The Contre-Guyse: Wherein is deciphered the pretended ti tle of the Guyses, and the first entry of the said Family into France, with their ambitious aspiring and pernicious practices for the obtaining of the French Crown.  
LONDON, Imprinted by john Wolf, 1589.   

The Contre-Guyse: CONTAINING the entry of the said Family into France, with their ambitious aspire, and pernicious practices for the obtaining of the crown thereof.  
THings natural, saith Plutarch, are subject to a continual flux of generation and corruption, and he only immutable, who never had beginning, neither shall have ending. Man, as touching his body, hath certain periods, wherein he evidently admitteth alteration, and according to the same doth increase and decrease, as the flower of age is swallowed up in old age; youth, in the flower of age, infancy in youth, and childhood in infancy. Herein doth nature resemble the image of man, and man the figure of every commonwealth, which how excellent and beautiful soever, doth by degrees wax old, as matter subject to the brook of liquid nature. Antiquity hath known some well grounded in mightiness, and triumphing in glory, but any that have withstood the course of time, hath no man seen, or ever shall: For as our bodies do come to be dissolved, either through outward bruises, proceeding of extreme violence of stripes, or bad proportion of humours, or finally by being broken and worn with old age: even so likewise do commonwealths and public affairs grow to their last period, and decay through divers accidents: Some are overwhelmed and drowned in desolations, which overflow all: some kindled with fire of civil dissension: and other some undermined by time, do so grow to the last period of continuance, and as a person worn with age do take end. To endeavour therefore to settle the course of worldly affairs, were, with the Giants to seek to scale the heavens. But to take such order, that the alteration of the commonwealth may gently and naturally take effect: to seek all means to yield it sure footing: to spread the sails to all winds, for the bringing of it to the harbour of safeguard: If it be sick, to play the physician: if it stumble, to lend it a hand: if the sight of it fail, to reach it spectacles: and finally, if it be stricken in years, to become the staff of the old age thereof: all these are the parts of a good and loving nature, yea, of such a nature, as is utterly free from all Cynical currishness; and to say the truth, is no more but the discharge of our duties unto our country.  
This is the reason, O ye Frenchmen, why now that some for the patching up of the old broken walls of their ancestors ambition, do go about to choke up our quietness, in training forward their cursed and execrable purposes, with the expenses of our goods, blood, and lives. I cannot, as one standing upon the firm land, gaze upon the shipwreck of my country, but seeing it tossed, and floating in danger, must needs cast forth the last sacred anchor of myself, which is, a boldness of free speech: and because in human accidents the discourse must be derived from the original, mark now the spring of our miserable calamity.  
In the time of Lewis the 12. surnamed the father of the people, claud of Lorraine, or rather of Vaudemont, set foot in France, where he straightways began to remove every stone for the laying of the foundation of that mightiness, whereunto we now see his successors ascended, and did so dazzle the eyes of the French with a false show of his wealth, that in the year 1512 about the feast of God at Paris, in the hostel of Estampes, he married Anthoinel of Bourbon, daughter to Francis of Bourbon, and Mary of Luxembourg. But Francis Duke of Valois, and Earl of Angolesme, by the decease of the said Lewis coming to the crown, and beginning to smell out the humour of this stranger, held him short, & dividing the chiefest offices of his 
Du Bellay. lib. 1.  house, then void, overslipped him. The Duke of Bourbon was made Constable, the Earl of Vandosme Governor of the isle of France, the L. of Lautrec Governor of Guienne, the L. of Palisse Martial of France, the L. of Boissy great Master, Anne L. of Montmorency, and Philip Chabot the King's two favourites: Of claud of Lorraine there was no speech, his wings were yet too short to soar to such highness, under the shadow whereof he lay a while hidden, which no whit diminished his hope of happy success. But Ambition, which (as saith Thucydides) 
Plutarch in his treatise, whether an old man, etc.  never dieth in man, causing him stiffly to withstand fortune, taught him so slily to blot out whatsoever sinister opinion the king had conceived of him, that after many turnings & tossings, he was finally taken into household, & made great hunter, which office had long continued in families of gentlemen of mean account: under 
Du Tillet chap. of the great hunter & falconer.  Charles the 6. it was administered by Lewis of Orguechin: under Lewis the 11. by juon of Fou: under Lewis the 12. by the Lords of Chenetz & Rowille, whereby it is to be presumed, that this Lorraine was then far off from the greatness pretended by his successors, and that it could not be said of him, that he made way to dignity by the countenance of his ancestors, as by a certain Roman it was objected to Piso: but rather that of a course hair & small credit himself opened a way to himself to honour through craft and guile, yea, like a wily Fox, as is said of Pope Boniface the 8. For in truth he so cunningly pursued the point of his good hap, and from time to time so sound husbanded the king's favours, that according to the divers occurrences of affairs he executed sundry functions. For about the year 1515, the king levying 
Du Bellay. lib. 1.  an Army for the conquest of Milan, got into his pay 6000 Allemaigns, under the leading of the Duke of Guelderland, who shortly after hearing that the Brabanders had entered his country, posted home to relieve his own people, and left his charge to claud of Lorraine, Lord of Guise: nevertheless in the year 1521, in Admiral Bonivels' voyage into Navarre, he had the conduct only of 2500 lanceknights, and in the year 1522, serving in Picardy under the Lord of Vendosme, he had the charge only of one company of men at Arms: But the wind turned so favourably for him, that in the year 1523, when the Lord of Trimovile was made governor of Picardy, he left to him the government of Burgundy, whereto the next year was adjoined champaign, by reason of the journey into Italy, whither the chiefest of France accompanied the King, at whose return this Lorraine did so cunningly bend his affections, that in january 1527, he erected him his village of Guise into a Duchy, & in tract of time Charles Duke of Orleans, the kings younger son being sent with a great Army to ground and cast the burden of the wars upon the Duchy of Luxembourg, had for his chief Counsellors the Lords of jametz and Guise. Thus may we see this Lorraine crept very high for a gentleman of base gold: but such was the kings pleasure, whose power appeareth in exalting the base, enriching the poor, and increasing the small: such was his favour, yea such, that although there still rested in him some sinister impression of this strangers humours, yet would he not nevertheless deprive him of any of his offices or dignities, so that he prosecuting his good hap, obtained so ready entry into the favours of king Henry the 2. that his children being honourably appointed, he procured Aumale to be erected into a Duchy, in the year 1547. & so, to be brief, being grown rich in goods, alliance, and honour, as being Duke of Guise and Aumale, Peer of France, and governor of Burgundy, he deceased the 18. of April 1550. in this like to M. Perpenna, who, as witnesseth Valerius, was Consul before he was Citizen: but unlike in that, that as saith the same author: The life of Perpenna was triumphant, but his death ignominious, through the law Papia in his father's person, who being naturally a stranger, was banished Rome for usurping the privileges of Roman Citizens, whereas contrariwise this man's children continued their father's triumphs, yea as it was said of Perpenna, They have with a mischief rooted themselves in a foreign land.  
This was the stranger, O ye Frenchmen, to 
Plut. in his notable sayings of the Lacedæmonians. Plut. in the life of Silla. Plut. of brotherly love.  whom you might have said, as the Lacedæmonians said to Philip king of Macedon, that they would not he should come into their land, either as a friend or as a foe: this is that wretch, of whom ye may say as of Silla's father, that he could scarce be honest, seeing he grew so soon rich: this is that vagabond, on whom we should practise the saying of Theophrastus, importing, that we must not love strangers to prove them, but prove them to love them: this is that great hunter, that falconer that hath brought up his children after the manner of ravenous fowls, who with their ambition, as with a crooked beak, do rend poor France in pieces, & with sharp talons do seek to seize upon this estate: O wise and valiant king Francis, how near a true prophet came you, when you foretold that if ever this wretches ospring took footing or sure root in France, it would strip the kings into their doublets, and the people into their shirts: for we may guess at that which is to come, by that which is either present or past, considering that nothing is done without cause, neither can any thing be foreseen without some reason preceding. This Oracle might have made us to havestood upon our guard, but who can avoid destiny?  
The children of this claud of Lorraine being fatally destinate to the subversion of this estate, have enjoyed the most part of the favours of Court under Henry the 2. at whose coronation they so cunningly exalted their ambition, that they got the chief point of honour and presidence before the Duke of Montpensier, a prince of the blood, as by the act reserved by du Thierry Secretary of commandments, the 25. of july 1547. which also in the year 1559. they put in practice at the anointing of king Francis the 2. in respect, said they, of the antiquity of their Peeryes, wherein must be more regard of the represented then of the representing, notwithstanding 
Du Tillet in his collection of the great men of France.  it had been otherwise adjudged by a decree of the parliament of Paris, between the Dukes of Montpensier and Nevers in june 1541. Having won this bar and title of greatness over France, they began upon the earnest penny of their credit more & more to display the wings of their ambition: and in truth, as the defect of vessels cannot be seen so long as they stand empty, but when liquor is powered into them: even so rotten and corrupt minds can no longer conceal themselves, when they have once attained to authority and power, but must needs burst forth and display themselves in their covetous affections and insolences, as may be noted in these untimely births of fortune: For about the year 1548, when a certain advocate of the parliament in his plea for the Duke of Guise, had given him the quality of a Prince, which by a present decree was razed, it so set them out of joint, and filled them with bitterness, that the Cardinal Charles of Lorraine never left removing every stone for the displacing of Precedent Liset, until he had compassed the same in the year 1550, though under an other pretence. Afterward, for the further advancing of their ambitious drifts, and the nearer to resemble the Cantharides, who, as Plutarch saith, do still creep into the purest wheat and freshest roses, they entered lists with the Lord Anne of Montmorency, upon whom after sundry crossings, and under favour of his imprisonment, which fell in the year 1557, at the battle of Saint Laurence, they so encroached, that the king gave to Francis of Lorraine a commission of Lieutenant general, whereat the Constable, as a wary person, and one practised in serving the time, could very well wink, and so set a fair countenance upon a fowl game. But in tract of time the king grew to be so glutted with the fair speeches of these Lorraines, and their importunate baying at the chief offices of the crown, that as one not troubled with any lethargy of mind, but even to the quick feeling some drifts of their ambition, he resolved utterly to rid his hands of such & so subtle husbands, and to drive them from about his person, yea, even out of his dominions, wherein they had through their crafty conveyances fattened themselves, even to the great contempt of the Queen now the king's mother, who through their persuasions was at the point to have been shamefully rejected, and to the desolation of the French nation, among whom they have served only for bellows to kindle the fire of civil dissensions, so that since they came to be our guests we may exclaim of France, as did Agesilaus 
Plut. in his notable sayings of the Lacedæmonians.  of Greece, when he heard of a cruel conflict near to Corinth between the mutinous Grecians one against another. Oh unhappy Greece, who with their own hands have made away men enough in one day of battle to have overcome all the Barbarians together! But the king's purpose was prevented by God's providence, who not willing to take that scourge from us, made France a widow of this good king in july, 1559, & so gave us over for a pray to the intolerable ambition, insatiable avarice, and raging cruelty of these strangers, who reigning over us under the shadow of king Francis the 2. and under the favour of his minority played open play against the Princes of blood, yea, and set so sure foot upon the throat of this estate, that France was the bloody scaffold, good Frenchmen the martyrs, and these Lorrains, most cruel, felonious, and unmerciful hangmen. This storm might immediately after the decease of K. Henry have been foreseen: for whilst the Princes of the blood and chief officers of the crown kept their masters body at the Tournelles the king's house in S. Anthony's street, where every thing sounded of sorrow and mournful sonnets, these gentlemen triumphed at the Louvre, whither they had carried the king, about whom they commanded at pleasure, and under the cloak of tutorship made themselves way to the sovereignty, as did Tarquin the 1. who under the like pretence wrested the Roman kingdom out of the hands of Ancus Martius children, or as Stillicon & Ruffin, who being tutors to Arcadius & Honorius, brought the Roman Empire into combustion. But what ingratitude, what in human unthankfulness was it to stand with dry eyes, when all other accompanied the king with weeping and tears? What tyranny, to bend their master's minority to their passions? What impudency, to in trude upon the authority of the Princes of the blood? The law (by the common advise of the three estates assembled at Tours, Anno 1484. decreed) commandeth, If the crown sall to a pupil the 3. estates must be assembled, and by them the king provided of a counsel for the government of his nonage: The custom is, The Princes of the blood have the first place in this counsel, as it fell out, when at the decease of Lewis the 11. Charles the 8. at the age of 14. years came to the crown. The Roman laws will, That he that affecteth or intrudeth himself into any tutorship, should be rejected as suspect. Besides, it is a general, sacred and inviolable rule, That no foreign Prince hold degree in France. But what can reason do in rage, or custom among disorders? what can right do where force beareth sway? or of what force are laws among murder, blood, and tyranny? having assured themselves of his majesties person, they played their game so cunningly, that a new guard was established under the Seneschal of Again: Diana of Poitiers Duchess of Valentinois, banished the Court: Bertrandi Precedent of Tholouse, unto whom Henry the 2. had committed the seals of France, flatly deferred, though pacified under hope of better: The superintendence of the Treasury taken from Auanson, and under colour of good husbandry, the faithfullest servants of the crown being displaced, the gate of honour was open to none but the confederates of two strangers, who for their own particular profit encroached to themselves all public affairs, even as the wind Coecias, which (as it is said) draweth the clouds to it, and furnished the law with men of like stuff as themselves, & such as were vowed unto the execution of their bad purposes: as also at the same time they strengthened their own faction with the amity of the Marshals Brissac & S. Andrew, & the Cardinal of Tournon, the constable's sworn enemy. Putting in practice also Andronodorus counsel (who abusing the minority of Hierom king of Sicill, whom he purposed to rob of his estate, persuaded him to banish the chief of his Realm from the Court) they did under the kings avow craftily disperse all those that might have crossed the course of their fortune, & with whom they could by no means bear, not so much because of the difference of their natures, as for that the French cannot put on the Lorraines nature, or the Lorraine the Frenchman's, according to the saying of Cicero, speaking of the ordinary controversies between the Roman Consuls and Tribunes. The fire of civil dissension is kindled between them, not so much through diversity of qualities, as by contrariety of humours & complexions. And thus was the Prince of Condésent into Flaunders, under pretence of strengthening the amity with king Philip, and after him the Prince of Roch-sur-yon, who at his return was chosen together with the Cardinal of Bourbon, to conduct La. Elizabeth into Spain: The Duke of Montpensier was furnished with the government of Touraine, but they appointed Chavigny to be his Lieutenant, with such authority, that the Prince had only the title: The Constable had the gentle thump, and among other traverses lost the office of Greatmaister, which wound was afterward renewed in the controversy for the county of Dampmartin, which Francis of Lorraine Cessionary of Rambures pretended to carry away. The court being thus become a widow of the Princes of the blood, and naked of the bravest of the French knights, the Guysians began to build up their houses with the decay of many other, yea in such sort as they spared neither friend nor foe, Papist nor Protestant, spiritual goods nor temporal: witness the County of Nantueil, and the chief benefices of the Cardinal of Lenoncourt, a friend to their family: witness the goods of the Marquis of Neelle, & of the Lord of Grignan, the castle of Meudon, the house of Marchais, & the land of Cheureus: witness the Monks of Monstier▪ endé, whom the Cardinal thrust out, & burned all the titles of their church for the enriching of his house of Ginuille: witness the Storier of S. Disier, whom he caused to be burned for a Lutherian, notwithstanding, by the testimony of all the country, he went ordinarily to Mass, so as the poor man might say as Quintus Aurelius, who finding himself in the roll of those who by placards were banished, notwithstanding he never meddled with the 
Plut. in Silla.  wars of either Marius or Silla, cried out, Helas my house at Awl killeth me. Shall I come to the conclusion and last act of the Tragedy? Shall I open a wound which yet bleedeth? Things grew to that pass, that by the Cardinal and his brother all laws & good decrees were taken down: the Parliaments of the Realm dishonoured, and every way derided: the people choked with tyranny: the Prince of Condé imprisoned at Orleans for felony, falsely invented, as afterward it is declared by a decree of the privy council, dated the 13. of March 1560. and by two decrees of the court of Parliament: the La. of Roye imprisoned at S. Germans in Say: the Constable's house appointed to ruin and subversion: his nephew the L. d'Andelot discharged of the office of Colonel of the French footmen: the Cardinal of Arminacke banished the court: the Vidame of Chartres miserably detained in the Bastille: the prisons full of poor innocents: the skaffolds red with blood: the gibbets ordinary: fires kindled: all was but destruction and desolation: but robbing of houses: proclamations of banishments: and most cruel executions: in peace we bore the effects of a bloody war, and in calm and fair weather the face of France was horrible and fearful: and yet do we suckle up these hangmen with our blood: we feed them with our goods: we make them triumph in our shame, and to them only are the gates of honours open: but why do we not rather speak as did Rabirius by his advocates mouth? Grac●hus (said he) would rather have suffered 1000 most cruel deaths, then have seen the hang man assistant in his court, who by the laws of the Censors, aught to have no habitation in Rome. And yet is the hangman, as the minister of justice, more tolerable than these, who in their bloody executions were not authorized, but by their own ambition, whereto they had so smoothed the way, that there wanted no more but with open title to proclaim themselves kings. For, to give provinces and the treasury: to make laws, & to break them: to determine of war and peace: to give and take away offices: to send embassages: and in all things to have the last voice, was common among them: what then did they want more than the name, anointing, and crown? having also laid their principal plot upon certain seditious ministers of their passions, they drew apace to the sovereignty, if God, even God truly, the preserver of France, had not cast a block in their way anno 1560. by the kings death, whose name they made their buckler to the destruction of himself and his estate: and under whose pretence they made the rampire of the unruly effect of their immoderate passions, so that not being yet thoroughly fortified with all things necessary for their purposes, they stumbled in the mid way, and their affairs suffered a change. But now, Oye Frenchmen, look upon your kings funerals: his body without any pomp or solemnity was conveyed by Sansac and Brosse to S. Denis, where it was simply buried. Blush ye Guysians, yea for shame hide yourselves, when you hear that Hannibal bestowed honourable funerals upon the Consul Caius Flaminius, whom he slew at the lake of Peruse: that Lucius Cornelius did as much for Hanno the general of the carthaginians, and Marcus Antonius upon his enemy Arcilaus: and yet you without any pomp do commit to the earth the body of so great a king, yea of that king that raised you to the type of honour. Hid, hide yourselves, I say, when you understand that Alexander spent 6. millions of gold upon the funerals of Ephestion, and yet you that have been so prodigal of the commonwealth in your own private affairs are become so niggardly in matter concerning the funerals of one of the mightiest monarches of the earth. The Emperor Augustus even in winter time came from Rome to Pauye before the body of Drusus: Tiberius did assist the funerals of Augustus, Caligula those of Tiberius, and Nero those of Claudius: The kings, Childebert and Clotaire led the body of Queen Clotilde from Tours to Paris: jews the gross that of king Philippe the first, from Meleun to S. Bennets upon Loire: and Philip the 3. holp to carry the Bier of S. jews from Paris to S. Denis, and yet you unthankful persons, you mushrooms of a nights growth cannot vouchsafe to set one foot out of the gates of Orleans for the least service of piety to your masters body▪ & yet must you be termed the Zopires' of our kings, the corner stones of this realm, the eyes, the sinews, and the veins of this body! but rather indeed the tyrants of our kings, the scourges of the poor people, & the sponges of our treasures: you I say, who have no other God but ambition, no other king but Avarice, ne any other religion then desire of gain, after which we see that you are fleshed as Ravens after cartion, who rather than to leave your hold will sometimes cast your honour at your backs: witness the lies that the late Lord prince of Condé in the year 1559. gave you, when he offered to forget his degree & quality of prince to uphold it against you with the point of his sword or spear.  
King Francis the second thus dead did for a time choke up, not their evil wills but their practices: For under Charles the 9 although they endeavoured to seed in him a marvelous mistrust of his subjects, yet began the estates at Orleans to taste them so near, and to go about to make them spew up the treasures that they had swallowed, that their best waywas in haste to follow Tiberius Gracchus one of the plagues of Rome, who perceiving that the senate were framing of his process struck sail quietly, so that they thought it best to ship into Lorraine, and thence into Germany, where they promised the Princes of the Empire to frame themselves to the confession of Ausbourg, which the Card. openly allowed and preached in the town of Sauerne, showing the greater testimony of his conversion by the rich gifts that he bestowed upon Brentius the D. of Wittemberges minister, wherein these ij. fugitives made themselves like unto Theramenes slipper which served for either foot.  
But what? the hard fortune of France soon after, called them again to the end to go forward with their game and make an end of the set: yea it placed them in the chiefest degrees, contrary to the good example of the ancients, who shut up the gates of honour against such as yielded no account of their administration: upon which ground Diodetus and Aeschines formed their complaint against Ctesipho, at whose instance the Athenians had bestowed a Crown of gold 
Plut. in the lives of the 10 Orators.  upon Demosthenes, before they called him to account of the office that was committed to him for the reparation of the walls of Athens: which did import a blow and alteration in the laws, which permitted not those that were accountable so much as to give any thing to the Gods, neither, as said the Emperor Antoninus, to proceed to any dignity in the commonwealth. Out of this revocation as out of 
Tit. de debit. Civit. l. 1. C.  Pandora's box, are come the wars, murders, and manflaughters, wherein they so obstinately set themselves, that in the year 1563 they had a sop of the same bread, with the cost of Francis of lorrain's life. Howbeit the hap of this accident broke not the blow of their purposes. For he left 3 sons in whom after his death his passions lived, and under the favour of their uncle the Card. they entered the same vow as their father, & have taken the Crown of France 
Plut. in Silla.  for the butt of their ambition, so as of them we may say as the Romans did of Silla, That only they had changed the tyrant, but were not discharged from tyranny. Also for their first blows the studied to feed the war that was hatched in their fathers and uncles ambition: and in laps of time, namely in the year 1571 the kings favour resembling a fair wind, the first of these three blinded with his good fortune, and neglecting the meanness of his race, presumed so far as to aspire to the marriage of that goodly flower of France, Lady Margaret now Queen of Navarre, which coming to the knowledge of king Charles the ninth, a Prince jealous of the honour both of himself and of his blood, he caused the Lord great Prior to tell him, that if he pretended to branch so high, he would bring him so low, that he should be an example to the posterity: yea that if within two months he married not some other, himself would dagger him with his own hands. These threats of so great a Prince, cooled the boiling affections of this Lo●raine, who by his journeys together with the favour of his friends so well acquitted himself, that within the term to him by the king prescribed, he married the widow of the late Lord Prince of Porcian: as also since his second brother matched with the widow of the late Lord of Mon●pesat, or rather they both married the great goods of these two Ladies, thereby to set a colour upon their smallness. To enter into the discourse of those tragedies, which at their instance were played during the reign of king Charles the ninth, were to refresh a wound which yet bleedeth to freshly: and who can without tears look upon our France so tainted in blood, cruelty, destruction, and disloyalty? In the end the Cardinal, whose life full of discretion stunk even among the Anheistes and Epicures, ascending into Avignon left the Triumuirat of his nephews, who bring form after his lore, have no whit belied his actions, not so much as to admit any companion of court, or not to hate those in whom his majesty had fixed his affection: The Lord of Ho being gotten far into the kings favour had a wry look: out he so well husbanded his fortune, that they could catch no hold in he Lord of S. Maigrin did they mortally push with their horns, yea even under the gates of the Lou●re: But the viscount of Riberac having for the ●●eathes of the Lords of Chelu and Maugiron encurred the kings indignation, wounded as he was could find no better sanct●●ie than the house of the Guyses, who seemed a sufficiont contrepoise against the king's authority. afterward, because the late Monsieur was a troublesome thorn in their foot, they framed a match against him: The blood of Salcedo executed at Paris yet speaketh, and the truth of his deposition appeareth plainly in these commotions. What is it not therefore, that as occasions have fallen out, they have not enterprised against France? What Prince, what greatness have they not endeavoured to undermine. The king himself, of whose secrets they have made a traffic, have they sold to the Spaniard, as flesh to the shambles, and under covered fire still drawing against him, they have put in ure whatsoever wicked inventions their evil angel hath to them presented, whereby to cause their passions to bear sway, if not in calm and fair weather, yet during the tempest, amongst the blood, murder, cruelty, desolation, and destruction of this poor estate: witness a jesuite of Pont à-Mousson in Lorraine, called father claud Matthew, who never did good but in weening to do evil, confect in wickedness, & one of those sacred persons spoken of at Rome in this Tribunary law; He shall not be accounted a 
Lex 12. tabul.  manslayer, who by the decree of the people shall have killed a hallowed man. Witness, I say, this reverend, this spark of sedition, this spirit of Satan, who in two or three of his voyages into Italy & Spain, hath in●ited the Pope, king Philip, and the Savoyan to the destruction of France: and withal you Frenchmen, to the end to use you as vipers against our common mother, to make you bathe yourselves in your own blood, to change your courtesy into cruelty, your fidelity into disloyalty: to be brief, of the fair face of France to make a horrible and fearful spectacle of death, to convert her body into a grave, her towns into churchyards, her castles into broken walls, her fields into butcheries, her trees into gibbets, her rivers into blood, her life into pitiful, horrible, and fearful death: to such purposes, I say, so furious, tragical, and bloody, do they loud and shrill sound out, that they proceed out of the stock of Charlemagne, and that ever since Lothair, our kings have their tables covered through the unjust usurpation of Capet, & with the expense of their race the lawful inheritor of this crown. Here do I desire all good Frenchmen to mark one practice of Tarquin the proud, who determining to rob Servius Tullius of the kingdom of Rome, began by bewitching the people with the discourse of his race, and by repeating to them, how that after the death of king Tarquin his father woefully murdered, Servius had overthwartly practised the sovereignty: so that the fathers lulled on sleep with his fair words, & the youth snared with the presents wherewith he laid a bridge to to his purposes, he so far slacked the bridle of his ambition, accompanied with rashness, that in full senate seizing upon Servius by the body, he carried him out of the chamber, & cast him down the stairs. A tragical & pitiful example, such a one as might stand France in stead for a morning wake, now that it is thus baied at with tempests on every side: but particularly the king, whose greatness with like tools as that wherewith Servius was overthrown, they now undermine. And king Clovis understanding that a Lord of Artoys named Cannacare, puffed up with wealth, gave out that he came of Clodio the hairy, & so was lawful heir of the crown, being not only quick of hearing, but also jealous of his greatness, caused that sour of lies, & all his progeny to be rooted out. In the mean time, lest the people being ticklish & itching at every new devise, should suffer themselves to be led away with the persuasions of these abusers, I would demand of you Lorraines, what is the ground of your pretended right? you say that Hugh Capet by force carried away the crown from Charles of Lorraine, uncle to Lewis the 5. in whom the race of Charlemagne ended, & that you are come of the stock of Charles: If it were so, why did you lately make the card. of Bourbon your banner, as he that was fittest to succeed in this realm? was it not to show that you could not agree but in contrarieties? or rather to imitate the wren, who hearing that the birds made a match who should be first in heaven, hide himself under the eagle's wing, from whence he crept out in so good time, that he got the title of king? you say that Charles of Lorraine had but one son, named Ottho, and that this Ottho had but a daughter. We have enough of this one distaff to beat you withal, we, I say, who are freed from the women's government, who stop not under the empire of women, through the benefit of the Salic law, a law that is the only oracle of France, bought with the price of our ancestors blood, with the destruction of our towns, with the decay of our houses, and with the loss of two wretched battles Cressy and Poitiers: a law that preserveth us from the dominion of strangers, and that cutteth off all foreign fashions and kinds of life, which long since had filled ours with bastardy, sith it is much easier to know a fault in nature, than any unlikelines between the Prince and the subject, as said Theodorike king of the Goths in his writing to the Senate of Rome. But because the enemies of this Realm, and among others ourselves do reject this so holy, sacred, and hitherto inviolable a law, as some shadow, dream, or bugbear, I pray you cast your view upon custom time out of mind practised in France, and that which hath no less force than all the laws in the world, even by the saying of the Lawyers, Things brought in by ancient custom do seem more just than those that are commanded by laws. Childebert left two daughters, Cherebert three, Gentran nine, Lewis Hutin one, who succeeded in the Realm of Navarre, but not of France: Philip the long, three, who never quarreled for the crown, to the which in process of time succeeded Lewis the 12. who excluded Lady Anne & Lady jone, the daughters of king Lewis the 11. and sisters to Charles the 8. & king Francis the 9 set it upon his head, but not in the right of his wife Queen claud daughter to king Lewis the 12. Hereto add that the whole doth ordinarily retain the nature of his country, so that the crown cannot fall to the distaff, sith that the property of the provisions of the youngers of the house of France, doth ever in default in heirs males return to the crown: and with that condition did Lewis the 8. in February 1223. endue his brother king Philip of France, Earl of Bologne, and by his will dated in june 1525. left Artois to his second son, Anjou and Maine to the third, Poictou and Awergne to the fourth, with condition, for default of heirs males to return to the crown. The like did S. Lewis in March 1268. with the County of Valois to his fifth son john of France, also Philip the fair in December 1311. to Philip the long his second son, after whose decease without heirs male, his daughter jone of France wife to Eudo the 4. D. of Burgundy, instantly challenging the possessory endowment of her father against Charles the 4. was overthrown by decree of Parliament dated the 2●. of February 1322. This custom being of itself strong enough, is accompanied with a decision of the law. If the Intruders successors do for the space of one hundred years hold the sovereignty, in such case the prescription of so long years may serve for a title: namely, if there be no opposition or protestation of the subjects to the contrary, as that of the tribune Aquila, who took away the crown that had been set upon Caesar's image: so as the successors of Hugh Capet having been masters of this crown ever since the year 997. have too important an exception against these Carlingues. But utterly to shut up their mouths, we do in truth say, that our kings are of the blood of Charlemagne, whose race having failed in seven geverations after Capet, was renewed in the person of king Lewis the 8. For Philip August, or Given of God, in the year 1180. at Bapaulines married Isabella the daughter of Baldwin the 4. of that name, Earl of Henault, who was descended of Hermengarde's Countess of Namure, & daughter to Charles the simple, from whose successors Hugh Capet took the right of the crown: of which marriage of king Philip and Lady Isabella, was borne the 6. of September 1587. king Lewis the 8. father to S. Lewis, out of whom as out of a nursery of plants, are issued the noble families of Valois and Bourbon. Yea I will say more, namely, that the Guyses cannot be of the branches of Charles of Lorraine, the brother of Lothair the 33. king of France, & uncle to Lewis the 5. neither consequently of Charlemagne: for it is but 120. years since the race of Vaudemont took land in the house of Lorraine, which in less than 460. years hath fallen in seven several families, namely, from the house of Charlemagne into the house of Ardenne 1005. from the house of Arden into the house of Bologne 1089. from the house of Bologne into the house of Lembourg, from the house of Lembourg into the house of Lowain 1106. Then in tract of time René K. of Sicily, son to Lewis of Anjou, married the heir of Lorraine, by whom he left a son named john, & a daughter named Yolande, who was wife to Frederick of Vaudemont, & afterward in 1464. inherited the duchy of Lorraine, through the decease of her nephew Nicholas her brother john's only son: hereby we plainly may see that these men are like Esop's crow, who disguised herself with many other fowls feathers, supposing, that process of time might serve for a vail to cloak their falsehood: but it falleth out clean contrary, for truth is the daughter of time. Then persuading themselves that their jesuit (a fit ambassador for such potentates) had removed both heaven & earth, as well in Italy as in Spain, and that the brute of their false descent had brought such effects correspondent to their desires: that the nobility had liked to lend them a shoulder, and the people had been wholly bend to their passions they broke the impostume: and to the end to free themselves from quietness, which was n●●some unto them, and to stifle up all peace which could no whit delight them, even as an infected stomach that can relish no good food, they did of late put in practise that game which their predecessors had kept close and sealed up, and so began to play at thrust out with the king. True it is, that for fear of going barefoot in so thorny a way, they have disguised their ambition with many fair pretences, and to colour their wars they have propounded.  
1. The rooting our of heresy. 2. The nomination of a Catholic successor to the crown. 3. The re-establishing of the church in her ancient liberties. 4. The reintegration of the nobility into their former dignity. 5. The abasing of certain persons whom the king hath exalted. 6. The disburdening of the third estate.  
Propositions which in outward appearance are good, but bad in effect; sweet to hear of, but of bitter taste; wholesome without, but heavy within. For the two first are forged against the king of Navarre and the Prince of Condé: the rest have no other end but to yield the king odious to the clergy, hated of the nobility, and to pull upon him the malice of the people. This is the readiest way that they can find to prevent the greatness of the king, and of the two chief● princes of the lily, and to make that agreement with us, whereof Demosthenes warneth the Athenians by the sheep and the wolves, that willed the sheep if they would have any peace with them to deliver into their hands all the mastiffs that kept them. Of the rest of the Princes, they ween to have a great pennyworth, which all will prove but dust before the East wind, and snow before the same. At the fame of these propositions, as trumpets that give warning of wars, many took part with their weapons, & turned themselves to the fortune of these deceivers, abandoning an assured peace, to the end to follow a doubtful war: some being won with hope of amending their estate: others having already followed the wars, and lived according as the liberty of the time and impunity had suffered them, seeing that peace took from them all means of spoil. Some that had miserably consumed all their goods, and were still brauled at by their creditors, and as 
Cic. in Catelinariis.  Cicero said of Catelines confederates, Those whose hands were died in blood, their tongues form to lies, their souls bend to all wickedness, their consciences corrupt with sundry misdeeds, such as undermined by poverty, were assaulted by justice: Such outcasts (I say) did willingly lend their hands to these novelties: and yet is it a strange matter that some Gentlemen durst suffer themselves to be led at these men's pleasure, as if they could not but say well, neither themselves do well but in obeying of them: A pitiful case, that they should take the shadow for the substance, smoke for fire, the visage and lies, for truth, without considering that these pretences are but so many snares to entrap them, that they do wake them but to bring them on sleep, that they instruct them but to destroy them, and that as an ancient man hath said, There can be no lust cause to fight against their country. But who could choose but be bewitched with so many fair pretences? Besides that these fire brands have left no means unproved for the continuance of the traffic of their drifts. Furthermore, to the end to keep their confederates in breath, and courage, and to make others willing to take their parts, they promised us mountains and marvels, as knowing that oftentimes things feigned, yet taken for true, are of great force in wars, as Marcus Portius, when the Ilergetes solicited him for succour: The earth should tremble under their power: the Spanish weapons did already rattle upon the frontiers: The Savoyan did but ask Where is it? The Pope calleth forth the devils, giveth them the enemies bodies, they carry them away, they cast them in hell: The Albanians with their javelins, should come to beat down the mountains, and to put all to fire and sword: And as the Consul Varo said of Hannibal, These Guisians should end the wars even the first day that they should see the Protestants, calling to mind the foolish enterprise, though not the weak success of La Brosse, who in the year of our Lord, 1559. being by their Father and Onckle, sent with the Bishop of Amiens into Scotland, promised in one month to drive all the Lutherans out of the land: But the Scottish nobility more jealous of their liberties then we, showed him that he reckoned without his host: and that he ought not to sell the bears skin before he see him, especially considering that as that noble Lacedaemonian captain Brasidas said, There is not so small a beast, but is able 
Plut. in the notable sai-ings of kings.  to save his life, if his heart would serve him to defend himself: and the Consul Paulus Aemilius marveled how any Captain could aforehand tell what was to be done in the battle, before he had seen either his own army, or his enemies: either situation of the place, or nature of the soil: for his part he would take no other counsel before the time, than such as the occasions did usually minister to man, and not man to occasions. And indeed these Lorrains do resemble that great mountain, which after many pangs of childbirth brought forth but a mouse. Besides, what promise have they performed? Of the Wisigothes that 
Livius. li. 2. Dec. 3.  should come and fall upon us, we have no news, they be so many bugbears: for besides that King Philip hath but few men, and too many matters in hand, he is too old to take counsel of the young: although through a desire that he hath to strike a stroke, and make some alteration in the peace of France, and being alured by some hope to obtain Marseiles as a first dish to his table, he furnisheth them of a few crowns, which they will receive without weighing, to warm their kitchen withal: & God wots, whether the poor man whom they made twice or thrice to troth into Spain, who so lively prosecuted their affairs, that he fell sick all Barbast, was any thing slack in opening the mouth of his pouch more thirsty than an advocates. Of the Savoyan what can they hope? He is so near the bear, that his best way will be to set sure sooting and have a good eye to his own country. From the Pope they can have nothing but Bulls, wherewith they can not run far, lest the devils whom he will send abroad to entrap the protestants, should light upon these Guysians. What do they then lack, more than God's vengeance to oppress them, a tormented conscience, and a blind rage? For besides that there be two hundred families in France, which will not yield one jot to that of Guyze, the most part already of those whom they promised to advance to honours, do imitate Lisander, who would not receive the rich and sumptuous robes which Denis the tyrant sent his daughters, saying, that such gay garments would make them seem more foul. 
Plut. in the notable sai-ings of old kings.  Many of those that suffered themselves to be carried upon the wings of their good fortune, do already make no farther account of their prosperity, which is tied together with points, as a Lacedaemonian said of Lampis a Burgess of Egina. All good Frenchmen whom they called to their party, in tickling them with fair promises, have made answer that they will not hold so much as their lives of the murderers of their country, as a certain Prenestine said to the Dictator Silla, who had put all the Prenestines to the sword, saving him, because he had been his host. Yea many of those into whose hands they have even thrust weapons, 
Caesar. lib. 3 de bell. civil.  do with Pompey's soldiers say, that they will fight against the enemies, but not against their fellow countrymen: of whom those that have better regard of common health and private commodity, do with their ears and valiancy favour that noble and valiant Prince Henry, king of Navarre, lest they should resemble the Argonauts, who after they had forsaken Hercules, were forced to have recourse to a woman: So that although a first blush and opinion, and at the first push, the weapons of the Guyzes did somewhat astonish the common people, which was as it were dazzled in the darkness of their drifts: yet now it is freed from that fear, & perceiveth that their threats are no spears, that they have embarked themselves without either rudder or biscuit, and that their false wings that prognosticated so high & long a fight, will lead them to the like end as Icarus. And indeed ye Guizards, the ways of your purposes are so surely shut up, that shortly you shall feel the saying of job: Those that 
job. 4.  plough iniquity and sow malice shall reap the same. Your pride hath kindled the torch of division in the bowels of France, and you shall prove the sa●ing of Solomon true, Pride goeth before destruction, and highness 
Prou. 16.  of mind before desolation. You have lift up your nose against the king, and shall taste of the wise man's saying: The wrath of the king is as the raging of the Lion, 
Pro. 1. & 20  and he that displeaseth him, sinneth against his own soul. You have gone about to bring a whole storm of mischief upon the king of Navarre, and the prince of Conde, and shall shortly, to your costs, learn this Proverb of Solomon: He that casteth a stone 
Pro. 26.  at an other, it will light upon himself. You shall learn that you have hasted to outrun your shadow, and that against them you have done no more than he, who undertaking to slay Prometheus 
Plut. of taking profit of enemies.  the Thessalian, thrust the sword into his impostume, which he pierced and so saved his life. And for the conclusion of this tragedy, you shall sooner be destroyed then fought withal, and sooner fought withal, then assaulted: for they be no petty wretches like yourselves ye Guizardes': they be Princes, yea the chief Princes of the lily, noble by birth, rich in amity, husbands of time, resolute in all points of honour, gentle and gracious in peace, two thunderboultes in war, such as use not vials in steed of trumpets, a dancing hall, for a fight field: or gentlewomen in lieu of courageous soldiers: who never ask how many the enemies be, but where they be: who were not Captains before they were soldiers, but soldiers under themselves the Captains: to be brief, who are such as the Egyptians pictured their great Mercury by a double Idol of both an old and a young man, thereby showing that a Prince must be both valiant and wise: and yet O Frenchmen, they go about to defeat you of these two pearls of Europe, of these two eyes of your body, of these two lily flowers: but under what pretences? These Leaguers do see that these two Princes, and many other Lords which do stop the course of their enterprises do live in the same doctrine wherein they were first suckled up: to the end therefore to send discord post through out all parts of the realm, and to advance their ambition under the visard of common wealth, what do these strangers? They propound unto us the rooting our of heresy: they arm themselves with the beautiful titles of Protectors of Saint Peter, and pillars of the Church: but it is not enough to have the bare name, but to have it lawfully. In France therefore of a private authority to take upon them the protection of Christianity, is it not as much as to encroach upon the rights of the most Christian king? Is it a lawful vocation to be a title? Neither is it enough that the will be good, unless the means also to bring it to pass be good: otherwise, as an ancient man said, It is better to stay the execution of a good thing, then to execute it amisse● yea it is not possible (saith Saint Austen) for the counsel to be good, when the means are nought: at the least, that which is to be commended in the cause, is to be reproved in the effect. Saul was desirous to know the issue of his war with the Philistians: this desire of itself was not to be misliked; but the unlawful means that he used, made it to stink. These Lorraines, these great bucklers of the faith, would cut up the root of Heresy, this will is not bad, but what means do they use? The most Christian king having tried all 
The Guisians first pretence.  industry, all force, yea even to the abandoning of his life, to the hazard of battles, for the cutting off the exercise of all religions, except the Catholic Roman, in the end perceiving that the restoring of the Church is a work belonging to God and not to man, did imitate the good Physician, who having used all sharp remedies, and profiting nothing, hath recourse to the gentle: and to the end to set his estate free from those miseries wherewith it was oppressed, quenched the civil broils with an edict of pacification, not forcibly wrested from him, but grounded upon the only consideration of common commodity, and upholden by the solemn oath of his Majesty, the Queen his mother, the Princes of his blood, the chief, Officers of the crown, yea even by the Guizes, and ratified in all his courts of Parliament. This so solemn edict, this so authentical law ought not to have been plucked up without the like solennities wherewith it was planted: for as saith Ulpian: There is nothing so natural, as to dissolve a thing with the same means wherewith it was conjoined. And yet these frebrands, of their own private authority, have trod it under foot to the great contempt of the king, oppression of the people, and destruction of this estate, yea contrary to their own so solemn oath. Is it then a good beginning, to root out heresies with infringing faith? Must we be treacherous to our neighbours, to be true to God? Doth the true spirit of religion counsel us to violate public laws, to break oaths, and to fill a whole estate with murder and blood? But what colour do not the supposts of Satan find to set a countenance upon their actions? The counsel of Constance (say they) commandeth us to keep no faith with the enemies of the faith: by which decree, john Hus and Jerome of Prague were condemned to death, and the Cardinal S. Tulian, w● sent as legate into Hungary, to break the treaty of peace made with the Turks. Surely they have reason, as if we should confound two several questions, the one of law, the other of deed: If we must break promise with infidels, it is a point of law, for the decision whereof they allege the decree of this Council, the execution of two poor Priests, and the breach of peace with the Turk: as if God had not showed the error of that decree, by the tragical effects ensuing: for the blood of these two Doctors (who under Sigismundes' safeconduct came to that Council as to a school of salvation, the better to learn, if better they might be taught) did so cry for vengeance, that Zischa a mean Gentleman lift up his head against many Potentates, a handful of novices in matter of war, against many thousands of old beaten soldiers: whose courage surmounted the number. On the other side the king of Turks, being certified of the breach of peace, did put on Sigismundes' spurs so near, that having given him sundry notable checks, he finally built his great Empire with the spoils of Christendom. And who doth not in that Council note rather the cruel furies of Antichrist, and the bloody passion of Nicholas Abbot of Palerme, principal author of that decree, than a mild inspiration of the holy Ghost, and an Apostolical voice? Or what Christian Potentate liked of that resolution, when Luther was by the Pope's Bull denounced an Archhereticke, the Emperor Charles the fift in the year 1519. gave him his faith to come to the diet at Worms, where Eckius building upon the decree of Constance, would have bought his life with the price of the emperors faith, yea even at the same price as were john Husses, and Hieromes of Prague. But there was no Prince but detested that bloody mind, and Luther was sent safe home with a passport and strong hand.  
Since that time the Emperor Charles, having made a league with the Sultan of Persia, and king Francis the first with the Turk, laid in no better pledges then their own faith: as also josua when the Gabaonites had deceived him, would not nevertheless violate the agreement made between 
joshua 9  them, lest (saith he) the wrath of God that they had sworn should fall upon them. Upon this ground did Pope Gregory the ninth cut off all those generally from the Church, that willingly did break their oaths. These examples do stand with reason, for if it be lawful to parley with Infidels, it is also necessary to keep promise with them: otherwise it were the way to quench all hope of reconciliation: beside that it is a manifest decision, That those among whom there is any community of right, might mutually bind themselves one to an other. For this cause did the Romans always make a conscience of breaking their faith, with banished persons, and such as were convict of any notable crime, because by the saying of the Lawyer Martian. They do participate in the right 
L. Sunt quidam f. de paen. Bona fides ●. depos.  of Nations. And to whom Triphonius willeth we should restore the gage and pledge, in respect of the law of Nations and of Nature, which stretcheth even unto thieves, to whom we must keep promise as did Augustus to Crocotas, and Dagobert to the Bulgarian robbers that were scattered all over France: No less to such as have 
Cic. Philip. 12. Sallust. in Coniur. Catelinae.  betrayed their Country, with whom (as a Roman said) we may often enter parley, and keep promise inviolably, as Sallust noteth in the confederates of Catiline, who by decree of the Senate, were denounced public enemies. Otherwise we must promise nothing for, infringing our faith, which is the foundation of all agreements. For this cause would not Tiberius hear the Ambassadors of Tackfarin a Captain of certain thieves in Africa: and the Roman Senate would never grow to any accord with Spartacus, when he had already overcome them in three pitched fields, and was Captain over six thousand bonde-men. As also the Venetians by a decree of the ten published in the year 1506. forbade their Governors to give any safe-conduct to the banished men. Now as for us, we have not to do with men of such sort, either with such as have falsified their obedience due to the king. The spindle that we are to reel, is with frenchmen, with whom we have community of birth, of laws, of manners and customs, so that being so straightly bound together, as well by civil law, as by nature, and after the example of the ancient Romans, and other famous Princes the great masters of justice, and of public faith, we can not in their respect dispense with so religious a bond as an oath, notwithstanding the purport of the decree of Constance correspondent to this maxim of Lisander: We must deceive children with small bones, and men with cates. 
Plut. in the notable sai-ings of the Lacedæmonians.  Thus much for the question of law. Now to that of deed, whether those whom we term Protestants, be attainted of Heresy? We call those men Heretics, who with obstinate ambition do departed from the articles of our faith: all these articles do consist in the Apostles Creed, whereupon the Protestants do ground their belief: They do abandon the way of worldly honours: they walk in the contrary, even in the path of persecution and disgrace: they will not bring in man's fantasies to be rules of faith, but they promise to amend if they may be better instructed: be they then obstinate, ambitious, or heretics? It is to no purpose to allege the Council of Trent, unless we prove it to be lawful. The Council of Milan consisted of almost three hundred Bishops, 
Sosomenes lib. 4. ca 8. Euagrius li, 1, cap. 10.  who in a manner all condemned Athanasius that mirror of virtue, that lamp of the Church, of Heresy: In the second Ephesine Council was that holy Bishop Flavian and his adherentes banished, and the doctrine of Eutiches allowed.  
Will you then call such congregations lawful counsels? or rather the devils great days, the assistes of Antichrist, and the general estates of the enemies of the faith. Moreover, king Francis the first, knowing that the Council of Trent was framed only for the private profit of some, and not for the Christian common wealth, protested by the mouth of his Ambassador the Abbot of Bellozane, that neither he, neither any of his realm should be bound by the decrees of the same counsel. The like did Henry the second, upon the support of the authority of all his parliaments, who evermore withstood the decrees woven at Trent, as being of no force and abusive.  
But the K. of Navarre hath his more particular exceptions: he is a sovereign K. and one of the ancientest, yea the fourth in the degree of the kings of Christendom, yet was he not called to this council, & so consequently there can be no default in him, for as saith Harmogenian. He is a contumaxe, who having had three summons or one peremptory day 
L. Contumacia. F. de re judic.  doth not appear: so that the sentences form against him, & those of the religion have no ground: and as the Emperors Dioclesian, & Maximilian do say. The sentences denounced against the absent that have 
L. Ea quae C. quomodo & quando iud. etc.  not been lawfully summoned, can have no force in the matter judged. Yea in civil causes, the party absent is ordinarily restored: much rather then in criminal causes, considering that as the lawyer Paul saith, We ought 
L. divus F. de in Interest. L. Arrianus F. de act. & oblige. L. I. C. de requiere.  to be more inclined to absolve then to condemn. For this cause would not the Emperor Valerian permit the determining of the process of the party absent, being burdened with trespasses: but that an inventory being taken of his goods, he should be summoned to purge himself of such crimes, as he was charged withal. These circumstances not observed in the Tridentine counsel do make it void, as also the protestations of our kings, and the parliaments of this realm, take from it all strength & beauty: what reasons then have we to convince these protestants of heresy?  
Where they confess not the bishop of Rome to be universal, they say S. Gregory taught that it was a profane name, sacrilegious and a foregoing of 
Cap. 16.  Antichrist, for saith he, if he that is named universal stumbleth, the whole Church falleth. They do also allege the 3. Council of Carthage, wherein it was forbidden that any should be called Prince of bishops. 
Authent. Col. 2. tit. 4.  For as for that which we read in the Autenticals touching the high Priest, they greatly suspect it, and as Duarene noteth, that constitution is not to be seen in the greek Code. If they walk in darkness, if 
Duaren de sac. sand. Eccles. ministeriis. li. 1. cap. 10. August. Epist. 12.  they be blind in that mystery, which we call the holy sacrament of the altar, let us show them the light & condemn S. Austen of heresy, who against Adamantus the disciple of Manichee, saith thus: these three things The blood is water, This is my body, and The stone was Christ are spoken figuratively, by sign, and by signification. Let us reject that which Tertullian writeth against 
Tertu. lib. 4 Amb. lib. de sacram. Cap. 1.  Martion. jesus Christ having taken bread and broken it to his disciples, made it his body by saying, This is my body, that is to say, the sign of my body. Let us correct Ambrose: Like as in baptism thou hast received the similitude of death, even so hast thou also in this sacrament drunk the similitude of the precious blood of Christ.  
Where as they be so gross that they cannot comprehend purgatory, let us prove unto them, that the blood of our Lord is not sufficient to purge us from our sins: Let us plainly show them the name or doctrine of Purgatory in the scripture, and reject this place of Chrisostome. When we crave mercy, 
Chrisost. hom. 2. in 50. Psalm.  we do it to the end not to be examined of our sin, to the end not to be dealt with according to the rigour of justice: to the end all punishment may cease, for where there is mercy, there resteth no farther torture, examination, extremity or pain.  
For eating flesh in Lent they do it, say they, by the permission of Pope Eleutherius: by the authority 
Dist. 30. ca 51. quis.  of the Council of Bracare, holden in the year 619. and of the 13. Council of Tolete, which excommunicateth all such as forbid the eating of flesh at all times indifferently. Also by the example of the holy bishop of Cyrus Spiridon, who said, That he durst 
Hist. Tripart. lib. 1. cap. 10.  freely eat flesh in lent, because he was a Christian. In that they adorn not their temples with sundry pictures and images, It is, say they, because Athanasius thus crieth out against the Gentiles. Why come ye not to the knowledge of God by the true creatures, rather than by shadows and remembrances? It is because they credit the saying of Lactance Firmian: 
Lact. lib. 2. Instit. ca 1.  That God, whose spirit and power is dispersed all over, can not be absent, and therefore that the image is superfluous: It is because they be tied to this place of Augustine. 
August. de Cuit. lib. 4. cap. 9 & 13  The first bringers in of Images, took the fear of God out of the world, and augmented error. If their ministers marry, they do it because we say that marriage is a sacrament, and the ministers of the church ought to participate in every sacrament: they do it because S. Ambrose saith, Let no man be restrained, lest while we forbidden him a thing lawful, he falleth to unlawful: They do it, because in Euseb. they find that 
Euseb. li. 3. cap. 27.  S. Peter & Philip were married: They do it, because S. Austen saith, That he dare not prefer S. john's virginity 
Aug. tract. de Nupt. cap. 21.  before Abraham's marriage. They do it because Pope Pius said, that for good cause they had taken marriage from priests, but for greater cause they ought to restore it: They do it least men should have occasion, with 
Platina de vitis pontisicum.  Pope Alexander to say. That God hath taken away sons from Priests, but the devil hath given them Nephenes.  
As for other points in controversy, if we deeply and fully consider of them, we shall find that they consist rather in outward ceremonies of the church then in substance of doctrine, which is not cause sufficient to denounce them heretics: for heresy hath relation to the substantial points of faith, not to the outward ceremonies. But howsoever it be, by the order of the common and ancient decrees, they cannot be accounted heretics before they have been admonished by sundry synods & judged by a council: whereupon Pope Gregory the seventh, writeth to the Princes of Germany concerning the excommunication of the Emperor Henry the fourth: thus: We have sought to bring him to repentance, but to 
Abbas usperg. in Hen. 4.  our fair songs he hath lent the adders ear. Also Pope Innocent the third, speaking of heretics, saith, If a bishop with his chapter have condemned any man of heresy, let him be accursed. He must therefore be judged before he be condemned, and heard before he be 
L. divus. F. de in Integ. restit. Solomenes lib. 1. ca 16.  judged: otherwise the Lawyer Marcellus showeth that the party absent is to be restored against the sentence pronounced in the prejudice of his reasons not alleged. Likewise the Emperor Constantine for the cutting off of the heresy of Arrius a priest 
evag. lib. 2. cap. 2.  of Alexandria, called the first council of Nice, where he gave day of assignation to the Arrians: Martian for abolishing the error of Eutiches called the fourth council at Chalcedon. Theodosius the 2. 
evag. lib. 1 cap. 3. & 4.  assembled the 3. at Ephesus against the heresy of Nestorius. Gratian and Theodose Emperors, for rooting out the doctrine of Macedonius, called the second at Constantinople. And yet do we bind the Popes to mount Caucasus, we make them to turn Ixion's wheel, & roll Sisyphus stone, when we call for a council: so that the K. of the Romans, and K. Lewis the 12. in the year 1510. could obtain none at the hands of Pope julius the 2. Also when Charles the 5. being at Bologne, by his Chancellor ptopounded a general assembly of all Christian Bishops, Pope Clement answered him in bitter words, that it needed not, sith that all new opinions were condemned by the ancient counsels: aswell might he have said that the ancient counsels were superfluous, considering that the holy Ghost in his word condemneth all heresies. But the chief purpose of counsels tendeth to call heretics to repentance, & to pray to God in them to fulfil the prophecy of ezechiel: I will 
Ezech. 11.  give them a new heart to walk in my commandments. As it fell out in the time of the emperor Theodosius, who by means of a council that he gathered together at Constantinople, reduced to the knowledge of the truth an infinite number whom the heresies of Arrius, Novatus & Macedonius had seduced. It is not therefore enough to say that the ancient counsels condemn heresies, but we must have new, to convert heretics: 
Aug. de fide catholica.  otherwise, as saith S. August. He erreth in faith, that calleth not heretics from error. So we find in the decrees that the ancients celebrated the counsels from 5. years to 5. & from 10. years to 10. since the universal crown of basil. Neither is it sufficient to hold one council for the reclaiming of heretics to the union of the church, but for so godly a work they should not spare for two or three. Saint Ambrose was not content that the Arrians had sundry times been convict of heresy: but that seeing them spring up again in France and Italy, in an assembly of Bishops at Aquilee, he disputed against Palladinus, who was infected with the same heresy. And that wise Emperor Theodosius, notwithstanding the Nicene council, wherein the Arrians, novatians, and Macedonians had been condemned, caused them to be called to the general assembly at Constantinople. According to these examples we cannot find any speedier way to prevent the pretended heresy of the Protestants, then by calling a council: they crave it, let them have it: they would lay down their reasons, let them be heard: they would learn, let them be taught: they seek light, let them have it: yea, if they stand in doubt, let them be assured: if they be not assured, let us go to them, let us dispute, let us endeavour to take away the causes of their division. Hereof are we not without examples, for when the Donatists infected Africa with their wicked doctrine, and that they practised all kinds of cruelty against the Catholics, a great number of Christian Bishops assembled together, and besought them to grant them time and place to dispute, and through a friendly conference to root out their division: then if the Protestants, being urged to agreement, do nourish debate: if they shut their eyes against the light, then let the church use her authority and power: but if ourselves in am of instructing do destroy: if in am of mitigating we do make more eager: if for health we minister death: if in the chair of justice, clemency, and truth, we preach murder, blood, and slaughters, are not ourselves the fire-boxes of sedition, the trumpets of Satan, the soldiers of Antichrist, and the enemies of the Catholic church? And yet these firebrands, without other order of law, would have us to condemn the Protestants for heretics, and even at the first to begin against them with treason, disloyalty, and perjury: and of the father of France they seek to make an executioner of Frenchmen: of our most merciful king, a bloody tyrant, a Phalaris, a Busiris, who should be blind at the tears, deaf at the lamentations, and inexorable at the most humble petitions of his obedient and afflicted subjects. Wherein therefore do not these mad beasts resemble the cursed Bertaire, who possessing the will of his master king Thierry, dissuaded him from yielding to the prayers, lamentations, and tears of the poor Frenchmen, who, as men born to bear the blame, or thrust forward with the calamity of the time, were banished out of their country? But God, whose help, as a matter worthy his mercy and our hope, we do crave, will raise up some Pippins against these infamous Bertaires. In the mean time, ye Frenchmen, let us awake, and let us not have eyes to be blind, or veins and sinews to be filled with lethargy, neither let us account the bloody murderers of Frenchmen to be partakers of the French church. If not, of necessity, we must by arms set to the last help for this quarrel for religion, who may better then my lords the Princes of the blood, that yet are not departed out of the bosom of the catholic church? who rather than these noble & religious children of S. Lewis, whose faith never came in suspect? who may, I say, better than they, take in hand the thunder, the lightning, & the three tined fork, to disperse all heresies? Next to these Princes, what surer pillar, what stronger buckler can our church have, than that wise Fabius, that notable Scipio, the L. Marshal of Montmorency? And yet have none of these been so much as called to this league: for although they be Catholics, yet be they not good Catholics after the manner of the leaguers, that is, ambitious, treacherous, cruel & bloody: notwithstanding they be even thunderbolts in war, yet are they no good warriors as the world goeth, I mean, enemies to peace, blinded with ambition, starved after goods, thirsty after blood & void of all humanity. For whilst the Pope auctoriseth the Guisians, & giveth the spoil of the K. of Navarre & Prince of Conde's goods, he practiseth not the commandment of jesus Christ: Go forth and 
Math. 10.  preach, the kingdom of God is at hand. It is an other lesson then S. Paul teacheth, saying: The armours of our 
1. Cor. 10.  warfare are not carnal, but mighty in the Lord, to bring all knowledge to the obedience of Christ. He followeth 
Hier. ad nepotem.  not S. Hieromes precepts, Let the bishops be ministers, not masters: for truth cannot be joined with force. The persecuted to follow Christ, the persecutor Antichrist. He is deaf to hear the doctrine of Lactance: Religion 
Lactance instit. lib. 5. cap. 20.  must be defended, not by slaying, but by offering to be slain, not by cruelty, but by courtesy, not by wickedness, but by faith. He giveth place to the complaints of Hilary: 
Hilar. epist. ad Const.  What meaneth this (saith he) that the Priests by prisons are forced to fear God? that the people being bound are committed to ward among the chained? and the Virgins stripped naked to suffer pain? Finally, he taketh an other course than God teacheth in the 3. of jeremy, speaking unto him: Hast thou not seen that this rebel Israel hath done? she hath gone a whoring into every high mountain, & into every green tree: Go therefore & cry out these words toward the North, Return Israel, thou disobedient, and I will not let my wrath fall upon thee. He willeth not to rob, to spoil and sack, to f●ll all with murder and blood, as the Pope doth, yea even in matter where there is but prevention, not sentence: but accusation, not proof. To allege that the King of Navarre and Prince of Condé, in the year 1572. being brought home into the bosom of our church, do seem in their letters to the Pope, dated at Paris the third of October, to confess that before they had been detained in the snare of error, is as much as to be blind in the circumstances of the time and place: they were at Paris amongst their enemies, who barked at their lives, and were died red in the blood of their servants, yea even in the time that the Frenchman was the cruel butcher & bloody murderer of Frenchmen: that the father cut his son's throat, that the mother slew the daughter, that the brother dispatched the sister, one neighbour killed another, cruelty triumphed over clemency, and rage over pity: who then at such a time with a trembling hand would not have written whatsoever his enemies had indited? But in such cases the laws of the Emperors, and edicts of the ancient Praetors do declare all such actions none, as if they had not been: for that is not called consent that we force him to do that is deprived of his power: for this cause doth Pope Alexander the 3. will 
Cap. 1. ext. de his quae unmet. Abbas. Vsperg. in Hen. 5.  those men, that for fear of death are become Monks to ●ast their weed into the nettles, & to marry. And Paschal the 2. having been forced the right of investiture of benefices to the Emperor Hen. the 5. called a council at Lateran, where he made void all that by force he had been compelled to do. Likewise, 
Platina de vitis Pont.  the doings of Silla were denounced to be tyranny, because that he having a mighty army within the walls of Rome, established himself Dictator, as also did Caesar by the law Servia. So that the king of Navarre and Prince of Condé may justly disallow the declaration contained in their letters, sith that the more force that was used, the less will they had. At all adventures, from whence doth the Pope take this authority to excommunicate the goods. Kings (saith Christ) have dominion over the nations, but it 
Math. 20.  shall not be so among you: Feed (saith S. Peter) the flock of Christ, not as having dominion over their heritage, but so as you may be an example to the flock. justinian 
Epist. 1. c. 5 Nou. 81.  also writing to Epiphanius, divideth the ministery from the Lordship, and in an other place forbiddeth the Priests to take upon them the titles of Lords, but of spiritual fathers. Yea bald, one of the bucklers of the Romish Priest, exalting his power, is still forced to put in this bridle, In spiritual cases: and S. Bernard speaking to Pope Eugenius, saith: It is evident that the Apostles are forbidden all Lordship: how therefore darest thou usurp the title of an Apostle in playing the Lord, or play the Lord while thou sittest in the Apostolic sea? In old time also the Priests judged of heresies, but not of the punishment of heretics: which was the reason that S. Paul was brought before Festus 
Act. 25. Theod. lib. 1. cap. 20. Tit. de heret. c. 1 lib. 1. De sum. trinit. L. Placet de sacro Eccles. c.  the Emperor's Lieutenant: that Constantine forebad the Bishops of Nicomedia from showing any favour to Eusebius and Theognis: that Honorius appointed the Provost Marcellus to be a judge for the Catholics against the Donatists: and that the Emperors Constantine, Gratian, Theodosius, & justinian, did ordain grievous punishments for heretics. Yea in the old time so far were the sacrificers and Priests from meddling with secular jurisdiction, or encroaching upon the authority of kings, that in whatsoever concerned priestly discipline, they bowed to them: Solomon deposed Abiathar the high 
1. King. 2. 1. Chro. 29  Priest, and placed Sadoc in his room: Ezechias reform the order of Levites, and brought them unto their first purity: judas Machabeus deposed the 
1. Macab. 4 Livius lib. 1. dec. 1.  wicked Priests of the law: and Numa, saith Livy, delivered in writing, and signed a note unto the high Priest, with what cattle, upon what days, & in what temples they should offer sacrifice, & from whence they should have the money to furnish such expenses. Afterward by the law of the twelve tables the whole depended upon the will of the Senate, who by that authority in the Consulship of P. Cornelius Lentulus, and M. Bebius Pamphilus, did openly burn the books of Numa, as being repugnant to their religion: the like also did Constantine with the 
Niceph. lib ●. ●. 18  books of Arrius: for from time to time the power of holding counsels, and ordering the churches, depended upon the Emperors, as we may gather by the decrees of Constantine, Gratian and Honorius, written in the first Code of justinian, who said, That he had no less care of religion then of his own life: and of whom we read 17. constitutions concerning ecclesiastical discipline. As also our kings upon the like argument have builded many goodly decrees, namely Charlemagne, and Charles the 7. who the 13. of july 1438. published the Pragmatical sanction at Paris: & indeed, as saith Isidore, Emperors and Kings have the first degree in the Church, whose nurses they are, according as Esay saith chap. 49. which was the cause that in old time they had the greatest functions in the Church, as commanding of fasts and calling of counsels, etc. That Boniface the 1. besought the Emperor Honorius to ordain that they might lawfully proceed to the election of the Popes of Rome: that Pelagius the 1. swore in the hands of Ruffian, Childebert K. of France his ambassador: that Leo the 4. protested obedience unto the laws of Lothair, and that Gregory entitleth himself the unworthy servant of Maurice.  
But since the Popes got a taste of worldly affairs, they have endeavoured to satisfy themselves at the costs of the authority of Kings and Emperors, whom, notwithstanding that according to S. Paul, every soul ought to be subject to them, they have gone about to bring in subjection to the cross of Rome, whereto their enterprises have had so good success, that they have made the kings of England, Arragon, Naples, Sicill, jerusalem, Poland, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Canaries tributaries to the Pope: whereupon the Clergy themselves, considering that they had girded too far into temporal jurisdiction, & that oftentimes their ambition opened the gate into sundry schisms, were forced to bridle them, and the Emperors to restrain their insolences, as the Patricians were wont to do at Rome, who, as witnesseth Livy, Thought good that the Salians and Flamines, 
livi. lib. 4.  should without farther power and authority tend to their sacrifices only. Thus in the year 1046. the christian bishops seeing the wound which the church received through the ambition of Benet the ninth, 
Abb. Vrsp. in Hen. 3.  Silvester the 3. and Gregory the sixth, Antipopes, did canonically depose them all in a synod held at Rome, being supported with the authority of the Emperor Henry the third. Afterward anno 1076. a council was holden at Worms, wherein with the consent of all the German Bishops, except the Saxons, Gregory the seventh, called Hildebrand, was excommunicated as one that breathed nothing but tyranny, 
Abb. Vrsperg. in Hen. 4.  as appeareth by a letter which the council wrote unto him in these terms: Because thou through disloyalty and perjury hast opened the gate of honour: that the Church of God being tormented with thy new inventions, as with a vehement storm, fleeteth in danger: and that thy life is tainted with many villainies: we shake off the yoke of obedience, that hitherto we have lent thee, and as openly thou givest out that thou accountest none of us to be bishops, so do not we take thee to be Apostolical. Besides this Council, the Emperor Henry the fourth, summoned another at Bresse, anno 1080. wherein Gregory the seventh, was again deposed and Wigibert Archbishop of Ravenna, substituted in his place: The same Emperor also anno 1083. took Rome, and Gregory fled to Salerne, 
Platina in vitis Pontif.  where he died. Shortly after, namely, anno 1111. the Emperor Henry the fift, seeing that Pope Paschal the second sought to intrude upon the ancient rights of the Empire, concerning the investiture and collation of benefices, kept him prisoner until he had by declaration confessed that he had gone farther than he ought. Also by the advice of the German bishops, Philip the son of Fredrick Barbarossa raised an army to bridle Pope Innocent the third, who had wrongfully excommunicated him, and who ordinarily used to say, that either Innocent should pluck the royal diadem▪ from Philip, or Philip the 
Abb. Vrsp. in Philip.  Apostolical mitre from Innocent. But in the end all was appeased by the Pope's nephews marriage with the Emperor's daughter. In process of time, Frederick the second, to whom the Church was much bound, as well for raising an army anno 1222. against the Saracens in Sicill, Calabria and Poville, as also 
Abb. Vrsp. in Fred. 2.  for going about the conquest of the holy land, in anno 1228. was thrice by Pope Gregory the ninth, excommunicate, viz. in the years 1223. 1237. 1238. So as he by the counsel of the German Prelates fell upon Italy, seized upon Verona, spoiled the territories of Padua: in whose time began the factions of Guelphs and Gibelines. Again, about the 
Vit. P●d.  year 1323. jews of Bavier, against whom pope john the 22. had opposed Fredrick of Ostrich, did by the advice of the Romans, elect a new pope called Peter of Cerberie, whom he named Nicholas the fift, who immediately created new cardinals, and burned Pope john in picture, in the presence of the Emperor, who moreover in the year 1336. assembled a diet at Francfort, wherein by the decree of the Princes of the Empire, Pope john's proceed and excommunications were declared void and of no force. In the year 1415. john the three and twentieth flying from the Council of Constance, by the help of Frederick Duke of Ostrich, and the Archbishop of Mayence, was by the authority of the Council and of the Emperor 
Du Tillet.  Sigismond deposed, together with Gregory the twelft, and Benedict the thirteenth Antipopes: to whom in November 1417. was Surrogate Ottho, Cardinal of Columna, afterward called Martin the fift.  
These Popish insolences had no better entertainment in France then in Germany: for in the year 1198. when this realm was by the Council of Diion accursed, because the king Philip Augustus, rejecting Engelberge sister to Cain king of Denmark, had married Anne daughter to the D. of Moravia, the king appealed to his swords point, and sharply punished those that were assistant at that Council: so that the Pope perceiving that so great a Monarch would not be handled without a snafle, endeavoured to appease him, and in the year 1201. called a Council at Soissons, where by orderly exhortations for bishops, the king took again his wife Engelberge. But Philippe the fair proceeded farther: for at that time when Pope Boniface the eight had accursed the realm, and abandoned the same as a pray to the Emperor Albert of Ostrich, in the presence of his princes and council, he caused the Bull to be burned, and sent into Italy Noguarel with an army, & a decree of seizure of body, by virtue whereof he took the Pope prisoner. Also jews the twelfth, whose greatness the Priest of Rome had often bayed at, but never could bite, perceiving that julius the second followed the train of his predecessors insolences, & that having excommunicated him & his subjects, he stirred up the Englishmen, Germans & Spaniards against him, did openly by a decree of his Parliament, rend the Bull of introduction, and imprison the bringers thereof: and then by the advise of the French Bishops, assembled at Tours, about the year 1511. did resolve, by arms to withstand the Pope's tyranny, who since from time to time hath still practised some mischief against France, and as Martin du Bellay in the second book of his remembrances testifieth, Pope Leo hearing that the Frenchmen under the conduct of the Lord of Lautree, had lost Millanine, anno 1521. conceived such joy thereof, that he died suddenly. Oh glorious death of one of the Apostles successors! O the holy father, who doth not only delight in the mischief that he committeth, but also doth even bathe himself in that harm that he doth not! Since that this Popish ambition hath of overflowed all Christendom, that the Church is at this present utterly disfigured: witness the kingdoms of England, Scotland, Denmark, and Sueden, the seculars of the holy Empire, a great part of Poland and Boheme, the chief Cantons of the Switzers, and many great towns and commonalties of Germany that have played bankrupt with the catholic romish religion: what thinkest thou, O thou Romish priest, how goest thou to wreck, and how corrupt is thy life! Is thy holy water now turned to blood? Hast thou no other holy water stock than poor France, rend in pieces with so many mischiefs? Is the knife the holy water sprinkle? Be the harquebuses S. peter's keys? Is thy courtesy cruelty? and thy peace war? dost thou sally for to heal? dost thou scatter to gather together again? dost thou provoke, to appease? and pull down, for to build again? My kingdom is not of this world, saith Christ, and yet thou wilt lift up thy cross above sceptres, and thy mitre over diadems. Nourish (saith he) peace and charity, and thou sendest thy bulls post abroad to sow debate among those that be at one! He showeth thee the heavens, but thou beholdest the earth: he giveth thee the charge over souls, but thou wilt master the body. Thou hast been hurt, and yet seekest to refresh thy wound. For if any heresy springeth up in the world, thou shouldest deal with the mind, not with the goods, neither shouldest thou fight with knives, but with reason. If we use not to apply to the body the medicines fit for the soul, why shouldest thou apply to the soul those that appertain to the body: like disease, like medicine: like wound, like ointment: like occasion, like remedy. To bodily wounds, belong bodily medicines: and to spiritual diseases, spiritual remedies. To seek therefore by force to root out heresies, is to cure the soul by the body: or rather to slay and not to heal: to vex, not to comfort: by darkness to show light, and by cruelty to teach courtesy. If thou wilt not destroy, thou must use instruction: to instruct, thou must subvert; to subvert, thou must convince, and to convince reason is necessary. Is it reason to pass to condemnation before proof? to commit the stews to the reformation of harlots, and the execution of sentence to the party adjudged?  
To the general reasons of this discourse the king of Nau. and prince of Conde do add particulat exceptions. As that by decree of Charles the 6. published anno. 1369. it was forbidden to excommunicate any town, commonalty, body or college of this realm: besides that by the privileges of the lily the Pope can not excommunicate either the k● or his subjects: so that Clement the 5. by his bull made void the interdiction of Boniface the 8. against Philip the fair, & declared this realm exempt from the Pope's power, & so was accounted & adjudged by Alexander the 4. Grogory the 8. 9 10. 11. Clement the 4. Vrban the 5. & Benedict the 12. Also in the year 1488. the kings proctor appealed as of abuse, from the excommunication that the Pope had cast upon the inhabitants of Gaunt, vassals to the crown of France. And the court of Parliament by a decree of the 27. of june 1526. and an other of the last of january, 1552. declared the clause by the Apostolic authority, inserted into the Pope's rescriptes, and sent into France to be void and abusive. Again when in March, 1563. the Romish inquisition had cited the Queen of Navarre personally to appear before the Pope, within 6. months under pain of confiscation of goods, king Charles the 9 thinking that this adiournment touched his honour and the privileges of his realm, told the Pope's Nuntio, that he would chastise the authors of that enterprise. As in the like case did jews the young 1143. deal with Tibault Earl of Champagne, who had procured Raoul Earl of Vermandois, to be censured. Hereunto do I add with Du 
Du Tillet cap. of the Peer.  Tillet bishop of Meaux, that we ought not to suffer a peer to be excommunicate, because we are to be conversant with him about the kings counsels, who in case he had not whereof to live, aught to find him. Upon such reasons, examples and privileges, do the king of Navarre, & prince of Conde depend: and as true Frenchmen, make a shield against the enemies of France, who for preparing the way to their ambition with the price of the poor people, do study to corrupt those goodly privileges, using the priest of Rome, as the minister of their fury: who being filled with rashnosse have hatched 
The Guizians second pretence.  all the tragedies at this day played in France, yea even so far as to seek to make the king to nominate a successor to the Crown. In old time the Dictator Fabius Buteo, endeavouring to bring into order, that which time and necessity had disordered, said that he would not depose out of the Senate any of those whom the Censors C. Flaminius 
Livius li. 3. dec. 3.  and L. Aemilius had established. Who can then believe that the king would deprive from the right of the realm, those that are called not by the Censors, but by the law, which is the ●●le of Censure? I mean that grounded law of France, by virtue whereof the successor is seized in a manner during his predecessors life, and without other investiture, is half possessioner: whereof groweth this proverb, In France the king never dieth. Besides, to corrupt those laws whereby he reigneth after his predecessors, even since the beginning of this Monarchy, were as much as to hate himself: for although we live under a sovereign, whose hands can not be bound, yet must we say with L. Valerius against the Oppian law. There be laws that 
Livius li. 4. dec. 4.  be inviolable, in respect of the perpetual profit of the common wealth, and there be others necessary for a time only: those do never die, but these are mortal according to the diversity of occurrences. So that these things thus by nature distinguished, we place first the laws Royal, and such as concern the state of the realm, because they be annexed and united to the crown, as is this law of succession, to the prejudice whereof the king can not elect any other successor then whom the same doth appoint him, and in this case we may say that which Pacatius said to the Emperor Theodosius. That only is lawful for thee to do, 
Bartol. in li. prohibere. Plane f. quod fiant clam.  that the laws do permit, and no otherwise, for diverse considerations.  
First that that is observed in part, must take place in all. But the kings do hold it for a general rule, that the public demesnes are by nature holy, sacred, and inalienable. For that cause was the town of Zikeleg that Achis gave to David never alienated. And the kings of England, France, Spain, and Polande, do swear never to dismember their demesnes: yea the king of England in his treaty with the Pope and Potentates of Italy added this clause: That they should give no part of the demesnes of France, for the delivery of king Frances. The reason is, because the domains of the Crown is a public valuation in respect of the prosperity thereof, the profit whereof is made private and particular to the king that reigneth only so long as he liveth. This caused the Emperor Pertinax to raze his name that was graven in demainiall inheritances: that Antonine the pitiful would not dwell but upon his own inheritance: and that jews the 8. chose rather to sell his own movables & jewels for the satisfying of his legacies, then to touch the demains: which considering the other rights of the common wealth, can be termed but a part thereof: so that if the king can not alienate, much less may he pass away his kingdom and subjects from one stock to an other.  
The second consideration shall be taken of the example of tutors, who as witnesseth Aulus Gellius. lib. 5. cap. 9 could not pass away their pupils into other men's power, neither kings their subjects, considering that they are only tutors to the people, to whose general benefit their eyes ought to be more open than to their own particular commodities: and by the saying of an ancient man. Even as tutorshippe, so the charge of 
Cicer. lib. 1 Offic.  the common wealth hath more regard to the profit of the Governors then of the governed. So that if the king being led by evil counsel, transferreth his realm, the fittest to succeed may frustrate whatsoever hath been done to his prejudice: which was put in practice by Charles the 7. against Henry the 5 king of France and England, who in respect of his marriage with Lady Katherine of France, daughter to Charles the 6. was invested in this realm, as appeareth by the agreement made the 21. of May 1420 Moreover, although in certain cases our laws do permit the father to disinherit his son, yet doth this permission take no place in our kings, as being heirs not to them, but to the crown: for by law the heir is bound to all hereditary actions, whether active or passive, because as saith the lawyer 
L. Non minus ff. de haered. Instit.  Caius, the inheritance representeth the person of the deceased. And yet we hold that the king is not bound to the private agreements and oaths of his predecessors: for when Philip the fair, for the concluding of the marriage of his eldest son jews Hutin with Margaret of Burgundy in February 1299 agreed that in case jews Hutin deceased before he came to the crown of France, leaving any heirs male, every younger brother should have 20000. franks of rent, the said agreement bond not his successor. Likewise when Charles the fift in October 1374. decreed that his second son jews of France should have for his maintenance 12000. franks of rent with the title of Earl, and 40000. paid him at one payment, this decree bound none but himself. Also king jews the 12. answered those that demanded the artillery that had been lent to his predecessor Charles the 8. that he was not his heir to pay his debts. And king Frances the 2. in the year 1559. januarie 19 writ thus to the Lords of the league. Although we be not bound to the payment of our most honourable late lord and father's debts, for that we take not this crown in title of his heir, but by the law and custom generally observed in this realm ever since the first institution thereof, yet wishing to discharge our said Lord and father's conscience, we are determined to pay so many as we shall find justly to be dew, etc. Thus, sith the crown cometh not by fatherly succession, but by the law of the realm, the king can not take it from him, to whom the law giveth it. Furthermore we are in far better condition, than the franchized Romans, who by the constitution of the Emperors Dioclesian and Maximian might choose to inherit where it pleased them, and the heir (as saith Pomponius) that was charged to set them free might not without their own consent discharge themselves by an other: much less than should any against our wills, make us to bow our necks under the power of others then those that are appointed us by succession, which is of greater force than the last will of a testator. And to say that the king of Navarre by reason of his religion can not be sacred, or receive the oil, observed according to custom by the Guizians saying ever since Clovis the 1. & so consequently may not be k. of France, is to go about to make the accessary principal, & of the accident the essence: for the sacring of a king is no part of the essence, or else they might serve for a difference in the definition of a king: & even as the definition & thing defined aught to have relation, so should it follow that he that were anointed and sacred should be king, and every king should be anointed and sacred. Which notwithstanding throughout the whole line of the Meroving ans the Chronicles make no mention of sacring or oil. Clovis the first, by the testimony of Gregory of Tours, after his baptism, was crowned and carried about the camp upon a Target: likewise Sigebert in steed of Chilpericke that was besieged at Tournay. And according to Aimoinus, certain Dukes having conspired against the kings Gontran and Childebert, did at Brive la galliard make Gondevault their king with like ceremonies which were common to other Nations. For Brinion was made Duke by the Kennemer lands, as saith Tacitus: Valentinian the first, and Pliocas by the Roman army as saith Nicephorus, and Hipatius, as saith Cassiodore. Who then seethe not that the enemies pretended reasons are but folly accompanied with deceit? Hereto I will add, that at the request of these Guizians, this realm, should be made elective, also besides the law & reasons aforesaid, the custom should be violated: sith that by the testimony of Agathius a greek writer, who lived in the year 400. and of Cedrenius, who lived in the time of Philip the first, king of France, the franks having chosen the best form of common wealth, had no king but by successive law. But what stone do those men let lie still, that yaune after principalities? The house of Bourbon, say these firebrands, are at this day passed the tenth degree of agnation from the Royal house, and therefore by the civil law excluded from succession. Mark here you French men, how this young Alexander, this beautiful branch of S. jews, Henry K. of Navarre is not alone the mark that the wretched purposes of these strangers aim at, but also all the Princes of the house of Bourbon, generally are barked at. But in what sort? with some breach still in the realm which holdeth of none but God & the sword. They here oppose against us the laws of the Romans: and we say they are a-bodie without a soul, saving so far as they take life at the authority of our kings, as appeareth by the privileges granted to the university of Orleans, in the year 
Du Tillet in his collection of the kings of France cap. titres & grand.  1312. by Philip the fair, and the decree dated the 15. of july 1351. wherein it was said that the king might derogate from the Civil law: which also Philip of Valois put in practice in the two wills that he made anno 1347. and in his donation to the Queen anno 1330. the 21. of November. To cut them therefore off short: this realm is not hereditary, but in the family: and the succession of our kings is not ruled by a written law, but by custom, & her grounded laws, which do transport the crown to the next of the blood royal descending from the male, yea were he in the thousand degree. And yet notwithstanding all these reasons, and nothing considering 
livi. lib. 2, Dec. 3.  the saying of Fabius Max. we may oftentimes make right sick, but kill it we cannot: the Guisians mean to pluck away the crown from those whom nature hath made kings, yea even to bring the king to such pass that he must be forced to nominate to them a successor. Although, as saith the wise man, The height of the heavens, the depth of the earth, and the hearts of kings ought not to be sounded. The Council also 
Prou. 25.  of Tolete excommunicateth all those that inquire who shall reign over them after him that ruleth the sceptre: for besides a vicious curiosity, we may still suspect some practice against the king. And in deed when in the year 1566. in the Parliament of England, the estates solicited the Queen to nominate to them a successor to her crown, she answered them, that they digged her grave before she were dead: at the least she might say that they endeavoured to abase her authority: for as said Pompee, Men worship the sun at her rising, rather than at her setting. But to what purpose is this naming of a successor? The Egyptians surnamed all their king's Pyramid, which signifieth the self-same thing, because we cannot term any thing good in nature that is not proportioned in all parts. Who then 
Arist. l. 7. Polit.  dare be so bold as to say, that our king being a man is none, either that he is unable to engender? If by nature the time of generation endeth not before 60. years, or as some say before 70. shall we say that a lusty Prince, even in the flower of his age is past hope of issue: also if, as Seneca saith, Every light belief is a foolish document, why should we persuade ourselves that our king is barren? but let us proceed to that that goeth yet nearer.  
The Guysians by vow and profession ancient enemies to the blood royal of France, weening to have brought his majesty to have a taste in practising the counsel that Tarquin the proud gave his son Sextus, which was to slay all the chief lords of the Gabiens, and thinking it an easy matter to break an eel with their knee, and to worry the Princes of the blood, who cannot be so much as shaken without the total destruction of this estate, do by their last propositions study to bring all the estates of this realm out of taste with their duty, whereto nature and the law of God doth bind them, and under the kings support to oppress the Princes of the blood, and by the subjects revolt to trip away the king's leg. This appeareth evidently: for in propounding 
The Guyses third pretence.  to re-establish the Church in her liberties and and ancient privileges, seek they notto bring in the clergy to play 'gainst his majesty?  
Hath the church lost her prerogatives? Who but he that hath authority hath taken them away? or who hath authority but the K. only? But if, as a certain Emperor said, we ought not to have any sinister opinion of our Princes, who shall say that our king hath willed more than he ought, or that he hath not ruled his power with reason? It is, said Pliny to the Emperor trajan, the highest degree of happiness to be able to do what a man will, and of greatness to will that which a man may. Now this power is not measured according to man's affections, but by the foot rule of virtue and laws. Herein do we know tyrants from kings, for tyrants will have their affections serve for laws, and kings have no other affections but laws: & yet, as if his majesty had contrary to all reason ravished from the church her ancient liberties, these Guysards will restore them to her again. But what do these muhrooms of a night's growth call ancient? In old time according to the decrees of the of Antioch, and since by the ordinances of Charlemagne, the Election of bishops consisted in the approbation 
Theod. li. 14 cap. 18.  of the people, without whose advow, the universal Council of Constantinople would not ordain Nestorius' bishop: & when Athanase declared Peter his successor, the people, saith Theodoret, did allow him. Yea even by the decree of Pope Nicholas. The election of Popes made by the Cardinals ought to be ratified by the people. In old time the Pope was no Prince of Priests, neither was precedent in counsels, where the order of the Hierarchy ought strictly to be observed: In the Council of Nice, Athanasius was present, In the second of Ephesus, Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria. In the fifth of Constantinople, Menas Patriarch of the same place: At Carthage, Aurelius Archbishop of the town: and S. Cyprian speaking of the bishop of Rome, calleth him but brother or companion. In old time the Guysards were no body, & of late of petty companions they are grown up at the cost of the crucifix: Restore things then to their first estate, and ye make a breach in the Pope's authority, and the Guysards must lose their grace: yet do they speak of re-establishing the Church in her ancient privileges! but from whence have they this authority? from their ambition. By what means? by sucking the goods of the Church, not for the advancement of the clergy, but to smooth the way to their pernicious practices: like as those factious persons, Robert Earl of Angiers, and his brother Hugh, who seeking to wrest the sceptre out of the havees of Charles the simple, hired their men with Church goods. But these men will keep her. O what a good keeper of the sheep is the wolf! How will they keep her? with arms: as if they might levy arms without the Prince's commandment: who is the dispenser of the same? Read over the laws, you shall find that 
L. unica. c. ut ar. usus etc. Taboeth in para. Reg.  the enemies Valens and Valentinian, do expressly forbid the raising of any banner without their authority: Examine the regal laws, and you shall find that it is one point of majesty to appoint war: look into reason, there shall you know that the taking of arms which toucheth the commonwealth, should not be practised by any particular person: peruse the histories, there shall you see that the estates of the Athenian people denounced war, as they did against the Siracusians, Megarians, and the kings of Macedon: you shall find that the Aetolians forebad 
Livius lib. 31.  the concluding of any thing concerning war, except in Panaetolio & Pylacio consilio: also that at Rome it lay in the people to denounce, as they did against Mithridates by the law Manilia: against Philip the second king of Macedon, by the law Sulpitia: against the Pirates, by the law Gabinia. And because Caesar 
Plut. in Cat.  warred in France without the people's commandment, Cato was of opinion, that the army should be revoked, and Caesar delivered to the enemies. Yea, the Senate seeking to encroach that authority unto themselves, was still withstood by the Tribunes. There was (saith Livy) debate touching the resolution, 
Livy lib. 4.  whether war should be denounced by the commandment of the people, or whether the decrees of the Senate should suffice. The Tribunes had the upper hand: as also it fell out when the second Punic war was motioned: also when they were to fight against the Hernicques, Vestins, Palepolitains, Prenestines, & Eques. Likewise when the Tarentines denounced war to the Romans. The Senate 
Plut. in Pyrr.  (saith Plutarch) gave the advise, and the people of Tarent granted the precept. What laws then, what right, what reason, what examples do authorize, or rather do not condemn the weapons of these perturbers, who of their own authority have kindled the fire of an unjust, cruel, and bloody war? And shall these be the bucklers of the faith, and pillars of the church? no, but the devils sergeants, & scourges of Antichrist: for war, murder, and cruelty are no marks of a Christian, who (as saith Socrates the Scholast. lib. 7. cap. 15. speaking of the murder of Hipatie) ought to have his hands clean from blood. And according to an old saying, We must rather debate our right with reason, then with arms. Which was the cause, that the Athenians and Mitelenians those Periander for an arbitrator in their controversies for a certain territory: that the Acheans remitted their quarrel with the Argives to the judgement of the Mantineans: & that the Romans before they took arms against Hannibal, solicited him to raise his siege before Sagunt. Yea, in old time, when necessity forced them to the taking of arms, it was not done without soothsaying, and for the most part they asked the counsel of Oracles: so that P. Claudius and L. junius being Consuls, they were by the decree of the people condemned, for sailing away without soothsaying: as was also Gabinius, for leading an army into Egypt, contrary to the tenor of the Sibyls books: and shall the murderers of the commonwealth, robbing even before the magistrates face, be accounted the pillars of the Church? men that have not put on armour, but to the end to increase their meanness, to fish in troubled water, to triumph upon the Frenchmens reproach, shall they be named the protectors of Saint Peter?  
What benefit, my masters, ye Bishops, do you look for of so many mischiefs committed in your favour? you lend your hand to the seditious: Is 
Eccles. 7.  that the way to retire from the wicked, lest his sin fall upon you? Is that your practising of Tertullians' counsel, that it is better to be killed, then to kill: to be betrayed, then to betray: and to serve for a mark to the wicked, rather than to do evil? What may the Romans say unto you, 
Livy lib. 9 dec. 1.  they that delivered the Consul Posthumius unto the heralds, and so returned him bound and fettered unto the Samnites for making a necessary peace with them, of you, I say, who through passion, rather than reason, do favour an unjust war? For whereof do you complain? If you say that sundry gentlemen do hold Abbeys and bishoprics in commandment, or otherwise, we may answer, that aforetime they were given in portions: as we find that Adolph the second son unto Bald wine the second Earl of Flaunders, and Lady estrild daughter unto Elfrede King of England, had for his portion the County of Saint Pol, and Abbey of Saint Berthine. Also Robert Earl of Angiers, before the decease of his brother of end, held the Abbeys of S. Germaine in the meadows, S. Cross and S. Owen. Yea, and our kings, seeing that Abbeys were grown most wealthy, and were reduced in manner to the form of their warlike favours, conferred them to their soldiers, who by discretion placed in them a head, whom they termed Deane, which appeareth to have been used since the reign of Charles the bald, unto the time of K. Robert. If your argument consist upon the unfit promotions unto ecclesiastical dignities, doth not the imposition of hands, and consecration rest in yourselves? why do you then give them to unworthy persons? Besides, there is no appearance to cut off the kings from their right of presentations, because they 
In the old history of S. Denis.  be the patrons of the churches. Yea, Pope Adrian held a council, wherein it was decreed, that thence forth Charlemagne should have the investiture of Archbishops and Bishops in their prelacies: besides that, as saith Duarene, The installing of Bishops, by the authority of our kings, is one of the corner stones of this Realm. For (saith he) who knoweth not the 
Duaren de sac. sanct. eccles. min. lib. 1. cap. 6  sleights of the Court of Rome, & how much French blood that horseleech sucketh up? And the exchange of his lead with our gold is grown to a Proverb, as that in Homer of Glaucus and Diomedes. And S. Bernard 
Bernard lib. 4. de consider. ad Eug.  even in his time complaineth, that from all parts of the world, the ambitious Simonists, whoremasters, and incestuous persons ran to Rome to get the honours of the church. If you complain because of some levy of coin upon the clergy, we may tell you that necessity hath no law: that men are governed according to the time, not the time according to the men: and the occurrences are as it were guides to our actions. Whereupon in the year 1171. Lewis the young had an aid of the clergy, wherewith to send the Earl of Sancerre to the conquest of the holy land: Again, in March 1188. king Philip August, by the decree of the council holden at Paris, obtained the tenths of the church for one whole year, which were termed Saladins tenths: & with part of the like in the time of Theodorike the second, Charles martel rewarded such gentlemen as had borne the brunt of the war against the Saracens. Also in the time of Charles the 6. the Earl of Anjou, by permission of Clement the Antipope, levied divers upon the clergy. Again, in the year 1532. king Francis being molested with foreign war, had the help of the prelates of his realm. Besides all which, the clergy cannot exempt themselves from tribute, because Christ paid it: and Ambrose saith, 
Ambrose de basil trad. Theod. lib. 4. cap. 8.  If the Emperor requireth it, we must not refuse it. Valentinian likewise writing to the Bishops of Asia and Phrigia, saith, that good Bishops are not slack in contributions: yea in such a case the Emperor Constantine threateneth them with grievous pains. And in the time of the Macedonian wars, the Roman Senate seeing the people oppressed, raised a tax upon the Priests, notwithstanding their oppositions framed upon such freedoms as Numa Pompilius had granted them, from the which they appealed to the Tribunes: who, saith Livy, declared the Priests appeal to come out of season, so as they exacted of them the taxes of all the years that they had not paid: and yet you my masters, do practise enterprises against your king, because that he, forced by necessity doth exact of you some tribute, and tickleth you, when he might claw you unto the very bones, by a just reformation grounded upon the estate of the primitive church. Wake not therefore him that sleepeth, neither think, my masters, that those that do serve their own turns by the wars, as by a sponge wherewith to suck up the substance of the Church, and have no other goods but the wealth of the crucifix, will provide any remedy for your pretended sickness: and to say that now they will root out the Protestants, is but badly to weigh their actions, and well worse their power: for are they become Briarees since they began to fight under our king's authority? undoubtedly there is nothing increased in them but folly, and desire of dominion. At all adventures, if they be led by the fear of God, and piety of Catholic religion, why do they not turn their weapons against jews, who do scatter the accursed seed of their doctrine throughout Europe, in Italy, yea even in Rome the sea of that holy Priest? If they be so deep as they say in the king of Wisigothes favour, why do they not persuade him to expel the moors out of Spain? If they be kings of Jerusalem, why go they not to thrust out the Turks? If they be Princes of the Empire, why do they not display their force against the Lutherans, but must needs come to disturb the quietness of France, wherein they are but strangers? But herein may we see our bad destiny, that hath brought us to that pass, that we take our enemies for our friends, perjured wretches for faithful persons, foreigners for household servants, and Atheists for religious men: so as we may say, Ephraim is as a cake on the hearth not turned: strangers have devoured his force, and he knoweth it not. Thus much for the first attaint that they give the king: let us proceed to the rest.  
Their bad Angel, the spirit of discord hath taught them, that there is a great sympathy or resemblance between heaven, man's body, and a monarchy: that in each of them them there are two principal things. In heaven, the sun and the moon. In man's body, the head and the heart. In a monarchy, the king and the nobility. That the eclipse of the sun or moon darkeneth the heaven, the sickness of the head or heart disquiet the whole body; and through controversy between the king and his nobility, the whole monarchy tendeth unto destruction. Following therefore this lesson, they seek to kindle the torch of division between the king and his nobility: for whereat 
The Guysards 4. & 5. pretences.  else doth that fierce desire to encroach upon certain gentlemen whom the king hath advanced, aim? or whereto tendeth the reintegration of the nobility in her former dignity? It is novelty: it is a wonder in France, yea it is felony, it is sacrilege, that a subject should set down a law and measure to his Prince, that he should bridle his will, that he should limit or straighten the supreme authority. It is a spite to nature, that the arm should command the head, that the soul should obey the body, and that reason should stand in awe of the senses. It is the dissolution of all civil society, to make the master to honour the servant, the regent obey his scholar, & the magistrate yield to the passions of the people. And what is all this but to seek to make the Prince hate those whom he loveth: contemn those whom he esteemeth: abase those whom he advanceth: and to face him to will that that he willeth not? and yet is it the thing that the seditious now seek to put in practice: it is one of the marks that their purposes do aim at: it is the way that they take to cross the king's power: but under what pretence? that men of base gold have received open honour, and honourable persons be forced to lie at anchor. Who complaineth? stranger's. What strangers? such as of petty companions have by the liberality of our kings been exalted. But admit they were household servants, yea natural Princes, what of that? If the king holdeth not the crown of us, but of God, and the ancient law of this realm, who divideth honours as he listeth, why should we prescribe him a law and measure in loving of us? King's use not to submit themselves to that distributive justice of the rules of Philosophy, which measureth the reward by the desert, neither to the form of the Olympian judgement, which had certain laws beyond the which they never passed. King's are as auditors, Realms as counting houses, and subjects so many counters, whom we make to be worth sometime 100 sometime 1000 and sometime 10000 kings do resemble the sun, and dignities the moon, which sometime appeareth great, sometime small, now in a corner, then in the plain midst, sometime light, sometime dark, even as the sun giveth it light: and even so do kings make dignities high or low, great or small, as occasion falleth out, according to the time, & as it please them: in which case the subject should resemble the Lesbian rule, which bendeth some time to one side, sometime to another, even as it please the sovereign: and so shall we have the subjects obedient to Princes, which the ancients, as Eschines saith, have pictured unto us by the goddess Pitarchie, the wife of jupiter and mother of felicity.  
I say not that the Prince should indifferently divide honours, for the reward of virtue being communicated 
Plut. in Nicia. Liu. lib. 9 de 1.  to the unworthy, groweth into contempt: as it happened at Athens, when the people seeing Hyperbolus fallen, broke the Ostracism: at Rome when Flavius Appius libertine had gotten the office of Aedilis Curulis: and in France when Charles the sixth, at the siege of Bourges made above 500 
Monstrolet cap. 93.  bannerets. But by force, violence and open threat to endeavour to limit the kings will, is it not to seek to stay the sun, or rather to fasten a halter to hang themselves? For if the the law do deem those guilty of treason, that have used the Emperor's sacred 
L. Sacri affatus. cap. de diu. vesc.  anchor: If in old time the Roman Censors disgraded a bourgesse for yaning too wide in their presence: if in respect of the magistrate it was not lawful to laugh in the Senate of the Areopagites: and if according to Ulpian, the magistrate may lawfully proceed by a mends and seizure upon body & goods against those that rashly do speak against him: what shall become of these rebels that do bring the subjects out of taste with their due obedience to the K. that do kindle the fire of sedition in his estate, that arm themselves against his person, that seize upon his towns, & that do convent foreign Princes to the spoil of his realm? And the law Valeria saith, that in such cases we must prevent the way of justice by the way of deed. Whereat then stayeth it, ye french men, that the law is not fulfilled? what letteth us from imitating that good tribune Aulus Cornelius Cossus, who in the battle spying out Tolumnius the Captain of the Fidenates, exclaimed saying, Is this that perjured and breaker of alliance? Is this that defiler 
Livy lib. 4. dec. 4.  of the common law of nations? And wherefore do not we with that valiant Roman bring to ground with the spears point those traitors, those perjured persons that do break the law of nations, that do delight only in our displeasure, and do bring this estate into combustion? To say that they will restore the nobility to their first eminency, is to cover themselves with a wet sack: for who but their race have trodden under foot all respect of French nobility? who but their father and Oncle caused that by edict of the 18. of August 1559. all donations, sessions, transports and alienations given to Gentlemen in recompense of their service were revoked and made void? who but those furies made the edict that forbade all bearing of arms, yea even the nobility, and revoked all particular provisions to whomsoever the same was granted? And yet, as if the crow had engendered the swan, these men will build up that which their father destroyed. Yield then ye Guysards your affected governments of Burgundy, Champagne, and Britain to the domestical servants, not to strangers: refer the offices of great master, and chamberlain, that you stole from the houses of Montmorencie and Longueville: Give over your titles of Earls and Dukes, wherewith within these 25. or thirty years, ye have shadowed your meanness: and walk in that estate wherein your grandfather came into France, weak of goods, poor of honour, and naked of dignity. But what? yet by their saying is the king in their debt; and by their discontentment they do sufficiently show that they will not suffer the nobility so much as to taste of those honours wherewith it ought to be satisfied, glean where they have reaped, or gather any grapes where they have made their vintage: do they then term this the restoring of the nobility? What advancement may any French Gentleman look for, when 24. Lorraines must have dined before he sit down? & when they must beglutted with honours before he may taste of any? Or rather why do we not rather abandon all hope, considering that their appetite is unsatiable, & that they are men, yea men that are starved after honours, thirsty of goods, & hot with ambition? Moreover, sith they will dazzle our eyes with the false show of their services, know we not that they have anointed our lips with honey, but made us swallow gall? know we not, since the reign of Francis the second, they never permitted any young peace to wax old in France? Or who hath not seen them more willing to hafard this realm for a pray, then to give over any jot of their particular passions? At all adventures, was there ever such impudency as to seek to bring the King to such pass that he shall be forced to reward their pretended merits, and to let them choose their recompense?  
We read of a brave Roman soldier that refused a chain of gold at Labienus Caesar's Lieutenant's hand, saying that he would not have the wages of the covetous, but of the virtuous: and that Pittacus being by his citizens forced to take so much of the land that he had conquered of the enemies as he listed, would take no more than he could cast his javelin: we find that Sicinius was 65. times hurt in the stomach, and had been in 120. battles: that Manlius preserved the Capitol: that Camillus expelled the Gauls out of Rome: and that divers others have abandoned their lives to the hazard of wars, for the service of their country: we read that almost all the Princes of the noble race of Bourbon, or rather of that Orchard of Alexander's, sacrificing their lives in the service of our kings, have had no other hearse but the field of battle: Peter of Bourbon was slain the 19 of September 1356. at the battle of Poitiers: james and his son Peter at the battle of Brunay near Lions: jews at Agincourt field, 1415. Francis at the battle of S. Brigit upon holy rood day in September 1515. john at saint Laurence field 1557. Antony at the siege of Rouen 1562. We find that many french knights have prodigally spent their blood in the service of our kings: but that any have sought violently to wrest the reward of their merits we find not. Only we read that one Sigibert governor of Coloine, every where showing his wounds, & complaining of his small recompense was by Clovis the first, deprived of all his dignities: and yet these good children shall force the K. to part his estate with them. And what king, ye unsatiable gluttons, what estate can satisfy your hunger? What sea, ye dropsicke persons, what waters can quench your thirst? Or who can fill the pierced vessels of the Danaides? Of strangers they have been made household servants: of Gentlemen, Dukes & Earls: to advance them we have made a breach in the authority of the princes of the blood: to prefer them, a thousand brave gentlemen have been put back: so as Sir, they want no more but the crown, which God, the grounded law and custom of the realm, have set upon your head: and yet do they gape after goods, greatness and glory: or rather they unfold all means to win the hearts of the nobility, and to bring upon you the hatred of the same. For with what impudence can they deny that to be their intent? You (O most christian king) are the father of this great family, and Pilot of this 
The 6. pretence of the Guizians.  French ship. If the Offices of the house be evil divided, or the ship misgoverned, is not the father in the fault, and the Pilot to blame?  
It is in manner the same argument that they have begun, wherewith to bring the commons to revolt against his Majesty. For they set before us one that is naked of fat, flesh, and blood: they figure us an anatomy of man's body, having no more but skin and bones, which they say, the Frenchmen do by a wonderful sympathy resemble: that we must restore and make up again this poor body, that we must cure it of this wound, that themselves will be the chirurgeons, and their weapons the plasters: but who is so blind as for sundry considerations not to judge this proposition to have a very bad savour?  
First, because it toucheth the king's honour whom by this means with hue and cry they proclaim a Tyrant: and withal do endeavour to entangle him in the same mishap as Acheus king of the Lydians, whom his subjects slew for the tributes which he went about to exact. Or as Henry king of Sueden, Theodorick king of France, and many other Princes, who for like cause have been deprived of their estates. Secondly, because, (as saith Plutarch) it is not his part that falleth, to lift up: that knoweth nothing, to teach: that is disordered, to order: that is unruly, to rule: or that can not obey, to command: but as said Lycurgus, a man must show a thing in himself, that he wisheth to be in others. This was the reason, wherefore they mocked Philip k. of Macedon, who living at variance with his wife Olympiades' and his son Alexander, was inquisitive of the Grecian life among themselves. If therefore the Guisards do mislike the kings loans, let not themselves borrow: If they will needs discharge the people, let them leave the heavy burden of debts that hangeth upon their own arms & stop their creditors mouths that daily do cry after them. But wherein will not 
Plut. in Silla.  they resemble Sulpitius, a man confect in all mischief, who having by the voice of the people passed a decree that no Senator should borrow above 200 crowns, at his death owed 3. hundred thousand.  
The third reason is civil: for by the laws it lieth not in the meaner magistrate to command the greater, neither may he resist the judgement of his superior, as saith the Emperor justinian, or correct his acts, either take notice of appeals from him, as Ulpian saith: yea if he chance to admit any accusations against his superior, he may be taken for a party, and called into an action of injury: as Caesar when he being but Praetor, was accused before a Quaestor to be a party in the conspiracy of Catiline, he caused the judge to be condemned in great fines, because 
Suetonius in julio.  (saith Suetonius) he suffered a greater magistrate to be accused before him. Also by decree of the Parliament the 7. of januarie, 1547. all inferior judges were forbidden to use any defences against the royal judges, because by an ancient saying, The lesser may not command the greater, Doth it then beseem the Guisardes to receive the people's complaints, to take notice of the kings actions, or to limit the kings will? Besides, sith that under the benefit of peace, tilled by his majesties wisdom, the people were freed from sundry impositions, what need we now counterfeit Hercules, Dyon, Timoleon or Aratus, who were entitled correctors of tyrants? must we use such corrosive medicines where there was scarce any sore, & where passed calamities were buried under the law Amnestia? would right that we should prevent the way of justice by the way of deed? were it reason the servant should prescribe a law to his master? Is it not the custom in case of excessive exactions to have recourse to the estates, as we had in the year 1338. in the time of Philip of Valois? Otherwise to proceed to fire and sword before we lay any plasters, is to fester, not to close up the wound: to impair, not to amend the condition of the people, which had never good success against their king: under Philip the fair, anno, 1312. under Charles the sixth, about the year 1382. and under Henry the second, the people oppressed with extraordinary taxes, sought by force to shake off that yoke, but the whole storm light upon themselves. Not that I mean herein to imitate Anaxarchus, who to the end to comfort Alexander, who was oppressed with sorrow for the murder of Clitus, told him that Dice & Themis, that is, justice and equity, are jupiters' assistors, thereby to show that whatsoever the prince's actions can be no other but just and right: but contrariwise I say, that it is evil done to waste treasures prodigally, and to oppress the subjects: as Tiberius Caesar said, It is the part of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to slay them. I say with Seneca, the more lawful that all things are to the king, the less lawful they are. And that the father is not more bound to the bringing up of his children, or the nurse to give them her breast, then is the Prince to the protection of his subjects: But withal I say, that resisting the power by God established, we resist his ordinance: also that it would prove a dangerous gap & of great consequence, if conspirators might by force and violence proceed to reformation, as do these factious persons that manifestly do aspire to the crown: which is the thing that hath armed them: neither must these hypocrites alter the occasion, for at whom are they grieved? Not at the third estate: for as they say, they purpose to discharge the same of the burden of subsidies: neither at the nobility: for it they will restore to the ancient dignity: neither at the Clergy: for they go about to re-establish the Church in hi● ancient liberties: neither at the Protestants: for they show all favour to sundry of them, besides that heretofore they have sought to give them a desire to come under the covert of their protection, therein resembling (but with this gloze, if the Protestants 
Plut. de defect. orat.  be heretics) the God of the Planetiades who expelling the wicked by one gate, let them in again at an other. It is then the king that they shoot at: the Princes of the blood: justice: yea it is all good Frenchmen that they are offended withal: and yet do they live, yea they live in greatness and glory, and are esteemed faithful in their disobedience: loyal, in their disloyalty: true, in their falseshoode: peace masters in their bloody wars: zealous to the commonwealth in their private commodity: fathers of the people in exactions, and pillars of the Church in their sacrileges: This is the cause O eternal God that hast so long favoured the French Monarchy, that we do present to thee our tears, our sighs and sobs: for what else may a torn people, rend in pieces with a thousand mischiefs, and choked with foreign tyranny, present unto thee. O Lord in their anguish they visit thee, and thy discipline causeth them in complaints to cry unto thee. Sith therefore thou art pitiful, take from us the torch of thy indignation, cover our faults with thy grace, and display thy providence upon this miserable estate. Let thy issue be prepared as the break of the day, and come unto us as the slow rain and seasonable upon the earth. Wherefore, O almighty God, who art the justicer, sith thy fury traceth like the fire, & that the rocks do cleave before thy face, plead O Lord with plague & blood with these infamous monsters, who delight only in murder and cruelty: Come upon them in a storm, and let thy paths be in a tempest: give them to be a slander and curse in all places. Send upon them famine and sword: and make them O God to reap the whirl wind, because they sow the wind. And you O most christian king, ween not in reading this to hear the voice of a mutinouspeople, and such as desire domestical troubles, but rather Sir, the mournings, and as it were the last sobs of your poor subjects: Hearken O merciful king to the complaints of your France, which is divided into factions, spoiled by the stranger, and covered with sores. Is it not enough (saith she) that man is borne in tears, grow up in sighs, live in pain, and finish his life in griefs, but he must be made utterly miserable? Is it not enough that being bauled at of my enemies, I have groaned under the burden of so many foreign wars, but that my own children must pierce my flanks, pluck out my guts, and bathe themselves in my blood? Is it not enough that the plague consume me, but I must be wasted with famine? Is it not enough that I perish with hunger, but that wars must hasten my death? Is it not enough that I become a fable to strangers, but they must drink my blood, gnaw my bones and suck up the marrow of my children? And if (as the wise man saith) the multitude of people be the Crown of the King, and that the principal law that God and nature hath given unto Princes, is the preservation of their subjects, wherefore, most Christian king, do you authorize the hangmen of your people? If good Princes do fear for their subjects, and Tyrants their subjects, why do you (O Prince) take weapons in the midst of your subjects: or rather, why do you not arm yourself for the defence of Frenchmen against strangers?  
If sir, there be no question of your own remaining in your country only, but also that your country must dwell in itself, as Camillus said to the Romans, will you suffer your France to be made a butchery, a grave, and a wilderness? If, as it was said to Denis the Tyrant of Siracuse, tyrannous domination is no beautiful monument to be buried in, what brave sepulchre may a king have in a land all tainted with the blood of his poor subjects? If, as a certain Roman said, Caesar fastened his images by raising those of Pompey, what footing may your estate take by authorizing the nearest of your blood? If, as said jason the tyrant of Thessaly, it be necessary to do wrong in retail to the end to do right in gross, what were it to redeem public peace with the life of two or three rebels? If a king ought rather to fear doing evil, then receiving evil, as the one being cause of the other: and that he doth evil, that hindereth not the doing of evil when he may; will you Sir, suffer so many bloody murders to be committed under your name and authority: and (which is more) by those that claim to themselves the branches of Charlemain: that do even by trumpet sound you a Tyrant, and that do turmoil both heaven and earth, to pull upon you the hatred of the Clergy, of the Nobility, and of the people? Shall it be said, that under your sceptre these young harebraynes, these lost children of fortune, have with incredible boldness trodden down your edicts, violated your laws, strangled the peace whereto you were so solemnly sworn, and rob and murdered your poor subjects? Can you without horror hear of their bloody slaughters; without pity, of the destruction of your towns: without tears, of the desolation of your subjects, and without grievous displeasure, of that ease which the strangers do reap in your travails? Consider most merciful king, that they thrust the knife into your hands wherewith to shed your own blood: that the rigour of your weapons lighteth upon your subjects: that getting the victory over them, you can not triumph, but in your own shame, neither gain, but in your own loss: that those are to be feared that do nothing but upon necessity, that have no hope but in despair: that look for no peace, but in war, and that have nothing left but weapons and courage. That the destruction of the Princes of the blood, and of the members and subjects of the estate can not be far from the inevitable destruction of your crown: That extremity changeth humanity into fury, clemency into despair, and obedience into rebellion. That there be certain virtues that do openly fight against the enemies, as force and valiancy, but that those are best which do undermine the adversaries hearts, as faith, clemency and mercy: That the course of reason must stay the Prince's power, in imitating the same, which when it is at the highest in the North part, walketh more slowly and by slackness maketh his course more assured. Consider that those whom with fire and sword they pursue, are the same children to whom you are a father: the sheep to whom you are a shepherd: the servants to whom you are a master, the subjects to whom you are a king: even the same subjects to whom of late you pawned your faith. And sith it is accounted among matters of fortune, if a Prince breaketh promise, sith it is a warrant to his subjects of their mutal oblagitions: with far greater reason is he debtor to justice in his own deed. Taint not therefore sir your so pure and cleaine faith, neither make it a slave to the passions of a few seditious persons. The people beholdeth you as the sun that shineth equally upon all: let your love therefore be general (if you desire to be beloved, for love naturally will begin at the most perfect) of the true Prince to his subjects: of the true father to his children, and by a certain reflection the children do love the father, and the subjects the Prince.  
If in your opinion any heresy buddeth forth in France: if there be any maim in the Church, let it please your majesty to consider that the wound lieth in the souls of the heretics: that the soul is a spiritual thing, which neither fire, nor water can bite: that for obtaining the victory thereof, you must be armed with spiritual weapons: that the disease is not cured by the disease, that to lay a necessity where God leaveth a liberty, is to make a mortal wound in the conscience: that only rigour causeth not men to change advice, but for the most part maketh them more resolute and to persever: That religion cannot be advanced by the destruction of the estate, and that the estate is scattered by the dissipation of the subjects. And if there be nothing upon earth more greater, or more religious than your majesty, it may please you to set before you the example of 300. bishops that were in the Council of Nice 150. in the Council of Constantinople: 200. in the Council of Ephesus, and 630. in the Council of Chalcedon, who all were of opinion to use no other weapons than Gods word against Arrius, Macedonius, Nestorius & Eutiches, monsters convicted of heresy and blasphemy against the holy Trinity. Let your majesty, if it please you, cast your view upon the clemency of Augustus toward the jews, to whom he sent his ordinary alms, and sacrifices to Jerusalem: upon Theodoricke king of the Goths, who being a favourer of the Arrians would not force the consciences of his subjects: upon the king of the Turks, who sent his alms to the Calogers, Christian religious persons of mount Athos, to the end they might pray to God for him: upon the Pope, who suffereth the jews to set foot in Italy: upon the Emperor Charles the fift, who by provision at Ausbourge 1530. granted that peace which we call of the religion, and in the year 1555. converted the said provision into a perpetual edict: upon your realm of Poland and Boheme, wherein sundry religions do flourish: And yet only in your realm of France shall they endeavour to plant faith by arms? Other Princes do live in peace, and you sir are wrapped in continual wars. After their example most courteous Prince then, change the labours of your poor subjects into rest, and their misfortunes into prosperity. And now that it seemeth God hath chosen your reign to the end under the same to repair the breaches of his church, with both your hands, seize upon this heavenly gift: prepare a council, a school of salvation, wherein the blind in faith may be lightened, the diseased consciences healed, the darkness of heresies expelled, and the truth may shine forth: so shall God be served of you, you of your subjects, and this realm set free from the miseries that do now oppress it. This shallbe the right felicity of a good king.  
FINIS.