AN ORATION Against the Unlawful Insurrections of the Protestants of our time, under pretence to reform Religion.  
¶ Made and pronounced in Latin, in the School of Arts at Louvain, the xiiij of December. Anno. 1565.  
¶ By Peter Frarin of Andwerp, M. of Art, and Bachelor of both laws. And now translated into English, with the advise of the Author.  
RESPICITE VOLATILIA COELI, ET PULLOS CORVORUM.  
ANTVERPIAE, Ex officina joannis Fouleri. M.D.LXVI.   
Epist. judae. 
Hi carnem quidem maculant, dominationem autèm spernunt, maiestatem autèm blasphemant.  
These, being deceived by dreams, defile the flesh, despise the Rulers, & blaspheme the Majesty.  IBIDEM. 
Hi sunt murmuratores querulosi, secundum desideria sua ambulantes.  
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own will.  IBIDEM. 
Hi sunt qui segregant semetipsos, animales, spiritum non habentes.  
These are makers of sects, fleshly, having no Spirit.  Proverb. 16. 
Homo perversus suscitat lights, & verbosus separat Principes.  
A froward body causeth strife, & he that is full of words, maketh division among Princes.   

The extract of the Privilege.  
CAtholicae Maiestatis speciali gratia ꝑmissum est Petro Frarino Antuerpiensi, ut per quem seu quos volverit Typographorum admissorum impunè ei liceat imprimi curare et per omnes has suae Ditionis regiones distrahere Orationem Anglicè inscriptam: An Oration against the unlawful Insurrections of the Protestants: Eiusdemque Maiestatis Privilegio cautum expressè, ne quisquàm eandem Orationem proximis quinquè annis absque predicti Petri consensu imprimat vel alibi impressam distrahat. Si quis contra hanc Regiam prohibitionem ausu temerario committere vel ei fraudem facere attentauerit, sciat se non futurum immunem à poena contenta in diplomate  
dato in Regiae Maiestatis Concilio privato Bruxellae 14. Martij. Anno. 1565. stilo Brabantiae. Subsig. Bourgeois.   

The Translator to the Gentle Reader.  
AMong many other laudable customs of the noble University of Louvain, this one is yearly observed there, that in the month of December all ordinary lessons cease for the space of one whole week, and in place thereof some Learned man is chosen by common assent to be the Precedent of certain Disputations: wherein he proponeth, to such as are thereto appointed, diverse fruitful questions in Divinity, Law, physic Philosophy, Humanity, and in all probable matters, making arguments briefly for both parts of the questions, and then leaving to the judgement of the Respondent to choose which part he liketh best (whereof those exercises have their name) and the next day following in that place to handle the same Rhetoricallie the space of two hours together without interruption, 
Disputationes Quodlibeticae.  in presence and herring of the whole University there then assembled. And in this manner twice a day four hours are spent that week, with great profit and utterance of many good and profitable matters of learning worth the herring and bearing away, though little thereof commonly afterward come forth in print, to the sight and view of the world.  
Among diverse other, this last December there, a learned man toward the Law called M. Peter Frarin borne in Andwerp made an Oration against the Insurrections of the Protestants and Sects of our time, not without great commendation, which, at the earnest request of his friends, he suffered to be afterward printed. Anh because I thought it no less profitable and fruitful, that, as that Oration is in Latin, and like to be shortly in Doutch and French, so it should be in English also to warn my dear Contremen of those men's malice and cruelty: I conferred with him, and by his advise translated it into our Mother tongue, with such notes and farther additions as for lack of time, when he pronounced it, were omitted and left out in the Latin. Wherein I took such leave and liberty, as the Author, with whom I conferred, might be bold to use himself in his own doings, or give an other man, and as the Vain of our english tongue seemed best to bear in such kind of talk, leaving sometimes the precise words of the Latin, but never swerving any whit from the truth. And for the assurance and proof of the matter of this whole Treatise, the Author protesteth that he uttered nothing in all this oration against any man, but that either he saw with his own eyes, or hard of credible persons that were present at those matters, or read in approved Writers, or in their own books whom he chargeth, or finally that is notoriously known to whole Cities and Countries.  
Take therefore, I beseech thee Gentle Reader, in good part this fair warning thou haste here to take heed of these perilous pretended reformers▪ and weigh rather the matter, than my rude utterance in english. And if thou be a Gentleman, learn here what these men's intent and practice is against all noble Stocks. They mean utterly to root out the Nobility and all noble Blood, as they have done already at Geneva, and in those Cantons of Suitzerland, where this fift Gospel reigneth. 
Remonstrances au Roy des deputes des trois estats de Burgoigne sur l'edict de la pacification▪ part. 2.  The deputies that represented the three estates of Burgundy in their Discourse upon the French King's edict of pacification are my Authors of this report. If thou be a Ruler and in authority, consider their conspiracies and treasons against all Magistrates. If thou be a man of the Church, mark here their malice and extreme cruelty against all Gods true Ministers and Virtuous Priests. If thou be a faithful subject among the Commons, see their robberies, their pouling and rifling, their unmerciful extortions, their unsatiable greadines in gathering to them other men's goods. Finally, if thou be a true Christian man, Abhor and detest their Wickedness, Sacrilege, horrible blasphemies, and impiety against God and all his holy Mysteries. To be short, I trust no man willbe offended with the reading of this Oration, but only such as in their own consciences feel themselves guilty of these conspiracies and treasons herein mentioned, and therefore seem to be touched near the quick. And yet perhaps, by God's grace, this sour medicine, though it smart, may work in some of them also, first shame, than repentance, and last amendment of such ungodly purposes and enterprises, and call them back again thither, wherehence they fell, to do their former works, as the Spirit of truth sayeth, 
Apoca. 2.  in the fear of God, the unity of his Church, obedience of their Princes, and charity with their neighbours. But sure I am, it will little please M. jewel and his Companions, who by writing, preaching and printing, First provoked with great confidence and brags the Catholics to write their minds in matters of controversy and questions about Religion, wishing that the Queen's grace, (for whom we daily pray) would not only licence them, but command them to write: And now that divers have written full learnedly to their confusion and shame (meddling nothing with the affairs and politic Government of the Realm, but only with points of Doctrine) they have none other way to answer and make their party good, but to turn their tale, change their tune, and report that the writings of the Catholics are seditious, and tend to the disquieting and disturbance of the Common weal, that the authors thereof are unnatural and disordered subjects: and so by such false informations labour to procure the means to stay and let to come into the Realm such Books as detect their Untruth, Falsehood, and Heresies, and are most profitable for all good Christians and true Subjects to read, in these dangerous days.  
If they practise the like against this little discourse made against Commotions for Religion, they shall declare plainly and make the world understand, that they are not true Subjects to the Queen's Majesty, nor yet faithful to the Nobility, nor frindefull to the Commons of their own native Country. For here is nothing but a Detection of false and wicked Treasons against Princes and Rulers, and, as it were, a wholesome treacle for Magistrates and faithful Subjects, against the contagious infection and dangerous pestilence of rebellion. Far well Gentle reader, and with the manners and behaviour thou seest in our Ministers at home compare and lay together these Strange doings of their Fellows and Companions abroad in other Countries. So shalt thou perceive, they are of one spirit and stamp, 
Math. 7.  and (according to the Counsel of Christ the son of God) know them by their works, as the tree is known by his fruit, and by that means learn to avoid them, and beware of them.  
From Andwerp. Maij. 9 Anno. 1566. John Fouler.   

Against the unlawful insurrections of the Protestants of our time, under pretence to reform Religion.  
TWo principal things in every Common weal have at all times been especially esteemed and taken for the chief. both which now in this our age throughout all Christendom the desperate boldness of certain most wicked persons hath disturbed: I mean, Religion, and Peace.  
The question of God almighty his true Religion profaned, I leave to those men to handle, to whose custody and credit the holy Mysteries of Christian Religion are, by the divine Authority of God's ordinance, committed: whose learning, wit, and eloquence may further much the defence of so weighty a matter, whose Profession, Authority and virtue, aught to be always employed about such Godly affairs.  
The other argument, that is, of Peace broken by Seditions, of Public and good Order troubled, of Magistrates, under pretence of refourmation, contemned, of God and man's law offended and transgressed, that cause and lamentable matter I had also at this time gladly omitted, leaving it to the handling of the eloquent and wise, that are practised in Public affairs, grounded in knowledge of the laws, and weighty Policies of Princes: had it not been, that I was at this present first moved to take the rueful Discourse thereof in hand by the earnest request of such, to whom lightelie, without just excuse, I may deny nothing: then, lead (as it were) thereto by hope and regard of your most courteous gentellnes and patience (right worshipful Audience) and finally drawn and driven to speak by force of the hatred I bore to so vile and villainous a matter, lest, perhaps as by mine, so by all other men's silence so heinous a thing should have escaped quite unspoken of.  
For in very deed when I considered & weighed the matter with myself, mine opinion told me thus, That this right worthy Seat wherein I now stand, was want always to be the place open only to most eloquent Orators, occupied most commonly by most grave and ancient Doctors, whose accustomed manner hath been to bring hither, and to pour into your most learned cares nothing but such stuff as was invented by great wit, framed with much diligence, archeived & finished with gravity, judgement, art and eloquence. And as for me, were it so that I had all other things requisite to such a one that worthily might attempt this public exercise and entry of commendation in matters of learning: yet (to say the very truth) I thought mine age scarce ripe enough for the grave room of this so worshipful a Place. And withal, besides these defects, this also did put me in very great fear, lest as sometimes Demosthenes, that chief Pere of all Greek eloquence, framing himself to speak in the presence of Philip king of the Macedons, happened in the very beginning of his Oration to stay, to lack utterance & words, being astonished with the Royal Majesty of so great a parsonage: so in like sort I, addressing myself to talk in this so great an assemble of most learned Audience, should have peradventure the very same, or that like chance & fortune.  
But this needless doubt, and fear, proceeding of the faint & bashful shamefastness of youth, was at length somewhat dissolved by the comfortable exhortations of my friends, and is now at last quite removed and put away by the most cheerful sight of this your gentle presence and pleasant countenances, wherewith I feel sensibly myself to be marvelously now refreshed & provoked, as it were, to speak boldly & with good courage. For who would be afraid to speak of Seditions in the presence of such quiet persons? Against treasons, before most faithful Subjects? Who would doubt in the hearing of Officers and Magistrates, to talk against tumults, robbing, stealing, conspiracies, cutting of throats, spoiling of Countries, burning of Cities, sacking of Churches, wicked sacrilege, & most impious contempt of things appertaining to God, & finally against the very bane and pestilence of all commendable alliance and unity of Common weals, & the utter ruin and destruction of all Civil Policy and good Order? For what one man of you all (right honourable & worshipful) would gladly or willingly allow and bear such & so heinous enormities in any Realm or Country?  
I will therefore go forward in my matter & speak: yea, & now having gathered courage by the assured hope of your gentle patience, I will say boldly, that the Protestants of our time have not done well in putting themselves in arms under colour of reforming Religion: that they have done therein against all law, right and equity, not without intolerable injury, damage and wrong in every respect to the Public estate of Christendom. In this point consisteth the whole weight and controversy of the question that was yesterday (according to the custom of this school) proponed to be the argument of my talk at this time.  
I will first open and declare unto you, that there was no cause or just occasion, why these men should rise & make insurrection.  
Then, 
1  that they took weapon in hand without any authority, contrary to law, & in despite of all Magistrates and Rulers.  
Last and finally, 
●  that they used themselves to cruelly, & handled their sword to bloodily, to the greatest damage, hindrance & loss, that ever was felt in Christendom.  
With these limits and bounds I make, as it were, a traverse and close myself within a circle, out of the compass whereof the discourse and order of my talk shall not stray: that by these means both I, out of infinite matter that offereth itself in the handling of this cause, may have certain special points marked and chosen whereof I may treat, and also you, even now before hand, may foresee & bear in mind, in hearing what things, your learned ears are like to be employed during mine Oration.  
I deny utterly, that there was any good or reasonable cause, why the founders & brokers of this new Gospel should be driven or provoked to put themselves in arms against the Catholics. This is the first point whereof I promised to speak. Whiles in few words I declare & prove this unto you, I humbly request you, with diligent attention to mark and give ear.  
It behoveth always, that there be very great causes proved why, before change of laws should be in any common weal procured: & in very deed it ought to be a marvelous occasion & the greatest cause of all causes, why the innovation of Religion (being always the very backbone of all Realms both Christian and Heathen) should be attempted. But that either this or that should be done by force and arms, by war & rebellion, by fire & sword, by murder and bloodshed of the good and faithful Subjects, there can never any reason or sufficient cause be alleged or brought why and wherefore.  
I remember, among many other notable laws, wherewith in times past the Lorrenses ruled their common weal, it was with great policy and wisdom ordained, that if any man would go about to procure any thainge in the public affairs of that estate, he should stand up in a high place, & there hence speak his mind freely to the people, being then there assembled about him: but yet with this condition, that all the while he spoke, he should have a rope tied with a riding knot lose enough about his neck, the which rope should be so long, that the other end thereof might lie on the ground between their feet that hard his discourse & devise: to this effect, that, if in that end of his tale the people were persuaded that it was for their common commodity and profit, to make that change and innovation as he had said, than he should come down without any harm, and be dismissed with much commendation and favour: else the Audience out of hand might pull the rope and revenge with present death the rash attempt and seditious enterprise of such a one as without good cause, bestowed his busy brain about chainges and alterations.  
If it had pleased the Princes and Rulers of the world in this our time to have established and practised this law, we should have no need now to sigh at the sight of so miserable a confusion, disorder and troublous ruffling of all things. We should not have seen of late, and yet see this so lamentable an estate of the world. so many Wars, Tumults, Slaughters, Ruins, so many Churches suppressed, so many Towns overturned. finally we should not now rue so many wicked Sacrileges committed in profaning of God's Mysteries, & sacred things appertaining to his Honour and Service.  
But alas it was free, without any fear of the rope for these authors and fosterers of Sects, frankly and boldly to persuade with the people, and bestow their words as they list. And would God they had stayed there, and had disbursed nothing but varnished words: they went further from Words to Wounds and Blows. They had the Word in their mouths, the Sword in their hands: their Word sounded peace, their Sword coined war: their peace served for a guylful cloak to cover craft and deceit, their war was employed to execute violence, cruelty and murder. Was there none other means to plant that bloody Gospel, but to attempt Reformation in the state of the Church by civil wars, insurrections and Rebellion? Put up thy sword in the sheath, said Christ to S. Peter: Out with thy sword for the Gospel, sayeth the new gospeler. There was a Company of desperate & wicked persons that ran like mad men up and down the streets of Paris with glistering naked sword in their hands, 
Claud. de Saints du Saccagement des eglises. fol. 57  and cried out, the Gospel, the Gospel: when they meant nothing else, but to bring a sort of cursed Sects and wicked Heresies into the Realm.  
It was not (I assure you honourable & worshipful) it was not the Gospel they brought, except they hold it for a Gospel to cut in pecies, to sack, spoil and quite to overthrow with blows & naked sword all the the Evangelists builded with the Word. It was not God's quarrel at all: that bloody bickering was never taken in hand for God's sake. And in this behalf I call to witness even the self same man, that was our most earnest & fierce adversary in this question, who was the occasion of all our calammitie, and was the Author and maker of this lamentable Tragedy. In this matter, I say, I call thee, friar Luther to witness. For out of whose mouth (I pray thee) fell that worthy saying in the noble assemble of the learned and honourable at Lipsia: 
Luth. i● disput. Lipsic. 1519. test. D. Empser. D. ●ck. & Legat. tum ibi praes.  Neither was this matter ever begun for God's quarrel, neither shallbe ended for God's sake. O noble sentence, and worthy in deed to come out of his mouth, that would be called the heavenly prophet, the third Elias, the fifth evangelist. Was this matter, say you, never begun for God's sake? I believe it well. What was then the cause, I pray you good sir. that ye made so cruel, so long, so deadly war against the Christians, that ye sticked not to trouble all Christendom with civil barayle, with insurrections & uproars, with tumults, sedition, & rebellion? that ye could find in your hearts, to fight against your own parents, & your own children, against your Rulers & magistrates, yea & against the church of christ?  
War ought never to be made without most weighty occasion. For it is that part of a wise man to try all means & ways, rather than to lay hand on his weapon: but that men should fight at home in their own country against their own fellows, their own neighbours, their own parents, there is no reason nor cause that ever can be found for it: or surely if any be, it is this, that it be done by Commission & lawful authority for God's honour, for God's sake only, & for none other respect: & you, sir Luther, do flatly, (and yet most truly) deny, that these your doings were for any such reipect at all.  
If I were able to say nothing in this matter, but this that thou thyself sayest for me, yet out of doubt, by that verdict & judgement of all honest, wise, & indifferent men, I should prevail in this cause, and prove all your sect to be seditious, rash, cruel, wicked, traitorous against God & man, for that without any just occasion, ye have so long & so cruelly troubled the whole estate of Christendom. But you say, the faith was well nigh quite quenched, & out of the Church. It is a wondrous matter ye speak of. Christ prayed for S. Peter, that his Faith should never fail. And will ye say, he prayed in vain, lost his labour, and could not obtain his prayer? that were injury and reproach to the son of God. The holy Ghost came down from heaven into the Church here militant on earth, to teach her all truth. Hath he not taught her? you blaspheme the holy Ghost, so to say.  
But go to: let it be granted that, as you imagine all manner of fond & absurd things, so you thought in this point with no less madness, that the Christian Faith was lost, or at least that Christian Religion being nigh outworn and spent before your happy days needed to be restored by such excellent, grave, godly, and wise men as you were, replenished with all manner of knowledge, virtue and heavenly gifts of the spirit.  
To be short, your purpose was, ye say, to reform the Christian Faith. How then? When you could not therein prevail, nor persuade the people, that was somewhat stubborn and stiff-necked perhaps as you judged, did you think it the best way by and by with gunshot, and bytels to beat and drive the faith into their heads?  
Who ever being in his right wit did think, that any thing might be persuaded by force? Men use to persuade the mind and not the body: but it is most certain, that the mind, as it may be bend, led, and induced by reason, so by stripes, blows & buffets it can never be compelled and constrained. But it was a carnal Religion that these fleshly Gospelers brought and taught, & therefore they did what they could to drive it into men's brains with strokes, and to prick it into men's flesh with sword, dags, and daggers. It may be, ye were much offended with the vicious manners and ill living of men now a days. In good faith and so were we. there is no honest Catholic man that ever was delighted therewith. But yet when we saw that it was very hard fully to cleanse & purge any one family or how should from all manner of sins & sores, we thought it a matter of far greater difficulty & importance, to amend the faults & heal the wondes of all the whole corpse of Christendom together. therefore of necessity, be cause we could not remedy that desperate case by reason of the multitude, we bore with that common and vulgar Deceases and vices of all sorts of men, the cure whereof was more past hope, and did take them patiently, but yet surely not without great grief and sorrow to see them & open preaching continually against them. But you (sour Checkmasters & most bitter Controllers of manners) went about, like judges sent from heaven or Physicians dropped out of the skies, to condenne and cut of with sword, & burn with fire and gunpowder all at a push the faults and follies of the whole world together.  
If ye had been officers having Commission and authority so to do, yet your judgement and process could not be excused herein from exceeding cruelty and raishnes: but where it appeareth ye were but flingbraynes & light jackstrawes having no authority at all, that took upon you, without any examination, without process of law, without any sentence, to condemn all Christendom, to rack it, to punish it, and with most grievous and painful torments to tear and turn upside down the whole world: what shall I call this but a bloody Butchery, a heinous wickedness, a devilish dealing, an impiety never to be pardoned? O but (say you) the Catholics did live viciously, the Clergy were out of order, the Princes and Rulers ruled not as they should: yea & there were many ceremonies in the Church that we could not brook.  
I assure you these be grievous & weighty indictments. Who laid them in, I pray you? Who but you, the worst men, & naughtiest livers that ever trod on earth? What blames the thief Verres his mate? 
Quid fur accusat Verrem, homicida Milonem?  Or cutthroat falls with Miles at bate.  
The third Elias himself did plainly confess, that the manners of men were far more vicious under his Gospel, than ever they were before under the Popedom. He hath said it. It is not lawful to gainsay the same. 
Georg. Wicel. in retect. Luth. & Luth. in sua postilla su. Don: 1. adventus.  But if any of the disciples dare deny that, which this their great master Pythagoras said, the beds are yet warm wherein these gospelers lay with other men's wives: the Towns and City's smoke yet of the fire, wherewith they burned houses: the earth is moist at this hour with the blood of many good subjects whom they have slain: their Purses do swell, and are yet at this present puffed up with the goods they gathered, and gains they got by robberies, simony, and Extortion.  
Show forth thy brazen face, Martin Luther, and say if thou dare, that thou art an honester and better man, than the virtuous and grave Fathers and Prelates of the Catholic Church: 
Edict Worm. Carol. 5. contr. Luth. An. 1521. Resp. Regis Ang. ad ep. Lut. ep. ad Deuces Saxon. Lut. li. cont. R● Angl. Edict. Re. Polo con. Lutheranos  I will out of hand bring in against thee, the public Edict that the most noble Charles the fift our late foveraigne Emperor of happy memory, made against thee at Worms: the witness of the great and mighty Henry the eight King of England, whose sacred Royal crown (be it spoken here with leave) thou, like a sluttish slave, vauntest, thou wouldst anoint with dirt and dung of thy drunken body: The decree of the most renowned Sigismond king of Pole: and by these evidences I will by and by convince thee, & prove that thou art worthy to be cast, of Rebellion, Sedition, Sacrilege, Impiety, Heresy: Finally of all manner of wicked vices and heinous offences that can reign in a man. What canst thou lay against these witnesses, who were, at that time, the noblest, the best, the worthiest of credit, of all that lived in our days?  
These worthy Prince's Proclamations and Public Edicts set out against thy Wickedness and naughty behaviour, are every where in every man's hand published in print to the view and sight of the whole world.  
Come up again hither from hell, if thou canst John Caluine, & tell truth seeing all the world knoweth, that thou didst keep the space of five years together a Nun, who was a Renegade out of the Nunnery called Veilmur: 
This is written in a french book entitled Passavant Parisien printed at Paris in S. james street at the sign of the Elephant. A. 1559.  that thou didst pay two crowns a month for her board in the town out of that poor men's box of Geneva, upon condition she should come every day to make thy bed and learn her lesson out of thy Gospel, & practise how to bear the burden of wedlock patiently: and at last, when she was great with child by thee, and had now carried about the burden of her bailie three or four months, that thou didst bestow upon an Apostate canon dwelling at Losanna thereby, both the cow and the calf in marriage, a God's name, as thou callest it, but honest men were ever wont to call it sacrilegious whoredom.  
Deny, 
See the preface of Beza his confession.  if thou dare, Theodore Beza, y●, according to the gospel of thy Apostle & master Simon Magus, thou didst sell twice to two divers men for ready money thy spiritual livings, whereof thou hadst in France many more than thou were worthy of, for the which thy lewd and double dealing the buyers that bought thy benefices, having now by the law lost them, procured thee to be denounced excommunicate, and to be proclaimed for a notorious Excommunicate person by the Erier, about all the market places of Paris: Deny, if thou canst for shame, that now at this present in Losanna thou keepest, under the false name of pretenced marriage, in filthy adultery, the wife of a poor Tailor, who, except he be lately dead, dwelleth yet in the Harpestreate at Paris: 
Mistress beauty.  That when she (her name, as thou callest her, is Mistress Candida) fled to Hewlo the common Stews at Paris from her husband (because, having taken her in adultery he had given her a gaishe with a knife in the hip, and because she had been put in prison, for that she fetched a friscoll, when she was merrily daunting in a wine tavern with her customers, and said, hoighe one leap more for all Christian souls) thou camest thither to visy● and comfort her, and to curry favour, and when thou haddest made a filthy book of vile and bawdy verses and rhymes in her praise, at length thou tokeste her away the rehence, and having made a great purse of money, by Simony, Sacrilege and spoiling of Churches, thou cariedst her away with thee to Geneva, where Caluine sollennized a marriage between you. As for thy other most wicked doings afterward in France I say nothing at this tyme.  
What shall I here reckon up and open to your learned ears the vile behaviour, the lecherous living, the abominable adulteries, the filthy whoordomes, the dubblenes, the robberies, the cruelty, the Sacrileges, of other of the sam● stamp, who under colour of Religion and hypocritical name and Title of Ministers and Gospelers deceive and beguile the whole world? To make few words, the abjects & outcasts, the most wicked and base of all sorts of men are gone to this gospellysh Congregation like chaff winnowed out of God's floor, or like as vile filth & ordure doth run & flow in to a stinking gutter or sink. But especially if we consider the patriarchs of this synagogue, the chief Authors, the makers and Masters of these Sects: we shall plainly see, as in part I have declared of the three forenamed Captains, that there was never in the Church of Christ such weeds sprung up, so lewd, so lecherous, so proud, so arrogant, so spiteful, so malicious, so wicked. For they are so clad with all manner of naughtiness, that there is nor hand, nor foot void of vice, nor any one part of all their bodies unspotted, nor any wicked act absent from their whole sinful carcases.  
O ye virtuous Refourmors, could ye bear with all these abominations in your own manners, & could abide nothing amiss among Catholic men? The flame of your fiery Charity was so hot, that ye did your best to burn up quite other men's faults, yea, the men themselves, their Cities, houses, dwellings and all. But ye would not so much as sweale your own Coats with the least sparkle of that consuming fire.  
If all they that had offended most, had first suffered punishment proportionable to their deserts, you had gone to the potere this: it had been your lot, who every one of you have most wickedly transgressed God and man's law, to have gone first to the gallows. Would God that order of justice had been observed: there had been by this time not one of that your wicked pack and Conspiracy left alive to punish the Catholics so cruelly with war, fire, and sword, lived they well or ill.  
But you can spare yourselves well enough, & are in the mean time so straight laced, that ye cannot find in your cankered consciences to pardon any offence in other men. Ye were so inflamed with the zeal of the Gospel and of Gods house, that ye cried out against the Catholics and proclaimed them superstitious, Adulterers, tyrants', idolaters etc. If all be true, as you say, indeed it is a weighty matter worthy to be sharply looked upon that ye lay in against them. But if all these be but lies, fables, and false surmises of your own malicious stomachs, as they be in deed, than you uncharitable backbiters, you most impudent slanderers, have deserved to abide yourselves the just punishment due to those faults, 
Poena Talionis  ye falsely fathered upon other. But ye were wily foxes, ye escaped well enough. 
Subscriptio in crimen.  For ye did not, I warrant you, as the law ordaineth, put your names to the inditementes & accusations subscribed with your own hands to bind yourselves to be ready to receive the punishment of the faults ye laid against other, if ye failed in your proofs. Yea, and ye behaved yourselves yet more impudently than this, and more contrary to all order, process, and form of lawful proceeding: for in this your monstrous judgement of Reformation, you were the accusers yourselves, and you, the self same men, the witnesses, the judges, the hangmen, and most cruel boutchers to execute your own unlawful & wicked sentence. It may be, this touched you near the quick and caused you to winch and strike, that because of your profession and vow of perpetual chastity, wherein ye promised to live chaste during your lives, ye were not suffered freely to marry, to beguile poor simple women, to bathe your filthy bodies in the stinking puddle of carnal pleasures. What then? It had been your part to stand to your own promise, 
Fides hosti servanda.  though ye had made it to your mortal enemy: how much more had it become you, to have kept the vow of Chastity ye made to God almighty? But twysshe: you were weary of your vow, it repented you that ever you made it, ye did set nought by it, ye were of that mind peradventure, that ye had rather be damned for ever, then to tread for a short space the straight narrow way that leadeth to heaven.  
Well, if it were so that needs ye would to it, and cast your Vow on the hedge: yea needed not straight ways to fight for the matter. For ye had the common Stews and brothel houses open at all times, and every where at your pleasure. Light women married, and unmarried, yea and Nuns that had professed Virginity, as you had done, were ready by your lewd persuasions (more was the pity) to serve your filthy lusts, to keep you company, to go to the devil arm in arm with you.  
But what if perhaps some of you dwelled among good men in such well ordered Towns, where good Rule was so narrowly looked to, that by no means they could be suffered to have a Mistress Candida for a vessel of easement, 
It is Coverdales' Phrase.  as ye call it: was that a sufficient wrong and just quarrel for you to take Pepper in the nose, and sword in the hand, and by and by bid Battle? Were ye bound to stand so stoutly to Lady Lechery, Dame Venus, to maintain the liberties of her Kingdom and Gospel so straightly, that if every one of you in every place were not permitted freely and without check to cherish his carcase with a Whore, ye should for revenge of her quarrel trouble the Gospel of Christ, divide with Schisms the Church of God, make such a seedition, such a stir, such an uproar in all Christendom, as never any Barbarous, Rude, Savage or Wild people made the like?  
Some of your side suffered for the Words sake, for so ye call the cursed gospel of yours Yea and well worthy to, I assure you. For they never ceased to bark at Prelates & Princes, to work all means to wring the sword out of their hands, to trouble and disorder the state of common weals: Finally they never had their full of their sundry wicked practices against God, of their raishe madness and furious blasphemies against the blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  
Yea, but you say it was the very true word of God they preached, they were the men of God, the Martyrs of jesus Christ, the apostles of Christendom. These be high Titles. Will they be any higher? I will speak for them, to set them up one step more. They were those that laboured to climb up to the North, to place their seats above the clouds of the heavens, to be like Lucifer▪ Checkmates with God himself. And what of all this? Was it meet that because they could not freely and frankly preach the word, therefore by and by they should lay hand on the sword?  
The Apostles of jesus Christ were wont to suffer, not to give blows: to take not to do injury. S. Paul was content rather to lose his head, and patiently to suffer the sword, then to strike or cause any to revenge his quarrel. S. Peter was wrongfully crucified, and yet procured no man to be troubled for it. Why do not the new Apostles follow the old Apostles example?  
O Master Ministers, it is a very hard Word that ye bring us. for ye speak gonnestones, your Gospel is to hot, ye preach fire and powder, your Religion is to cruel, it breedeth blood and murder. jesus Christ was contented to ride on an Ass, the Apostles thought it no scorn to go barefoot: and we embrace gladly, with reverence their patience, humility, virtue, and mild manner in planting the Gospel. But you ride to preach on barbd horses, & put on the corselet not of faith, but of iron and steel, to set forward your straying Religion. All the world may see, that, as the manner and order of your procedings is contrary to Christ, so all the stuff ye utter, is likewise contrary to his heavenly Doctrine. What? Can ye not suffer martyrdom gladly for the gospel? No forsooth: ye chose rather to slay than to be slain, & no marvel. For ye looked for none other commodity by your Gospel, but a looseness and liberty to live at your pleasure. And therefore such Gospelers for such a Gospel were very loath to lose their lives. The thief will never gladly suffer death and spend his life in defence of theft: for he purposeth to have none other fruit and profit by theft, but his sweet life in this world maintained at pleasure. He that loseth his life, sayeth Christ, preserveth it into life everlasting: 
Io. 12.  but you were loath to lose yours, for that ye had no hope to have any everlasting life for it. Ye held it better to be Martyr-makers, than Martyrs: to do, then to suffer injury: How be it, to say the truth, ye suffered no injury when ye suffered death for heresy, for ye deserved no less. But, when ye murdered other, ye did great injury, whether they deserved to die or no: For that ye had no authority so to do.  
Hold still your hands a little while, lay down your sword and privy Daggers, let your fury cool, and hearken to reason, and ye shall plainly perceive, that there is great odds between the order and due Ministration of justice, that the Emperor and Christian Princes used to execute against your wicked transgressions: and your impudent boldness, Traitorous Rebellion, and Bloody Cruelty against Christendom. By the authority of God almighty they bear the sword, 
Rom. 13.  and have power to punish the wicked: but, as for you, who made you, I pray you, rulers and judges in Israel? O unhappy days, O wicked manners of our days, may we cry at this time with more just occasion, then in his age Marcus Cicero did.  
Bondslaves refuse to bear the yoke under their Masters: Subjects disdain to obey the Commandments and Rule of their Magistrates, thieves would be Lords and reign over all. Who be robbers, if you be reformers? Yea, who then shall be called Spoilers, Enemies, Traitors, tyrants, and Cruel Bouchers, if you be Guiltless and Innocentes?  
To conclude in few words, what reasonable cause do ye allege for yourselves, why ye made wars so wicked and so abominable, why ye prepared fire and faggot to burn the whole world? was it because ye were sometimes burned for heresy? Truly ye suffered not so much nor so often as ye deserved: but if perhaps, according to your deserts, y● had gone oftener to the stake, yet ye should have suffered it patiently for the Gospel's sake, if ye were Gospelers (for so were the Apostles wont to do) at least wise ye should not have resisted with force of arms, because ye were subjects, and were punished by an order of law at the commandment of the Magistrates and superior powers. Can not the freedom of your Gospel flourish and purchase you the carnal freedom and lose liberty of the flesh by no means without war? In good sooth ye needed not to repine for lack of liberty. For every where ye were wont to set the usual and accustomed fasts of the Church at nought, and fill the Panche freely, to carry a sister wife about with you, to toll Nuns out of Cloisters, and with filthy and sacrilegious Lechery to abuse them: yea & most commonly every Apostate Monk had his Nun at his tail. And so it agreed well, if god would have had it so: for,  

Holy Kate her holy mate,  
And like his like must love: 
Sanctum sancta docet, his artibus i●urad astra.   
By holy trade, a brood is made,  
To climb the Clouds above.   
It was the Friar Apostles pleasure, that his Lady Venus' Court should be frank and free. If thy wife, saith he, will not do it, 
Lutheri Ep ad Praepos. Luneburg.  let thy maid supply her place: the will of God commandeth, and necessity bindeth as well to have carnal copulation, and as to eat and drink. Was it your drift to redress the vicious living and lose manners of these days? It had been your part first to amend your own selves, who were the worst in all the pack, and then hardly to lay to other men's charge what ye could. Or was this your purpose to compel men to receive your Gospel, and to pour it into their mouths spite of their teeth? So did never Christ plant his Religion, but so Mahumet established his cursed sect. Ye laboured in vain, when ye travailed to bring the world to your Religion by Villainy, railing and double Cannons, as easily as the Apostles did win men to the Gospel of Christ, by their good living, preaching and miracles. 
Luther began his gospel for malice against the Pope, as he confesseth.  How be it in deed, it was neither Religion, nor Gospel, nor God's quarrel that ye meant to further: even he himself, who not for God's sake, but formalice against the Pope begun this whole Tragedy, is a currant witness in this point, 
Ep. ad Argentin. impress. Hagan. 1521.  and hath constantly so deposed.  
Was it to restore the Christian Faith, (being as ye thought well nigh worn out) that ye made so great stir? Your labour was needless: for the Church of God, the Seat and sure Pillar of Truth, hath always, 
1. Tim. 3.  without force and battle, most Reverently and charyly kept the Faith that was from the beginning committed to her Custody. This Christ obtained of his Father: 
Io. 17.  this shall the Heavenly Comforter the holy Ghost perform for ever. 
Io. 14  How then good sirs? Was this well done so to turmoil and toss the quiet state and public affairs of common weals, to make a mixture and confusion of hot and cold, high and low, to trouble and turn up and down all things appertaining to God & man, so lightly, so rashly, so wickedly without any just occasion, without any sufficient cause, without any good reason?  
Men that professed Christianity, have sought cruelly and outrageously a long time against Christian men, have sought their lives and goods, have bereaved them of house and home; of Church and Chapel: wealthy and rich Cities are impoverished, sacked & spoiled, Church Vestries are voided, rifled & rob: And now if a man call them to accounts, & ask the cause of all these their tragical & cruel doings, he shall have a short answer with mum budget, except they will peradventure allege this, that the lofty Ambition, the greedy Avarice, the desperate boldness of certain w●tō & lose friars have ministered just occasion of so horrible, wicked, & heinous battle.  
Now I come (most gentle Audience) to the second part of this matter, 
2  to the point wherein I promised to make discourse of their conspiracies and treasons: to the end ye may plainly perceive, that our Adversaries were not only without cause offended & rashli moved to bend their minds to fight, but that also they took weapon in hand, and bad battle traitorously: and that as they attempted war without justice & right, so they proclaimed and pursued the same without Authority and Commission, to omit nothing that should help to fill up the measure of their so great and execrable wickedness.  
It is great pity, 
2.  in very deed it is much to be pitied, that Christian Princes do make war one against another so often: yea and that, God wots, for light occasion, or well nigh for none occasion at all. Desire of reign and sovereignty, & light displeasure taken upon a word spoken, Glory, Hastiness, Emulation of Rulers, have bread us many times long and cruel battle, so that a man might well now sing as the Poet Horace did.  

When Kings and Rulers keep ill rule,  
The people pays for all: 
Quicquid dilirant Reges plectuntur Achivi.   
Their oversights, the Commons sighs,  
And feels their wanton fall.   
The time shall come, Oh, I tremble when I speak it, the time shall come in deed, when it shall repent them to late, that by their lightness and raish pangs, so much and so many men's blood hath been shed. Yet to say the truth in such wars, most commonly, the soldiers are excused for that their part is rather to obey, fulfil and accomplish their lawful Princes and Capitains' commandment, then deliberate, dispute and reason of the equity of the cause wherefore they fight. But in this domestical insurrection, in this mostruous tumult, and Sedition, that hath been stirred up these many years under pretence of refourmation in matters of Religion, wherein nor captain, nor Magistrate, nor Prince, nor Emperor biddeth any man strike: Where without any Lieutenant general, knight Martial, or deputy Captain all the whole host is but an assemble of private men, of common soldiers, or rather of rovers, cutthroats and most cruel murderers, who is void of heinous offence? what one is free from malicious treason? Who of all this company is able to say, that he is in his conscience guiltless, innocent and unspotted?  
Private men that had no Authority ●t all, bad battle themselves of their own heads, and styckte not, without their King and Sovereign his commandment, to bring and receive into the Realm, foreigners, straingers, hired soldiers and enemies.  
I will ask them now no more, what just Quarrel, what reasonable Cause they had, to muster and to proclaim war. Be it, that the Cause was most just and sufficient, because their pleasure was so: But this I ask them, what lawful Power, what law, what Statute, what Right, what Custom or common Example of Antiquity, what Authority and Commission they had so to do?  
Whereas they are but mere Private men and Subjects, called to no Office nor Authority at all, nor placed in any room or Dignity in the Common weal: yet they dare be so bold, as to Muster, to Camp, to pitch a field, they take upon them to minister justice, and right (right? Rather may I call it most unmerciful wrong) they will needs be Rulers, yea and rule all Rulers and the whole roast them selves alone.  
If a man might be so bold as to ask you now, right Honourable Gospellinge Capytaines (as the Renowned Prince and most Reverend Father my Lord Cardinal of Lorraine a few years ago asked the Ministers of that Deformed Church in the Honourable Assemble at Poissie) wherehence came you? Who sent you? By what Authority do ye all these things? either ye should be dumb without any thing to say (as they were then A long while) Or lie impudently, 
Beza th● after long deliberation answered, that his vocation was extraordinary  as your accustomed manner is: Or be driven plainly to confess and grant, that ye are but private Subjects, of no jurisdiction, of no Place or Degree, called to no Office or power to meddle with the public Affairs of Christendom: Finally that (for all these your straying, marvelous, and monstrous Mysteries which ye profess and practise most impudently and desperately, taking upon you to redress the state of all Christendom, and to Reform matters of Religion) ye have no Authority at all, neither ordinary power in earth, nor extraordinary Commission from heaven. For ye shall never be able to prove either this by Miracles, or that by letters patents.  
As for Martin Luther (or rather Luder, 
Luder in the Germane tongue is as much to say as a slave or a knave.  but that for shame he changed that filthy name of his) borne at Islibium in Saxony, 
Vide Bunderium in detect. Nugar. Luthe.  and begotten of a Spirit Incubus (as the common report goeth) who is your chief apostle and patriarch: We know him very well, what he was, whence he came, and what authority he had. When he was a young man he studied the civil law, and afterward when for his recreation he walked in the field nigh the University of Erforde, 
Fonta li. 1. Histor. con. Sleid  he was stricken down to that ground with a sudden thunderclap and lighting, and his companion, that walked then with him, was with the blow quite slain before his face, whereat he was so astonished and put in such fear, that he determined with himself to forsake the world, to enter into Religion: & so out of hand made himself an Augustine Friere. At the last he was made Doctor in Divinity with shame enough: for he came to that degree with the money that was bequeathed to an other man, whom, with the help of his Prior, he beguiled. 
Luther. in ser.▪ de destruct. Hierus. Luth. ad ver falsò nominat stat. Eccl & li contr Reg. An.  What other estate or degree he had in the common weal, or Apostleship in the Church of God, beside this, we could never yet learn by any means. But in deed he braggeth very often, that he is well assured, that his doctrine and conclusions are from heaven, and that he was sent from heaven to the Germans to be their first Apostle that should preach them the Gospel: for before his days he said that they never had any true Religion or Christian doctrine. In few words he maketh more account of himself, then of S. 
Luthlide se●●l. potest.  Augustine and all other holy and ancient Fathers of Christ's Church.  
This bragging Thraso telleth many straying matters of himself more marvelous than true. This is more like to be true as he reporteth of himself, that he had many times familiar conference and talk with the Devil. 
Luth. in de Miss. angu.  Yea and his Acts & doings during his reign, written and faithfully registered by Cocleus & other of his neighbour's men of great learning and credit, do most manifestly declare and prove, that from the devil also his familiar friend & Prince of this world he received authority and commission to punish all good and honest men, and to gainsay and withstand the holy Mass.  
John Caluine borne at Noviodunum in Picardy, 
Anton. Democ. de Missae sac. c. 2. joan. Vaquerius lib de Tentat.  a man banished from his country for his wicked behaviour, and whiles he lived in his country, the veriest unthrift and naughtiest varlet of all his companions, first hid himself at Basile, then began to show his head at Straseburge and preach to the Renegates and Apostles there: At last came to Geneva, and put out the Deputy of the City, expelled the bishop and all the Clergy that were honest and Catholic, 
Vide Lindani Dialogun inscript. Dubitant. Folly 139.  with all the virtuous and substantial citizens, and so wan Authority and began to reign there like a Conqueror by the law of treason and force of arms.  
What need I here again bring you in mind of that Epicure Beza the Burgonion, a Licentiate in law, who taketh so much Poetical licence, that in his bawdy and filthy Epigrams he passeth far the wanton Pagan poets Martial, and Tibullus? What shall I speak of Bernardinus Ochinus the Italiane, who laboureth to plant the beastly Doctrine of Polygamy, that is, that more than one wife at once may join with a man in the state of lawful matrimony, willing therefore and persuading men to be Manywivers, as the Turks are.  
What shall I tell you of Peter Martyr the Renegade Monk, or of bernard Rotman an unlearned Ass that began to profess learning, and by colour of only Scripture, which he understood not, expelled the Catholics out of the City of Munster? Or of John of Leid that tailor, that furious captain of the mad anabaptists, who, within a year after, got the upper hand of Rotman, drove out the Lutherans, brought in that anabaptists begun to reign in the very same Cit., having won & conquered the field by the same craft & pretence of scripture only, as Rotman did before, & so gave him a fall in his own turn & served him with his own sance? or of Osiander that Holy Man commonly called the second Enoch, a Gods name, or of Carolostadius that rude married archdeacon of Wittemberge, who became afterward for mere folly a mad and unskilful plowghman, to the wonder and laughing game of all that country. Or of Illyricus, Musculus, Farellus, Virettus? Or of Bucer, Morot and Malot, the ringleaders and teachers of all mischief? good God, what a rabble have we here, what a noble rank of virtuous, grave & renowned Fathers is here? such as I assure you, no honest and discreet householder would ever suffer by his good will to tarry within his doors.  
Such Champions are they that profess themselves to be the Adversaries and enemies of the Catholic Church: these be the captains that stand against the bishops of Christ's Church, the kings of Christendom and Rulers of common Weals. Such are the orators and Preachers that use to declaim, to rail, to thunder against the blood & Shrines of Martyrs, against the catholic and universal Religion of the Christians, against the mystical and holy Sacraments of the Church: Yea and stick not, like mad dogs, to bark and bay against the very blessed and precious body of our Lord jesus Christ. These, yea such fellows as these be, are they who now these many years, usurp a Lordly authority over us, whom we are compelled to take for our masters, who take upon them to control the doings and manners of all the whole world: And yet can we learn by no means wherehence came this so Imperial a sovereignty, or who gave them so great and princely Authority: except we say they had it of Satan, and that they be the very undoubted prophets and Forerunners of Antichrist.  
The bishops and Prelates of Christ's Church do excommunicate them out their flock, and separate them from the mystical Society, fellowship and Communion of all Christian men. The Christian Princes and Rulers of the world do bannissh them, do take them for outlaws, and both by proclamations and force of arms travail with much care and diligence, to defend and save themselves and their loving Subjects from them: God almighty the Omnipotent Lord and Ruler of heaven and earth never signified to the world by any miracle, Sign, or silly token, that we should take such as these are for his Commissioners or Deputies: except a man will say, that this is a Miracle, that these fellows oftentimes (whiles in the presence of the People, they feign that they are able, in the Virtue of the Gospel they preach, to restore the dead to life) do make the live stark dead, ●…s a certain Preacher did, one Mathias in Polonia, and the like is credibly reported of John Caluine at Geneva.  
How then▪ What shall we take them to be? In few words, they are thieves that come in by the Window, they are Murderers, Traitors, Heretics, Satan's Ministers. For why, their doings declare no less. They do the Commons wrong, they conspire against Princes, they divide the Church with Sects, they provoke God himself with horrible Blasphemy. By flattery, and bearing themselves a loft like grave bearded goats they curry favour with the simple people, and study to be in credit with the Commons' & basest sort, by clawing them where they itch, and telling them fair tales of liberty, looseness and light burdens, such as they know the people are glad to hear. Otherwise in very deed they have nothing to do with such affairs as they meddle withal. They can never bear out themselves by any law of God or man, for taking upon them the office and profession of reforming Religion, nor excuse themselves by any means from having done to much amiss, and most grievous wrong, in that they took weapon in hand and made war.  
For they, being but private men, yea & y● the most vile, base, & worst of all men, in raging choler & furious madness, did stand up, gainsay and resist the laws and magistrates, did stir themselves & others against their Christian Emperors, kings, & rulers, did separate themselves from the company of all honest & faithful subjects, did bid battle to their own native country, did rejoice & triumph in their wicked and roving thievery.  
O God immortal, how many, how great and heinous trespasses are here couched together in this one wicked and cursed attempt? The native borne fighteth against his own country, one fellow striketh at an other, the son smiteth his Father, the subject assaulteth his Governor, the Soldier turneth the edge of his sword against his own Captain, one Christian pursueth an other Christian with deadly blows, with gunnepouder and fire: finally mortal man provoketh everliving God with mischief, wickedness and blasphemies.  
O most merciful and highest Lord God of heaven, to what unhappy days hast thou brought and reserved us, that we should live & see this miserable time and lamentable age? What case, what order, what state, what face of a Christian common weal is this? Laws, Magistrates, right can bear the sway no where, the Royal Sceptre & Mace of the Empire lieth done on the ground, the sacred crowns of Christian kings are trodden under traitors feet: It is lawful and right for every desperate shakebuckler to do what he list, and his list is to do, that his belly bids him, that pride pricks him, that madness commands him.  
He is taken to be the ioliest fellow and to have best profited in the liberty of the Gospel, who feareth nothing, who setteth by no man, who thinketh himself bound to obey no law at all. What can be more tedious and troblouse, more unruly and outrageous, more horrible, execrable, terrible, in that Infernal deep pit of Satan, among the ugly devils of hell themselves then this, that every body coveteth rule & to be master over other, and none can abide obedience, and to be a quiet subject? That all things are done in a confuse tumult, nothing advisedly and in order? That the highest and lowest without distinction are mingled and ruffled together? that cold and heat, drowthe and moisture strive and contend with continual discord, and contrariety one with an other?  
Pardon me, I beseech you (most gentel Audience) pardon me, if perhaps this quick and egree talk seem in your learned cares over bitter and loathsome. If I speak home & more freely, th●●an well agree with your mild and gentle natures, it may please your goodness to have me excused, 
Lu. glos. ad Edic. Imperi. & in admoni. ad Germ. suos teu tonicè script.  and lay the blame, as reason is, on them whose wicked demeanour compelled me thus to speak: whose deep and festered wounds can not be healed with lenitives and temperate medicines: whose grievous sores and abominations can not be declared with mild and gentle language.  
For what can be or spoken to bitterly, or done to severely against them, 
Luth. ad vers exe crab. Antichristi Bullam. Lib. cont. praetens. stat. Ecc.  who with their wicked and cursed mouths do rail, rage, and call the most renowned & noble Christian Kings and Princes, slaves, vouchers, knaves, and the Reverend Bi●shopes (Christ's most holy Vicars) Antichrists, bawds, jolde? Who stick not to publish in their writings, that the great Turk is ten times better, wiser, & honester man, 
Lu. count duo mandat. Ca●●.  then our Christian Rulers & Princes? Who 〈◊〉 men earnestly in hand, that no man, except he will be Satan's own child, 
Lu. glos. ad Edic. Imper.  aught to obey the worthy & po●it●● decree of the most noble Emperor Charles the fift that he proclaimed at Worms by the advise & consent of the Prince's & estates of Germany for the appeasing of sedition, & the quenching of dangerous contention in matters of Religion.  
These be but trifles & light matters in comparison of the rest of this their wicked & traitorous conspiracy. In the very honourable presence & hearing of our Late sovereign Charles the fift, & the estates of the Empire at Worms, the worthy third Elias, out of those words of our Saviour Christ in the Gospel (I came not to send peace, but the sword) concluded, 
Vide di● secun. Dubita ●ij. p. 27●  that it o●ght to be a thing to be wi●shed for as most acceptable to Christian men, and specially to him, that strife and contention should rise and grow about th● Word of God. Yea, not long after, he did set out to the sight and view of the whole world seditious and Heretical Books, wherein he did the best he coul●e to abolish all due obedience, to abrogate all Policy and Civil government, to persuade the People to rebel and forsake their Spiritual and Temporal Rulers and Masters, to provoke them to steelinge & robbing, to bloodshed and murder, 
Refert Geor Wicelius in ret. Lutheranismi.  to sacking and burning of houses, of Cities, of Churches.  
He said, that men should waisshe their hands in the blood of the Romish Clergy. He affirmed in his writings, that it was the very true nature & complexion of the gospel to move and stir up war and sedition: 
Epist. ad Frat. inf. Ger.  That there ought to be no Magistrate, no superior at all among Christian men: That men ought to pray God earnestly, that it would please him to put in 
li. de pot seculari.  the heads of the uplandish men of Germany, not to obey their Princes, neither to go to war with them against the Turk: 
lib. count duo edi. Caesaris.  That men should contribute nothing towards the charges of the war against the Turk: That it was not lawful for Christian men to war against the Turk, 
li. de bell lo cont. Turcam.  but that they should suffer and bear patiently and with a good will all violence, wrong, and injury that were done to them. Yea that it was so far against the law of God to fight against the Turk, 
Luth. assert. articul. 24.  that if any man should be so hardy as to do it, it might be well said, that he fought against God himself, and seemed to repine and resist against his heavy hand and just punishment: That neither man nor Angel of heaven had any Authority at all to 
Lib. de capt. B●bil.  make any law or one syllable, whereto Christian men should be bound to obey, more or longer than it pleased them. For we are, s●●ed he, frank and free from all things. And in case any thing were decreed and laid on the neck of a Christian man, whereto he should be of necessity constrained to obey against his will and consent, that that proceeded of tyranny, & should be taken for violence and cr●eltie: finally that there was no hope of redress and refourmation, 
Then Luther being chief preacher of that Gospel would have been king alone himself.  except the laws and decrees of all men were utterly abolished, and the free Gospel of liberty called home again, according to the which all things should be judged, ruled and governed.  
With these straying opinions and singular Paradoxes the foundation of the fift Gospel was laid, and hence consequently the springs and grasses of this wicked conspiracy and treason, we talk of, began to bud.  
When Thomas Muntzer, this Evangelists scholar, 
Touching this insurrection of Muntzer read  had learned these high Mysteries of his master, he began to preach apace, he made many seditious sermons to the people, exhorted them to divide themselves from the Catholic Church, 
Cocleus de act. Luth. Anno. 1525.  to forsake their Magistrates & Rulers, & to shrink away from them, sent his letters about the country, gathered a great host of uplandish peasants, of most wicked persons, of desperate slaves, & out of hand biddeth battle. Who biddeth it? (good God) and against whom? will ye see who it is? forsooth it is Thomas Muntzer the Apostle of Saxonies' scholar, a man that should have been bound in chains, according to the counsel of the learned physician Hypocrates, for his madness, a monstrous, contagious and pestilent beast, framed and made of all manner of stinking vices and filthy ordure, that biddeth war against his own country Germany (a noble Country sometime & most florisshing) against Princes & Rulers, against the very Church of God himself.  
Oh wicked villain, oh pestilent monster▪ oh cursed Rakehell. Yea and the impudent Caitiff was not ashamed to call it also, the battle of the lord. For so h● cried to his soldiers: fight good brethren, fight manfully the lords battle, sig● God's field. For he said, he had commission by Gods own mouth, to bid battle against all Princes & Kings. The very same said Luther also, 
Melanth. comment. ad Coll.  affirming that God himself did rife & stand against the estates of Germany & their tyranny: That it was the living God of heaven his own proper battle, and not the poor peasants of the countreie: and withal the lying Prophet assured most constantly before hand by his false spirit of Prophecy, that the Rebels of the country should surly have the upper hand, and that the Princes and Nobles should be undone, have the overthrow and utter destruction.  
Well now, Muntzer then goeth forward very lustily and desperately with his Vplandyshe soldiers, of whom he had a marvelous great number assembled about him, and laboureth tooth and nail what he could, to wring the sword out of the magistrates hands, to deprive them of all authority, power and rule, to degrade and depose them from all honour, dignity and Princely estate.  
Many a notable Castle and Palais, many a goodly Abbey and Church was quite razed and overthrown by his wicked means and doing: yea in only Franconia, as some men write, n● less than three hundred. 
Eras. Alberus & Conrad. Wimp. lib. contra Suinglium.   
Upon this at Frankford two noble Captains, a tailor and a shoemaker, began to strike up alarm to a fresh rebellion, to blow the trumpet, to call their soldiers to the field. They shut the town gates, appointed new companies and Aldermen of the wards, made election of new Senators and counsellors, summoned a parliament, and ordained new laws, expelled th'officers & magistrates out of the town, some they butcherly murdered, sent their statute books to other Cities, to stir up other to sedition, & to take weapon by their example.  
Hereupon at Mogunce, at Rincavia, at Colen: hereupon in all quarters of Germany such a tumult, such an insurrection, such an uproar is stirred up, such a terrible and traitorous rebellion is by and by risen, as never the traitor Catiline attempted the like in Rome. The whole world is set a fire with the heat of this Gospel. many puissant, renowned and notable persons of the nobility are cruelly murdered, among whom the honourable Earl of Helfensteine was one. 
Erasm●● Alber: reportest it.  who, as it is reported, was forced to run upon their pikes. All things, high and low, are turned upsidedown, deadly war rageth on every side, horrible fear reigneth every where. For why? the lords and Rulers were now more afraid of their own subjects & servants, then of their foreign enemies and strangers. But yet at last by th'ayed mercy and benefit of God almighty, the victory stood on the Nobles side: who overcame the peasants, took Muntzer (who repented grevouflie his wicked & traitorous doings and at last lost his head) and flew in the space of three months a hundred and thirty thousand of the Rebels.  
What did our worthy Col Prophet then, who before by his false Prophecy gave the overthrow and utter destruction to the Nobles, and gave the conquest and victory to his soldiers of the country? It is likely, that here the second Ieremi●, (for he can quickly bear the person of which Prophet he list) sat solitary, weeping and lamenting the calamity and miserable case of his country. Verily and so he did. For than he cast away for very anguish of mind his friars cote, and betakes himself to his nun Katherine Boor, 
Luther's marriage, Anno. 1525.  one of those ix. which his bawd Leonard Knoppen stolen out of the Nunnery of Nimyke on good friday, when Christian men use to celebrate the memory of Christ's blessed and bitter passion.  
This woman, after she had been well broken & framed two years with wa●ton toys and lecherous recreations among the scholars of wittenberg, the poor seely sorry man taketh in his arms, & for very heaviness & grief embraceth her patiently, & kisseth her devoutly & full often with all his heart. Yea he took it no scorn to dance and drink Carouse and refuse not, though he was a Friar to marry a Nun, which was a straying matter and never hard of before, and all for very penance & sorrow to see so great murder and so much bloodshed: where of himself was the only cause & Author.  
It is without fail a meritoryouse deed, as the Cannons say, to take a whore out of the stews and marry her to make her an honest woman: and he took an honest woman out of a Nunnery to marry her & make her a whore. So in doing his penance he miss but a little, being overseen in taking quid ꝓ quo one thing for an other. And withal, this Apostolic point was to be noted in this Holy Prophet, that out of hand, as the wind and flattering blast of fortune turned, so he turned his sail, changed his style, sung an other song, and wrote bitterly against the poor uplandish men when he saw them overcome, 
Luth. contra cohort. Rusti●.  yielded them to Satan, and committed them as guilty and worthy to die to the edges of the Magistrates sword. Yea he reviled them & railed at them, ca●ling them devils of hell, and said that out of doubt the Nobles might easily win heaven by shedding the blood of such traitorous rebels.  
See, I pray you, the evangelical spirit of this Apostle, how double it is, how expert and ready in false feigning and dissimulation. All this he wrote to make the world believe, that he was none of that pack and wicked conspiracy of rebels: whereas in deed he was the Author and Grand captain that did set them on, and clapped his hands and egged them forward, 
Teste Stolsio in somnio Luth. & in defension.  as long as they had any hope to have the upper hand.  
We may thank this traitorous Catiline of our time, for all these bloody tragedies. By such practises he came in fa●●or with Solimam the great Turk, in whose Books he was highly esteemed: & well worthy so to be. For by occasion of debate about the Lutheran Gospel, and so through Luther's means, he conceived Good hope to overrun and conquer all Germany, 
The Turks army was then two hundred and fifty thousand as it is reported by Gaspar Hed● Hist. Synop. ad sabel.  when he came to that Key of Christendom the noble City Vienna Austriae, with such a huge great host, that he made all Europe quake. Yea Soliman wrote in plain words that he wished Luther long life, that he hoped the day should come, that Luther should find him his good master. And in very deed at that time the terrible and mortal enemy of Christendom gave a great puyshe, & miss but a little to subdue all Germany, whiles Christian men, being at debate between them selves about the Gospel, 
Test● joanne Manli● in loc. commun. to. 3. Fo. 195.  drew courtesy very uncourteously, and were in doubt whether they should go with the Emperor & fight against him or no, had not God of his infinite mercy then especially helped his afflicted flock and spared his people.  
I can not without great grief of heart remember, that by the wicked means and procurement of this gospeler, one of the best Christian Emperors that ever ruled Christendom, was brought in trouble and great danger among his own subjects. Is there any man alive, y● ene● saw, or can any of us all call to remembrance, that we ever hard or read of such a Noble & worthy Prince for wit, virtue▪ prowess, experience, courage, and for all other Princely graces, honourable gifts, and renowned acts, as was our late puissant & mighty Emperor Charles the fift? Ye● this Princely man, this Lieutenant general, Patron, and defender of all Christendom, this most renowned Emperor was assaulted and entrapped by this pestilent treason and Gospelissh conspiracy. And whereas it should have become Germany especially to obey him at a beck: certain Germans mustered, made a great host & all the power they could against him, and pursued him in open war (which they call Smalcald Field) though, 
Smalcald field.  (thanks be to God) they lost the field and prevailed not.  
I could here tell you of the great Sedition and insurrection in Zuitzerland which was stirred up by Zuinglius, 
The insurrection of the Helueri●n● stirred up up Zuinglius, Anno. 1531. Croni● Germa.  the raging flame whereof was so fierce and great, that the blood of many thousand men was scarce able to quench it.  
I could declare unto you, how the traitorous Gospelers of England gathered a main host against their most virtuous lady Queen Marie the rare treasure, 
〈◊〉 Rebellion  the peerless jewel the most perfect Pattern & Example of our dai●●. How they shot arrows and ●a●tes against her Court gates, conspired her death, devised to poison her, to kill her with a dag at one time, 
●nokes ●oke.  with a privy dagger at an other time, reviled her, called ●er bastard, boutcher, printed seditious books against her, wherein they railed at her like Hellhoundes, and named her traitorous Marie, mischievous Marie.  
It were to long to rehearse, how the noble Queen of Scotland that now reigneth, was driven a great while to live like a poor private woman in her own realm, to obey her own subjects, & todoe no more than they gave her leave: yea, and in the mean time was every day and every hour in great peril & danger of her life among them.  
I need not tell, that every man knoweth, how the Gentle men that were seduced by these new preachers rebelled against their Prince in Sucuia: nor how the Commons made an uproar against their king in Denmarck.  
But I can not omit, to speak of th●● late treason and cruel conspiracy of the Hugonoes' in France, who could without weeping tears abide to tell, how those naughty, false & wicked subjects were not ashamed, to stand in open field against their own natural Sovereign in his own realm? To bid war and fight against their lawful King, during his Nonage, to make a league and confederacy with the enemies of his crown, to sell his Cities and towns to foreigners & straingers for money? This holy battle (for the Gospel a God's name) was fought against France by frenchmen themselves: that is, first by Calvin the Dictator and General of the field, then by Beza the Lieutenant, and Othomannus and Spifamius the petty Captains. These were the chief doers in deed, though as they took the colour of Religion & pretence of refourmation for cloak of their treason, so they used the names & service of certain of the nobility of France whom they had seduced to bear out the brunt of the battle, the smart of the strokes, the envy, the infamy, & all the outward face and po●● of that busy matter. These were the knaves that lay in the stock: as for other, they were but their trumping Cards.  
The preface of their tragedy was very calm and peaceable. They would seem to go very orderly to work. They got an edict to be made forsooth for the furtherance of their Gospel, they got a law by force and extorsion against the king and Magistrates will and pleasure. 
Claud. D. Saint du Saccag. Fo. 58.  The high Court of Parliament of Paris made answer at the first, We can not, we will not, we ought not. But afterward they were compelled to let the bill pass, & the edict of januarie to be made, that these rakchels might preach without the walls by permission, and as it were by virtue of a law: which law to all honest good men never seemed worthy to have the name of a law, as the which was obtained by force, was laid upon men's necks by the might and violence of thieves and traitors that had taken & bound the Common weal hand & foot, was written and penned against all reason and equity. But yet a law they would needs have, were it never so unlawful, to be a cloak to cover their outrageous sedition.  
And in deed at the first they made themselves very humble and meek. When the King and the Honorables of France were assembled about weighty & great affairs of the Realm at Poissie, thither came the twelve Apostles of that deformed Church, of which number eight or nine were Apostates, monks, and friars that had cast of their habits, broken their vows, and forsaken their profession: such smooth merchants, that in outward talk and word, in the presence of that honourable Audience, would speak of nothing, but of peace and concord, of good faith and simple dealing: whereas in deed they meant, they minded, they wrought nothing else, but wicked conspiracy and treason, but sacking of church's, burning of cities, murdering of citizens, and the utter ruin and destruction of that Realm. Yet that they were so earnest to have a law for their side, and by public authority to be suffered to preach after their cursed fashion, their intent and purpose therein was this: that under pretence of a law they might undo the realm, and turn the King out of his kingdom, as they did before under colour of the word of God, expel the Bishops wellnighe out of the Church.  
Would you have a law, that refuse to live under a law? Who is so blind that can not plainly see, that your craft & practise is, to drive out (as it were) one nail with an other: whiles under the shadow of Religion and law, ye labour what ye can, to banish all law & Religion out of the world, to overthrow the Church, to root all civil order and policy of temporal affairs out of all Christian Realms, countries and City's?  
But I pray you, 
Claud. D. Saints du saccag. Fo. 55.  by what law made you that wicked conspiracy, when ye agreed together to rob & spoil in one night all the Church's in France at once, if all things had framed & fallen out according to your fancies & purpose every where, as they did in Gascoine & divers other places of France, where according to the appointment the matter was put in practice in deed with mo●● desperate boldness, and wicked Sacrilege? By what Religion or law did a great company of you flock together at chalon in Burgundy, 
The three estates of Burgundy do report this in the second part of their Discourse upon the French King's Edict.  & there in your Convocation house made a Synodalle decree, that every man should endeavour to his power to drive three Vermins out of Christendom, the Church of Rome, the Nobility, the public order of justice? If ye deny it, your names are to be seen yet in the Records of the high Court of Parliament at Paris, where many of you were accused for it by the Rulers and estates of Burgundy.  
When ye travailed under a pretenced show of God's word to dissanul and abolish the Supremacy of the chief Bishop of the Christians, who according to the commission and charge given unto him by Christ's own mouth, used ever to feed & rule both the sheep and lambs of God's flock: then were these words ever in your months, Honour the king, obey the king as the highest: 
1. Pet 3. Tit. 3.  warn them to hearken and obey Princes and Rulers. But when ye conspired and agreed together at Geneva like villains & traitors, to find privy means, when time, place, and occasion might serve you, to rid out of the way and murder the late virtuous and good king of France Francis the second, the Queen his wife (who now, God be thanked, hath gotten the upper hand over the rebels and reigneth in Scotland) the Queen Mother, her children, all the nobles, and all the Catholic and good Officers of France: where was then your scripture and that accustomed sentence of yours, Honour the King?  
Out of all doubt you mean nothing else by these words, but to thrust your sword through the bishops body in to the kings heart. It was your policy first to vanquish the Bishop by the word, that ye might the more easily afterward kill the King with the sword.  
But here perhaps some one will ask, how I know all this? To him I make this answer, 
Defence. Reg. & Resig. Fol. 16.  that this is set out in print in France under the King's privilege: and therefore seeing it is common in every man's hand, known to all men and set out to the sight of the world in defence of the most Christian King and of the Catholic Religion, it can not be unknown, also to me. Yea & may it please him to understand, that I know this also that I read and saw with my own eyes the last year at Orleans, I mean a libel printed in the name of all the Hugonoes' of France to their sovereign Lord and King, wherein was nothing else from the beginning to the ending, but impudent boldness, desperate threatenings, and shameful treason.  
The subjects were not afraid to write to their King, that he could not reign over them, that they would suffer his yoke and obey his commandment no longer, except he would be contented to rule his realm in such sort, and by such laws and ordinances, as they should appoint him. That they played the very fools, when by his commandment they laid down their weapons: that they would surely take them in hand again, except he would look well to himself, and put out of the Council of Paris certain noble and Honourable men, who as they said, were thieves Rovers, Butchers: and place in their rooms certain of their brethren in Christ.  
What could be spoken or invented more proudly, more Impudentely, more seditiously, and maliciously, then that they uttered in this malapert, stubborn, and traitorous Libel? The Printer of Orleans was kept and feasted a few days with the Officers of that Town in their houses, in steed of a Prison, for printing this Oration: and that was all that was done to him then for it.  
With the like Spirit one Goodman an english man, 
Goodman's book against the monstrous reign of women.  an earnest and hot Preacher of this Gospel, for a grudge and malice he bore against his Sovereign Lady and Mistress mary the most high and Honourable Queen of England, did set out a monstrous Book in deed a few years ago against the monstrous Reign of Women, as he said: yea, the impudent, vile, and shameless villain Traitor called that most noble and virtuous woman Proserpina (whom the poets feign to be Queen of hell) and for her sake gathering choler and stomach against all women, he railed at them all, and reviled them, & like a common scold would by his will set on a cooking stole, all the whole flock and generation of woman kind.  
He said it was neither law, nor right, nor reason, that any woman should be a Ruler and sit in the Princely Seat of any Common Weal: that it might well seem a monstrous rule, and contrary to nature, if men were compelled to obey a woman: if women were suffered to bear the sway and govern the public estate of any kingdom.  
If he wrote thus especially for hatred and malice he bore against women, he swerved much from the common and accustomed manner and fashion of his fellows, who do attribute so much to women, and are of such a fond and filthy opinion, that they think it impossible for a man to live one day without the company of a woman. Howbeit in deed they be naughty and lewd women, fit and ready to the game only, that these fellows love so much: but as for good women (among whom this virtuous Queen might be well Queen & Princess in deed) they can not abide, but do utterly detest them, and hate them as much as they hate all good men.  
Out of doubt in one thing this gospeler observed jump the wont practice and beaten path of his companions: that under pretence of speaking against women he endeavoured to stir the people to rebellion, and the subjects to shrink away and forsake their liege and lawful Sovereign. And this is even the very daily and common custom of all the pack of such new Gospelers & reformers, who cast their plat and are fully set, be it right or wrong, by foreign battle abroad, or by rebellion at home, to trouble and disquiet the peaceable state & good order of all common weals, when it serveth their turn they are so skilful, that they can put in ure both these mysteries of their Gospel at ones.  
When the Emperor of worthy memory Charles the fift was entangled and troubled at Oeniponte with their tumult and rebelling, Soliman the Great Turk was in the mean time requested in their behalf to make war, for the furtherance and Defense of their fift Gospel. 
Defence. Staphil. contr. Il. Et Sleid. notat.  The great Turk, I say, (Oh horrible & most impious act) was sent for, that whiles they assaulted the Emperor and kept him at a bay in Germany, Budensis Bassa the Turks Deputy should set upon his brother Ferdinand in Hungary. The letters of that Conspiracy were taken: so that their craft herein is open, their falsehood can not be denied, their wickedness and treason can by no colour be covered or cloaked.  
It were an infinite matter (gentle Audience) that might be here alleged, if I would reckon up all these Gospelers traitorous enterprises, and make full discourse of every particular part of these heinous Conspiracies. For in deed they have left nothing undone that any cruel Robbers, false Traitors, or wicked Heretics, could ever commit, attempt or devise, against all good men, against Princes, against God almighty himself. They have injured and traitorously offended the Royal majesty of all the Kings and Princes of Christendom, they have disturbed, impaired, and broken all politic order and rule of all Common Weals. They have disquieted, vexed and disordered the high Court of the Imperial Chamber, they have abolished the ancient laws and customs of the emperors Supreme consistory, and have appointed new of their own making, so that justice and Right is banished from thence: in such sort that there remaineth scarce any Sign or token of Law and equity in that renounted place, 
This writeth Brunus de Haero, lib. 2.  and Imperall bench. for it is their pleasure that all things be tried & decided by fire and and sword. Yea and what say ye by this, that many books and Lybells' of theirs have been commonly found and seen abroad, wherein they uttered their study & declared their attempt & travail to alter and change all the order of justice & judgements of the Empire, to take away and abrogate all the Civil Laws, and to make a new Policy and Order of government of their own fantastical devise.  
And it was not enough in their opinion, nor sufficient for the absolute perfection of their Gospel to betray every particular Ruler, and to work treason against every king in his own Realm: to fill up the measure of their malice & wickedness they became Traitors against the Pope, the Emperor, the Bishops all at ones, and finally without any respect did violate and set at nought the majesty and estate of all Spiritual and Temporal Rulers assembled together in the last General Council at Trent. They were not ashamed to rail at that most high and honourable assemble of Christendom (the only name whereof should have made them tremble, whose only beck all Christian men, ever sithence christian Religion begun, reverenced and followed) at Christ's highest Vicar in earth, at all the Reverend Fathers, the Bishops and men of God, at all the most high & excellent Christian Princes (among whom were the renowned Emperors, first Charles the fifth, than Ferdinand) and at a word to call them all thieves.  
At what time the Princes and temporal Rulers did set their heads together to appear and set at concord the state of Christendom, and the Bishops did purpose and study earnestly to expound and declare the Articles of Religion that were in controversy, when that most holy and high Parliament of all Christendom was called & assembled together in one place: these new Gospellish reformers were warned and warranted under Public assurance, to come thither, to tell their minds, and then to depart safely without any harm or danger. The general letters patents, the sufficient and lawful safeconduct of the Pope and the general Council were Written, printed, and Proclaimed for their behalf herein. No man appeareth, not one of them maketh any word or mention of Refourmation there: the matter touching the Refourmation of the Church is disputed in the mean time, and debated among them in the camp, in the field, in battle in France by force & might, by sword & daggers, by gonnes and double Cannons.  
And as for the General Council, which was of purpose called to redress and reform all that was amiss, where the lawful place, authority, and means of Refourmation was to be found, they passed not for it: they were called, and refused to come at it. They despised and contemned, they resisted and assaulted, they mocked and reviled with most impudent scolding and railing that General bench and Court of all the Church of Christ, that worthiest and highest Consistory of Christendom. And the more to show their spite and desperate malice, Montanus the German, 
Moline. Monta. apollo. Eccl. Angl. & caet.  and Molinaeus the French man, and many other accounted no small fools among them, have set forth openly in Print in the name of all these Gospelers their cankered, malicious, wicked, and devilish defiance.  
Whom shall we account for frantic, mad, and furious men, but such as are so far beside themselves, so enraged, so Bedlam-like, that they know not men, they know no Law, no Magistrate, no common Weal, no Church, no Religion, no God?  
Ye have hard (right learned audience) how these desperate and outrageous castaways and Rebels had no Authority at all to bid battle, but conspired together like thieves, Cutthroats and Traitors: may it please you now to be advertised of that, which is by order the third and last part of my talk, that is, how little furtherance, fruit, or profit touching Refourmation, as they call it, they got by fight, how great and hurtful loss, injury, and damage they did thereby to all the whole world, how fiercely, cruelly, and Tyrannically they used themselves in handling their bloody weapons.  
And in this point I assure you in good Faith I wots not what I may, nor what I may not say, nor where to begin, so many and so manifold losses & harms Christendom hath had every way, and on every side, by the occasion of this wicked and cruel dissension which began first well nigh fifty years ago in Saxony about certain Articles and questions concerning Religion: but sithence the time it hath been marvelously spread abroad and enlarged, and is now come to this lamentable case, and tragical state as ye see.  
It grieveth the very bottom of my heart to call to remembrance how unluckily, how miserably the world hath gone with us, how pitifully the estate of Christendom hath fallen to wrack, sithence the first beginning of these dismold and deadly discords and battles set a brooch and stirred at the first under pretence and colour of Religion.  
I can scarce abstain from weeping tears, when I remember and consider so rueful, heavy, and lamentable a case. And as for the blows, the wounds, the smart, these Butchers bestowed on men's bodies: or the continuance of time may ease them, or the diligence of cunning men may heal them, or the charitable patience of Christian hearts may forget them. But that they have banished the Christian Faith and Religion out of so many Realms, that they have with deceit and craft, with fire and Sword, beaten and driven away all justice, Chastity, Devotion, all good learning & good nurture, all fear of God almighty, all goodness and godliness from the hearts & minds of so many thousands Christian men, that they have rooted up the Religion of Christ, and planted in the steed thereof, the Turkish Sect of Machomet, the superstitious doctrine of the jews, or rather the Heathennish & unsensible blindness of those that believe in no God at all, in many countries that were sometimes the most flourishing and noblest quarters of Christendom: these isaiah, these untolerable hurts and damages are such, as neither may be amended easily, nor restored quickly, nor ever be abolished & put out of men's remembrance hereafter.  
They have brought us in stead of Religion innumerable errors and dreams, accursed Sects of old doting heretics, and monstrous fancies of wicked and devilish brains: their chief purpose and intent was quite to overthrow the Ecclesiastical order of the Spiritualty, and to bring the temporal estate of the Empire and royal power of Princes to ruin & decay. 
Pomeran reporteth this of Luther in oratio ne fune. in exequiis Lu.  They were not ashamed most impudently to say it. They were not afraid most desperately to attempt it. What was he that was wont whiles he was yet alive to rehearse this verse, and to say it should be the Epitaph of his grave?  
Thy foe, O Pope, I was alive, My Death thy Death shall eke contrive. 
Hostis eram vivus, moriens tua mors ero Papa   
Who was so impudent to write to the king of England and say: whiles I live I will be the Pope's enemy, and when I die, I willbe his double enemy. Do what ye can ye Hoggishe Thomists, ye shall find Luther a Bear in your way, 
Luth. li. contr. Re. Ang.  a Ramping Lioness in your walking path.  
And touching their doings, who is able to express in words, what cost and charges, what pains and travails, what anguish and care of mind the noble Emperor Charles the fift was put unto, by the occasion of these Pestilent Sects and outrageous seditions? How many Cities? How many Fortresses and Casteis? How many Abbeys? How many Hospitals for poor people? How many common Schools and Colleges? How many honourable palaces and gentlemen's houses? How many religious places and Cloisters hath this Gospellishe Rebellion quite overturned and sacked?  
These men's Religion is altogether Negative and denying: they deny in word all things that appertain to Christian religion, to the furtherance of godliness and virtue.  
It is also destructive, and ever destroying: their deeds are always employed in casting down and overthrowing. They build nothing, they affirm nothing: the denying and marring of our Religion, is the foundation and making of their Sects. The sacking and pulling down of our Churches, is the building and setting up of their synagogues.  
They have their purpose, if they deny all and pull down all though they build nothing, though they affirm nothing in place thereof. Their Religion were made though they taught nothing, if all Christian Faith were banished. Their Temples were ready builded, if all our Churches were down, though they laid never a stone.  
The mortal enemy of all Christian men the Turk, by furtherance & help of these tumults, hath gotten Hungary, no small portion of Christendom: hath killed the king there & many a thousand of his men with him. I pass over with silence Alba Regia, and that noble Isle of Rhodes, which were lost also by the same occasion: yea and now we might have sure hope to recover the Rhodes, Hungary, I may say Constantinople, & well nigh all Grece again, to the Christian Empire, if the matter might be valiantly pursued after the great fall & foil our enemy had of late at Malta: but the rebellion & sedition of these heretical sects doth let us from this so Noble a victory, and doth as it were deprive Christendom once again of all these dominions and countries.  
I may boldly say it, that these domestical bickerings among ourselves about matters of Religion, and insurrections of seditious subjects that do pretend Refourmation, are the only stay, hindrance, and let that standeth between us & conquering the Turk.  
What shall I talk of School doors shut up, 
Luth. 75 propo. contra Lovanien, & de abrog miss. private.  of Universities (and namely this Noble University of Louvain, the nursery of all good learning) contemned, despised & called, stables of asses, steewes, and Schools of the devils? What shall I say of the solitary nakedness, bare walls, & lack of students at this time in those Universities, that before this refourmation attempted, were much frequented, flourishing and most notable for learning?  
A man may now scarce see a hundred, students of law at Orleans, in steed of many hundreds that were wont to be seen there in the quiet time of the Catholic Church. Angiers, Poitiers, Bourgys, Tolouse, worthy Cities which heretofore have been always most Noble nurseries of law, are now so naked. 〈◊〉 bare, 
Why were the Schools in o●ford suffered to go down and the ordinary disputations in Logic and Philosophy left of in King Edward his days? Answer. D. Cor. Vide Coclaeun de Act. Luth. 1524. A preacher in master jewels diocese said it openly at a visitation, when he could not answer being asked what case was Decenter.  that they have but a Reader or two, and fewer scholars to hear, than were wont to be in a Grammar school of the co●ntreie, before this new Gospel was set abroach, and this gross manner of Refourmation with bows, bills, & guns attempted: & yet these impudent strialls are nothing a shamed thereof. It is their doing, it was their meaning: they grant it, they rejoice at it, their full purpose & intent is to banish all good learning and knowledge. Yea they have set their heads together and fully agreed among themselves, to banish the Greek & Latin tongue quite & clean out of the country.  
And some of them accounted earnest setters out of the Gospel and taken among them for most eloquent preachers, affirmed, that they were very glad, and thanked God highly, that they had never learned that romish and Papistical Latin tongue, as they called it: other, after they had done the best they could to pull up all good learning by the root, and had every where rob, disturbed, and destroyed the Schools, Pedagogies and Universities, to excuse the whole matter, they bore men in hand, that they had comprised and framed the whole corpse and Treasure of all good learning and knowledge within the compass of their own mother tongue. They took upon them to bring to pass, that now a young Scholar of fifteen years of age might easily in three years space learn more, 
Luth. de erigend. Scholar ad Senat. Ger●  come to better and surer knowledge, and prove a greater clerk and better learned, then ever his forefathers could in times passed with all their pains, travail, and study, day and night, forty years together.  
Luther caused the Cannon law to be burned openly in Wittenberg. Carolostadius the archdeacon of the town, and the very first married Priest that ●uer appeared in the face of the world in our days, caused all Philosophy books, all Historiographers and Chronicles, all Logic books, all good Authors of humanity, Grammar and Rhetoric that could be found there, to be set a fire and burned. In deed Luther was not there then present, he was in his Pathmos solitary making his fift Gospel, or his second & new Revelations: & when he came home, he was very much offended with the archdeacon for it, and said that by such means the Papists only would be learned, and Protestants should have no knowledge nor learning, to answer and resist them.  
Would God, these harishe people's Gedlem madness had been satisfied with burning of books only, had stayed there, had gone no further. Their raging fury proceeded yet forward, even to the burning of Christian men, to cut their throats, to hue, to mangle, to tear & chop them in peecies. Read over from the beginning to the ending the Chronicles and Histories of all the bloody tyrants that ever were, weigh and consider all the most cruel & unmerciful acts that ever any Heretics or barbarous people committed, lay before your eyes all the tragical fables, and horrible fictions of poets: & yet ye shall plainly see, that this gospel war, this terrible fire and flame of contensiouse Sects & Schisms, which hath worn Christendom and made it py●e & decay well nigh now fifty years, this barbarous Cruelty of these Gospelers, this rude, fierce, vunatural, & unspeakable tyranny of the Protestants of our time far surmo●teth, passeth & exceedeth them all.  
There were never found nor hard of among any wild & barbarous people, among brute beasts, bears, Tiger's Lions, among the devils of bell themselves, such unmerciful, such wonderful examples of cruelty and bloody butchery, as were showed commonly & very rife in these our unlucky days, sithence the light of this Gospel was kindled first with fire & gunpowder.  
How sayest thou, Beza, I speak now to thee, that wast not only prosente and privy, but a chief do●r, & a most cruel Captain in all these late treasons and conspiracies that were devised and attempted to suppress & undo France. Tell me, 
Beza●● Audiencie  I pray thee, when thou didst commonly go up to the pulpit in Orleans with thy sword by thy side, and thy Pistolet (not S. 
At Orleans reported this Gospel, of his to the Author.  Paul's Epistles, nor S. Ihons' Gospel) in thy hand, didst commonly go up to the pulpit in Orleans and exhorted the people, that they should rather show their manhood & wreak their anger against the Papists who were the live images of God, then against the dead and harmless images of stocks and stones that stood in the Churches: When thou didst train in and bring upon that Realm all manner of mischief: when how didst murder the Magistrates and Rulers, sell towns and Cities, make havoc of thine own native country, and give the spoil and sacking thereof for a pray to foreigners and straingers: when thou didst pull down and overthrow the temples and Churches of God and all his Saints. and all ancient Monuments of holy men of God: What Traitor what Tyrant, what Lion, what Satan could then be equal match, or be compared to thee in falsehodde, cruelty, rage and wickedness?  
Christ's holy will and pleasure was, that his Church should be the place of prayer, and of his heavenly and Divine Mysteries, 
Matt. ●1.  not a den of thieves, not a brothel house for hoores and queans, not an arinarie for artillery and weapon, not a cover or camp for soldiers and men of war. But thou never camest within Church or Chapel, during all that tumultuous trouble, which thou couldst find in thy heart to leave whole and standing, which thou didst not defile and pollute with thy bawdy pleasures, with thy mischievous villainy, with thy impious Sacrilege, which thou didst not at last rob rifle, spoil, race, mangle, mar, suppress, pull down and quite overturn.  
In deed thou hadst learned that leasson long a go of thy master john Caluine the Ringleader of all mischief, who when he was a young man and Student in law at Orleans, 
Verse ●●nest and substantial men, who were then Calving  being chosen, as the fashion is there, by his contremen the students of Picardy, to be the Proctor of his nation among them, and had, according to the custom, the Chalice, 
School fellows in law reported this of him to the Author.  the Cross, the Vestiments and all the Church ornaments that appertained to that worshipful company of his countrymen, committed to his charge, custody and credit, to keep for their use and for the celebration of God's service on high feasts, and at their ordinary assembles, and solemn days of Meeting: the false thief took his heels and ran away with all, offended God, rob the Church, & deceived his own contremen that trusted him so much: thereby even presently to give all Christendom an evident sign and token of the great Sacrilege that he committed afterward in Christ's Church, and a lesson and pattern for thee to follow.  
When in Champain, thou tookest many honest virtuous and learned priests prisoners, and didst keep them as captives taken by the law of arms, promising them their lives for their ransom, & ye● afterward because they and the people there would not agree & consent to thy wicked doctrine, devilish heresies, and furious raging dreams, didst sit upon them like a Bedlam and cruel judge, and condemnest some of them to prisons & dungeons, some to be hanged, some to be burned, other to be beheaded, pronouncing most wrongful and unmerciful sentence of death upon them: when thy impudent face and wicked mouth then talking and preaching devilish doctrine, was in the mean time sparkled & sprinkled with the blood and brain of those that were put to death and murdered at thy foot, what spirit possessed and ruled thee then? What crumb of reason? what sparkle of pity? of mercy? of man's nature hadst thou then left in thy heart or body?  
How many virtuous men & honest Priests were slain and murdered after most cruel manner in that insurrection, by thy devise and counsel, by thy persuasion, procuring and compulsion, by thine own bloody and butcherelie hands & weapons?  
At Orleans a good old man, called Guiset, parson of S. Patterns Church there, and an abbot also, one that was sometime of the French King's council, two Notable pillars and shining bright 
Theses things are notoriously known at Orleans.  examples of true Christian Religion and virtue were put to death and hanged upon a gallows, that is yet to be seen in the market place of that City.  
another old religious man night four score years of age of the Abbey of S. Ewerte there, when he had escaped out of Orleans, and gotten a mile or two from the City, was taken by the soldiers of the Gospel in a certain Village called Mareau, where he had received his maker that morning preparing himself to die, & out of hand they strip him stark naked, and cast a rope with a riding knot about his neck, and so pulled him & drew him a long the street. When they saw he was now at death's door, & giving over struggling gasped for breath they took away death from him least it should ease him to son of his pain, they untied and loosed the cord, they took his feeble and now well nigh dead carcase, bound hit to a tree, and made hi● their mark to shoot at with their harquebuses and guns, for exercise sake and practice of their feats of war. another belly they opened, & wound out his guts about a staff soft and fair, he being yet alive and looking on his own entrails.  
They came to an other good parson of a Village in the country who lay sore sick in his bed, so worn & spent with sickness, that for very weakness he was not able to stand on his feet. They pluck him out of his bed by force, they hale him in his shirt bore headed, barefoot and barelegd out into the street. & after they had sported and mocked like mad men about him a while, they pull him in to the Church that was there hard by, they hoist him with a rope up to the rood that stood a high over the choir door, and there hanged him up upon the crucifix.  
I have yet fresh in my remembrance, yea my think I see yet now before my eyes the tears of certain honest men in Orleans, who for weeping & snobbing could scant abide to tell me, how miserably how cruelly, how unmercifully a certain virtuous man a Priest, with whom they had been familiar● and acquainted in his life time) was handled & murdered by these cruel butchers. The poor honest man (as they told me) got on a beggars cloak, and a scripp full of crusts of old vinowed bread, & scraps of meat such as beggars have, & being so disguised had escaped, as he thought, out of all gunneshot and danger, when behold, suddenly Calvin's soldiers overtake him on the way being now weary and nigh out of breath. And, as these kind of people are very suspicious, well practised and expert in all mischief, they ask and examine him very diligently, what he was, and whence he came. When by long examination and much threatening they understood at length that he was a Priest, they brought the innocent poor man bound like a thief into the next Village, and there in the open market they make an auction and sale of him, as if he had been a bondman, and ask, if any man would give ready money for him.  
The inhabitants there flocked together & were marvelously amazed & astonished at so strange a case, they begin to entreat for him, they pray them, and holding up their hands to heaven they beseech them heartily, that they would dimisse & let go the innocent & harmless man, and do him no more harm: that they would consider, that he was a Christian man, the image of God and anointed priest. But it had been as good they had told a tale to a tub, or whispered in a deaf man's ear. For all Heretics have stony hearts, they can not be mollified. It is the nature and property of men, and not of devils, to be moved with mercy and pity towards such, as are in misery.  
To be short, first they pull out both his eyes, than they cut of the tops of his fingers which had been sometimes anointed with holy oil, and flea with a knife the skin of the crown of his head which was shaven (according to the ancient Custom & Cannons) Priestlike. After they had thus mangled him, to the end the cruel butchers of the Gospel might have some more pastime in mocking and laughing at him, they lead him along the street stark naked, saving that he had a poor shirt on, to cover his black, blue and bloody body, and disjointed bones that were bruised and well nigh all crushed with buffets blows and wounds. At last when every man had his fill of this unmerciful, cruel, and raging mad pastine, they bind the constant Martyr of Christ, with a rope upright against a tree, and with their guns shot at him so often, that they pierced all his body through full of holes.  
O God immortal, that thou seest these so wonderful and straying villavies, so horrible and incredible cruelties, and dost not out of hand strike down & consume away Such mo●struouse men with fire and lightning from heaven, or cause the earth to open and suddenly swallow them alive down headlong into the bottomless pit of hell? O lord God most mighty and omnipotent King and Emperor of all heaven and earth, sufferest thou thy servants to be thus dismembered, hewed, and mangled?  
But what talk I wretched, earthly and mortal man so foolisshlie after the manner of man with the everlasting, immortal, and almighty God, my lord and maker?  
It seemed best so to thy eternal wisdom, O merciful God, it stood so with thy heavenly will & pleasure, that the might and power of us thy servants the Christians, should be made perfect by weakness and infirmity, that such as fought manfully, as they should do under thy banner, should be rewarded with a heavenly crown, & be honoured with an immortal garland of triumph and victory, that thou wouldst bring us through fire and water into a place of rest and comfort, that such as would lose their lives for thy sake, should be revived and restored into life everlasting. The only everlasting, and immortal son of God our Captain lord and Emperor jesus Christ taught us first of all by his own example and Passion to tread this path, Sithence the first hour that the cross was hallowed, adorned, and ●erked with his sacred & blessed body as with a most precious and celestial Margarite. His divine providence made the Cross & all affliction in this world light and easy to true Christian men, his example and imitiation hath made all tribulation and adversity pleasant and sweet.  
This was the chief reward that our Master Christ gave in this world to his dear disciples, the noble Princes and worthy Prelates of his Church, to all the most virtuous, holy and good men in all ages, that they should take pleasure & be glad, that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach & injuries for his name's sake, that they should willingly and gladly take up their Cross on their shoulders and follow him their master & guide that lead them the way.  
It is not therefore, O happy souls, it is not shame for you, to suffer that Christ suffered: nor glory for these bloody traitors, 
Apoc. 2.  to do that judas did. To him that win●eth, Ma●na is given and a white Stone, and a new name which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth it. Ye have worn the field, ye live, ye reign like Kings and Emperors. O ye happy and most valiant soldiers of Christ. For this wages and for such recompense we are contented gladly and pleased to suffer and abide the cruel torments and butchery both of the Devil himself, and also at the hands of these his Guard & waiting yeomen, his membres and most wicked Ministers of hell.  
O ye cruel tyrants, Gospelspillers, and Messengers of all naughty and wicked tidings, go on and fill up the measure of your cruelty, and impiety. Ye labour in vain against the servants of God. they are yet alive, whom ye have slaien. They had the upper hand over you, whom you thought ye had overthrown, oppressed and vanquished.  
They reign and rule, whom you contemned, despised, and trod under your fe●te.  
The pity & compassion of this cruel act hath lead me further than I thought, out of my way. But whither was I minded to travail being already weary? I labour in vain if I travail to reckon up all the villainous deeds, the wonderful murders, the cruel tyranny of these naughty villains. The rehearsal of all the Tyrannical and barbarous acts of these new reformers in this last sedition in France, were able to make a good Orator weary, yea to drive out of breath Fabius himself, were he never so well disposed to talk. And I perceive (right worshipful and learned,) that it goeth against your stomachs to hear these horrible doings, and in very deed it goeth against my heart also to speak such things as the Gospelers and Protestants of our days do put in practice gladly, & with all their hearts.  
They thirst after blood, and can never have their fill of it, nor quench their thirst with it. They would feign that all good men were rid out of the way and dead. nor they think it sufficient to have them all dead: they would wish they died a hundred times, if it were possible for a dead man to revive and live again a hundred times. They invent and devise incredible fashions and means of cruelty, such as never man hard of before, they are very witty and expert in imagining new kinds of torments.  
There was between Paris and Orleaus an honest man a Curate of a certain village: this man the Hugono●es (as they call them) drew in by force & might against his will into their Inn, where they lodged. When they had him there, the most wicked butchers first cut of his privy membrers, than they open his belly, he being yet then alive and looking on, and with their bloody hands pull out his guts and all his bowels, and cast his entrails about all the house.  
If any man suspect that I feign, and imagine of my own head this wonderful cruel deed, and lie upon them: I am able to bring for witness of this butchery that I tell you, a substantial man both honest & worshipful, one of the Prebendaries of the goodly Cathedral Church of S. Cross in Orleans. This man, (whom I would here name to his worship, if I could call his name to my remembrance) all the while this vile and cruel murder was a doing, lay hid in that house shut up in a chest or bench, and so escaped these tyrants cruel hands, & saw this sorrowful & lamentable sight through the chinks of the bench wherein he lay.  
But what need I bring any witness for the proof of such things as are notorious and manifest, as being committed in the presence and sight of all the country? Our adversaries are not ashamed to confess it themselves, they rub their forheaddes, cast away all shame and honesty, and blush not a whit to grant that they have done such things in deed, yea they laugh, and jest, & make a mocking game of it, & do rejoice & triumph in their wicked cruelty. And some of them at their death (and God will) do comfort themselves especially with such deeds of mercy and works of charity.  
There was one of these Butchers at Paris the last year condemned to be hanged for murder in the market place called Place Maubert, and when the halter was about his neck, he began to rejoice in good earnest, and to brag that sometimes he had worn about his neck a collar made of priests ears. and wished that other of his brethren in the Lord would follow that notable example of his: and because that, dying in so high degree he had no authority by the law to make his testament, this exhortation and counsel stood in steed of his last will & testament.  
They broke and burned the cross, 
An. 1453. Vide Dubitantium Lindani. pag. 298.  and mocked at it every where as the Turks did sometime at Constantinople, neither were they satisfied with that: they took two innocent good Priests and hanged them up on each side of the Crucifix like the two thieves for contempt & reproach. Other had their faces and fingers fleied, their noses, ears, and privy members cut of, their heads cloven with a sword at one stroke in two parts. Some they burned alive, and yet most commonly they are wont to pull up the dead out of their graves, yea and they took marvelous delight & pleasure to cut little children and babes in two at one stroke with a sword. And these were the straying and wonderful miracles that these Postles wrought at S. Macaries.  
Now what they did to a notable vertuose old man, a religious Priest at Man's the chief City of Cenomania in France, I am afraid, yea I tremble and quake to rehearse. That horrible Act done among Christian men hath defamed and blemished the name, not only of all Christians, but also of Heathens, Turks, and all mankind.  
Many excellent & grave writers have put in writing many a time and often, that there be in some parts of the world Anthropophagi, that is, such people as do eat man's flesh. 
Du sacc. fo. 72.  But that any would compel a man to eat and swallow down the privy parts of his own body, being cut of and broiled on a grediern, and then would open his belly being yet alive to see if man's stomach could brook, concoct and digest such straying kind of meat, such men having the face and likeness of men, that would attempt and commit such a deed so strange, so abominable, so devilish were never yet found or hard of before these our days of Reformation. Such a detestable & brutish act was never done or practised among any desperate & wild people, among barbarous & rude nations, among most fierce and cruel brute beasts before this our unhapy time. And what was the cause (I pray you) of this so cruel & straying punishment? What had this man offended? what was his trespass?  
In the old time he that had killed his own father should be sowed up in a leathern bag, 
Institut. de pub. iudi  and a dog, an adder, a cock, and an Ape within the bag with him: and being so beset and accompanied with those ugly, 
§ ali●.  dismold and deadly mates packed about him, was cast alive into the sea, if it were nigh, else into the next river. So that being yet alive he lost the use and service of all the four elements at ones, the air, the fire, the earth, the water, because he had bereaved that man of his life, by whose benefit he was brought to the world, and to the use of all these.  
And this straying kind of most shameful & ignominious punishment & death, was executed only upon those that had killed their parents, for their unnatural, vile and abominable offence. But this man, that was put to so straying, filthy, & infamous kind of most cruel death, who was compelled against nature to eat his own flesh, which every man spareth and cherisheth, have been of likelihood guilty of such, so great, so villainous a trespass, that except he had been rid out of the way and put to the most cruel death that could be invented, the whole frame of all the world must needs have fallen down and perished. And yet to this miserable man, who shallbe spoken of hereafter to the worlds end, and be peradventure the rueful argument and lamentable matter of tragical stages, this only fault was laid, that he was a Christian man, a Catholic, a Priest.  
It was against their will that the Ministers of the Gospel punished him so cruelly, but yet for Reformations sake they could not choose but of necessity do it.  
For reformations sake also I doubt not (as the Reformed brethren in Christ do fond believe) they sacked, 
The Author of this oration hath seen all these ruins.  spoiled & threw down to the ground the most Christian Kings house at Orleans, and the goodly Temple of S. Anian that stood by it builded with Princely work of that kings charges, and all the fair and rich Churches of that noble and renowned City, except certain little Churches which they spared to put in their Harness, Artiliary and provision for War, and the chief Cathedral Church S. Cross, which they reserved standing (but yet all to rifled, razed and mangled) to preach in and to be the place of their daily walk for recreation.  
The English men, who by the law of arms, by manhood, princely prowess and force of war had conquered and won well nigh all France, could never overcome and get the strong, mighty, and most defensed walls and rampires of Orleans. But this Gospellish Refourmation in this last Insurrection in France, hath filled up the Ditches with earth, stones, and rubbel, hath thrown down to the ground, the surest towers, the strongest Bulwarks, all the defence of the Town, and all the strong holds and Fortresses round about, they have made the Walls so flat and plain, that in sundry places Cartes and Horses may cas●y pass over, yea they have brought all the goodly streets, Suburbs & Vines about the Town to a bare, barren, and naked field.  
The most Christian king Lewis the eleventh his body was buried Honourably and princely, in a goodly tomb richly garnished, with his Image graven on the outside, in our Lady Church at Clery, four leagues from Orleans. For reformations sake they did hue the kings Image in pieces, cut of his arms, feet and head: and when they thought they had sufficiently punished the Image, they open the sumptuous & honourable grave, pluck up the kings body out of the lead wherein it was enclosed, cast it into the fire and burn it, and at last they spoil the goodly Church that was trimly builded with costly and fair work, they uncovered the top of it, and cast it quite down.  
For Refourmations sake the heart of good king Francis the second (who died lately poisoned, 
Claud. d Saints fol. 70.  as it is thought, by the means of these Gospelers,) that was buried before the high Aultare in the Church of S. Cross at Orleans, was digged out of the ground, broiled on a grediern, and at last burned.  
For Reformations sake, Orleans, Rouen, Lions, and many other rich Towns in France, the which flourished sometime with great traffic of merchandise, are brought to extreme poverty and miserable lack and scarcity of all things necessary. And have fewer occupiers, poorer Merchants, and are less haunted, then ever they were before in any man's remembrance.  
How many parents bereaved of their children, how many children benumbed of their Parents, how many Widows weeping for the death of their husbands, how many Burgises turned out of house and home, are now to be seen commonly in France lately reform, and all for reformations sake?  
S. Peter had neither gold nor silver, 
Act. 3.  nor yet passed upon the getting of any: he gave to the poor man that asked his alms, health in stead of money. But these new Postles the disciples of judas Iscarioth and Simon Magus, who travail tooth & nail not to alter & change, but to abolish and take quite and clean away both law and priesthood, have exceeding great store of gold and silver which they scraped and gathered together by robbing and spoiling and sacrilegious ●acking of Churches, and yet they give neither money, nor health to such as ask their alms: they feed them with fair words, and give them sometimes stripes, blows, wounds and most cruel death in steed of alms.  
They say that the Clergy is to rich, and therefore they take away both from them, and from the laity also without respect or partiality, such hindrance letles & impediments of piety, devotion, and perfection: And they themselves in the mean time, good men, do bear patiently upon their necks the sins of the people, and all this traish & muck and heavy burdens. They throw down towns and Cities, overthrow Temples and Churches, to get gold, without the which their Gospel can not be planted, the world can not be reformed, yea they go into the bowels and bottom of the earth. They rob the dead to fill their own purses, they open and break up sepulchres and graves to have the very lead wherein dead men's bodies, bones and ashes are wrapped.  
What tongue is able to express in words the spoil, saccage and ruins, of the Churches of Poitiers, Lions, and of other towns in all quarters of France? This is most certain, that Beza and his companions, thieves & curthrotes like himself, stole out of the Churches and Vesteries at Tours two thousand marks in silver, and a thousand mark in gold, besides precious stones, chains and other jewels, and ornaments of great value, yea and that with such a rage, such an unmeasurable desire and outrageous covetousness, such a furious affection and thirst of stealing and having, that they scratched all that ever they could by any means, and left not as much as a nail or piece of iron behind them.  
And besides all this, the Holy Beza doubled this mischievous robbery of his with an other enormous outrage, so heinous and great, that no condign and worthy punishment can make sufficient amends for it. For he took away the sacred relics of the blessed archbishop of Tours, the body and ashes of S. Martyne the Great Confessor, that had been kept there, 
divus Martinus Epis. Turonens. floruit An. Do. 384. Tempo. S Amb. & Chry. & caet.  with great reverence so many hundred years, notwithstanding the often war and cruel persecutions of diverse enemies both heathen and Christian. And when he had taken them out of the Shrine, he burnt them with fire, and then gathered up the holy and blessed ashes, and threw them into the river of Loyer that runneth thereby.  
With the like impiety and furivose rage at Lions the body of S. Ireneus sometime bishop there, 
S. Irenae. Epis. Lugdu. claruit. An. 185. S. Hilar. Epis. Pictavi. claruit. An. 361  one that lived very nigh the Apostles time: at Poitiers the body of S. hilary bishop also there, were pulled out of their Graves, defiled, Profaned, burnt with fire, and then cast into the Rivers.  
O wonderful Impiety and madness of raging Heretics, O beastly and more than barbarous rudeness and cruelty. What Tyrant ever in any Land was so fierce and cruel, that would persecute, tear and mangle all good men, not only in their life time, but also after they were departed out of this world, and buried in their graves? These cruel Graueroo●ers, that labour to bring a new Religion into Christendom, can not abide, that good men should live any where on the earth, nor yet suffer them to reaste under the earth in their graves after their decease.  
They cover with Silk, and deck with velvets their own filthy bodies, and their women's most vile and stinking carcases, which (without the great mercy of God) shallbe one day the stuff and matter of Helfyre, and carrion for death and damnation to feed on: And will they not suffer the blessed bodies and▪ boves of Saints, that shallbe in the end placed in Heaven with their blessed souls, (which are there before in peace, and rest, and joy with Christ) to be in the mean time closed in lead, or covered with stone, or laid under earth and clay?  
It is happy, they can not pluck their holy Souls out of heaven to, as they do all their endeavour to destroy and utterly rid their bodies out of the earth. For if they could get them thence, & set themselves in their places, it appeareth here by this good will of theirs in the one, what they would do in the other: and that is no more, but even to follow their Grand captain Lucifer. For as he would have done to God himself, when he said in his heart, he would climb above all the stars of God, and be Gods own fellow and sit fast by his side: even so by all likelihod, these men would do to God's friends and servants. that is, rob them of all glory, and of their places both in heaven & earth, if it lay in their power so to do. But though God give them a little leave on their bodies which is all that they, or the the devil hath any power upon (For the Serpent feedeth on the earth and creepeth on his bely, 
Gen. 3.  and can do no more) yet Sanctorum Animae in manu Dei sunt, 
Sap. 3.  & non tanger illos tormentum malitiae. The Souls of Saints are in Gods own hand, and rest and reign with him, that all the malice of the devils in hell, or their servants in earth cannot once touch, nor come near them, what ever they do in the mean time to their bodies.  
I cannot let pass, but rehearse and note here unto you surely a notable History out of Eusebius, of the persecutions of the very self same places in France: 
Euseb. Caes. E●. Hist. lib. 5. Cap. 3. 〈◊〉 Martyr. apud Viennam & Lug●un.  by which it may be thought in conferring the one with the other, that these men now be of the same fervent and hot zeal (as themselves term it) of the same mind & opinion in these like acts of theirs, as the cursed paynims were then toward the Christian folk, whom they persecuted and put most cruelly to death. For they, not content with all the terrible torments, painful deaths & Martyrdoms executed upon them, would not somuch as suffer their bodies to be buried, but threw them to dogs, and kept strait watch day and night, that noman should take them away, but that the dogs should devour them in deed. And if the beasts, or the fire least any part of their bodies not confumed, they took the bones and ashes, and the dust, and all together, & threw into the River: thinking thereby to overcome and conquer God himself, that neither he should be able to gather their ashes together, and make their bodies alive again, as they were before? nor they have any hope of Resurrection, out of their graves, being out of all hope of grave, or any kind of burial at all.  
This doth Eusebius write & report out of the very letters and authentic wyttenesse of the Christian folk & Martyrs there at that tyme. 
Circiter An. 160. in qua pers●cutione passi sunt Irenaeus, Photinus, Blandina etc.  And if we shall compare together those miscreants then, with these our mysseshapen Christians now, I cannot see wherein they any thing differ from them: but well may I soon see, that in some points these match them, & go beyond them to. For the persons and holy Saints of God, against whom all this cruelty and extremity of malice is showed, be all one, of the same Catholic faith and Religion, and much about the same age and time, far within six hundred years after Christ. And what else is the cause, that our new Gospelers do so persecute, spette at, and abhor their bones and ashes now, but for the hate they have both to them and their Catholic Religion, if they durst so plainly for shame confess it, as by the devils persuasion they do in their hearts believe it.  
The paynims would not only themselves not bury the dead bodies of the Saints, but did also most cruelly forbid, and most straightly watch, that none other man, nor christian nor heathen moved with pity, should steal them away and bury them. What else mean these Captain Protestants now, but that neither they, nor any good Christian man in deed, shall see any such holy bodies reverently buried and laid in grave?  
The heathen Infidels cruelly killed the Christians, as their mortal enemies, and threw their bodies to beasts to devour: These worse than Infidels take up the bodies that have so long lain still, spoil the graves and Sepulchres, and profane all together most impiously.  
The Infidels, to wreak their present anger, forbid burial to their enemies, being newly clayen, their blood yet warm, and the tormentor's wrath yet fresh and fierce: these fell persecutors deny them burial, yea most violently spoil them of their graves, which they had quietly kept and possessed so many hundred years. Whom if they take for their friends, why order they so cruelly: and if for their enemies, why have they not forgot all ire and malice after so long time of so many hundred years?  
The mysbeleving paynims thought, 
Twelve hundred years and above.  that the Christian men ran willingly to suffer all kind of torment and death for Christ's sake, because of the hope they had to live and rise again, and enjoy a better life & crown of everlasting glory. And that therefore they desired so much to be honestly buried, that their flesh and bodies might lie together, and so the more easily be raised up and made again by the power of God. And to the end, that God might not come by their flesh, and sinews, and bones, nor they have any hope at all of Resurrection, and thereby also be driven from their constant and patiented suffering for Christ's sake: they sought the means not only not to bury them, but also that God should not any where find and come by their flesh and bones, & ashes again: but took all, and gave it to beasts to devour, and to the fire to consume. and than what the beasts & fire had left, they threw earth and ashes and all together into the River, to be utterly dispersed, and never to be recovered and got together again.  
Whether Beza & his fellows in their like deed of burning the Relics and holy bodies of Saints, and throwing their bones and ashes into the River, have also the like mind and opinion of God's power and Resurrection: I commit to the secret judgement of God, who most certainly both seeth their thoughts, and the most privy corners & secrets of their hearts, and shall raise up his holy Saints & Martyrs bodies to immortal life and glory, where ever the cruel Infidel, or impious Heretic scatter and fling them abroad in the wide world.  
But in the mean time well may we, (as Christian men did then in those great persecutions, when they could by no means be suffered to bury the dead bodies) lament to see & hear of this Heathen & Myscreant manner, this more than turkish cruelty of such, as would be not only counted true Christians, but also pretend & stoutly take upon them to be reformers of the Catholic faith. Well may we rue, and be sorry to see this day. Well may I now and worthily cry out, and make exclamation: O most merciful lord, O everlasting God of heaven and earth: what a wicked and Barbarous Religion, or rather Irreligion, what a strange and rude Reformation, or rather Deformation is this, that pursueth with famine, fire and sword all good men, every where, and always, yea, after they are departed this life? that increaseth, gathereth force, and is strengthened with turmoiling and troubling all Common weals and good Order, with robbing & spoiling their own contreemen and neighbours, with contemning and profaning all holy and Spiritual things, with breaking up and violating of Sepulchres, Schrines, and Graves, with killing & murdering all faithful Subjects, with dashing and huddeling all the affairs & good orders of the whole world together, with blasphemies, madness, fury, rage, cruelty, butchery far passing the Turks Tyranny?  
What else shall we conjecture & deem to have been the mark and end, intent and purposes of such reformers as these be, if it were not to abolish & root out quite all Christian Religion out of the world? they have omitted no kind of cruelty that could be devised, they have slain and murdered the honourable and worshippull, the substantial and virtuous subjects, they have spared no state, nor age. The rage and furor of these savage & barbarous wretches hath extended itself and waxed fierce and cruel against children, women and old men: who were so weak, that they were not able nor to hurt other, nor yet to defend and save themselves.  
There was a company of honest men's Children, 
This cruel deed was done in a Village called pat not far from Orleans.  who for fear of these madbraines passing by, ran to hide themselves into a Church. the villains did set a fire and burned both the Church, & the children together, and when some of the poor infants leapt out of the fire to save their lives, these cruel broilers & unmerciful murderers far exceeding the tyranny of the wicked Herode flung the seely innocentes alive into the fire again. They had no care, nor regard at all of honesty, shame or chastity. They stripped an honest mayed stark naked as ever she was borne, in the mids of the street at Orleans. And when she stood so, openly among them, the bawdy ribaudes Sardanapalus soldiers feeled and groped her shamefully, filthylie, and against all the laws of nature, to search forsooth if she had hidden any money, above the rate of the proclamation, to carry privily out of the town about her.  
The traitor by Angiers which kept a castle against his sovereign lord and master the King, and took a Noble woman and hanged her in a basket by a rope over the Castle wall for a bulwark against the force & short of the King's artillery and battering pieces, did surly a more cruel and unmerciful act: but yet not so dirty, filthy and bawdy, as this fowl deed which nature abhorreth.  
Their full purpose and intent was, to pill, rob and spoil all they could get, & to leave nothing untouched. Gabastone the master of the watch or rather the master of misserule at Paris seemed plainly to confess and protest, that this was their meaning, at what time he was in the company of these Sacrilegiouse reformers at the spoiling of S. Medardes' Church there in the first beginning of the trouble, and road on his horse into the choir before the high Altar, and there gabbled and cried to his mates in his barbarous Gascoigne French, Pilla tout, Pilla tout, that is, spoil all, spoil all.  
Is there any thing I pray you, more fierce, more cruel, more horrible, that men should need to fear at the Turks hands, if he had been in place, then that we have seen, to our great grief, smart and damage, attempted and committed by these vile Pages, and peddlers of this new Gospel? Truly I believe Soliman the great Turk himself would never have suffered Virgins and professed Nuns to be so filthylie deflowered and forced by rape, the Priests and servants of God to be so villanouslye and spitefully handled, all holy things consecrate to God's service and honour to be so wickedly defiled and profaned, finally the very blessed and precious body of our lord and master Christ himself to be with such furious and outrageous impiety, cast on the ground, trod under foot, hurled into the fire and into the water, and so desperately to be pricked with their swords, and carried upon the tops of their spears.  
verily thus I think, and thus my mind gives me (right worshipful and learned) that except that only Noble man, the right honourable Duke of Guise had withstood their furious attempts, and defeated their most cruel assaults and desperate enterprises, that most Noble part of Christendom the whole common weal and Realm of France had been utterly undone and lost. And that notable virtuous man, a person most famous for passing manhood, exceeding virtue, & peerless knowledge & commendation for warfarre & feats of arms, 
See the confession of Pultro the murderer.  the father & defender of his country, the glass & bright shining light of all France whiles he went about to quench the flame, to part the strife, to appease the sedition of his contreie, was traitorously & cruelly murdered by the means, counsel and unmerciful conspiracy of that vile Caitiff Beza, the inventor & coiner of all these mischief's, & servant & bondslave of all bawdy lust, filthy concupiscence, and all detestable sin and vice.  
I fear me least I seem to pass the limits & compass of the time appointed for me to speak by the custom of this School, & to abuse your gentle patience & sufferance (right worshipful) if I travail any further with longer discourse & to long talk, to declare & rip up the endless and infinite desperateness cruelty, & madness of these harishe Ministers, traitorous reformers and brutish Heretics.  
To be short, your wisdoms I doubt not do plainly now perceive, that this their war for Religion against God and all true Religion, hath been made, neither justly, neither orderly, neither to any good effect or furtherance of Refourmation. Ye see now as clear as the bright shining son, that the Protestants of our time ran raisshelie together and took weapon in ●hand without any just cause, reasonable occasion, or sufficient quarrel: that they bad and proclaimed war against their country, against their Soweraignes, against the Catholic Church of Christ without any commission, power or Authority: that they fought that battle to fiercely, to unmercifully, and to cruelly, to the exceeding great injury, harm and wrong of all good men, to the incredible hindrance, and damage of all Christendom, and such l●sse as can never be repaired. Ye know now these new Gospelers, the wicked Captains of these most traitorous and dangerous insurrections, ye understand what manner of men they be, how uprightly, how honestly they live and behave themselves in the Church of God, and what they mean, what they go about, what they attempt.  
What say you, then by them? what punishment, think you, have such bloodsuckers, such cruel butchers deserved to suffer? what estimation, what degree, what state among Christian men judge you such varlets to be worthy of, whom neither shame could withdraw from dishonesty, neither fear keep of from danger, neither reason revoke from madness, nor Religion stop from Sacrilege, nor pity stay from killing and murdering of their own neighbours?  
At the first for a mess of pottage certain lose friars and feigned dissemblers of Monastical profession fell out at debate between themselves, & afterward, they were pricked, driven and drawn by avarice, ambition, and wanton just of wicked liberty and pleasure to strike up a alarm and to bid battle: and at length they fought in open field against their own contremen, neighbours, and follows, against the Magistrates, Kings and Emperors, against the Bishops, against the Church, against the Christian Religion, against all good men, against the Saints of heaven, & finally against God almighty himself, as the Giants did, of whom the poets in their fables make mention, meaning in deed such desperate, raging & wicked caitiffs, rebels & miscreants, as these were.  
The false traitors & desperate cutthroats brought into the Church of Christ a cursed kind of Religion, framed, cast, & made of wicked whoredoms, & bawdy bitcherie, of innocent blood and murder of true subjects, of all manner of troublesome and seditious mischief & discord, and all looseness and liberty to embrace and f●llow vice & sin. They have called in, helped, & maintained the enemies of Christendom, foreigners, tyrants & Turks.  
They have given to the Turk and added to his dominion and Empire many Noble and goodly countries & provinces of Christendom. They have lead an infinite number of Christian souls to eternal damnation, thrown them down headlong to the deep pit of everlasting fire, and betaken them to the tyranny and fury, of the ugly finds and horrible devils of hell.  
They made the holy font stones the covers of their jakes: yea the dirty Helhowndes (Oh abominable act) were not ashamed to lay the excrements of their vile and wicked bealies even in the very sacred font and place where Christian men were wont to receive their Baptism.  
There were slain in Germany with in three months space by the wicked occasion and fault of these reformers an hundred and thirty thousand men, and in France above a hundred thousand, among whom I reckon not the infinite number of such as died of the plague there in the mean time, of whom the greatest part were these Cutthroats themselves, specially they of Lions, who, as it is reported, did poison the wells & common waters of their City for a traitorous and wicked intent: So that by the just judgement of God it is brought to pass, that there scars remaineth now alive upon the earth the fourth part of those, who for a great number being but beardless young men and most of them witless, & altogether desperate and destitute of the fear of God, attempted to do such, so straying and villainous deeds.  
I will not stay now to make an account and just reckoning of all those that through this cursed Refourmation were carried to miserable captivity under the Turk, or were slain in the field in defence of Christendom against him and these his adherents: and yet this I am bold to say, that if ye heard the even tale & just account of them, ye would more wonder at it & pity it, than ye do now at the rehearsal of this marvelous number slain and murdered in France and Germany.  
They have turned all laws out of the country, and sent all right and equity into banishment. devotion, true Religion, Chaste living can well nigh now abide sa●e in no place: the Profession of Chastity is suspected, hated and despised everywhere. All things are beset, and turmoiled with madness, rage, murder, fire and sword The desperate cry of furious heretics doth make all the world ring, the streets run of blood, the walls of Chapelles and Churches are sprinkled & daubed with the gore blood and brain of Christian men: All Europe, being weakened with the cruel war & long seditions of heretics, cracks, and shakes and is even now ready to fall quite to the ground.  
And now when all this is done, after all these mischiefs and Tragical offences, that these mad Bedlams, & cursed Cain's have committed: they blame the catholics and lay cruelty to their charge, that have suffered all these injuries, losses, damages, and murders at their hands. There came forth in print of late to the sight of the world a very fond foolish & peevish little book out of England, written against the tyranny of the Papists: for so it liketh them in scorn to call the Catholics.  
In these and such like dangers of tumults and insurrections of subjects, (right learned Audience) in these very same snares and traps of treason and conspiracy we also ourselves have lived & stood now a long time. We nourrish in our own laps & bosoms Domestical enemies: who raging with desperate boldness, and panting for very malice, do imagine & labour to poison & undo their Country, & break out into such common talk & daily communications, as abode add threaten the murder of all good men, and the setting of the City a fire. This cruel, this horrible, this contagious and deadly plague, we have by the benefit & mercy of God almighty, and the diligent provision of grave and wise Rulers often times escaped.  
If it were written in every man's forehead what he thought of the Common weal, ye might read murder, blood, & burnings, the bane, wherling gulfs, and overthwart rocks, prepared to poison, to swallow up, to overthrow the City at home within your own houses, abroad in the Churches, in the Schools, yea & sometimes in this very auditory where ye stand.  
Learn by other men's dangers, loss & harm, what hangeth over your own heads, what is like to fall on your City, your Churches and altars, what is like to become of your lives, your goods and substance: if (which God forbid) this your country also should happen to be set a fire with this terrible flame of discord and Rebellion.  
There is no hope of forgiveness, no looking for mercy, no place left for pardon, where the rage of these Gospelers begins to get the upper hand, or their desperate fury to bear the sway and rule. Nother the regard of their Countreie, nor of parents, nor wines, children, nor friends shallbe able any whit to move or mollify the hard stony and more than Adamant hearts of Protestants. They will not set a rush by the weeping, wailing, and tears of their friends & acquaintance, they will cast away all fear, and set nought by the love & friendship both of God and man, and break as much as ever they may all God and man's laws, and most desperately cut the throat of every Christian man thy meet, when they perceive that they have the stronger side.  
Tread out therefore and quench the sparkles of this fire now whiles ye may. Do not wink any longer at these monsters to your own smart & harm. Do not nourish & cherish in your howsen and by your fire side these venomous Esopicall adders to your own undoing especially, and to the destruction of all good men.  
Ye have heard, what they have done other where: you vuderstand thereby what you yourselves also aught to fear. For which of you all, or what honest man in all the world will they spare, think you, who are so malicious & spiteful against all good men, that they can not find in their hearts, to let them rest in their graves, nor pardon them when they are dead and buried?  
There is no honest man, yea no Christian man (who at lest remembreth himself to be a Christian) that can abide to see such villains, such Gospelers, boutchers, traitors, madmen, wicked Church robbers, that can abide to hear of them: whose heart riseth not against them, and finally detesteth and abhorreth not their cruelty, and trembleth not at the very remembrance of their Tyranny.   

EGo Frater joannes Hentenius sacrae Theologia professor Lovan. praesentibus mea manu scriptis attestor, praedictam orationem in lingua primûm Latina editam, mea approbatione, nunc autem in linguam Britannicam versam nihil continere, propter quod minus in lucem edi debeat, imó plurimum utilitatis ad fidem Catholicam tuendam allaturam adversus haereticos. Hoc autem quoad versionem hanc idcirco audeo attestari, quanquàm hoc idioma non calleam, quòd id certô mihi asserant Docti ac Catholici viri Anglicanae Nationis.  
I0. HENTENIUS.   

THE TABLE OF THIS BOOK SET OUT not by order of alphabet or numbered, but by express figure, to the eye & sight of the Christian Reader, and of him also that canno tread.  
The first note & story in this little book to skan,  
The Gosplers in Paris streets thus in a rage ran,  
With Gospel in their mouths & sword in their hands:  
I see not how these two together well stands.  
Calvin in his chamber fiu● years taught a Nun  
Till she was great with Gospel and swollen with a son.  
Beza sold to two men his linings of the Church,  
And ran his way with all, and left them in the lurch.  
His white M● stress Candita a tailors wife before,  
Of her charity for all Christian soul's fetchtone driscol more.  
Calvin banished France, Gevena did possess,  
And all the lawful Magistrates did expel and oppress.  
Rotman for the Lutherans drove the Catholics out,  
john Leid for the Anabaptists, expelled the Lutheran rout.  
Muntzer with his Gospelers & uplandish band,  
The Princes & Magistrates doth stoutly withstand.  
Many Town and castle and Palace of renown.  
Many Church and Chapel is quite thrown down.  
The Turk against Christian, by Christian is called in,  
With more than Turkish treason and most horrible sin.  
The Emperor in war is assailed on each side,  
More peril in his life did he never abide.  
No Queen in her kingdom can or ought to sit fast,  
If Knokes or Goodman's books blow any true blast.  
Many Kings in their Thrones this Gospel did shake,  
And made many main lands full terribly to quake.  
The Chief of Christ's Church sit in Council to advise:  
Then all Prelates and Princes think ye yourselves more wise?  
Universities, Colleges, and Schools be overturned,  
These men spette at Learning, they will have all books burned.  
Behold a good preachor, with a pistolet in his hand:  
Against such pistle or Gospel it is to hot ● to stand.  
A pistolet in the Pulpit? what is the Church then?  
A storehouse for your weapon, and a stews for your women.  
Calvin being young, the Cross and Chalice stolen,  
Being old he did put greater things in his male.  
Upon poor priests Beza in judgement doth sit,  
Himself to be judged and hanged up more fit.  
An Abbot and a Priest at Orleans without pity,  
They hanged up in the open Market place of the City.  
A religious old man escaped with care,  
They took again, and stripped him all naked and bare,  
With a rope about his neck along they him drew,  
Bound him to a tree, and with handgons him slew,  
another belly was cut, and his guts taken out,  
And wound soft and fair on a staff round about.  
One out of his bed they pulled lying sore sick,  
And in the Church, on the Rood they hanged him up quick.  
An other that was fled like a beggar privily,  
They took, and stripped, and set to sale with open outcry.  
They flay his fingers & crown, and pull out both his eyes,  
And kill him with their hand ●ons, for their warlike exercise.  
And other at their bait into their Inn they drew,  
Ripped his belly, and his guts all about the house threw,  
Many Priests had this man by like maimed and slain,  
Sith he could of their ears make himself such a chain.  
Two Priests thus they hanged by the Rood for their game:  
With Christ so to hang do they think it a shame?  
Some had their crowns and fingers pared skin and all away,  
Some their noses and ears cut of by the bard head.  
Some their privy members cut of in most shameful play,  
Some burnt up, some with a sword at a stroke stricken dead.  
Little children for their pastime, and trial of strong arm,  
At a blow they cut asunder, without any more harm.  
And some, that ran away into a Church, in their ire  
They burned up Church and all, letting none scape the fire.  
Yet an other old Priest they took most cruelly,  
And cut of his membres most villainously,  
And broiled them on the coals, and made him thereof eat,  
And ripped his bely to see, how he could digest such meat.  
King Lewis tomb and hearse his Image costly wrought,  
His grave they spoiled and broke, and burned all to nought.  
The holy Saints and Martyrs  
That now in bliss rain,  
These men would pull down  
And martyr onse again.  
Else why on their bodies  
And bones that here rest,  
Do they show so much malice,  
As ye see here express?  
For shame I both hide from your ears, & your eyes,  
How a maid was abused in most shameful wise.  
If Noah cursed his son Cham for his shameless act,  
More accursed shall these Cham's be for their shameful fact.  
One Traitor to save his Fort from gun-shot and all,  
A noble woman in a basket hangth out at the wall:  
An other in the Church riding armed crieth out  
In his gabbling Gascoine French,  
Pilla tout, pilla tout.  
The sacred holy Hosts kept for our most relief,  
Of Christ's true body, O Lord with what mischief  
These felons so fell, so cursed and so vile,  
Burn, stick, cast on ground, and under feet defile.  

The traitorous murdering of The Duke of Guise.  O noble Duke thy noble Death  
Doth well require of right  
An other manner style and praise,  
Then we can well indite.  
The more those Acts and Death of thine  
Deserves immortal fame.  
The more those Traitors get themselves  
Thereby eternal shame.  

The Conclusion and some of the Table.  
O Christ: If these the first fruits be  
This Gospel doth us give,  
The same thy Gospel not to be  
Full well we may believe.  
Thy Gospel is of tidings good,  
Of love and peace the seed:  
This Gospel doth all tidings ill,  
All strife and bloodshed breed.  PSAL. 138. Viri sanguinum declinate a me. O ye bloody men away from me.