the city, had shut themselves up in their houses, where they were mourning for their martyr brethren, and praying to God to give them strength to suffer bravely for His name. There was considerable sympathy for the martyrs expressed by the Roman Catholic popula- tion, for all felt and the majority openly denounced the injustice and barbarity of the execution. The priests, however, were resolved that their victims should not escape ; but even they all powerful as they were could not prevent the expressions of sympathy with which their own people greeted the martyrs as they passed on to their death. The windows of the houses along the route and of the square overlooking the scaffold were filled with the citizens, and all along the route sobs, and cries of pity were heard from the people. " One would have thought," says a letter written the next day, "that Toulouse was, all on a sudden, become a Protestant city." One of the priests appointed to

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE. 375

accompany the martyrs to the scaffold, now became conscience stricken, and fainted away. He was re- moved, and another put in his place.

The martyrs alone were calm and cheerful. The face of the pastor was even smiling, and his compan- ions were as serene as if going to a triumph — as indeed they were. As they neared the scaffold, they broke out into the triumphant strains of the 118th Psalm :

" This is the day which the Lord hath made ; We will rejoice and be glad in it. God is the Lord who hath showed us light : Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.

" Thou art rny God, and I will praise Thee ; Thou art my God, and I will exalt Thee. O, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good ; For His mercy endureth forever."

The sobs and cries of the people redoubled, the officials turned pale, the soldiers showed signs of agitation, and even the priests were troubled. Still singing their triumphant song, the martyrs mounted the scaffold, and stood awaiting their doom.

Approaching the pastor, the executioner said to him that he was ordered to put him to death first. The man, in an agitated voice, urged him to become a Roman Catholic, and live, assuring him it was the best reli- gion. The pastor smiled, and said to him, gently :

"Judge, friend, which is the best religion, that which persecutes, or that which is persecuted." He added that his grandfather and one of his uncles had died for the pure Gospel of Christ, and that he should make the third martyr of his family.

376 CROSS AND CROWN.

Then he bade a tender farewell to his companions, and placed himself in the hands of the executioner. He was quickly bound, and the fatal noose was placed around his neck. The next moment his lifeless body was trembling in the air. His soul had passed through the dark waters of affliction to the shores of the heavenly land.

Two of the young noblemen beheld with unshaken firmness the death of their pastor and friend, but the youngest, unable to bear the sight, turned away and covered his face with his hands. The officers of the Parliament then advanced to them, and told them that they wrould receive a full pardon and their freedom if they would return to the Church of Rome. They refused, and embraced each other tenderly. The first and the second were executed. When he came to the third, the executioner, almost overcome with horror, begged him to abjure. " Do thy duty," replied the heroic boy, as he laid his head on the block. The axe gleamed in the sunlight, and the brothers and their pastor were united in Heaven.

The crowd had looked on in solemn silence, horror- stricken at the sight of the death of these innocent men. Roman Catholics as they were, they could not sanction it, and when it was all over they went home wondering if, indeed, a religion which could send such men to the scaffold was the true faith of Him who declared that His was the Gospel of love and peace.

" Wherein, then, consists the power of the martyr?"

THE MARTYRS OF TOULOUSE. 377

says a Roman Catholic orator. " It consists in his being right, and altogether right, and in being able to say, Kill me ! but ye shall not make me speak any- thing but what I now speak. I know no power in the world more formidable than that of a man strong in his convictions, and allowing himself to be put to death for his doctrines. It was thus that the salva- tion of the world began."

VIII.

FULCRAND REY.

I ENTION has been made in the sketch of Claude Brousson, of the young pastor Fulcrand Rey, V~$ who gave up his life for his faith at the early age of twenty-four years. He was born at Nismes, of Huguenot parents, and was from his child- hood devoted to the sacred ministry. His parents were aware of the risk attending the exercise of the ministerial functions of the Huguenot pastors, but they were willing that their son should brave all in the cause of the truth. Young Rey himself was well in- formed from his boyhood of the trials and afflictions which encompassed the path he was to tread, but he became only the more anxious, in spite of this, to de- vote himself to the sacred task of carrying the Gospel to those who were deprived of it. As he became old enough, he applied himself with enthusiasm to the studies which were to fit him for his sacred profession. His ardent and zealous temperament well qualified him for the life of danger he was to lead, and his native eloquence, as well as the unusual sweetness and firmness of his disposition, foreshadowed him as one destined to do a good work in the Church. In due time

378

FVLCRAND BEY. 379

his studies were completed, and he was ordained a minister of Christ according to the forms of the Pro- testant Church in France.

During his period of preparation, he was constantly a hearer of the accounts of the sufferings of his brethren in the faith in France, and was deeply moved by the stories of sorrow and suffering which thus reached him. But what touched him most of all was the spiritual desolation of the Church. The persecution had become so fierce that it was with difficulty that ministers could perform the duties of their office even in secret, and where there were pastors in readiness to discharge their functions, the people could scarcely be gotten together for pur- poses of worship, so greatly had they been scattered. Especially was this so in the South of France. Ful- crand Rey felt from the first that his mission was to gather these scattered sheep together in one fold, and minister to them as their faithful shepherd. Imme- diately after his ordination he began his labors. He went first into Upper Languedoc and Guienne, where he was a stranger, and where the risk of recognition by the Jesuits and their emissaries was not as great as in the neighborhood of Nismes, intending to acquire in this comparatively sheltered section the experience which would fit him for the more dangerous field upon which he meant to enter somewhat later. He did not meet with the success he anticipated at first, for the people were so much alarmed by the merciless cruelty

380 CROSS AND CROWN.

with which the French Church had been treated by the Romanists that they were afraid to assemble for worship, or even to listen to the exhortations, or follow the counsels of the young minister. They were un- willing even to provide him with a place of refuge, being afraid of the priests and the dragoons. Though greatly discouraged, the pastor did not abandon his efforts altogether. By repeated exertions he succeeded in gathering together two or three small assemblies of the faithful, being assisted in his labors by two Pro- testant gentlemen, who were themselves seeking con- cealment from the Roman Catholics, who were endeav- oring to arrest them for having refused to adopt the Romish religion. The prospect was not encouraging, however, and the people were not willing to give the pastor a permanent shelter, so he was at length obliged to abandon the undertaking.

From Upper Languedoc, he went back to the neigh- berhood of Nismes. He was affectionately received by the brethren there, who being bolder and more zealous than those to whom he had first addressed himself, readily responded to his appeals. Several congrega- tions were formed in a short time, and the young pastor served them alternately, preaching and minis- tering to them regularly. In the midst of his labors he was betrayed by a wretch whom he had taken into his confidence, and who was thus made fully acquainted with his plans, his habits, and the places he frequented. The dragoons were at once put upon his track, and

FUL CRA ND BEY. 3g X

though he received timely warning, they pressed him so closely that he had great difficulty in escaping them. He and his friends regarded his escape as providential, as indeed it was, for nothing but the hand of God could have rescued him from the toils which had been so cunningly laid for him. He retired into Languedoc, and from that province passed into Albigeois, but his enemies followed him so watchfully that he was finally obliged to return to the vicinity of Nismes. Upon arriving there, he found it impossible to continue his pastoral labors. The Komanists had greatly increased their vigilance, and it was impossible for the Protest- ants to meet at all without being attacked and killed or captured by the dragoons. More than this, the priests and their spies were so watchful that a Hugue- not could not appear in public without being marked by them, and M. Rey's friends urged him to remain in close concealment, since to venture abroad was to invite certain capture. Much against his inclination, he was compelled to follow this advice. It was impos- sible for him to do any good, as he could not reach the brethren to whom he wished to minister, and he could confer no benefit upon the Church by needlessly incur- ring danger. Nevertheless, he was resolved not to be idle. From his place of concealment he addressed elo- quent letters to his suffering brethren confined in the prisons of the province, urging them to bear their suf- ferings bravely, and to endure everything for the sake of the Saviour who died for them. He implored them

382 CROSS AND CROWN.

not to desert their faith, but to remember that their afflictions here on earth would be as nothing compared with their reward in Heaven. These letters were con- veyed to their destination by trusty messengers, and they had the desired effect. Many of those who were wavering, were encouraged to persevere, and others who were resolute in their intention to die for Christ felt themselves made stronger and braver by the coun- sels and consolations of the young pastor.

While he was thus occupied, M. Rey was called from his retirement, and asked to go into the Ceven- nes, where there was a large body of Huguenots who were greatly in need of a pastor. The post thus offered to him was one of great danger, and it was almost certain that he who accepted it would find it but a stepping-stone to a martyr's grave. Baville, the cruel Intendant or Governor of Languedoc, was waging a merciless war upon the Huguenots of the Cevennes, and was hunting them with his troops through the mountains and compelling them to live in caves, in the woods, and in the most inaccessible mountain gorges. There was scarcely a day but witnessed the violent death of some Cevenol Christian at the hands of the creatures of the Jesuit rulers of France, and it was the boast of the Roman Catholics that the war would be carried on until the last heretic had recanted or been put to death. These considerations did not deter Ful- crand Rey. It was enough for him that there was a band of fellow Christians in need of a pastor and will-

FULCRAND IiEY. 383

ing to brave any danger in order to worship God as their consciences required. He would go to them, serve them as long as he could, and if it should please God to call upon him to glorify his Master by his suf- ferings, he would lay down his life with joy.

He accepted the call, but appreciating the magni- tude of the danger he was incurring, he was unwilling to subject his father or himself to the pain of a per- sonal adieu. He accordingly wrote to him, announc- ing his acceptance of the call to the Cevennes, and setting before him plainly the risk which would accom- pany his labors there. He entreated him to prepare himself for the early martyrdom of his son ; and told him that his conscience required him to go, and if necessary to sacrifice himself for God, and for the interests of the Church. He said he was entirely resigned to the will of his heavenly Master, in what- ever way He might see fit to dispose of him ; and he exhorted his father not to murmur, in case he should hear that he was arrested, but to endure patiently all the sufferings it should please God to send him.

Upon reaching the Cevennes, he at once entered upon his labors. He found the people not only will- ing, but anxious to hear him, and he preached to them constantly, moving them profoundly with his wonder- ful eloquence. His preaching was attended with great success, and crowds flocked to listen to him. The effect of his labors was visible in the increased zeal and heroism of the Huguenots. The number of apos-

384 CROSS AND CROWN.

tates decreased, while the number of martyrs increased. The priests were quick to perceive this, and upon seek- ing to ascertain the cause, learned of the presence and labors of M. Rey. A price was at once set upon his head, and efforts were made to secure him.

At this time he was lying concealed in the house of a tanner, in the suburbs of Anduze. His place of retreat was known to only a few of his friends, but one of these, tempted by the reward offered for the appre- hension of the pastor, determined to betray him. He accordingly conducted the royal officers to the house of the tanner, which they quickly surrounded with troops. M. Rey, seeing that escape was impossible, at once surrendered himself. He was seized by the dragoons, and dragged with great violence before a magistrate, by whom he was sent to prison until the pleasure of the Government concerning him could be known. The dragoons were stationed at the door of his cell, with orders to keep him constantly in view, lest he should find some means of escaping. He was not kept long at Anduze, but was speedily transferred to the prison of Alez. Here he was visited by a num- ber of monks who endeavored to induce him to recant. He repelled them gently, but firmly, telling them he had no need of them. At Alez he underwent his pre- liminary examination. He frankly acknowledged that he had preached often to his Huguenot brethren, and at every place where he could find persons willing to listen to him. The magistrates then demanded of him

FULCRAXb BET.

the names of those who had I his pi

and the exact localities at which the assemblies had been held. He refused to r these q

I anything that would compromise his friends. ■ - metered Li in to be conveyed to

to be tried by the I sitting at ice.

His father and nearly all his relation -

j, and M. Rev that ti. ight in a

moment of weak . ss seek to i i to save his

life at the sacrifice of his faith. This he was resolved not to do. and he wished to sai iself the anguish

ofm- - bis father or any laves, to whom

- tenderly attached. He therefore earnestly en- treated of t. er who conducted him to Nisrnes that he might not be permitted to see his father or any of his relative- : and begged him simply to - ly to them that he was entirely 1 to the will of God. and would endure his Bufferings with firmness and constancy.

B ing brought before the Court of Nismes. he an- il readily all questions concerning himself, but d to compromise any of his friends. The Court then decided that he should be put to death, but as there were a great many Protestants at Nismes. who would be witnesses of the martyrdom, and who could

■

not fail to be influenced by it. the judges decided that

bonld be executed at Beaucaire. a Catholic town,

four I . - from Nismes. He was at once transferred

to the prison of that place to await his final exaniina-

25

386

CROSS AND CROWN.

tion and sentence. He was visited by many monks and other persons, who came to urge him to abjure and live, but all met with the same answer. One of his visitors was Baville, the bloodthirsty Intendant. He seems to have been moved by the calm heroism of the young pastor, and coming to his cell, he took him aside, and begged him to have pity on himself. He told him he would at once give him his life and liberty if he would recant, but would be compelled to put him to death if he clung to his heresy. The young pastor answered him as he had the monks, that he preferred death to life on such conditions.

At length he was taken before his judges for his final examination, and the Intendant again urged him to accept the offer of life held out to him, for even this monster wished to save the young hero.

" M. Rey," said he, " there is yet time to save your- self."

" Yes, my lord," replied M. Rey, " and I will em- ploy for my salvation the time that remains to me."

" It is only necessary to change," continued the In- tendant, " and you shall live."

" It is indeed necessary to change," said the pastor ; " but it is in going from earth to heaven, where a life of happiness awaits me, which I shall soon possess."

"I will readily grant you your life if you will change your religion," said Baville.

" Do not promise me this miserable life ! " exclaimed the pastor ; " I am entirely weaned from it. Death is

FULCRAND BEY. 387

better than life for me. If I had feared death, I should not have been here. God has given me a knowledge of His truth, and He will give me grace to profess it constantly unto death. For all the treas- ures in the world I would not renounce those which God has prepared for me in paradise."

He was then sent back to prison, but was brought before the Court again the next day. He was asked by the Intendant if he had preached.

" Yes, my lord," was the reply .

" Where have you preached ? " asked Baville.

" I have preached," he answered, " in all places where I have found the assemblies of the faithful."

" Do you not know that the king has forbidden the Huguenots to preach?" asked the Intendant.

" The King of kings," replied the pastor, " hiid com- manded me to do it, and it is right to obey God rather than man."

The Intendant again asked him to tell the places where the assemblies had been held, and to reveal the names of those who had attended them ; but he again refused to answer any questions on this subject. In vain the judges exerted all their ingenuity to make him betray his brethren. His lips were firmly closed, and they could extort nothing from him. He was then sent back to prison, and his judges proceeded to pass sentence upon him. He was condemned to be tortured upon the rack for the purpose of compelling him to reveal the names of those who had attended his preaching, and

388 CROSS AND CROWJUT.

then to be hanged. The sentence was then placed in the hands of a commissary, whose duty it was to com- municate it to the prisoner.

The commissary found M. Rey in his cell engaged in prayer. The heroic conduct of the young man had excited the interest of this official, and he was anxious to save him. He informed him of the purpose of his visit, and, before communicating to him the sentence of the Court, begged him once more to think of himself.

" I have thought," replied M. Rey, " and my resolu- tion is taken. It is no longer a question of deliberation. I am quite ready to die, if God has so ordained it. All the promises which may be made to me can never shake my constancy."

The commissary gazed at him for a moment in silent admiration, and then read the sentence to him, his voice faltering with emotion as he pronounced the fatal words. M. Rey heard him in silence, and with an unmoved countenance.

" They treat me," he said, " more mildly than my Saviour was treated. I had prepared myself to be broken on the wheel, or burnt alive." Then raising his eyes to heaven, he exclaimed : " I return Thee thanks, Lord of heaven and earth, for the many benefits Thou hast bestowed upon me. I thank Thee that Thou hast counted me worthy to suffer for Thy name, and to die for Thee ; and I thank Thee also that Thou hast called me to suffer a death so mild, after having disposed me to endure the most cruel death for love of Thee."

FULCRA ND REY. 389

At the appointed time, he was bound upon the rack, and the torture was applied with the utmost severity. The martyr bore it all unflinchingly ; not a cry nor a groan escaped his lips, though his poor body was almost wrenched asunder. His tormentors plied him incessantly with questions, but he would make no reply except that he had answered all, and had no more to say. At length, finding it useless to torment him further, they released him, and, their humanity asserting itself, exerted them- selves to soothe his hurts. He said to them, with a smile :

" I have scarcely suffered. I believe that you have suffered more than I have. I protest to you, I have scarcely felt any pain."

Though he had but a few hours to live, they offered him food, to revive his strength. He did not refuse it, but ate tranquilly. During his repast, he said to them :

" Others eat to live, and I eat to die. This is the last repast I shall take on earth ; but in heaven there is a banquet prepared, to which I am invited, and angels will this night conduct me to it. Glorified spirits will soon carry me away to participate with them in the joys of Paradise."

He was carried back to his cell, where he was at once visited by a number of monks, who prevented him from giving himself up to prayer, as he wished, by their argu- ments and persuasions. He sometimes argued with them, utterly confounding them, and again he would pay no attention to them, but would utter a fervent

390 CROSS AND CROWN.

prayer, or sing a favorite psalm. The monks were so deeply touched by the constancy of the young hero that they could not restrain their tears.

In the evening the officials came to conduct him to the place of execution. Two monks presented them- selves also, and said they had come to comfort him in his last hours. He begged them to leave him in peace.

" I have no need of you," he said ; " I have a more faithful comforter within me."

" But do you not wish that we should accompany you?" said one of the monks.

"No," replied the martyr; " I have the company of angels, who are about my person, and who have pro- mised that they will be with me to my latest breath."

The mouks would not be refused, however; and though they ceased to exhort him, they walked on either side of him to the scaffold, and there saw how a martyr could die.

The streets of the town were crowded with people, assembled to see the pastor go by. They beheld with wonder and awe the joyful countenance and triumphant mien of the victim of priestly tyranny. Glancing around, M. Rey beheld several persons of his acquaint- ance, who had abjured the Protestant religion. He greeted them kindly, but they burst into uncontrollable weeping.

" Weep not for me," he said, earnestly ; u weep for yourselves. I shall very soon be delivered from the

FULURAND BEY. 39 j

sufferings of this world, but I leave you behind. Re- pent, and God will have mercy on you."

They led him out of the town by the gate of Beau- regarde, beyond which the gallows had been erected. As he came in sight of it, he broke forth into a trans- port of joy.

" Courage ! courage ! " he exclaimed, clasping his hands. " This is the place which I have so long de- sired, and for which God himself has prepared me. I see the heavens open to receive me, and angels prepared to bear me away."

As he came nearer to the scaffold, he began to sing a psalm, but the officer commanding the guard com- pelled him to be silent. Having reached the foot of the scaffold, he exclaimed :

" 0, how favorable is this ladder to me ; it will serve me as a step to mount to heaven."

Then he knelt down, and continued a long time in prayer, repeating aloud at intervals portions of the fifty- first psalm. Upon the conclusion of his prayer he rose to his feet, and with firmness and composure climbed up the ladder to the platform of the scaffold. One of the monks attempted to follow him, but the martyr waved him back.

" I have already said," he exclaimed, " and I tell }-ou again, that I have no need of your assistance. I have received enough from my God to enable me to take the last step in my career."

Then turning to the people gathered about the scaf-

392 CROSS AND CROWN.

fold, and who were all Catholics, he attempted to ad- dress them ; but his voice was drowned in the rattle of the drums that were beaten to prevent his being heard. Perceiving that it was useless to attempt to speak, he delivered himself to the executioner. The rope was adjusted, and the next moment the lifeless body of the martyr was swinging between heaven and earth. The crowd witnessed the sad scene with deep emotion, and there were not wanting Roman Catholics in Beaucaire that night who declared with boldness that he died a martyr.

Thus passed to the Kingdom of God, on the 7th of July, 1686, one of the purest and most gifted of the Huguenot martyrs.

PART III

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS.

i.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

Introduction of Christianity into Great Britain — The early British Church — St. Patrick — The Church of Iona — Gregory the Great sends Augustine to England — Conversion of the King of Kent — Designs of Rome against the British Church — Resistance of the Britons — The Revenge of Rome — Estab- lishment of the Papal Supremacy in England — Efforts of the English to retain their Liberty — King John's Submission to the Pope — The Parliament asserts the Rights of the King and TnE People — The early Reformers — John Wycliffe — State of the Romish Church at this Period — Doctrines and Labors of Wycliffe — His Persecutions — The Bible first given to the People— The Romish Clergy try to take the Bible from them — The Gospel preached in England — Death of Wycliffe — The Lollards — The first Persecution in England — Cruelty of the Romish Clergy — Martyrdom of Lord Cobham — Other Martyrs — Reign of Henry VIII. — Henry's Desires induce him to assist the Reformers — Explanation of the Support given by Henry to the Reformation— Fall of Wolsey— Cromwell and Cranmer — The King declares himself head of the Church — The Rup- ture with Rome— The Effect of the Circulation of the Bible — Spread of the Reformation — The Bible made Free — Tricks of the Romanists — The Nun of Kent— Suppression of the Convents — Shameful Condition of the Religious Houses — The ne-vy Articles of Religion — The Roman Catholic Insur- rection— Tricks of the Priests exposed to the Paople — The Pope excommunicates Henry— The Interdict— The Martyrs of this Reign— The Six Articles — Bishop Gardiner— His Ef-

395

396 CROSS AND CROWN.

FORTS TO DESTROY QUEEN CATHARINE — MARTYRDOM OP ANNE

Askew — Death op Henry— Edward VI. — The boy King — Pro- gress of the Reformation— The Work of Cranmer — Changes in the Church — Death of Edward— Bloody Mary — Her Char- acter—The Queen a Romanist — The Romish Religion restored — Flight of the Protestant Clergy — The Burning op John Rogers— The Reign of Terror begun — Martyrdoms during this Reign — Tyranny of the Queen and Cruelties of the Clergy— The People come to hate the Queen — Horrors of the Reign of Romanism — Martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer — The Scene in St. Mary's Church — Death of the Victim — Ef- fect of this Martyrdom — Bonner's last Victims — Hatred of the Queen — Her Death — Accession of Elizabeth — The Refor- mation ACCOMPLISHED — THE NEW BlSHOPS — PLOTS OF THE ROMANISTS

— Reign of James II. — Final Failure of Romanism in England.

[j T is certain that Christianity was planted in Great Britain within three centuries after the death of Christ. By whom it was introduced is un- certain, but that it existed there we have abundant evidence. It is believed that many Chris- tians, fleeing from persecution on the Continent, took refuge in Britain, that many prisoners of war taken by the Romans were converted during their captivity, and that there were Christian soldiers in the Roman armies stationed in the island. By the end of the second century there were many Christian churches in Great Britain. They were mainly in the northern and western portions of England and in Scotland. " These churches were formed after the Eastern type — the Britons would have refused to receive the type of that of Rome, whose yoke they detested." Under the Emperor Diocletian, they endured a severe persecution, which drove them almost entirely from the south of England into the north and into Scotland.

■**•«

0? Asa

.^-HoCh*

■ ^m-BoEEORs op

llt,"»PtKlXKEB-

- ":cra-Er

m planted in Great na liter the death

-

AND.

'

I

"

lw

they endured a severe persecution, which drove Li almost entirely from the south of England into t. north and into Scotland.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 397

In the year of our Lord 372, there was born on the banks of the Clyde, near the present city of Glasgow, of British parentage, a youth named Succat. His father, Calpurnius, was a deacon of the church of Bonavern, and his mother, Conchessa, was the sister of the famous Martin, Archbishop of Tours. The boy, after an event- ful youth, became a powerful preacher of the Gospel, and was the means of introducing Christianity into the neighboring island of Ireland. He is known in history as St. Patrick.

In 449, Hengist and Horsa and their Saxon followers became masters of England, and the British Christians were obliged to seek refuge in the mountains of Wales and the wild moors of Northumberland and Cornwall. Here, and in parts of Scotland, the pure faith continued to exist, but the greater portion of the British dominions remained pagan.

Two centuries after St. Patrick, Columba, one of the princes of Ireland, resolved to become a missionary, and accordingly crossed with several companions from Ire- land to Scotland, in which country he had resolved to preach the Word of God. He landed on the little island of Iona, or Icolmkill, one of the Hebrides group, which lies off the south-west extremity of the Isle of Mull, and finding there a number of British Christians, called Culdees, who had taken refuge in the place, fixed his abode among them. He passed to the mainland on his missionary tour, and was eminently successful in his preaching. The king of the Picts and many of his

398 CROSS AND CROWN.

people were converted, and Iona became one of the primitive strongholds of the Christian faith. A school of theology was established there, in which the Word of God was studied, and from which missionaries, full of zeal, were sent out to Britain and to the Continent. These zealous preachers penetrated into the Low Coun- tries, into Gaul, Switzerland, Germany, and even into Italy. " The free church of the Scots and Britons," says D'Aubigne, " did more for the conversion of cen- tral Europe than the half-enslaved Church of Rome."

" The sages of Iona," continues the same writer, " knew nothing of transubstantiation, or of the with- drawal of the cup in the Lord's Supper, or of auricular confession, or of prayers for the dead, or tapers, or in- cense ; they celebrated Easter on a different day from Rome ; synodal assemblies regulated the affairs of the Church, and the papal supremacy was unknown."

During all this while the Roman Church had been almost imperceptibly falling away from the faith of the apostles, and taking to itself additions devised by man. Forgetting the example of the Master, who declared that His kingdom was not of this world, it had fairly entered upon its attempt to bring the whole world into subjection to it. Little by little the Pope had increased his pretensions, and little by little had his efforts been crowned with success. The Continent did not present a field wide enough for the ambition of the Pontiff, and it was not long before Great Britain claimed his attention.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 399

In 590 Gregory L, called the Great, came to the Papal throne. Before his elevation to this dignity his compassion had been aroused by the beauty of some Anglo Saxon slaves, exposed for sale in Rome, and he had conceived an ardent desire to convert to Christi- anity the nation to which these captives belonged. When he became Pope he put this plan into execution, for the double purpose of converting the Saxon con- querors of Britain, and of extending the supremacy of Rome over the ancient British Church. An opportune occasion soon presented kself.

Ethelbert, King of Kent, married a Christian prin- cess of Frankish descent. Gregory resolved to make this marriage the occasion of sending his missionaries into Britain. In order to secure the assistance of the two kings of the Franks, Theodoric and Theodebert, he pretended to regard them as the rightful sovereigns of Britain, and commended to them the conversion of their subjects. The grandmother of these kings was the notorious Brunehilda, whose debaucheries, crimes, and treacheries form a dark page in the history of her country. To secure her aid, Gregory warmly com- mended her for her good works and godly fear.

The missionary selected by the Pope was a monk named Augustine, a personal friend of Gregory, and a man well fitted for the task confided to him. He was a pious man, but he mingled with this trait a vast amount of superstition. He was zealous and devoted, but he was also cunning and unscrupulous. He was a

400 CROSS AND CROWN.

man of unbounded ambition, and was so filled with spiritual pride that Gregory often exhorted him to be more humble. Augustine believed that the authority and power of the Church of Rome were to be considered above all other things. These acknowledged, piety and the other attributes of Christianity would follow.

He landed in Britain in 597, and succeeded in per- suading the King of Kent to receive him and his companions. This accomplished, he began his preach- ing, and was so successful that the king and many of his subjects were converted. Augustine baptized ten thou- sand of them in one day. He established himself at Canterbury, and was appointed by the Pope Arch- bishop not only of the Saxons but also of the free Britons. The religion which he taught differed materi- ally from that which the British Church had received from its founders. Augustine brought with him many of the errors of Rome, such as purgatory for instance, of which the Britons had never heard before.

As soon as he had securely established himself in England, Augustine commenced to put into execution the papal plan for the subjugation of the British Church. His first effort was directed against the Church of Bangor, in North Wales. His demand was : '; Acknowledge the authority of the Bishop of Rome." Dionoth, the bishop of the Welsh Church, replied simply : " We desire to love all men ; and what we do for you we will do for him also whom ye call the Pope. But he is not entitled to call himself the father of

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 401

fathers; and the only submission which we can render him is that which we owe to every Chiristian."

Augustine, undismayed by this check, convoked, in 601, a general assembly of the British and Saxon bishops. The meeting was held under an oak tree, near Wigornia. Augustine here repeated his demands. Dionoth again refused with firmness to make the required submission. He was sustained by another Briton, who protested against the presumption of the Romans, who claimed for their consecration a virtue which they denied to that of Iona or the Asiatic churches. A third declared, " The Britons cannot submit either to the haughtiness of the Romans or the tyranny of the Saxons." Augustine exerted all his powers of persuasion and exhausted his prayers and censures, but the Britons were firm. The Scotch were particularly inflexible, and the first Papal Legate was obliged to acknowledge himself beaten. He tried once again, however, but was told by the British bishops that they acknowledged no Master but Christ. Fin- ally, Augustine told them haughtily : " If you will not receive brethren who bring you peace, you shall receive enemies who will bring you war. If you will not unite with us in showing the Saxons the way of life, you shall receive from them the stroke of death." Thus early was the true policy of Rome declared in England.

" Shortly after the death of Augustine, Edelfrid, nne of the Anglo-Saxon kings who was still a heathen,

26

402 CROSS AXD CROWN.

collected a numerous army and advanced toward Bangor, the centre of British Christianity. Alarm spread through those feeble churches. They wept and prayed. The sword of Edelfrid drew nearer. The magnitude of the danger seemed to recall the Britons to their pristine piety ; not to men, but to the Lord himself will they turn their thoughts. Twelve hun- dred and fifty servants of the living God, calling to mind what are the arms of Christian warfare, after preparing themselves by fasting, met together in a retired spot to send up their prayers to God. A British chief, named Brocmail, moved by tender compassion, stationed himself near them with a few soldiers ; but the cruel Edelfrid, observing from a distance this band of kneeling Christians, demanded : ' Who are these people, and what are they doing ? ' On being informed, he added : l They are fighting, then, against us, although unarmed;' and immediately he ordered his soldiers to fall upon the prostrate crowd. Twelve hun- dred of them were slain. They prayed and they died. The Saxons forthwith proceeded to Bangor, the chief seat of Christian learning, and razed it to the ground. Romanism was triumphant in England. The news of these massacres filled the country with weeping and great mourning; but the priests of Romish consecra- tion (and the venerable Bede shared their sentiments) beheld in this cruel slaughter the accomplishment of the prophecy of the ' holy pontiff' Augustine ; and a national tradition among the Welsh for many ages

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 403

pointed to him as the instigator of this cowardly butchery. Thus did Rome loose the savage Pagan against the primitive Church of Britain, and fastened it, all dripping with blood, to her triumphal car." *

We cannot here follow the long and determined struggle between Rome and the British Church, or

CO j

describe the means by which the former triumphed. What has been written is sufficient to show that Great Britain did not owe its christianization to Rome, and that the British Church submitted to the foreign priest- hood unwillingly, and only when it could no longer defend itself against the papal aggression. England never rested entirely easy under the supremacy of Rome. At almost every period of her history we see some bold spirit asserting the independence of his country against the ecclesiastical tyranny which over- shadowed it. Nor did Rome allow her yoke to rest lightly upon the English. In no country was the rep- resentative of the Pope as proud and haughty as in this island, and nowhere did he encounter such a de- termined opposition as here. When Innocent III. laid the kingdom under an interdict in the reign of King John, he roused a spirit in the English people which never entirely died out. The whole nation resented the pusillanimous conduct of the king in his final sur- render to the Pope, and rightly attributed all the

* D'Aubignfs History of the Reformation, p. 566. Edition pub- lished by the Keligious Tract Society of London.

404 CROSS AND CROWN.

horrors of the bloody wars between the king and the barons to the meddling of Rome. When the news of the signing of the famous Magna Charta by King John reached Rome, Innocent declared with an oath that the Great Charter should not stand. The Pope delibe- rately arrayed himself against this foundation of modern liberty, and set his successors an example which they diligently followed in all subsequent times. He declared the Charter null, and forbade the king to observe it. He ordered the barons to apologize to the king for forcing him to sign the Charter, and to send a deputation to Rome to learn from the Pope himself what the government of England should be. The spirit of free England took fire. " Is it the Pope's business to regulate temporal matters ? " exclaimed the indignant barons. " By what right do vile usurers and foul Simoniacs domineer over our country, and excommunicate the whole world ? " The barons swore to maintain the Charter, and war ensued. The king, sustained by the Romish clergy, carried fire and slaughter throughout the realm, and finally triumphed. The triumph of Rome was brief, however. The king died, and his successors proved anything but pliant vassals of the Pope.

The barons, though beaten, had secured the liberties of England by their Great Charter. During this reign England also lost her foreign possessions, and from that time gave more attention to her own domestic affairs than she had ever done before. The Norman and

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 405

Saxon races, laying aside by degrees their old hostility, became gradually one people. The language took a definite shape, institutions of learning were founded, the laws became more exact and equitable, the founda- tion of the free institutions of the country was laid, and England began that wonderful career of greatness and power which forms so important a portion of European history. Her armies were successful on the Continent, and her ships began to appear in every sea. The spirit of independence grew with the power and strength of the kingdom. The English were especially jealous of Papal interference, never having forgotten or forgiven the events of the Barons' War. The com- mon law was the great shield of the nation, and upon this they received all the blows of Rome. The Pope, fearing the consequences of this independence, labored actively to bring the English into subjection to the Holy See, but the free islanders would not tolerate his interference in the affairs of their kingdom. As early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, an Eng- lishman having brought to London a bull of the Pope, excommunicating certain persons, was tried and con- victed of treason — his treason consisting of being in- strumental in inflicting upon one of the king's subjects a punishment not warranted by the common law. In 1350, Parliament enacted the Statute of Provisors, which made void every ecclesiastical appointment contrary to the rights of the king, the chapters, or the patrons. This wise statute effectually prevented the

406 CROSS AND CROWN.

Pope from filling the ecclesiastical dignities of the land with foreigners and creatures entirely subservient to him. The Pope was greatly alarmed at this step, but wisely acquiesced in it, hoping to find means to keep the English clergy faithful to Rome.

It was the custom in all Catholic countries to appeal from the judgment of civil and ecclesiastical tribunals to the Pope. During the reign of Edward III. and Richard II. stringent laws, known as the Statute of Praemunire, were passed. By these laws all appeals from the tribunals of England to the court of Rome, all bulls from the Pope, all excommunications and all acts which claimed a supremacy over the king and the tribunals of England, were forbidden. All persons who should bring such documents into the realm, or receive or publish them were to be punished as traitors to their sovereign. England thus emphatically declared that she was her own mistress, and the firm protector of her people's liberties. The Pope was much incensed by this Act, and bitterly denounced it.

While the king and Parliament thus resisted the visible tyranny of Rome, there were not wanting from time to time, evidences that the nation was weary of the spiritual tyranny of the Pope. Such men as Gros- tete, Sewal, Bradwardine, and others, though they appeared at periods remote from each other, and ac- complished nothing definite, furnish indisputable proof that the Anglican Church was not satisfied with the faith of Rome, and that it contained, even at this early

TEE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 4Q7

period, the seeds that were one day to ripen into the Reformation. This feeling of discontent deepened, and took a very definite shape under Wycliffe, the disciple of Bradwardine.

John Wycliffe was born in a village of Yorkshire, in 1324, and was trained to the priesthood. He was educated at Oxford, and was a student of Merton College, where he attended the lectures of Bradwar- dine. A terrible plague which broke out in England in 1348, having roused him to a sense of his spiritual condition, he began the systematic and diligent study of the Bible. He not only drew great comfort from the knowledge which he thus obtained of the Scrip- tures, but his eyes were opened by degrees to the errors of Rome, and he came to have a clearer concep- tion of the true faith of our Saviour Christ than was held by any man in England at that day. He was not willing to keep this precious knowledge to himself, but resolved to make it known to others that they might share in the comfort it had brought to him. He was aware of the opposition he would encounter from the clergy whose system he was about to attack, and he began with caution. In 1361 he was made warden of Balliol and in 1365 warden of Canterbury College also. He was a man of profound learning, a popular teacher, and the most eloquent orator of his day. He was master of the theology of the Church, and as well versed in the truths of the Holy Scriptures. He became bolder after succeeding to the dignities men-

408 CROSS AND CROWN.

tioned, publicly declared that the clergy had banishecj

the Scriptures, and demanded that the Word of God should once more be set up as the chief authority in the Church. He supported his demand by eloquent and forcible sermons, and soon drew to himself a num- ber of followers.

He was now forty years old, and was about to take his stand as the champion of the liberties of his coun- try. Before considering this part of his career, it will be necessary to explain the actual state of the Romish religion in England at this period.

As upon the continent, the Church of Rome had become very corrupt in England. It had departed so far from the standard of the Apostles that it could no longer base its claims upon the Scriptures alone. To sustain it in its pretensions it set up its traditions, which were mainly of its own invention, and taught that these were of equal authority with the Word of God. The Scriptures being in the Latin tongue, were utterly unknown to the people, who had thus no oppor- tunity of testing the claims of Rome, and the Church endeavored to keep the Bible from those who could read it, lest they should detect and rebel against its impos- tures. The Saviour was declared to be only one of the mediators between God and man, and a host of saints was placed almost on an equality with him, and the faithful were commanded to address their prayers to those who had been mere men like themselves. The relics of sacred articles and holy persons were made

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 409

objects of adoration. "The poor fragments of mor- tality, a skull, a bone, or the fragment of a bone, a tooth, or a tongue, were either mounted or set, accord- ing to the size, in gold or silver, deposited in costliest shrines of the finest workmanship, and enriched with the most precious gems. Churches soon began to vie with each other in the number and variety of these imaginary treasures, which were sources of real wealth to their possessors. The instruments of our Lord's crucifixion were shown (the spear and the cross hav- ing, so it was pretended, been miraculously discovered), the clothes wherein he was wrapt in infancy, the man- ger in which he was laid, the vessels in which he con- verted water into wine at the marriage feast, the bread which he brake at the last supper, his vesture for which the soldiers cast lots. Such was the impudence of Romish fraud, that portions were produced of the burning bush, of the manna which fell in the wilder- ness, of Moses' rod and Samson's honey-comb, of Tobit's fish, of the blessed Virgin's milk, and of our Saviour's blood. Enormous prices were paid by sove- reigns for such relics ; it was deemed excusable not to covet merely, but to steal them; and if the thieves were sometimes miraculously punished, they were quite as often enabled by miracle to effect the pious robbery, and bring the prize in triumph to the church for which it was designed. In the rivalry of deceit which the desire for gain occasioned, it often happened that the head of the same saint was shown in several places, each church

410 CROSS AND CROWN.

insisting that its own was genuine, and all appealing to miracles as the test

" The monks and clergy promoted every fantastic theory, and every vulgar superstition, that could be made gainful to themselves; and devised arguments for them, which they maintained with all the subtlety of scholastic logic. Having thus introduced a polythe- ism little less gross than that of the heathens, and an actual idolatry, they hung about their altars (as had also been the custom in heathen temples) pictures recording marvellous deliverances, and waxen models of diseased or injured parts, which had been healed by the saint to whose honor they were suspended. Cases enough were afforded by chance and credulity, as well as by impostors of a lower rank ; and the persons by whom this practice was encouraged, were neither scru- pulous on the score of decency, nor of truth. Church vied with church, and convent with convent, in the reputation of their wonder-working images, some of which were pretended to have been made without hands, and some to have descended! from Heaven. . . .

" While the monastic orders contended with each other in exaggerating the fame of their deified patri- archs, each claimed the Virgin Mary for its especial patroness. Some peculiar favor she had bestowed upon each. She had appointed their rule of life, or devised the pattern of their habit; or enjoined them some new practice of devotion, or granted them some singular privilege. She had espoused their founder with a ring,

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 41 1

or fed him like a babe at her breast! (it is fitting and necessary that this abominable system of imposture should be displayed !) — and each of the popular orders had been assured by revelation, that the place in Heaven for its departed members was under her skirts. All, therefore, united in elevating her to the highest rank in the mythology of the Romish Church, for so in strict truth must this enormous system of fable be designated. They traced her in types throughout the Old Testament; she was the tree of life; the ladder which Jacob had seen leading from Heaven to earth ; the ever-burning bush ; the ark of the covenant ; the rod which brought forth buds and blossoms and pro- duced fruit; the fleece upon which alone the dew of heaven descended. Before all creatures and all ages, she was conceived in the Eternal Mind ; and when the time appointed for her mortal manifestation was come, she of all the human kind alone was produced without the taint of human frailty. And though, indeed, being subject to death, she paid the common tribute of mor- tality,— yet, having been born without sin, she expired without suffering, and her most holy body, too pure a thing to see corruption, was translated immediately to Heaven, there to be glorified. This had been pre- sumed, because, had her remains existed upon earth, it was not to be believed but that so great a treasure would have been revealed to some or other of so many saints, who were worthy to have been made the means of enriching mankind by the discovery j and that all

412 CROSS AND CROWN.

doubt might be removed, the fact was stated by the Virgin herself to Saint Antonio. Her image was to be found in every church throughout Christendom; and she was worshipped under innumerable appella- tions— devotees believing that the one which they particularly affected was that to which the object of their adoration most willingly inclined her ear

" By such representations and fables,, the belief of the people became so entirely corrupted, that Christ, instead of being regarded as our Mediator and Re- deemer, appeared to them in the character of a jealous God, whom it behoved them to propitiate through the mediation of his Virgin Mother, for through her alone

could mercy and salvation be obtained Nor was

it in idolatry, polytheism, and creature worship alone, that the resemblance was apparent between the reli- gion of Pagan and Papal Rome. The priests of the Roman Church had gradually fallen into many of the rites and ceremonies of their -heathen predecessors, profiting in some cases by what was useful, in others, not improperly conforming to what was innocent, but in too many points culpably imitating pernicious and abominable usages

" It was deemed meritorious to disfigure the body by neglect and filth, to extenuate it by fasting and watch- fulness, to lacerate it with stripes, and to fret the wounds with cilices of horse-hair. Linen was pro- scribed among the monastic orders; and the use of the warm bath, which, being not less conducive to

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 41 3

health than to cleanliness, had become general in all the Roman provinces, ceased throughout Christendom, because, according to the morality of the monastic school, cleanliness itself was a luxury, and to procure it by pleasurable means, was a positive sin. There were some saints who never washed themselves, and made it a point of conscience never to disturb the vermin, who were the proper accompaniments of such sanctity ; in as far as they occasioned pain while bur- rowing or at pasture, they were increasing the stock of the aspirant's merits, that treasure which he was desirous of laving up in Heaven ; and he thought it unjust to deprive his little progeny of their pres- ent paradise, seeing they had none other to expect, The act of eating they made an exercise of penance, by mingling what was most nauseous with their food ; and it would literally sicken the reader, were the vic- tories here to be related which they achieved over the reluctant stomach, and which, with other details of sanctimonious nastiness, are recorded in innumerable Catholic books, for edification and example. They bound chains around the body, which ate into the flesh, or fastened graters upon the breast and back ; or girded themselves with bandages of bristles inter- mixed with points of wire. Cases of horrid self- mutilation were sometimes discovered ; and many perished by a painful and lingering suicide, believing that, in the torments which they inflicted upon them- selves they were offering an acceptable sacrifice to

414 CEOSS AND CROWN.

their Creator. Some became famous for the number of their daily genuflections; others for immersing themselves to the neck in cold water during winter, while they recited the Psalter. The English Saint, Simon Stock, obtained his name and saintship for

passing many years in a hollow tree

"There prevailed an opinion, industriously promoted by the priesthood, which was excellently adapted to this purpose. Heroic piety, such as that of the saints, was not indispensable for salvation; the degree of faith and good works, without which a soul could not be saved, must be at a standard which all mankind can reach. This was not to be denied. Here then was a large and accumulating fund of good works, which, though supererogatory in the saints, were nevertheless not to be lost. But, indeed, if strictly considered, all human merits were in this predicament. Atonement having once been made for all, good works, in those who entitled themselves to the benefit of the covenant, were needful only as the evidences and fruits of a sav- ing faith. There was, however, some use for them The redemption which had been purchased for fallen man was from eternal punishment only ; sin was not, therefore, to go unpunished, even in repentant sinners who had confessed and received absolution. The souls of baptized children, it was held, passed immediately to Heaven ; but for all others, except the few who at- tained to eminent holiness in their lives, Purgatory was prepared; a place, according to the popular belief,

THE ENGLISn MARTYRS. 41 5

bo near the region of everlasting torments, though separated from it, that the same fire pervaded both ; acting indeed to a different end and in different de- grees, but even in its mildest effect, inflicting suffer- ings more intense than heart could think of, or tongue express, and enduring for a length of time which was left fearfully indefinite. Happily for mankind, the authority of the Pope extended over this dreadful place. The works of supererogation were at his dis- posal, and this treasury was inexhaustible, because it contained an immeasurable and infinite store derived from the atonement. One drop of the Redeemer's blood being sufficient to redeem the whole race, the rest which had been shed during the passion was given as a legacy, to be applied in mitigation of Purgatory, as the Popes in their wisdom might, think fit. So they in their infallibility declared, and so the people believed. The Popes were liberal of this treasure. If they wished to promote a new practice of devotion, or encourage a particular shrine, they granted to those who should perform the one, or visit the other, an in- dulgence, that is, a dispensation for so many years of Purgatory ; sometimes for shorter terms, but often by centuries or thousands of years, and in many cases the indulgence was plenary — a toll ticket entitling the soul to pass scot-free.

"All persons, however, could not perform pilgrim- ages ; and even the accommodating device of the Church, which promised large indulgences for say-

416 CROSS AND CROWN.

ing certain prayers before the engraved portrait of a miraculous image, was liable, in numerous instances, to be frustrated. The picture might not find its way to remote places; the opportunity of acquiring it might be neglected, or it might remain in the possession of its unthinking owner, a forgotten thing. The Romish Church, in its infinite benevolence, considered this; and therefore sold indulgences, making the act of pur- chasing them, and thus contributing to its wants, a merit of itself sufficient to deserve so inestimable a reward. It was taught, also, that merits were trans- ferable by gift or purchase : under this persuasion, large endowments were bestowed upon convents, on condition that the donor should partake in the merits of the community; and few persons who had any property at their own disposal, went out of the world without bequeathing some of it to the clergy, for say- ing masses, in number proportioned to the amount of the bequest, for the benefit of their souls. The wealthy founded chantries, in which service was to be performed, forever, to this end. Thus were men taught to put their trust in riches ; their wealth being thus invested, became available to them beyond the grave ; and in whatever sins they indulged, provided they went through the proper forms, and obtained a discharge, they might purchase a free passage through Purgatory, or, at least, an abbreviation of the term, and a mitigation of the torments while they lasted. How severe these torments were to be might in some

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 417

degree be estimated by the scale appointed for those who were willing to commute, at a certain rate, while they were alive. The set-off for a single year was fixed at the recitation of thirty psalms, with an accom- paniment of one hundred stripes to each; the whole psalter, with its accompaniment of fifteen thousand, availing only to redeem five years. The chronicles of the Middle Ages are filled with horrible legends, invented to promote a superstition so profitable to the priests; and that it might be the more deeply im- pressed upon the people, the representations of souls weltering in fire were exposed in churches, and in streets, and by the wayside; fraternities were estab- lished to beg for them; and to give money for their use is a part of the penance which is usually, at this day, appointed by the Confessor.

" But Purgatory wTas not the only invisible world over which the authority of the Church extended ; for to the Pope, as to the representative of Saint Peter, it was pretended that the keys of Heaven and Hell were given ; a portion of this power was delegated to every priest, and they inculcated that the soul which de- parted without confession and absolution, bore with it the weight of its deadly sins to sink it to perdition. The clergy so clearly perceived the influence which they derived from the practice of confession, that they insisted upon it as a peremptory duty, imperative upon all persons ; and according to the usual craft, they pro- pagated a thousand tales of ghosts who had visited the 27

418 CROSS AND CROWN.

earth to reveal their horrible doom for having left it unperformed. Of all the practices of the Romish Church, this is the one which has proved most inju- rious ; and if it be regarded in connexion with the celibacy of the clergy, the cause will be apparent why the state of morals is generally so much more corrupt in Catholic than in Protestant countries. The uses of conscience were at an end when it was delivered to the keeping of a confessor. Actions then^ instead of being tried by the eternal standard of right and wrong, on which the unsophisticated heart unerringly pronounces, were judged by the rules of a pernicious casuistry, the intent of which was to make men satisfied with them- selves upon the cheapest terms. The inevitable effect was, that the fear of human laws became the only re- straint upon evil propensities, when men were taught to believe that the account with Divine Justice might be easily settled. Tables were actually set forth by authority, in which the rate of absolution for any imaginable crime was fixed, and the most atrocious might be committed with spiritual impunity for a few shillings. The foulest murderer and parricide, if he escaped the hangman, might, at this price, set his con- science at ease concerning all further consequences.

" If the boundless credulity of mankind be a mourn- ful subject for consideration, as in truth it is> it is yet more mournful to observe the profligate wickedness with which that credulity has been abused. The Church of Rome appears to have delighted in insult-

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 419

ing as well as in abusing it, and to have pleased itself with discovering how far it was possible to subdue and degrade the human intellect. If further proof than has already appeared were needful, it would be found in the prodigious doctrine of Transubstantiation. This astonishing doctrine arose from taking figurative words in a literal sense; and the Romanists do not shrink from the direct inference, that if their interpretation be just, Christ took his own body in his own hands, and offered it to his disciples. According to the Church of Rome, when the words of consecration have been pro- nounced, the bread becomes that same actual body of flesh and blood in which our Lord and Saviour suffered upon the cross; remaining bread to the sight, touch, and taste, yet ceasing to be so, — and into how many parts soever the bread may be broken, the whole entire body is contained in every part.

"Of all the corruptions of Christianity, there was none which the Popes so long hesitated to sanction as this. When the question was brought before Hilde- brand, he not only inclined to the opinion of Ber- enger, by whom it was opposed, but pretended to con- sult the Virgin Mary, and then declared that she had pronounced against it. Nevertheless, it prevailed, and was finally declared by Innocent III., at the fourth Lateran Council, to be a tenet necessary to salvation. Strange as it may appear, the doctrine had become popular, — with the people, for its very extravagance, — with the clergy, because they grounded upon it their

420 CROSS AND CROWN.

loftiest pretensions. For if there were in the sacra- ment this actual and entire sole presence, which they denoted by the term of Transubstaiitiation, it followed that divine worship was something more than a ser- vice of prayer and thanksgiving; an actual sacrifice was performed in it, wherein they affirmed the Saviour was again offered up, in the same body which had suf- fered on the cross, by their hands. The priest, when he performed this stupendous function of his ministry, had before his eyes, and held in his hands, the Maker of Heaven and Earth; and the inference which they deduced from so blasphemous an assumption, was, that the clergy were not to be subject to any secular autho- rity, seeing that they could create God their Creator ! Let it not be supposed that the statement is in the slightest part exaggerated, it is delivered faithfully in their own words.

" If such then were the power of the clergy, even of the meanest priest, what must be attributed to their earthly head, the successor of St. Peter? They claimed for him a plenitude of power ; and he exercised it over the Princes of Christendom in its fullest meaning. Ac- cording to the canons, the Pope is as far above all kings, as the sun is greater than the moon. He was King of kings and Lord of lords, though he sub- scribed himself the servant of servants. His power it was which was intended, when it was said to the Prophet Jeremiah, ' Behold, I have this day set thee over the nations and kingdoms, to root out, and to

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 421

pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant.' It was an incomprehensible and infinite power, because 'great is the Lord, and great is His power, and of His greatness there is no end.' The immediate and sole rule of the whole world belonged to him by natural, moral, and divine right; all authority depending upon him. As supreme king, he might impose taxes upon all Christians; and the Popes declared that it was to be held as a point neces- sary to salvation, that every human creature is subject to the Eoman Pontiff. That he might lawfully depose kings was held to be so certain a doctrine, that it could only be denied by madmen or through the instigation of the Devil ; it was more pernicious and intolerable to deny it, than to err concerning the sacraments. And, indeed, God would not sufficiently have provided for the preservation of His Church, and the safety of souls, if He had not appointed this power of depriving or restraining apostate princes. All nations and king- doms were under the Pope's jurisdiction, for to him God had delivered over the power and the dominion in Heaven and Earth. Nay. he might take away king- doms and empires, with or without cause, and give them to whom he pleased, though the sovereign, whom he should depose, were in every respect not merely blameless, but meritorious; it wras reason enough for the change that the Pope deemed it convenient. The spouse of the Church was Vice-God ; men were com- manded to bow at his name, as at the name of Christ ;

422 CROSS AND CROWN.

the proudest sovereigns waited upon him like menials, led his horse by the bridle, and held his stirrup while he alighted ; and there were ambassadors who prostrated themselves before him, saying, 0 thou, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us !

"The advocates of the Papal power proclaimed, that any secular laws which might be passed against a decree of the Roman Pontiff, were in themselves null and void ; that all pontificial decrees ought forever to be observed by all men, like the Word of God, to be received as if they came from the mouth of Saint Peter himself, and held like canonical Scripture. Neither the Catholic faith, nor the four Evangelists, could avail those who rejected them, this being a sin which was never to be remitted. Christ had bestowed upon the Pope, when he spake as such, the same infallibility which resided in himself. And were he utterly to neglect his duty, and by his misconduct drag down innumerable souls to Hell with him, there to be eter- nally tormented, no mortal man might presume to reprove him for his faults. Nor was it possible that he should be amenable to any secular power, for he had been called God by Constantine, and God was not to be judged by man ; under God, the salvation of all the faithful depended on him, and the commentators even gave him the blasphemous appellation of our Lord God the Pope ! It was disputed in the schools whether he could not abrogate that which the Apostles had en- joined, determine an opinion contrary to theirs, and

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 423

add a new article to the creed ; whether he did not, as God, participate both natures with Christ; and wluther he was not more merciful than Christ, inas- much as he delivered souls from the pains of purgatory, whereas we did not read that this had ever been done by our Saviour. Lastly, it was affirmed that he might do things unlawful, and thus could do more than God!"*

This was the Church and this the religion of which England was growing weary, and for which John Wycliffe failed to find a warrant in the Holy Bible.' He found it impossible either as an honest man, as a scholar, as an original thinker, or a patriot, to sus- tain such monstrous pretensions.

The kingdom, at this time, was full of mendicant friars and nuns, who were continually robbing the people of their goods and money by threats and promises. The people complained bitterly that the monks and priests were eating them away " like a cancer," and prajed for relief. Some idea of this ex- tortion may be formed when we state that during the reign of Henry III., Rome robbed England of a sum more than three times as large as the total revenue of the king. The clergy were actually seeking to mon- opolize the wealth of the land, and the people were alarmed. At this critical period the Pope, Urban V., commanded Edward III. to recognize him as legiti-

* The Book of the Church. By Kobert Southey, LL. D. Chapter x. I have quoted almost the whole chapter because of the value and conciseness of the statements contained in it.

424 CROSS AND CROWN.

mate sovereign of England, and to pay as feudal tribute the annual rent of one thousand marks. In case of refusal, the king was commanded to appear at Rome to answer for his offence. The Pope based his demand upon the surrender of King John to Innocent III. He had mistaken the character of Edward, and the temper of the English people. The king indignantly refused to comply with the demand, and the nation sustained him in this refusal. Wycliffe, who at this time had been ejected from his post as Warden of Canterbury College, in consequence of his opposition to the errors of Rome, took up the national cause, and defended it with such vigor that he won the royal favor, and was rewarded with a professorship of divinity at Oxford, and made a chaplain to the king. Parliament declared that John in promising fealty and tribute to Rome had violated his coronation oath, and therefore could not bind his successors, and declared that should the Pope decide to proceed to extreme measures against Edward, in consequence of his refusal, it would be the duty and pleasure of the whole realm to support the king in defend- ing the independence of England. The debates in the House of Lords on this occasion are deeply interesting, as they show not only the advance wrhich England had made towards religious freedom, but also the effect of Wycliffe's views upon the most powerful class of his countrymen. The following is the substance of the views advanced by the Lords : " Feudal tribute is due only to him who can grant feudal protection in return.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 425

Now, how can the Pope wage war to protect his fiefs? ... Is it as a vassal of the crown, or as a feudal supe- rior, that the Pope demands a part of our property ? Urban V. will not accept the first of these titles. . . . Well and good, but the English people will not ac- knowledge the second. . . . Why was this tribute ori- ginally granted? To pay the Poj)e for absolving John. . . . His demand then is mere simony, a kind of cleri- cal swindling, which the Lords spiritual and temporal should indignantly oppose. . . . England belongs not to the Pope. The Pope is but a man, subject to sin ; but Christ is the Lord of lords, and this kingdom is held directly and solely of Christ alone.'"

Thus far, however, Wycliffe's opposition to the Pope had been political, and in defence of the English Constitution. He had not yet begun to preach those doctrines for which he is famous. The Pope found it impossible to sustain his temporal pretensions in Eng- land, and consequently abandoned them. He was very anxious, however, to retain his spiritual power, and exerted himself to procure the repeal of the statutes of Pro muiiire and Provisors. A conference was appointed to be held at Bruges, for the purpose of arranging the differences between the Pope and the king, and Wy- cliffe was appointed one of the English Commissioners. The conference met in April, 1374, and in 1375 came to an agreement by which the king promised to repeal the penalties denounced against the papal agents, and the Pope bound himself to confirm the king's nomina-

426 CROSS AND CROWN.

tions to ecclesiastical offices. This compromise greatly displeased the nation, and it was openly declared in Parliament that, "The clerks sent from Rome are more* dangerous for the kingdom than Jews or Saracens; every papal agent residing in England, and every Englishman living at the Court of Rome should be punished with death."

After his return Wycliffe was made Rector of Lut- terworth. He also retained his professorship in the university. During his residence abroad, he had seen much to open his eyes with regard to the actual con- dition of the Papacy. He also continued his study of the Scriptures, and it was not long before his opinions underwent the great and radical change which pre- pared him for the chief work of his life. He began to teach from his chair at Oxford, and his pulpit at Lutterworth that the Pope was an impostor, that he might be lawfully reprimanded for his errors by his laymen, and that the " Gospel is the only source of religion."

These bold doctrines gave great offence to the clergy. Courtenay, son of the Earl of Devonshire, and Bishop of London, a stern but honest priest, resolved to call Wycliffe to account for such utterances. Accordingly he summoned the Reformer to appear before the Con- vocation assembled at St. Paul's Cathedral to answer to the charge of heresy. On the 19th of February, 1377, Wycliffe appeared at St. Paul's in obedience to this summons. He was accompanied by his patron, John

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 427

of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and actual ruler of Eng- land, and Lord Percy, Earl Marshal of England, who came to defend him from the anger of the bishops, lnlbre the examination could be begun, an altercation ensued between Lancaster and Courtenay. The assem- bly broke up in a tumult, and it was with difficulty that the duke and the earl escaped violence at the hands of the adherents of Courtenay. Serious disturb- ances followed in London. Courtenay exerted himself with success to restore peace in the city, and dismissed Wycliffe with a warning not to preach his doctrines again.

The people of the kingdom now took up the cause of the Reformer : " If he is guilty," said they, " why is he not punished ? If he is innocent, why is he ordered to be silent ? If he is the weakest in power, he is the strongest in truth." As for Wycliffe, so far from obey- ing the command of the bishops, he became more ener- getic in his preaching. He denied that the Pope was the head of the Church — Christ, alone, he said, was its head. A man could not be excommunicated, unless he by his own sins had cut himself off from the covenant.

The Pope himself now took up his cause. He wrote to the king, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the University of Oxford, denouncing Wycliffe as a heretic, and ordering them to proceed against him as a common thief. The archbishop, alone, responded to the de- mand of the Pope, and cited Wycliffe to appear before the Convocation at Lambeth Palace. Wycliffe obeyed

428 CROSS AND CROWN.

the summons, and on the appointed day appeared alone at Lambeth. The action of the primate had excited great indignation in England. The people declared that "the Pope's briefs ought to have no effect in the realm without the king's consent. Every man is master in his own house." Richard II., a child of eleven years, had just ascended the throne, and the partisans of Rome hoped to be able to carry out their plans without opposition from the Court ; but the spirit of Edward III. had not departed from Eng- land, and the convocation had hardly begun its sitting before Sir Louis Clifford entered with orders from the queen-mother that no proceeding should be taken against Wycliffe. The bishops were obliged to yield, and Wycliffe, after handing in a protest, retired to his home.

The Reformer now changed his course, and ceasing to take a direct part in the affairs of the great, devoted himself to the interests of the people. He had derived great consolation and happiness from his examination of the Scriptures, and he was resolved that the princi- ples he had drawn from the holy book should be made known to the nation at large. From his own pulpit he preached constantly the truth as he understood it, but to speak to this one congregation did not satisfy him. He wished to carry his message to all his coun- trymen. In order to do this, he resolved to make use of one of the devices of the friars whose corruptions he attacked. If the begging friars could roam through

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 429

the country, and attract crowds to listen to the recital of their legends of the saints, why could not a similar but purer organization be the means of spreading a knowledge of the Gospel throughout England? He had collected around him a number of pious and zeal- ous men who were admirably fitted for this work, and he determined to send them forth on their blessed mis- sion. He communicated his plan to them, and it at once met with their hearty approval. All things being ready, he sent them forth with this charge : " Go and preach, it is the sublimest work ; but imitate not the priests whom we see, after the sermon, sitting in the ale houses, or at the gaming table, or wasting their time in hunting. After your sermon is ended, do you visit the sick, the aged, the poor, the blind, and the lame, and succor them according to your ability."

The "poor priests," as they were called, at once departed on their mission. Bare-footed, clad in a coarse robe, with a staff in their hand, they traversed the kingdom, preaching in fields, by the roadside, in the market-places of towns and villages, and often in the churches themselves. They taught nothing of saints, or legends, or relics, or of papal supremacy. They preached a purer faith than that of Rome — the reli- gion which Jesus Christ gave to his Apostles. Crowds flocked to hear them, and listened to them with eager- ness. Every day the missionaries reached some new portion of the kingdom, and everywhere they were welcomed by the people as messengers of the truth.

430 CROSS A ND CROW \X.

The effect of their preaching was most marked, and it seemed that England was on the point of discarding the faith of Rome for that preached by the " poor priests." The Romish clergy were alarmed. They beheld their influence weakened, and their revenues diminishing. They exerted every means in their power to put a stop to the preaching of the Reformers, even attempting to break up their meetings by violence; but the people took up the cause of the " poor priests," and with arms defended them against the monks and the sheriffs who endeavored to interrupt them.

Long before this Wycliffe had determined that his countrymen should have the Bible in their own tongue, and had begun the translation of the' Latin Bible into English. In this work he was assisted by a number of his friends, men of learning and deeply imbued with his principles. This work occupied him ten or fifteen years, and was finished in 1380. His translation was at once put into the hands of expert copyists, who mul- tiplied copies of it as rapidly as possible. The " poor priests " had prepared the way for it, and it was received by the people with delight. All classes read it. Copies could not be multiplied fast enough. Every one wanted a Bible. The queen became a diligent Bible reader, and even the Archbishop of York followed her example. The effect of the spread of the Scriptures was what it has always been. The power and influence of Rome were weakened.

This was the first general or popular version of the

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 431

Bible in English that had been seen in the kingdom. Portions of the Scriptures had been translated at dif- ferent periods, but they were preserved in the libraries of the kingdom as curiosities, and were utterly useless to the people. "Wycliffe's version was the first which gave the people at large any idea of the Bible or its teachings.

The Eomish clergy and their adherents violently opposed the circulation and reading of the Bible. " It is heresy," they cried, " to speak of Holy Scripture in English. . . . Since the Church approved of the four Gospels, she would have been just as able to reject them and admit others ! The Church sanctions and condemns what she pleases. . . . Learn to believe in the Church rather than in the Gospel." The opponents of the Gospel even carried their hostility so far as to propose in the House of Lords, in 1390, to seize all the copies of the Bible. This proposition brought the Duke cf Lancaster to his feet with the indignant exclamation : " Are we, then, the very dregs of humanity, that we cannot possess the laws of our religion in our own tongue ? "

Wycliffe now openly attacked the doctrine of Trans- substantiation, and declared it to be an absurdity. This was the boldest step he had yet taken, for the people implicitly believed this doctrine, and were not yet pre- pared to follow him so far. Even the Duke of Lan- caster, who had been his friend in all his previous con- tests with the clergy, advised him not to venture too

432 CROSS AND CROWN.

far. The university also took part against him, and the Archbishop of Canterbury summoned him to appear before an ecclesiastical court at Oxford to explain his doctrine. He obeyed the summons, and managed his case with such dexterity that the bishop was not able to censure him, though his enemies declared he had not recanted, but had vindicated his heresy.

Little by little, however, his opinions on this point gained ground. His followers were called Lollards, and were the objects of the bitterest hostility of the Romish clergy. The latter made a cunning attempt to identify the Reformer and his disciples with Wat Tyler's insur- rection, but failed. Courtenay, who was now Archbishop of Canterbury, renewed the war against Wycliffe, and succeeded in procuring a condemnation of his opinions as heretical. The archbishop also brought a bill into Parliament, which passed the House of Lords, for im- prisoning all persons who should preach heresies and notorious errors. As soon as the bill had passed the Lords, the archbishop began to act upon it, whereupon the Commons, indignant at this disregard of their rights, demanded its annulment as it had not obtained their consent. Courtenay was not to be defeated thus, how- ever. He procured an order from the king to the chan- cellor of the university, requiring him to banish Wycliffe from Oxford. The chancellor replied that to put such an order into execution would be to produce a serious disturbance, as Wycliffe's followers were prepared to defend him with arms. The Reformer, however, averted

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 43;}

the clanger by submitting to the royal command, and retiring to his rectory of Lutterworth. Here he carried on his war against the Pope with renewed vigor. Urban VI. summoned him to Rome, but he refused to go, plead- ing his age and feebleness as his excuse. He was seized with a stroke of palsy as he wras celebrating the service in his church, and died at the age of sixty.

" AVycliffe," says Southey, " held some erroneous opinions, some fantastic ones, and some which, in their moral and political consequences, are most dangerous. Considering the intrepidity and ardor of his mind, it is surprising that his errors were not more and greater. A great and admirable man he was ; his fame, high as it is, was not above his deserts ; and it suffers no abate- ment upon comparison with the most illustrious of those who have followed in the path which he opened. His writings were carried into Bohemia by one of the natives of that country, whom the marriage of their princess with Richard II. had brought into England. From the perusal of them, John Huss imbibed those opinions concerning the Papal Church for which he suffered heroically at the stake, to his eternal honor, and to the perpetual infamy of the council which condemned him, and of the em- peror, who suffered the safe conduct which he had given him to be broken; and Huss prepared the way for Luther."

Wycliffe's doctrines did not die with him in England. They had taken too deep a root in the hearts of the people for that. After the death of the Reformer his

28

434 CROSS AND CROWN.

disciples became so active in their hostility to the Romish Church that the bishops invoked the royal power to aid them in putting down the opposition. Henry IV., having been aided in his usurpation of the throne by the clergy, complied with the demand, and a severe persecution of the Reformers began. The first victim of the priests, and the first Protestant martyr of England, was William Sawtree, a pious priest, who had dared to say : " Instead of adoring the cross on which Christ suffered, I adore Christ who suffered on it." He was condemned and burned at the stake in March, 1401. Having now tasted blood, the clergy went farther. They drew up the articles known as the " Constitutions of Arundel," so called from their author, Arundel, Arch- bishop of York. These constitutions forbade the read- ing of the Bible, and styled the Pope, " not a mere man, but a true God." * Many of the Reformers were ar- rested and imprisoned in that portion of Lambeth Palace (the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury) which has since been known as the Lol- lards' Tower. The martyrdom of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, followed, in 1417. The London prisons were filled with Lollards, and it was decreed that they should be hanged on the king's account, and burnt for God's. The war was carried on so fiercely that the Re- formers were obliged to hide themselves. They did not desert their principles, but they could no longer main-

* D'AubignS.

'<!<<•

a

wl the b

w warpation of the ^ the demand, and a

■ The first totetant martyr of

nfcedonit." He

Hanh,140L

deirTwent

mi y

l mere man, ^ Eefcrmers were ar-

- La

d fat tiff ^andburntfd

They did tf

, - '. of libisbop of

u«

'

'

.

	rv
	1

j®a:: A» L

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 435

tain them openly. The civil wars which soon burst upon the land afforded them some respite. At the re- turn of peace, however. Henry VII. allowed, if he did not encourage, the clergy to renew the persecution of the Lollards. This portion of their history is marked by several cruel martyrdoms. Joan Boughton, a gentle- woman, eighty years of age, and greatly beloved for her virtues, was burned at the stake. She was the first female martyr of England. Her daughter, Lady Young, was also put to death in the same way. William Tyls- worth was burnt at Amersworth, and his only daughter, being suspected of heresy, was compelled by the priests to set fire to the fatal pile with her own hands. " By such barbarities did the Romish Church provoke the indignation of God and man. That it should have made one real convert by such means, is impossible ; though it compelled many to abjuration. In that case, the miserable wretches whom it admitted to its mercy, were made to bear a fagot in public, while they witnessed the martyrdom of those who had more constancy than them- selves. They were fastened to a stake by the neck with towels, and their hands held fast, while they were marked on the cheek with a hot iron ; after which, they were for life to wear a fagot, worked or painted on the left sleeve ; and if they ventured to lay aside this badge, which, if they were in humble life, consigned them to want as well as infamy, they were sent to the flames without remission ; so that it became a saying, Put it off and be burnt ; keep it on and be starved. Bishop

43(j CROSS AND CROWN.

Nix, of Norwich, one of the most infamous for his, activity in this persecution, used to call the persons whom he suspected of heretical opinions, men savoring of the frying-pan ; with such levity did these monsters regard the sufferings they inflicted." *

These martyrdoms continued through a large part of the reign of Henry VIII., who at the outset was as bitter an enemy to the Reformed as his father had been. The progress of the Reformation in Germany had made the Romish clergy of England more vigilant than they would have been, and they were resolved that, if they could prevent it, England should not share in the new opinions. In their anxiety to root out heresy, they inaugurated a new reign of cruelty. They compelled children to accuse their parents, parents their children, wives their husbands, and husbands their wives, threat- ening them with the same fate unless they thus violated their natural affections. Those who persisted in their opinions were sent to the stake, and those who abjured were condemned, under the name of perpetual penance, to perpetual bondage. They were confined in monas- teries, and made to labor for the food which was given to them. They were never allowed to conceal the mark which had been put upon them with a hot iron, and were to bear a fagot at stated periods, and once at the burning of a heretic. Thomas Bilney and James Bain- ham and others were put to death with cruel torments.

* Southey's Book of the Church (Chandos Edition), p. 213.

THE EX GUSH MARTYRS. 437

These cruelties reacted directly upon the priests. They were utterly distasteful to the English people, and gradually brought them to regard with secret hor- ror, the men by whom they were instigated and per- petrated. The crowds which collected to witness these terrible scenes did not all come, as in other lands, to exult over the agonies of the victims of Rome. Many of the spectators were the friends and fellow believers of the martyrs, and it was with them a holy duty to be present on such occasions, to cheer the sufferers with their words, when they dared to speak, or by their glances of silent sympathy and encouragement, and to assure them that their prayers were with them in their hour of trial. More than this, they came to be wit- nesses to the firmness with which the martyrs held the faith, for it was the habit of the priests to declare that their victims recanted at the moment of death. Others there were, silent and sad, who came to see how a Reformer could die. These last went away deeply impressed with the sorrowful scene, and in many instances they embraced the faith which had made the martyrs strong. Upon all classes the effect of the executions was injurious to Rome. The English spirit revolted against them, and the Romish Church thus gradually destroyed its hold upon the nation.

The Government had not only permitted, but had encouraged the executions, but it had not yielded to Rome in other things. The Sovereign had never acknowledged the Pope's supremacy since the days of

438 CROSS AND CROWN.

John, and the independence of the country had been steadfastly maintained, even by the Lancasterian kings, the cruellest of all the persecutors. The Pope had in vain tried to procure the repeal of the Statute of Praemunire; the king and the nation had maintained it at all times as the great barrier against Papal ag- gression. Moreover, the great wealth of the clergy had drawn upon them the envy if not the hostility of the Crown, and the danger which menaced them from this quarter was even greater than that with which the Reformers threatened them.

When Henry VIII. came to the throne, he was full of zeal for the Church. He took up the pen against Luther, and was rewarded by the Pope with the title " Defender of the Faith." Yet he, too, pursued the policy of his predecessors in maintaining the indepen- dence of his crown. When his inclination turned against his wife, Catharine of Arragon, he found it im- possible to induce the Pope to sanction his divorce from her. This changed him from a champion into an enemy of the Romish Church, and in his vexation he conceived the idea of making the Church of England entirely independent of that of Rome. Not that he wished to introduce or encourage the faith of the Re- formers, for, in all things which did not clash with his interests, Henry was still a good Catholic. But now that he had resolved to have done with the Pope, he could not avoid playing into the hands of the Refor- mers. He made Sir Thomas Cromwell Secretary of

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 439

State, and Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canter- bury. Cromwell was a man of undaunted ambition, and of great ability. He loved power, and scrupled at little to secure it and retain it. That he possessed noble qualities, however, is proved by his generous devotion to his patron, Cardinal Wolsey, after the downfall of that great man. Henry chose him because of his ability, and his conviction that he would prove a useful ally in his fight with Rome. Cranmer was a meek, gentle ecclesiastic, who cared little for public honors or controversies, but who was willing to go to the stake, if need be, in defence of what he believed to be the truth. The king wanted Cromwell to sever the Church from Rome, and he desired the good Cran- mer to reorganize it after the separation. Little did the wilful Sovereign know what he was doing. It sometimes pleases God that the most discreditable motives may be the occasions of great good. It was so in this case. Henry, to gratify his own passions, put in motion a work which it was not in the power of man to check, and which resulted in the establishment of Protestantism in England and America.

Cromwell advised the king to declare himself the head of the Church in his own dominions, and Henry promptly acted Upon this advice. The bishops and higher clergy were indignant, but the king put a most formidable engine in operation against them. Nearly all of them had at some time violated the Statute of Prcemunire, and had thus rendered themselves liable

440 CROSS AND CROWN.

to its penalties. This had been the direct cause of the downfall of Wolsey, and the completeness of his over- throw showed that Henry would not hesitate to use the advantage he thus possessed. Cromwell notified the clergy of their danger, and caused them to be in- formed that they could make their peace with the king by acknowledging his supremacy, and paying a fine equal in the aggregate to one hundred thousand pounds. They had the wit to accept the situation. They paid the fine, and acknowledged the king's supremacy, with the qualifying clause quantum per Christi leges licet. This much gained, Henry pro- ceeded to divorce Catharine, after which he married Anne Boleyn.

Previous to this a great change had been wrought among the people, one which prepared them to sanc- tion Henry's breach with Rome, and which indeed placed them farther in the path of truth than the king ever got. Tyndale, a pious priest, being awakened to a sense of the truth of the Gospel, and being convinced that the great necessity of the people was a knowledge of the contents of the New Testament, had under- taken the translation of the sacred books, and these had been widely read in England. The priests had waged a bitter war upon those who dared to purchase or read Tyndale's translation, but it had been largely circulated in England in spite of the severities de- nounced against its readers. Dangerous as it was, it was eagerly sought for. Such copies as were seized

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 441

were publicly burned at Cheapside. The Romanists were aware that a knowledge of the Gospel truths would thoroughly expose the frauds they had practised upon the people. Hence their severity. They failed to check the circulation of the New Testament, how- ever, and only succeeded in arousing the indignation of the people, who openly resented the burning of God's word. The clergy found it impossible to check the demand for the Scriptures — that book so fatal to their pretensions and practices.

The reading of the Gospel had, as has been said, prepared the people for the separation from Rome. It had done more. It had created a desire for a reform in the doctrines of the English Church. This was a great gain. The first step taken by Cranmer was to procure a resolution from both houses of Convocation, requesting the king that the Scriptures should be trans- lated by learned men appointed by him, and given to the people. In accordance with this request, the king sanctioned the translation of the entire Bible made by Miles Coverdale, and printed, it is supposed, at Zurich. He ordered that the whole Bible, both in Latin and in English, should be placed in the choir of every parish church, and that all men should be exhorted to read it.

It was a great day for England when the Bible was made free. The author of the measure was Cranmer. He was materially aided by the influence of Queen Anne and Cromwell with the king, but the chief credit is due to the archbishop. The queen also succeeded

442 CROSS AND CROWN.

in procuring the appointment of Latimer, a pupil of the martyr Bilney, and the great preacher of the Re- formation, to the See of Worcester.

"The public feeling was now in favor of reforma- tion, though even the leaders in that work knew not as yet how far they should proceed. But the Romanists had injured their own cause, and the martyrs had not offered up their lives in vain. Frith's case, in particular, had shocked the people. They had seen him kiss the stake, and suffer with the calm intrepidity of conscious virtue, full of hope and faith ; and when they saw so young, so learned, and so exemplary a man put to this inhuman death, for no crime, — not even for teaching heretical doctrines, but merely because he would not affirm that a belief in purgatory and in the corporeal presence was necessary to salva- tion,— many even of those who believed in both were shocked at the atrocious iniquity of the sentence. The effect appeared in Parliament; and an Act was passed by which the clergy were deprived of the power of committing men on suspicion of heresy, or proceeding against them without presentment or ac- cusation. Presentments by two witnesses at least were required, and then they were to be tried in open court. In other respects, the laws, inhuman as they were, were left in force. The age was not yet ripe for further mitigation, but this was a great and impor- tant step. *

* Southey.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 443

The Romanists now resorted to trickery. They had opposed as far as they dared the king's supremacy, and now they tried to work upon his superstitious fears. A nun in Kent was encouraged to utter prophecies against him. She had originally been put forward for the purpose of bringing a particular image into repute, and her prophecies now took a political turn. She denounced the divorce, and declared that if Henry persisted in his hostility to Rome, he should lose his crown, and die a villain's death. The Romanists impudently published this declaration, and the matter began to assume a serious political aspect. Henry at once ordered the arrest of the nun and her accomplices. She and five of her associates were executed. Before her death, she confessed her imposture, saying that she had been encouraged by the priests to believe that her utterances were by the power of the Holy Ghost, that they must have known she was feigning, and that they had used her because she was profitable to them. It was now treason to deny the king's supremacy, yet a number of Carthusian monks ventured to do so. Henry's anger was aroused, and he resolved to strike terror to his opponents. When in this frame of mind he was not very scrupulous. Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, who had been Secre- tary of State, were implicated in the affair of the Kentish Nun, and the king brought them both to trial for their offence, and sent them to the block. Both of these men had been severe persecutors of the Refor-

444 CROSS AND CROWN.

mers, and they now drank of the bitter cup they had so often held to the lips of others, and suffered the in- justice they had meted out to their victims. Henry was so angry at the opposition of the Romanists to his supremacy that he would have sent his own daughter, the Princess Mary, to the Tower, for her refusal, had not Cranmer earnestly dissuaded him from his purpose. Cranmer was well aware of the personal risk he ran in venturing to oppose the fury of the king, but he shrank not from his duty, which was to control the king as far as was possible, and to use his influence to promote the peaceable triumph of the Reformation.

Cranmer now took another bold step. The monas- teries were the centres of gross corruption and a baneful idleness. They were also rallying points for the enemies of the Reformation, and their suppression was necessary to the success of the great movement. Therefore Cranmer advised the king to suppress the monasteries. Commissioners were appointed to visit the monasteries, and report concerning their condi- tion, discipline, and possessions. Their investigations brought to light a multitude of abuses. Numbers of persons were found imprisoned in them, who had been compelled by their parents to bind themselves with irrevocable vows, in order that they might not diminish the portion of their elder brothers. The visitors had authority to release all such, and when this was known the poor captives threw themselves on their knees before them, and begged piteously for their liberty.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 445

The grossest tyranny prevailed in nearly all of these establishments, and the blackest and foulest crimes in many of them. In some a regular process of counter- feiting the coin of the realm was carried on. Many of the nunneries were little better than brothels. Many of the inmates of the religious houses openly told the commissioners that they would not reform their institu- tions; they would rather see them broken up, since after their lives of luxury and debauchery, a return to the severe principles of their orders would be intolera- ble. A bill was accordingly introduced in Parliament suppressing certain of the religious houses, and confer- ring upon the king all their possessions. By this Act, 375 of these establishments were broken up. The property thus gained was dispersed by grant, sale, and exchange.

About this time the Convocation set forth certain articles as the authoritative expression of the faith of the English Church. This declaration was made by authority of the king, as head of the Church of Eng- land. " The Bible and the three Creeds were made the standards of faith ; no mention being made of tradition, nor of the decrees of the Church. Three Sacraments ; those of Baptism, Penance, and the Altar, were said to be necessary to salvation, — four being thus pretermitted ; but the corporeal presence was declared, and the necessity of auricular confession. Images were allowed as useful, but they were not to be worshipped; and saints might laudably be addressed as intercessors,

446 CROSS AND CROWN.

though it was asserted that Christ is our only sufficient Mediator. The existing rites and ceremonies were to be retained, as good and laudable ; not as having power to remit sin, but as useful in stirring and lifting our minds unto God, by whom only our sins can be forgiven. Lastly, prayers for the dead were advised as good and charitable ; though the question of Purga- tory was said to be uncertain by Scripture, and the abuses which, under that belief, had arisen, were to be put away." *

This declaration was better than pure Romanism, but it did not represent the faith of the Reformers. The Romanists were very strong in the lower house of Convocation, and had labored hard to make the state- ment set forth their own views. They were met at every point by the Reformers ; and though they were hindered from committing ' the English Church to a renewal of the errors of Rome, they succeeded in pre- venting the Reformers from publishing their doctrines as the faith of the Church. The declaration was simply a compromise which satisfied neither party.

The Romanists were still strong in England, and they took great offence at the suppression of the con- vents, and the declaration of the Convocation. They took up arms in the north of England, to the number of one hundred thousand men. They bore before them a crucifix and wore emblems of the Romish faith upon

* Southey's Book of the Church (Chandos edition), p. 246.

THE ENGL IS If MA RTTRS. 447

their dress. They were accompanied by numerous priests, and their avowed object was to compel Henry to restore the Romish faith and worship in England. They set out from Yorkshire for London, halting on the way to restore the monks and nuns to the sup- pressed convents. The king was obliged to take the field against them, and it was with difficulty that the outbreak was put down and a civil war prevented. A number of executions followed the restoration of tranquillity. Several of the great abbots, and Lord Darcy, were put to death for the part they had taken in the insurrection.

The king proceeded with his suppression of the monasteries. He derived from the acquisition of them yearly revenues exceeding one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He set apart a sum not exceeding eight thousand pounds for the establishment of a number of new Bishoprics. He gambled away a large part of the rest, and gave the remainder to his favorites.

The suppression of the convents brought to light many gross impostures on the part of the Romish Church, and the discovery did much to widen the breach between that Church and the English people. u The simplest persons perceived what frauds had been practised concerning relics, when more pieces of the true cross were produced than would have made a whole one: and so many teeth of Saint Apollonia, 'vhich were distributed as amulets against toothache,

448 CROSS AND CROWN.

that they filled a tun. The abominable frauds of the Romish Church hastened its downfall now, more than they had promoted its rise. A vial was shown at Hales in Gloucestershire, as containing a portion of our blessed Saviour's blood, which suffered itself to be seen by no person in a state of mortal sin, but became visi- ble when the penitent, by his offerings, had obtained forgiveness. It was now discovered, that this was per- formed by keeping blood, which was renewed every week, in a vial, one side of which was thick and opaque, the other transparent, and turning by a secret hand, as the case required. A trick of the same kind, more skil- fully executed, is still annually performed at Naples. There was a crucifix at Boxley, called the Rood of Grace, which was a favorite object of pilgrimage, because the image moved its head, hands, and feet, rolled its eyes, and made many other gestures, which were represented as miraculous, and believed to be so. The mechanism whereby all this was done was now exposed to the public, and the Bishop of Rochester, after preaching a sermon upon the occasion, broke the rood to pieces in their sight. Henry failed not to take advantage of the temper which such disclosures ex- cited. Shrines and treasures, which it might otherwise have been dangerous to have invaded, were now thought rightfully to be seized, when they had been procured by such gross and palpable impositions. The gold from Becket's shrine alone filled two chests, which were a load for eight strong men. Becket was un-

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 449

painted as well as unshrined, by the king, who, taking up the cause of his ancestor, ordered his name to be struck out from the Callendar, and his bones burnt. Another fraud was then discovered — for the skull was found with the rest of the skeleton, in his grave, though another had been produced, to work miracles, as his, in the church."

The Pope had beheld the course of Henry with open wrath from the beginning, and had threatened to excommunicate him, but had from motives of policy refrained from putting his threat into execution. The uncanonization of Becket, however, put him in a fury, and he launched against Henry a Bull requiring him and his accomplices to appear at Rome to answer for their actions. The Bull provided for the refusal of the king, and in this event excommunicated him, deprived him of his crown, laid the kingdom under an interdict, absolved his subjects from their allegiance to him, de- clared him infamous, called upon the nobles and people of England to take up arms against him, and com- manded all the princes of Christendom, in virtue of the obedience they owed to the Apostolic See, to make war upon him, and to seize such of his subjects as they could lay hands on, and hold them as slaves. In his letters to the different princes, to whom copies of the Bull were sent, the Pope styled Henry a heretic, a schismatic, a manifest adulterer, a public murderer, a rebel convicted of high treason against his Lord the Pope. The Pontiff offered the kingdom of England to

29

450 CROSS AXD CROWN.

the King of Scotland, upon the very sensible condition that he would go and take it.

But Papal thunders could no longer shake the throne of England. The power of Rome had departed, and England had fairly entered upon her glorious career of religious and intellectual freedom. It was a very imperfect beginning, it is true ; but it was still a begin- ning. The Pope's wrath fell harmless, and his Bull accomplished nothing. The nation stood ready to sup- port the king, and even the Romish bishops joined in the declaration with which Henry met the Papal blast, " that Christ had forbidden his Apostles or their suc- cessors to take to themselves the power of the Sword, or the authority of kings ; and that if the Bishop of Rome, or any other bishop, assumed any such power, he was a tyrant and usurper of other men's rights, and a subverter of the kingdom of Christ." The Romish bishops were convinced that to oppose the king would be to bring about the total destruction of their Church in England, and they yielded to him from policy. The most obsequious of these was the infamous Bishop Gar- diner, a monster of cruelty, whom we shall encounter again in this narrative. He was the craftiest, most unscrupulous, as well as one of the ablest enemies of the Reformation, and he adopted the Jesuitical policy of humoring the king, and at the same time endeavor- ing to lead him back insensibly to Rome, or at least to confirm him in his enmity to the doctrines of the Reformation.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 45]

Henry's vanity and selfishness did much for the Church of England by breaking down the power and influence of Rome in the land, but that Church owes him no thanks for that. He was always a cruel per- secutor of the doctrines of the Reformation, which prevailed in England before his birth, and finally tri- umphed in spite of his hostility, except when he could use them to further his own ends. Having now se- cured the acceptance of his supremacy, he determined to force upon the Reformers an acquiescence in those doctrines which he held. In this he. was influenced by Gardiner, whose abilities he valued, but whose char- acter he despised, although he was not conscious of this influence. Henry was unwilling to acknowledge him- self a heretic, and clung with pride to the title of " Defender of the Faith." Gardiner taking advantage of this feeling, craftily represented to him that nothing could so effectually remove from him the imputation of heresy as to compel the Reformers to accept the ancient doctrine of the Church with regard to the Lord's Supper, or in plain English to force the doctrine of Transubstantiation upon them. They had utterly rejected this sinful doctrine, and the cunning prelate knew that if he could array the king against them on this point, he would do much towards checking the Reformation in England. Henry took the bishop's advice. The result was that a martyr was found im- mediately, John Lambert, by name. The king pre- sided over his trial, and even the gentle Cranmer con-

452 CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

sented to his death. Cranmer had not then abandoned the Romish doctrine of Transubstantiation, and he also held that death by fire was the proper punishment for denying it. He made a full atonement for his error, in the end. Lambert was put to death with great barbarity.

The martyrdom of Lambert was followed by the passage of a series of measures known as the " Six Articles." By these Articles it was declared, as the belief of the Church of England, that no substance of bread and wine remained in the elements after the consecration ; that communion in both kinds was not enjoined to all persons; that it was not lawful for priests to marry ; that vows of chastity must be ob- served ; that private masses were meet and good, and that auricular confession was necessary to salvation. Those who should preach, write, or teach against the first Article were to be burned alive without being allowed an opportunity of recantation. Offenders against the other five, or any of them, were declared guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. Cranmer, who had been privately married, warmly opposed the passage of the Articles, and seeing their adoption inevit- able, had' sent his wife to Germany, her native coun- try, until the return of better times. He accepted the first, but opposed the others from principle. Latimer and Thaxton resigned their bishoprics immediately upon the passage of the Articles, and were arrested and sent to the Tower. Hundreds of persons were arrested, and

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 453

the king found it more expedient to grant a general Dardon than to proceed against all the offenders.

The Six Articles were made the means of bringing about the fall of Cromwell, whose real crime was that he had incurred the mortal enmity of the Duke of Nor- folk, the uncle of the new queen, Catharine Howard. Cranmer vainly endeavored to save him, risking a second time his influence and life in interfering be- tween Henry and the object of his wrath.

After the fall of Cromwell, the Six Articles were rigorously enforced. Many martyrs were added to the long roll of the heroes of the Church of England. The fires were constantly burning at Smithfield. Gardiner was admirably sustained in his bloody work by the brutal Bonner, Bishop of London. The Romanists dared not avow themselves as such. Their influence with the kins: would have died on the instant of such

o

an avowal. They craftily maintained that influence over him as believers in Transubstantiation. They not only brought on this persecution, but they suc- ceeded in securing a revocation of the general permis- sion to the people to read the Bible. "Nobles or gentlemen might cause the Bible to be read to them, in or about their own houses, quietly. Every mer- chant who was a householder, might read it ; so also might noble and gentle-women, but no persons under those degrees." It seemed that the Reformation was to be stopped, and indeed it would have been had the kino; or the Romanists been able to control the con-

454 CROSS AND CROWN.

sciences of the people. The truth was gradually grow- ing stronger among the masses, however, and Rome was growing weaker. The people had learned to think for themselves.

The new Queen, Catharine Parr, was known to favor the Reformation, and Gardiner exerted all his efforts to bring about her ruin. One of her attendants was Mistress Anne Askew, a lady of great beauty and learning, who was an avowed Protestant. With the hope of com- pelling her to denounce the queen, Gardiner caused her to be accused of heresy, and had her subjected to the cruellest tortures, after which she was con- demned and burned to death. Her persecutors were not able to extort from her a word which could be used against Queen Catharine. The Popish party were not satisfied to be so baffled, however, and they endeavored to induce the king to allow them to proceed against her, because Anne Askew had been her companion and friend. The queen received timely warning of her danger. Henry had not yet ceased to love her, and her ready wit enabled her to baffle her enemies and make it evident to them that her hold upon the king was too strong for them to venture to attack her again.

Enraged at their defeat, Gardiner and his colleagues turned upon Cranmer, and representing to the king that he and his learned men were destroying the king- dom with heresy, asked his commitment to the tower. Henry thoroughly esteemed, and was sincerely attached to, Cranmer. He allowed them to proceed far enough

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 455

to enable the archbishop to see who were his enemies, and who his friends, and then sternly forbade them to raise a hand against the primate, whom he declared to be faithful and true.

The remainder of the reign of Henry VIII. was d in a constant struggle by the Popish party and the Reformers. At the death of the king a great weight was removed from the Reformation. Though Henry had done much for the Church of England, his death was a blessing to it.

Edward VI. ascended the throne in 1547. He was scarcely ten years old, but he displayed unusual powers for so young a child. He had been carefully trained in the principles of the Reformation, and when he came to the throne his advisers and those upon whom he chiefly depended were of the Reformed faith. At his coronation, when the three swords, for the three kingdoms, were brought to be carried before him, he said that one was wanting, and called for the Bible. " That," said he, " is the sword of the Spirit, and ought in all right to govern us, who use these for the people's safety, by God's appointment. Without that sword we are nothing ; we can do nothing. From that we are what we are this day — we receive whatsoever it is that we at this present do assume. Under that we ought to live, to fight, to govern the people, and to perform all our affairs. From that alone we obtain all power, virtue, grace, salvation, and whatsoever we have of divine strength." Wonderful words from such

4o

■

SCK

ing v for i

the brin Am j was pel 1 i her to til dei not aga sat; to ii her. iriend. dan. her i make i was t Em turned that hi dom witS Henry t to, Cra

I

mm

■

■ -

• «*■■'■

ENGLISH MARTYRS.

457

ssuade the people from pilgrimages md that images to which pilgri tri- or offerings made should be de= nes, with their coverings, tables, or rolls of wax, pictures, and other 1 miracles, were to be taken away it no memory of them should re- dows ; and the people were to be J ie like clearance in their houses. I trovided, the Lord's Prayer, the 1 mndments, were to be recited by I vys, when there was no sermon ; 4 sould not recite them, should be 4 iment. No person might preach ( id ; and because of the lack of ^ i were to read homilies, which the king's authority. A register y parish for marriages, christen- e fifth part of every benefice was e mansion house or chancel till repair; and for every hundred a an possessed, in church prefer- ;ompetent exhibition to a scholar ■ly days were to be kept holy ; wful for the people to work on est, and save that which God ty, on such occasions, being

ions were issued, the people, of

456 CROSS AND CROWN.

a child, and full of promise for his people. The king's uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was appointed Governor of the king's person and Lord Pro- tector of the kingdom, and wTas immediately created Duke of Somerset.

The work of the Reformation now went on with rapidity. The Romanists, with Gardiner and Bonner at their head, continued to oppose it, but not with the same success they had met with in the previous reign. The political leaders, desirous of obtaining the wealth of the clergy, committed many acts of injustice upon them. The direction of the doctrinal part of the Re- formation, lay chiefly in the hands of Cranmer, assisted by Latimer and Ridley. The archbishop had devoted himself with great earnestness to an examination of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and during the last year of King Henry's reign, had become convinced that it was an error. He had at once abandoned it. Near about the same time a similar conclusion had been arrived at by Bishops Latimer and Ridley, and Cranmer found them able coadjutors in the great wrork which was now entrusted to him. The work was car- ried on with moderation. The disposition as well as the principles of Cranmer inclined him to mildness, and as the object he aimed at was simply the establish- ment of the truth and the destruction of error, he could well afford to proceed with deliberation.

Soon after the opening of the new reign, it was ordered in the king's name that the clergy should, once

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 457

a quarter at least, dissuade the people from pilgrimages and image-worship, and that images to which pilgrim- ages were performed or offerings made should be de= stroyed. " All shrines, with their coverings, tables, candlesticks, trindills or rolls of wax, pictures, and other monuments of feigned miracles, were to be taken away and destroyed, so that no memory of them should re- main in walls or windows; and the people were to be exhorted to make the like clearance in their houses. Pulpits were to be provided, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Commandments, were to be recited by the priest, on holy days, when there was no sermon ; and no person, who could not recite them, should be admitted to the Sacrament. No person might preach unless he were licensed ; and because of the lack of preachers, the curates were to read homilies, which would be set forth by the king's authority. A register was to be kept in every parish for marriages, christen- ings, and burials. The fifth part of every benefice wras to be expended on the mansion house or chancel till both should be in full repair ; and for every hundred a year which a clergyman possessed, in church prefer- ment, he should give a competent exhibition to a scholar at the university. Holy days wrere to be kept holy ; but it was declared lawful for the people to work on them in time of harvest, and save that which God hath sent ; scrupulosity, on such occasions, being pronounced sinful."

Before these injunctions were issued, the people, of

458 CROSS AND CROWN.

their own accord, had begun to demolish images in many parts of the kingdom, declaring that it was not lawful to tolerate that which was forbidden by the second commandment. From demolishing images, they afterward passed to the destruction and plundering of the churches themselves ; and thus many beautiful and valuable works of art and objects of historic interest were destroyed.

The Protestants now had a majority in the Govern- ment, and were able to put their measures in force. An Act was passed, ordering that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be administered in both kinds, conformably to the institution of our Saviour, and the practice of the primitive Church. Private masses wrere abolished, and the Romish clergy thus deprived of one of the principal sources of their revenues.

" When the new office for the communion was set forth, the point of confession was left free. Such as desired to make their confession to a priest, were ad- monished not to censure those who were satisfied with confessing to God, and the latter not to be offended with those who continued the practice of auricular con- fession ; all being exhorted to keep the rule of charity, follow their own conscience, and not to judge others in things not appointed by Scripture. A Liturgy was pre- pared, with the same sound judgment which charac- terized all those measures wherein Cranmer had the lead. It was compiled from the different Piomish offices used in this kingdom ; whatever was unexceptionable

THE EN G US II MARTYRS. 459

was retained, all that savored of superstition was dis- carded; the prayers to the saints were expunged, and all their lying legends; and the people were provided with a Christian ritual in their own tongue." The clergy were given permission to marry ; the laws which deprived them of that right being repealed. This gave great offence to the Romanists. They bitterly denounced the celebration of the service by the married clergy as a desecration of the altar, and declared that all who took wives were perjured by that act. Gardiner and Bonner utterly refused to consent to these changes, and were deprived of their sees and imprisoned. They were treated with leniency during their captivity. The Protestants had a fair opportunity of retaliating upon them the cruelties which they had inflicted upon the martyrs in the preceding reign, but in no instance did they imitate the example of the Romanists in this respect. The spoliation of the churches was their worst act ; and this was stopped by the interference of Arch- bishop Cranmer.

This spoliation and the seizure of the Abbey lands, brought on a rising of the Romanists in the west of England, similar to that which had occurred during the previous reign. It was suppressed with difficulty. This movement was followed by insurrections in Norfolk and the North, which were also put down.

The fall of the Duke of Somerset, and the advance- ment of the Earl of Warwick to the Protectorate, with the title of Duke of Northumberland, made no change

460 CROSS AND CROWN.

in the religious policy of the kingdom. Northumber- land paid no attention to religious matters, save to sneer at and ridicule them. He was energetic, how- ever, in securing to himself and his favorites what re- mained of the plunder of the religious establishments. Cranmer and Ridley incurred his displeasure for resist- ing his course, and Latimer, Lever, Bradford, and John Knox, sharply censured him, thereby incurring his enmity.

The Reformers had by this time begun to differ among themselves upon points of doctrine and concern- ing certain practices. The Romish clergy cunningly exerted themselves to increase these differences. The mischief might have become very great had the Re- formers continued in power. But it pleased God to try the Church of England once more with a fearful persecution. The good }^oung King Edward VI. died on the 6th of July, 1553. He was succeeded by his elder sister, Mary, the daughter of Catharine of Arragon, the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey upon the throne proving a failure.

Queen Mary had no* difficulty in obtaining the acquiescence of the nation in her claim. The men of Suffolk were the first to declare for her. They were Protestants, and they obtained from her a promise that she would make no change in the religion which her brother had established. She began her reign by vio- lating this promise.

" If any person may be excused for hating the Re-

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 4G1

formation," says Southey, "it was Mary. She regarded it as having arisen in this country from her mother's wrongs, as having aggravated those wrongs, and enabled the king to complete an iniquitous and cruel divorce. It had exposed her to inconvenience, and even danger, under her father's reign, to vexation and restraint under her brother ; and after having been bastardized in con- sequence of it, and again restored to her rights, when she ought to have succeeded peaceably to the throne, an attempt had been made to deprive her of the inheri- tance because she continued to profess the Roman Catholic faith. Her understanding was good, and had been cultivated most carefully ; she was a religious woman, according to the faith which she had imbibed; she had inherited something of her mother's constitu- tional melancholy, something of her father's immitigable disposition ; and as the circumstances of her life hitherto had tended to foster the former propensity, those in which she now found herself were not likely to correct the latter. Had the religion of the country been settled, she might have proved a good and beneficent, as well as conscientious queen. But she delivered her con- science to the direction of cruel men ; and believing it her duty to act up to the worst principles of a perse- cuting church, boasted that she was a virgin sent by God to ride and tame the people of England."

The rebellions and sufferings that had fallen upon the country during the reign of Edward, the outrages of Northumberland, and the scandals to which the

CROSS AXb CROWS,

difference? of the Reformers Lad given rise, had done much ' srthen the Roman Catholic party by caus- ing many of the people to regard these evils as being in a measure the legitimate consequences of the Refor- mation. The opposition to the Protestants had increased to such an extent that the people were on the whole glad that their new sovereign was a Catholic. In many places they tun. Protestant ministers out of the

churches and restored the priests and the service of Rome.

The queen did not leave the people long in doubt as to her course. One of her first acts was to appoint >p Gardiner Chancellor. The Reformers at once saw that evil days were at hand. Many of them left the country and took refuge in Scotland, in Switzer- land, and in Protestant Germany. Cranmers advice being asked by some of his friends, he advised them to fly. Th y urged him to take measures for his own it he answered that it was his duty to remain at his post

The queen proceeded slowly, and with some degree of caution. 3fc violated her promise to the Suffolk mem and entirely changed the religion of the country, but she - r1 I to violence. She declared

that it was her desire that her people should be brought to adopt her faith by mild measures. She commanded all her subjects to live together peaceably, abstaining from relig .uarrels. and said it was not her inten-

tion to compel any of them to change their faith. She

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 463

was soon joined by Cardinal Polo, who came as the Pope's Legate to complete the work of restoring the religion of Rome. Pole also declared himself opposed to severity. He came, he said, not to condemn, but to win the people back to their old religion.

More decisive measures followed, in spite of these deceitful protestations. The Protestant bishops were deprived of their sees. The marriages which the clergy and the members of the religious orders had contracted were declared illegal, and their children were proclaimed bastards. A number of prominent Protestant clergymen were apprehended, and were con- fronted with Romish priests, ostensibly for the purpose of converting them, but really to intimidate them. Finding it impossible to make them forsake their faith, they were committed to prison. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer were arrested, and imprisoned, and the nation was given abundant assurance that dark days were in store for it. Gardiner was the leading spirit in these severities, and, though he was afterwards surpassed in cruelty by his associates, he merits, and should receive his full share of the responsibility for the sorrow which fell upon England.

The persecution was begun by the burning of John Rogers at Smithfield, for denying Transubstantiation, and affirming that the Church of Rome was the Church of Antichrist. He was followed by Laurence Saun- ders, who was burnt for denying Transubstantiation. John Hooper, the good Rowland Taylor, John Brad-

464 CROSS AND CROWN.

ford, and others were put to death by fire for similar offences. The persecutors did not stop here, however. They struck at higher victims next. Bishops Ridley and Latimer were brought to trial, condemned, and burned at Oxford at the same stake. A feeling of general horror pervaded the land in consequence of these cruelties, and the people saw that they were sold once more, bound hand and foot, to cruel and persecut- ing Rome. The Romish thirst for blood was not satisfied with distinguished victims only. It included many of humble station whose names cannot all be mentioned here, and carried sorrow and dismay into all classes of the population. The humblest peasant as well as the bishop was hunted out, and made to feel the wrath of Rome. They did not obtrude themselves upon the notice of the authorities. The priests hunted for them, and dragged them forth to answer for their convictions. Father Persons, a Romish writer of the time, says : " Artificers, craftsmen, spinsters, and like people, came to answer for themselves before their bishops ; though never so ignorant or opposite among themselves, }^et every one would die for his opinions ; no reason to the contrary, no persuasion, no argument, no inducements, no threats, no fair means, no foul, would serve, nor the present terror of fire itself; — and the more the pastors entreated with them by any of the aforesaid means, the worse they were."

" The crime for which almost all the Protestants were condemned," says Hume, "was their refusal to

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 4G5

acknowledge the real presence. Gardiner, who had vainly expected that a few examples would strike a terror into the Reformers, finding the work daily mul- tiplying upon him, devolved the invidious office on others, chiefly on Bonner, a man of profligate manners, and of a brutal character, who seemed to rejoice in the torments of the sufferers. He sometimes whipped the prisoners with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise ; he tore out the beard of a weaver who refused to relinquish his religion ; and that he might give him a specimen of burning, he held his hand to the candle till the sinews and veins shrunk and burst.

" The persons condemned to these punishments were not convicted of teaching, or dogmatizing, contrary to the established religion ; they were seized merely on suspicion ; and articles being offered to them to sub- scribe, they were immediately, upon their refusal, con- demned to the flames. These instances of barbarity, so unusual in the nation, excited horror ; the constancy of the martyrs excited admiration ; and as men have a principle of equity engraven in their minds, which even false religion is not able totally to obliterate, they were shocked to see peVsons of probity, of honor, of pious dispositions, exposed to punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest ruffians for crimes sub- versive of civil society. Each martyrdom was equiva- lent to a hundred sermons against Popery ; and men either avoided such horrid spectacles, or returned from

30

466 CROSS AND CROWN.

them full of a violent, though secret indignation against the persecutors. Repeated orders were sent from the council to quicken the diligence of the magistrates in searching out heretics ; and in some places the gentry were constrained to countenance by their presence those barbarous executions. The Court finding that Bonner, however shameless and savage, would not bear alone the whole infamy, soon threw off the mask, and the unrelenting temper of the queen, as well as of the king, appeared without control. A bold step was even taken towards introducing the Inquisition into Eng- land. As the bishop's courts, though extremely arbi- trary, and not confined by any ordinary forms of law, appeared not to h invested with sufficient power, a com- mission was appointed, by authority of the queen's pre- rogative, more effectually to extirpate heresy. Twenty- one persons were named; but any three were armed with the powers of the whole. The commission runs in these terms : * That since many false rumors were published among the subjects, and many heretical opinions were also spread among them, the commissioners were to in- quire into those, either by presentments, by witnesses, or any other political way they could devise, and to search after all heresies ; the bringers in, the sellers, the readers of all heretical books ; they were to examine and punish all misbehaviours or negligences in any church or chapel ; and to try all priests that did not preach the sacrament of the altar ; all persons that did not hear Mass, or come to their parish church to service, that

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 467

would not go in processions, or did not take holy bread or holy water; and if they found that any did obstinately persist in such heresies, they were to put them into the hands of their ordinaries, to be punished according to the spiritual laws; giving the commissioners full power to proceed as their discretions and consciences should direct them, and to use all such means as they would invent for the searching of the premises, empowering them also to call before them such witnesses as they pleased, and to force them to make oath of such things as might discover what they sought after.'

" To bring the methods of proceeding in England still nearer to the practice of the Inquisition, letters were written to Lord North and others, enjoining them to put ' to the torture such obstinate persons as would not confess, and there to order them at their discretion. Secret spies also, and informers were employed, accord- ing to the practice of that infamous tribunal. Instruc- tions were given to the justices of the peace, ' that they should call secretly before them one or two honest persons within their limits, or more, at their discretion, and command them by oath or otherwise, that they shall learn and search out such persons as shall evil behave themselves in church, or idly, or shall despise openly by words the king's or queen's proceedings, or go about to make any commotion, or tell any seditious tales or news,' etc. In some respects this tyrannical edict even exceeded the oppressions of the Inquisition, by introducing into every part of Government the same

468 CROSS AND CROWN.

iniquities which that tribunal practises for the extirpa- tion of heresy only."*

The cruelties which Hume has thus grouped to- gether extended over a period of three years. Two hundred and seventy-seven persons were burnt alive for heresy during this bloody period. Among these were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred hus- bandmen, servants and laborers, fifty-five women, and four children.

In the midst of this persecution the brutal Gardiner died. His work was taken up, and carried on with vigor by his associates who remained behind. The queen, soured by her unfortunate marriage, and a mere puppet in the hands of the priests, was one of the principal instigators and promoters of the cruelties which have earned her the name of " Bloody Mary."

In the year 1556, Mary and her Popish supporters put into execution a plot they had long had in contem- plation. Mary had never forgiven Archbishop Cran- mer for the part he had taken in her mother's divorce, or for his services to the cause of the Reformation. He had been forced against his judgment to side with the party of Lady Jane Grey, and had thus rendered him- self amenable to the penalty of treason. Had this been his only offence, however, the queen could and would have forgiven it; but her vengeance and her

* The History of England. By David Hume (Lippincott & Co's. edition), vol. iii., pp. 421-423, 424, 425.

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 469

bigotry were too strong to be overcome. She had long designed the archbishop for her victim, and now his time had come. Yet in order that her vengeance might be more complete, and that Rome should have a share in it, she resolved to punish him for heresy rather than for treason. Cranmer was cited by the Pope to appear at Rome to answer to the charge of heresy. He was kept a close prisoner at Oxford by the Government, and was not able to go to Rome even had he desired to do so. Thereupon he was condemned by the Papal Court as contumacious.

The queen at once sent Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirleby, Bishop of Ely, to Oxford, to degrade the primate from his episcopal dignity. The ceremony of degradation was performed by them with great minute- ness, and Bonner went to lengths which his compan- ion could not approve, to humiliate the archbishop, who was finally clad in a threadbare gown, such as was worn by the yeomen of the land, and a towns- man's cap, and sent back to prison.

We have spoken of the gentleness of Cranmer's dis- position. Joined to this was a natural timidity, which he had often to struggle with. His enemies were well aware of this quality, and they resolved to make it the means of covering him with infamy. After the pro- ceedings at Oxford he was kept a close prisoner, but was treated with more kindness and consideration than he had experienced at any period of his captivity. He had wished to die with his friends, Latimer and

470 CROSS AND CROWN.

Ridley, feeling sure that their example and companion- ship would be a powerful support and comfort to him ; but he had been left to witness their fate, and had been kept a captive until the idea " that he was alone, forsaken of man, and perhaps of God, began to wear into the firmness of a many-sided susceptible nature." The cruel men by whom he was surrounded, had kept a vigilant watch over him, and had been quick to detect this feeling. They resolved to make use of it to induce him to recant his doctrines. He was Arch- bishop of Canterbury, the primate and father of the Reformed Church of England, and his recantation would be of the greatest importance to them. It would not only degrade him in the eyes of his followers, but it would do much to unsettle their constancy. The priests meant that the archbishop should die; but they were determined that he should die with the bitter knowledge that he had deserted his faith for nothing. They induced him by the kindness with which he was treated, to believe that they sincerely desired to serve him, and having thus won his con- fidence, they induced him to believe that he would not only receive pardon of the queen and the Church, but would be advanced to other dignities if he would sign a confession acknowledging as false the doctrines which he had taught against the Church of Rome. Plis natu- ral timidity now rose up against him. The love of life and the dread of the tortures by which his friends had died were strong in him, and in a moment of weak-

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 47 1

ness he yielded to the temptation, and signed a confes- sion acknowledging the doctrines of the papal suprem- acy and Transubstantiation. The Romanists, overjoyed at their triumph, declared that he had yielded every- thing. " The probability is," says Southey, " that he signed an equivocal recantation ; and that the other papers, five in number, wherein he was made to ac- knowledge in the most explicit terms, the doctrines which he had repeatedly confuted, and to vilify him- self as a mischief-maker and blasphemer, were fabri- cated by Bonner's directions. The circumstances are altogether suspicious as wTell as perplexed ; and nothing appears certain, but that he submitted, under a promise that his life should be spared, and that he should pass it, if he did not wish for wealth or dignity, in a private station, and wherever he listed."

A month was suffered to pass after the recantation, during which time the archbishop was allowed to re- main in suspense as to his fate, which had been fully decided upon beforehand. It was meant that this period should be spent by him in the agony of humiliation, for his persecutors knew that so pure and sensitive a nature as his must feel keeely the sin he had committed. But this period which was so full of sorrow to Cranmer was also of incalculable value to him. He had time to review calmly the course which he had pursued, and to see what sorrow and injury his cowardice would bring upon the Church. His better nature awoke, and it pleased God to give him in answer to his prayers

472 CROSS AND CROWN.

the strength which he did not naturally possess. He did suffer — quite as much as his enemies had meant that he should, but to a different purpose. His remorse for his recantation, his desertion of the faith of which he was now more than ever convinced, was bitter indeed, but it was wholesome. He was not informed of the in- tentions of the Court concerning him, but various cir- cumstances caused him to feel sure that he was to be sacrificed to the vengeance of the queen. His resolution was taken accordingly.

On the 21st of March, 1556, he was taken from his prison to die. It was intended that the sermon, which was usually delivered on such occasions, should be preached at the stake, but the day being wet and windy, it was preached in St. Mary's Church. It was expected that he would publicly repeat his recantation in the presence of the multitude which had assembled to see him die, and the sermon was in accordance with this expectation.

The archbishop was grave and patient in his de- meanor, though his countenance bore faithful witness to the depth and sincerity of his penitence. Even the Romanists pitied him. John Fox thus describes him : " Cranmer in all this meantime, with what grief of mind he stood hearing this sermon, the outward shews of his body and countenance did better express than any man can declare ; one while lifting up his hands and eyes unto heaven, and then again for shame letting them drop to the earth. A man might have seen the

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 473

very image and shape of perfect sorrow lively in him expressed. More than twenty several times the tears gushed out abundantly, dropping down from his fatherly face. Those which were present testify that they never saw, in any child, more tears than brast out from him at that time. It is marvellous what commiseration and pity moved all men's hearts that beheld so heavy a countenance, and such abundance of tears in an old man of so reverend dignity. Withal he ever retained a quiet and grave behaviour."

That this grief was not caused by the fear of death is evident from the firmness with which he met his fate. It was an agonizing sorrow for his denial of his faith, a sorrow which had not one element of weakness in it. He had triumphed over his fears, and we may be sure that had the queen in all sincerity offered him life and liberty, on that memorable day, on condition of his adhering to his recantation, Cranmer would have done justice to himself, and have sealed his faith with his blood.

When his time came to speak, Cranmer stood up in the church and acknowledged his duty of submission to the queen and the laws of the land ; but this sub- mission he said extended no farther than to submit to their commands, and bear patiently whatever hardships they might lay upon him. His duty to God required that he should speak the truth on all occasions, and not basely deny the doctrines which God had committed to his Church. " And now," he went on, " forasmuch as

474 CROSS AND CROWN.

I am come to the last end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life past and all my life to come, either to live with my Saviour Christ in joy, or else to be ever in pain with wicked devils in hell ; and I see before mine eyes presently either heaven" — and he pointed up- wards with his hand — " or hell," and he pointed down- wards, " ready to swallow me, I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith, without color or dissimulation; for now it is no time to dissemble. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth ; in every article of the Catholic faith ; every word and sentence taught by our Saviour Christ, his apostles, and prophets, in the Old and New Testaments.

" And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than anything that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here I renounce and refuse, as things written with my own hand as contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be ; and that is, all such bills and papers as I have written and signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue ; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall first be punished; for if I may come to the fire, it shall be the first burnt. As for the Pope, I utterly refuse him as Christ's enemy and Anti- christ, with all his false doctrine ; and as for the Sacra- ment, I believe as I have taught in my book against the Bishop of Winchester."

1UK ENGLISH MARTYRS. 47,5

The Romanists were furious at the words of the archbishop. By this noble confession, the sincerity and earnestness of which were evident to every listener, the archbishop had redeemed himself, and had resumed his place in the Reformed Church of England. The Romanists interrupted him with cries and reproaches, and refusing to allow him to proceed, dragged him to the stake, where he died with the firmness and con- stancy of a faithful Christian man, thus worthily closing a great and useful life. Rome was again baffled, and the cause of Christianity was again victorious in the triumph of its martyr. Peter denied his Master, in a moment of weakness ; yet he glorified Him in the end. Cranmer did likewise.

The martyrdom of Cranmer was the most injurious to the Romish Church of any that took place during this reign. Thousands had witnessed his repentance, and Bonner's declarations to the contrary could not shake their faith in its sincerity. Tens of thousands had seen the patient heroism with which he suffered at the stake. The whole land mourned for him, and resented the brutal cruelty with which he had been put to death. Even those who held to the Romish faith were horror-stricken at the tragedy.

The blood of the archbishop, however, only made the persecutors more cruel. " Cranmer alone hitherto had suffered after recantation," says Froude ; " to others pardon had continued to be offered to the last moment. But this poor mercy was now extinguished.

476 CROSS AND CROWN.

A man in Hampshire, named Bembridge, exclaimed at the point of execution that he would submit ; a form was produced on the spot, which Bembridge signed, and the sheriff, Sir Richard Pexall, reprieved him by his own authority. But a letter of council came instantly to Pexall, that 'the queen's majesty could not but find it very strange ' that he had saved from punishment a man condemned for heresy ; the execu- tion was to proceed out of hand ; and ' if the prisoner continued in the Catholic faith, as he pretended, some discreet and learned man might be with him in his death, for the aiding of him to die God's servant.' Bembridge was accordingly burnt, and the sheriff, for the lenity he had dared to show, was committed to the Fleet. Whole detachments of men and women were again slaughtered in London ; and the queen, exasper- ated at the determination with which the populace cheered the sufferers with their sympathy, sent out a proclamation forbidding her subjects to approach, touch, speak to, or comfort heretics on their way to execution, under pain of death. Shortly after, a con- gregation of Protestants were detected at a prayer meeting in a field near the city; thirteen were taken as prisoners before Bonner, and seven were burnt at Smithfield together on the 28th of June, 1558. The people replied to the queen's menaces by crowding about the stake with passionate demonstrations of affection, and Thomas Bentham, a friend of Lever the preacher, when the fagots were lighted, stood out in the

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 477

presence of the throng, and cried : ' We know that they are the people of God, and therefore we cannot choose but wish well to them, and say, God strengthen them. God Almighty, for Christ's sake, strengthen them.' The multitude shouted, in reply, ' Amen, Amen.'

" Alarmed himself, this time, at the display of emo- tion, Bonner durst not outrage the metropolis with the deaths of the remaining six. Yet not to let them es- cape him, he tried them privately in his own house at Fulham, and burnt them at Brentford at night in the darkness." *

The people of England took up the cause of the martyrs warmly. Each case of persecution made fresh converts for the Reformation. A Church that was as bloodthirsty and cruel deserved all that the Reformers had said against it, and the people came to hate it, and to wish for its downfall. The queen, who had begun her reign amidst the rejoicings of her subjects, was now hated beyond measure. On all sides she was cursed with a bitterness which words have no power to express. She was fully conscious of this, and this knowledge caused her no little suffering. In spite of her crimes, it is impossible not to pity her at this period, for she drained the bitter cup of retribution to the very dregs. Her husband grew tired of her, and went back to Spain, leaving her to suffer the keenest pangs of jealousy and the consciousness of being an

* History of England. By J. A. Froude (Scribner's edition), vol. vi. pp. 479, 4S0.

478 CROSS AND CROWN.

unloved and neglected wife. She supposed herself pregnant, when in reality the symptoms which she thus interpreted were but the signs of an incurable dropsy. The people were not slow to give her abundant evidences of their hatred of her. Libels and lampoons, ribald ballads upon her supposed preg- nancy were dropped in her way where she could not fail to see them. As she read them she would give way to bursts of despairing fury, and then go to her chamber to weep her heart out in the bitterness of her suffering. There she would sit for hours on the floor, her knees drawn up to her face. Then rousing .her- self, she would wander restlessly about the palace galleries, or write to her husband those sorrowful, tear- blotted letters which had no power to move his heart of adamant. Yet all this while the fires blazed through- out England, and the groans of the martyrs went up to Heaven unceasingly.

At length on the 14th of November, 1558, Queen Mary died, and a few hours later Cardinal Pole, her chief coadjutor in the work of cruelty, followed her. The news was greeted in all parts of the kingdom with demonstrations of joy. Bonfires blazed, bells were rung, and men thanked God that the tyrant was removed from over them.

Mary was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, and by education and in- clination a Protestant. The people hailed her acces- sion with unaffected delight, for Mary had sickened

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 479

tjiem of the religion of Koine. The new queen's first act was to make Sir William Cecil her principal Secretary of State. It was evident to all that Roman- ism was to find no favor with the new sovereign. When preparations were being made for her coronation, she refused to allow the host to be elevated before her, and the Archbishop of York refused to perform the ceremony of crowning her. It was his office to do so, as the See of Canterbury had been made vacant by the death of Cardinal Pole. All the other bishops, except the Bishop of Carlisle, refused, in like manner, to per- form this ceremony.

Elizabeth acted with great firmness and forbearance. She was advised to punish the disobedient bishops, but she replied, " Let us not imitate our sister's example, but rather show that our Reformation tendeth to peace, and not to cruelty." She at once summoned the bishops before her, and commanded them to acknow- ledge her supremacy and remove from the Church the superstitious and corrupt practices which had crept into it during the preceding reign. Bishop Kitchen, of LandafF, obeyed her command, but the others, thir- teen in number, refused to acknowledge her supremacy, and declared they would make no changes in the Church. The queen at once deprived them of their sees. They believed that by their refusal they would seriously embarrass the queen, who would not be able to fill their places with others whose consecra- tion the people would acknowledge as valid. They

480 CROSS AND CROWN.

were greatly mistaken, however, for Elizabeth recalled from their exile in Switzerland three bishops who had taken refuge there when Mary began her work of blood. They were Barlow, Scory, and Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible. These three laid their hands on the excellent Dr. Parker, who had been chap- lain to Anne Boleyn, and consecrated him, the queen having bestowed upon him the Primacy.

Under the wise guidance of the men of Elizabeth's choice the work of restoring the Church of England to the Reformers was carried on. New bishops were con- secrated to fill the vacant sees, and the parish churches were gradually placed in the hands of the Reformed clergy. The errors of doctrine were thrown out, and the religion of Rome was effectually driven out of England. There was no persecution of the Catholics. They were treated with forbearance. They, on their part, however, harassed the queen during her entire reign with threats and conspiracies. Some of these plots had for their object the transfer of the crown to Mary Queen of Scots and the restoration of the Rom- ish religion. Others designed the crown for Philip II., and had they been successful would have made Eng- land simply a Spanish province. All had for their object the death of Elizabeth and the destruction of Protestantism. The Jesuits were especially active, and were anxious to repeat in England the horrors they had perpetrated upon the Continent. The genius, tact, and firmness of Elizabeth and her ministers carried the kingdom and the Church in safety through

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 481

these trying days. Domestic insurrection was put

down with the strong hand, the Spanish Armada was defeated and the danger of invasion averted, and the conspirators were detected and punished.

On the Continent Rome and the Jesuits were mak- ing martyrs by the score. In the humble Vaudois Valleys they were waging a merciless war upon the descendants of the Apostolic Christians, burning and killing wherever they had the power and the oppor- tunity. They were destroying the prosperity of the Low Countries, and cursing them with ruin and misery worse than death. They were ravaging France, and staining the fame of that beautiful land with the blood shed on the terrible day of St. Bartholomew. Yet in spite of all this they found time to scheme for the ruin of England. That they did not succeed in their efforts was not their fault.

The Reformation was now successful. We cannot follow it through the reigns of Elizabeth and her suc- cessors, for that would be to trace the history of the Established Church of England rather than to note the struggles of Protestantism. We must pass over a long period, during which the Romanists never entirely ceased their plottings, or totally abandoned their hope of regaining England.

When James II. ascended the throne at the death of his brother, Charles II., in 1685, a general feeling of uneasiness took possession of the nation. He was an avowed Romanist, and one of the most bigoted

31

482 CROSS AXD CROWN.

monarchs that ever ruled a State. His ardent desire was to become as absolute in England as Louis XIV. was in France, and to restore the Romish religion in his dominions. He was thoroughly under the influ- ence of the Jesuits, who had another hold on him through his mistress, whose connection with the king they encouraged for the sake of the power it brought them. The Pope was well satisfied with James' inten- tions, but he advised him to proceed cautiously. The king, however, was not as politic as the Pontiff. He attached little importance to his coronation oath, and violated the English Constitution in so many respects, that the people during his reign may be said to have had no liberties save what he chose to allow them. The Parliament submitted so tamely, that the king was encouraged to undertake the conquest of the Church. He met with a firm and dignified resistance from the clergy, a resistance which so exasperated him, that he put in force a series of measures which plainly showed that he meant to deprive the people of their religious as well as of their civil liberties. The Eng- lish had not forgotten the cruelties of Bloody Mary, nor the subsequent efforts of the Romanists to destroy the Church of England, and they were now given abundant evidence that if the king did succeed in restoring the power of the Pope, or the religion of Rome, it would be by the destruction of all that they held most dear on earth. There could be no doubt that a revival of Romanism in England meant also the introduction of Jesuitism and the Inquisition, and

THE ENGLISH MARTYRS. 483

the establishment of a reign of terror such as had foh lowed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France. The Church was vigilant in sounding the alarm, and from every pulpit in the land the people were warned against the danger which threatened them. Not that the clergy were disloyal to their faithless king, but that they took care that none should be ignorant of the evils which would follow the reintroduction of Romanism into England.

The king had greatly mistaken the character of his countrymen. England was now a Protestant country, and a land in which the sentiment of -civil and reli- gious freedom was too deeply implanted to be rooted up. The king, who was personally popular at his accession to the throne, became odious to the nation. He persisted in his unlawful and impolitic course, how- ever, and at last the whole nation rose against him, drove him out of England, and gave the crown to his son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, the Prot- estant Prince and Princess of Orange.

With James II. fell the last hope of Rome. The accession of William and Mary to the throne placed the Church of England beyond the power of the Pope. It gained a new hold on the popular attachment by its courageous defence of the liberties of the nation against King James, and the crimes of the Romish Church in Continental Europe, which now continually horrified mankind, were a constant warning to the English to cherish and defend the faith which made them secure against such ills.

II.

LORD COBHAM.

N the County of Kent, four miles from the city of Rochester, is the pretty town of Cowling, the chief attraction of which is its ruined castle. In the feudal days of England this was one of the strongest of all the baronial holds of the- kingdom. It had been for many generations the seat of the noble and powerful house of Cobham. During the early part of the reign of Henry V. it was held by Sir John Old- castle, who had married Joan the last heiress of the line of Cobham. Oldcastle held the place in right of his wife, and sat in the House of Peers as Lord Cob- ham, a name by which he came to be generally known and beloved.

Lord Cobham had been a soldier in his younger days, and had fought with great distinction in the French and Welsh wars. He had been a friend of King Henry IV., who appreciated his sterling qualities and the good ser- vice he had done, and he was also a friend and, as the rumor goes, a companion of the graceless " Prince Hal " in some of his mad pranks about Gad's Hill. When the young prince came to the throne as Henry V. this friendship remained unbroken. But Lord Cobham was

484

LORD COBIIAM. 485

not only a soldier and a friend of the king. He was the friend and benefactor of the poor and distressed, and his kindnesses, which were innumerable, soon gained for him from the common people the name of " the good Lord Cobham." He was a disciple of Wycliffe, a receiver of the principles of the Reformation. He was a constant and devoted student of the Bible, and he found there " the true light " which enabled him to see and to avoid the errors of Rome. He made no effort to conceal his opinions, but openly avowed them. When the Romish prelates began to persecute the Lollards, as the followers of Wycliffe were called, Cobham received the latter at Cowling Castle, and gave them shelter and protection. He not only defended and encouraged these preachers of the truth, but he was an uncompromising enemy of the monks, being a constant witness of their enormities. His outspoken dislike of them drew upon him the enmity of the Primate, Thomas Arundel, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who was the patron and promoter of almost every monkish enterprise in the land. More- over, Cobham boldly and vehemently denounced the new system of burning men alive for heresy, which Arundel had borrowed from the Romish Church on the Continent and introduced into England. It was a punishment unknown until then to English law, and utterly opposed to the English spirit of justice, and Cobham sharply condemned it as a devilish device, not to be justified from the Word of God. Between Arundel and himself the contest was long and bitter, and was at

486 CROSS AND CROWN.

length brought to a crisis by the honest knight telling the archbishop to his teeth what he thought of his new device for killing men.

Arundel was not a man to forgive a speech like this. Moreover, he was a bigoted priest, thoroughly devoted to the interests of his Church, and willing to sacrifice even his country for the cause of Rome, so that his re- ligious zeal as well as his personal hatred prompted him to attempt the ruin of the bold champion of Lollardism. He accordingly drew up a charge against Cobham, basing it upon his opposition to the Church of Rome, which required unqualified submission and obedience from every one. He presented this charge to the king, and asked him to proceed against Cobham as a dangerous heretic, supporting his request by the entreaties of other prelates and a number of priests and monks. The king was at first unwilling to proceed against his friend, whose noble nature he knew and admired, and he re- quested the prelates to try to reason with Lord Cobham before undertaking severer measures.

It so happened that, on that very day, a pile of " heretical books " was burned at St. Paul's Cross, in London. The primate presided over the ceremony, and in a sermon to the people explained to them why the books were burned. One of these books was found to be the property of Lord Cobham, having been seized at the limner's in Paternoster-row, whither it had been sent to be illuminated. It was at once handed to Arundel, who, in high glee, took it to the king, and

LORD COBHAM. 4g7

called his attention to certain passages in it which were particularly severe on the Romish doctrines. The king read the passages, and at once declared that they were the most pernicious he had ever seen. Sending for Cobham, he demanded of him why he had kept such a book. Cobham replied that he had never read more than one or two leaves in it, and did not really know the nature of its contents. The king then censured him for his opposition to the Church, and urged him to acknowledge himself guilty of the offence charged against him, and to submit, as an obedient child, to his mother the Holy Church. The knight at once made him this noble reply, speaking in a tone loud enough for all present to hear him :

" You, most worthy prince, I am always prompt and willing to obey ; unto you (next my eternal God) owe I my whole obedience ; and submit thereunto, as I have ever done, all that I have either of fortune or nature, ready at all times to fulfil whatsoever ye shall in the Lord command me. But as touching the Pope and his spirituality, I owe them neither suit nor service ; forso- much as I know him by the Scriptures to be the great Antichrist, the son of perdition, the open adversary of God, and the abomination standing in the holy place."

Henry turned angrily away from his friend, and said to Arundel that he might proceed against the knight to the very extremity.

Lord Cobham, seeing his danger, at once left London, and went back to Cowling Castle, which he put into a

488 CROSS AND CROWN.

state of defence, being determined to resist with force any effort which the archbishop might make to arrest him. He knew that he could expect no mercy from the priests after his bold denunciation of the Pope, and that he would have to rely upon his own arm and his popularity with the people to protect him from the wrath of the Church. His castle was strong, his people were devoted to him, and he was more than a match for Arundel. He did not intend to be the victim of the priests if he could help it. The arch- bishop was conscious of his strength, and finding it im- possible to serve upon him a summons to appear before the ecclesiastical court, caused his citation to be affixed to the great gates of Rochester Cathedral. This docu- ment was twice torn down by friends of Cobham, and the archbishop demanded of the king the arrest of the knight, upon pain of incurring the censure of the Church.

Henry V. was a man of noble and generous nature, a brave and gallant prince, but he was also profoundly superstitious. He had delivered himself over to the priests, and was ruled by them with such adroitness, that he was in religious matters but little more than a puppet in their hands. Cobham knew this, and knew that the king would not dare to refuse the demand of the archbishop. If further resistance were attempted, he would be placed in the position of a rebel against his king, and the brave old soldier shrank from such a prospect. He accordingly determined to go in person

LORD COB II AM. 489

to the king, and demand justice at his hands. He first wrote a paper, which he called, "The Christian Belief of the Lord Cobharn," which he meant should be his justification. He began with the Apostles' Creed, and followed this with a concise statement of his belief. He declared that the Church was divided into three parts, the Saints in Heaven, the Souls in Purgatory (if, said he, there be any such place as Purgatory taught in the Scriptures), and the Faithful on Earth. The latter, or Church Militant, he said, was divided, by the just ordinance of God, into the three estates of Priest- hood, Knighthood, and the Commons, who, by the will of God, ought to aid, and not to destroy, each other. The duty of the priests was that, set apart from the contamination of the world, they should conform their lives to the examples of Christ and his Apostles, ever- more occupied in preaching and teaching the Scrip- tures purely, and in giving wholesome examples of good living to the other two degrees, more modest, also more loving, gentle, and lowly in spirit should they be, than any other people. The knighthood, he said, ought to defend the pure word of God, and oppose the introduction or execution of any measures calculated to destroy its purity. " They ought also to preserve God's people from oppressors, tyrants and thieves ; and to see the clergy supported, so long as they teach purely, pray rightly, and minister the sacraments freely. And if they see them do otherwise, they are bound by the law of office to compel them to change their doings."

490 CROSS AND CROWX

The duty of the common people was to be obedient and submissive to their lawful superiors in all things not contrary to God's word, and to be industrious and frugal. He then professed his full belief that the body and blood of Christ were verily and indeed con- tained in the Sacrament of the altar, under the simili- tudes of bread and wine ; that the law of God was most true and perfect ; and that they which did not so follow it in their faith and works (at one time or another) could not be saved; "whereas he that seeketh it in faith, accepteth it, learneth it, delighteth therein, and performeth it in love, shall taste for it the felicity of everlasting innocency. Finally, that God will ask no more of a Christian believer, in this life, than to obey the precepts of this most blessed law. If any prelate require more, or any other kind of obe- dience than this, he contemneth Christ, exalting him- self above God, and so becometh an open Antichrist." He begged the king to cause this confession to be examined by the wisest and most just men in the realm, so that it might be found that he was a true and faithful Christian man. If they should find hjrn in error, and could teach him a better belief by the Word of God, he declared he would reverently adopt their teachings.

With this paper, Lord Cobham went to London and sought the presence of the king. Henry had been thoroughly won over by the priests, and he received his old friend with sternness, refused to receive his

'

: » ' <;

to be obedient

ifl all things

fcH belief that the

filj «nd indeed con- ^ the simili-

* law of God was **v which did not so

•- time or

* thews he that rath it, delighted . *coll taste for it the

My, that God Wiewr, in this life, nibbed law. If t «k kind of obe- Ctet, exalting him- ,a open Antichrist."

,A jit men in ^t be wis a true and f #$ find hjm in ff bdkf by the Word

^^fiir idoDt thai

|V0|V

^ »nd he received

	1
		1 ^ Ji

LORD C0B1IAM. 491

paper, and ordered it to be delivered to the men who were to be his judges. Cobham then appealed to the law and practice of the kingdom in his behalf, and demanded to be tried by them for the offence charged against him, but his appeal was refused, and he was arrested and sent to the Tower to await his trial.

During his imprisonment in the Tower, Cobham was treated kindly and with consideration by the Lieu- tenant, Sir Robert Morley. He was lodged in the Earl of Warwick's chamber, the most comfortable and con- venient apartment in the great fortress, and was allowed such comforts as he desired. Here he was visited by numerous monks and friars, who undertook to argue with him on the subject of religion. They were roughly handled by the knight, who was a better theologian and a keener debater than the best of them. Nevertheless, Lord Cobham felt that he wras in the hands of his worst enemies, and at the mercy of a Church to which forgiveness is unknown. He there- fore prepared himself to undergo as a brave Christian man the trial through which he was to pass.

Arundel, feeling sure that his victim could not escape him, took his leisure in bringing him to trial. The Consistory, or court of priests, met in the Chapterhouse of St Paul's Cathedral, and before this body the pris- oner was taken to be examined. The archbishop told him that having been charged with and found guilty of certain culpable heresies, he might even yet make his peace with the Church, and receive absolution if

492 CR OSS A ND CR 0 WN.

he would humbly ask for it. In reply to this, the

knight presented to the court a paper containing a

written statement of his belief. The archbishop took

i

the paper and bade him stand aside while the judges consulted together concerning it. Presently he called him back and questioned him concerning his belief in the doctrines of Transubstantiation and auricular con- fession. Cobham replied that he had fully stated his views in the writing he had delivered to the court, and would say no more.

" Sir John," said the archbishop, " beware what you do ! For if you answer not clearly to these things (especially at the time appointed you only for that purpose), the law of Holy Church is, that compelled once by a judge, we may openly proclaim you a heretic."

" Do as ye think best," was the reply, " for I am at a point."

To all their other questions he replied that he had fully expressed himself in his writing, and would say no more.

This examination took place on a Saturday; and the wicked judges, finding they could do nothing with him, sent him back to the Tower until the next Monday, telling him they would send him their questions in writing, and that he would have to answer them in the same way. These questions required him to state his belief in or rejection of the Romish doctrines of Transubstantiation, confession to and absolution from a

LORD COD HAM. 493

priest, the supremacy of the Pope as the successor of St. Peter, and the worship of saints and images and the performance of pilgrimages.

The archbishop adjourned the court from St. Paul's to nn obscure Dominican convent on Ludgate Hill, where, in the midst of priests and monks, he could treat his victim as he pleased. He filled the place with a crowd of his adherents, who brutally insulted the martyr as he was brought in under guard with their taunts and jeers.

Lord Cobham was not dismayed at the sight of so many of his priestly foes assembled to sit in judgment on him. He felt bitterly the injustice with which he was being treated, and as he listened to the insults with which the cowardly mob greeted him, he gave way to an emotion " than which," says Southey, " nothing nobler in its kind hath been imagined in fiction, or recorded in history."

Arundel opened the proceedings by again offering him absolution and mercy if he would seek it in the manner prescribed by the Church. Cobham turned to him indignantly, and exclaimed :

" Nay, forsooth, will I not, for I never yet trespassed against you, and therefore I will not do it." Then falling on his knees, and clasping his hands and raising his eyes to heaven, he cried out with emotion : " I shrive me here unto Thee, my eternal, living God, that in my youth I offended Thee, 0 Lord, most grievously in pride, wrath, and gluttony ; in covetousness and in

494 CROSS AND CROWN.

lecher)* ! Many men have I hurt in mine anger, and done many other horrible sins. Good Lord, I ask Thee mercy." He burst into tears as he spoke. Then rising to his feet, he said, with a mighty voice : " Lo, good people, lo ! for the breaking of God's law and his com- mandments they never yet cursed me ! But for their - own laws and traditions, most cruelly do they handle both me and other men. And, therefore, both they and their laws, by the promise of God, shall be utterly destroyed."

This awful appeal and denunciation so astonished and startled the court that the judges were all silent. They looked at each other in amazement, and their consciences troubled them sorely. The archbishop was the first to recover his self-possession, and he resumed the examination, asking Cobham to state his belief.

" I believe," was the intrepid reply, " fully and faiths fully in the universal laws of God. I believe that all is true which is contained in the holy sacred Scriptures of the Bible. Finally, I believe all that my Lord God would I should believe."

A simple belief in the truths of the Bible, however, was not enough for the priests, since that was to reject their unlawful claims. The judges pressed him with questions concerning the material bread in the sacrament,

" The Scriptures," he answered, " make no mention of this word material, and therefore my faith hath no- thing to do therewith. But this I say and believe, that it is Christ's body and bread."

LORD COBUASL 495

Several here cried out : " It is a manifest heresy to say that it is bread after the sacramental words have been spoken."

" St. Paul," said the prisoner, " was, I am sure, as wTise as you, and more godly learned, and he called it bread ; ' the bread that we break,' saith he, ' is it not the partaking of the body of Christ ? ' "

The archbishop then stated to him what had been determined on this point by the Church of Rome and the " holy doctors."

" I know none holier than Christ and His apostles," answered the knight ; " and as for that determination, it is none of theirs ; for it standeth not with the Scriptures, but manifestly against them. If it be the Church's, it hath been hers only since she received the great poison of worldly possessions. In your lordly laws and idle de- terminations, have I no belief. For ye be no part of Christ's holy Church, as your open deeds do show ; but ye are very Antichrists, openly set against His holy law and will. The laws ye have made are nothing to His glory, but only for your vain glory and abominable covetousness."

The prior of the Carmelites sharply reproved him for judging his superiors. " Rash judgment," said he, " and right judgment all is one with you. So swift judges always are the learned scholars of Wycliffe."

" It is well sophistered of you, forsooth," replied Lord Cobham. " Preposterous are your judgments evermore. For, as the prophet Esay saith, ye judge evil good, and

496 CROSS AND CROWN.

good evil ; and therefore the same prophet concludeth that, ' your ways are not God's ways, nor God's ways your ways.' And as for that virtuous man, Wycliffe, I shall say here, both before God and man, that before I knew that despised doctrine of his, I never abstained from sin. But since I learned therein to feel my Lord God, it hath otherwise, I trust, been with me. So much grace could I never find in all your glorious instructions."

" It were not well with me," said the Carmelite, " if I had no grace to amend my life, till I heard the devil preach. St. Hierome saith, ' that he which seeketh such suspected masters, shall not find the midday light, but the midday devil.' "

" Your fathers, the old Pharisees," returned Cobham, boldly, " ascribed Christ's miracles to Beelzebub and his doctrines to the devil ; and you, as their natural chil- dren, have still the selfsame judgment concerning his faithful followers. To judge you as you be, we need no farther go than to your own proper acts. Where do ye find in all God's law that ye shall thus sit in judg- ment of any Christian man, or yet give sentence upon any other man to death, as ye do here daily? No ground have ye in all the Scriptures, so lordly to take it upon you, but in Annas and Caiaphas, which sat thus upon Christ, and upon His apostles after His ascension."

A lawyer here remarked that Christ judged Judas. Cobham was better learned in the Scriptures than this man of the law, and he answered, quickly :

lord conn am. 497

"Judas judged himself. Indeed, Christ said, ' Woe unto him for that covetous act of his,' as he doth yet unto many of you ; for since his venom was shed into the Church, ye never followed Christ."

u What mean ye by that venom ? " asked the arch- bishop.

u Your possessions and lordship," replied Lord Cob- ham ; " for then cried an angel in the air, as your own chronicles mention, ' Woe, woe, woe ! this day is venom shed into the Church of God ! ' Since that time, one Pope hath put down another, one hath poisoned another, and hath cursed another, one hath slain another, and done much more mischief, as all the chronicles tell. Let all men consider well this, that Christ was meek and merciful ; the Pope is proud and a tyrant ; Christ was poor and forgave ; the Pope is rich and a malicious manslayer, as his daily acts do prove him. Rome is the very nest of Antichrist, and out of that nest cometh all the disciples of him, of whom prelates, priests, and monks are the body, and these piled friars are the tail."

The court felt that he was more than a match for them in argument, and they came at once to the questions upon his answers to which hung his life. He openly and explicitly denied the Romish doctrines of the real presence, the worship of the virgin, the saints, and images, auricular confession, and pilgrimages. When he repudiated image-worship, a friar asked him if he would worship the cross on which Christ died.

" Where is it ? " he asked, quickly.

32

498 CROSS AND CROWN.

" I put the case that it were here even now before you," said the friar. i

" This is a great wise man," said Lord Cobham, " to put me an earnest question of a thing, yet he himself knoweth not where the thing is. I ask you what worship should I do unto it ? "

An ignorant clerk replied : " Such worship as Paul speaketh of, and that is this, ' God forbid that I should joy, but only in the cross of Christ Jesus.' "

" This is a very cross," exclaimed Lord Cobham, spreading forth his arms ; " yea, and so much better than your cross of wood, in that it was created of God ; yet will I not seek to have it worshipped."

" Sir," said the Bishop of London;, " ye wote well that He died on a material cross."

" Yea," answered the martyr, " and I wote also, that our salvation came not in by that material cross, but by Him which died thereupon."

The priests were getting the worst of it, and the archbishop brought the examination to a close.

" Sir John," said he, " ye have spoken here many wonderful words to the slanderous rebuke of the whole spirituality, giving a great evil example unto the com- mon sort. We must now be at this short point with you. Ye must submit yourself, and have none other opinion in these matters, than the universal faith and belief of the holy Church of Rome, or else throw your- self (no remedy) into most deep danger. See to it in time, for anon it will be too late."

LORD COB II AM. 499

" I will none otherwise believe in these points," re- plied the martyr, resolutely, " than that I have told you hereafore ; do with me what ye will."

" Well, then," said Arundel, " I see none other, but we must needs do the law." He then stood up, all the assembly vailing their bonnets, and began : " In the name of God, Lord Cobham having been detected and presented at the lawful denouncement and request of our universal clergy, we proceeded against him according to the law (God to witness !) with all the favor possible. And following Christ's example in all we might, which willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he be converted and live, we sought in all ways to bring him to the Church's unity, and though we found him in the Catholic faith far wide, and so stiffnecked that he would not confess his error, nor purge himself, nor yet repent him thereof, we yet pitying him, of fatherly compassion appointed him a competent time of deliberation, to see if he would not seek to be reformed ; but seeing that he is not corrigible, we are driven to the very extremity of the law, and with great heaviness of heart we now proceed to the publication of the sentence definitive against him."

This was sheer hypocrisy on the part of the primate, for he had resolved from the first that Lord Cobham should die, and he had come into the court with the sentence already written out, well knowing that the brave old soldier of Christ would not accept his life on the terms offered him. He then read the decree of the

500 CROSS AND CROWN.

court, which condemned him to be delivered over to the secular power to be put to death as a most detestable and dangerous heretic. The sentence also passed upon him the curse of the Church of Rome, and not upon him alone, but also upon all who should dare to aid him, or help, counsel, or defend him.

When the reading of the sentence was concluded, Lord Cobham turned to the archbishop, and said to him, firmly :

" Though ye judge my body, which is but a wretched thing, yet am I certain and sure that ye can do no harm to my soul, no more than could Satan upon the soul of Job. He who created that, will of His infinite mercy and promise save it ; I have therein no manner of doubt. And as concerning these articles before rehearsed, I will stand by them, even to the very death, by the grace of my eternal God." Then turning to the spectators, and stretching forth his hands, he exclaimed, in a loud voice : " Good Christian people, for God's love, be well aware of these men, for they will else beguile you, and lead you blindling into hell with themselves. For Christ saith plainly unto you, ' If one blind man leadeth another, they are like both to fall into the ditch.' " Then kneeling down before them, he prayed for his enemies : " Lord God Eternal ! I beseech Thee, of Thy great mercy's sake, to forgive my pursuers, if it be Thy blessed will."

His words were wasted on the throng of priests and monks, who had from the first resolved to destroy him.

LORD COB II AM. 501

He was taken back to the Tower. As he passed through the streets of London under guard, he was followed by a weeping multitude, who prayed him to be firm and to be assured of their love and sympathy. His confession before the court was copied by his friends and circulated among the people, by whom it was eagerly and tearfully read. A little later, the priests put out a report that he had changed his mind since his sentence, and was now convinced that his former opinions were errors. He at once wrote the following declaration in contra- diction of the slander :

" Forasmuch as Sir John Oldcastle, Knight and Lord Cobham, is untruly convicted and imprisoned, falsely reported, and slandered among the common people by his adversaries, that he should otherwise both feel and speak of the sacraments of the Church, and especially of the blessed sacraments of the altar, than was written in the confession of his belief, which was indicted and taken to the clergy, and so set up in divers open places of the city of London, known be it here to all the world that he never since varied in any point."

Copies of this paper were posted by the friends of Lord Cobham on church doors and the city gates, and in other places in London. This effectually contradicted the rumor of his recantation, although his enemies did not cease to repeat the charge. His friends were even more active than his enemies, and one dark October night, about four weeks after his trial, a band of reso- lute citizens of London made a descent upon the Tower,

502 CROSS AND CROWN.

released Lord Cobham from his prison, and carried him in triumph to his town-house in Smithfield, within the walls of the armed city of London.

The archbishop was furious when he heard of Cob- ham's escape, but he dared not venture to take him in the city, for the whole municipality would have rallied to the defence of their favorite. The king was not willing to proceed against his old friend, now that he had had time to reflect upon the matter, and Lord Cobham remained for three months undisturbed in his home. Arundel was resolved, however, that his enemy should die, and the whole Church stood ready to aid him in his diabolical scheme. The archbishop was an accomplished plotter, and he determined to make the popularity of Lord Cobham with the Lollards the means of turning the king against him. Either by his cunning machinations, or by some other means, the Lollards were induced to make a most unwise display of their strength. The matter is shrouded even at present in a great deal of doubt, but we may well sup- pose that Arundel was to a very great extent the inciter of the attempt which he knew would bring ruin upon the man and the cause he hated. " The king was informed that the Lollards had formed a plot for mur- dering him and his brothers at Eltham. He removed immediately to Westminster, and was then told that they were assembling from all quarters, in the Ficket Field, behind St. Giles's, to act at a certain hour under Lord Cobham, and burn the Abbey, St. Paul's, St.

LORD COD HAM. 503

Alban's, and all the friaries in London. In the middle of the night, the king ordered his friends to arm, that he might anticipate these enemies. He was urged to wait till daylight, that he might see who were with him, and who against him, and he was advised also to collect an army, if there was a formidable body to be opposed ; but with such men as at this immediate and unseasonable summons could be got together, he went out, during a Christmas night, to the place stated by his informer, and found only a few persons there, who being asked what they wanted there, said, ' The Lord Cobham.' It is said that unless the precaution had been taken of guarding the city gates, these people were to have been joined by fifty thousand servants and apprentices. In opposition to this most improba- ble story, it is asserted, that the persons whom the king found in the fields were collected there to hear a midnight preaching, because they could not assemble without danger by day; and this tale, considering the season of the year, is as little credible as the former.* It is not unlikely that a conspiracy may have been formed for the purpose of raising the right- ful family to the throne, and that the Lollards had embarked in it as a party, in the expectation of obtain-

* This tale is not so incredible as Southey supposes. The weather never had the effect of preventing the assembling of the Reformers in times of danger. "We have already seen that the Potestants of Italy and France braved even greater rigors than a winter midnight to hear the "Word of God from their preachers. The English were not less zealous.

504 CROSS AND CROWN.

ing toleration at least, if not the triumph of their doctrines." *

The principal personages among the Lollards were seized and imprisoned, and thirty-nine of them were burned alive for heresy and treason. The king set a price of a thousand marks on Lord Cobham's head, and extraordinary privileges were offered to the city which should deliver him in chains to the king. All these rewards were offered in vain, however. Lord Cobham escaped from his town house and took refuge in the country, passing from place to place, and finding friends everywhere willing and ready to incur any danger to give him shelter. The archbishop followed him with the vigilance of a bloodhound. Every monk and priest in the kingdom was on the watch for him, and the Church was converted into a vast detective agency for his apprehension. For four years, however, he remained at large, hiding among his friends. At length, he was betrayed by Lord Powis of Wales, who was paid by the priests to conduct them to his hiding place. He was immediately surrounded by an armed force, but he stood resolutely upon his defence, and would not have been taken alive had not a woman broken his legs with a stool. He fell helpless to the floor, and was at once seized. He was placed in a horse litter, and conveyed to London with all speed. The archbishop now had his victim in his power.

* Southey's Book of the Church, p. 206.

LORD COB HAM. 505

The king was in France, and to bring him to trial foi high treason would be but to delay his death, and he might again escape them. The old sentence for heresy was pretext enough for killing him, and it was resolved to put it into instant execution. The good Lord Cobham was accordingly taken in his helpless state to Smithfield, where a gallows had been erected in front of his own house. He was suspended in chains from this gibbet, and a slow fire was kindled under his body as it swung in the chains. In this way, he was literally roasted to death. His sufferings were of the most horrible kind, and were prolonged very greatly. He was the first victim of the Romish Church martyred at Smithfield, afterwards so famous for these terrible scenes. His death was witnessed by a vast concourse of people, many of whom were his warmest sympathizers and friends. The priests and monks present mocked him cruelly during his agony, and, says Foxe, "used their utmost endeavors to prevent the people from encouraging him with their prayers."

III.

ANNE ASKEW.

HERE lived in Lincolnshire, in the reign of Henry VIII., a knight* of ancient and honora- {M-4 ble family, Sir William Askew by name. He resided at Kelsay, his ancestral home, and was the father of several daughters and a son. Close by him lived his most intimate friend, a Mr. Kyme, who was a man of great wealth. Mr. Kyme was the father of a son who was just entering upon manhood, and who would one day be the heir to his vast estate. Wishing that the young man should marry and settle down early, he began to look about him, as was the fashion with parents in those days, for a wife for his son, and his choice fell upon the eldest daughter of his old friend, Sir William Askew. The young people were betrothed, but before the marriage could be solemnized, the lady, who had been greatly averse to the proposed union, died. Sir William then proposed to Mr. Kyme that his son should marry Anne, his second daughter, who was more beautiful and attrac- tive than her sister had been. The knight was not willing to lose the chance of an alliance with so much wealth, and Mr. Kyme, on his part, was very anxious

506

. ' V. •'. • •':.'-."■

. in the .

1 lionora-

line. He

ml borne, and was

:^e} who

■ . HEohood, and

, J zan and settle

oot him, as was the

^i. far a wife for his

^ daughter of

Tfce jonng people

-jniige could he averse to

iaatbeDpro^ TWkni:

■

■

■

■

■■ '.

t

I

]

ANNE ASKEW. 507

that his son's wife should be a member of such a good old family. Young Kyme does not seem to have been very much concerned as to whom he married, but Anne Askew was earnestly opposed to becoming his wife. She begged her father not to compel her to marry a man whom she did not love, and who was personally disagreeable to her, but Sir William turned a deaf ear to her appeals, and in due time the marriage was celebrated.

Anne Askew was not only a beautiful and high spirited woman, but she was also well educated for a woman of her time, and was possessed of unusual mental gifts. She was a very pious woman, and hav- ing become a wife, she endeavored faithfully to dis- charge her duty to her husband. They lived together in peace for some time, and she bore him two children. Yet she could not bring herself to love her husband, or even to feel attached to him, and there is very good reason for thinking that he was not worthy of such a feeling on her part. There were frequent causes of discontent between them, and their married life at length became entirely the reverse of happy.

About this time the English Bible was given to the people by means of the printing press, and one of these copies came into the possession of Anne Askew, or Mistress Kyme. She read it with avidity, and it had the effect of working a complete revolution in her feelings and life. Up to this time she had been a Romanist, but the perusal of the Scriptures opened her

508 CROSS AND CROWN.

eyes to the errors of Rome, and she soon abandoned her old faith and became a convert to the religion of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Holy Gospel. Her Bible readings were watched with suspicion by the priests, who were quick to advise her husband to com- pel her to abandon a practice which they declared to be full of danger. Mr. Kyme, who was a bigoted Papist, endeavored to compel her to discontinue her studies, and thus drew from her the avowal that she was no longer a Romanist, but a follower of the doctrines of the Reformation. Instigated by the priests, he ordered her to give up her religion, and return to his own faith ; but she refused, telling him that her conscience was not subject to his control. He treated her very cruelly on account of her change of faith, and at length find- ing that he could not force her into obedience to his tyrannical demands, turned her out of his house.

She at once repared to London, where she found friends, and began a suit for a # divorce from her hus- band. The probability is that she abandoned the suit, finding it would be impossible to obtain justice at the hands of the Roman Catholic judges by whom her case would be considered. She resumed her maiden name, however, and steadfastly refused to return to her husband, or to have anything to do with him. She found friends at Court, and the queen, Catharine Parr, became warmly attached to her, and is said to have made her one of her ladies in waiting.

It was at this time that the Romanist enemies of

ANNE ASKEW. 509

Queen Catharine were busily working to accomplish her ruin. They found it a difficult and a dangerous thing to attack the queen directly, for she still retained her influence over Henry. Her enemies hoped that by selecting one or more of her friends they might wring out of them by the torture, evidence enough to war- rant them in bringing an accusation against her. They, therefore, made common cause with Anne Askew's husband, and determined to make Anne the means of involving her royal friend and benefactress in the ruin they designed for every English Protestant. They accordingly surrounded her with spies, whose business it was to note and report every act or ut- terance upon which a charge of heresy could be based. One of these, a worthless wretch named AVadloe, took lodgings next door to her house, and even went so far as to enter her residence and watch her through the door of her sleeping apartment. He could discover nothing, however, and being conscience stricken went back to his employers with this confession : " She is the most devout woman I have ever known; for at midnight she begins to pray, and ceases not for many hours, when I and others are addressing ourselves to sleep and work." The priests kept up their watch upon her, however. They wished to destroy her because of her renunciation of their creed and prac- tices, and they also hoped to wring from her in the agony of torture some confession which would be damaging to the queen. They were at length re-

510 CROSS AND CROWN.

warded for their vigilance. She was heard to say she had rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in the chapel. She also expressed her disbelief as to the efficacy of the sacrament of the eucharist being dependent on the character or intention of the priest ; and observed that whatever was the character or intention of the priest who administered to her the eucharist, he could not prevent her from receiving spiritually the body and blood of Christ. These ex- pressions were promptly reported to the priests, who obtained from the civil authorities a warrant for her arrest on the charge of heresy.

In March, 1545, she was brought before a commission in London, and examined concerning her belief. In this, as in all her subsequent examinations, the ques- tion most strongly pressed was, what her sentiments were as to the doctrine of Transubstantiation. She refused to answer some of the questions, knowing the malice of her judges, and not wishing to criminate her- self. Others she answered with great readiness and freedom. The chief examiner was Christopher Dare, who began by asking her:

" Do you believe that the sacrament upon the altar is the very body and blood of Christ ? "

If she had answered frankly according to her belief she would have rendered further examination useless, and her judges could have condemned her to death upon this confession. She wras aware of this, and was determined not to gratify them, or to criminate herself, so she said to Christopher Dare :

ANNE ASKEW. 5H

"Please tell me why St. Stephen was stoned to death ? "

" I cannot tell," replied Dare.

"Neither will I tell you whether I do or do not believe the sacrament upon the altar to be the very body and blood of Christ."

" "Why did you say," asked Dare, " that you would rather read five lines in the Bible than hear five masses in the church ? "

" I confess that I said no less," she answered, " because the one greatly edifies me, the other nothing at all." Then, without censuring the idolatry of the Mass, for she had no wish to needlessly prejudice her case, she quoted in proof of the uselessness of perform- ing the service connected with it in a tongue not understood by the people, the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 8), "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle ? " She also quoted the 19th verse of the same chapter : " In the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue."

They asked her many other questions, among others what she thought of the book the king had written against Luther, and which had won him from the Pope the title of " Defender of the Faith." They hoped she would answer that she did not approve it, and thus make the king her enemy, for he was merciless to those who failed to praise his book ; but, fortunately for her,

512 CROSS AXD CROWX.

she was able to answer, "I can pronounce no judg- ment upon it, as I never saw it." They also asked her, '•Do you not think that private masses help souls departed ? " " It is great idolatry," she answered, " to believe more in these than in the death which Christ died for us."

Finding it impossible to elicit anything from her, the examination was brought to a close, and she was sent to the Lord Mayor, who undertook to question her, but with no better success. He then committed her to prison, although there was no law to justify him in his act. Her friends endeavored to procure her release on bail, but the priests took care to prevent it, and she lay for seven days in the Compter prison, no one being allowed to speak with her during that time save a priest who was sent by the Bishop of "Winchester, the infamous Gardiner, to question her. He asked her this question :

" If the host should fall, and a beast should eat it, does the beast receive God or no ? "

" Seeing you have taken the trouble to ask this ques- tion," she replied, " I desire you also to take the trouble to answer it yourself: for I will not, because I perceive you all come to tempt me."

Her cousin Brittayne, who wras much attached to her, now endeavored to secure her release on bail. He appealed to the Lord Mayor to liberate her, but the magistrate told him that as this was the Church's mat- ter he could not set her free without the consent of the

ANNE ASKEW. 513

Bishop of London. Bonner, the prelate referred to, professed the greatest interest in her case, assured her cousin that he would do everything in his power to obtain her freedom, and urged him to advise her to speak her sentiments freely. The crafty bishop was fully resolved to burn Anne Askew, but he wished to beguile her into making an open confession of heresy, which he might use as a pretext for her murder. He had her brought before him on the 25th of March, and finding that he could not draw anything from her which would criminate her, taunted her with the cowardly insinuation that her life was not as pure as the Scriptures she read required. Looking him full in the face, she answered calmly :

" I would, my lord, that all men knew my conversa- tion and living in all points ; for I am so sure of my- self this hour, that there is none able to prove any dishonesty in me. If you know any that can do it, I pray you bring them forth."

Finding it impossible to make her utter anything for which she could be punished, the bishop drew up a confession, which he ordered her to sign. This con- fession would have committed her to the very doctrines she condemned, and she refused to sign it. At length, in compliance with the entreaties of her friends who were seeking her release, she wrote under the confes- sion : " I, Anne Askew, do believe all things contained in the faith of the Catholic Church." Bonner burst into a furious passion as he read this subscription, well know-

33

514

CROSS AND CROWN.

ing that by it she did not mean the Roman Catholic Church, and it was with difficulty that he could be brought to a sufficient degree of calmness to consent to her release. Bail was given, and she was set at liberty.

But the priests were resolved that she should not escape them. Her youth, her beauty, her intellectual attainments, and her virtues were winning her too many friends, and she was too dangerous a heretic to be suffered to live. In less than three months she was again a prisoner in 'their hands. She was brought before the Lords of the Privy Council at Greenwich, and by them sent to Newgate prison, to be dealt with according to the law.

The Lord Chancellor of England at this time was Thomas Wriothesley, one of the cruellest and most bigoted Romanists that ever held power in England. He was intimately associated with the old Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner in all the measures brought forward by the Romanist party to throttle the Reformation. He now undertook the prosecution of the beautiful woman whose innocence and pure woman- liness had no power to touch his cruel heart. He caused her to be brought before the council on the 25th of June, and subjected her to an examination which lasted for five hours. He asked her what was her opinion as to the bread in the eucharist. She replied :

" I believe that as oft as I, in a Christian congrega- tion, receive the bread in remembrance of Christ's death, and with thanksgiving, according to His holy institution,

feS

atjourkii' follow beak

less pnbk caei m i

cooldl:-;- ::. .

: , ' ■•»

4 .

h. . •'•

ANNE ASKEW.

)15

I receive therewith the fruits also of His most glorious passion."

Bishop Gardiner interrupted her, angrily, and ordered her to give a direct answer, and not to speak in parables, at the same time calling her a parrot.

" I am ready," she said, calmly, " to suffer all things at your hands ; not only your rebukes, but all that shall follow besides, yea, and that gladly."

The next day her examination was resumed, and her answers not being satisfactory to Gardiner, that merci- less prelate cried out to her, "You will be burned." She answered : " I have searched all the Scriptures, yet could I never find that Christ or His apostles put any creature to death."

Mr. Paget, one of the council, now asked her, more kindly than the others had done : " How can you avoid the very words of Christ, ' Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you ? ' "

" Christ's meaning in that passage," she replied, " is similar to the meaning of those other places of Scrip- ture, ' I am the door,' ' I am the vine,' ' Behold the Lamb of God,' ' That rock was Christ,' and such like. You are not in these texts to take Christ for the material thing which He is signified by, for then you will make Him a very door, a vine, a lamb, a stone, quite contrary to the Holy Ghost's meaning. All these indeed do signify Christ, even as the bread signifies His body in that place. And though He said there, ' Take, eat this in remembrance of me,' yet did He not bid them hang

■

514 CROSS A XD CR 0 WN.

ing that by it she did not mean the Roman Catholic Church, and it was with difficulty that he could be brought to a sufficient decree of calmness to consent to her release. Bail was given, and she was set at liberty.

But the priests were resolved that she should not escape them. Her youth, her beauty, her intellectual attainments, and her virtues were winning her too many friends, and she was too dangerous a heretic to be suffered to live. In less than three months she was again a prisoner in ' their hands. She was brought before the Lords of the Privy Council at Greenwich, and by them sent to Newgate prison, to be dealt with according to the law.

The Lord Chancellor of England at this time was Thomas Wriothesley, one of the cruellest and most bigoted Romanists that ever held power in England. He was intimately associated with the old Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner in all the measures brought forward by the Romanist party to throttle the Reformation. He now undertook the prosecution of the beautiful woman whose innocence and pure woman- liness had no power to touch his cruel heart. He caused her to be brought before the council on the 25th of June, and subjected her to an examination which lasted for five hours. He asked her what was her opinion as to the bread in the eucharist. She replied :

" I believe that as oft as I, in a Christian congrega- tion, receive the bread in remembrance of Christ's death, and with thanksgiving, according to His holy institution,

ANNE ASKEW. 515

I receive therewith the fruits also of His most glorious passion."

Bishop Gardiner interrupted her, angrily, and ordered her to give a direct answer, and not to speak in parables, at the same time calling her a parrot.

" I am ready," she said, calmly, " to suffer all things at your hands ; not only your rebukes, but all that shall follow besides, yea, and that gladly."

The next day her examination was resumed, and her answers not being satisfactory to Gardiner, that merci- less prelate cried out to her, " You will be burned." She answered : " I have searched all the Scriptures, yet could I never find that Christ or His apostles put any creature to death."

Mr. Paget, one of the council, now asked her, more kindly than the others had done : " How can you avoid the very words of Christ, ' Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you ? ' "

" Christ's meaning in that passage," she replied, " is similar to the meaning of those other places of Scrip- ture, ' I am the door,' ' I am the vine,' ' Behold the Lamb of God,' ' That rock was Christ,' and such like. You are not in these texts to take Christ for the material thing which He is signified by, for then you will make Him a very door, a vine, a lamb, a stone, quite contrary to the Holy Ghost's meaning. All these indeed do signify Christ, even as the bread signifies His body in that place. And though He said there, ' Take, eat this in remembrance of me,' yet did He not bid them hang

516 CROSS AND CROWJT.

up that bread in a pix and make it a god, or bow to it."

She was sent back to Newgate, and the next day was very ill. Believing that she was dying, she requested leave to receive a visit from the good Hugh Latimer, who afterwards proved so faithful a witness for Christ, that he might comfort her with his godly counsel, but her request was refused. It was now very plain to her that her enemies were resolved upon her death. She was a brave woman, as all her history proves, and she was a sincere Christian as well. She turned for support and comfort to the only true source, and she found strength to bear all her trials with Christian fortitude and meekness. Her feelings are well described in the following poem, written by her during her imprisonment in Newgate :

Like as the armed knight,

Appointed to the field, With this world will I fight,

And Christ shall be my shield.

Faith is that weapon strong,

"Which will not fail at need ; My foes, therefore, among,

Therewith will I proceed.

As it is had in strength , And force of Christ's way, It will prevail at length, Though all the devils say nay.

Faith in the fathers old Obtained righteousness ;

ANNE ASKEW. 5] 7

Which makes me very bold To fear no world's distress.

I now rejoice in heart,

And hope bids me do so ; For Christ will take my part,

And ease me of my woe.

Thou say'st, Lord, whoso knock

To them Thou wilt attend ; Undo, therefore, the lock,

And Thy strong power send.

More e^niies now I have

Than hairs upon my head : Let them not me deprave,

But'fight Thou in my stead.

On Thee my care I cast,

For all their cruel spite; I set not by their haste,

For Thou art my delight.

I am not she that list

My anchor to let fall, For every drizzling mist,

My ship substantial.

Xot oft use I to write,

In prose, nor yet in rhyme ; Yet will I show one sight

That I saw in my time.

I saw a royal throne,

"Where Justice should have sit, But in her stead was one

Of moody, cruel wit.

Absorbed was righteousness,

As of the raging flood ; Satan, in his excess,

Sucked up the guiltless blood.

5 1 S CR OSS AND CRO WN.

Then thought I, Jesus, Lord,

When Tliou shalt judge us all, Hard is it to record

On these men what will fall.

Yet, Lord, I Thee desire,

For that they do to me, Let them not taste the hire

Of their iniquity.

In all her previous examinations, Anne had avoided a direct answer to the question concerning her faith in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but now feeling that her enemies were determined to kill her, and that she had no longer anything to gain by refusing to answer their questions, she wrote to the Privy Council a plain statement of her belief, in these words :

" That the sacramental bread was left us to be re- ceived with thanksgiving in remembrance of Christ's death, the only remedy of our soul's recovery, and that thereby we also receive the whole benefits and fruits of His most glorious passion."

On Monday, June 28th, she was taken to Guildhall to be examined again by the council. She was taunted with being a heretic, but she denied the imputation, and declared that she had done nothing for which she de- served death by the law of God. When they asked her if she denied the Sacrament of the eucharist to be Christ's body and blood, she answered, without hesi- tation :

" Yes, for the same Son of God that was born of the Virgin Mary is now glorious in Heaven, and will come

ANNE ASKEW. 51 9

again from thence at the last day in like manner as He went up. And as to what you call your God, it is but a piece of bread. As an additional proof of this (mark it when you please), let it lie in the pix but three months and it will be mouldy, and so turn to nothing that is good. I am therefore persuaded that it cannot be God."

" Do you deny," she was asked, " the bread in the pix to be God?"

" God is a spirit," she replied, "and not a wafer-cake, and He is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and not by the impious superstitious homage paid to a wafer, converted, by Popish jugglery, into a God."

" Do you plainly deny Christ to be in the Sacrament?" she was asked again.

" I believe," she answered, " the eternal Son of God not to dwell there." She fortified her declaration — she quoted many passages of Scripture. " I neither wish death," she concluded, " nor fear his might. God have the praise thereof with thanks."

The council urged her to take the benefit of a priest, but she replied, with a smile, that she would confess her sins to God, from whom alone she could obtain absolution.

The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Martin Bowes, now asked and received permission to question her. " Thou foolish woman," he began, " sayest thou that the priest cannot make the body of Christ ? "

" I say so, my lord," replied Anne, " for I have read

520 CROSS AND CROWN.

that God made man, but that man can make God I never yet read, nor I suppose ever shall."

" Thou foolish woman," continued the pompous magis- trate, " after the words of consecration, is it not the Lord's body ? "

" No, it is but consecrated or sacramental bread," she answered.

" What if a mouse eat it after the consecration ? " asked the mayor, confident of annihilating her with this argument. " What shall become of the mouse ? What sayest thou, foolish woman ? "

Anne Askew gazed at him a moment, and then asked, quietly :

" What shall become of it, say you, my lord ? "

" I say that the mouse is damned," he answered, quickly.

" Alack ! poor mouse ! " she exclaimed, with mock pity.

Some of the council burst into a laugh at these wrords, and seeing how badly their champion was faring at the hands of Mistress Anne, they put a stop to his question- ing, and " proceeded," says Strype, " to the butchery they intended before they came thither."

By the law of England, Anne Askew was entitled to an open trial by jury, but the Roman Catholic influence was strong enough in the council to deprive her of this right. The Lord Chancellor Wriothesley and Bishop Gardiner exerted themselves to induce the council to condemn her, and were successful in their efforts.

ANNE ASKEW. 521

There is nothing so hateful to Rome as civil freedom, and nothing which gives her greater delight than the trampling down of the barriers with which the laws of a country encompass that freedom. On the 28th of June, Anne was condemned by the council in com- pany with Christopher White, and a Mr. Adams, a tailor. They were all three informed that they had been found guilty of heresy by their own confessions. The lord chancellor then read to them the sentence of the council, which was that they should be burned at the stake. They were then sent back to Newgate.

Anne now appealed to the king for justice, but her appeal fell upon an ear of stone. Henry was too intensely selfish to care for the life of this poor woman, and he left her case in the hands of the priests, her sworn enemies. These people endeavored to make it appear that her appeal was based upon her fear of death ; but this was not so. She did not fear death, but she wished to have justice done her. She felt that the law was being violated in her case, and that her rights as an English woman were being trampled under foot by the myrmidons of the Pope, and she was brave enough to contend for them to the last. In a letter to her old tutor, John Lascels, who suffered with her, she thus meets this charge of cowardice : " 0 friend, most dearly beloved in God, I marvel not a little what should move }'ou to judge in me so slender a faith as to fear death, which is the end of all misery. In the Lord, I desire of you not to believe of me such wickedness ; for I doubt

522 CROSS AXD CROWX.

not, but God will perform His work in me, like as He hath begun."

The Romanists now began to annoy her with efforts to induce her to recant. They sent to her Nicholas Shaxton. the apostate ex-Bishop of Salisbury, and others, who did their utmost, by promises of mercy and freedom, to move her. She remained firm, however, and told Shaxton to his lace that it had been good for him if he had never been born. When her visitors left her she was sent to the Tower of London — the da}- being the loth of July — where, at three o'clock in the afternoon, she underwent a new examination. This examination was conducted by the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, who wished to compel her to say something that would criminate the queen, or the Duchess of Suffolk, the Countess of Sussex, the Countess of Hertford. Lady Denny, or Ladv Fitzwilliams. all of whom the Ro- manists were anxious to destroy. Some of these ladies had been very kind to her since her imprisonment. The chancellor plied her with questions, but could dis- cover nothing to the prejudice of these ladies. He then ordered her to be stretched upon the rack, in order to force her through sheer suffering to say something that he might twist into an accusation against the ladies mentioned. She was fastened to the rack, and the levers were turned, causing her the keenest suffering. She bore the cruel torture without a cry or a murmur. *

* The torture of the rack, or ttretching. was applied in various ways. the object being always to cause the victim to suffer by the stretching

ANNE ASKEW. 523

The chancellor was furious at not being able to extort anything from her, and ordered the torture to be in- creased ; but the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Anthony Knevet, ordered the jailors to release her. Wriothesley

angrily commanded the lieutenant to obey him, but Sir Anthony told him that he commanded in the Tower, and reminded the chancellor that he had not the king's order to put the prisoner to the torture, and that he, the lieutenant, was incurring a serious risk in allowing one of the kings subjects to be racked without express orders from the king.

Wriothesley was a true son of the Romish Church, and he was not to be stopped in his cruelty. lie threw off his gown, and called on Richard Rich, who had accompanied him, and who was afterwards lord chan- cellor, to do likewise. Then these brutal men them- selves seized hold of the levers. The chancellor, pausing a moment, asked Anne if she was with child.

" Ye shall not need to spare for that," replied the heroic woman. " Do your wills upon me."

The chancellor and Rich then applied themselves to

or extension of his limbs. The rack was usually a stout wooden frame with two rollers or windlasses, one at each end, placed horizontally, seven feet apart. The arms and feet of the victims were fastened to these rollers by sharp, cutting cords. The windlasses were then turned by levers, until the body of the victim was in a state of tension, some- times so great as not only to dislocate the limbs, but to tear the muscles. The agony of the sufferer was also increased by the cords cutting through the ankles and wrists to the very bone. The rack has always been a favorite instrument of punishment with the Romish Church.

524 CROSS AND CROWN.

their horrid task. The victim on the rack was a wd man whose helplessness and gentleness might have moved any hearts but those hardened by the religion of Rome. They were merciless, and with their own hands they stretched her body until her joints were pulled asunder, and her bones almost broken. She en- dured it all, however, and to the end refused to say one word which might compromise any one who had be- friended her, or whom she had reason to think held the same faith as herself. Nothing but the fear that she would die under the torture made these wretches desist. As soon as she was released from the rack, she swooned from the awful agony. Restoratives were applied and her consciousness returned. Then the brutal chancellor kept her sitting for two hours on the bare floor, while he urged her to renounce her faith. After this, she says, in her touching narrative of her sufferings, " was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job ; I thank my Lord God therefor." Her words do not convey a fair idea of her condition. The torture had deprived her of the use of her limbs, which had been pulled apart, and her sufferings were intense. Her condition was such that she could have lived but a short time at the best, for it was not possible for a human body to rally from injuries such as she had received.

The lieutenant of the Tower set out for the king's presence immediately upon the departure of the chan- cellor, who had threatened him with the royal dis-

ANNE ASKEW. 525

pleasure for refusing to continue the torture. He reached the palace before the chancellor, and gave the king an exact account of the affair, declaring that he had not the heart to torture a poor woman when it was useless, without express orders from his majesty. Henry approved his conduct, and sharply censured the chan- cellor. There the matter ended, and he allowed the priests and their followers to work their will on the poor victim whom they had already brought down to the gates of death.

The chancellor and the Privy Council endeavored to prevent their treatment of Anne from becoming known, but without effect. They were ashamed that their cowardly brutality should be made known to the people. The chancellor sent her a message that if she would change her faith she should want for nothing, but that if she continued obstinate she should be sent to Newgate and put to death. She replied that she wrould rather die than break her faith.

Bonner and his associates, who were adepts at circu- lating false reports in such cases, endeavored to damage their victim in the eyes of the people by printing and circulating the paper which he had written after her first imprisonment, and which she had refused to sign. The reader will remember that she had written under this paper, " I, Anne Askew, do believe all things con- tained in the faith of the Catholic Church." Now, how- ever, Bonner printed the paper with her unqualified signature to it, and with the names of upwards of a

526 CROSS AND CROWiV.

dozen of ecclesiastics and laymen appended to it as wit- nesses. It was a trick worthy of its author. She at once drew u^) an answer, in which she utterly denied the genuineness of the document printed by Bonner, and declared that she had never, at any time since her trials began, ceased to profess the faith she then held.

She was then committed to Newgate, and while she lay in prison there, suffering and sore from the effects of her torture, she drew up the following confession of her faith :

" I, Anne Askew, of good memory, although my merciful Father hath given me the bread of adver- sity and the water of trouble, yet not so much as my sins have deserved, do confess myself here a sinner be- fore the throne of His heavenly Majesty, desiring His eternal mercy. And forasmuch as I am by the law unrighteously condemned for an evil-doer concerning opinions, I take the same most merciful God of mine, who hath made both heaven and earth, to record that I hold no opinions contrary to His Holy Word. And I trust in my merciful Lord, who is the giver of all grace, that He will graciously assist me against all evil opinions, which are contrary to His most blessed verity. For I take Him to witness that I do, and will unto my life's end, utterly abhor them to the uttermost of my power.

" But this is the heresy which they report me to hold : That after the priest hath spoken the words of consecration, there remaineth bread still. They both

ANNE ASKEW. 527

say, and also teach it for a necessary article of faith, that after those words are once spoken, there rcmaineth no bread, but even the selfsame body that hung upon the cross on Good Friday, both flesh, blood, and bone. To this belief of theirs, say I nay. For then were our common creed false, which saith, ' that He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead/ Lo, this is the heresy that I hold, and for it must suffer the death. But as touching the holy and blessed sup- per of the Lord, I believe it to be a most necessary remembrance of His glorious sufferings and death. Moreover, I believe as much therein as my eternal and only Redeemer, Jesus Christ, would I should believe.

" Finally, I believe all those Scriptures to be true which He hath confirmed with His most precious blood. Yea, and as St. Paul saith, those Scriptures are suffi- cient for our learning and salvation that Christ hath left here with us ; so that I believe we need no un- written verities to rule His Church with. Therefore look what He hath said unto me with His own mouth in His holy Gospel, that have I, with God's grace, closed up in my heart. And my full trust is, as David saith, that it shall be ' a lantern to my footsteps.'

" There be some that do say that I deny the eucha- rist, or Sacrament of thanksgiving ; but those people do untruly report of me. For I both say and believe it, that if it were ordered like as Christ instituted and left it, a most singular comfort it were unto us all. But

528 CROSS AND CROWN.

as concerning your Mass, as it is now used in our days, I do say and believe it to be the most abominable idol that is in the world ; for my God will not be eaten with teeth, neither yet dieth He again. And upon these words that I have now spoken will I suffer death."

Throughout the whole of her persecution Anne Askew had preserved the patient sweetness of her demeanor. All the cruelties of her enemies had been powerless to change this, or to wring from her one unchristian com- plaint or unwomanly word. She was only in her twenty- fifth year, and life was very sweet to her, but not so sweet as to make it worth the sacrifice of her conscience. She did not desire martyrdom, but she did not shrink from it, and she bore all her sufferings with a firmness and gentleness never surpassed in the annals of Chris- tian heroism. Not once did she revile her enemies, but like her blessed Master she prayed for her murderers, that they might be saved from the just punishment of their crimes.

At length the day of her execution arrived. Three stakes were set up in front of St. Bartholomew's Church at Smithfield, and the space surrounding them enclosed with a railing to keep off the crowd. A dense concourse of people filled the street, and lined the windows and housetops commanding a view of the stake. A platform had been erected at the side of the church, and on this sat the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, the old Duke of Norfolk, the old Earl of Bedford, the Lord Mayor of London, and several other leaders of the Papist party.

ANNE ASKEW. 529

Numerous monks and priests were scattered through the crowd, but there were also many friends and sym- pathizers of the martyrs, who had come as a matter of duty to witness the death of their friends, and to cheer them, if possible, with their prayers or their exhorta- tions. Anne Askew, being unable to walk or stand, in consequence of her torture upon the rack, was brought in a chair to the stake, where she was fastened to the post by an iron chain passed about her waist, and was thus held up to it. Three other victims of Rome were brought out to die with her. They were, John Lascels, a former member of the king's household and Anne's old tutor, Nicholas Belenean, a priest of Shropshire, and John Adams, a tailor, all condemned for holding the opinions for which Anne was to suffer. Anne was fastened to a separate stake, and the others to the re- maining two. They spoke to each other constantly words of comfort and encouragement, and it was evident to all that the men became more intrepid and resolute on witnessing the courage and hearing the Christian exhortations of the beautiful woman who was to die with them. As for Anne, her face was calm and peace- ful. " She had an angel's countenance, and a smiling face," says one who witnessed her death.

When the preparations were completed, the renegade Bishop Shaxton mounted the pulpit which had been erected in the square, and began to preach to the mar- tyrs, urging them to repent of their sins and be recon- ciled to the Church of Rome. His words were in vain,

34

530 CROSS AND CROWN.

however. In the eyes of the martyrs he was a traitor who had betrayed his Lord as basely as Judas had done, and he was the last man in the world that could have influenced them at such a time. Anne, in spite of her sufferings, followed him with marked attention through- out his discourse. When he spoke the truth she ex- pressed her assent audibly, but when he advanced any- thing contrary to Scripture, she exclaimed : " There he misseth, and speaketh without the book."

The sermon being ended, the martyrs began their prayers — the last they were to utter on earth. Then the lord chancellor, in accordance with the law of Par- liament, sent to Anne a letter sealed with the great seal of England, offering her the king's pardon if she would abjure her heretical opinions. She would not even look at the document, but waved the messenger back, say- ing, calmly and firmly : " I am not come here to deny my Lord and Master." The same offer was made to each of the other three martyrs, but they followed the example of their heroic sister in the faith, and refused to accept it. The messenger then returned to the plat- form on which the chancellor and the Roman Catholic nobles were sitting, and the Lord Mayor, rising to his feet, exclaimed, with a loud voice : " Fiat justitia ! " The reeds were immediately kindled, and the martyrs were instantly enveloped in the flames and smoke. Powder had been placed about their persons for the purpose of ending their sufferings speedily, and in a little while this exploded, killing them all instantly.

ANNE ASKEW. 531

Up to the time of the lighting of the fire, the sky had been fair and peaceful, but the torch had hardly been applied to the reeds when the heavens were suddenly covered with dark clouds. There was a sharp peal of thunder, and then a slight shower of rain descended. This strange occurrence produced a profound impression upon the multitude assembled about the stake. The Reformers who were present cried out that it was a manifestation of God's displeasure at the cruel murder of his servants ; but the priests and monks standing by cried, ferociously : " They are damned ! They are damned ! " At the same time, they gnashed their teeth in impotent rage at the martyrs, whose lifeless bodies were being fast consumed by the flames; but whose souls had passed through the gates of affliction to the heavenly land, where the power and malice of Rome could not follow them.

So died Anne Askew, one of the noblest and purest witnesses of the truth of which the Christian Church can boast. She gave her life gladly for Christ, and she has her reward in the grateful reverence which is paid to her memory by the Church of Christ in every land.

IV.

LAURENCE SAUNDERS.

AURENCE SAUNDERS was a man of good family. He was born during the reign of Henry VIII., and was educated at Eton College, from which he passed to King's College at Cam- bridge, where he remained three years. At the end of that time his mother, who was a wealthy widow, and who wished him to engage in mercantile pursuits, apprenticed him to Sir William Chester, an eminent city merchant. This change was not to the taste of the young man, however, and Sir William, perceiving this, gave up his indentures and prevailed upon his mother to allow him to resume his studies. He was soon admitted to the ministry of the English Church, and in the reign of Edward VI. married a young woman of his own rank in life, who proved a noble help meet to him, and to whom he was devotedly attached. After filling sundry positions he was given the rectorship of All-hallows church in the City of London. He was in charge of this parish when Bloody Mary began her persecution of the Church of England.

Bonner, the Bishop of London, was not slow in

532

LAURENCE SAUNDERS. 533

singling out Saunders as a victim. In consequence of a sermon which he preached to his congregation on the 15th of October, 1553, he was arrested and carried before the bishop, who ordered him to write down his opinion concerning the doctrine of Transubstantiation. He obeyed without hesitation, and as he handed the paper to the bishop, said :

" My lord, ye do seek my blood, and ye shall have it. I pray God that ye may be so baptized in it, that ye may thereafter loathe bloodsucking, and become a better man." He added that his conscience was clear.

" A goodly conscience, truly ! " exclaimed Bonner, interrupting him. " It would make our queen a bastard, would it not, I pray you ? "

« We go about no such matter," replied Saunders. " Let them care for that, whose writings are }'et in the hands of men, witnessing the same, not without the great reproach and shame of the authors."

This retort cut the unprincipled bishop to the quick, for Bonner had, in the reign of Henry VIII., written and printed a book against the lawfulness of Henry's marriage with Queen Catharine, the mother of Queen Mary. He was powerless to reply, and he called out to the officers, in a rage :

" Carry away this frenzy fool to prison."

Previous to his arrest, Saunders had lived in con- stant dread of being imprisoned, and had been so much disturbed by this feeling, that he said to a friend :

534 CROSS AND CROWN.

" In very deed, I am in prison till I be in prison." He knew that his arrest would be but the prelude to his death, but from the moment of his apprehension all his disquiet ceased, and he became calm and peaceful. He described his feelings to a fellow prisoner " as a sense of refreshment issuing from every part and member towards the heart, and from thence ebbing and flowing to and fro ; and he believed it to be ' a certain taste of the Communion of Saints, wonderfully com- forting him, not only in spirit, but in body also.' " He charged his wife that she should make no effort to obtain his release, but that she should leave him in the hands of God, to work His blessed will. He assured her of his cheerful constancy, thanks to God and His Christ, " in whom, and through whom," he added, " I shall, I know, be able to fight a good fight, and finish a good course, and then receive the crown which is laid up in store for me and all the true soldiers of Christ. Thank, you know whom, for her most sweet and com- fortable putting me in remembrance of my journey whither I am passing. God send us all good speed, and a joyful meeting. I have too few such friends to further me in that journey, which is, indeed, the greatest friendship."

He was kept a prisoner for fifteen months, and was treated with considerable severity. His place of con- finement was the Marshalsea prison, never a comfort- able abode at any time, and a wretched place at this period. The keeper of the prison had positive orders

LAURENCE SAUNDERS. 535

not to allow any one to visit his prisoner, and when Mrs. Saunders came to the jail, with her infant in her arms, and begged to see her husband, he was obliged to refuse her. Touched by her distress, however, he took the baby in his arms and carried him to his father. Saunders was profoundly moved by the sight of his boy, and when his fellow prisoners crowded around him to see the little fellow, an uncommon sight in that terrible place, he exclaimed with an outburst of feeling :

" What man, fearing God, would not rather lose this present life, rather than, by prolonging it, adjudge this boy to be a bastard, his wife a whore, and himself a whore-monger? Yea, if there were no other cause for which a man of my estate should lose his life, yet who would not give it to avouch this child to be legitimate, and his marriage to be lawful and holy ? "

The Romish party had foully denounced the mar- riages of the clergy in King Edward's reign as invalid, and had branded all the children of such unions as illegitimate. The married clergy, therefore, had not only their religion to maintain against Rome, but the honor of their wives and children was at stake, and during the whole reign there were fewer apostates among them than among their single* brethren.

After being kept in prison for fifteen months, Mr. Saunders was taken for examination before the Privy Council, over which presided Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, then Lord Chancellor of England. He

536

CROSS AXD CROWX.

knew that this was but preliminary to his condemna- tion, but he was resolved to endure all with the firmness of a faithful Christian man. Gardiner began by telling him that his heresies were well known to the council, but that it was thought fit to show him mercy if he would seek it properly. " We have fallen in manner all," he said, " but now we be risen again, and returned to the Catholic Church ; you must rise with us, and come home unto it. Leave off your painting and pride of speech, for such is the fashion of you all to please yourselves in your glorious words. Answer, yes or no."

" My lord," replied the martyr, calmly, " it is no time for me now to paint. And as for pride, there is no great cause why it should be in me ; my learning I confess to be but small, and as for riches or worldly wealth, I have none at all. Notwithstanding, it standeth me in hand to answer your demand circum- spectly, considering that one of these two extreme perils is likely to fall upon me, namely, the losing of a good conscience, or the losing of this my body and life. And I tell you truth, I love both life and liberty, if I could enjoy them without the hurt of my conscience."

" Conscience ! " said the chancellor, who, being de- ficient in that quality, always disbelieved its existence in others ; " you have none at all, but pride and arrogancy, dividing yourselves by singularity from the Church."

" The Lord is the knower of all men's consciences,"

LAURENCE SAUNDERS. 537

answered the martyr. " And where your lordship layeth to my charge this dividing myself from the Church (as you do mean, and as is now among 3*011 concluded upon, and I do understand), I do assure you that I live in the faith wherein I have been brought up since I was fourteen years of age, being taught that the power of the Bishop of Rome is but usurped, with many other abuses springing thereof. Yes, this I have received, even at your hands, as a thing agreed upon by the Catholic Church and public authority."

" But have you received by consent and authority, all }'our heresies of the blessed sacrament of the altar?" asked Gardiner, stung by this reply.

" My lord," said Saunders, " it is less offence to cut off an arm, hand, or joint of man, than to cut off the head. For the man may live though he lose an arm, hand, or joint; but he cannot without his head. Now you had all agreed to cut off the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, whom now you will have to be the head of the Church again."

Here Bonner interrupted him, and called out to the chancellor : " And if it please your lordship, I have his hand against the blessed sacrament. What say you to that ? " he asked, turning to the prisoner.

" What I have written, that have I written," was the reply, " and further I will not accuse myself. Nothing have you to burden me withal, for breaking of your laws since they were in force."

" You are obstinate, and refuse liberty," said the chancellor.

538

CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

u My lord," said Saunders, simply, " I may not buy liberty at such a price ; but I beseech your honors to be means to the queen's majesty for such a pardon for us, that we may live and keep our consciences un- clogged, and we shall live as most obedient subjects. Otherwise, I must say for myself, that by God's grace I will abide the utmost extremity that man may do against me, rather than act against my conscience."

" Ah, sirrah," cried Gardiner, " you will live as you like. The Donatists did desire to live in singularity ; but indeed they were not fit to live on earth : no more are you, and that you shall understand within these seven days; therefore away with him."

" Welcome be it," said the martyr, tranquilly, " what- soever the will of God shall be, either life or death. And I tell you truly, I have learned to die. But ex- hort you to beware of shedding innocent blood. Truly it will cry. The Spirit of God rest upon you all."

He was taken from the council chamber, and made to wait in an anteroom until the other prisoners who had been brought from the same jail with him were ex- amined. There was a large crowd present in the hall, and Mr. Saunders took advantage of this to exhort the people to avoid the wrath of God by refusing to bow the knee to Antichrist, and to be bold to confess the true faith of their Saviour in the face of any danger that might threaten them.

By the sentence of the council Mr. Saunders was ex- communicatedj and turned over to the secular power

LAURENCE SAUNDERS. 539

for punishment. The sheriff, in whose custody he was placed, lodged him in the Compter, a prison in Bread Street, within the limits of his old parish. He was very much pleased at this, as it seemed to him like getting back among his old friends, as indeed it was, for the people of his church, who were much attached to him, flocked to the street without the prison, and he preached to them through the barred windows of his cell, as from a pulpit.

Knowing that his end was close at hand, the martyr wrote to his wife, who had been refused permission to see him, telling her that he was soon to be despatched to Christ, and comforting her. He asked her to send him a shirt, "which," he wrote, "you know whereunto it is consecrated. Let it be sewed down on both sides, and not open. 0 my Heavenly Father, look upon me in the face of Thy Christ, or else I shall not be able to abide Thy countenance. He will do so, and therefore I will not be afraid what sin, death, and hell can do against me. 0 wife, always remember the Lord. God bless you ! Yea He will bless thee, good wife, and thy poor boy also. Only cleave thou unto Him, and He will give thee all things."

Obedient to his request, the noble woman made the shirt and sent it to him. It was the garment in which he was to die at the stake, and it was a comfort to him that it was made by the hands of her who had been a true help meet to him in his prosperity, and whose for- titude greatly sustained him in his hour of trial.

540 CROSS AND CROWN.

On the 4th of February, 1555, Bishop Bonner came to the prison to degrade him from the ministry. This mockery was performed with great minuteness, and when it was concluded, the martyr said to the brutal bishop : " I thank God I am none of your Church."

The next morning he was delivered by the Sheriff of London to a detachment of the Queen's Guard, to be conveyed to Coventry, where he was to be burned to death. On the first night they stopped at Saint Alban's. A person named Grimauld, who had been a member of the Reformed Church of England, but who had apostatized to Rome, took supper with the martyr. Saunders took the cup in his hands, and asked his companion whether he would pledge him in the cup which he would begin. The apostate answered tim- idly, " Of the cup in your hand will I pledge you, but I will not promise to do so with the other which you mean."

" Well," said the martyr, " my dear Lord Jesus Christ hath begun to me of a more bitter cup than mine shall be, and shall I not pledge my sweet Saviour? Yes, I hope to do so."

From Saint Alban's they continued their journey, and arrived at Coventry on the 7th of February. As the captive passed through the town the people thronged the streets to gaze upon him, and many were the exclamations of pity and sympathy that greeted him. A poor shoemaker came up to him, and said to him, with tears :

LAURENCE SAUNDERS. 541

rt 0 my good master, may God strengthen and com* fort you."

" Pray for me," said the martyr, earnestly ; "I am the most unfit man for this high office that was ever appointed to it ; but my gracious God and dear Father is able to make me strong enough."

He passed on to the town jail, into which he was thrown with common felons. He made a good use of this companionship, and passed the night in praying with them and instructing them in the truths of Christianity.

The next morning, February 8th, 1555, he was taken from his prison and conveyed to the park, where the stake had been set up. He was clad in an old gown and in the shirt his wife had made for him. He was barefooted, and walked with difficulty. As they drew near to the stake, the officer in charge of the guard said to Mr. Saunders that he was one of them who troubled the kingdom with false doctrines and heresy, but that if he would recant and be reconciled to the Church of Rome, the queen would still pardon him. If he re- fused he would be put to death immediately.

" It is not I, nor my fellow preachers of God's truth, that have hurt the queen's realm," replied the martyr; " but it is yourself, and such as you are, who have always resisted God's holy Word ; it is you who mar the queen's realm. I hold no heresies, but the doc- trine of God, the blessed Gospel of Christ, that hold I, that believe I, that have I taught, and that will I never revoke."

542

CROSS AND CROWN.

Upon reaching the place of martyrdom, Mr. Saun- ders knelt down and prayed fervently. Then, rising, he embraced the stake, exclaiming :

" Welcome the Cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life."

Then they bound him to the stake, and the pile was lighted. The wood being green burned slowly, and this greatly increased his sufferings; but he bore the torments of the flames with patient firmness, never uttering a cry nor a groan, and presently he fell asleep in Jesus.

V.

ROWLAND TAYLOR.

ftT the death of King Edward VI. there was a 5 feeble attempt to set aside his sister and right-

^ ful successor, Mary, the daughter of Catharine of Arragon, and to give the throne to Lady Jane Grey. The first to take up the cause of Queen Mary were the men of Suffolk. These men were de- voted followers of the doctrines of John Wycliffe and the Reformers, and, although they acknowledged Mary's right to the crown, they demanded of her liberty of con- science in regard to their faith before they put the crown upon her head. She readily assured them that " she meant graciously not to compel or strain other men's consciences, otherwise than God should, as she trusted, put in their hearts a persuasion of the truth, through the opening of His Word unto them " — a promise which she broke at the very first opportunity. The County of Suffolk had been one of the very first to receive, and among the most zealous to maintain the doctrines of the Reformation, and we may be very sure that the men who were so prompt to sustain the new queen, would not have done so could they have foreseen the terrible trials which she was to bring upon their Church.

543

544 CROSS AND CROWN.

Foremost among the towns of Suffolk in advocacy of and devotion to the Protestant cause was Hadleigh, an old rambling place on the river Breton, and consist- ing of a broad high street, lined with quaint old houses, and ascending sharply at the end farthest from the river to Aldham Common, and two other streets branching off from the main thoroughfare at right angles. In the very heart of the town stands the fine old church, and the ancient red brick rectory built in the reign of Henry VII. The churchyard is one of the greenest and sweetest in all England, and is famous not only for its beauty, but as the spot where Guthrum the Dane, who was converted to Christianity by King Alfred, was buried in the year 889.

" The town of Hadleigh," says the good old John Foxe, " was one of the first that received the Word of God in all England, at the preaching of Master Thomas Bilney, by whose industry the Gospel of Christ had such gracious success, and took such root there that a great number of the parish became exceedingly wTell learned in the Holy Scriptures, as well women as men, so that a man might have found among them many that had often read the whole Bible through, and that could have said a great part of St. Paul's Epistles by heart, and very well and readily have given a godly learned sentence in any matter of controversy. Their children and servants were also brought up and trained so diligently in the right knowledge of God's Word, that the whole town seemed rather a university of the learned than a town

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 545

of cloth-making or laboring people; and, what is more to be commended, they were for the more part faithful followers of God's Word in their living."

Much of this excellence of life and doctrine was due to the labors and teachings of the most famous Vicar of Iladleigh, Dr. Rowland Taylor, whose memory is held so dear by the English Church. He had been a student at Cambridge when Bilney was a preacher there, and had learned the pure doctrine of Christ from him and from his friend and colaborer the good Hugh Lati- mer. Upon leaving Cambridge, he was made one of the chaplains of Archbishop Cranmer, by whom he was given the living of Hadleigh, in 1541. Dr. Taylor at once took up his residence in his parish, and soon en- deared himself to his people by his spotless life and his good works. He visited the sick, the poor, and the needy, and comforted and relieved their necessities, and he called regularly upon the rich clothiers and made them go with him to the almshouses, and see that everything needed there was provided. His example was all-powerful, and Hadleigh soon became a town " zealous for good works." John Foxe draws the fol- lowing exquisite portrait of the good vicar:

"He was a right perfect divine and parson; who at his first entering into his benefice, did not, as the com- mon sort of beneficed men do, let out his benefice to a farmer that shall gather up the profits, and set in an ignorant and unlearned priest to serve the cure, and, so they have the fleece, little or nothing care for feeding

35

546 CROSS AND CROWN.

the flock ; but, contrarily, he forsook the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, with whom before he was in household, and made his personal abode and dwelling in Hadleigh, among the people committed to his charge ; where he, as a good shepherd, abiding and dwelling among his sheep, gave himself wholly to the study of the Scripture, most faithfully endeavoring himself to fulfil that charge which the Lord gave unto Peter, saying, ' Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep.' This love of Christ so wrought in him that no Sunday nor holy day passed, nor other time when he might get the people together, but he preached to them the Word of God, the doctrine of their salvation.

" Not only was his word a preaching unto them, but all his life and conversation was an example of un- feigned Christian life and true holiness. He was void of all pride, humble and meek as any child ; so that none were so poor but they might boldly, as unto their father, resort unto him ; neither was his lowliness childish or fearful, but, as occasion, time, and place re- quired, he would be stout in rebuking the sinful and evil doers; so that none was so rich but he would tell him plainly his fault, with such earnest and grave rebukes as became a good curate and pastor. He was a man very mild, void of all rancor, grudge, or evil will, ready to do good to all men, readily forgiving his enemies, and never sought to do evil to any."

His very virtues made him odious to the Romanist

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 547

party, and when Queen Mary had fairly seated herself on her throne, and had begun the persecution of the Church, the priests resolved that Rowland Taylor should be silenced. A number of Roman Catholics residing in Suffolk armed themselves, took forcible possession of Hadleigh Church, and set a priest whom they had brought with them to saying Mass. Dr. Taylor promptly resented the intrusion of these people into his charge, and ordered them to depart. The Ro- man Catholics, being armed, were masters of the situa- tion. They drove out both the vicar and the people who sustained him, closed the doors of the church, had the Mass performed, and then lodged a complaint with the authorities against the vicar for having tried to stop the celebration of Mass in Hadleigh. Bishop Gardiner, delighted at having such a pretext, ordered Dr. Taylor to appear before him to answer to the charge.

Well knowing what such a summons meant, Dr. Taylor's friends entreated him to fly from the kingdom, reminding him that Christ himself had counselled his disciples when they were persecuted in one city to take refuge in another.

"lam old," replied the good pastor, " and have al- ready lived too long to see these wicked and most ter- rible days. Fly you, and do as your conscience leadeth you ! I know that there is neither justice nor truth to be looked for at my adversaries' hands ; but rather im- prisonment and cruel death. Yet know I my cause to be so good and righteous, and the truth so strong

548 CROSS AND CROWN.

upon my side, that I will, by God's grace, go and appear before them, and to their beards resist them. God will hereafter raise up teachers to His people, who will with more diligence and fruit teach them than I have done. He will not forsake His Church, though now for a time He trieth and correcteth us, and not without just cause. As for me, I shall never be able to do so good service, nor have so glorious a calling, nor so great a mercy of God proffered me, as at this present. Wherefore, I be- seech you, and all my other friends, to pray for me ; and I doubt not but God will give me strength, and His Holy Spirit, that all mine adversaries shall have shame of their doings."

He did not delay his compliance with the summons, but soon set out for London, accompanied by a faithful servant, John Hull by name. Hull repeatedly im- plored his master during the journey to fly, offering to bear him company, and to risk life and liberty in the effort to get him safe out of the country.

" 0 John," said the pastor, gently, " remember the good Shepherd, Christ, which not alone fed His flock, but also died for it. Him must I follow; and, with God's grace, will do. Therefore, good John, pray for me ; and if thou see'st me weak at any time, comfort me, and discourage me not in this my godly enterprise and purpose."

In due time he came to London, and presented him- self before the Lord Chancellor, by whom he was re- ceived with insults and brutal taunts, Gardiner's usual

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 549

greeting to the Protestant clergy brought before him. Dr. Taylor heard him patiently, and at last when he paused, said quietly :

" My lord, I am neither traitor nor heretic, but a true subject and faithful Christian, and am come accord- ing to your commandment, to know the cause of your lordship's sending for me."

" Art thou come, thou villain ? " cried Gardiner wrathfully. " How darest thou look me in the face for shame ? Knowest thou who I am ? "

" Yes," replied Dr. Taylor, looking him full in the face. " I know who- 3011 are, Dr. Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Chancellor, and yet but a mortal man. But if I should be afraid of jour lordly looks, why fear you not God, the Lord of us all ? How dare you for shame look any Christian in the face, seeing you have forsaken the truth, denied our Saviour Christ and His Word, and done contrary to your own oath and writing? With what countenance will you appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and answer to your oath made first unto King Henry, and after- wards unto Edward his son ? "

" That was Herod's oath, unlawful," said the bishop, hastil}', " and therefore worthy to be broken : I have done well in breaking it ; and I thank God I am come home again unto our Mother, the Catholic Church of Rome ; and so I would thou shouldst do."

Dr. Taylor told him that no man could absolve him from his oath, but that God would require it at his

550 CROSS AND CROWN.

hands; and Gardiner angrily called him an arrant knave and fool, and bade him hold his peace.

" My lord," said the captive, " leave your unseemly railing ! for I am a Christian man ! and you know, he that sayeth to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the Council, but he that sayeth, Thou Fool, is in dan- ger of hell fire."

" Thou art married," said Gardiner.

" I thank God, I am," said the pastor, warmly, " and have had nine children."

" Thou hast resisted the queen's proceedings," said Gardiner, " and would not suffer the minister of Aid- ham, Mr. John Avereth, a very virtuous and devout priest, to say Mass in Hadleigh."

;i My lord," said Dr. Taylor, firmly, " I am parson of Hadleigh, and it is against all right, conscience and laws, that any man should come into my charge, and presume to infect the flock committed unto me with the venom of the Popish idolatrous Mass."

Gardiner here broke forth into a great rage, and taking off his cap, cried out :

" Thou art a blasphemous heretic indeed, that blas- phemest the blessed sacrament, and speakest against the holy Mass, which is made a sacrifice for the quick and the dead."

" Christ," said Dr. Taylor, undauntedly, " gave Him- self to die for our redemption upon the cross, whose body there offered was the propitiatory sacrifice, full, perfect, and sufficient unto salvation for all them that believe in Him."

ROWLASD TAYLOR. 551

The bishop at once summoned the guard, and said to them :

" Take this fellow hence, and carry him to the King's Bench, and charge the keeper that he be straitly kept."

Dr. Taylor knelt down on the floor, and holding up both hands, said :

" Good Lord, I thank Thee ; and from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable errors and abominations, good Lord, deliver us : and God be praised for good King Edward."

He was taken to the prison of the King's Bench, where he was kept a prisoner for nearly two years. He found there a fellow captive, who afterwards sealed his faith with his blood, John Bradford. Each looked upon the companionship of the other as an especial mercy of God vouchsafed to him, and during their long confinement, they did much to console and prepare each other for their certain fate.

In January, 1555, Dr. Taylor was again brought before the council, and being found steadfast in his faith, was sentenced to be burned alive as a heretic. He was then sent back to prison.

About a week after this, Bonner, Bishop of London, accompanied by several priests, came to the prison to degrade him from the ministry. They brought with them the robes usually worn by a Romish priest during the celebration of the Mass. Dr. Taylor was called out into one of the rooms of the prison, where they

5 5 2 CROSS A XD CR 0 WN.

•were waiting for him. As he entered, Bonner said to him :

" Dr. Taylor, I wish you would remember yourself, and return to your holy Mother Church, and I will sue for your pardon."

" I wish you and your fellows would turn to Christ,'' replied the pastor. " As for me, I will not turn to Antichrist."

" Well," said the bishop, " I am come to degrade you." Pointing to the clothes he had brought with him, he said, " Put on these vestures."

" No," said Dr. Taylor, " I will not."

'•'Wilt thou not?" exclaimed Bonner. "I shall make thee ere I go."

" You shall not. by the grace of God," replied the prisoner.

The bishop repeated his demand, but it was refused. He then called on the officers present to force the clothes on Dr. Taylor. The vestures were then put on the Doctor by the officers, and when this was done, Dr. Taylor placed his arms akimbo, and walking up and down the room said :

" How say you, my lord ? Am not I a goodly fool ? How say you, my masters ? If I were in Cheapside, should I not have boys to laugh at these apish toys and trumpery ? "

These words so infuriated Bonner that he raised his crozier to strike the Doctor, but one of the priests, no- ticing Taylor's resolute countenance, caught the staff, and cried out :

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 553

" My lord, strike him not, for he will certainly strike aGrain."

o

" Yea, by Saint Peter, will I," said Dr. Taylor ; " the cause is Christ's, and I were no good Christian if I would not fight in my Master's quarrel."

Bonner then cursed him, and he answered quietly : " Though you curse me, yet doth God bless me." The ceremony of degradation wTas then performed, and the malice of the persecuting priests gratified to that extent, and the martyr was sent back to his prison. The keeper of the jail was a humane man, and know- ing that this was. Dr. Taylor's last night in London, he gave him leave to have his wife with one of his sons, and the faithful John Hull, at supper with him. When the meal was ended, he passed some time in conversa- tion with his dear ones. He exhorted his son to lead a virtuous and godly life, and bade him remember that his father died in defence of lawful matrimony. He comforted his afflicted wife by telling her she had been a "faithful yoke-fellow" to him. She would soon be freed from this wedlock, he said, by his death, and he advised her to marry again as soon as God should pro- vide her an honest and religious man who would be a merciful father to her poor children. He said it was the only course for her and them that would bring them out of their troubles ; and he besought for them the blessing and protection of God. As for himself, he said, he was going to join the five children whom the Lord had taken from them to His own bosom, and whom he named.

554 CROSS AND CROWN.

The interview soon ended, and the martyr Bade his wife and son, and his faithful servant, a tender fare- well, believing that this was the last time he would see them on earth.

Mrs. Taylor, suspecting that it was the purpose of the priests to remove her husband that night, went with one of her daughters and an orphan girl whom Dr. Tay- lor had adopted, and took her station in the porch of St. Botolph's Church, near Aldgate, by which she knew he must pass, in order to leave the city. It was about the first of February, and the weather was bitter cold, but the watchers remained at their post until two o'clock, when the trampling of feet announced the approach of the sheriff and his party. The sheriff was conducting his prisoner to the " Woolpack," an inn beyond the walls, where he was to deliver him to the Sheriff of Essex. It was very dark, and they were moving with- out lights, as the priests who ruled at court thought it best not to excite sympathy for the martyr by marching him openly through the streets of London. The quick ears of the little orphan girl caught the sound of their footsteps, and she cried out :

" Oh, my dear father ! Mother, mother, here is my father led away."

Mrs. Taylor sprang to her feet, and called out in the darkness :

" Rowland, Rowland, where art thou ? "

" Dear wife, I am here," said the Doctor, stopping.

The guards bade him move on, but the sheriff, who

ROW/. AND TAYLOR. 555

was a humane man, ordered them to let him speak with his wife. Mrs. Taylor and the children then joined the Doctor, who took his daughter in his arms. Then they all knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. The men were profoundly touched by the sad spectacle, and the sheriff wept audibly. As he rose to his feet, Dr. Taylor kissed his wife, and shaking her by the hand, said :

" Farewell, my dear wife ; be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience ; God shall stir up a father for my children." He then kissed his children, and exhorted them to be faithful in maintaining the true religion of Christ.

" God be with thee, dear Rowland," said his wife. " I will, with God's grace, meet thee at Hadleigh."

She followed them to the inn to which they were going, but the sheriff humanely refused to allow her another interview with her husband. He begged her to go to his own house, and to use it as if it were hers, assuring her that he Avould do all in his power for her comfort; but at her request he sent her to her mother's, sending two officers to see her safely there, and to charge her mother not to allow her to go to Hadleigh.

The Sheriff of Essex reached the " Woolpaek " about noon, and the martyr was delivered to him, and placed on horseback for the journey to Suffolk. As he came out of the inn, he saw John Hull with one of his (Dr. Taylor's) little sons waiting for him. The father called to his boy, and Hull put him up on the horse before him.

556 CROSS AND CROWN.

" Good people," he said, earnestly, to the crowd which had collected about the inn, " this is my own son, be- gotten in lawful matrimony — and God be blessed for lawful matrimony." He then prayed for the boy, laid his hand on his head and blessed him, and gave him- back to John Hull, whom he took by the hand, saying to him : " Farewell, John Hull, the faithfullest servant that man ever had."

Then, in the charge of the Sheriff of Essex and four yeomen, he rode forth on his last journey. Upon reach- ing Brentwood, they put on him a close hood, with holes for the eyes and mouth, so that he might not be recognized on the way, so fearful were the authorities that some of the people to whom he had been so kind a friend would attempt to rescue him. Upon reaching Chelmsford, they halted for the night. At supper, the Sheriff of Essex earnestly entreated Dr. Taylor to be reconciled to Rome, assuring him that, if he would pro- mise to do so, a pardon should be obtained for him. The martyr's resolution was fixed, but he deemed it useless to argue the matter with those who had him in charge, so he said to the sheriff:

" Mr. Sheriff, and my masters all, I heartily thank you for your good will ; I have hearkened to your words and marked well your counsels ; and, to be plain with you, I do perceive that I have been deceived myself, and am likely to deceive a great many of Hadleigh of their expectation."

" God's blessing on your heart," said the sheriff, joy-

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 557

fully ; " it is the most comfortable word we have heard you speak yet."

" Would you know my meaning plainly ? " continued Dr. Taylor. " Then I will tell you how I have been deceived, and, as I think, shall deceive a great many. I am, as you see, a man of very large body, which I thought should have been buried in Hadleigh church- yard, had I died in my bed, as I hoped I should have done ; but herein I was deceived ; and there are a great number of worms in Hadleigh churchyard, which would have had merry feeding upon me, but now I know we shall be deceived, both I and they ; for this carcass must be burned to ashes, and so shall they lose their bait."

" When the sheriff and his company heard him say so," says Foxe, " they were amazed, and looked one on another, marvelling at his constant mind, without fear of torment or the death prepared for him."

At Chelmsford Dr. Taylor was delivered to the cus- tody of the Sheriff of Suffolk to be conveyed to Had- leigh. On the borders of Suffolk they were met by a large number of Roman Catholic gentlemen, mounted and armed, who had been summoned to protect the sheriff and make sure of the prisoner in case of any popular outburst in favor of the latter. These gentlemen assured him that they had his pardon ready, if he would only return to Rome, but he refused to listen to them. They also promised him promotion to a bishopric if he would recant, but he only laughed at them. His eternal reward was too near at hand for such offers to move

558 CROSS AND CROWN.

him in the least. The escort stopped two days at Lavenham, and did not reach Hadleigh until the 8th of February, 1555. As they drew near the place, the sheriff asked the martyr how he fared. " Never better," he answered, cheerily. " I am almost at home. I lack not past two stiles to go over, and am even at my Father's house."

As they drew near Hadleigh, the anxiety of the Papists increased, for from every direction people were coming into the town. At the bridge over the river, by which they entered Hadleigh, they were met by a poor man with five small children. At the sight of their old friend, they fell upon their knees and held up their hands, and the man cried out :

" 0, dear father, and good shepherd, Doctor Taylor, God help and succor thee, as thou hast many a time succored me and my poor children."

The sheriff carried him straight on through the town without stopping. The high street was lined with the townsfolk and with people from the surrounding country, and as they beheld their dearly loved pastor they burst into tears, so that sobs and cries of sympathy and affection were heard from one end of the town to the other.

" There goeth our good shepherd," they cried through their tears, "that so faithfully hath taught us, so fatherly hath cared for us, and so godly hath governed us! What shall become of this most wicked world ? Good Lord, strengthen him and comfort him ! "

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 559

They called out to him to give them his blessing. The sheriff sternly rebuked them for expressing their feelings, but they paid no attention to him. Dr. Taylor, said to them frequently, as he passed along :

" I have preached to you God's word and truth, and am come this day to seal it with my blood."

As he reached the Almshouses, he distributed among the inmates, who had so often been the recipients of his bounty, what was left of the money with which his friends had supplied him during his imprisonment. He carried it in a glove, and when he reached the last of the Almshouses, he asked whether the blind man and woman who formerly lived there were still living, and on being answered in the affirmative, threw the glove in through the casement, and rode on to Aldham Com- mon, passing up the steep lane which lies at the end of the town, and from which he could see for the last time the church in which he had so faithfully ministered.

The sheriff told him he had now reached the place at which he was to die.

" Thank God," he exclaimed, " I am at home."

He rode up to the stake and alighted from his horse. Then he tore the hood from his head, and once again the people beheld the venerable countenance of their pastor. His hair had been roughly clipped at the time of his degradation by Bonner, but his long white beard remained, and his face was as calm and smiling as in the old time. The people burst into loud weeping

560 CROSS AND CROWN.

when they saw him, and many of them called out to him : " God save thee, Dr. Taylor ! Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and help thee — The Holy Ghost com- fort thee."

Dr. Taylor had been told at the time of his condem- nation that his tongue would be cut out unless he promised not to address the people at the stake, and to save himself this needless torture, he had given the required promise. Seeing how earnestly his people desired to hear his voice again, he now attempted to speak to them, but one of the guards thrust a staff into his mouth. He then asked leave of the sheriff to address the people, but the sheriff reminded him of his promise to the council. He then began to undress himself. Calling to a man named Soyce, he said : " Soyce, I pray thee come and pull off my boots, and take them for thy labor; thou hast long looked for them, now take them." Then he undressed himself to his shirt, and standing up, turned to the people and cried out to them in a loud voice : " Good people, I have taught you nothing but God's holy Word, and those lessons that I have taken out of God's blessed book, the Holy Bible : and I am come hither this day to seal it with my blood." At these words, a man named Holmes, a yeoman of the guard, who had treated Dr. Taylor very cruelly during the whole journey, struck him over the head with a staff, saying, " Is that keeping thy promise, thou heretic ? "

Seeing that he could not speak to the people, Dr.

ROWLAND TAYLOR. 561

Taylor knelt down to pray. A poor woman advanced from the crowd, and knelt down at his side to pray with him. The guards tried to force her away, and even threatened to ride over her, but she would not stir, and continued to pray with him till he rose from his knees. When his prayer was finished he went up to the stake, and kissed it. Then he placed himself in the barrel prepared for him, and raising his eyes to heaven, became absorbed in prayer.

The sheriff now ordered a butcher of the town to assist in setting up the fagots around the stake, but the man refused to have any hand in the murder of his pastor, even though the sheriff threatened to send him to prison. Four men were found to perform the work, however, and one of them threw a fagot at the martyr, which struck him in the face with such force as to bring the blood.

" 0 friend," said the sufferer, gently, " I have harm enough. What need of that?"

The martyr again began to pray. He repeated the fifty-first Psalm in English, at which Sir John Shelton struck him on the mouth, saying, " Ye knave, speak Latin, or I will make thee."

Dr. Taylor made him no reply, and the fire was

lighted. The martyr stood patiently, with his hands

folded, and his lips moving in prayer, paying scarcely

any attention to the flames that were scorching his poor

body in every part. Soyce, the man to whom he had

given his boots, enraged at his patience, seized a halbert, 36

562 CROSS AND CROWN.

and clove him through the head, thus putting an end to his sufferings.

The priests had hoped to terrify the people of Had- leigh into a union with their bloody Church, but the terrible spectacle of the martyrdom of Rowland Taylor had one effect only — to confirm the people of Suffolk and of all England in their hostility to the Pope.

»

t)'

VI.

RAWLINS WHITE.

N the town of Cardiff, in Wales, on the banks of the River Severn, there lived in the reign of p&> Henry VIII., a poor fisherman named Rawlins White. He was very poor, and was an indus- trious, hardworking man, toiling early and late for the scanty living which he earned for his family. He had been bred in the Roman Catholic faith, and had always been a religious man. Towards the close of King Henry's reign he began to pay attention to the religious controversies that were going on in the kingdom, and he at length became so much interested in them that all his spare time was given to listening to the conversa- tions of his neighbors with regard to the changes that were going on in the English Church. Little by little his old faith in the infallibility of the Romish Church began to be shaken by the new things he heard, and when he heard it openly proclaimed that the doctrines and practices of Rome were contrary to and in violation of God's holy Word, he was greatly distressed, for he was a conscientious man, and he sincerely desired to do the will of God. He was unlearned, and was not able

to study the Bible for himself, and that book alone was

563

564 CROSS AND CROWN.

able to settle all his doubts. In this dilemma he adopted the following expedient. He had a little son, a bright, intelligent child, and he resolved to make him the means of acquiring the knowledge he desired. He sent the child to school, and had him taught to read English. When the child could read tolerably well, Rawlins purchased an English Bible, and every evening after supper he made his son read to him from the Sacred book. We may imagine the delight with which the good old man listened to the words of life, as they fell from the lips of his innocent boy. Night after night the reading was continued, the whole family gathering around the little reader, and drinking in with eagerness the pure stream of eternal truth and wisdom. By degrees the old man's doubts cleared up, and he was able to see that the religion of Jesus Christ was a very different thing from the superstitious belief and practice of his youth. The fisherman was possessed of an unusually retentive memory, and he was thus enabled to treasure up the lessons which his son read to him. Besides the Bible the boy read to his father such books as the old man could borrow or purchase, in explana- tion and support of the truths of Christianity. At last, it came to be generally admitted that Rawlins White, although unable to read, was one of the best Bible scholars in Cardiff. He was not satisfied with merely settling his own doubts, but he undertook to be a teacher to others of his station in life, and would go from house to house exhorting and instructing his

RAWLINS WHITE. 565

friends and neighbors. Everywhere he went, he was accompanied by his little son, who carried the Bible in his arms, and read the passages to which his father referred.

He continued this practice all through the reign of Edward VI., but when Queen Mary came to the throne, he found it necessary to be more circumspect. Still he did not entirely cease his labors. He had been, under God, the means of converting many souls, and he could not discontinue his work. He went about it with more caution, and he held his meetings with his friends who desired to take counsel with him, in retired places, and there he would pray with them, and lament with them over the evil days that had come upon the Church.

But prudent as he was, he could not conceal his works from the Romanists, who were on the alert to detect and extinguish every spark of Protestantism in the land. They warned him that he would be punished for his heretical practices, and his friends, knowing that this warning was not an idle threat, urged him to seek safety in flight while it was yet in his power to do so. The fisherman himself knew that his life was in danger, but he was not willing to fly. It was a time when all men who held the true faith should stand bravely at their posts, and do what good they could. Moreover any weakness on his part might be the means of weakening the faith or the firmness of those whom he had been instrumental in converting. He told his friends plainly that while he thanked them for their

566 CROSS AND CROWN

good will to him he could not find it in his heart to abandon his post, which would in his eyes be equivalent to a denial of his Master, Christ. " If I," said he, " should presume to deny my Master, He in the last day would utterly deny and condemn me ; and, therefore, I will, by His favorable grace, confess and bear witness of Him before man, that I may find Him in everlasting life."

The Romanists did not lose sight of their victim, and very soon Rawlins White was arrested on a charge of heresy, and carried before the Bishop of Llandaff, who was then staying at Chepstow. After several examina- tions before the bishop and his chaplains, he was placed in Chepstow prison, from which he was conveyed to Cardiff Castle, where he remained for about a year. His friends were permitted to visit him regularly, and they supplied him with money and other necessaries. Indeed he was kept so negligently, that almost at any time during his imprisonment, he might have escaped, had he been willing to make the attempt.

After an imprisonment of a year, he was brought again before the Bishop of Llandaff, at that prelate's country seat near Chepstow. The bishop endeavored to persuade him to renounce his opinions, and conform to Rome, but finding his efforts useless, he told Raw- lins sharply that he must make up his mind either to recant or die, and he remanded him to prison until a" fixed day to reconsider his determination. On the ap- pointed day, the fisherman was again brought before

RAWLINS WHITE. 567

the bishop, who was seated in his chapel, surrounded by his chaplains and a number of the Roman Catholic gentry of the neighborhood. The bishop began the examination by telling him that the cause for which he was brought before him was that he was known to hold certain heretical opinions, and that by his instruc- tions he had led many persons into a similar error ; and he exhorted him to reflect upon the condition he was in, offering him pardon and liberty if he would recant.

" My lord," replied the fisherman, boldly, " I thank God, I am a Christian man, and I hold no opinions contrary to the Word of God ; and if I do I desire to be reformed out of the Word of God, as a Christian ought to be."

" Then," said the bishop, " we must proceed against you according to law, and condemn you as a heretic."

" Proceed in your law, in God's name," said the un- daunted fisherman, " but for a heretic you shall never condemn me while the world stands."

The hypocritical bishop, who had fully resolved to burn the poor fisherman, then turned to the company around him, and said :

"Before we proceed any further with him, let us pray to God that He would send some spark of grace upon him, and it may so chance that God, through our prayers, will here turn his heart."

" Ah, my lord," said Rawlins, " now you act well, and like a godly bishop ; Christ said, ' Where two or

568 CROSS AND CRO WX.

three are gathered together in my name, I will be in the midst of them." If your request be agreeable to His will, and ye pray as ye should pray, without doubt God will hear you, and I will pray also. I know that my God will both hear my prayer, and perform my desire."

The whole assembly then fell on their knees. The bishop prayed as he had said, in a loud voice ; but Raw- lins went apart by himself, and prayed silently. When they rose from their knees, the bishop asked him :

" Now, Rawlins, wilt thou revoke thy opinions or not ? "

" No, my lord," said the fisherman, " Rawlins you left nit, and Rawlins you find me, and, by God's grace, Rawlins I will continue : certainly if your petitions had been just and lawful, God would have heard them ; but you honor a false god, and pray not as ye should pray, and therefore God hath not granted your desire. But I am one poor, simple man, as ye see ; God hath heard my complaint, and I trust He will strengthen me in His cause."

The bishop was very angry at these words, and rebuked the fisherman sternly for them. He then pro- ceeded to read the sentence, when one of the priests present interrupted him, and urged him to say a Mass first, and see what effect it would have upon the pris- oner. The bishop, pleased with the suggestion, then ordered the priest who had spoken to say Mass. This was done, and during the first part of the ceremony,

RAWLINS WHITE. 569

Rawlins withdrew to a private place, and gave himself up to silent prayer. As he heard the bell ring at the elevation of the host, he rose to his feet, came to the choir door, and said to the people present, in a loud voice :

" Good people, if there be any brethren among you, or at least if there be but one brother amongst you, the same one bear witness at the day of judgment that I bow not to this idol."

As he spoke, he pointed to the host which the priest was holding up for the adoration of all present.

When Mass was ended, the bishop again called on Rawlins to recant, and again the faithful Christian man refused. The prelate then sentenced him to be burned alive as a heretic, and sent him to Cardiff, where he was confined in a dark and filthy dungeon until the time of his execution. The Romanists wer«- eager to burn him at once, but the recorder of the town advised them to delay the execution until the}' could obtain the necessary warrant from London, which the queen's government would be only too glad to send them. The warrant was accordingly sent for, and in due time it reached Cardiff.

During his last imprisonment, Rawlins had been con stant in prayer and praise. Seeing that his end wae near at hand, he sent a message to his wife, asking hei to make him a wedding garment, meaning the shirt in which he was to be burned. The poor wife, with many tears, performed this last labor for him, and sent him

570 CROSS AND CROWN.

the garment on the morning of his execution. He re* ceived it joyfully, and, seeing that his hour was come, dressed himself in it and in an old russet-coat and a pair of leather boots. Thus arrayed, he went forth with the keeper of the prison to the gateway, where a strongly armed guard waited to conduct him to the stake. As he saw their weapons, he exclaimed :

" Alas ! what meaneth all this ? By God's grace, I will not run away. With all my heart and mind I give God most hearty thanks that he hath made me wor- thy to abide all this for His holy name's sake." '

As he passed along, he saw his wife and children, standing, to see him go by, weeping bitterly. The sight of them moved him powerfully, and the tears gushed from his eyes. Then mastering himself, he beat his breast with his hand.

" Ah ! flesh," he exclaimed, " hinderest thou me so ? Well, I tell thee, do what thou canst, thou shalt not, by God's grace, have the victory."

Upon reaching the stake, around which the fagots had been heaped, he gazed at it calmly, and went for- ward towards it. Then kneeling down, he kissed the ground, as if to take leave of earth. A little dirt re- mained on his nose as he rose to his 'feet, and he re- moved it, saying :

" Earth unto earth, and dust unto dust : thou art my mother, and unto thee shall I return."

Then he went up to the stake and stood up against it, while a smith fastened him to it with a heavy chain. The martyr said to him :

RAWLINS WHITE. 571

" I pray you, good friend, knock in the chain fast, for it may be the flesh will strive mightily ; but, 0 God, of Thy great mercy, give me strength and patience."

One of his most faithful friends, a young man named John Dane, who had visited him constantly in prison, was standing by him, and to him the martyr said :

" I feel a great fighting between the flesh and the spirit, and the flesh would fain conquer, and therefore I pray you, if you see me tempted, hold your finger up to me, and I trust I shall remember myself."

The officers then began to pile the wood up around the victim of the. Romish Church, and to lay over the pile straw and reeds to make the fire burn quickly. Rawlins busied himself at the same time in arranging the straw and reeds close about his body, and in places where the fire would do its work most speedily.

A pulpit had been erected in front of the stake, and a priest now ascended it, and began to address the crowd which had collected to witness the execution. Rawlins listened patiently until the speaker undertook to prove the doctrine of the real presence. Then the martyr rebuked him sternly, and so effectually that the priest was silenced. Orders were immediately given to fire the pile. The wood burned slowly but surely, and John Dane, who had held Rawlins by the hand all this time, was forced by the flames to bid him farewell and withdraw. The Martyr bore his sufferings with great patience. They were long and severe, for the fire burned away his legs before the rest of his body

572

CROSS AXD CROWN.

was much hurt. Then he cried with a loud voice, '; 0 Lord, receive my soul ! 0 Lord, receive my spirit ! " and his legs being consumed, his body fell over into the fire, and life was soon extinct.

Thus died Rawlins White, a poor fisherman, passing up the same rugged road by which his great predeces- sors, the Fishermen of Galilee, entered into their Father's House.

6$

VII.

WILLIAM HUNTER.

5 ^EVENTEEN miles and a half from London, as b_£j you go to Yarmouth, lies the little town of

^ Brentwood, in the County of Essex, a plain and unattractive place, which has decreased rather than grown in size and importance. In the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. it was a large market and assize town.

There dwelt in this place during this period a labor- ing man named Hunter, who was the father of a family of several children nearly all of whom were boys. These he reared, with the aid of his excellent wife, in the principles of the Reformation, taking every precau- tion in his power to guard them from the errors of Rome. He taught them to look to the Bible as their guide, and to shape their lives according to the teachings of God's holy Word.

The eldest of these was a young man named Wil- liam, about nineteen years of age at the time of King Edward's death, and apprenticed to a merchant in Lon- don. He was an intelligent, industrious, and excellent young man in every respect, and his good qualities soon made him a favorite with his master.

573

574 CROSS AND CROWN.

When Queen Mary had become firmly established upon her throne, the Romanist party in the Govern- ment threw off their thin mask of toleration, and began the persecution by which they hoped to make England once more a province of the Pope, but which resulted only in forever extinguishing their power in that king- dom. Orders were issued to the priests in charge of every parish, to summon their people to attend confes- sion and to receive the holy Communion at Mass on the approaching Easter. Those who refused to comply with this summons were to be reported to the bishop of the diocese in which they resided. Among the peo- ple thus summoned, was William Hunter. He refused to obey the order, and the parish priest threatened to cite him before the bishop. His employer, becoming alarmed at the danger of having a Protestant appren- tice in his house, begged William to quit his service for a time, and the young man accordingly left London, and went down to Brentwood, where he remained for about six weeks in his father's house.

One day, finding the parish church open, he entered it, and seeing an English Bible chained to the lectern, as had been the practice in the previous reign, he began to read it. An officer of the Bishop's Court, happening to pass through the church, saw him engaged in this exercise, and sharply rebuked him for presuming to read the Bible.

" William ! " he said, " why meddlest thou with the Bible ? Understandest thou what thou readest ? Canst thou expound Scripture ? "

WILLIAM 1IUNTER. 575

" I presume not to expound Scripture," replied the young man ; " but finding the Bible here, I read for my edification and comfort."

The officer then went to the parish priest and in- formed him of the liberty William Hunter had taken in reading the Bible. The priest called the young man before him, and asked him :

" Sirrah, who gave thee leave to read the Bible and expound it ? "

William made him the same reply that he had given the officer, and was told by the priest that he had no business to meddle with the Scriptures. The young man then told the priest that he intended to read the Bible as long as he lived, and reproved him for dis- couraging that which the Scriptures themselves enjoined upon all persons as a duty. The priest told him angrily that he was a heretic, and upon his denying the charge, asked William his opinion concerning the corporal pre- sence in the Sacrament of the altar. William replied that he regarded the bread and wine as only figures, and looked upon the Sacrament as an institution in re- membrance of the death and sufferings of our blessed Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The priest then pro- nounced him a heretic, and informed him that he would lodge a formal complaint against him with the bishop.

There lived in the neighborhood a pompous justice of the peace, named Brown, a vain and ignorant man, and one very anxious to come into favor with the new

576 ' CROSS AND CROWN.

Government. Hearing that William Hunter had denied the doctrine of Transubstantiation, he sent for the young man's father, and asked him where his son had gone. The old man assured him that he had not seen his son recently, and did not know where he was. The brutal magistrate then said to him that he wrould send him to prison if he did not produce his son within a given time.

" Would you have me seek out my son to be burned ? " exclaimed the father, horrified at such a speech.

The justice told him that was none of his business, and sent him out with a renewal of the warning, to find his son. Overcome with grief at the prospect before him, the old man wandered aimlessly about the town, and in the course of his walk came across his son by accident.

" Are you seeking me, father ? " asked William.

The old man burst into tears, and told William what the magistrate had required of him. The young man, in order to shield his father from danger, at once went back home and notified the magistrate of his presence there. The next day he was arrested and taken before Justice Brown, who sent him with a letter, charging him with heresy, to Bonner, Bishop of London, in the custody of the constable. After delivering his prisoner to the bishop, the constable went back home.

When the constable had gone away, Bonner caused . William to be brought before him.

" I understand, William Hunter, by Mr. Brown's

WILLIAM HUNTER. 577

letter," said lie, " that you have had certain communi- cations with the Vicar of Welde about the blessed Sacrament of the altar, and that you could not agree, whereupon Mr. Brown sent for thee to bring thee to the Catholic faith, from which he saith thou art gone. Howbeit, if thou wilt be ruled by me, thou shalt have no harm for anything thou hast hitherto said or done in this matter."

" I am not fallen from the Catholic faith of Christ, I am sure," said the lad, " but do believe it, and confess it with all my heart."

" Why," said the .bishop, " how sayest thou to the blessed Sacrament of the altar ? Wilt thou recant thy saying, which thou confessedst before Mr. Brown, that Christ's body is not in the Sacrament of the altar, the same that was born of the Virgin Mary ? "

" My lord," replied William, " I understand that Mr. Brown hath certified you of the talk that he and I had together, and thereby you know what I said to him, which I will not recant, by God's help."

" Then," said the bishop, adroitly, " I think thou art ashamed to bear a fagot, and recant openly ; but if thou wilt recant thy sayings, I will promise thee that thou shalt not be put to open shame ; but speak the word here now between me and thee, and I will promise thee it shall go no further, and thou shalt go home again without any hurt."

" My lord," said William, " if you let me alone, and

leave me to my conscience, I will go to my father and 37

578 CROSS AND CROWN.

dwell with him, or else to my master again, and so, if nobody will disquiet nor trouble my conscience, I will keep my conscience to myself."

" I am content," said Bonner, after considering a moment, " so that thou wilt go to the church and go to confession, and so continue a good Catholic Christian."

" No," replied William, quickly, perceiving the trap which the crafty bishop had laid for him ; " I will not do so for all the gold in the world."

" If you do not so," exclaimed Bonner, growing angry at his failure, " I will make you, sure enough, I warrant you."

" You can do no more than God will permit you," said William.

The bishop then called two of his guard, and ordered them to set the young man in the stocks, which had been set up in his gatehouse. Here William was kept for two days and nights. The only food that was brought to him during this time wras a crust of brown bread and a cup of water. He did not touch it, and when the bishop came to see him on the morning of the third day he found the scanty fare lying on the stocks untasted, and the prisoner calm and cheerful. Even the cruel Edmund Bonner was moved with admiration at the quiet heroism of the young man.

" Take him out of the stocks," he said to the soldiers, "and let him break his fast with you."

The men released him, but declared he should not eat with them, as they would have nothing to do with

WILLIAM HUNTER. 579

E, heretic. William told them that he was as loath to be in their company as they were to be in his. When he had finished his breakfast, the bishop sent for him, caul again urged him to recant, but he answered that he would never deny his faith in Christ as he had confessed it before men. Bonner told him he was no Christian, but had denied the faith in which he was baptized.

"I was baptized in the faith of the Holy Trinity," replied William, " which I will not go from, God assist- ing me with His grace."

" How old are you ? " asked Bonner ; and upon Wil- liam's answering that he was nineteen, the bishop added: " Well, you will be burned before you are twenty, if you will not yield yourself better than you have done yet."

"God strengthen me in His truth," exclaimed William.

The bishop then sent him to the convict prison, and ordered the keeper to load him with as many irons as he could bear. He was kept in prison for nine months, during which period he was taken before the bishop nine times, and each time Bonner was completely baffled in his efforts to make him apostatize. On the 9th of February, 1555, he was taken before the consistory at St. Paul's, to receive his sentence. Here Bonner made a last effort to shake his constancy. He again asked him if he would recant, and was answered no. He then asked William if, when he said he believed he received C irist's body spiritually in the communion, he meant to ssy that " the bread is Christ's body spiritually?"

580 CROSS AND CROWN.

" I mean not so," replied William, " but rather, when I receive the holy communion rightly and worthily, I do feed upon Christ spiritually through faith in my soul, and am made partaker of all the benefits which Christ has brought unto all faithful believers through His pre- cious death, passion, and resurrection, and not that the bread is His body, either spiritually or corporally."

" Dost thou not," said Bonner, cunningly, " think that, for example, here of my cap," holding it up, " thou mayest see the squareness and color of it, anoi yet that not to be the substance which thou judgest by the accident?"

" If you can separate the accidents from the sub • stance," replied William, " and show me the substance without the accidents, I could believe."

" Thou wilt not believe, then, that God can do any- thing above man's capacity," said the bishop, disccn- eerted by the happy reply of the young man.

" Yes," answered the young man ; " I must believe that, for daily experience teacheth all men that plainly ; but our question is not what God can do, but what jii will have us to learn in His holy Supper."

" I have always found thee at this point," said Bonner, " and I see no hope to reclaim thee unto the Catholic faith, but thou wilt continue a corrupt mem- ber." He then sentenced him to be taken to Newgate prison and kept there for a while. After this, he was to be conducted to his native place, Brentwood, and burned at the stake.

WILLIAM HUNTER. 581

There were other prisoners present, waiting to receive sentence for the same cause, and William was made to stand aside until these could be condemned to death. Then Bonner called him back, and said to him :

" If thou wilt yet recant, I will make thee a freeman in the city, and give thee forty pounds in good money to set thee up in thine occupation ; or I will make thee steward of my house, and set thee in office ; for I like thee well, thou hast wit enough, and I will prefer thee if thou wilt recant."

" I thank you for your great offers," answered Wil- liam Hunter; "but,- notwithstanding, my lord, if 3-011 cannot persuade my conscience with Scriptures, I cannot find in my heart to turn from God for the love of the world; for I count all worldly things but loss and dung in respect of the love of Christ."

" If thou diest in this mind, thou art condemned forever," said Bonner.

"God judgeth righteously, and justifieth them whom man condemneth unjustly," answered William.

Bonner had conceived a sincere interest in the young man, whose patience, intelligence, and courage he could not help admiring, and he was willing to accept even a partial or equivocal recantation. But the joung martyr would have no trifling with the truth, and the bishop sent him to the stake with sincere regret, for under all the ruffianly brutality of the " bloody bishop" there was a vein of coarse good nature which sometimes moved him to feelings of humanity.

582 CROSS AND CROWN.

William was kept in Newgate for about a month, after which he was sent down to Brentwood, to be burned. He reached the place on a Saturday. The next day was Sunday, and the day after Monday, the feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. The Romanists were unwilling to put him to death on either of these days, and therefore appointed Tuesday for his execution. He was kept at the village Inn in the custody of the sheriff to await that day, and his rela- tives and friends were allowed to visit him. His father and mother were the first to visit him, and- they exhorted him not to waver, but to hold fast his faith even unto the end. His mother told him lovingly that she counted herself a happy woman to have borne a son who was able to lay down his life for Christ's sake.

" For the little pain I shall suffer," said William, " which will soon be at an end, Christ hath promised me, mother, a crown of joy. Should you not be glad of that?"

The mother fell on her knees, and taking his hand, said :

" I pray God strengthen thee, my son, to the end ; yea, I think thee as well bestowed as any child I ever bore."

Many of the young martyr's friends came to see him, during the three days that he remained at the Inn, and he reasoned with them, and warned them against the abomination of Popish superstition and idolatry.

WILLIAM HUNTER. 583

On Monday night, the night before his death, Wil- liam dreamed that he was taken to the place of execu- tion, which he thought was at the end of the town where the butts stood ; that as he went along he met his father, and that there was a priest at the stake who wanted him to recant, to whom he said, " Away, false prophet," and warned the people to beware of him. He made such a noise in his sleep that some of his friends who were with him, roused him and asked him wrhat was the matter. In reply to them he related his dream, which, as we shall see, Was singularly realized.

The next morning the sheriff came to him and told him to prepare for his fate. The sheriff's son, also came to him, and took leave of him with tears.

" William," said he, " be not afraid of these men with bows, bills, and weapons ready prepared to bring you to the place where you shall be burned."

" I thank God I am not afraid," was the brave reply, " for I have reckoned what it will cost me already."

William then took up his gown, and went out of the Inn, the sheriff's man servant leading him by one arm, and his brother Robert by the other. As he went along, he met his father, as he had done in his dream. The old man said to him, weeping :

" God be with thee, son William."

" God be with you, good father," he answered : " and be of good comfort ; for I hope we shall meet again, when we shall be joyful."

584 CROSS AND CROWN.

" I hope so, William," said his father, as he turned away, unable to bear the interview longer.

As he had foreseen in his dream, the place appointed for the execution was at the end of the town where the butts stood. Upon reaching the place, and finding that all the preparations for burning him were not completed, he took a wet fagot of broom, and knelt down upon it, and began to read the fifty-first Psalm from the prayer book which he carried in his hand. When he came to the passage, " The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise," he was rudely interrupted by a bystander named Tyrill, who cried out :

" Thou liest, heretic ! thou readest false, for the words are ' an humble spirit. ' "

" The translation saith a ' contrite heart,' " said William.

" Yes," replied Tyrill, " the translation is false ; you translate books as you please yourselves, like heretics."

" Well," said William, " there is no great difference."

The sheriff now approached him, and said to him :

" Here is a letter from the queen. If thou wilt re- cant, thou shalt live; if not, thou shalt be burned."

" No," answered William, firmly, " I will not recant, God willing."

He rose to his feet, and going up to the stake placed himself against it, and a bailiff fastened him to it with an iron chain. Mr. Brown, the magistrate who had sent him before Bonner, had come to gloat over his

WILLIAM HUNTER. 585

death, and he now declared, in a tone loud enough for William to hear him, that there was not wood enough ahout the stake to burn one of his legs.

" Good people," said the martyr, turning to the as- sembled crowd, "pray for me, and make speed and dis- patch me quickly, and pray for me while you see me live, good people, and I will pray for you likewise."

'•' Pray for thee ! " exclaimed Brown, brutally, '; I will pray no more for thee than for a dog."

"Mr. Brown," said William, "now you have that which you sought, and I pray God it be not laid to your charge in the last day ; howbeit, I forgive you."

" I ask no forgiveness of thee," said the wretch.

" Well," answered the martyr, " if God forgiye you, I shall not require my blood at your hands."

Then, seeing himself deserted of man, the young hero lifted up his eyes to Heayen, and cried, in his loneliness: " Son of God, shine upon me ! " The day had been dark and gloomy, and since the time of his arrival at the stake the sun had been obscured by a black cloud ; but as he spoke, it burst out from behind the cloud and blazed down upon his face with a radiance that dazzled him and caused him to turn his eyes away.

A priest now advanced from the crowd, and handed Robert Hunter a book, and told him to give it to his brother, savins: that it misfht induce him to recant ; but Robert would not touch the book, and the priest ap- proached to hand the book to the martyr, but "William cried out to him, as he had done in his dream :

586 CROSS AND CROWN.

" Away, thou false prophet ! away ! Beware of them, good people," he added, addressing the bystanders, :i and come away from their abominations, lest you be par- takers of their plagues."

" Look how thou burnest here," shrieked the priest, in a rage ; " so shalt thou burn in hell ! "

" Thou liest, false prophet," cried William ; " away!"

A gentleman standing by, now cried out, boldly : " I pray God have mercy upon his soul ! " and immediately there was a general response of " Amen ! amen ! " from the throng.

The fire was then kindled, and William tossed to his brother the prayer book which he had kept with him until then.

" William," said his brother Robert, " think on the holy passion of Christ, and be not afraid of death."

" I am not afraid," said the brave young martyr for Christ, cheerfulty. Then the flames and smoke began to rise up around him, and he held up his hands toward Heaven and cried, earnestly : " Lord ! Lord ! Lord ! re- ceive my spirit ! " Then, wishing to shorten his suffer- ings, he bent down his head into the suffocating smoke and held it there, and so passed away to that land where sorrow and suffering are unknown.

VIII.

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY.

, TjTHE most extensive, and one of the loveliest of * U English views, is to be obtained from the «y/'' summit of Bardon Hill, in the great Cham- wood Forest, in Leicestershire. From this eminence nearly one fourth of all England is in sight. To the north and west, one may see the blue Malvern hills, the Wrekin, in Shropshire, and, so faint that they can hardly be discerned, the summits of some of the tall mountains of Wales. To the east, the gray towers of Lincoln Cathedral, sixty miles off, rise mis- tily against the horizon; and to the south, eighty miles distant, is the dark outline of the Dunstable hills. Such a landscape as stretches away before the gazer is rarely to be met with, and it amply repays him for all the trouble of the journey to the point of view at the sum- mit of the hill. At the base of the hill is the thick Charnwood Forest, which once covered a circuit of twenty-five miles, and on the borders of this forest lies the charming little village of Thurcaston. It is as pretty a place as can be found in all England, with its shady lanes, its bright green grass plots, and its neatly trimmed hedge rows, glorious with the blossoming

587

588 CROSS AND CROWN.

primrose and the milkwhite hawthorn flowers. Its cottages, grouped together in some localities, and stand- ing apart in others, seem to have been arranged by the hand of an artist. The ancient church, with its quaint monumental inscriptions, and the thickly filled grave- yard, all make up a picture which is well worth trans- ferring to canvass.

In this pretty village, which then stooa in the very centre of the great forest, there dwelt in the latter part of the fifteenth century, an honest yeoman named Latimer, the father of six daughters, and one son, Hugh by name. " My father," said this son, in after years, " was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled as much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, and so he came to the place where he should receive the king's wages."

The boy was trained by his father in the manly ex- ercises of the day, and was especially noted for his skill in handling the favorite weapon of the English — the long bow. As he showed unusual intelligence, his father kept him at school, gladly making the sacrifices necessary for this, in the hope that young Hugh would do credit to himself in a station better than that to which he had been born. When he was fourteen years old, Hugh passed from the grammar school at

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 589

Leicester to the University of Cambridge. Here lie applied himself diligently to his task, and soon became noted for his studiousness. He was a great reader, and being unusually quick and fertile of intellect, he made his mark as he approached manhood, as one of the best informed students in the university. He gave great attention to the theological writers, and grew up to be a zealous and bigoted Romanist. He took the usual degrees, was ordained a priest, and in a little while so distinguished himself by his energetic opposition to the doctrines of the Reformation that he found favor with the authorities of the university. His oration upon taking his degree of bachelor of divinity, was a bold and able attack upon Melanchthon and his teachings. Not content with this, he openly opposed Stafford, the lecturer on divinity, attending the lectures in person, and warning the students to beware of the teachings of " Master Stafford," who was a disciple of the Refor- mation. The authorities were so pleased with his zeal in behalf of Romanism that they made him cross- keeper to the university, his duty being to bear the cross at the head of the official processions of the university. As for Latimer himself, his chief desire was to become a friar, and he thought that he who dared to dispute the infallibility of the Pope had no chance of salvation. He was an earnest, honest man, one who could not rest satisfied with halfway measures, and who shrank from no sacrifice in the discharge cf what he regarded as his duty.

590 CROSS AND CROWN.

It happened that at this time Thomas Bilney, the martyr, one of the noblest and purest eharacters in the history of Christianity, was residing at the university. lie had heard Latimer's oration against Melanchthon, and had been deeply impressed by the power and the earnestness of the orator. He watched him closely, and the more he saw of him the deeper his interest in him became. He saw in Latimer a brave, honest hearted, and gifted man, who would make a noble and efficient soldier of Christ if he could be made to see the truth, and Bilney resolved that he would save this great soul from the errors of Rome. His was a gentle, loving disposition, and he was not slow in winning the friendship of Latimer. This much gained, he pro- ceeded quietly and judiciously to place the truths of the Gospel before his friend, and to enforce them wUh the arguments and persuasions best suited to the char- acter of the man with whom he was dealing. He was entirely successful. Latimer's keen intellect rapidly mastered the difficult questions, and his honest heart readily admitted the truth. Little by little he saw the error of his former belief. Little by little he saw how Rome had gone astray from Christ, and had destroyed the religion of the Saviour and set up one of her own invention. At last he came with Bilney to acknowledge but one Mediator between God and man — Jesus Christ — and to accept His great sacrifice once offered as the only atonement necessary or possible for sin. His intellect and his heart were both convinced,

II V Gil LATIMER AND NICIIOLAS RIDLEY. 5Q1

and he became a sincere convert to the doctrines which he had opposed, a champion of* Christ instead of a par- tisan of the Pope. He went at once to Master Stafford, the divinity lecturer, whom he had opposed with such vehemence, acknowledged his errors, and begged for- giveness.

Latimer was not a man to remain idle now that he had seen and felt the truth. He had given himself to the work of preaching, and he meant to continue it, and to preach henceforth the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was now approaching middle age, and his character and mind had been formed, so that he was not likely to prove a rash venturer in the great work which he pro- posed to himself. Moreover, he was recognized by all parties as one of the ablest men in the university. The Romanists resented his separation from them with great bitterness, and the Reformers were delighted to gain so powerful an ally. He made the Holy Bible his chief study, and when he had stored his mind with its great lessons and precious principles, he went out into the streets and lanes of Cambridge and the neighboring vil- lages, and gathering the common people around him, preached to them the " truth as it is in Jesus." He spoke to them in the simple, homely language they were accus- tomed to use among themselves, and thus won their confi- dence and friendship, and converted many of them to the faith of Christ. If he chanced to encounter learned and educated men, he at once adapted his discourse to them, and preached to them with a force of logic which they

592 CROSS AND CROWN.

could not resist. To both classes his message was the same. He taught that our blessed Saviour had made the only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and atone- ment for sin possible, and that it was only through re- pentance and faith in Him and the leading of a godly life, that men could obtain salvation. Mere forms and ceremonies, masses and absolutions, almsgivings and outward observances were not sufficient. Having been a priest of the Romish Church himself, he knew, and could appreciate the depth and completeness of the ignorance and superstitious bondage in which Rome held his poor, unlearned countrymen, and his most earnest wish was to be the means of delivering them from this thraldom, and bringing them into the light of the Gospel. He preached in a " strange, quaint fashion, partly peculiar to the manners of those days, and partly to his own quaint and original turn of mind. In his sermons he was by turns argumentative, imagi- native, fanciful; now pathetic, then witty, and even humorous ; sometimes dealing forth the most sharp and cutting rebukes; sometimes breathing forth the most gentle or affecting remonstrances. He illustrated the truths he taught by striking and familiar stories ; mix- ing up severity with sweetness, terrors with tenderness. But through all his sermons strong and manly sense is conspicuous ; in all his sermons he preached Christ and the principles and practice of the truth as it is in Jesus, with pure and scriptural clearness."

The powerful sermons of the great preacher produced

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 593

a profound effect upon the university, and the Romanists

were sorely troubled by them. The matter was reported to the Bishop of Ely, who came unexpectedly to St. Mary's, the University Church, one Sunday, after Lati- mer had begun his sermon. Latimer ceased speaking as the bishop entered, and remained silent until he and his attendants had taken their places. Then, taking a new text, he began a new sermon, setting forth Jesus Christ as the true pattern of a Christian bishop. Dr. West, the Bishop of Ely, was astonished at the force and vigor of the sermon, and after service was over, called Latimer to him and thanked him for his sermon, telling him he had never heard the duties of his office so forcibly set forth before. He then asked Latimer to preach him a sermon against Luther and his doctrine.

" I am not acquainted with the doctrine of Luther," replied the preacher, " neither are we at Cambridge per- mitted to read his works. What I have preached is no man's doctrine, but the doctrine of God out of the Scrip- tures. If Luther do none otherwise than I have done, there needeth no confutation of his doctrine. Otherwise, when I understand that he doth teach against the Scrip- tures, I will be ready, with all my heart, to confound his doctrine as much as lieth in me."

" Well, well, Master Latimer," said the bishop, sharply; "I perceive that you smell somewhat of the pan ; you will repent this gear one day."

The bishop then forbade him to preach in any of

the university churches, from that day forward. Dr. 38

594 CROSS A ND CR 0 WN.

Barnes, the Prior of the Augustines, who was earnestly seeking after the truth, and who afterwards went to the stake for his faith, invited Latimer to preach in the church of his priory, over which the Episcopal jurisdic- tion did not extend. Latimer accepted the invitation, and the Bishop of Ely went often to this chapel to hear him preach, declaring that he had never heard such a powerful pulpit orator.

Failing to silence him, the most violent of his Romish enemies formally accused him before Cardinal Wolsey of heresy. Wolsey summoned the preacher to answer to the charge. When Latimer appeared before him, the cardinal wras surprised to see a man advanced in life, and of grave and thoughtful demeanor. Upon questioning him and his accusers, Wolsey found Latimer to be much better acquainted with the theology of the Romish Church than his enemies, and expressed his sur- prise and pleasure at the great learning of the preacher.

" I pray thee," said he, " tell me why the Bishop of Ely and others do mislike thy proceedings ; tell me the truth."

" Ever since I preached before his lordship on the office and duties of a bishop, taking for my text, ' Christ being come, an High Priest of things to come,' his Grace of Ely can never abide me," answered Latimer.

" I pray you, tell me what thou didst preach before him on this text," said the cardinal, curiously.

Latimer immediately gave the great minister an abstract of his sermon, keeping back nothing.

EUGII LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 59fi

" Did you preach any other doctrine than you have rehearsed ? " asked Wolsey.

" No, surely," replied Latimer.

The cardinal then questioned the accusers as to their objections against Latimer. Then turning to the latter, he said :

u Master Latimer, if the Bishop of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my license, and shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will."

He then admonished him to be cautious, and not to undertake to teach heresy, and dismissed him with a license to preach wherever he liked in England.

Latimer then went back to Cambridge, and on the first holiday after his return astonished the whole uni- versity by appearing in his pulpit and showing his license, for all supposed that he had been ordered to be silent. After Wolsey's downfall, the preacher's enemies asserted that his license was at an end. He replied from the pulpit :

" Ye think my license decayeth with my lord Cardi- nal's temporal Ml. I take it nothing so ; for he being, I trust, reconciled to God from his pomps and vanities, I now set more by his license than ever I did before when he was in his most felicity."

In company with Bilney and Dr. Barnes, Latimer now devoted himself more earnestly than ever to the study of the Scriptures. This labor was blessed with great success by the Almighty, for Dr. Barnes was con-

596 VR OSS A ND CR 0 WN.

verted to Protestantism by this study. On the Sunday before Christmas, 1525, Barnes preached a sermon in St. Edward's Church, for which he was accused of heresy. The sermon, however, was the means of inducing a large number of the best men in the uni- versity to come forward and avow themselves Protes- tants. It was a great and glorious awakening, and it filled the Romanists with anger and alarm. They endeavored to silence the preachers, particularly Lati- mer, but without success.

About this time the question of Henry's divorce from Catharine of Arragon was submitted to the Uni- versity of Cambridge, which returned its answer on the 9th of March, 1530. The next Sunday, Latimer was called on to preach before Henry VIII., at Windsor Castle. The king was very much pleased with his sermon, and is said to have presented him with the sum of five pounds at the close of the service. Upon his return to Cambridge he was selected as one of twelve of the most learned men in the university, to consult with twelve similar men from Oxford concern- ing the prohibition of the reading of the Scriptures and other religious books in English. The commission recommended the prohibition, which was enforced by a royal proclamation. Latimer, who had been overruled in the commission, then addressed a vigorous protest to the king against the prohibition, and implored him not to keep the English Bible from the people. Strange to say, Henry took no offence at this faithful remon-

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY 597

strance, and even made Latimer one of his chaplains. He enjoyed the especial favor of Anne Boleyn, and was lodged with his particular friend, Dr. Buttes, the king's physician. In the court of one of the most despotic of kings, the preacher preserved his independence. He was not pleased with his new position, however, and when he was offered the living of West Kington, in "Wiltshire, he accepted it, preferring the curacy of a country parish to the chaplaincy of a profligate Court,

He did not confine his labors to his own parish. Being licensed to preach where he listed, he went about the country, preaching at various places. At Hales, a town near West Kington, was a vial said by the priests to contain the blood of the Saviour, and which was visited by many pilgrims. Reference has been made to it elsewhere in these pages. Latimer denounced the trick practised by the priests in charge of this so-called miraculous blood, and thus drew upon himself the bitter hostility of the Romanists. He regarded all these superstitious observances as the work of the devil, against which it was his duty to watch and preach unceasingly. " There is one," said he, in one of his sermons, " that is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England ; and will ye know who it is ? I will tell you. It is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others, he is never out of his diocese, he is never from his cure, ye shall never find him unoccu- pied ; he is ever in his parish, he keepeth residence at

598 CROSS AND CROWN.

all times, ye shall never find him out of the way ; call for him when you will, he is ever at home, the dili- gentest preacher in all the realm ; he is ever at his plow, neither lordling nor loitering can hinder him, he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. But his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery; where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, he adds, with all superstition and idolatry, censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new services of man's inventing, as though man could invent a better way to honor God with than God himself hath appointed."

The Romanists could not bear such sermons as these, and they lodged a formal charge of heresy against him with Stokesley, Bishop of London, who cited him to appear before him to answer to it. He appealed to the authorities of his own diocese, that of Sarum, but his enemies obtained a summons from the Archbishop of Canterbury, requiring him to come up to London to answer to the charges against him. His friends urged him to take refuge in flight, but he refused to do so, and, although suffering much from sickness, he went up to London in the depth of the winter, his greatest fear being that during his absence from his parish some popish emissary would endeavor to undo the work he had begun among his people.

Upon reaching London he found himself in a position of great danger. The Romanists were determined to

HUG II LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 599

ruin him, mid upon his refusing to submit to their con- ditions, he was excommunicated and sent to prison. His friends, however, succeeded in interesting the king in his behalf, and at Henry's especial request, the sentence of excommunication was removed, and he was Buffered to go back to his parish. The next year, 1532, he was again accused of heresy, but his friend Cranmer was now Archbishop of Canterbury, and he thoroughly understood and appreciated Latimer, and he protected him against the priests. In order to rescue him from the attacks of his enemies, Queen Anne Boleyn and Lord Cromwell advised the king to confer upon him the vacant see of Worcester. The king at once appointed him to this dignity, and he was consecrated bishop. He hoped in accepting this office not only to secure himself against the malice of his enemies, but also to extend the sphere of his usefulness in the Church. He at once entered upon his episcopal duties, making many needed and excellent reforms in his diocese. In 1536, he was summoned to Parliament. He was appointed by Cranmer to preach the sermon before the Convocation, which he did with more than his usual eloquence and power. He gave a hearty support to the measures of the archbishop, and though he and Cranmer met with great opposition from the Romanists, he had the happiness of contributing in a marked degree to the spread of the Reformation, and was instrumental in procuring the translation of the Bible into English and in causing it to be recommended

600 CROSS AND CROWN.

by the king and the Church for general reading by the people.

Neither his high honors nor the splendor of the Court, of which he now formed a part, could make him other than he had always been — the simple minded, straight forward, plain spoken preacher of the truth. " For the plain simplicity of life," says Bishop Burnet, " he was esteemed a truly primitive bishop and Chris- tian." It is related of him that upon the New Year ■ following his call to Court, he went with the other dignitaries of the land to make the customary New Years offering to the king. The courtiers gave rich and costly presents, but when it came to Latimer's turn, the honest and fearless bishop handed Henry VIII. a copy of the New Testament, with a leaf turned down to mark the passage, " Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge ! "

One of his most uncompromising enemies was Bishop Gardiner, the devoted champion of the Romish Church. On one occasion, he charged Bishop Latimer, in the king's presence, with preaching sedition before the king. Henry, quick to anger, sharply bade Latimer explain his conduct. The old man bluntly asked Gardiner to tell him how he was to preach, and then turning to Henry, said to him, respectfully, but boldly :

" I never thought myself worthy, nor did I sue, to be a preacher before your Grace, but I was called to it, and am willing, if you mislike me, to give place to my betters ; for I grant there are a great many more

HUG II LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 601

worthy than I am; and if it be your Grace's pleasure so to allow them for preachers, I would be content to bear their books alter them; but if your Grace allow me for a preacher, I would desire your Grace to give me leave to discharge my conscience, and give me leave to frame my doctrine according to my au- dience. I had been a very dolt to have preached so at the borders of your realm as I preach before your Grace."

Latimer was very careful that the Bible in English should be put in the hands of the people of his diocese, for he believed the reverent and diligent reading of the Scriptures to be the true cure of the numerous super- stitions with which Rome had covered the land. One of his earliest acts as bishop was to order the prior of the convent of St. Mary's House, in Worcester, to provide a Bible in English, " to be laid fast chained in some open place, either in the church or cloister of the monastery."

He did not hold his bishopric long. The Six Arti- cles having passed the Houses of Parliament, in spite of the efforts of himself and the other Reformers, he resigned the bishopric of Worcester. He retired from the Court into the country, but having been severely injured by a fall from a tree, was obliged to return to London for medical advice. This brought him once more in contact with his old enemy, Bishop Gardiner, who charged him with having spoken against the Six Articles, and procured his arrest and subsequently his

602 CROSS AXD CROWN.

commitment to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner until the death of Henry VIII.

Upon the accession of King Edward VI. to the throne, the Reformers came into power. Bishop Lati- mer was set at liberty, and taken into the especial favor of the king. He often preached before the sovereign at St. Paul's Cross. He was offered his bishopric again, but he declined to accept it, pleading his great age and infirmity. He devoted himself, how- ever, with great eagerness and activity to the preach- ing of the pure Gospel, and to the performance of many duties for the spread and establishment of the Reformation. At the especial request of his friend Cranmer, he took up his residence at Lambeth Palace. He devoted himself chiefly to the lower orders of the poor, and his labors among them were so constant and successful that they came to regard him as their best friend and most zealous champion. During his resi- dence at Lambeth Palace he assisted Cranmer in the preparation of the Homilies, some of which he wrote himself.

He was now over sixty seven years of age, and was very infirm in body, but his mind was still vigorous and his will indomitable. He rose every morning, winter and summer, at two o'clock, and began his studies. Then he devoted a considerable time to prayer. There " were three principal matters that he especially prayed for," says Augustine Bernher, his devoted attendant, " the first, that, as God had ap-

11 ['Gil LATIMER AND NICIIOLAS RIDLEY. 603

pointed him to be a preacher and professor of His Word, so also lie would give him grace to stand unto his doc- trine until his death. The other thing, the which most instantly with great violence of God's Spirit he de- sired, was, that God of His mercy would restore the Gospel of His Son Christ unto this realm of England once again ; and these words, ' once again, once again,' he did so inculcate and beat into the ears of the Lord God, as though he had seen God before him, and spake unto Him face to face. The third petition was for the preservation of the queen's majesty that now is, namely, the Lady Elizabeth, whom in his prayer he was wont to name, and even with tears desired God to make her a comfort unto this comfortless realm of England."

" Standing by the old gray towers of Lambeth Palace," says a recent writer, " I have thought upon the great and godly men who sojourned there in those eventful times. Here, perchance, in this now desolate and silent room, when the slant rays of the rising sun shot through that narrow casement and quivered on the wall of its deep embrasure, good Father Latimer put out his lamp, for the pure lovely light from heaven fell on the broad pages and brazen clasps of his open Bible ; and the old man took off his spectacles and rose up to throw open the casement, to look out upon the glistening waters of the broad Thames, and to breathe the morning air, freshened with the rushing tide of the full river. Here he stood, his heart swel- ling with love to the Giver of all good, thanking, and

604 CROSS AND CROWN.

praising him for the blessings of light and air, so un- heeded by many, because so common to all, but pre- cious to those wUo, like himself, had been the inmates of a close prison. Here he stood, the light breeze playing with his silver hair, and fluttering in the leaves of his book, till the rustling sound called him back to his delightful studies.

"And now again he rises, as the accustomed sound of the chapel bell meets his ear ; and the door opens, and his faithful friend and servant, Augustine Bernher, enters, and helps his infirm master to don his gown, and takes down his square cap from the pin on the wall, and puts his staff into his hand. They have left the chamber, and their footfall in the old corridor is more faintly heard as they descend to the chapel below. And now there is a friendly greeting between the good old Latimer and the grave and gentle Cranmer, as they meet in the ante-chapel, and enter together that ancient and beautiful building, so pure a specimen of the noble architecture of far distant times. We hear the voice of that godly assembly pouring forth the fervent devotions of their hearts in the simple and solemn liturgy, the prayer and the response, in which all take their part, and offer aloud, in that interchange of voices, the sacrifice of prayer and praise. All the household are present : the Mistress Cranmer, the niece of Osiander (her husband's friend), and the children of the primate, and certain learned foreigners, his frequent guests, with Master Morice, his secretary, and many

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 005

serving men and women of staid and cheerful demeanor, — in all a goodly company, whose devout and earnest looks when the Holy Scriptures are read seem to say, ' Now, therefore, we are all here present before God to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.' The morning service is over, and the company dispersed: but we find the godly Father Latimer soon after, not in his chamber, but on the broad level walk of this once beautiful garden, when smoke and gas had not black- ened the stems of the stately trees, and poisoned the atmosphere. The dew lies on the tender blades of the fresh grass, and the deep green leaves wave in the stirring breeze ; the rose bushes are bursting into flower and fragrance, and the nightingale's rich song fills the air with music.

" There the old man walks alone, at no great distance from that ivy mantled wall, his book in his hand, and listens from time to time, as he passes the little door in the wrall ; for there a knock is often heard, the knock of some poor or long persecuted one, to whom lie lifts the latch and gives admittance, that he may hear with patient thoughtfulncss the tale of trouble, and use his influence — an influence then of powerful interest with the youthful king — to see that the cause is righted, or that relief is given."

When Queen Mary came to the throne Bishop Lati- mer knew that evil days were in store for him. He had been too brave and successful a champion of the Reformation to escape the wrath of the Romanists now

GOG CROSS AND CROWN.

that the power had passed into their hands. He left Lambeth, and went into the country, on a visit to his friend John Old, Vicar of Cubbington, in the neighbor- hood of Coventry. Soon after his arrival there, a poor weaver, whom he had befriended, came down to Cub- bington, in great haste to beg him to fly. The royal officers, with the queen's warrant, were on their way to arrest Bishop Latimer, and he had beaten them by six hours, to give timely warning to his benefactor. There was full time to escape, but the preacher resolved to face the enemies of Christ. When the royal mes- senger arrived, he found Latimer ready for his journey.

" My friend," said the aged bishop to the astonished officer, " you be a welcome messenger to me ; and be it known unto you and to the whole world, that I go as willingly to London at this present, being called by my prince to render a reckoning of my doctrine, as ever I went to any place in the world. And I doubt not but that God, as He hath made me worthy to preach his word before two princes, so will He enable me to witness the same unto the third, either to be a comfort or discomfort eternally."

To the great surprise of the bishop, the officer, as soon as he had delivered his summons, abruptly departed, without making any effort to arrest him. The inference is that the Romanists, knowing the popularity of Latimer, dreaded to undertake his perse- cution lest they should thereby injure their cause ; and

Ill* Gil LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY G07

were desirous that lie should be frightened into escaping into some foreign country. Fear, however, had never formed a part of good Hugh Latimer's nature, and he resolved to go up to London at once, and face his per- secutors. Accordingly he set off, and upon reaching the capital, presented himself before the Council. He was received with taunts and abuse, and was com- mitted to the Tower to await his trial. It was the winter season, and his prison was very cold. He suffered much in consequence of this, being kept with- out a fire. He only obtained a betterment of his con- dition in this respect by telling the Lieutenant of the Tower that he wrould die and escape the stake if he w^ere not allowed a little fire. From the Tower he was conveyed to the Bocardo prison at Oxford, where he was lodged in company with his friends Archbishop Cramner, and Bishop Ridley.

Nicholas Ridley, unlike Latimer, was of gentle parentage. He wTas born at Willimoteswick, in North- umberland, in the year 1500, and was educated at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Pembroke Hall at the Uni- versity of Cambridge. From Cambridge he went to Paris and Louvain to complete his studies, after wdiich he returned to Cambridge, and was made proctor of the university, in which capacity he signed the decision of the university that the Pope had no jurisdiction over the kingdom of England. He became at an early day a diligent student of the Scriptures, and by degrees his mind was awakened to the errors of Rome, and he

g08 CROSS AXD CROWN.

began to study the doctrines of the Reformers, and ended by adopting them. He exhibited such profound scriptural learning that Archbishop Cranmer made him his chaplain, and took him to reside with him at Lam- beth. The next year the archbishop made him Yicar of Heme, in Kent, and two years later, he was elected Master of his old college of Prembroke Hall at Cam- bridge. He at once entered upon the duties of the place, and the happiest portion of his life was passed here in the society of learned men and in the delightful companionship of his books, for he was a genuine student as well as a true preacher of the Word. He held the position for not quite a year, being appointed, in 1540, chaplain to King Henry VIII. On Ash Wednesday of that year, he preached before the king, in the Chapel Royal, a sermon in which he declared himself an uncompromising and open opponent of popery and its superstitions. Gardiner protested against his sermon in a long letter, but Henry VIII., so fir from objecting to it, made him Bishop of Rochester. Upon the accession of Edward VI., it became necessary to make a change in the See of London, which Bonner had proved himself unworthy to fill, and Dr. Ridley was appointed to the position, and was consecrated Bishop of London.

Bonner had made provision, while Bishop of London, for his mother and sister, and when Bishop Ridley entered upon the see, he did not disturb them. He kept them in comfort at his own expense, and made

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 609

them dine every day at his own table. His " mother Bonner," as he called her, was always placed at the head of the table, beside himself, and he would not suffer her seat to be changed, though the highest nobles in the land were present.

The good John Foxe lingers lovingly over the char- acter of this good bishop, whom he declares to be " a man beautified with such excellent qualities, so ghostly inspired, and godly learned, and now written doubtless in the book of life, with the blessed saints of the Almighty, crowned and throned amongst the glorious army of martyrs."

" For his calling and offices as Bishop of London," adds the same writer, " he so diligently occupied him- self by preaching and teaching the true and wdiolesome doctrine of Christ, that no good child was more singu- larly loved by his dear parents than he by his flock and diocese. Every holiday and Sunday he preached in some place or other, except he were otherwise hindered by weighty affairs and business; to whose sermons the people resorted, swarming about him like bees, and coveting the sweet flowers and wholesome juice of the fruitful doctrine which he did not only preach, but showed the same by his life as a glittering lanthorn to the eyes and senses of the blind, in such pure order and chastity of life (declining from evil desires and concupiscences) that even his very enemies could not reprove him in any one iota thereof. He was

a man right comely and proportioned in all points, both 39

610 CROSS AND CROWN.

in complexion and lineaments of the body. He took all things in good part, bearing no malice nor rancour from his heart, but straightway forgetting all injuries or offences done against him. He was very kind and natural to his kinsfolk, yet not bearing with them any- thing otherwise than right would require, giving them always for a general rule, yea, to his own brother and sister, that they doing evil should seek or look for nothing at his hand, but should be as strangers and aliens unto him ; and they to be his brother or sister who used honestly a godly trade of life."

He was a great favorite with King Edward VI., who loved nothing better than to hear him and Bishop Latimer preach, but at the accession of Queen Mary he was seized, having refused to make his escape to a foreign country, as his friends had urged him to do, and was thrown into the Tower, where he was soon joined by Cranmer and Latimer. They were subsequently transferred to the Bocardo Prison at Oxford.

During their imprisonment Latimer and Ridley gave themselves to the composition of a series of conferences, designed to comfort and strengthen each other, and these they reduced to writing, in order that they might go out to the Church, and there have a similar effect. They are exceedingly beautiful, and full of thought and learning, but we cannot quote them here, as they would fill a volume.

At length the bishops were brought to trial, after an imprisonment of two years. The court was held in the

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 611

Divinity School at Oxford, and consisted of Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White, Bishop of Lincoln. On the 30th of September, 1555, Latimer and Ridley were led before this tribunal. Ridley was summoned first. The commission of the Papal Legate was read, empowering them to try him for the opinions he had expressed. He was ordered by this document to be degraded from the priesthood, and delivered over to the secular arm to be put to death if he persisted in his heresies. As he entered the court, Ridley uncovered his head, but as he heard the names of the Pope and the. Legate mentioned, he put his cap on again, refusing to acknowledge their authority over him. He was ordered to take it off again, and upon his refusal to do so, it was removed by a beadle.

Bishop Ridley was charged with having denied the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass, and was urged to recant. The opinions held by the bishop concerning the Sacrament were peculiar, and were not strictly in accordance with those now set forth by the Church of England. It was enough for his enemies, however, that they were not those of the Church of Rome. " Christ, he said, was not the Sacrament, but was really and truly in the Sacrament, as the Holy Ghost was with the water at baptism, and yet was not the water. The subtlety of the position was perplexing, but the knot was cut by the crucial question, whether, after the consecration of the elements, the substance of bread and wine remained."

612 CROSS AND CRO WN.

The court gave him until the following morning to de- cide upon his answer, but he left no doubt on their minds as to what that answer would be. The examining bishops told him they were not there to condemn him to die, that their province was only to cut off from the Church a heretic, and to deliver him over to the temporal judge to deal with him as he should think fit. This was a weak and cowardly sophism, and had been used so often that it had lost its force. Ridley thoroughly understood it. He thanked the court " for their gentleness," "being the same which Christ had of the high priest ; " " the high priest said it was not lawful to put any man to death, but committed Christ to Pilate ; neither would he suffer him to absolve Christ, though he sought all the means therefor that he might." *

Ridley was now removed, and Bishop Latimer was brought before the court. The old man — now fully eighty — was clad in an old tattered gown of Bristol frieze. He had a hankerchief over his head, with a nightcap over it, and over that again, another cap with two broad flaps buttoned under the chin. He was girded about the waist with a leather belt, from which hung his Testament. His large spectacles, without a case, were suspended from his neck. " So stood," says Froude, " the greatest man perhaps then living in the world, a prisoner on his trial, waiting to be condemned to death by men professing to be the ministers of God. As it

* Froude.

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 613

was in the days of the prophets, so it was in the Son of Man's days ; as it was in the days of the Son of Man, so was it in the Reformers' days; as it was in the days of the Reformers, so will it be to the end, so long and so far as a class of men are permitted to hold power, who call themselves the commissioned and authoritative teachers of truth."

The same charges were brought against Latimer that had been urged against Ridley. He met them fairly and Squarely. When questioned concerning Transubstantia- tion, he answered that bread was bread and wine was wine. There was a change in the Sacrament, after con- secration, it was true, but that change was not in the nature of the elements, but in the great dignity imparted to them. When the Bishop of Lincoln charged him with opposing the Catholic Church, he said :

"Your lordship doth often repeat the Catholic Church, as though I should deny the same. No, my lord, I con- iess there is a Catholic Church, to the determination of which I will stand, but not the church which you call Catholic, which ought rather to be termed diabolic."

When asked if he believed the Mass to be a propitia- tory sacrifice for the quick and the dead, he answered :

" Christ made one oblation and sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and that a perfect sacrifice; neither needeth there to be, nor can there be, any other propi- tiatory sacrifice."

As had been done with Ridley, the rest of the day was given him to reflect upon his answer. On the follow-

614 CROSS AND CROWN.

ing morning he and Ridley were brought again before the court, sitting this time in St. Mary's Church. They •were questioned again concerning their belief, and an- swered as they had done before. They were then pro- nounced heretics, and were sentenced to be degraded from all ecclesiastical orders, and to be turned over to the civil authorities to be burned.

They were not put to death for some time, and during this interval a Spanish friar, named Soto, who had been confessor to Philip of Spain, was sent to convert them to Romanism. One of them would not see him, and the other proved more than a match for him in argu- ment. They were then notified that the lGth of Oc- tober had been fixed upon for their execution. On the night of the 15th, Ridley, who had been confined in the house of the J^Iayor of Oxford since his trial, was per- mitted to sup with some members of his family. He was calm and cheerful, and conversed freely with his relatives. Referring to his execution, the next day, he spoke of it cheerfully, as his " marriage," and made his brother-in-law promise to be present, and to bring his wife, Ridley's sister. The brother-in-law offered to sit up with him all night, but Ridley told him that there was no need of his doing so : " for I intend," he said, " God willing, to go to bed, and to sleep as quietly to- night as ever I did." The next morning he wrote a letter to the queen, stating that, as Bishop of London, he had granted renewals of certain leases on which he had received fines. Bonner, who had succeeded him in

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 615

the See of London, had refused to recognize them, and he entreated the queen, for Christ's sake, either to make the leases good, or to use some part of his own confis- cated property to repay the tenants.

We have no account of Latimer's last night on earth, but we may be very sure that it was spent, as his whole life had been, in preparing himself for his entrance into the Kingdom of God.

The spot selected for the execution was on the north side of Oxford, outside the town wall, and about mid- way between Balliol College and Bocardo Prison, it being the design of the priests that Cranmer should be able to witness the death of his friends, and thus obtain a foretaste of the sufferings in store for himself. The City Guard, under Lord Williams, of Thame, were or- dered by the queen to appear on the spot under arms to prevent any disturbance.

On the morning of the 16th of October, 1555, the martyrs were led to their death. Dr. Ridley was the first to appear on the ground. He walked between the mayor and one of the aldermen. He was attired with scrupulous neatness, in a rich gown of black velvet, •' such as he was wont to wear, being a bishop," with a fur tippet about his neck, and a velvet cap on his head. As he passed under the windows of the prison, he looked up, hoping to be able to obtain a farewell glance of his friend Cranmer, but the archbishop was at that moment arguing with Friar Soto, and Ridley did not see him. It is said by some writers, however, that Cranmer wit-

616 CROSS AND CROWN.

nessed the execution from the roof of the prison. In turning around to gaze at the window, Ridley saw his old friend Latimer coining behind him, under guard. The old man was dressed much as he had been when before the court which condemned him, except that he wore under his gown a long shirt or shroud. He walked with difficulty, but with all the vigor he was possessed of.

'•' 0, be ye there," exclaimed Ridley, as he saw him.

" Yea," answered Latimer. " Have after as fast as I can follow."

Ridley hastened to him and embraced him.

" Be of good heart, brother," he said. " God will either assuage the flame, or else he will strengthen us to abide it."

Then they knelt down together, and prayed. When they rose to their feet, they remained standing apart and conversed in low tones, and their words were not overheard. While they were thus engaged the priest who had been appointed to preach the sermon at the stake, began his discourse, taking for his text, the passage of Scripture : " Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." The martyrs listened calmly to the discourse, which lasted about half an hour, and then Ridley asked the permission of Lord Williams to answer the preacher.

One of the priests present said to him :

" Recant, and you may both speak and live."

" So long as the breath is in my body," said Ridley,

% < /* r * I U I., J .

lit J*

■ • : ■-.:. ** «eept that

■MB

* rata*

Ik

•'..:.: a: ,:: wi were not

: ■ lOtH'

Arabdtk fdepw

'■is*yi

1

A

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY. 617

" I will never deny my Lord Christ and his known truth. God's will be done in me." Then turning to the multitude, he exclaimed in a loud voice, " I commit our cause to Almighty God, who shall indifferently judge all."

" There is nothing hid but it shall be opened," said Latimer, and he added that he could answer Smith well enough if he were permitted.

The martyrs were then ordered to prepare for the stake, and they obeyed with great meekness. Ridley gave his gown and his tippet to his brother-in-law, and distributed such articles of dress and other objects as he had with him to his friends and to those who werQ present. There was great eagerness on the part of the bystanders to obtain some memorial of him. " Some plucked the points off his hose," says Foxe, "and happy was he who could get the least rag for a re- membrance of this good man."

Latimer had nothing to give away. He quietly permitted his keeper to pull off his simple garments, " and being stripped to his shroud, he seemed as comely a person as one could well see."

Having stripped himself to his trousers, Bishop Rid- ley said to his brother-in-law :

u It were best for me to go in my trouse still."

" No," said Latimer, who heard him, " it will put you to more pain ; and it will do a poor man good."

" Be it, in the name of God," said Ridley. Then stripping himself to his shirt, he stood and raised his

(313 CROSS AXD CROWN.

hand to heaven, saying : " Oh heavenly Father, I give unto Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast called me to be a professor of Thee, even unto death. I beseech Thee, Lord God, have mercy on this realm of England, and deliver it from all her enemies."

The martyrs then went to the stake, and took their places on either side of it, while a smith fastened them to it with an iron chain. Dr. Ridley's brother, Mr. Shipside then brought a bag of gunpowder, and hung it about the martyr's neck. Ridley asked what it was, and upon being told, said, " I will take it to be sent of God, therefore I will receive it. And have you any more," he asked, " for my brother ? " meaning Latimer.

" Yea, sir," said Mr. Shipside. " Then give it to him betimes," said Ridley, " lest ye be too late."

The powder was then placed about Latimer's neck, and the executioners brought a torch and fired the pile of fagots at Ridley's feet. As he saw the dry wood kindling, good Hugh Latimer turned to his companion, and cried out to him in that brave, cheerful voice which had never uttered a mean or a wicked saying, those memorable words which have rung like a watch- word through all succeeding times :

" Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and plat the max ! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust never shall be

ITT OUT."

"In manustuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum," cried Ridley. " Domine, recipe spiritum meum."

HUGH LATIMER AND NICHOLAS RIDLEY 619

" 0 Father of Heaven," cried Latimer, " receive my soul."

The flames flared up around them. Latimer stood bathing his hands in fire and stroking his face. The fire reached him first, and in a little while the powder exploded and deprived him of consciousness. His body fell over into the flames, and was soon consumed.

Ridley suffered longer and more severely. The fire smouldered about his legs, and merely tortured him without killing him. In great agony, he cried out, " I cannot burn ! Lord have mercy on me ; let the fire come to me : I . cannot burn." His brother-in-law, thinking to help him out of his torment, threw more wood on the fire, but this only kept down the flames. At last some one took a bill and lifted up the fagots, and let in the air. The flames flared up about the stake, and by a mighty effort the martyr pushed himself into the midst of them. The gunpowder took fire instantly, and the good bishop was at peace. A moment more, and his body fell over the chain at the feet of Latimer.

THE END

Sfc->

V

MHfih

,„-ir

*

I l <

i ,

•

'

I

= _ d>

1

FIBER -GLASS

2

3

4

60 INCH

5

6 7

8

m

	m —
		— <
	—
		—
	—
— ^		—
		zz:

6

T

8