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PERSECUTIONS OF POPERY 
 
 HISTORICAL NARRATIVES 
 
 THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSECUTIONS 
 OCCASIONED BY THE INTOLERANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHURCH OF ROME. 
 

PERSECUTIONS OF POPERY 
 
 HISTORICAL NARRATIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSECUTIONS 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE INTOLERANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHURCH OF ROME. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC SHOBERL. 
 
 “ Popery and Slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand. Sometimes the 
 one goes first, and sometimes the other; hut, wherever the one enters, the 
 other is sure to be closely following.’’ 
 
 First Eart, of Shaftesbury. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET 
 ISubltdjev ttt (©rbtuarp to ftfcr IMajeSti). 
 
 1844 . 
 
FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR, 
 PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, 
 51 , RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON. 
 
!L'(l ' 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS PROTESTANT FELLOW-SUJJJECTS 
 
 OF EVERY DENOMINATION, 
 
 
 I 
 
 * 
 
 THESE VOLUMES, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POPERY IN ALL AGES, 
 
 DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME, 
 
 ARE MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 
 V 
 
 § 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from . 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/persecutionsofpo01shob 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPAL POWER, SPIRITUAL 
 
 AND TEMPORAL . . . 1 
 
 II. PERSECUTION OF THE ALBIGENSES . . .44 
 
 III. PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF THE INQUISITION . 102 
 
 IV. PERSECUTION OF THE LOLLARDS . . .135 
 
 V. PERSECUTIONS OF THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES . 216 
 
 VI. PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 1560-1572, PRIOR TO 
 
 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW . . 279 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 At a time when Popery appears to be mustering 
 all its energies for the renovation of its tarnished 
 glories and its diminished power; when Jesuits’ Col- 
 leges and monastic institutions are springing up even 
 in these our islands, and prodigious efforts are making 
 to gain proselytes among the uneducated classes ; 
 when we see British senators not only stepping forth 
 as champions of Catholicism, but even abjuring the 
 faith in which they have been brought up, and be- 
 taking themselves into the bosom of the only saving 
 Romish Church — it will scarcely be thought unsea- 
 sonable to rouse the attention of the Protestant 
 population of these realms to the means by which 
 that Church acquired her extraordinary power, to 
 the spirit with which she has wielded it for above a 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 thousand years, with which she is animated to this 
 very day, and which, unless an effectual barrier be 
 opposed, threatens at no distant period to produce 
 most calamitous results. Such is the object of these 
 Volumes. 
 
 Resorting in preference to Catholic writers for 
 the materials for this Work, I have shown that the 
 Papal ^authority, acquired by forgery, fraud, and 
 usurpation, was upheld bv treachery, rapacity, and 
 the direst cruelties ever inflicted on mankind. If, 
 indeed, the fable of Pandora’s box has ever been 
 realised in this world, it was at the Vatican, that 
 inexhaustible source of immoralities,- vices, enor- 
 mities, abominations, which, like a pestilence, infected 
 for ages all the countries of Christendom. From so 
 polluted a fount no clearer stream could be expected 
 to issue. The Papal throne was filled by a line of 
 pontiffs, who, in spite of the assumed sanctity of their 
 character, were many of them stained by crimes so 
 execrable as scarcely to be paralleled in the annals 
 of temporal princes, and whose very amusements 
 render it doubtful whether they deserved the name 
 of men. Witness Borgia, who assumed the appella- 
 tion of Alexander VI., and of the Sunday orgies of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 whose court, a churchman, an official, and eye-wit- 
 ness .of the scenes which he describes,* presents a 
 picture that excites inexpressible abhorrence and dis- 
 gust. What wonder that his children by a publicly 
 acknowledged mistress should prove such monsters of 
 iniquity, and that the infamy of his daughter Lucretia 
 should give to that name, as applied to her, an air of 
 the keenest irony ! 
 
 Neither is it surprising that, under the rule of 
 such heads of the Church, Popery should gradually de- 
 generate into a tissue of fables, legends, and mum- 
 meries too extravagant and too absurd to be adopted 
 by any but the mailed warriors and the peasant slaves 
 of the darkest ages. As Southey justly remarks, 
 the priests and monks themselves must often have 
 been utterly astonished at the success of the gross 
 deceptions which they were continually practising on 
 the public credulity. 
 
 It was not so much with a view to expose the in- 
 conceivable depravity of the Popes and the shameless 
 delusions which they devised and countenanced, as 
 
 * Bur char di Archentinensis , Capellae Alexundri Sexti Papce, 
 Clerici , Ceremoniarum Magistri, Diorium , printed in Eccardi Cor- 
 pus historic Medii AEvi. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the inhuman intolerance towards those whom they 
 are pleased to term heretics, which has uniformly 
 characterised their conduct ever since their attain- 
 ment of temporal power, that this Work has been 
 undertaken. Accordingly, though much is intro- 
 duced in illustration of the general spirit and princi- 
 ples of the Romish See, these Volumes are chiefly 
 occupied by records of the most prominent of those 
 cruel persecutions, commanded or instigated by it 
 against Christians whose consciences forbade the 
 adoption of its monstrous doctrines. Most of these 
 narratives will, I flatter myself, be found more copious, 
 more complete, and more satisfactory than any ac- 
 counts of the same events hitherto published in our 
 language : and the last section will, I hope, suffice to 
 convince every reader that the system which prompted 
 the atrocities detailed in these pages, though now 
 restricted in its operation, remains unchanged to this 
 day, that the heads of the Romish Church still regard 
 tolerance as a deadly sin, and that they are filled 
 with the same holy hostility as ever against the pro- 
 fessors of other creeds. Let statesmen, let legisla- 
 tors, prate as they please of the present harmlessness 
 of Popish principles, of the mildness of mitigated 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XI 
 
 Catholic doctrines — stubborn facts give them the lie, 
 and proclaim the unchanged and unchangeable spirit 
 of persecution, which still rankles in the bosom of 
 Popery. 
 
 An extraordinary manifestation of this spirit is to 
 be found in the history of our own country, inasmuch 
 as it occurred under a sovereign making an out- 
 ward profession at least of Protestant principles. It 
 was Popish influence which, under Charles II., pro- 
 duced the persecution of Nonconformists, and which, 
 seconded by .the High-church notions and short-sight- 
 edness of Clarendon, weakened the Protestant inte- 
 rest at a period when it was threatened with dangers 
 not the less real, because they were concealed. 
 Charles, the son of a Catholic mother, though early 
 in life a Catholic himself, had the policy — call it hy- 
 pocrisy, if you please — to mask his religious predilec- 
 tions under an external conformity with the ordinances 
 of the English Church ; while his brother James pro- 
 fessed and resolutely adhered to Popery, at the risk 
 of exclusion from the succession. The King’s minis- 
 ters also were either Papists or debauchees, utterly 
 regatdless of every kind of religion. 
 
 Well knowing that no means are so effective for 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 weakening an opposing party as division, they procured 
 the enactment of all those rigorous statutes against 
 Dissenters which disgraced the Long Parliament, in 
 hopes of driving them into a coalition with the Ca- 
 tholics ; but the horror with which the former shrank 
 from the unnatural union, and the resignation with 
 which they submitted to every hardship, frustrated 
 these manoeuvres. 
 
 Foiled in the attempt to compass his point by ar- 
 tifice, Charles entered into that guilty league with 
 France for introducing Popery into his dominions by 
 force, for which a like fate to that of his father would 
 have been a very inadequate atonement. 
 
 The Earl of Shaftesbury seems to have been among 
 the statesmen of his time the most deeply impressed 
 with the inestimable value of Protestant institutions, 
 as inseparably connected with the liberties of Eng- 
 lishmen. He declared emphatically that 4 4 Popery 
 and Slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand. 
 Sometimes the one goes first, and sometimes the 
 other; but, wherever the one enters, the other is sure 
 to be closely following.” He had the sagacity to 
 penetrate the designs of the Court, and, during the 
 latter years of his life, toleration and the Protestant 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 cause had not a more zealous, unwearied, or un- 
 daunted champion, whatever mig’ht have been his 
 private sentiments in regard to religion. By the 
 congenial spirit which he awakened in Parliament 
 and in the nation generally, the indolent Charles was 
 deterred from the dangerous experiment for eradi- 
 cating Protestantism, and left the attempt to his more 
 bigoted and obstinate brother. 
 
 How James forfeited the throne by a daring viola- 
 tion of the oath sworn at his coronation — sworn, it is 
 true, to heretics, and, therefore, not deemed binding 
 by Papists — and how a dogged perseverance in 
 designs for overthrowing the established religion of 
 his people and erecting Popery on its ruins led to 
 the expulsion of himself and all his race — these are 
 facts well known to the most superficial reader. 
 
 These are facts, nevertheless, of which the patri- 
 arch of the philosophy of the eighteenth century 
 was either absolutely ignorant, or to which he 
 wilfully shut his eyes, when he was not able to 
 discover a more rational cause for the misfortunes 
 of James II. and the Stuart family in general 
 than fatality. “ If,” says he, “ there is any thing 
 to justify those who believe in a fatality which 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 there is no escaping, it is the continuous series of 
 misfortunes which persecuted the House of Stuart 
 for upwards of three hundred years.” In this sage 
 conclusion Voltaire is obsequiously followed by recent 
 writers. 
 
 It requires, however, no extraordinary penetration 
 to perceive that the ruin of Mary Stuart was bigoted 
 attachment to the Catholic religion. It was this, 
 conjointly with the effects of her education in the 
 depraved Court of Catherine de Medicis, that lost her 
 the crown of Scotland ; it was this that involved her 
 in perpetual machinations for the subversion of the 
 throne, if not for the actual murder of her “ good 
 sister ” Elizabeth ; and it was this that finally en- 
 tangled her in the conspiracy which brought her to 
 the block. 
 
 If the Catholic religion proved the ruin of Mary, 
 it was not less the rock on which her descendants 
 were doomed to split. Thus it was no fatality that 
 produced those disasters, which hurled the later 
 Stuarts from their high position, but an obstinate 
 determination to achieve an impossibility, generated 
 by the arbitrary nature and proselytizing spirit of 
 the religion to which they were devoted. Popery 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 is essentially a religion of tyranny and slavery. The 
 people must be slaves to the sovereign, the sovereign 
 a slave to the Church. It tolerates no intermediate 
 class. Never did the English Parliament enact a 
 wiser and more beneficent law than that by which 
 professors of the Popish faith are for ever excluded 
 from the throne of these Protestant realms. 
 
 Though, at this day, Great Britain may be deemed 
 tolerably secure against either the open assaults or 
 the covert artifices of Romanism, there is a most 
 important portion of the Empire where the conse- 
 quences threatened by both cannot be contemplated 
 without painful apprehension. The curse of Popery 
 rests upon unhappy Ireland, the prey of priests and 
 of political conspirators, whose seditious incitements 
 have urged her inflammable population to the verge 
 of rebellion. This is the real grievance under which 
 that devoted country is suffering. Popery presses 
 like an incubus upon it, paralyses industry, drains its 
 resources, depraves the national character, stifles 
 every feeling of independence, and degrades its vo- 
 taries into blind slaves of its arbitrary will. 
 
 A morbid liberalism, which seems to be gaining 
 ground, and which would fain pass for philosophy, 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 may perhaps be disposed to cavil at some of the 
 sentiments expressed in this Work ; but, if I have 
 occasionally hazarded warm remarks, or drawn severe 
 conclusions, I can only plead that they have been 
 irresistibly forced upon me by the facts and circum- 
 stances which the nature of the subject brought 
 under my consideration. 
 
 London, 
 
 July, 1844. 
 
PERSECUTIONS OF POPERY. 
 
 I. RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE PAPAL POWER, 
 SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL. 
 
 The doctrines bequeathed by the Founder of Chris- 
 tianity to his disciples constituted the most sublime, 
 the most beneficent, the purest religion that was ever 
 given to mankind. It was no temporal power, no 
 political sovereignty, that he came to establish. He 
 emphatically declared that his kingdom is not of this 
 world, and warned his apostles not to confound the 
 mission which he gave them with the power exercised 
 by the princes of the earth. They were sent not to 
 govern but to teach ; the authority which they re- 
 ceived consisted in diffusing knowledge and doing 
 good. Confining their efforts to these labours of 
 universal love, they never thought of setting them- 
 selves up as rivals of the civil power : on the con- 
 trary, obedience to sovereigns was one of the first 
 precepts of their religious morality. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 n 
 
2 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 The successors of the apostles long held the same 
 language. They acknowledged no power superior to 
 that of the sovereign but God himself : while the 
 Church exercised no authority but by its virtues, and 
 possessed no other riches, no other domain, but the 
 faith. Such are the expressions of those who are 
 emphatically called its Fathers, not only during the 
 first three centuries, but after the time of Constan- 
 tine, and even of Charlemagne. 
 
 The Christian congregations, formed so early as the 
 time of the apostles in the principal cities of the Ro- 
 man empire, were governed by bishops whose func- 
 tions differed as widely from those of the prelates of 
 later periods as the idea originally attached to the 
 designation Ettlctkottos, literally, overseer, differs from 
 that now connected with the episcopal title. In the 
 capital of the empire, a Christian church was early 
 collected, through the zeal of the apostles ; and this 
 too had of course its bishop, who in process of time 
 assumed the name of Papa, Pope, from nairiras, 
 Father. 
 
 Every reader is aware that till the reign of Con- 
 stantine the Christian churches were but private 
 associations, frequently proscribed, and totally un- 
 connected with the political system. In those days 
 of persecution and religious fervour, the bishops of 
 Rome were assuredly far from aspiring to govern pro- 
 vinces ; they would have been too happy to be left to 
 the unmolested exercise of obscure virtues: they 
 obtained on earth no other crown but that of martyr- 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 3 
 
 dom. Constantine permitted the churches to acquire 
 real property, and individuals to enrich them by 
 legacies; and with wealth ambitious prospects of 
 worldly distinction began to open before these pastors 
 of the flock of Christ. 
 
 They declared themselves the authorized vice- 
 gerents of Heaven, as the successors of St. Peter in 
 the episcopal chair, founding their claim upon the 
 words of Christ to that apostle, “ On this rock will 
 I build my church,” and hence asserting that the 
 church of Rome is the only true church, though they 
 could not produce a tittle of evidence that Peter had 
 ever set foot in that city.* 
 
 Forgeries of papers and documents are of frequent 
 recurrence in the history of the temporal power of 
 the Popes. The eighth century was the era of the 
 most impudent of these frauds. Between the years 
 756 and 779 was fabricated a donation from the Em- 
 peror Constantine to Pope Sylvester, a few lines of 
 which will be sufficient to show its palpable absurdity. 
 “ We attribute to the chair of St. Peter all the im- 
 perial dignity, glory, and power Moreover, we 
 
 give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of 
 Lateran, incontestably one of the finest palaces on 
 earth ; we give him our crown, our mitre, our diadem, 
 
 * I must confess that I cannot help believing the two verses of 
 Matthew, xvi., 18, 19, to be an interpolation by some later tool of the 
 papal See. The punning upon the name of Peter and the word rock 
 is quite unworthy of the lips into which it is put, and indeed abso- 
 lutely inconsistent with the character of the speaker. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 and all our imperial vestments ; we resign to him the 
 
 imperial dignity We give as a free gift to the 
 
 holy pontiff the city of Rome and all the western 
 cities of Italy, as well as the western cities of the 
 other countries. To make room for him, we abdicate 
 our sovereignty over all these provinces, and we with- 
 draw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire 
 to Byzantium, since it is not just that a terrestrial 
 emperor shall retain any power where God has placed 
 the head of religion.” It would he useless to waste 
 a word on so clumsy a forgery, which, however, serves 
 to convey some idea of the expedients employed in 
 the eighth century to establish the temporal power of 
 the Popes. It furnishes moreover a measure of the 
 public ignorance during the succeeding ages, when 
 this strange concession, revered by nations and even 
 by kings, contributed to the development of the poli- 
 tical power of the Holy See. 
 
 It was about the same time that one Isidore Mer- 
 cator, or Peccator, forged the decretals of ancient 
 Popes, of Anaclete, Clement, Evaristus, and others, 
 down to St. Silvester. In the sixth century, Diony- 
 sius the Less could only collect the decretals from 
 the time of St. Siricius, who died about the end of 
 the fourth. Isidore’s are long, full of commonplace, 
 and all in the same style which, according to Fleury, 
 is that of the eighth century much more than of the 
 first a^e of the Church. “ Almost all the dates are 
 false,” adds that historian, “and they carry with 
 them internal evidence of forgery : they speak of 
 
TIIE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 archbishops, primates, patriarchs, as though these 
 titles had been adopted in the first infancy of the 
 Church. They forbid any council, even provincial, 
 to be held without the permission of the Pope, and 
 represent appeals to Rome as customary.” These 
 false decretals contributed to extend the spiritual 
 power of the Popes, and to invest them with political 
 authority. Their mischievous effects have been ably 
 exposed by Fleury in his Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 Anastasius, who compiled his History of the Popes 
 at the conclusion of the ninth century, makes the first 
 mention of alleged donations to the Holy See by 
 Pepin and Charlemagne. The latter is represented 
 as conferring provinces which he never possessed, and 
 over which he had no right of sovereignty or even of 
 conquest : and the existence of any document to cer- 
 tify this grant rested on no other authority than the 
 unsupported testimony of Anastasius. 
 
 So much is certain, that before the ninth century 
 the Popes laid claim to no independent temporal 
 power, but acknowledged the emperors of the East 
 or West as their sovereigns. The pretensions which 
 they soon afterwards began to put forward were 
 founded on those clumsy forgeries just mentioned, 
 which, but for the extreme ignorance of the people 
 of those days, never could have gained the slightest 
 degree of credit. 
 
 A power, though not sovereign, may nevertheless 
 be effective. Such was that of the Popes from the time 
 of Charlemagne. A positive temporal power, though 
 
6 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 subaltern, delegated, or borrowed, did thenceforward 
 exist in the hands of the bishops of Rome ; and from 
 that time the continual wars between the priesthood 
 and the lay sovereignty had no other object than to 
 emancipate and to increase that power. The first 
 thing to be done was to render it independent, and, 
 as soon as it was or could pretend to be so, to extend 
 its attributions, its rights, and its limits, and to trans- 
 form it into a universal monarchy. Such, was the 
 general cause of all the anathemas, quarrels, and wars, 
 of which the history of the middle ages is made up ; 
 and such the secret of the everlasting struggle of the 
 court of Rome against most of the European powers, 
 and more especially against whichever of them ob- 
 tained the preponderance in Italy. 
 
 It is at the commencement of the 9th century then 
 that we begin to perceive, not indeed the establish- 
 ment but the first symptoms of the temporal power 
 of the Roman prelates. The principal of the causes 
 that could not fail to lead to this result consisted in 
 the prodigious progress of all the ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions. Several of the Popes and many other pre- 
 lates had, by their virtues and talents, deserved the 
 respect of nations and the esteem of kings : they had 
 gained those imposing reputations which, in times of 
 public troubles and disasters, are always the begin- 
 nings of power. Zealous missionaries had carried the 
 light of the Gospel to most of the countries of Europe, 
 and prepared, nay, even forwarded, by religious in- 
 structions, the civilization of some of the barbarous 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 7 
 
 nations. On all sides rose richly endowed churches 
 and monasteries ; the pious liberality of princes and 
 private persons augmented every where, and espe- 
 cially at Rome, the treasures and immoveable pro- 
 perty of the clergy; its territorial possessions gra- 
 dually became extensive enough to be insensibly 
 transformed into principalities — a metamorphosis but 
 too easy under such weak and tottering governments. 
 Add to this the frequency and the solemnity of coun- 
 cils, the general interest excited by their decisions, 
 and the almost inevitable contact of their discussions 
 with the order or disorder of political affairs. 
 
 Be it particularly borne in mind that, in the begin- 
 ning of the eighth century, there existed no other 
 great empire but the Eastern, and that, nevertheless, 
 the power of the Greek emperors, limited in Asia by 
 that of the caliphs, weakened in their own capital 
 by internal revolutions, represented at Ravenna by 
 exarchs destitute of ability or loyalty, was maintained 
 with difficulty in Italy against the arms of the Lom- 
 bards, and sometimes needed the influence of the 
 Romish pontiffs for its defence. Meanwhile, the new 
 thrones erected here and there by barbarous con- 
 querors were already tottering under their successors, 
 whose ignorance, generally equal to that of their sub- 
 jects, seemed to provoke the enterprises of the clergy. 
 These, more enlightened than the vulgar, eagerly 
 seized all opportunities to augment their power. 
 When, in 681, the council of Toledo released the 
 subjects of Yamba from their allegiance to that 
 
8 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 prince, it is possible that the thirty-five bishops who 
 sat in that’ assembly were not aware either of the 
 temerity or the monstrous disloyalty of such a sen- 
 tence. Fleury, in his Ecclesiastical History, may 
 well call attention to this first example of a king de- 
 posed by bishops ; but he might also have remarked 
 that such a novelty excited no scandal ; that kings 
 made no complaint against it ; and that no obstacle 
 prevented the execution of this extraordinary decree. 
 The authority arrogated on this occasion the clergy 
 of succeeding times seized every opportunity to con- 
 firm and to extend. 
 
 Charlemagne, the conqueror and successor of the 
 Lombard kings, assumed the title of King of Italy, 
 and in the year 800 was elevated to the dignity of 
 emperor, not by the Pope alone, but by an assembly 
 of the clergy, nobility, and people of Rome. He pos- 
 sessed the supreme dominion of the whole Peninsula, 
 as far as Lower Calabria, including the Holy See, and 
 exercised it by himself or by his delegates : he re- 
 ceived homage from the Popes, reserved the right of 
 confirming their elections, and with vigorous hand 
 held their persons and possessions in subordination 
 to his authority. He condemned the donations made 
 to the Church to the prejudice of the children and 
 near kindred of the donors. In 816, a capitulary of 
 his successor, Louis le Debonnaire, declared all dona- 
 tions of the kind null and void. But, instead of con- 
 tinuing to limit sacerdotal ambition by such barriers, 
 Louis was destined to become one of the first victims, 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 .0 
 
 and thereby one of the founders, of the power of the 
 clergy. 
 
 That weak prince committed the egregious blunder 
 of dividing a great part of his dominions among his 
 three sons, who leagued against him to deprive him 
 of the rest. They were encouraged in their rebellion 
 by the clergy ; and, to conciliate these formidable 
 adversaries, Louis summoned four councils for the ex- 
 amination of his conduct and the complaints which it 
 occasioned. At these synods was broached a doc- 
 trine relative to the rights of the clergy and the duties 
 of princes, which, so near to the time of Charle- 
 magne’s omnipotence, would appear almost incre- 
 dible. One of these councils even went so far as to 
 represent Constantine the Great as addressing the 
 bishops in these terms : “ God has given you power 
 to judge us, but you cannot be judged by men. God 
 has set you up over us as gods, and it is not fit that 
 man should judge gods. This belongs only to him 
 of whom it is written, ‘ God hath seated himself in 
 the synagogue of the gods, and he judgeth them !’ ” 
 
 Pope Gregory IV. himself afterwards took part 
 with the emperor’s rebellious sons ; and, when some 
 of the French prelates had the courage to remon- 
 strate in behalf of their sovereign, the pontiff inso- 
 lently declared, “ Know that my chair is above the 
 throne of Louis.” Gregory repaired to France, joined 
 the rebellious brothers, and visited the camp of Louis 
 in the assumed character of mediator. On the very 
 night after he had quitted the emperor, the latter 
 
10 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 was deserted by his troops, and, being obliged to 
 surrender to his sons, he was dethroned “ by the 
 advice of the Pope,” says Fleury. The son of Charle- 
 magne almost deserved the degrading humiliations 
 now heaped upon him by submitting to such igno- 
 miny. Ebbo, bishop of Rheims, and other prelates, 
 sentenced him to do public penance ; on his knees 
 before them, he made confession of his crimes, among 
 which were included the marching of troops in Lent, 
 and the convocation of a parliament for holy Thurs- 
 day ; and, dragged from convent to convent, to Com- 
 piegne, Soissons, Aix-la-Chapelle, Paris, and St. 
 Denis, he seemed destined to end his days there, 
 when the very excess of his afflictions excited the 
 public pity, and roused the indignation of the people 
 and of the great against his already divided enemies. 
 
 The subsequent dissensions among the numerous 
 descendants of Charlemagne afforded the Popes abun- 
 dant occasions to set themselves up for judges of 
 their pretensions, to obtain, in return for the service 
 which they rendered to some, a right to humble the 
 others and to rule them all. Hence those enterprises 
 of the Popes, who, looking upon themselves as dispen- 
 sers of an empire of which they were but the first sub- 
 jects, pretended, under the shadow of a purely spi- 
 ritual power, to dispose of the sovereignty of States. 
 Hence that authority of the bishops, who, after de- 
 throning the father at the solicitation of the children, 
 conceived that they had a right to elect, confirm, or 
 depose their masters ; ambitious prelates, more war- 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 11 
 
 riors than churchmen, scarcely able to read, much 
 less write, yet quite as formidable for the spiritual 
 thunderbolts which they hurled almost at random, as 
 by the temporal power which they had usurped in 
 their cities and dioceses. Hence the almost inde- 
 pendent principalities, which the monks formed for 
 themselves in countries where, but a few years before, 
 they had with their own hands tilled the lands which 
 a mistaken piety had bestowed upon them. 
 
 Though there was not yet any authentic act ex- 
 alting the Pope into a sovereign, and emancipating 
 the authority which he exercised in Rome and the 
 surrounding districts from the imperial supremacy, 
 yet his power was becoming de facto independent ; 
 and, since he fancied that, in anointing the emperors, 
 he was actually making them ; since he dared talk of 
 their dignity as a gift for which they were indebted 
 to him; he was no doubt strong enough to set bounds 
 to any obedience which they might have required. 
 So far from imposing laws upon him in his own ter- 
 ritories, they were often thwarted by his in the exer- 
 cise of their civil rights and of their political powers. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this work to trace all the 
 successive usurpations of temporal as well as spiritual 
 power practised by the Romish pontiffs' and the clergy 
 during the darkest ages of European ignorance, when 
 possessions were regulated by custom only, and trans- 
 actions were chronicled in the memory alone. Among 
 those nations, those great vassals, those kings, who 
 could neither write nor read, the most superficial in- 
 
12 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 struction was sufficient to enable the clergy to engross 
 the management of most civil concerns. They kept 
 to themselves the keys both of religion and of let- 
 ters ; they alone could write and make out ancient 
 writings ; they assumed the functions of lawyers and 
 notaries, drawing up wills, marriage contracts, agree- 
 ments, and public acts ; they extorted legacies and 
 donations ; they emancipated themselves from the 
 secular jurisdiction, and strove to make all persons 
 and all things amenable to their tribunal. 
 
 It was not till the latter half of the eleventh cen- 
 tury that the whole extent of the papal pretensions 
 was manifested, and that those pretensions began to 
 be enforced with unbounded arrogance and inflexible 
 perseverance. Hildebrand, the most remarkable per- 
 sonage of his time, was elevated to the papal throne 
 in 1073. He was a native of Tuscany, and, it is 
 said, the son of a carpenter, studied in France, and 
 returned to Italy, to become the adviser and director 
 of several successive Popes. In his ardent mind, the 
 idea of a universal theocracy had grown up into a 
 passion ; and to the realization of this scheme all the 
 energies of his whole life were directed. To ensure 
 the empire of the priesthood over the rest of mankind, 
 and the domination of the Pope over the whole priest- 
 hood, he felt the necessity of reforming their man- 
 ners and concentrating their relations, of cutting 
 them off more completely from the rest of the world, 
 and forming them into one great family, the members 
 of which should not recollect that they had ever be- 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 13 
 
 longed to secular families. The celibacy of the clergy 
 was still but a general practice, Introduced into almost 
 all the churches, but likewise almost every where 
 modified by exceptions or transgressions : Hildebrand 
 resolved to make it a rigorous law. At his instiga- 
 tion, Pope Stephen IX., in 1058, declared marriage 
 incompatible with the priesthood ; treated all the 
 wives of priests as concubines, excommunicating them 
 and their husbands, if their union were not immedi- 
 ately dissolved. The clergy made some resistance ; 
 the Milanese priests in particular ventured to remon- 
 strate, pleading the permission given them by St. 
 Ambrose to marry one wife, provided she were a vir- 
 gin : but Hildebrand, to cut short all opposition, set 
 down the troublesome complainants as heretics. 
 
 The unlimited aggrandizement of the pontifical 
 power continued to be the ruling principle of Hilde- 
 brand’s conduct, after he had seated himself in the 
 papal chair by the name of Gregory VII. His zeal, 
 not only active, but audacious, obstinate, inconsiderate, 
 was the result of a persuasion too firm to be shaken. 
 He would have suffered martyrdom for his convictions, 
 had circumstances required it. Like all rigid enthu- 
 siasts, he thought himself disinterested, and was, 
 without remorse, the scourge of the world. 
 
 To this Pope are attributed twenty-seven maxims, 
 forming a complete declaration of the sovereignty, 
 spiritual and temporal, of the Roman pontiff, including 
 the right of deposing all princes, of giving away all 
 crowns, of reforming all laws. No positive proof has 
 
14 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 been adduced that he actually drew up or dictated 
 those articles ; but all of them are to be found, either 
 in substance or more at large, in his authentic letters, 
 and they might fairly be called the Spirit of Hilde- 
 brand. They were the rule of his conduct, his pro- 
 fession of faith, which he would fain have imposed 
 upon all Christendom. As such, it may not be amiss 
 to give them in detail. 
 
 44 The Romish Church is the only one that God has 
 founded. 
 
 44 The title of universal belongs to the Roman pon- 
 tiff alone. 
 
 44 He alone can depose and absolve bishops. 
 
 44 His legate presides over all the bishops in every 
 council, and may pronounce sentence of deposition 
 against them. 
 
 “ The Pope can depose absent persons. 
 
 “ It is not lawful to live with such as have been 
 excommunicated. 
 
 44 He has the power, according to circumstances, to 
 make new laws, to create new churches, to transform 
 a chapter into an abbey, and to divide a rich bishopric 
 into two, or to unite two poor bishoprics. 
 
 44 He alone has a right to assume the attributes of 
 empire. 
 
 44 All princes must kiss his feet. 
 
 44 His name is the only one to be uttered in the 
 churches. 
 
 44 It is the only name in the world. 
 
 44 He has a right to depose emperors. 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 15 
 
 “ He has a right to remove bishops from one see to 
 another. 
 
 “ He has a right to appoint a clerk [priest] in every 
 church. 
 
 “ He whom he has appointed may govern another 
 church, and cannot receive a higher benefice from 
 any private bishop. 
 
 “No council can call itself general without the 
 order of the Pope. 
 
 “No chapter, no book, can be reputed canonical 
 without his authority. 
 
 “No one can invalidate his sentences ; he can 
 abrogate those of all other persons. 
 
 “ He cannot be judged by any one. 
 
 “ All persons whatsoever are forbidden to presume 
 to condemn him who is called to the apostolical chair. 
 
 “ To this chair must be brought the more impor- 
 tant causes of all the churches. 
 
 “ The Roman church is never wrong, and will never 
 fall into error. 
 
 “ Every Roman pontiff canonically ordained be- 
 comes holy. 
 
 “ It is lawful to accuse when he permits, or when 
 he commands. 
 
 “ He may, without synod, depose and absolve 
 bishops. 
 
 “ He is no Catholic who is not united to the 
 Romish Church. 
 
 “ The Pope can release the subjects of bad princes 
 from all oaths of allegiance.” 
 
16 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 Absurd and extravagant as these assumptions may 
 appear, such then became, and such has never since 
 ceased to be, the system of the court of Rome. Cir- 
 cumstances have sometimes enjoined forbearance, 
 required concessions, recommended disguise ; but, 
 excepting Adrian VI. and Clement XIV., none of the 
 Popes have retracted the maxims of Hildebrand, and 
 the court of Rome has proclaimed, professed, and 
 practised them, whenever it has had occasion and 
 liberty to do so. 
 
 The circumstances of the times were most favour- 
 able to the ambitious designs of Hildebrand. Ever 
 since the death of Otho the Great, the German empire 
 had been declining ; Italy was divided into petty 
 States ; a young king was seated on the throne of 
 France ; the Moors were masters of the greatest part 
 of Spain ; the Normans had just conquered England; 
 and the kingdoms of the North, recently converted, 
 and ignorant of the limits of the pontifical authority, 
 might be expected to set an example of docility. 
 
 When Gregory saw William the Conqueror firmly 
 seated on the throne of England, he did not scruple to 
 summon him to pay homage for that kingdom to the 
 apostolical chair. The pretext for this strange requi- 
 sition was a charitable donation paid by the English 
 to the Romish Church for about two centuries, and 
 called Peter’s pence. The Conqueror replied that 
 the alms might perhaps be continued ; but that it was 
 unreasonable to demand homage from those from 
 whom one was receiving charity. At the same time, 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 17 
 
 William forbade bis new subjects to go to Rome, or 
 to acknowledge any Pope but the one whom he should 
 approve. Here the affair ended ; for the Pope had 
 sufficient judgment not to insist on his demand. He 
 probably imagined that the newness of William’s 
 power in England would dispose him to desire the 
 protection of Rome, and to purchase it by an act of 
 vassalage : but he merely exposed his ignorance of 
 that conqueror’s power, of his energetic character, 
 and of his ascendency over his new subjects. 
 
 Sardinia, Dalmatia, Russia, were in the eyes of 
 Gregory but fiefs dependent on the tiara. “ In the 
 name of St. Peter,” he wrote to the Russian prince 
 Demetrius, “ we have given your crown to your son, 
 who is to come and to receive it at our hands, on 
 taking an oath of allegiance to us.” To give a com- 
 plete list of the princes whom Gregory excommuni- 
 cated or threatened with excommunication, it w T ould 
 be necessary to mention all who reigned contempora- 
 neously with himself : Nicephorus Botoniates, Greek 
 emperor, whom he commanded to abdicate the crown ; 
 Boleslaus, king of Poland, whom he declared to be 
 deposed, adding that Poland should no longer be a 
 kingdom ; Solomon, king of Hungary, whom he 
 referred to his aged subjects to learn from them whe- 
 ther their country belonged to the Romish Church ; 
 the Spanish princes, to whom he wrote that St. Peter 
 was lord paramount of all their petty States, and that 
 it would be better for Spain to be completely subdued 
 by the Saracens, than not to pay homage to the vicar 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 of Christ; Robert Guiscard, the Norman conqueror 
 of Naples, who, to strengthen a right acquired by the 
 sword, had consented to acknowledge himself the 
 Pope’s vassal, and whom he punished by his ana- 
 themas for the slightest disobedience; the duke of 
 Bohemia, from whom he exacted a tribute of one 
 hundred marks in silver; Philip I. of France, of whom 
 he required the same kind of tribute, and whom he 
 denounced to the French bishops as a tyrant steeped 
 in guilt and infamy, who was unworthy of the royal 
 title, and whose accomplices they made themselves, if 
 they did not vigorously resist him. “ Follow the ex- 
 ample,” said he, “ of the Romish Church, your mother ; 
 separate yourselves from the service and the commu- 
 nion of Philip, if he continues hardened ; let the cele- 
 bration of the holy offices be interdicted throughout 
 all France; and know that, with the assistance of 
 God, we will deliver that kingdom from such an 
 oppressor.” But, of all the European sovereigns, the 
 emperor Henry IV., who had most influence in Italy, 
 was, for that very reason, most exposed to the thunder- 
 bolts of Hildebrand. 
 
 Against all these potentates, and Henry IV. in 
 particular, Gregory had no other ally than the empe- 
 ror’s cousin, a woman of little ability, but extremely 
 devout : this was Matilda, countess of Tuscany. She 
 lived on bad terms with her husband, Godfrey, the 
 hunchbacked, and was strongly attached to Gregory, 
 who, as her spiritual director, wrote extremely affec- 
 tionate letters to her— circumstances which have led 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 19 
 
 to the inference of a more intimate connexion between 
 them. This princess gave all her possessions to the 
 Holy See ; and, though they were afterwards seized 
 by the emperor Henry V. as her heir, the Popes did 
 eventually obtain part of this donation, and called it 
 the patrimony of St. Peter. 
 
 Henry IV. had just gained a victory over the 
 Saxons, with whom he was at war, when two legates 
 arrived with orders from the Pope to repair to Rome, 
 and answer to charges which had been preferred 
 against him. They related to investitures which he 
 had given to bishops — a right claimed by the Pope, 
 who threatened to excommunicate him, unless he 
 sought pardon for his fault. Henry, in a council 
 held at Worms, deposed Gregory, ^vlio, aware of the 
 inefficacy of such a decree, replied to it by the fol- 
 lowing : “ In the name of Almighty God, and by my 
 full authority, I forbid Henry, the son of Henry, to 
 govern the Teutonic kingdom and Italy ; I absolve all 
 Christians from the oaths which they have taken or 
 may take to him ; and all persons are forbidden to 
 render any service to him as a king.” This ex- 
 travagant denunciation was sufficient to wrest from 
 the emperor the fruit of all his triumphs ; civil war 
 was rekindled in Germany ; an army of confederates 
 assembled near Spire, surrounded Henry, and obliged 
 him to engage to suspend the exercise of his power, 
 till judgment should be pronounced between him and 
 the Pope, in a council at Augsburg, where the pontiff 
 was to preside. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 To prevent this definitive decision, Henry resolved 
 to beg pardon of Gregory, and for that purpose re- 
 paired to the fortress of Canossa, where the Pope was 
 shut up with his countess Matilda. He went with- 
 out guard or retinue. He was stopped in the second 
 court, where he suffered himself to be stripped of his 
 garments and a hair shirt to be put on him. Barefoot, 
 in the month of January, 1077, he awaited in the 
 court the answer of the holy Father. That answer 
 was that he must fast three days before he could he 
 admitted to kiss the feet of Gregory ; at the expira- 
 tion of that time, the Pope would receive and absolve 
 him, upon his promise of entire submission to the 
 future judgment of the council of Augsburg. This 
 excessive arrogance and tyranny revolted the Italians. 
 Lombardy armed for Henry, whom the Germans 
 abandoned ; and, while the Empire elected another 
 head, Italy -set up another Pope. 
 
 The vengeance of Gregory’s successors pursued the 
 emperor. His son, at the instigation of Pascal II., 
 rebelled against him, and procured his own election 
 to the imperial dignity. The three ecclesiastical 
 electors, the archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, and 
 Treves, tore the diadem from his brow with their own 
 hands ; and an emperor who had distinguished him- 
 self in sixty-six battles was reduced, through the 
 persecution of the Church, to such abject want as to 
 be obliged to solicit, but unsuccessfully, an humble 
 office in a church which he had himself built. When 
 he died, the Pope would not permit the remains of 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 21 
 
 the excommunicated prince to rest in peace ; they 
 were torn from the tomb, and for five years remained 
 unburied, till the clergy of Liege ventured to inter 
 them, and for so doing called down upon themselves 
 the papal anathemas. 
 
 In the 11th century originated in several churches 
 the use of an oath by which each new-elected prelate 
 engaged “ to defend the domains of St. Peter against 
 every aggressor ; to preserve, augment, extend, the 
 rights, honours, privileges, and powers, of the lord 
 Pope and his successors ; to observe and with all his 
 might to enforce his decrees, ordinances, reservations, 
 provisions, and all dispositions whatever emanating 
 from the court of Rome ; to persecute and to combat 
 to the last extremity heretics, schismatics, and all 
 who will not pay to the sovereign pontiff all the obe- 
 dience which the sovereign pontiff shall require.” 
 This oath has been taken by bishops who had 
 sovereigns that were not Catholics. Who could have 
 conceived that kings, whether Catholics or not, had 
 permitted their subjects to contract engagements so 
 contrary to the public order of society ! Complaints 
 have been made of it in Hungary, in Tuscany, in the 
 kingdom of Naples, and the prelates of Germany have 
 subjected this form to restrictions. But it is so 
 revolting in itself and so foreign to the discipline of 
 the first ten centuries of the Church, that we cannot 
 imagine how any one could seriously allege it as a 
 proof of the necessity of bulls of institution. 
 
 The pontificate of Eugene III. is rendered memo- 
 
22 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 rable in the history of the papal power by the appro- 
 bation which he gave to the decrees of Gratian. The 
 term decrees is here applied to a canonical compila- 
 tion, completed in 1152 by Gratian, a Benedictine 
 monk, born in Tuscany. The recent discovery of the 
 Pandects of Justinian had revived in Italy the study 
 of civil jurisprudence : Gratian’s collection became 
 the text-book of an ecclesiastical jurisprudence ; and 
 the first of these studies was soon deemed subordinate 
 and supplementary to the other. 
 
 This collection is divided into three parts, one of 
 which treats of general principles and of ecclesiastical 
 persons; the second, of judgments; and the third, of 
 sacred things. The repetitions, the irrelevancies, the 
 confusion, the errors in proper names, the blunders in 
 quotations, are the smallest faults of the author : 
 garbled passages, chimerical canons, false decretals, 
 lies of all sorts, abound in this monstrous work. Its 
 success was not on that account the less rapid : it 
 soon began to be expounded in the schools, to be 
 quoted in the courts of justice, to be invoked in 
 treaties ; and it had almost become the public law of 
 Europe, when returning enlightenment slowly dis- 
 pelled such gross delusions. 
 
 Priests exempted from secular jurisdiction — the 
 civil powers subjected to the ecclesiastical supremacy 
 — the condition of persons and the documents which 
 determine it regulated, confirmed, annulled by the 
 canons and by the clergy — the papal power released 
 from all restriction — the sanction of all the laws of 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 23 
 
 the Church attributed to the Holy See, independent 
 itself of the laws published and confirmed by it — 
 such are the positive results of this jurisprudence. 
 It has been modified by some Catholic Churches, 
 particularly that of France; but it has been re- 
 tained pure and intact in the Romish Church, which 
 has employed it ever since to disturb the peace of 
 empires. 
 
 From the end of the tenth century, the decretals of 
 Isidore had sown the seeds of pontifical omnipotence : 
 Gratian collected and fecundated them. Represented 
 as the source of all irrefragable decisions, as the uni- 
 versal tribunal for settling all differences, for dispel- 
 ling all doubts, for clearing away all difficulties, the 
 court of Rome soon found itself consulted from all 
 quarters, by metropolitans, by bishops, by chapters, 
 by abbots, by monks, by nobles, nay, even by princes 
 and private individuals. The pontifical correspondence 
 had no limits but in the tardiness of the means of 
 communication : the affluence of questions multiplied 
 bulls, briefs, epistles ; and from these fictitious decre- 
 tals, attributed to the Popes of the first centuries, 
 have sprung, from the time of Eugene III., thousands 
 of too authentic answers and sentences. Religious, 
 civil, judicial, domestic matters, all in those days 
 more or less clogged by pretended relations with the 
 spiritual power ; general interests, local disputes, pri- 
 vate quarrels, were all referred, sometimes in the first 
 instance, sometimes for final adjudication, to the vicar 
 of Christ : and the court of Rome acquired that retail 
 
24 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 influence, if I may be allowed the expression, which 
 is most of all to be dreaded, precisely because each of 
 its effects, separated from the rest, appears more 
 indifferent. Isidore and Gratian transformed the 
 Pope into a universal administrator. 
 
 So early as the first half of the twelfth century, we 
 find that even in Rome itself doctrines closely resem- 
 bling those of the reformers of the following ages 
 were publicly promulgated. Arnold, of Brescia, one 
 of the superior spirits of those dark and turbulent 
 times, after studying at Paris under Abelard, returned 
 in 1136 to Italy, full of new ideas respecting reli- 
 gion and the Church. His bold, independent mind, 
 his intimate acquaintance with Christian antiquity, 
 and his persuasive eloquence in the pulpit and in the 
 professor’s chair, gave prodigious weight to his de- 
 nunciations of the ambition and despotism of the 
 clergy. Condemned in 1139 by the second council 
 of Lateran, he sought refuge in France, where his 
 doctrines procured him numerous adherents, who 
 assumed the name of Arnoldists : for the just discon- 
 tent excited by the profligate manners and arrogant 
 pretensions of the clergy had every where prepared 
 the way for him. The excommunication pronounced 
 against him and his followers by Pope Innocent II. 
 could not quench the spreading flames of disaffection; 
 and Arnold, removing to Zurich in Switzerland, 
 preached his doctrine without molestation till 1144; 
 when the people of Rome, having expelled the Pope, 
 established a semblance of a republican government 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 25 
 
 iii their city. Proceeding thither at the head of 2000 
 Swiss, Arnold proposed the restoration of consuls, 
 tribunes, and the equestrian order of the ancient 
 republic ; he further urged the expediency of depri- 
 ving the Pope of all civil power, and limiting that 
 which the Romans were obliged to leave to the 
 emperor. For several years the pontifical authority 
 was not recognised in the capital, nor was it reco- 
 vered till 1153 by Eugene III., aided by the influence 
 of Frederick Barbarossa. Venerated by the people, 
 and protected by the senate, Arnold continued to 
 disseminate his doctrines at Rome, till the accession 
 of Adrian IV., the only Englishman that ever sat on 
 the pontifical throne, who, to get rid of so formidable 
 an opponent, laid, for the first time, the whole city 
 under an interdict. This bold measure produced 
 universal consternation and dismay ; the Romans 
 solicited pardon, and the senate banished the reformer. 
 Scarcely had Arnold left the city, when he was seized 
 by the soldiers of Frederick Barbarossa; the emperor 
 delivered him up to the Pope, by whose command he 
 was burned alive, unknown to the Romans, at day- 
 break, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber, 
 “lest,” says Fleury, “the people might collect them 
 as those of a martyr.” 
 
 This service rendered to Adrian by the emperor 
 did not prevent them from falling out. In 1155, 
 when Frederick went to Rome to receive the imperial 
 crown, symptoms of misunderstanding began to ap- 
 pear ; he refused to hold the pontiff’s stirrup, and 
 
26 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 at last submitted with a very bad grace to perform 
 that species of homage. He observed in the Lateran 
 palace a picture representing the emperor Lothair on 
 his knees before the Pope, receiving the crown from 
 him, and an inscription to the effect that he thus 
 made himself a vassal of the Holy See. He com- 
 plained of this inscription, and obtained a vague pro- 
 mise that it should be erased — a promise that of 
 course was not fulfilled. 
 
 In 1157, Frederick was holding his court at 
 Besan^on, whither Adrian sent legates with a letter 
 complaining of an outrage committed on the person 
 of the bishop of Lunden, in the dominions of the 
 emperor. “How,” wrote the Pope, “is the impunity 
 of such a crime to be accounted for? Is it negligence? 
 is it indifference? Has the emperor forgotten the 
 favours heaped upon him by the Holy See ? Has not 
 the sovereign pontiff, of his own free will, conferred 
 on him the imperial crown ? Are there not other 
 favours which he might intend to grant him ?” This 
 language nettled the princes whom Frederick had 
 around him : they murmured ; they threatened ; and 
 when one of the legates replied, “Of whom then does 
 the emperor hold his crown, if not of the Pope ?” one 
 of those princes, unable to control his indignation, 
 drew his sword, and would infallibly have despatched 
 the insolent churchman, if Frederick had not exerted 
 his imperial authority to prevent the violence. He 
 sent the papal envoys under an escort to their quarters, 
 ordering them to set out very early on the morrow, 
 
THE PAPAL POWER 
 
 27 
 
 and to return to Rome by the shortest route, without 
 stopping either with bishops or abbots by the way. 
 
 Adrian now addressed himself to the bishops of 
 Germany, exhorting them to use their best endeavours 
 to bring the emperor back to more humble sentiments. 
 Their answer was firm, and judicious. “ Your words,” 
 said they, “ have shocked the whole court, and we 
 cannot approve them. The emperor never can be- 
 lieve that he holds his dignity from you : he swears 
 that, when the Church wants to subject thrones, that 
 ambition does not proceed from God. He complains 
 of pictures and inscriptions which you have, and 
 which are insulting to his power ; and declares that 
 he will not endure such gross affronts. We beg you 
 to destroy those monuments of enmity between the 
 empire and the Church ; we beseech you to appease 
 a Christian prince by henceforward using towards him 
 a language more conformable with the Gospel.” This 
 honest expression of the sentiments of the bishops, 
 together with the preparations making by Frederick 
 for going to Italy, caused Adrian to lower his tone, 
 lie condescended to explain the terms of his first 
 letter to the emperor ; and that explanation, which 
 was equivalent to a retractation, satisfied Frederick. 
 
 The history of the Romish See in all ages proves 
 that pretensions once advanced by it are not very 
 readily abandoned. It was not long before the con- 
 duct of Adrian exhibited evidence of this tenacity. 
 In 1158, the assembled bishops and abbots having 
 acknowledged that they held their sovereign rights 
 
28 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 from the emperor, the pontiff disapproving this decla- 
 ration, wrote a letter to Frederick, which has not 
 been preserved, but is described by Radevic, the his- 
 torian of that prince, as full of spleen and haughtiness, 
 cloaked in very humble and gentle terms. In his 
 answer, Frederick thought fit to place his name in 
 the superscription before that of the Pope, in accord- 
 ance with an ancient custom, instead of which a form 
 thought more respectful had been for some time sub- 
 stituted. This trifle nettled his holiness ; and History 
 relates that letters of his, addressed to the Milanese 
 and other subjects of the emperor’s, instigating them 
 to revolt, were intercepted. Those letters are not 
 extant, but Adrian’s reply to the emperor has been 
 preserved. “To put your name before ours,” writes 
 the servant of the servants of Christ, 4 4 is arrogance, 
 it is insolence ; and to cause homage to be paid to 
 you by bishops, by those whom the Scripture calls 
 gods, sons of the Most High, is to violate the fidelity 
 which you have sworn to St. Peter and to us. Hasten 
 then to amend, lest, in attributing to yourself what 
 does not belong to you, you should lose the crown, 
 which we have conferred on you.” This epistle was 
 not unanswered ; passions were kindled, and war was 
 ready to break out, when the Pope died, at the very 
 moment, says one historian, when he was pronouncing 
 F rederick’s excommunication . 
 
 It was during the pontificate of Adrian’s successor, 
 Alexander III., that the audacious conduct of Becket, 
 archbishop of Canterbury, encouraged by the Pope, 
 
TIIE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 29 
 
 brought a violent death upon himself, and the deepest 
 degradation on King Henry II. The circumstances 
 of that melancholy struggle between the sovereign 
 authority and the omnipotence of the Church are too 
 well known to every reader of English history to need 
 recapitulating here. The events of the contest be- 
 tween John and Innocent III., attended with still 
 more degrading results for that alike weak and wicked 
 monarch, are equally well known. 
 
 By Pope Innocent III., the pretensions and the 
 power of the Church were carried to an extent which, 
 extravagant as they were, they had not previously 
 attained. In one year he gave away of his full 
 authority three royal crowns : — those of Wallachia, 
 Bohemia, and Arragon. Peter II. went to Rome to 
 receive the latter, where he did homage to the Pope 
 for his dominions, which thus became tributary to the 
 Holy See. But Innocent, the distributor of king- 
 doms, and who even gave away that of Armenia, 
 displayed his power more frequently in anathemas. 
 Venice, France, England, the emperors, all the first 
 potentates in Europe, felt the force of his spiritual 
 weapons, — setting himself up for the supreme arbiter 
 of kings, commanding them to make war or peace, 
 and thus, observes Fleury, “ virtually proclaiming 
 himself the only sovereign in the world.” 
 
 The emperor of the West, as sovereign of Rome, 
 and possessing a troublesome preponderance in Italy, 
 was more exposed than any other prince to the 
 attacks of Innocent. To lessen the power of the 
 
30 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 empire, it was of especial importance to re-establish 
 the pontifical authority in Rome and in the states of 
 the Church. The Pope therefore began by turning 
 to account the ascendency which his birth, his repu- 
 tation, and his talents gave him over the Romans ; he 
 abolished the consulship, and, arrogating the imperial 
 rights to himself, he invested the prefect, appointed 
 the public officers, received the oaths of the senators. 
 At that moment was extinguished the authority of 
 the emperors in Rome. Orbitello, Viterbo, Umbria, 
 the Romagna, the march of Ancona, likewise acknow- 
 ledged Innocent III. for their sovereign. Thus 
 reigning from sea to sea, he conceived hopes of con- 
 quering Ravenna, which was still wanting to complete 
 the heritage of Matilda, to subject more and more the 
 Two Sicilies, and, above all, to prevent them from ever 
 being under the sceptre of the head of the empire. 
 When most of the provinces of Italy were once under 
 his immediate sway, he purposed to content himself 
 with exercising elsewhere his spiritual authority : as 
 for the states not in his possession, he would be 
 satisfied to give them, to take them away, and to 
 invest with them such princes as should deserve them 
 by their constant docility. 
 
 Among the three hundred popes and anti-popes 
 whose names History presents to us, we know of none 
 more imposing than Innocent III. “ In his actions, 
 his principles, and the effects produced by both on 
 the state of Europe,” says an eloquent living writer, 
 “ we scarcely recognise a human being. He, in fact, 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 31 
 
 takes a stand wholly above the class of figures which 
 form the ordinary pageant of history. The circum- 
 stances of his time, and the faculties of his nature, 
 make us rather look for his resemblance in one of 
 those wanderers from some higher star, in a strayed 
 spirit dropped by accident among us, and in the garb 
 of man allowed to follow his original propensities, or 
 do either good which astonishes human benevolence, 
 or evil which throws human malignity into the shade 
 by powers which in all cases exceed the dimensions of 
 human nature. Without charging the Pope with being 
 altogether a demon, it must be acknowledged that 
 some of his actions nearly approached the character.”* 
 His pontificate is the most worthy of the attention 
 and study of European monarclis. Here they may 
 learn how temporal power, united with ecclesiastical 
 functions, exaggerates them, and changes their nature ; 
 to what universal supremacy the papacy aspires ; 
 what tyranny it exercises to that end over princes, as 
 well as people, when political circumstances prove 
 ever so slightly favourable to sacerdotal ambition. A 
 Pope, said Innocent, a vicegerent of Christ, if less 
 than God, is greater than man : he is the luminary of 
 day ; the civil authority being only the pale orb of 
 night. It was Innocent who discovered in the first 
 chapter of Genesis this celestial theory of the two 
 powers ; and it was with such allegories, evidences of 
 the ignorance of his age and of his own, that he sub- 
 jugated the West, disturbed the East, ruled the earth, 
 
 * Foreign Monthly Review, No. iv., p. 342. 
 
32 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 and deluged it with blood. “ Sword, sword,” he ex- 
 claimed, when informed of the landing of the French 
 in England, “ sword, leap from the scabbard ; sword, 
 whet thyself to exterminate !” Such was the text of 
 his last discourse. 
 
 Innocent was the first to take advantage of the 
 spirit which produced the crusades to the East, by 
 transferring their name to other leagues formed or 
 fomented by the Church of Rome. He made the 
 enormous power of a word, which for above a cen- 
 tury had not failed to excite throughout Europe the 
 strongest and the blindest enthusiasm, subservient to 
 his various political designs. He therefore preached 
 a crusade against England, when he wished to dethrone 
 king John ; a crusade against the Hungarians-, when 
 he set himself up for the judge of their intestine dis- 
 sensions ; a crusade against the king of Norway, when 
 he purposed to tear the crown from his head ; but, 
 above all, a crusade against the Albigenses, a sect 
 which had spread over the whole South of France. 
 Add to this that Innocent, if not the inventor of the 
 Inquisition, which may be termed a permanent cru- 
 sade, was the actual founder of that horrible insti- 
 tution, by employing it as an engine of persecution 
 against the Albigenses. Let all these facts and their 
 consequences be duly considered, and then say if in 
 the whole range of history there is to be found scarcely 
 one individual by whom a greater amount of misery 
 has been inflicted on mankind. 
 
 The grand engines by which the Popes were enabled 
 
TIIE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 S3 
 
 to maintain their usurped supremacy over temporal 
 sovereigns were excommunication and interdict. By 
 the one, refractory princes were excluded from all the 
 offices of the Church, and their subjects were forbidden 
 on the like penalty to render them assistance or ser- 
 vice of any kind : by the other, the interdict, the 
 effects of excommunication were extended to a city, 
 a province, a whole kingdom. It released subjects 
 from their oaths of allegiance to their sovereign, and 
 forbade foreigners to hold any intercourse or commerce 
 with them. The nation was deprived of all the public 
 exercises of religion : the churches were shut up ; the 
 altars were stripped of their ornaments ; the crosses, 
 the relics, the images of saints, were laid upon the 
 ground, and carefully covered up, as if the very air 
 might pollute them by its contact. The bells were 
 removed from the steeples. Mass was celebrated with 
 closed doors, and none but the priests were allowed 
 to be present at the ceremony. The clergy refused 
 to marry, to baptise, or to bury ; till the superstitious 
 people rose in rebellion, and compelled their rulers to 
 submit to the commands of the vicegerent of God. 
 
 This measure was first resorted to by Gregory V., 
 in 998 , against France, whose king Robert refused to 
 put away his wife Bertha, as the Pope required him 
 to do, because she was related to him in the fourth 
 degree. Threatened with a general rebellion, the king 
 was at length forced to comply. Still more disas- 
 trous were the consequences of the interdict laid upon 
 England by Innocent III., owing to the refusal of 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 i) 
 
34 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 John to submit to the tax of Peter’s pence, and to 
 relinquish to the Pope the right of appointment to 
 English bishoprics. After it had lasted for six years, 
 John was forced not only to accede to the Papal 
 demands, but even to surrender his crown, and receive 
 it back as a free gift from the Church, besides sub- 
 mitting to the most humiliating personal degradations. 
 
 While the Popes were thus laying the foundation 
 of a universal monarchy, temporal as well as spiritual, 
 the doctrines of Christianity were gradually more and 
 more perverted from their original beneficent tendency 
 and simplicity. The worship of images and the vene- 
 ration of the relics of reputed saints and martyrs were 
 followed by the canonization of persons eminent for 
 their sanctity, or rather for their devotion to the 
 Romish See. They were invoked as mediators between 
 God and man : towns and kingdoms chose each their 
 tutelary saint. They were able to avert all dangers, 
 and to heal all maladies, and the virtues which they 
 possessed they imparted to their images. “ The 
 clergy,” says Southey, in his Book of the Church, 
 “ promoted every fantastic theory and every vulgar 
 superstition which could be made gainful to themselves, 
 and devised arguments for them, which they main- 
 tained with all the subtleties of scholastic logic. No 
 language can exaggerate the enormity of the falsehood 
 thus promulgated, nor the spirit of impious audacity 
 in which they were conceived : yet some of the most 
 monstrous and the most palpably false received the 
 full sanction of the papal authority ; the superstitions 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 35 
 
 founded upon them were legitimated by papal bulls ; 
 and festivals in commemoration of miracles which 
 never happened, nay, worse than this — of some of 
 the most blasphemous and flagitious impostures, were 
 appointed in the Romish calendar, where at this day 
 they hold their place.” 
 
 But, among all the saints whose names grace that 
 calendar, none found such favour in the eyes of the 
 Catholic priesthood as the Virgin Mary. She was 
 unanimously exalted to the highest rank in the mytho- 
 logy of Popery. Her image was to be seen not only 
 in every church but in every street ; she was wor- 
 shipped under innumerable appellations ; and it was 
 even proposed at one of the councils that she should 
 be declared the fourth person of the Godhead. The 
 house in which she lived at Nazareth is still shown at 
 Loretto, whither it was carried entire by four angels. 
 The story of its journey, and of the miracles and other 
 evidences of its genuineness, received the sanction of 
 successive Popes, and was printed in all languages for 
 the edification of the pilgrims of every Christian nation 
 who flocked to this celebrated shrine. 
 
 The Bible, on the other hand, became a proscribed 
 book, which the laity were forbidden to read in the 
 vernacular language. Public worship itself was or- 
 dered to be performed in Latin, an unknown tongue to 
 the great mass of those who heard it. The clergy, con- 
 scious that what they taught as Christianity was not to 
 be found in the Scriptures, now set up in their stead 
 the Unwritten word, or tradition, such passages from 
 
 n 2 
 
36 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 the Fathers as could be construed into a sanction of 
 their corruptions, and legends too childish for nursery 
 tales. 
 
 As a new source of revenue, purgatory was invented, 
 in order to make the dead as well as the living tribu- 
 tary to the rapacity of Rome. The papist was taught 
 that the redemption obtained by Christ exempted from 
 eternal punishment only ; and that even the repentant 
 who had confessed and received absolution would still 
 have to suffer for their sins. Purgatory was therefore 
 invented — a place so near the region of everlasting 
 torment that the same fire pervades both. No bodily 
 pain can convey an idea of the agony inflicted by a 
 single spark of this fire. Here the candidate for hap- 
 piness is purified by sufferings inflicted more particu- 
 larly on the member by which he has sinned ; but 
 their intensity may be mitigated and their duration 
 abridged by means of masses said for his soul, and of 
 indulgences granted by the Pope ; for his power 
 extends over this dreadful place. If the vicegerent 
 of God wished to promote a new practice of devotion, 
 or to encourage a particular shrine, or to excite men 
 to slaughter their unoffending fellow-creatures, he 
 granted to those who should promote these objects a 
 dispensation for so many years of purgatory ; some- 
 times for centuries or thousands of years, and the 
 indulgence was often plenary — “ a toll-ticket,” says 
 Southey, “ enabling the soul to pass scot-free.” The 
 Church, in its infinite benevolence, sold these indul- 
 gences, making the act of purchasing them, and thus 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 37 
 
 contributing to its wants, a merit of itself to deserve 
 so inestimable a reward. 
 
 To rivet the chains of slavery upon the souls as well 
 as the bodies of men too firmly to be thrown off, 
 private, or, at is called, auricular, confession of sins 
 to a priest was made an imperative duty of all Catho- 
 lics of both sexes, at certain times and seasons. “ Of 
 all the practices of the Romish Church,” says Southey 
 in the work already quoted, “ this is the one which 
 has proved most injurious ;* and if it be regarded in 
 connexion with the celibacy of the clergy, the cause 
 will be apparent why the state of morals is generally 
 so much more corrupt in Catholic than in Protestant 
 countries. This obvious and enormous mischief is 
 not its only evil consequence. The uses of conscience 
 were at an end when it was delivered into the keeping 
 of a confessor. Actions then, instead of being tried 
 by the eternal standard of right and wrong, on which 
 the unsophisticated heart unerringly pronounces, were 
 judged by the rules of a pernicious casuistry, the 
 intent of which was to make men content with them- 
 selves on the cheapest terms. The inevitable effect 
 was that the fear of the human laws became the 
 only restraint upon evil propensities, when men were 
 taught to believe that the account with Divine Justice 
 
 * “ It is notorious, and will be attested by all who have seen them, 
 that the books of religious instruction which are put into the hands of 
 young Catholics, particularly those touching auricular confession, are 
 indecent, gross, and filthy, beyond all conception.” — Gilly’s Excursions 
 to the Mountains of Piedmont, 4to., p. 155, note. 
 
38 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 might be easily settled. Tables were actually set 
 forth by authority, in which the rate of absolution 
 for any imaginable crime was fixed, and the most 
 atrocious might be committed with spiritual impu- 
 nity for a few shillings. The foulest murderer and 
 parricide, if he escaped the hangman, might at this 
 price set his conscience at ease concerning all farther 
 consequences. 
 
 “ The Church of Rome,” continues Southey, “ ap- 
 pears to have delighted in insulting as well as in 
 abusing the credulity of mankind, and to have pleased 
 itself with discovering how far it was possible to 
 subdue and degrade the human intellect. If farther 
 proof were needed, it would be found in the prodigious 
 doctrine of transubstantiation. According to this, in 
 the sacrament, when the words of consecration have 
 been pronounced, the bread becomes that same actual 
 body of flesh and blood, in which Christ suffered upon 
 the cross ; remaining bread to the sight, touch, and 
 taste, yet ceasing to be so ; and into how many parts 
 soever the bread may be broken, the whole entire 
 body is contained in every part. 
 
 “ Of all the corruptions of Christianity, there was 
 none that the Popes so long hesitated to sanction as 
 this. At length, at the fourth Lateran council, it 
 was declared by Innocent III. to be a tenet necessary 
 to salvation. With the people this doctrine had be- 
 come popular for its very extravagance; with the 
 clergy, because they grounded upon it their loftiest 
 pretensions.. The priest, when he performed this 
 
TIIE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 39 
 
 stupendous function, had before his eyes and held in 
 his hands the Maker of heaven and earth ; and the 
 inference which they deduced from so blasphemous 
 an assumption was, that the clergy were not to be 
 subject to any secular authority, seeing that they 
 could create God their Creator. Let it not be sup- 
 posed that the statement is in the slightest degree 
 exaggerated; it is delivered faithfully in their own 
 words. 
 
 “ If such then were the power of the clergy, even 
 of the meanest priest, what must be attributed to 
 their earthly head, the successor of St. Peter ! They 
 claimed for him a plenitude of power, and he exer- 
 cised it over the princes of Christendom in its fullest 
 meaning. According to the canons, the Pope was as 
 far above all kings as the sun is greater than the 
 moon. He was king of kings and lord of lords, though 
 he subscribed himself the servant of servants. The 
 immediate and sole rule of the world belonged to him 
 by natural, moral, and divine right ; all authority 
 depending upon him. As supreme king, he might 
 impose taxes upon all Christians; and the Popes 
 declared it was to be held as a point necessary to sal- 
 vation that every human creature is subject to the 
 Roman pontiff. That he might depose kings was 
 averred to be so certain a doctrine, that it could only 
 be denied by madmen, or through the instigation of 
 the devil : it was more pernicious and intolerable to 
 
 deny that than to err concerning the sacraments 
 
 Nay, he might take away kingdoms and empires with 
 
40 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 or without cause, and give them to whom he pleased : 
 though the sovereign whom he should depose were in 
 every respect not merely blameless but meritorious, 
 it was reason enough for the change that the Pope 
 deemed it convenient. The head of the Church was 
 Vice-God : men were commanded to bow at his name 
 as at the name of Christ. The proudest sovereigns 
 waited upon him like menials, led his horse by the 
 bridle, and held his stirrup while he alighted ; and 
 there were ambassadors who prostrated themselves 
 before him, saying, 4 0 thou that takest away the sins 
 of the world, have mercy upon us!’ 
 
 44 The advocates of the papal power proclaimed that 
 any secular laws which might be passed against a 
 decree of the Roman pontiff were in themselves null 
 and void ; and that all pontifical decrees ought for 
 ever to be observed by all men like the word of God ; 
 to reject them was a sin never to be remitted. Christ 
 had bestowed upon the Pope, when he spake as such, 
 the same infallibility which resided in himself ; con- 
 sequently, if he should enjoin vices to be committed 
 and prohibit virtues, the Church would be bound to 
 believe that vices were good and virtues evil. He 
 could change the nature of things, and make injustice 
 justice. Under God, the salvation of all the faithful 
 depended on him, and the commentators even gave 
 him the blasphemous appellation of our Lord God the 
 Pope. 
 
 44 All this was certain, because the Church was 
 infallible. Where this infallibility resided, the Roma- 
 
TIIE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 41 
 
 nists have differed among themselves ; some vesting it 
 in the Pope, others requiring the concurrence of a 
 general council. Infallible, however, it was deter- 
 mined that the Catholic Church must be ; and thus 
 the key-stone was put to this prodigious structure of 
 imposture and wickedness.” 
 
 A necessary consequence of notions so arrogant, of 
 doctrines which taught that there was no possibility 
 of attaining salvation out of the bosom of the Romish 
 Church, which inculcated the duty of persecuting and 
 if possible exterminating all whom it was pleased to 
 call heretics, and &*ave the murderers a riodit to seize 
 the property of the victims, was a spirit of intolerance, 
 to which History can scarcely furnish a parallel, unless 
 perhaps in the immediate successors of the Prophet 
 of Mecca. This spirit, kindled by the fundamental 
 maxims of the Catholic religion, was kept alive by 
 the orders of Mendicant monks, which, instituted 
 about the commencement of the thirteenth century, 
 formed in every country a standing army of zealous 
 agents of popery, exempted from secular and epis- 
 copal jurisdiction, and authorized to travel about 
 wherever they pleased, preaching, reading mass, 
 shriving, unobstructed by the parochial clergy, and 
 supporting themselves by the sale of indulgences, and 
 by contributions levied upon rich and poor. These 
 ignorant enthusiasts successfully propagated, more 
 especially among the lower classes, their own ridicu- 
 lous superstitions, their detestation of heretics, and 
 their cruel appetite for blood ; and such influence did 
 
42 
 
 RISE AND PROGRESS OF 
 
 they acquire over the public mind, that their efforts 
 facilitated, if they did not in some cases stimulate, 
 those inhuman barbarities practised in almost all the 
 countries of Christendom for the glory of God and 
 the welfare of the Church. 
 
 The Catholics affect to turn the charge of intoler- 
 ance against the Protestants themselves, forgetting 
 or wilfully shutting their eyes to the fact that the 
 intolerance occasionally exhibited by the Protestants 
 soon after the Reformation was but a relic of Popery, 
 which the principles whereon that Reformation was 
 founded were destined ere long to destroy. A glance 
 at the page of History will convince every reader that 
 the Catholics have invariably been the first to perse- 
 cute ; that, if the Protestants ever appeared in the 
 character of persecutors, it was after they had been 
 provoked and by way of retaliation : whereas, the 
 persecutions inflicted by the Catholics were mostly 
 systematic, often enjoined by superior orders ; they 
 were regarded as religious and meritorious acts ; they 
 were preconcerted and executed in cold blood. 
 
 It is idle to adduce the execution of Servetus at 
 Geneva, the case of the two Arians burned in London 
 in the time of James I., the hardships inflicted on the 
 Nonconformists under Charles II. , and other facts of 
 that kind. What are these compared with the mas- 
 sacres committed by the hordes of the Crusaders, under 
 Peter the Hermit, on the Jews in the cities of Wes- 
 tern Germany ; the extermination of the Albigenses ; 
 the persecutions of the Yaudois; the slaughter of 
 
THE PAPAL POWER. 
 
 43 
 
 millions of human beings in America, in the name of 
 Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary ; the massacres of 
 St. Bartholomew and in Ireland ; the permanent per- 
 secution of the Inquisition, and the auto da fes of 
 Spain, Portugal, and Italy, for centuries ; the dra- 
 gonnades in the Cevennes ; the expatriation of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of families from Spain, France, 
 Salzburg; and, to crown the bloody catalogue of 
 Catholic persecutions, we may add the assassination 
 of two kings of France, Henry III. and Henry IV. ! 
 
 It is to some of the most striking of these scenes, 
 some of those in which Popes or papal influence are 
 immediately concerned, that I am about to call the 
 attention of the reader. 
 
44 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 II. PERSECUTION OF THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 At the commencement of the 13th century, France, 
 instead of forming a single kingdom, was under the 
 influence of four sovereigns, on each of whom several 
 great vassals were dependent. The northern provinces 
 constituted the kingdom of France, properly so called, 
 in which the Flemish language was spoken both by 
 prince and people. In the west was an English France, 
 in the east German France, and in the south a Spanish 
 or Aragonese France. Till the reign of Philip Augus- 
 tus, the first of these divisions was inferior to all the 
 others in extent, wealth, and power : but that monarch 
 had, by a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, 
 enlarged his dominions by reconquering half of the 
 possessions of England, which still held the province 
 of Aquitaine. German France had still its former 
 limits, though two of the kingdoms which composed 
 it, Lorraine and Burgundy, had united themselves 
 more closely with the Empire. The kingdom of Pro- 
 vence, on the other hand, had so relaxed the ties which 
 bound it to the imperial crown that its great vassals 
 might be considered as absolutely independent, and the 
 most powerful of its States, the county of Provence, 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 45 
 
 belonging to the king of Aragon, in reality formed a 
 part of Aragonese France. 
 
 The king of Aragon, like the king of England, 
 might be regarded as a French prince. The greater 
 part of his dominions, even beyond the Pyrenees, and 
 as far as the Ebro, were reputed to belong to the 
 ancient monarchy of Charlemagne, and, in consequence, 
 owed homage to the crown of France. The reigning 
 sovereign, Peter II., had acquired, either by marriages, 
 by treaties of protection, or by grants of fiefs, the 
 sway over a great number of French nobles, some of 
 whom were vassals of the king of France, others of 
 the emperor, but who nevertheless all of them obeyed 
 the Spanish monarch alone. The Counts of Bearn, 
 Armagnac, Bigorre, Cominges, Foix, and Roussillon, 
 lived under his protection, and served in his armies. 
 The viscounts of Narbonne, Beziers, and Carcassonne, 
 and the lord of Montpellier, acknowledged him as their 
 superior ; while the powerful count of Toulouse, in the 
 heart of his territories and surrounded by his vassals, 
 had great difficulty to preserve his independence. 
 
 Languedoc, Provence, Catalonia, and all the con- 
 tiguous countries, under the sway of the king of 
 Aragon, were inhabited by a race of men, industrious, 
 intelligent, addicted to commerce and the arts, and 
 still more to poetry. These people had formed the 
 Provencal language, which was distinguished from 
 the Roman Walloon, or French, by its elegance, har- 
 mony, copiousness, and flexibility ; and this language, 
 studied in preference by all the wits of the age, used 
 
46 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 in numberless compositions on war and love, seemed 
 at that time destined to become the first and the most 
 polished of the languages of Europe. Those by whom 
 it was spoken relinquished the name of French for 
 that of Proven^aux, and strove by means of their 
 language to form themselves into a nation distinct 
 from the French, to whom they were inferior in the 
 art of war, though they had far outstripped them in 
 the progress of civilization. 
 
 For nearly four centuries, the South of France had 
 been like an island, flourishing in the enjoyment of 
 uninterrupted serenity in the midst of a tempestuous 
 ocean. The courts of the numerous petty princes 
 among whom it was divided, with their knights and 
 ladies, their troubadours and jongleurs, prided them- 
 selves on being models of taste and politeness : they 
 were engaged in an incessant round of diversions — 
 tournaments, courts of love, at which questions of 
 galantry were gravely discussed and decided, compe- 
 titions in poetry, where fair ladies delivered the prizes 
 awarded to superior excellence. The towns were 
 numerous and flourishing : they were all governed, 
 according to forms more or less republican, by consuls 
 elected by the people ; so that they differed but little 
 from the Italian republics with which they traded. 
 
 Amidst this increasing prosperity, that fine country 
 was consigned to the fury of hordes of fanatics, its 
 inhabitants slaughtered, its commerce destroyed, and 
 its dialect degraded from the rank of a poetical lan- 
 guage to that of a patois. In consequence of this 
 
TIIE ALB1GENSES. 
 
 47 
 
 horrible revolution, the Proven^aux ceased to form a 
 nation, the influence of the king of Aragon over a 
 considerable part of France was annihilated, and the 
 dominion of the French king was finally extended to 
 the Mediterranean. 
 
 The preaching of a religious reform among the 
 people of Provence was the cause of the devastation 
 of that fine country. Too early enlightened and 
 advancing too rapidly in the career of civilization, 
 they excited the jealousy and hatred of the barbarians 
 by whom they were surrounded. A struggle ensued 
 between the lovers of light and the lovers of darkness, 
 between the champions of despotism and those of 
 liberty : that party which was bent on checking the 
 advance of the human mind had on its side the per- 
 nicious ability of its leaders, the fanaticism of its 
 agents, and the number of its soldiers. It triumphed ; 
 it annihilated its adversaries; and such cruel use did 
 it make of its victory that the vanquished party could 
 never again raise its head in the same provinces, or 
 among the same race of men. 
 
 The clergy, in the countries where the Provencal 
 language was spoken, had been enriched by immense 
 endowments: but the high dignities in the Church 
 were almost always reserved for members of powerful 
 families, who led a life of debauchery, while the infe- 
 rior orders of the priesthood, selected from among the 
 vassals of the nobles, their peasants, and their slaves, 
 retained the brutality, the ignorance, and the abject 
 spirit of their servile origin. The people of these 
 
48 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 provinces were too enlightened not to feel contempt 
 for the vices of the ecclesiastics ; and so general was 
 this sentiment, that expressions most derogatory to 
 churchmen had become proverbial. “ May I be a 
 priest,” said they, “ rather than do such or such a 
 thing !” The disposition of their minds was neverthe- 
 less religious ; and that devotion which they could not 
 find in the Church they sought among sectarians. 
 
 These had become numerous in the South of France, 
 and the most ancient historian of the persecution 
 asserts that Toulouse “ had, from its first foundation, 
 very rarely, if ever, been free from that pest of heresy 
 which the fathers transmitted to their children and 
 that “ their opinions had J)een handed down in Gaul, 
 from generation to generation, almost from the origin 
 of Christianity ” — that is, in other words, that the 
 pure and original principles of Christianity had been 
 handed down in Gaul from the first planting of that 
 religion there ; that the people had, as far as their 
 opportunities would allow, resisted the usurpations 
 and corruptions of the Church of Rome; and that 
 the Albigenses were the inheritors of those principles, 
 mingled doubtless with various errors, which their 
 slender means of true religious instruction would not 
 allow them to escape. 
 
 The name of Albigenses was derived from the Al- 
 bigeois, a district in which the town of Albi is situ- 
 ated, where, as well as at Toulouse, the dissenters 
 from the doctrines and practices of the Romish 
 Church were particularly numerous ; and hence they 
 
TIIE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 49 
 
 spread over the whole South of France. Their reli- 
 gious opinions very nearly resembled those of the re- 
 formers of a much later period. They considered 
 the Scriptures as the only source of faith and reli- 
 gion, without regard to the authority of the Fathers 
 and of tradition. They held the entire faith, accord- 
 ing to all the articles of the apostles’ creed. They 
 rejected all the external rites of the dominant church, 
 excepting baptism and the Lord’s supper — as 
 temples, vestures, images, crosses, the worship of 
 holy relics, and the rest of the sacraments. They 
 rejected purgatory, and masses and prayers for the 
 dead. They admitted no indulgences or confessions 
 of sin with any of their consequences ; held the 
 sacraments of baptism and the eucharist as only signs, 
 denying the corporal presence of Christ in the latter. 
 They held that monasticism was a putrid carcase, 
 and vows the inventions of men, and that the marri- 
 age of the clergy was lawful and necessary. Finally, 
 they declared the Roman Church to be the whore of 
 Babylon, refused obedience to the Pope and the 
 bishops, and denied that the former had any authority 
 over other churches, or the power of either the civil 
 or the ecclesiastical sword. 
 
 No wonder, then, if the enemies of these people have 
 represented their doctrines with such characters only 
 as would make them appear the most hideous, and 
 mingled with all sorts of fables calculated to embitter 
 the minds of papists against those who professed 
 them. While, however, they accused them of encou- 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 raging the utmost licentiousness and debauchery, 
 they admitted that, to all appearance, these heretics 
 observed irreproachable chastity ; that, in their zeal 
 for truth, they never, upon any occasion, resorted to 
 a lie ; and that such was their charity that they were 
 . always ready to sacrifice themselves for others. In- 
 deed, it was some time before their doctrines were 
 branded as heretical ; and, as several prelates of the 
 Church had set the example of this reform, those who 
 adopted them were under no apprehension of going 
 astray ; and Rome herself had sometimes considered 
 the-Albigenses, together with those new religious so- 
 cieties called Paterini, Catherini, and Poor Men of 
 Lyons, as so many monastic orders formed to rekindle 
 the fervour of the public, and having no idea of 
 shaking off her yoke. 
 
 It was Innocent III. who, on ascending the ponti- 
 fical throne in the vigour of age, seemed first to be 
 sensible of the important consequences likely to result 
 from an independence of spirit which was already 
 tending to revolt. His predecessors, engaged in a 
 struggle with the two Henries and Frederick Barba- 
 rossa, had need of all their force to defend themselves 
 against those emperors ; but Innocent, whose genius 
 grasped and ruled the world, was alike incapable of in- 
 dulgence and pity. At the same time that he w r as over- 
 turning the political balance of Italy and Germany, 
 threatening by turns the kings of Spain, France, and 
 England, assuming the tone of a master with the 
 sovereigns of Bohemia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Norway, 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 51 
 
 and Armenia ; that lie was alternately directing and 
 reprimanding the crusaders engaged in overthrowing 
 the Greek empire and in erecting in its stead the 
 Latin empire at Constantinople ; Innocent, as though 
 he had no other business upon his hands, watched, 
 attacked, punished, all discordance of opinions with 
 those of the Romish Church, all independence of 
 spirit, all exercise of the faculty of thought in reli- 
 gious matters. 
 
 Though it was in the provinces where the Pro- 
 vencal language was spoken, and especially in Langue- 
 doc, that the reformed doctrines of the Albigenses had 
 made most progress, they spread rapidly in other parts 
 of Christendom, in Italy, Flanders, Lorraine, Germany, 
 and Spain. Innocent judged, both from disposition 
 and policy, that the Church ought not to keep any 
 terms with these sectarians ; that if she neglected to 
 crush them, to exterminate their race, and to strike 
 terror into Christendom, their example would soon 
 be followed, and the sparks which were every where 
 seen smouldering would soon set the whole Roman 
 world on fire. He therefore directed his ministers 
 not to convert, but to burn the leaders, to disperse 
 the flocks, and to confiscate the property of all who 
 dared think otherwise than he did. He insisted 
 that the provinces in which the reformation was but 
 commencing should take the lead in punishing it : 
 accordingly, several heads of the new Church were 
 doomed to the flames at Nevers, in 1198, and in the 
 following years. The Emperor Otho IV., a creature 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 of Innocent’s, issued at his instigation an edict for 
 the destruction of the Paterini, or, as they were also 
 called in Italy, Gazari. But a number of gentlemen 
 and high nobles had themselves adopted the new opi- 
 nions, and, so far from intending to persecute, pro- 
 tected the professors of them : while others regarded 
 these people as industrious vassals, whom they could 
 not destroy without diminishing their own power and 
 revenues. The Pope tried whether he could not arm 
 an immediate interest and a brutal rapacity against 
 this provident economy of the barons. He relin- 
 quished to them the confiscation of all the property 
 of the heretics ; he exhorted them to seize it, to con- 
 demn them to exile after they had stripped them of 
 every thing, and to threaten them with death if they 
 dared to return to their homes. At the same time, 
 Innocent fulminated anathemas against all those 
 lords who should refuse to confiscate the possessions 
 of the heretics for their own benefit, and laid their 
 lands under an interdict. 
 
 The province of Narbonne was more particularly 
 the object of the Pope’s attention : so early as the 
 year 1193, the first of his pontificate, he sent thither 
 two monks belonging to the abbey of Citeaux, Guy 
 and Resmier, who were commissioned to seek out and 
 to punish heresy, and invested for this purpose with 
 all the authority of the Holy See. These men may 
 be considered as having laid the first foundation of 
 the detestable Inquisition. In the following year, 
 Innocent appointed Regnier his legate in the four 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. • 
 
 53 
 
 provinces of Embrun, Aix, Arles, and Narbonne, and 
 enjoined the four archbishops and all their suffragans 
 to execute strictly the orders of the monk. Regnier 
 having fallen sick, the Pope gave him an assistant in 
 Peter de Castelnau, archdeacon of Maguelonne, whose 
 zeal, still more intemperate than that of his prede- 
 cessors, was worthy of the sentiments inspired by the 
 mere name of the Inquisition. 
 
 The errand of the papal commissioners was not 
 confined to the spying of consciences, to the confisca- 
 tion of the goods of heretics, and to their banishment 
 and execution. They travelled through the province, 
 with a great number of priests and friars, preaching 
 against those who had forsaken the Romish doctrines, 
 or disputing with them. It was more especially 
 when the lord of the place favoured the new opinions 
 that, not daring to employ force, they had recourse 
 to the power of their logic. They took care to get 
 judges of these intellectual combats appointed before- 
 hand ; and, according to their own accounts, they al- 
 ways came off victorious. When the missionaries had 
 puzzled their antagonists with captious questions, or 
 beaten them according to all the rules of the schools, 
 they would say to the inhabitants of the place where 
 they happened to be, “ Why do ye not drive them 
 out ? Why do ye not exterminate them ?” — “ We can- 
 not,” they replied ; “ we have been brought up with 
 them, we have relations among them, and we see what 
 virtuous lives they lead.” — “ Thus,” continues a con- 
 temporary writer, “ does the spirit of lying, by the 
 
54 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 mere appearance of a pure and spotless life, lead these 
 imprudent wretches from the truth !” 
 
 There was another cause, it is true, which slackened 
 the persecution. The inquisitors, by their arrogance, 
 had offended all classes of society, and raised up a 
 host of enemies against themselves. They accused 
 some of the bishops of simony, others of negligence 
 in the performance of their duties : on such pretexts 
 they deposed the archbishop of Narbonne, and the 
 bishops of Toulouse and Viviers ; at the same time they 
 annoyed the count of Toulouse and all the lords of the 
 country by accusations incessantly repeated ; they thus 
 deprived themselves of the gratification of seeing so 
 many fires as they would fain have kindled. To gain 
 some popularity, they strove in their sermons to con- 
 found the heretics with the routiers, mercenary soldiers, 
 mostly foreigners, known also in the South of France 
 by the name of Catalans, as they were in the north by 
 that of Brabanters. The routie?*s were men without re- 
 ligion or law; they pillaged the churches and the priests, 
 but they had no connexion whatever with the heretics, 
 and took no interest in doctrinal questions and contro- 
 versies. They were, nevertheless, offended at the ser- 
 mons directed against them, and revenged themselves 
 in their turn on the missionaries and the inquisitors. 
 
 Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, who had suc- 
 ceeded his father in 1194, and who had availed him- 
 self of the arms of the routiers in his frequent wars, 
 shared the resentment of the papal emissaries. In the 
 spring of 1207, he was on the banks of the Rhone, 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 OO 
 
 engaged in hostilities with the barons of Baux and 
 other lords of those parts, when Castelnau, the legate, 
 undertook to make peace between them. The barons 
 promised that, if he could obtain Raymond’s acqui- 
 escence in their demands, they would employ all the 
 forces which they had collected in the extermination 
 of the heretics. The count of Toulouse, however, was 
 not disposed to renounce his rights for the sake of 
 seeing a hostile army enter his territories, to plunder 
 and slaughter such of his subjects as the priests 
 should be pleased to point out. He, therefore, re- 
 fused his assent ; and the legate, in his rage, excom- 
 municated him, laid an interdict upon his dominions, 
 and wrote to the Pope to obtain the confirmation of 
 this sentence. 
 
 Audacious as the conduct of this legate had been, 
 Innocent determined not to disavow it. Apparently 
 he was seeking an occasion for commencing hostilities, 
 well aware that, from the progress which the new 
 opinions had made, the executioners would be insuffi- 
 cient to extirpate the heresy, and that the sword 
 must be employed in the work of slaughter. On the 
 29th of May, 1207, he wrote himself to count Ray- 
 mond, for the purpose of confirming the sentence of 
 excommunication pronounced by his legate, and his 
 letter began thus : — “ If we could open your heart, 
 we should there find and show you the detestable abo- 
 minations which you have committed ; but, as it is 
 harder than stone, it is in vain to knock at it with the 
 words of salvation ; it would be impossible to pene- 
 
56 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 trate it. Pestilential man ! what pride lias taken 
 possession of your heart, and what is your folly to 
 refuse to be at peace with your neighbours, and to 
 defy the divine laws by protecting the enemies of the 
 faith ! If you dread not everlasting flames, ought you 
 not to fear the temporal punishments which you de- 
 serve for so many crimes ?” 
 
 So insulting a letter, addressed to a sovereign, must 
 have re’volted his pride ; nevertheless, as we are told 
 by Pierre de Vaux Cernay, “ the wars which the Pro- 
 vencal nobles made upon him at the instigation of the 
 man of God (Castelnau), and the excommunication 
 which he every where promulgated against the count, 
 compelled him at last to accept those same conditions 
 of peace, and to bind himself to them by an oath : but 
 as often as he swore to observe them, so often did he 
 perjure himself.” 
 
 Neither the Pope nor his legate was acquainted 
 with any other means of conversion than war, slaugh- 
 ter, and devastation. It was in the same year, 1207, 
 that Innocent first bethought him of preaching a cru- 
 sade against the Albigenses, and as the princes of the 
 country were too tardy in the work of extermination, 
 he resolved to invite strangers to undertake it. On 
 the 17th of November, he wrote to king Philip Au- 
 gustus, exhorting him to make war upon the heretic 
 enemies of God and the Church ; promising that his 
 compliance should be rewarded in this world with the 
 confiscation of all their effects ; in the other with the 
 same indulgences that were earned by those who went 
 
TI1E ALBIGENSES. 
 
 57 
 
 to fight the infidels in the Holy Land. At the same 
 time he addressed similar letters to the duke of Bur- 
 gundy, to the counts of Nevers and Dreux, to the 
 countesses of Troie, Vermandois, and Blois, and to all 
 the counts, barons, knights, and true believers of the 
 kingdom of France. Before these letters could pro- 
 duce their effect, a sanguinary catastrophe redoubled 
 the rage of the Pope and kindled the sacred war. 
 
 Count Raymond, when he signed the peace with his 
 enemies, had engaged to exterminate the heretics in 
 his territories ; but Castelnau, conceiving that he was 
 too lukewarm in this business, went to St. Gilles, 
 where the count had appointed to meet the two le- 
 gates, reproached him to his face with his indulgence, 
 which he termed cowardice, called him perjurer, fa- 
 vourer of heretics, tyrant, and again excommunicated 
 him. Raymond threatened to make Castelnau pay 
 for his insolence with his life. Regardless of this 
 menace, the legates left his court, and, on the 1 4th of 
 January, 1208, arrived at a small inn on the bank of 
 the Rhone, where they purposed to pass the following- 
 day. A gentleman of the count’s chanced to be at 
 the same house, or perhaps he had followed them 
 thither : on the morning of the 1 5th, after mass, he 
 got into a dispute with Castelnau on the subject of 
 heresy and its punishment. The legate had never 
 been sparing of the most aggravating language to- 
 wards persons who favoured toleration : the gentle- 
 man, already exasperated by the insolence of the 
 churchman to his lord, and finding himself personally 
 
58 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 insulted, drew his dagger, stabbed him in the side, 
 and killed him. 
 
 On the intelligence of this murder, the rage of In- 
 nocent was unbounded. Raymond had not taken a 
 more direct part in the death of Castelnau than 
 Henry II. had done in that of Becket ; but Innocent 
 was far more haughty and implacable than Alex- 
 ander III. He immediately published a bull, ad- 
 dressed to all the counts, barons, and knights of the 
 four provinces of southern Gaul, in which he declared 
 that it was the devil who had excited his prime mi- 
 nister Raymond, count of Toulouse, against the legate 
 of the Holy See. He laid under interdict all the places 
 that should harbour the murderers of Castelnau ; he or- 
 dered that the count should be publicly anathematized 
 in all the churches ; “ and,” he adds, “ as, according to 
 the canonical sanctions of the Holy Fathers, no faith 
 ought to be kept with those who do not keep faith to 
 God, or are separated from the communion of the 
 faithful, we release, by the apostolical authority, all 
 those who deem themselves bound to this count by any 
 oath, either of alliance or fealty ; we permit every 
 Catholic man, saving the right of the lord paramount, 
 to seize his person, to take and keep his lands, espe- 
 cially for the purpose of extirpating heresy in them.” 
 
 This first bull was soon followed by others equally 
 fulminating, to excite all who were able to co-operate 
 in the destruction of the count of Toulouse. The 
 Pope wrote to Philip Augustus, exhorting him to 
 march in person to this war for the extermination of 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 59 
 
 heretics, who were worse, he said, than Saracens, and 
 to strip the count of Toulouse of all his territories. 
 He wrote at the same time to the archbishops of Lyons 
 and Tours, to the bishops of Paris and Nevers, and to 
 the abbot of Citeaux, urging them to concur in this 
 holy enterprise. 
 
 The king of France was too much engaged with his 
 projects against England and the German emperor to 
 think of taking the field against heretics ; but the monks 
 of Citeaux, empowered by Innocent to preach the cru- 
 sade among the people, fell to work with an ardour 
 not equalled even by that of Peter the Hermit. The 
 Pope, in the excess of his hatred, had granted to all 
 who should take part in this crusade against the people 
 of Provence more extensive indulgences than had 
 ever been offered by his predecessors to those who 
 should assist in the deliverance of the Holy Land. 
 These new crusaders, who were distinguished from 
 those of the East by wearing the cross on the breast 
 and not on the shoulder, as soon as they had assumed 
 this sacred emblem, were under the protection of the 
 Holy See ; they were dispensed from paying interest 
 for their debts, and withdrawn from the jurisdiction 
 of all the tribunals ; and the war which they were 
 called upon to wage at their own doors, almost with- 
 out danger and without expense, was to atone for all 
 the sins and crimes of a whole life. The faith in the 
 power of indulgences, a thing scarcely conceivable at 
 the present day, had not yet begun to cool. The 
 barons of France, like those of all Christendom, firmly 
 
60 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 believed that by fighting in the Holy Land they should 
 make sure of paradise. But these distant expeditions 
 had been attended with so many disasters, so many 
 hundred thousand Christians had perished in Asia, 
 or by the way, of famine, want, or disease, that 
 others were discouraged from following them. It was, 
 therefore, with transports of joy that the faithful ac- 
 cepted the new pardons which were offered them. 
 War was their passion, and pity for the vanquished 
 had never been a drawback from this pleasure ; the 
 discipline of the sacred wars had always been much 
 less severe than that of political wars : in the former 
 they could, without remorse and likewise unrestrained 
 by their officers, pillage property, slaughter all the 
 men, violate the women and children. The crusaders 
 of the East knew indeed that the distance to which 
 they were going was so great that they had scarcely 
 any chance of bringing home with them the booty 
 gained by the sword. Here, instead of having to 
 combat foes inured to arms, they would find no adver- 
 saries but peaceful citizens, who would be given up to 
 their pleasure, and whose property they could carry 
 away with them in kind. Accordingly, never was the 
 cross more readily and unanimously assumed ; and 
 among the first to engage in this so-called holy war 
 were the duke of Burgundy, Simon de Montfort, earl 
 of Leicester, and the count of Nevers. 
 
 The abbot of Citeaux and his whole fraternity dis- 
 tinguished themselves by their zeal in preaching this 
 war of extermination. The seven or eight hundred 
 
THE ALB1GENSES. 
 
 61 
 
 convents of his order, that of the Bernardins, already 
 established in France, Germany, and Italy, seized upon 
 the crusade against the Albigenses as their particular 
 province. They promised, in the name of the Pope, 
 St. Peter, and St. Paul, plenary remission of all sins 
 committed from the day of birth to that of death, to 
 all those who should fall in this holy expedition. But, 
 while the Bernardins were thus raising troops for the 
 crusade, the Pope directed a new fraternity, at the 
 head of which he placed St. Dominic, a Spaniard, to 
 go on foot to the villages of the heretics, to preach to 
 them, to manifest all the zeal of Christian charity in 
 their behalf, to win their confidence, and then to ob- 
 tain precise information of the names, number, and 
 abodes of such as had seceded from the Church, and 
 to consign them to the flames as soon as his partisans 
 had gained the upper hand. Such was the origin of 
 the order of the friars’ preachers of St. Dominic, or In- 
 quisitors, which, after a trial of seven years in the dio- 
 cese of Toulouse, was confirmed by the Council of 
 Lateran in 1215. 
 
 The countries more especially devoted to vengeance, 
 as the nurseries of heresy, were the territories of the 
 count of Toulouse, and those of his nephew Raymond 
 Roger, viscount of Alby, Beziers, Carcassonne, and 
 Limoux. Though Raymond of Toulouse had gained 
 some distinction as a warrior, he was a weak, mild, 
 timid man, desirous of saving his subjects from con- 
 fiscation and slaughter, but still more desirous of 
 saving himself from persecution. Ilis nephew, on the 
 
62 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 other hand, was generous, bold, and impetuous. He 
 was now twenty-four years of age; at fourteen, he 
 had succeeded his father, and during his minority his 
 territories had been governed by guardians who in- 
 clined towards the new doctrines. These two princes, 
 learning that the abbot of Citeaux, who was at the 
 head of the crusade, had been appointed by the Pope 
 his legate in the provinces against which it was di- 
 rected, strove to avert the storm. They went to Au- 
 benaz in the Vivarais, where he then was, protested 
 that they had no connexion with the heresy, and had 
 not had any hand in the murder of Castelnau ; and they 
 desired that they might at least be heard before they 
 were condemned. The legate received them with the 
 utmost haughtiness, declared that he could do nothing 
 for them, and that, if they wished to obtain any alle- 
 viation of the measures adopted against them, it was 
 to the Pope they must apply. From this language 
 Raymond Roger concluded that nothing was to be 
 expected from negociation, and that the only course 
 they had left was to throw garrisons into all their 
 strong places, and to prepare for an obstinate defence ; 
 but the count of Tolouse, seized with terror, declared 
 that he was ready to submit to every thing, to wreak 
 himself the vengeance of the churchmen upon his sub- 
 jects, nay, to go to war with his own family, rather than 
 bring the crusaders into his territories. The two 
 relatives could not agree respecting the conduct to 
 be pursued, and parted with reproaches and threats. 
 Raymond Roger, on retiring to his territories, set 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 63 
 
 about preparations for defence, while his uncle de- 
 spatched deputies to Rouen, where the Pope then 
 was, to make submission and obtain his forgiveness. 
 He likewise solicited the protection of his cousin, 
 the king of France ; who, learning that he had made 
 a like application to the German emperor, refused 
 him assistance. 
 
 The envoys sent by Raymond to the Pope were 
 received with apparent indulgence. Innocent re- 
 quired that their master should make common cause 
 with the crusaders, that he should assist them to ex- 
 terminate the heretics, and give up seven of his 
 strongest castles, as a pledge of his intentions ; on 
 these conditions he gave him hopes, not merely of ab- 
 solution, but of complete restoration to his favour. 
 Innocent, however, was very far from having in his 
 heart forgiven Raymond. At this very time he was 
 writing to the bishops of Riez and Couserans, and 
 the abbot of Citeaux : “ We advise you, with the 
 apostle St. Paul, to employ deceit towards this count ; 
 for, in this case, it must be called prudence. You 
 must attack separately those who have separated 
 themselves from the unity, and leave the count of 
 Toulouse for a time, employing a wise dissimulation 
 towards him, that the other heretics may be the more 
 easily vanquished, and that we may then be able to 
 crush him when he alone shall be left.” One cannot 
 help remarking that, whenever these ambitious and 
 perfidious churchmen had any disgraceful orders to 
 communicate, they never failed to wrest some passage 
 
64 
 
 PERSECUTION OE 
 
 or other of Scripture to their purpose : in fact, they 
 seemed to have studied the Bible merely to make sa- 
 crilegious applications of it. 
 
 In the spring of the year 1209, all the fanatics 
 collected by the monks of Citeaux for the holy war 
 began to put themselves in motion. Indulgences for 
 this crusade were at a discount : a campaign of forty 
 days only, to. which most vassals were bound by the 
 tenure of their fiefs, was all that was required in ex- 
 change for eternal salvation. Among the near neigh- 
 bours of the Albigenses, the Bernardins had contrived 
 to draw after them nearly the whole male population. 
 Some writers state the number of pilgrims or cru- 
 saders, who poured down upon Languedoc at three 
 hundred thousand, others at five hundred thousand ; 
 while the abbot of Vaux Cernay, the historian of this 
 war, represents them as amounting to no more than 
 fifty thousand in this first campaign, and his is the 
 most probable estimate. In this calculation, how- 
 ever, must not be included the ignorant and fanatic 
 multitude, who, armed with scythes and clubs, fol- 
 lowed every preacher, and hoped that, though they 
 might not be able to cope with the knights of Lan- 
 guedoc, they should be equal to the slaughter of the 
 wives and children of heretics. The abbot of Citeaux, 
 papal legate and director-general of the crusade, 
 collected at Lyons the main body of the combatants, 
 who were vassals of the German emperor ; the arch- 
 bishop of Bordeaux had assembled in the Agenois 
 another body composed of subjects of England ; and 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 65 
 
 the bishop of Puy commanded a third in the Velay, 
 consisting of subjects of the king of France. 
 
 When Raymond learned that those terrible bands 
 of fanatics were in motion, and directing their course 
 towards his territories, he lost no time in represent- 
 ing to the Pope that the legate who headed them 
 was his personal enemy. “ It would be unjust,” 
 said he, “ to take advantage of my submission to 
 put me into the power of a man who would listen 
 only to the resentment which he entertains against 
 me.” To do away in appearance with this cause of 
 complaint, Innocent appointed a new legate ; this 
 was Milo, his notary or secretary ; but, so far from 
 restraining the animosity of the abbot, it was Ray« 
 mond alone whom he meant to deceive : for “ he 
 expressly told this new legate,” says Peter de Vaux 
 Cernay, “ the abbot of Citeaux must do every 
 thing, while thou in reality art only his organ ; be- 
 cause the count of Toulouse suspects him, whereas 
 of thee he has no suspicion.” 
 
 Such was the alarm of that count on the nearer 
 approach of the crusaders, that he submitted to pur- 
 chase absolution from the legate on the most humi- 
 liating conditions. He delivered up to Milo seven 
 of his strongest castles ; he promised to abide by 
 the judgment which the legate should pronounce 
 upon fifteen different charges which the agents of 
 the persecution had preferred against him ; and 
 lastly, he suffered himself to be taken on the 18th 
 of June to the church of St. Gilles, with bare back 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 v 
 
66 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 and a rope about his neck, and submitted to be 
 scourged around the altar. After all these humi- 
 liations, he was permitted to take the cross against 
 the heretics, and, as a sort of favour, he was allowed 
 to join and act as guide to those who were marching 
 to attack his nephew. 
 
 The principal army of the crusaders descended the 
 Rhone, proceeding through Lyons and Valence to 
 Avignon. Hither Raymond Roger repaired to meet 
 the legate and endeavour to make his peace with 
 him. The haughty churchman spurned his advances 
 with disdain. The viscount, aware that he had 
 no indulgence to expect, prepared for a vigorous 
 defence. He summoned to him all his vassals, 
 friends, and allies, told them the offers that he had 
 made and how they had been received. Like him, 
 they determined to defend themselves. Not that 
 all those who took up arms with him were heretics ; 
 but, such was the impatience of the disorderly mass 
 of the crusaders to spill blood in honour of the 
 Church, and to act before any explanation was 
 asked or given, that all the barons and knights, 
 rather than run the risk of their blunders, shut 
 themselves up in their castles, called in their pea- 
 sants, and collected provisions in order to withstand 
 a first attack. Some castles were deserted on the 
 approach of the fanatics; others, which were not 
 suspected to contain heretics, paid heavy contri- 
 butions by way of ransom. Villemur was burned. 
 Chasseneuil capitulated after an obstinate defence 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 67 
 
 on condition that the garrison should be permitted 
 to retire with their most valuable effects ; but the 
 inhabitants, being suspected of heresy, were left at 
 the mercy of the legate. Men and women were 
 thrown into the flames amidst the joyous shouts of 
 their ferocious conquerors. All the property found 
 in the castle was afterwards given up to plunder. 
 
 Raymond Roger had reckoned more particularly 
 upon the defence of his two principal cities, Beziers 
 and Carcassonne ; he had divided between them his 
 bravest knights and the routiers who had attached 
 themselves to his fortune. The first thing he did 
 was to visit Beziers, to see that this strong place 
 was provided with every thing, and to exhort the 
 citizens to defend their lives manfully. He then 
 shut himself up in Carcassonne, a town seated on a 
 rock surrounded by the river Aude, and even the 
 two suburbs of which were encompassed by walls and 
 ditches. 
 
 The inhabitants of Beziers were intimidated, 
 when they learned that their young viscount had 
 quitted them for a place of greater safety ; their 
 alarm increased, when they beheld the crusaders 
 arriving and their three armies forming a junction 
 under their walls about the middle of July, 1209. 
 They had been preceded by the bishop of Beziers, 
 who, after repairing to the legate, and giving him 
 a list of such of his flock as he suspected of heresy 
 and as he wished to see committed to the flames, 
 returned to his parishioners, represented the dangers 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 which they would incur, and exhorted them to de- 
 liver up their heretical fellow-citizens to the avengers 
 of the faith rather than draw down upon themselves, 
 their wives, and their children, the wrath of Heaven 
 and of the Church. “ Tell the legate,” replied the 
 citizens, whom the bishop had assembled in the great 
 church of St. Nicaise, “ that our city is good and 
 strong; that our liege-lord will not fail to succour 
 us in our great necessity ; and that, rather than be 
 base enough to do what is required of us, we will 
 eat our own children.” Yet there was not one of 
 them so bold, but his heart sunk within him when 
 the pilgrims, as the bloodthirsty invaders were 
 called, had encamped beneath their walls. 
 
 The citizens of Beziers, though alarmed, were not 
 discouraged. While their enemies were still en- 
 gaged in marking out their camp, they made a sortie 
 and attacked them unawares ; but the crusaders, 
 compared with the inhabitants of the South, were 
 more formidable for their fanaticism and their valour 
 than for their number. The infantry alone sufficed 
 to repulse the citizens with great loss. At this mo- 
 ment, all the battalions of the besiegers rushed upon 
 them at once, and pursued them so closely that they 
 entered the gates along with the fugitives, and found 
 themselves in possession of the city, before they had 
 thought of the means of attacking it. The knights, 
 being informed that they had triumphed without a 
 battle, consulted the legate as to what they ought 
 to do in order to distinguish the heretics from the 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 69 
 
 catholics, and received this memorable reply : “ Kill 
 them all ; the Lord will know his own.” 
 
 The resident population of Beziers probably did 
 not exceed fifteen thousand persons ; but all the 
 inhabitants of the surrounding country, of the open 
 villages, and of the castles that were deemed in- 
 capable of defence, had taken refuge in that city 
 which was considered as very strong ; while most of 
 those who had -stayed to guard the fortified castles 
 had conveyed their wives and children to Beziers. 
 At the moment when the crusaders made themselves 
 masters of the gates, this whole multitude fled to 
 the churches ; the spacious cathedral of St. Nicaise 
 contained the greatest number ; the canons, in their 
 choral habits, surrounded the altar and rang the 
 bells by way of expressing their supplications to the 
 furious assailants ; but their brazen tones were alike 
 unheeded with those of human voices. The bells 
 ceased . not to sound till the last of that immense 
 multitude which had taken refuge in the church was 
 butchered. Neither were those spared who had 
 sought a refuge in the other churches : in that of the 
 Magdalen alone seven thousand corpses were counted. 
 When the crusaders had slaughtered all, to the very 
 last living creature, in Beziers, and had plundered 
 the houses of every thing that appeared worth carry- 
 ing away, they set fire to all the quarters at once : 
 the city was but one vast conflagration ; not an edi- 
 fice remained standing, not a human being was left 
 alive. Respecting the number of the victims ac- 
 
70 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 counts differ: the legate, ashamed perhaps of the 
 carnage which he had ordered, reduces it to fifteen 
 thousand in his letter to the Pope : Bernard Itier, 
 of Limoges, a contemporary, makes it amount to 
 thirty-eight thousand, while other writers set it down 
 at sixty thousand. 
 
 The massacre of Beziers struck such terror that 
 all the fortresses in that part of the country were 
 deserted : none of them appeared strong enough to 
 hold out against an army which, in a single day, had 
 taken and destroyed the capital. The inhabitants 
 thought it better to flee to the woods and mountains 
 than to wait for such enemies within a walled inclo- 
 sure, which would serve them for a prison. As there 
 was not a knight in all France whose residence was 
 not fortified, the number of castles in the two dio- 
 ceses of Beziers and Carcassonne was immense ; but 
 the crusaders found more than a hundred of them 
 abandoned. Not yet sated with blood, they never- 
 theless advanced, and on the 1st of August arrived 
 before Carcassonne. 
 
 The whole of that town was then seated on the 
 right bank of the Aude ; the young viscount had 
 greatly augmented the fortifications, and he had a 
 numerous garrison about him. On the following day, 
 one of the suburbs was attacked, and taken after a 
 battle of two hours. The assailants then proceeded 
 to the attack of the other suburb, but were repelled 
 with loss. For eight days, the besieged continued 
 to defend it with success : at last, they evacuated and 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 71 
 
 set it on fire, before they abandoned it to their ene- 
 mies and retired into the toWn. 
 
 King Philip II. of Aragon, whom the viscount of 
 Beziers had acknowledged as his lord paramount, was 
 deeply grieved at the oppression of that young prince, 
 his nephew. He repaired to the camp of the cru- 
 saders, and addressed himself to his brother-in-law, 
 the count of Toulouse, who was forced to accompany 
 and to second the enemies of his country, to the duke 
 of Burgundy, and to the legate, offering himself as 
 mediator between Raymond Roger and them. Before 
 he would talk about conditions, the legate, who 
 wished to obtain some intelligence concerning the 
 state of the besieged, prevailed upon the king to go 
 himself into the town and to confer with his nephew. 
 The viscount, after warmly thanking him, promised 
 to abide by any agreement that he should make for 
 him; “for,” said he, “ I see clearly that we cannot 
 hold out long in this town, on account of the great 
 number of country people, men, women, and chil- 
 dren, who have taken refuge here : we cannot count 
 them, and they are dying daily in flocks. But, if 
 there were only myself and my men, I swear that I 
 would rather die of hunger than surrender to the 
 legate.” 
 
 When the king had reported this speech to the 
 legate, the latter could judge better what sort of 
 propositions he ought to make to a generous man, 
 with the certainty that they would not be accepted ; 
 for he durst not absolutely reject such a mediator as 
 
72 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 the king of Aragon, and yet he had no wish for a 
 peace which would have suspended the massacres. 
 He, therefore, sent word to the viscount, that the 
 only condition he could grant was liberty for himself 
 and twelve others to retire from the city, leaving all 
 the rest of the citizens and soldiers to his good plea- 
 sure. “ Rather than do what the legate proposes,” 
 replied the high-spirited viscount, “ I will submit to 
 be flayed alive ; he shall not have the very meanest 
 of my company in his power, since it is for me that 
 they are all in this danger.” The king approved the 
 generous resolution of his nephew; and, turning 
 to the knights and the citizens of Carcassonne, 
 to whom these conditions had been communicated, 
 he said, “ You now know what you have to ex- 
 pect; be sure and defend yourselves stoutly, for 
 he who defends himself is always treated the better 
 in the end.” 
 
 No sooner had the king of Aragon left the town 
 than the crusaders made an assault upon the walls ; 
 they attempted to fill the ditches with faggots, which 
 they brought for the purpose, encouraging one ano- 
 ther by loud cries ; but, when they approached the 
 walls, the besieged poured upon them torrents of 
 boiling water or oil, at the same time showering 
 stones and projectiles of all sorts, so that they were 
 forced to fall back. The attack was long and several 
 times renewed ; but the assailants were finally obliged 
 to retire with great loss. 
 
 The time was drawing nigh when most of the cru- 
 
TIIE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 73 
 
 saders would have completed their forty days’ ser- 
 vice : they had calculated upon a miracle in their 
 favour, and they had already been repulsed in two as- 
 saults. The legate perceived symptoms of discourage- 
 ment in his army ; he therefore commissioned a gen- 
 tleman, a relative of the viscount’s, to enter the town 
 and to renew the negociations. Raymond Roger, on 
 his part, was extremely desirous of an honourable ca- 
 pitulation ; he found that, owing to the extreme heat 
 of the season, the water in the cisterns of the city 
 was beginning to fail. Deeply impressed with the 
 righteousness of his cause, he felt assured that, as 
 soon as the injustice of which he was the victim should 
 be known, it would excite the commiseration of the 
 great nobles and churchmen whom religious zeal alone 
 had armed against him. He persuaded himself that, 
 if he could but obtain a hearing, all difficulties would 
 be removed, and merely desired a safe-conduct to the 
 camp of the crusaders. The legate and the lords of the 
 army gave the most complete assurance of his safety 
 and liberty, and confirmed the promise with oaths. 
 The viscount accordingly left the town with an escort 
 of three hundred knights, and repaired to the tent of 
 the legate, where all the principal lords of the army 
 were assembled. He concluded a noble and energetic 
 defence of his conduct by declaring that he submitted, 
 as he always had done, to the orders of the Church, 
 and that he awaited the decision of the council. 
 
 The legate was thoroughly imbued with the maxim 
 of his master, that “ to keep faith with those who 
 
74 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 have no faith is to break faith.” He ordered the vis- 
 count and all the knights who accompanied him to 
 be seized, and committed him to the custody of Simon 
 Montfort, earl of Leicester, one of the principal leaders 
 of the crusaders. He expected by this treachery to 
 strike terror into the inhabitants of Carcassonne ; but 
 that very terror served to deprive him of the victims 
 whom he had destined to the flames. The citizens 
 were acquainted with a secret outlet for escaping from 
 the city ; it was a subterraneous passage, three leagues 
 in length, running from Carcassonne to the towers of 
 Cubardes. Through this passage the inhabitants fled 
 in the night, abandoning all their effects to the rapa- 
 city of their foes. Next morning, the besiegers were 
 astonished at not seeing a creature upon the walls, but 
 it was some time before they ascertained that the place 
 was deserted. They then entered ; and the legate took 
 possession of the booty in the name of the Church, ex- 
 communicating such of the crusaders as would have 
 helped themselves to the smallest portion of it. At 
 the same time, conceiving that it would be derogatory 
 to the honour of the Church if it were known that the 
 heretics had escaped him, he reported that the inha- 
 bitants had left the place by virtue of a capitulation 
 which he had signed with them. His scouts had 
 picked up a number of persons about the country ; a 
 few of the fugitives of Carcassonne had been over- 
 taken and brought to the camp ; lastly, he had in his 
 hands the three hundred knights who had accompanied 
 the viscount. Out of all these he selected four hun- 
 
THE ALB1GENSES. 
 
 75 
 
 dred and fifty men and women liable to the suspicion 
 of heresy ; four hundred he caused to be burned alive, 
 and the other fifty to be hanged.* 
 
 The principal object of the crusade was accom- 
 plished. The count of Toulouse, who had been ac- 
 cused of favouring the heretics, had submitted to the 
 deepest humiliations to make his peace. The viscount 
 of Narbonne, to prevent the visit of the crusaders, had 
 published laws against the heretics, surpassing in se- 
 verity the demands of the Church themselves. The 
 viscount of Beziers was a prisoner : his two strongest 
 towns were destroyed, and most of his castles con- 
 tained not a single inhabitant. The French nobles 
 who had joined the crusade, to earn the pardons of 
 the Church, began to feel some shame on account of 
 all the blood they had spilt, and the forfeiture of their 
 word ; while the knights and the soldiers, having com- 
 pleted the time of their service, insisted on return- 
 ing home. The legate, however, conceived that he 
 had not yet done enough. The sectarians were 
 stricken with terror : they concealed themselves ; 
 they might possibly keep silence long after the 
 departure of the crusaders ; but they were not de- 
 stroyed : their opinions would circulate in secret ; 
 resentment for the outrages already suffered would 
 
 * Sismondi remarks in a note that the accounts of the taking of 
 Carcassonne given by the ancient historians differ so much that one 
 would scarcely suppose them to relate to the event. He professes to 
 have followed the Histoire des grands faicts d’armes de Toulouse, writ- 
 ten in the Provencal dialect. 
 
76 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 alienate them still more from the Church, and the re- 
 formation would break out afresh. To throw back 
 civilization, to obliterate all traces of a great advance 
 of the human mind, it is not sufficient to sacrifice a 
 few thousands by way of example ; the whole nation 
 must be slaughtered, excepting those drudges whose 
 intellect raises them very little above the cattle which 
 assist them in their toil. The legate had a right 
 notion of the means likely to lead to the end which he 
 proposed. 
 
 He summoned a council of the crusaders, to dis- 
 pose of the conquests which had been made. He first 
 offered the viscounties of Beziers and Carcassonne to 
 the duke of Burgundy, who refused the gift, saying 
 that “ he had plenty of lands and lordships, without 
 robbing the said viscount ; and he really thought 
 they had done him harm enough without despoiling 
 him of his inheritance.” 
 
 This noble refusal piqued the honour of the other 
 great nobles : the counts of Nevers and of St. Paul, 
 to whom the legate made the same offers, treated them 
 with the like disdain. The conquered territories 
 were then offered to Simon de Montfort, the head of a 
 noble house, which is traced by some to a natural son 
 of king Robert’s, and who had derived from his 
 mother, an English lady, the earldom of Leicester. 
 A brave and skilful soldier, Montfort had distin- 
 guished himself in the fourth crusade, from which he 
 had recently returned. Cruel, perfidious, and a far 
 natic in religion, he was moreover too ambitious to 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 77 
 
 refuse the opportunity of raising himself to the rank 
 of the great feudatories. He imposed on his new ter- 
 ritories a yearly tax payable to the court of Rome, 
 and issued rigorous ordinances against such of his 
 subjects as should not earnestly strive to relieve 
 themselves from the excommunication. 
 
 The departure of the counts of Nevers and Toulouse, 
 and soon afterwards of the duke of Burgundy, having 
 left him to prosecute the war with his own forces 
 alone, he directed his arms against the count of Foix, 
 who possessed the greater part of the Albigeois, which 
 was regarded as the principal seat of the new doc- 
 trines. In the first terror excited by the massacre 
 of Beziers, the count had retired into the most inac- 
 cessible part of his territories, while the catholic 
 clergy in the principal towns rallied round Montfort, 
 who entered Pamiers and Albi without resistance. 
 The count proposed terms of peace ; they were ac- 
 cepted by Montfort, who found his force daily dimi- 
 nishing, and, towards the end of 1209, hostilities were 
 suspended in that quarter. 
 
 Meanwhile, Raymond Roger was detained a pri- 
 soner by the new possessor of his states. Even in 
 the minds of his enemies, pity for the fate of this 
 prince had succeeded to fury. He was still beloved 
 by his subjects and his neighbours, and his relative 
 and liege-lord the king of Aragon might espouse his 
 cause. Montfort gave the necessary directions that 
 his captive should die of dysentery in a tower of the 
 palace at Carcassonne, where he was closely confined. 
 
78 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 He then took care to exhibit his body to his subjects, 
 and to give him an honourable funeral. The public 
 voice attributed his decease to poison, and the Pope 
 himself, in one of his letters, acknowledged that he 
 perished by a violent death. 
 
 Those who had participated in the campaign 
 against the Albigenses regarded their object as com- 
 pletely attained and the war as terminated. Desola- 
 tion had been spread over the face of that country 
 where the reformation had commenced; two large 
 towns were destroyed ; thousands of victims had pe- 
 rished by the sword, while thousands more, driven 
 from their blazing homes, were wandering in the 
 woods and mountains, and daily perishing of want. 
 The ruin of so fair a country, and the contrast be- 
 tween its former opulence and b its present desolation, 
 would soon have caused the fury of war to give place 
 to pity, if any other motive than religious fanaticism 
 had armed the crusaders. 
 
 After the conquest of the suspected countries had 
 been accomplished, after peace had been granted to 
 the princes and a safeguard to the submissive people, 
 the monks of Citeaux still continued to preach a war 
 of extermination, because they had done so with suc- 
 cess in the preceding year, and were unwilling to 
 relinquish the honours and profits of their mission. 
 Fresh shoals of fanatics were thus impelled every 
 year upon these miserable provinces, and they obliged 
 their leaders to recommence the war, in compliance 
 with the exhortations of those who still demanded 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 79 
 
 human victims, and required blood to effect their 
 salvation. 
 
 Montfort, being reinforced by a new host of cru- 
 saders, and coveting the possessions of the count of 
 Toulouse, caused that ill-fated prince to be excom- 
 municated by the two legates, and his territories laid 
 under an interdict, after which he began hostilities 
 against him. By his contrivance, the abbot of Eaul- 
 nes, who had negociated the peace between him and 
 the count of Foix, was assassinated : he then accused 
 the count of this crime, and declared the treaty with 
 him to be at an end. On the other hand, the king of 
 Aragon refused to accept his allegiance, or to acknow- 
 ledge any other than the infant son of the late vis- 
 count as his successor, and called upon the knights in 
 the territories of Beziers and Carcassonne to arm in 
 support of his rights. So general was the defection 
 in consequence of this appeal, that, by the end of the 
 year, out of more than two hundred towns and cas- 
 tles, not more than eight remained under Montfort’s 
 domination. 
 
 The count of Toulouse, in his solicitude to recon- 
 cile himself with the Church, proceeded early in 1210 
 to Rome, prepared to make great concessions to the 
 Pope, in order to obtain his absolution. Innocent, 
 whether from real good-will or duplicity, gave him 
 a gracious reception, released him provisionally from 
 the excommunication pronounced against him, but 
 referred him for final absolution to a council which 
 should assemble in the province three months after 
 
80 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 his return. The object of this council was to decide 
 whether Raymond was or was not guilty of heresy, 
 and whether he had or had not instigated the murder 
 of Castelnau. 
 
 Before the meeting of this council, the Pope sent 
 Master Theodise, a canon of Genoa, to advise with 
 the legate. “ He was,” says Peter de Yaux Cernay, 
 “ a circumspect man, prudent, and very zealous for 
 the affairs of God ; and he desired, above all things, 
 to find some pretext of right to refuse the count that 
 opportunity of justifying himself which Innocent had 
 granted him.” Men of this stamp could not long be 
 at a loss for such a pretext ; whereupon the council, 
 which met in September at St. Gilles, alleging that 
 he had not obeyed the orders of the Church in some 
 minor matters, refused to hear his defence on the two 
 capital charges. At this unexpected decision, the 
 count burst into tears. “ How great soever be the 
 overflow of waters,” said Master Theodise, quoting 
 Scripture in derision of his weakness, “ they will not 
 reach unto God ; ” and in the name of the Church he 
 fulminated a new excommunication against him. 
 
 The monks of Citeaux were meanwhile busily 
 engaged in raising a fresh army of crusaders in the 
 north of France ; and no sooner was Montfort joined 
 by them than he gave full scope to his cruelty. At- 
 tacking the castles in the Lauraguais and Menerbois, 
 he caused all such of their inhabitants as fell into his 
 hands to be hanged on gibbets. Having invested that 
 of Brom, and taken it by assault on the third day, lie 
 
TIIE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 81 
 
 selected more than a hundred of the wretched inha- 
 bitants, and, having torn out their eyes and cut olf 
 their noses, sent them, under the guidance of a one- 
 eyed man, to the castle of Cabaret, to intimate to the 
 garrison of that fortress the fate which awaited them. 
 Some of these fortresses he found deserted, and then 
 sent out his soldiers to destroy the vines and the 
 olive-trees in the surrounding country. 
 
 The castle of Menerbe, seated on a steep rock sur- 
 rounded by precipices, not far from Narbonne, was 
 reputed to be the strongest place in the South of 
 France. Guiraud, its possessor, was vassal to the 
 viscounts of Carcassonne, and one of the bravest 
 knights in the province. In the month of June, 1210, 
 the crusaders appeared before this fortress. The in- 
 habitants, many of whom had adopted the doctrines 
 of the Albigenses, defended themselves with great 
 valour for seven weeks : but when, owing to the heat 
 of the season, water began to fail, they desired to 
 capitulate ; and Guiraud himself went to the camp of 
 the crusaders and settled with Montfort the conditions 
 for the surrender of the place. They were proceed- 
 ing to execute them, when the legate, who had been 
 absent, returned to the caipp, and Montfort declared 
 that the terms agreed upon could not be considered 
 as binding till they had received his assent. “ At 
 these words,” says Peter de Vaux-Cernay, “ the 
 abbot was sorely grieved. He desired, in fact, that 
 all the enemies of Christ should be put to death, but 
 lie would not take it upon himself to condemn them, 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 on account of his quality of monk and priest.” He 
 thought, however, that he might stir up some quarrel 
 during the negociation, avail himself of it to break 
 the capitulation, and cause all the inhabitants to be 
 put to the sword. To this end he required Montfort, 
 on one part, and Guiraud on the other, to commit to 
 writing, without communicating with one another, 
 the terms on which they had agreed. Finding, as he 
 expected, some difference in the statements, Montfort 
 declared, in the name of the legate, that the negoci- 
 ation was broken off. The lord of Menerbe offered to 
 accept the capitulation as drawn up by Montfort, one 
 of the articles of which provided that heretics them- 
 selves, if they became converts, should have their lives 
 spared, and be allowed to quit the castle. 
 
 When the capitulation was read in the council of 
 war, “ Robert de Mauvoisin,” says the monk of Vaux- 
 Cernay, “ a nobleman, and entirely devoted to the 
 Catholic faith, cried that the pilgrims would never 
 consent to that ; that it was not to show mercy to 
 the heretics, but to put them to death, that they had 
 taken the cross ; but abbot Arnold replied : ‘ Be 
 easy, for I believe there will be very few con- 
 verted.’ ” In this sanguinary hope the legate was 
 not disappointed. 
 
 The crusaders took possession of the castle on the 
 22d of July : they entered, singing Te Deum, and 
 preceded by the crucifix and the standards of Mont- 
 fort. The heretics were meanwhile assembled, the 
 men in one house, the women in another, and there, 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 83 
 
 on their knees, and resigned to their fate, they pre- 
 pared themselves by prayer for the worst that could 
 befal them. The abbot of Vaux-Cernay, in fulfilment 
 of the capitulation, began to preach to them the 
 Catholic faith ; but they interrupted him with the 
 unanimous cry : “ We will have none of your faith ; 
 we have renounced the Church of Rome ; your labour 
 is in vain ; for neither death nor life shall make us 
 renounce the opinions we have embraced.” The 
 abbot then went to the assembly of women, but he 
 found them equally resolute, and still more enthusi- 
 astic in their declarations. Montfort also went to 
 them both. He had previously caused a prodigious 
 pile of dry wood to be made. “ Be converted to the 
 Catholic faith,” said he, to the assembled Albigenses, 
 “ or mount this pile.” None of them wavered. Fire 
 was set to the wood, and the pile was soon wrapt in 
 one tremendous blaze. The heretics were then taken 
 to the spot, where, after commending their souls to 
 that God in whose cause they suffered martyrdom, 
 they voluntarily threw themselves into the flames, to 
 the number of more than one hundred and forty. 
 
 The capture of Menerbe was speedily followed by 
 the siege of the very strong castle of Termes, which 
 made an obstinate resistance of four months, till the 
 garrison, thinned by disease, attempted to escape by 
 abandoning the place, with the hope of reaching Ca- 
 talonia. As soon as their flight was perceived, the 
 whole army of the crusaders went in pursuit of the 
 fugitives, most of whom were killed on the spot ; the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 others were conducted alive to Montfort. Among the 
 latter was Raymond, lord of Termes, who had made 
 such a valiant defence : his life he spared, and, in- 
 stead of burning him, confined him in the dungeon of 
 a tower of Carcassonne, where he languished for many 
 years. 
 
 When Montfort took the field in 1211, his first 
 efforts were directed to the reduction of numerous 
 castles situated among the mountains between the 
 dioceses of Carcassonne and Toulouse. The crusaders 
 then advanced to Lavaur, a strong castle, about five 
 leagues from the latter city. It belonged to a widow 
 named Guiraude, who had been joined by her brother 
 Aimery de Montreal, with eighty knights, after he 
 had been despoiled of his own possessions by the cru- 
 saders. Professing themselves the doctrines of the 
 Albigenses, they had afforded an asylum within their 
 walls to such of the Reformed as were persecuted in 
 the other parts of the province ; so that their fortress, 
 which was well stored with provisions, and surrounded 
 with strong walls and deep difches, was considered as 
 one of the principal seats of heresy. Fouquet, the 
 Catholic bishop of Toulouse, a bloodthirsty fanatic, 
 represented to the inhabitants of this city that their 
 mixture with heretics rendered them a horror to all 
 Christians, and that they ought to arm against such 
 of their fellow-citizens as had abandoned the Catholic 
 faith, lest they should be confounded with the latter. 
 He persuaded them to form a society called the White 
 Company, which engaged to destroy the heretics by 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 85 
 
 fire and sword; and, having thus inflamed their zeal, 
 he sent five thousand of these fanatics to assist in the 
 siege of Lavaur. 
 
 Montfort was not only a daring and skilful ge- 
 neral, but a proficient in every branch of the military 
 science of his age. Many of the knights in his army 
 also had acquired in the East considerable expe- 
 rience in the attack and defence of fortified places. 
 To overthrow walls, he employed ingenious machines, 
 but recently introduced into Europe, and as yet un- 
 known in the countries bordering on the Pyrenees. 
 The most formidable of these was a strong wooden 
 tower, covered with sheepskins, with the wool out- 
 wards to protect it from fire. Being moved on 
 wooden rollers to the foot of the wall, the side of 
 this machine opened, and an immense beam, armed 
 with iron hooks, thrust forward like the paw of a 
 cat, shook the wall by repeated strokes, after the 
 manner of the ancient battering ram, and tore out 
 and pulled down the stones which it had loosened. 
 Montfort had constructed an engine of this kind, but 
 the wide ditches of Lavaur prevented it from ap- 
 proaching near enough to the walls. The crusaders 
 laboured hard to fill up the ditch ; but the inhabi- 
 tants of Lavaur, having subterranean passages to it, 
 cleared away in the night all that had been thrown 
 in during the day. At length, Montfort contrived to 
 fill the mines with flame and smoke, and thus pre- 
 vented the besieged from passing through them. The 
 ditches were then speedily filled ; the cat was pushed 
 
86 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 to the foot of the wall ; and its terrible paw began 
 to make and enlarge a breach. 
 
 As soon as the breach was practicable, the cru- 
 saders prepared for the assault. The bishops, the 
 vice-legate, and the priests, in their pontifical habits, 
 exulting in the expected carnage, sang the Veni 
 Creator . The knights mounted the breach. Resistance 
 was out of the question, and Montfort’s only care was 
 to prevent his followers from falling instantly upon 
 the inhabitants, and to beseech them rather to make 
 prisoners, that the priests of the living God might 
 not be deprived of their promised gratification. 
 “ Very soon,” proceeds the monk of Vaux-Cernay, 
 “ they dragged out of the castle Aimery, lord of Mont- 
 real, and other knights, to the number of eighty. 
 The noble count [Montfort] immediately ordered 
 them to be hanged upon the gallows ; but, as soon as 
 Aimery, the stoutest of them, was hung up, the 
 gallows fell ; for, in their great haste, it had not 
 been properly fixed in the ground. The count, see- 
 ing that this would produce great delay, ordered 
 the rest to be slaughtered ; and the pilgrims, eager 
 to execute the order, presently put all of them to 
 death upon the spot. The lady of the castle, who 
 was Aimery’s sister and an execrable heretic, was by 
 the count’s order thrown into a pit, which was filled 
 up with stones ; afterwards our pilgrims collected the 
 innumerable heretics that the castle contained, and 
 burned them alive with the utmost joy.” 
 
 These worthy soldiers of an inhuman Church now 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 87 
 
 advanced into the territories of the count of Toulouse, 
 and, the castle of Cassero having surrendered on 
 capitulation, “ the pilgrims, seizing nearly sixty 
 heretics, burned them with infinite joy.” Such is 
 the phrase always employed by the monk, who was 
 an eyewitness and the panegyrist of the crusade. 
 Many other castles being either surrendered or aban- 
 doned, Montfort proceeded to lay siege to Toulouse. 
 Though many of the inhabitants of that city had em- 
 braced the doctrines of the Albigenses, the greater 
 number were still Papists ; but the magistrates had the 
 firmness to refuse either to renounce their allegiance 
 to their count, though he had been excommunicated, or 
 to deliver up to punishment such of their fellow- 
 citizens as were suspected of inclining to the new 
 opinions. On the other hand, the White Company, 
 formed by the bishop, erected by its own authority a 
 tribunal for the trial of suspected heretics, and exe- 
 cuted its judgments by open force, in the destruction 
 and pillage of their houses. A counter-association 
 was soon formed by the name of the Black Company, 
 and frequent hostile encounters between the two par- 
 ties ensued. “ Thus,” says Master William of Puy- 
 Laurens, a contemporary historian, “ did our Lord, 
 by the ministry of his servant the bishop, instead of 
 a bad peace, excite among them a good war.” In 
 spite, however, of the efforts of this worthy servant 
 of the Lord, count Raymond laboured so successfully 
 in rousing his subjects to a sense of their common 
 danger and interest, that he effected a reconciliation 
 
88 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 between the two companies, on which the legate ex- 
 communicated all the inhabitants of the city. These, 
 nevertheless, defended themselves against the cru- 
 saders with such spirit that Montfort was obliged to 
 raise the siege. 
 
 After this check, the affairs of the ferocious Mont- 
 fort continued to decline ; while Raymond, with the 
 assistance of the counts of Foix and Cominges, recon- 
 quered all the strong places in the Albigeois. During 
 the following winter, the zeal of the monks of Citeaux 
 was exerted with such effect, that Montfort again 
 found himself at the head of a formidable force. 
 Many of the fanatical bands which composed it were 
 led by high dignitaries of the Church ; and so great 
 was the eagerness to assist in the slaughter of here- 
 tics, that the army of the crusaders was renewed four 
 times in the course of the year 1212. They were 
 obliged, however, to be content with such straggling 
 peasants as they could pick up in the fields, or pri- 
 soners taken in the castles that dared to resist them. 
 Their sanguinary commander, finding that the greater 
 part of the population of the countries in which 
 heresy had prevailed, was exterminated, and that the 
 remainder had got out of his reach, resolved to take 
 advantage of the zeal of his fanatical followers, by 
 leading them into the Agenois, and making them earn 
 their indulgences there, though the entire population 
 was Catholic. The siege of Boissac was remarkable 
 for a piece of perfidious cruelty, which the execrable 
 Montfort compelled the inhabitants to practise. He 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 89 
 
 refused to spare their lives unless they would engage 
 to slaughter with their own hands three hundred 
 routiers , who formed the garrison and had till then 
 valiantly defended the place ; and the crusaders, 
 contenting themselves with this carnage, only de- 
 manded from the townspeople a sum of money to 
 save their houses from the flames. Montfort then 
 led his army into the counties of Foix and Cominges, 
 which he ravaged ; while the count of Toulouse, 
 stripped of almost all his territories, went to Aragon, 
 to solicit the intercession of the king, his brother-in- 
 law, with the court of Rome. 
 
 It is irrevelant to my purpose to detail the mili- 
 tary operations which succeeded, till the council of 
 Lateran in 1215 put an end to the preaching of the 
 crusade against the Albigenses, and disposed of the 
 countries conquered by the crusaders. The counts 
 of Toulouse, Foix, and Cominges repaired to Rome 
 to plead their cause before the assembled Church, 
 and exposed the crying injustice which Montfort had 
 committed against them, in contempt of the pon- 
 tifical authority itself. Many of the members of the 
 council defended these persecuted princes ; they 
 spoke with execration of the horrors committed in 
 the province, and reproached Fouquet, bishop of 
 Toulouse, with having destroyed more than ten thou- 
 sand of the flock committed to his care. The Pope 
 himself appeared touched, but the majority of the 
 assembly, heated by the fanaticism of the crusade, at 
 length triumphed, and obtained a decree, giving to 
 
90 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Montfort all the territories of the count of Toulouse, 
 excepting the county of Yenaissin and the raarqui- 
 sate of Provence, which were reserved for his son 
 Raymond VII. The final decision respecting the 
 counties of Foix and Cominges was deferred, but 
 they were provisionally restored to their rightful 
 possessors. 
 
 Thus the first reformation was . totally extin- 
 guished. So prodigious had been the slaughter, and 
 so profound was the terror, that the Church ap- 
 peared to have completely attained her object. The 
 worship of the reformed Albigenses had every where 
 ceased. Almost all the teachers of the new church 
 had died a fearful death ; while the small number 
 who had escaped from the crusaders had sought 
 refuge in the most distant countries, and had no 
 chance of avoiding new persecutions but by ob- 
 serving absolute silence respecting their doctrines 
 and their sufferings. Individuals who had not pe- 
 rished by fire or the sword, and who had not with- 
 drawn by flight from the scrutiny of the Inquisition, 
 knew that they could save their lives only by burying 
 their secret in their own bosoms : their very children 
 were not made acquainted with their private senti- 
 ments. 
 
 But, if the church of the Albigenses was drowned 
 in blood, other parts of the population of Southern 
 France were doomed to martyrdom under their name. 
 The crusaders, in their blind fury, slaughtered all 
 the inhabitants of hundreds of villages, without taking 
 
TIIE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 91 
 
 the trouble to inquire whether they contained a 
 single heretic. We know not what credit ought to 
 be given to the numbers assigned to the armies of 
 the cross, or whether, in any single year, one hundred 
 thousand men were poured into Languedoc ; but cer- 
 tain it is that armies far superior in number, far 
 inferior in discipline, to those employed in other 
 wars, had, for seven or eight successive years, inun- 
 dated this desolated country almost without inter- 
 ruption. They had neither pay nor magazines, living 
 at the expense of the country, and supplying all their 
 wants by means of the sword. In short, no calcu- 
 lation can ascertain with any precision the waste of 
 property and the destruction of human life, which 
 were the consequences of the crusade against the 
 Albigenses. 
 
 Though the so-called heretics were crushed, the 
 blessings of peace were not restored to the ravaged 
 and desolated provinces which had been drenched 
 with their blood. The ambitious Montfort, not con- 
 tent with the possessions of the count of Toulouse, 
 continued hostilities against the counts of Cominges 
 and Foix. The king of Aragon, who had thus far been 
 the mediator of peace or acted with the crusaders, 
 either because he could not suffer the count of Tou- 
 louse, who was his brother-in-law, to be robbed of his 
 dominions, or deeming himself bound to prevent the 
 oppression of the count de Foix, who was his vassal, 
 or, perhaps, dissatisfied that he had been forgotten 
 in the intended division of the spoils of those two 
 
92 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 princes, now unexpectedly declared for them, and 
 abandoned Montfort. In a very short time, the king 
 and the two counts raised an army of 100,000 men, 
 composed of Aragonese and natives of Languedoc 
 and Provence. Confident in their strength, they 
 marched to meet Montfort, and offered him battle. 
 The combatants on both sides fought with all the 
 animosity that religion added to interest could not 
 fail to excite ; but, the king of Aragon being slain 
 in the heat of the fray, his allies were struck with 
 consternation ; and Montfort, taking advantage of 
 their panic, attacked them on all sides with such 
 vigour that they were put to the rout, leaving, it is 
 said, 20,000 slain on the field. 
 
 After this signal victory, Montfort marched for 
 Toulouse, which surrendered at discretion, and Nar- 
 bonne followed its example. During the following 
 years, success attended the arms of the conqueror; 
 but at length, in 1418, by a change of fortune, count 
 Raymond retook Toulouse. Montfort, at the head of 
 100,000 crusaders, immediately laid siege to the city; 
 but his army was defeated, and himself killed by a 
 stone hurled from the ramparts. 
 
 The death of their cruel but valiant leader threat- 
 ened the affairs of the Catholics with irretrievable 
 ruin. The counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Cominges, 
 recovered in a short time all that had been taken 
 from them ; and they retained these advantages till 
 the death of count Raymond once more changed the 
 aspect of affairs. That prince was an object of popish 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 93 
 
 persecution as long as he lived. He was nevertheless 
 most scrupulous in the observance of all the prac- 
 tices of the Catholic religion ; so that, when under 
 excommunication, he would continue for a long time 
 on his knees in prayer at the doors of the churches, 
 which he durst not enter. Neither did that per- 
 secution terminate with his life. After his death, in 
 August, 1222, his son could not obtain authority to 
 bury his body. It was therefore deposited in a 
 coffin near the cemetery of St. John, at Toulouse, 
 awaiting the permission of the Church for its inter- 
 ment. There it still lay in the fourteenth century ; 
 but, as it was only of wood, and no care was taken 
 for its preservation, it fell to pieces, and the bones 
 of the unfortunate prince were dispersed before the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 His son, young Raymond, who succeeded him, con- 
 tinuing the war with forces unequal to those of his 
 enemies, experienced such ill success that he was 
 obliged to surrender. He was sent prisoner to Pavia. 
 To regain his liberty, he agreed to such terms as his 
 enemies chose to exact, and, among others, to issue 
 the severest edicts against the Albigenses. 
 
 On the other hand, the counts of Foix and Co- 
 minges, finding themselves too weak to withstand so 
 many enemies as were continually falling upon them, 
 made their peace upon the best conditions that they 
 could obtain. 
 
 The open war against the Albigenses was followed 
 by that of the Inquisition, which completely de- 
 
94 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 stroyed the remnant of those unfortunate people. The 
 provinces first given by the Church to Simon Mont- 
 fort were subsequently transferred by the same autho- 
 rity to Louis VIII. They comprised nearly the 
 whole of the fine provinces of Provence, Dauphine, 
 and Languedoc, with the exception of that portion 
 which Raymond VII. was permitted to retain, and 
 which was not finally added to the possessions of the 
 crown of France till the death of his daughter in 
 1271. 
 
 I cannot quit this subject without calling the atten- 
 tion of the reader to the excellent observations made 
 upon it by an anonymous writer, prefixed in an In- 
 troductory Essay to his translation of that part of 
 Sismondi’s History of France which relates to the 
 persecution of the Albigenses, published in 1826. 
 
 “ The crusades against the Albigenses,” says this 
 writer, “ present one of those occasions by which the 
 rights claimed by the Romish Church towards here- 
 tics may be most fully and accurately ascertained. 
 They were her exclusive and deliberate act. The 
 Church of Rome had been then, according to its own 
 principles, established for nearly 1200 years. It 
 professed to have been endowed with miraculous 
 powers, and to be guided by the teachings of the 
 infallible spirit of God. All the temporal autho- 
 rities had submitted to its domination, and were 
 ready to execute its orders. If, therefore, there is 
 any period in which we should seek for its genuine 
 and authentic principles, it must be under the un- 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 95 
 
 clouded dominion of Innocent III. Nor can the 
 opponents of all reformation possibly desire any 
 thing more than to restore that golden age of the 
 Church. Should they say that, civilization and 
 philosophy having then made but small progress, we 
 are to charge the cruelties which were committed 
 against the heretics to the ignorance and barbarism 
 of the times, we would reply that all these cruelties 
 were prompted, encouraged, and sanctioned by Rome 
 itself, and that an infallible Church cannot require 
 the lights of philosophy to instruct her in her duties 
 towards heretics. To an impartial inquirer, it would 
 seem rather strange that, under the spiritual illumi- 
 nation afforded by this Church to the nations, here- 
 sies should have arisen, and that, with all the powers 
 of Heaven and earth on its side, the Church could not 
 trust itself in the field of reason and argument against 
 them. But certain it is that heresies did arise, and 
 that the Church of Rome felt itself called upon to 
 show to that age and to all succeeding ones the full 
 extent of the power with which it was invested by 
 Heaven for their suppression and extirpation. 
 
 “ The dogma on which all these transactions were 
 founded is — that the Church possesses the right to 
 extirpate heresy, and to use all the means which she 
 may judge necessary for that purpose. It was on 
 this dogma that Innocent III. and his legates preached 
 the crusade against the heretics, and promised to 
 those engaged in it the full remission of all sins ; it 
 was on this dogma that they excommunicated the 
 
96 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 civil powers by whom they were, or were supposed to 
 be protected, and disposed of their dominions to those 
 who assisted in this spiritual warfare. This dogma 
 was repeatedly avowed by provincial councils, and 
 finally ratified by a general council, the fourth of 
 Lateran.* It was received by the tacit, nay, by the 
 cordial and triumphant assent of the universal 
 Church, and had also the sanction of the civil autho- 
 rities, who received from the Church the spoils of 
 the deposed and persecuted princes. We can, 
 therefore, conceive of nothing which should be still 
 necessary to constitute this dogma an article of faith, 
 and hold ourselves justified in considering the Church 
 of Rome to claim, as of divine authority, the right 
 to extirpate heresy, and, for the purpose, if she judge 
 it necessary, to extirpate heretics. 
 
 “ Nor has this principle, which was evidently 
 
 * This council not only determined the spiritual power of the 
 Church over heretics, but deferred the application of that power 
 to temporal princes. Cap. iii, “ Si dominus temporalis requisitus et 
 monitus ab Ecclesia, terram suam purgare neglexerit ab hseretica 
 fceditate, per Metropolitanos et caeteros Episcopos vinculo excom- 
 municationis innodetur ; et si satisfacere contempserit infra annum, 
 significetur hoc Summo Pontifici, et extunc ipse vassalos ab ejus 
 fidelitate denunciet absolutos, et terram exponet Catholicis occu- 
 pandam qui earn, haereticis exterminatis, sine ulla contradictione pos- 
 sideant, salvo jure Domini principalis, dummodo super hoc ipse 
 nullum praestet obstaculum, eadem nihilominus lege servata, circa 
 eos qui non habent Dominos principales.” — See Delahogue, Tract, de 
 Eccelesia Christi,p. 202. The author adds, “Nonnulli critici dubitant 
 de authenticitate hujus canonis.” The count of Toulouse and the 
 Albigenses, however, felt its authenticity. 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 97 
 
 avowed and acted upon at the period of these cru- 
 sades, been ever renounced by any authentic or 
 official act of that Church : on the contrary, the 
 Church has, during the 600 years which followed 
 these events, invariably, as far as occasions have 
 served, avowed the same principles, and perpetrated 
 or stimulated the same deeds. As soon as the wars 
 against the Albigenses were terminated, the Inqui- 
 sition was brought into full and constant action, and 
 has always been encouraged and supported by the 
 Romish Church to the utmost of its power in every 
 place where it could obtain an establishment. The 
 civil authorities, finding by experience that some of 
 the claims of the Church were more prejudicial than 
 useful to themselves, have denied to it the right of 
 deposing sovereigns and of freeing subjects from their 
 allegiance; but the Church itself has never generally 
 and explicitly renounced this claim, and long after 
 the Reformation in Germany continued to exercise 
 it. And, notwithstanding the professions made by 
 modern Catholics, history does not furnish an instance 
 of any body of that profession interposing its protest 
 against the persecution of heretics by the Church of 
 Rome. 
 
 “ One of the rights the most constantly claimed 
 and exercised by the Roman See throughout its 
 whole history is that of dissolving oaths. History 
 (Sismondi’s Hist, of the Italian Republics) furnishes 
 instances of this as a recognized, undisputed, and 
 every-day practice in almost every pontificate. One 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 instance may serve for an illustration among a mul- 
 titude of others. There were certain reforms in the 
 pontifical government, which were required by the 
 leading persons in the Church, but which they never 
 could obtain from the Popes themselves. The car- 
 dinals, therefore, when they were going to elect a 
 new Pope, were accustomed to bind themselves by 
 the most solemn oaths that whoever of them should 
 be elected would grant those reforms. And, invari- 
 ably, as soon as the Pope was chosen, he released 
 himself from his oath, on the ground of its being 
 contrary to the interests of the Church. The power 
 of releasing from the obligation of oaths was also 
 extended during these crusades, especially to freeing 
 the subjects of heretical princes from their oaths of 
 allegiance, and it was especially sanctioned by the 
 fourth council of Lateran. This practice has, how- 
 ever, become so obnoxious in modern times that the 
 right has been indignantly disowned by most of the 
 advocates of the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever 
 may be the opinions of the English and Irish Catho- 
 lics and those of many other private bodies in the 
 Church of Rome, we doubt their authority to make 
 such declarations, as members of a church which 
 prohibits the right of private judgment where the 
 Church has determined. All we apprehend is that, 
 should it ever be within the power of the Roman 
 Church and consistent with her policy to proceed 
 against the English and Irish heretics, the decla- 
 rations of the respectable bodies we have mentioned, 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 99 
 
 and even the authority of the most eminent indivi- 
 duals, would not shield us from the fate of the Albi- 
 genses in the thirteenth century. 
 
 “ In practice we are doubtless secure from such a 
 revolution ; but to what are we indebted for this secu- 
 rity ? — to any change in the principles of the Church of 
 Rome since the time of the crusades against heretics ; 
 or to our own power and the progress of public opinion? 
 If to the former, it belongs to the Catholics to show 
 us this magna charta of our rights and immunities. 
 If to the latter, we are then obliged to tell them that 
 we hold our liberties only by the tenure of our power 
 to maintain them ; and that every concession made 
 to that Church is a voluntary manifestation of our 
 sense of security arising from our own efforts against 
 any future attempts at persecution. 
 
 “No tale of falsehood can be so artfully framed 
 as not to contain within itself its own confutation. 
 This is manifestly the case with the stories fabricated 
 respecting the Albigenses. The Catholics had per- 
 secuted and destroyed them ; they had also destroyed 
 all their documents, and rendered it utterly impos- 
 sible for them to speak in their own defence. They 
 had excommunicated and dethroned the rulers, under 
 whose government they had enjoyed protection, free- 
 dom, and happiness ; but, though they had done all 
 this, they could not give a consistent justification of 
 their proceedings. The Albigenses were, they say, 
 the most detestable of heretics, licentious, and sedi- 
 tious : they propagated their execrable tenets by fire 
 
100 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 and sword, rapine and plunder; they burned the 
 crosses, destroyed the altars and churches, and dese- 
 crated the latter by converting them into brothels. 
 Yet their lawful sovereigns, the counts of Toulouse, 
 of Foix, and Cominges, and the viscount of Bearne, 
 against whom all these deeds of sedition and violence 
 must have been committed, are represented as not 
 only enduring, but protecting such miscreants ; and 
 when the Roman Church, in its great goodness, 
 offered to purge the land of these pollutions, they 
 became such advocates of plunder, rapine, fire, 
 sword, blasphemy, and sedition, as not only to make 
 common cause with their subjects, but to endure 
 in their defence every calamity which their enemies 
 could inflict. 
 
 “ Supposing, however, that the Albigenses had 
 been all that the Catholic writers represent, upon 
 what ground could the Roman Church make a war 
 of extermination against them ? The sovereigns of 
 those countries did not seek her aid to suppress the 
 seditions of their subjects, nor even to regulate their 
 faith. The interference was not only without the 
 authority, but absolutely against their consent, and 
 was resisted by them in a war of twenty years’ 
 continuance. If they refer to the authority of the 
 king of France, as liege lord, he had not in that 
 capacity the right of interference with the internal 
 affairs of his feudatories ; and he had, in fact, no 
 share in these transactions, any further than to come 
 in at the close of the contest and reap the fruits 
 
THE ALBIGENSES. 
 
 101 
 
 of the victory. We are, therefore, from every point 
 brought to the same conclusion : — that the Church 
 claims a divine right to extirpate heresy and ex- 
 terminate heretics, with or without the consent of 
 the sovereigns in whose dominions they may be 
 found.” 
 
102 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 III. THE PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 THE INQUISITION. 
 
 The Inquisition, the most formidable of all the 
 formidable engines devised by Popery to subdue the 
 souls and bodies, the reason and the consciences, of men 
 to its sovereign will, was a capital contrivance for 
 rendering persecution permanent, as the Jacobins of 
 recent times did the guillotine. Indeed, the one was 
 only a slower process than the other for arriving at 
 the same end. 
 
 The immediate motive for its establishment was, 
 as we have seen, the suppression of the alleged 
 heresy of the Albigenses, whom the Church, in her 
 maternal anxiety for their eternal salvation, under- 
 took, in spite of their natural sovereigns, to reclaim 
 or — to exterminate. Innocent III., the then dispen- 
 ser of her tender mercies, considering that, whatever 
 might be done against the Albigenses by open force, 
 there would still be left a great number who would 
 persist in their sentiments and in the profession of 
 their doctrines, conceived the plan of a permanent 
 tribunal for the detection and punishment of heretics. 
 
 To this end it was requisite that the persons com- 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 103 
 
 posing it should be entirely dependent on the court 
 of Rome, and absolutely devoted to its interests. It 
 was requisite that they should have no other duties 
 to divert their attention ; that they should be of low 
 condition, in order that they might feel themselves 
 honoured by an employment which consisted at first 
 in the mere search after heretics. It was requisite 
 that they should be without family ties and connec- 
 tions, so as to have no consideration for any person 
 whatever ; that they should be obdurate, inflexible, 
 without pity and without compassion ; because the 
 intended tribunal was to exceed in severity any that 
 had ever existed. Lastly, it was requisite that they 
 should be zealous in behalf of religion, men of little 
 or no ability, but interested, from particular motives, 
 in the destruction of heretics. 
 
 Innocent, who was not satisfied with the bishops 
 and their officials, whose zeal against heretics was, 
 in his opinion, not sufficiently active, thought that 
 in the monks of the recently established orders of 
 St. Dominic and St. Francis were to be found all the 
 qualities just enumerated. 
 
 For the court of Rome they had the strongest 
 possible attachment. The solitude and retirement 
 of which they made profession, but of which, as it 
 appeared in the sequel, they soon began to tire, 
 afforded them leisure to attend incessantly to this 
 new calling. The meanness of their dress, the 
 poverty of their monasteries, and, above all, the pub- 
 lic mendicity and humility to which they bound 
 
104 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 themselves, could not fail to make them regard the 
 office of Inquisitors as one that flattered any relic 
 of natural ambition which might yet lurk within 
 their minds. The general renunciation which they 
 made even of the names of the families from which 
 they sprung, must go a great way towards stifling 
 those sentiments which the ties of kindred and civil 
 connections generally inspire. Besides, the austerity 
 of their rules, and the severity which they were con- 
 tinually practising towards themselves, were not 
 likely to allow them to have much feeling for others. 
 Lastly, they were zealous, as possessors of newly 
 established religions most commonly are ; and learned, 
 after the fashion of the times ; that is to say, well 
 versed in scholastic quibbles and in the new canon 
 law. Moreover, they had a particular interest in 
 the suppression of heretics, who were incessantly de- 
 claiming against them, and spared no pains to dis- 
 credit them in the minds of the people. 
 
 On these monks, therefore, the Pope conferred the 
 office of Inquisitors of the Faith, and they acquitted 
 themselves in such a manner as not to disappoint his 
 expectations. At first, however, their duty was li- 
 mited to labouring for the conversion of heretics by 
 means of preaching and instruction ; to exhorting 
 princes and magistrates to punish those who persisted 
 in their errors ; to inquiring the number and quality 
 of the heretics, and also what degree of zeal and dili- 
 gence was shown by Catholic princes, magistrates, 
 and bishops, in searching out and inflicting punish- 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 105 
 
 ment. Their reports on these points were trans- 
 mitted to the Pope, to be used as he should think fit ; 
 and from these inquiries the persons who were en- 
 gaged in them received the name of Inquisitors. 
 
 Some time afterwards, their authority was ex- 
 tended, and they were empowered to grant indul- 
 gences, to publish crusades, to animate nations and 
 princes, to put themselves at the head of the cru- 
 saders, and to lead them on to the extirpation of 
 heretics. In later times, the Inquisition was also 
 made use of, to condemn as heretical all books in 
 which the rights of temporal princes and potentates 
 are carried too far in the opinion of the court of 
 Rome ; and every occasion was seized for enlarging 
 its powers in order to render it a more effective in- 
 strument, under the pretext of religion, against all 
 who should dare to oppose the temporal pretensions 
 of the Pope. This terrible engine of the most cruel 
 tyranny was gradually introduced into all the Italian 
 States, excepting Naples, into some of the provinces 
 of France, and into the kingdoms of Spain and Por- 
 tugal : but the Papal See was baffled in all its at- 
 tempts to obtain the formal establishment of the 
 justly dreaded tribunal in the other European States. 
 
 The Inquisition comprehended under the name of 
 heretics all who spoke, wrote, taught, or preached 
 any thing contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the 
 traditions of the Church ; all who praised the customs 
 and ceremonies of other religions, or held that it was 
 possible to be saved in any other Church than the 
 
106 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OE 
 
 Romish ; all who maintained opinions contrary to 
 those received at Rome and in Italy respecting the 
 sovereign and unlimited authority of the Popes, their 
 superiority even to general councils, and their power 
 in temporal matters over princes ; in short, all who 
 spoke, wrote, or taught against the determinations 
 made by the Popes on any subject whatever. 
 
 The mere suspicion of heresy opened a still wider 
 field to the operation of the Inquisition. To speak 
 against the sacraments, to deface or destroy images, 
 to keep or lend forbidden hooks, to abstain from the 
 ordinary practices of Catholics, as, for example, to 
 pass a whole year without confessing and communi- 
 cating, to eat meat on fast days, to neglect attending 
 mass on the days prescribed by the Church, were each a 
 sufficient cause for incurring that suspicion. To save, 
 to assist, or to favour a heretic in any way whatever was 
 a crime : nay, to neglect to denounce one, even though 
 the nearest and dearest relative, was an offence which 
 exposed a person to excommunication, and to the 
 horrors of the Inquisition, as a suspected heretic. 
 This tribunal likewise took cognizance of charges of 
 magic, sorcery, and witchcraft ; and, as the belief in 
 these imaginary crimes was almost universal, especi- 
 ally in Italy, none contributed so much as they did to 
 crowd the prisons with women of all conditions. But 
 with the Inquisition the most heinous of all trans- 
 gressions was to give any, even the slightest, offence 
 to its officers. This was held to be a capital crime, 
 and neither birth nor character, neither office, nor 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 107 
 
 rank, nor dignity, was a safeguard from the penalty. 
 If, therefore, a man was seized in the midst of his 
 friends, or in the circle of his family, not a hand durst 
 be lifted in his defence, not a voice in his favour. 
 From that moment, the prisoner was cut off from all 
 intercourse with his kind ; without friends or kindred, 
 without counsel, succour, or consolation, he was left 
 to his judges and to himself, and frequently to his 
 bitterest enemies. An exact inventory was taken of 
 every thing found in his house and about his person ; 
 and all or at least part of his property was seized, by 
 way of security, for the expenses and fines which he 
 might be sentenced to pay : for rarely did a prisoner 
 get out of the clutches of the Inquisition without 
 being half ruined, unless he were very rich. 
 
 The prisons of this most terrible of all tribunals 
 were unwholesome subterraneous dungeons, situated 
 at a distance from all traffic. To these dreary abodes 
 the light of day never penetrated. Here the wretched 
 prisoners were not allowed to see or to speak to any 
 one. If the proximity of one dungeon to another 
 allowed the inmates to converse, they were forbidden 
 to hold communication ; and if they were overheard 
 talking to themselves or to one another, they were 
 most cruelly scourged. When a prisoner had passed 
 several days, or perhaps months, without even know- 
 ing the crime of which he was accused or the wit- 
 nesses against him, the jailer, as if of his own motion, 
 advised him to apply for a hearing; for it was an in- 
 variable maxim with this tribunal that the accused 
 
108 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 should always be the applicant, and be made to im- 
 peach himself. When brought before his judges, 
 they affected entire ignorance of his case, inquiring 
 who he was, what he wanted, and if he had any thing 
 to say. The prisoner of course gave the best account 
 that he could of himself, and was released, as the In- 
 quisition was too regardful of human life to send to 
 the stake those who were brought before it for the 
 first time ; but his family was declared infamous, and 
 this first judgment rendered him incapable of bearing 
 arms or of holding any office in the Church or in the 
 State. 
 
 Spies, who were called Familiars of the Inquisition, 
 were then sent to dog him, to pick up his every word, 
 and to watch his every motion. These men, pretend- 
 ing to be his friends, wormed themselves into his con- 
 fidence : and sometimes his £wn servants or his near- 
 est relatives played this treacherous part. On the 
 slightest suspicion, he was again apprehended : the 
 wretched man was then irretrievably undone, for 
 never was the Inquisition known to forgive twice. 
 
 After he had again languished for several months, 
 he again applied for a hearing, at the secret sugges- 
 tion of his judges, who, if they could not draw from 
 him such a confession as they desired, ordered him to 
 be put to the torture, of which there were three kinds. 
 The first, called squassation, consisted in tying back 
 the arms by a cord, fastening weights to his feet, and 
 drawing him up to the full height of the place by 
 means of a pulley. Having been kept suspended for 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 109 
 
 some time, lie was suddenly let down with a jerk to 
 within a little distance of the floor, and with repeated 
 shocks all his joints were dislocated; for this species 
 of torture was continued for an hour and sometimes 
 longer, according to the pleasure of the inquisitors 
 present, and to what the strength of the sufferer 
 seemed capable of enduring. If this torture was not 
 sufficient to overcome him, that of water was resorted 
 to. He was obliged to swallow a great quantity, and 
 then laid in a wooden trough, provided with a lid that 
 might be pressed down as tight as the operators 
 pleased. Across the trough was a bar, on which the 
 sufferer’s back rested, and by which the spine was 
 broken. The torture by fire was equally painful. A 
 very brisk fire was made; and, the prisoner being 
 extended on the ground, the soles of his feet were 
 rubbed with lard or some other combustible matter, 
 and placed close to the fire, till the agony extorted 
 from him such a confession as his tormentors required. 
 Not satisfied with their success, the judges doomed 
 their miserable victims to the torture a second time, 
 to make them own the motive and intention for the 
 actions which they acknowledged to have committed ; 
 and a third time, to force them to reveal their accom- 
 plices or abettors. 
 
 If these infernal cruelties failed to wring a confes- 
 sion, artifices and snares were resorted to. Suborned 
 wretches were sent to their dungeons : pretending to 
 comfort and assist them, or even to be prisoners 
 like themselves, they launched out against the In- 
 quisition as an insupportable tyranny and the 
 
110 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 greatest of all the scourges with which God had ever 
 afflicted mankind. Their dupes fell the more readily 
 into the snare, as it is hard to withstand the services 
 of friendship and compassion performed for us when 
 in the extremity of misery. The Inquisitors seconded 
 these artifices to the utmost of their power. They 
 assured the sufferers that they sympathized with 
 them ; that all they aimed at was their conversion ; 
 that the slightest confession, which they might make 
 to them in private, and which they promised to 
 keep inviolably secret, would be sufficient to put 
 an end to their afflictions and to procure their libe- 
 ration. 
 
 The upshot was that, if the accused was held to be 
 convicted in the judgment of the Inquisitors, or by 
 witnesses, or by his own confession, he was sentenced, 
 according to the heinousness of the offence, to death, 
 to perpetual imprisonment, to the galleys, flogging, 
 or some other punishment. After condemnation, 
 the execution was deferred for one or perhaps seve- 
 ral years, that the sacrifice of a great number of 
 delinquents at once might produce a more striking 
 and terrible effect. 
 
 The wholesale executions of the Inquisition, being 
 considered as a religious ceremony, were styled in 
 Spain and Portugal Autos-da-fe, or Acts of Faith. 
 These were celebrated in general at the accession of 
 a king to the crown, or on occasion of his majority, 
 of his marriage, or of the birth of an heir-apparent. 
 By the besotted and priest-ridden inhabitants of those 
 countries, these horrible sights were at last regarded 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 Ill 
 
 nearly in the light of public amusements. Executions 
 on a smaller scale took place every year towards the 
 conclusion of Lent, on the Friday immediately prece- 
 ding Good Friday. 
 
 By daybreak, the tolling of the great bell of the 
 cathedral summoned the faithful to the horrid tra- 
 gedy. Persons of the highest distinction eagerly 
 offered their services to escort the victims ; and gran- 
 dees were often seen assuming the character of fami- 
 liars of the Inquisition. The Dominicans, with the 
 standard of the execrable tribunal, opened the proces- 
 sion. The condemned walked barefoot, with a pointed 
 cap on their heads, and dressed in a san-benito, a 
 yellow frock, with a cross on the breast and on the 
 back, and covered with painted representations of the 
 faces of fiends. The penitents, on whom some penance 
 only was imposed, came first, and after the cross, 
 which was borne behind them, followed such as were 
 doomed to die. Effigies of persons who had escaped, 
 and the remains of the dead that had incurred con- 
 demnation, appeared in the fearful procession lying 
 in black coffins, on which were painted flames and in- 
 fernal figures : and it was closed by priests and monks. 
 Passing through the principal streets of the city to 
 the cathedral, a sermon was preached, and their sen- 
 tence read to the delinquents, each of them standing 
 meanwhile, with an extinguished taper in his hand, 
 before a crucifix. A servant of the Inquisition then 
 smote them on the breast with his hand, to signify 
 that x the tribunal had ceased to have any power over 
 
112 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 .them. The condemned were then delivered up to an 
 officer of the civil authority, and soon afterwards con- 
 ducted to the place of execution. Each was asked in 
 what faith he would die ; if he said in the Catholic, 
 he was strangled before he was burned ; the others, 
 who persisted in their opinions, were consigned alive 
 to the flames. These auto-da-fes, of which the pro- 
 fessed historians of the Inquisition give such harrow- 
 ing details as thrill the blood with horror, the people 
 of both sexes and all ages thronged to witness with 
 transports of satisfaction and joy surpassing those 
 displayed on any other occasion. Even kings deemed 
 it a meritorious act to attend those cruel exhibitions, 
 with their whole court, and to feast their eyes on the 
 torments of the wretched sufferers. 
 
 The effects, moveable and immoveable, of all the 
 prisoners condemned to death were confiscated : as 
 for the others, their property, having been seized im- 
 mediately after their apprehension, was almost entirely 
 consumed before they were released, through the mis- 
 management of the sequestrators, peculation, confis- 
 cations, and fines. 
 
 From the inode of proceeding adopted in the In- 
 quisition, it could not be otherwise than that many 
 innocent persons should perish along with the guilty. 
 This was a fact admitted by the Inquisitors them- 
 selves, but which gave them no sort of concern ; for 
 it was one of their principal maxims — better put to 
 death a hundred Catholics irreproachable in their 
 faith, than let one heretic escape. The former, they 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 113 
 
 argued, were sure of paradise ; whereas, a heretic, if 
 he gets off, may infect and lead to perdition a great 
 number of souls. 
 
 Neither were those innocent sufferers allowed to 
 complain of the injustice which they experienced : 
 this would have been a fresh crime, which would have 
 been punished with the more severity, since it involved 
 the reputation of the tribunal, which never acknow- 
 ledged itself to be in the wrong. Of course, they had 
 no other consolation than that held forth to them by 
 the Directory of the Inquisitors, in these words : “ Let 
 no one complain that lie is condemned unjustly, or 
 murmur against the ecclesiastical judges, or the judg- 
 ment of the Church. But, if he is unjustly condemned, 
 let him rejoice in that he is condemned for justice.’' 
 If this language was not intended for insulting mock- 
 ery, it wears at least all the appearance of such : in 
 what other light can it be viewed, when addressed to 
 men who find themselves stripped of all they posses- 
 sed, or have been condemned to the galleys, to exile, 
 to perpetual imprisonment, or even to a most cruel 
 and infamous death ! 
 
 The power of this infernal tribunal extended to the 
 dead as well as to the living. Even the bones of per- 
 sons long consigned to the grave, when competent 
 evidence could be found to convict them of heresy, torn 
 from their resting-places, were doomed to the flames, 
 and their property to confiscation. 
 
 The court of Rome considered the Inquisition as 
 its masterpiece, as the firmest and most solid support 
 
 VOL. i 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 of its power, spiritual and temporal. Hence it put 
 all things under the feet of this tribunal in the coun- 
 tries subject to its authority. There the most extra- 
 vagant maxims were held to be incontestable, and 
 the most unfounded pretensions established beyond 
 dispute. Thus the infallibility of the Popes, their 
 superiority to general councils, their dominion over 
 the possessions of all the churches in the world, the 
 power to dispose of them as they pleased, their pre- 
 tended authority over the temporal concerns of sove- 
 reigns, the right which they claim of deposing them, 
 of absolving their subjects from the oath of allegiance, 
 and giving away their dominions, are maxims which 
 none dared to doubt in the countries of the Inquisi- 
 tion, much less to contest them, lest they should ex- 
 pose themselves to all the horrors of that detestable 
 tribunal. No wonder that the Popes, in return, so 
 warmly supported all its pretensions, and earnestly 
 and incessantly laboured to procure for it so exten- 
 sive an authority, that it at length became formidable 
 to the very princes by whom it was adopted. 
 
 But in no country of Christendom did the Inqui- 
 sition acquire such unbounded power as in Spain. 
 There it was introduced so early as the middle of the 
 13 th century ; though, in some of the petty kingdoms 
 into which the Spanish peninsula was then divided, 
 the States manfully opposed its admission, particu- 
 larly in Castile and Leon, where the bishops asserted 
 their exclusive right of judging in all religious mat- 
 ters. When, however, all these minor sovereignties 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 115 
 
 had, in the course of the next two centuries, gradually 
 merged into one monarchy, its rulers, the crafty 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, perceived what important aid 
 they might derive from the employment of such an 
 engine as the Inquisition, in the execution of their 
 ambitious, arbitrary, and cruel plans. They had 
 already made several successful attempts towards 
 reducing the power of the feudal nobility, and invest- 
 ing the Crown with absolute authority. The popula- 
 tion of Spain at this time was composed of Christians, 
 Jews, and Mohamedans. The Moors still retained 
 the kingdom of Granada, which, however, was already 
 threatened by the preparations of Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella. In the principal cities of Spain, the Jews had 
 their synagogues, and formed a distinct class from 
 the rest of the inhabitants. The commerce of the 
 country was for the most part in their hands ; they 
 were the farmers of the sovereigns and of the gran- 
 dees, and the only burden imposed upon them was a 
 moderate poll-tax, which they were obliged to pay to 
 the clergy. The wealth which they had acquired by 
 industry excited great envy and hatred against them, 
 and these passions were fostered by ignorant priests. 
 About a century earlier, the sermons of a fanatical 
 monk, Fernan Martinez Nunez, who preached up the 
 persecution of the Jews as a good work, were the 
 principal cause of the riots which took place, in 1391 
 and 1392, in various cities, where the populace rose 
 and plundered and murdered the Jews, many of whom, 
 in order to save their lives, submitted to be baptized. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 After the reduction of several restless grandees in 
 the South of Spain, cardinal Mendoza, archbishop of 
 Seville, made, in 1477, the first attempt to establish 
 a Tribunal of the Faith. By his command, punish- 
 ments, both public and private, were indicted on many 
 of the inhabitants of Seville of Jewish descent, who 
 were accused of secretly following in their houses the 
 laws and customs of their forefathers. A plan was 
 formed for extending the same species of Inquisition 
 over the whole country, and submitted to the govern- 
 ment by Mendoza. Ferdinand and Isabella approved 
 the establishment of such an institution, which pro- 
 mised at once to gratify the persecuting spirit of 
 the age, and to be a useful tool in the hands of the 
 State. It was calculated that, by means of this tri- 
 bunal, wholly dependent on the court, the Jews, both 
 secret and acknowledged, and the Mohamedans, might 
 be suppressed, the royal treasury enriched by the 
 property of all delinquents which would devolve to it, 
 and the power of the grandees and even of the clergy 
 curbed. 
 
 Two grand obstacles, however, required removing 
 before the Inquisition could be solidly established in 
 Castile. The consent of the States was absolutely 
 necessary ; and some value, it was considered, ought 
 to be attached to the consent of the Pope. The insti- 
 tution of the new tribunal proposed by the cardinal 
 was therefore the most important question discussed 
 at the diet of Toledo in 1480. When the superior 
 administrative authorities, the supreme council of 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 117 
 
 Castile, the council of State, and the council of Ara- 
 gon, were confirmed by the States, he declared that 
 it was necessary to have likewise a permanent tribunal 
 for matters relating to the faith, and for the admi- 
 nistration of the ecclesiastical police. In spite of all 
 opposition, it was determined that such a tribunal 
 should be instituted by the name of General Inquisi- 
 tion ; and it was opened at Seville in 1481. 
 
 The first Grand Inquisitor, who indeed was ap- 
 pointed three years before, was Thomas de Torque- 
 mada, prior of the Dominican convent at Segovia, and 
 confessor to cardinal Mendoza. He nominated 200 
 assistant inquisitors, and had a body-guard of 50 horse ; 
 so that the Dominican convent soon became too small 
 for the numerous prisoners, and the king was obliged 
 to give up the palace in the Triana suburb to the tri- 
 bunal. At the first auto-da-fe, or execution, which 
 was always kept as a grand festival, seven relapsed 
 Christians were burned, and many more did penance. 
 Hereupon, 17,000 persons, as Spanish historians re- 
 late, accused themselves to the Inquisition ; upwards 
 of 2000 were doomed to the flames in the first years, 
 and a much greater number fled to the neighbouring 
 countries. 
 
 The Pope, for his part, had opposed the foundation 
 of the Spanish Inquisition, a metamorphosis of an 
 ecclesiastical into a secular tribunal. Soon after the 
 appointment of the new Inquisitor, he had authorised 
 the archbishop of Toledo, a bitter enemy of Mendoza’s, 
 to bring to judgment a professor of Salamanca, who 
 
118 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 was accused of heretical opinions, and several times 
 cited the Inquisitor-general to Rome; but Torque- 
 mada, instead of obeying the summons, sent a friend 
 to conduct his defence. A warm dispute ensued be- 
 tween the court of Spain and the Pope, till, in 1483, 
 Sixtus IV. was obliged to give way, and to confirm 
 Torquemada as Inquisitor-general of Castile and Leon. 
 At the same time, he was empowered by the papal 
 bull to establish such subordinate tribunals for reli- 
 gious matters as he might think proper, to displace 
 the judges previously appointed by the Pope, and to 
 remodel the former mode of proceeding, in cases of 
 heresy, according to the new system. A subsequent 
 bull subjected Aragon, Valencia, and likewise Sicily, 
 then under the sway of Ferdinand, to the jurisdiction 
 of the Inquisitor-general of Castile ; and thus the 
 Inquisition became the supreme tribunal in both the 
 kingdoms composing the Spanish monarchy ; for, at 
 the assembly held at Tarragona in 1484, the States 
 of Aragon were obliged to swear to protect it. 
 
 The introduction of this tyrannical institution ex- 
 cited ferments and insurrections in various parts of 
 Spain. Shocked by the cruelty of the judges, per- 
 haps also excited by the jealous bishops, various 
 cities, and Saragossa in particular, refused to admit 
 the Inquisitors, several of whom were sacrificed by 
 the popular fury. The power of the Crown soon 
 overcame this resistance : thenceforward, the kings 
 became absolute judges in matters of religion, and 
 the honour, the property, and the life of every subject 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 119 
 
 wre at their arbitrary disposal. They appointed 
 the Grand Inquisitor, and by them, or at least under 
 their immediate influence, the assistant-judges were 
 elected, and two of these were always members of the 
 supreme council of Castile. Thus this tribunal 
 became wholly dependent on the court, and a power- 
 ful instrument for founding the despotic authority 
 of the sovereign on the ruins of the ancient liberties 
 of the country, for reducing the mighty influence of 
 the clergy, for crushing the high-spirited nobility, 
 and for suppressing the privileges of the States. 
 
 The confiscated property of condemned persons 
 devolved to the king, and, even when it was given to 
 the Inquisition, he had power to specify the purpose 
 to which it was to be applied. Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella, indeed, expended part of the produce of these 
 confiscations in the endowment of monasteries or 
 hospitals; still, much wealth was diverted from the 
 Church by the Inquisition ; and that this institution 
 was obliged to serve as a tool for replenishing the 
 royal coffers exhausted by war is proved by an ordi- 
 nance issued by Torquemada in 1487; for so early 
 as that was the treasury of the Inquisition drained 
 by royal assignations to such a degree that the 
 salaries of the officials could not be paid. 
 
 The first ordinance of Torquemada’s, declaring that 
 this court was to be held for the service of God and 
 of their highnesses, was issued in 1484: by virtue 
 of it, proclamation was to be made in every parish, 
 enjoining heretics or relapsed Papists to denounce 
 
120 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 themselves to the Inquisition within the space of 
 thirty or forty days. Torquemada, tormented by 
 gout, resigned his office; and, dying in 1498, was 
 buried in the Dominican convent at Avila, which, 
 founded with the confiscated property of heretics, 
 was, strictly speaking, a monument of his cruel 
 activity. 
 
 At first, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was not pre- 
 cisely determined : by the ordinance of 1484, tribunals 
 subordinate to the Inquisitor-general were established 
 in the provinces of Spain. In later times, the supreme 
 court was at Madrid. The Grand Inquisitor was its 
 president ; of the six or seven assistant judges, whom 
 he nominated at the king’s recommendation, one, 
 agreeably to an ordinance issued by Philip III., was 
 always a Dominican. Under him were a fiscal, two 
 secretaries, a receiver, two referendaries, and several 
 officials, as they were called, appointed by the pre- 
 sident with the king’s assent. The court sat every 
 day, excepting holidays, in the royal palace ; and, on 
 the last three days in the week, two members of the 
 council of Castile were present. It was the duty of 
 the fiscal to examine the statements of witnesses, to 
 denounce delinquents, to apply for their apprehension, 
 and to accuse them when secured. The secretary, 
 besides making minutes of the proceedings, was 
 charged to watch in the strictest manner the slightest 
 motions of the accusers, witnesses, and accused, by 
 which their most secret feelings might be betrayed. 
 The officials were persons employed in apprehending 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 121 
 
 the accused. A sequestrator, who was obliged to 
 give security to the court, had the management of 
 the confiscated property, the produce of which was 
 handed to the receiver, who paid the salaries and 
 discharged the assignations to which the funds of the 
 tribunal were liable. The number of the agents and 
 spies of the Inquisition, called familiars, was com- 
 puted to exceed 20,000 ; and such offices were 
 sought after even by members of the highest families, 
 because considerable civil immunities and ample in- 
 dulgences were attached to them. 
 
 The Jews and the Moors were the especial objects 
 of the persecution of the Inquisition in Spain. The 
 former, who were very numerous in that country, 
 were left, till the second half of the 14tli century, in 
 nearly undisturbed enjoyment of their privileges, 
 which were considerable. Favoured by the sove- 
 reigns, they were appointed to public offices, allowed 
 to have their own court of justice, and to acquire 
 landed property. With the increasing power of 
 priests, the impoverishment of the nobles, and the 
 abuses arising from their own usurious transactions, 
 they became more and more exposed to envy, hatred, 
 and persecution. In Aragon, during a season of ex- 
 traordinary drought, they were expelled from the 
 cities ; and in 1391 and 2 an indiscriminate slaughter 
 destroyed great numbers of them in Seville, Cordova, 
 Toledo, Valencia, Catalonia, and Majorca. Many 
 saved their lives by submitting to be baptized, or by 
 flight to Africa. 
 
122 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 In the 15th century, the tyranny exercised by the 
 Inquisition against those who had been baptized 
 and were not allowed to emigrate, and compulsory 
 conversions, continued to thin their numbers. Thou- 
 sands were burned or subjected to cruel punishments. 
 At length, after the conquest of Granada, Ferdinand 
 and Isabella resolved to drive the Jews out of Spain. 
 Accordingly, in 1492, they published an edict, com- 
 manding all those who would not change their reli- 
 gion to quit the Spanish dominions. The space of 
 four months was, however, allowed them to decide, 
 with permission to sell their property, to carry with 
 them what they could, and to retire whithersoever 
 they should think fit. At the same time, all Chris- 
 tians were forbidden, on the severest penalties, to 
 hold intercourse with those people, or to supply them 
 with provisions and munitions. 
 
 It is not known how many Jews left Spain on this 
 occasion: some authors compute them at 170,000 
 families, others at 800,000 souls. Vast numbers re- 
 tired to Africa, Italy, and the East. Eighty thou- 
 sand settled in Portugal, on the frontiers of Spain ; 
 but they were received only on condition of paying 
 a yearly tax of eight gold crowns per head for the 
 right of hospitality ; and this was granted merely for a 
 certain term, after which they were to seek a retreat 
 in some other country, upon pain of being made 
 slaves. In 1495, king Emanuel commanded all Jews 
 to leave his dominions, and directed the children of 
 the poor above the age of fourteen years to be taken 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 123 
 
 from them, and shipped off to the Serpent Islands. 
 The last Jews emigrated in 1497; and, in 1506, 
 2000 of the new converts, who had embraced popery 
 to evade the decree of expulsion, were slaughtered in 
 Lisbon. The lot of the same class in Spain, under 
 the lingering horrors of the Inquisition, was, if any 
 thing, still more pitiable. 
 
 After the conquest of the kingdom of Granada by 
 Ferdinand the Catholic in 1491, part of the Moors 
 retired to Africa, but most of them remained in 
 Spain, and great numbers of these assumed the ex 
 ternal appearance of Christianity. Here they con- 
 tinued to live as industrious and quiet subjects, till 
 that sanguinary bigot, Philip II., in his cruel zeal 
 for Popery, resolved upon their total destruction. 
 In 1571, his oppressions and persecutions drove the 
 Moors of Granada into insurrection, after the extinc- 
 tion of which 100,000 of them were expelled. Philip 
 III., instigated by the same inhuman spirit of reli- 
 gious intolerance, and urged by the Inquisition, 
 renewed the persecution of the Moors, and finally 
 decreed their total expulsion from the kingdom of 
 Spain, on the plea that, though these people con- 
 formed externally to the rites of Christianity, they 
 were still Mahometans in their hearts, and might cor- 
 rupt the true believers. Thirty days only were 
 allowed them to prepare for their departure, and 
 death was the threatened penalty for remaining be- 
 yond that time. In this dilemma, the descendants 
 of the ancient conquerors of Spain elected a king, 
 
124 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 and attempted to oppose the royal mandate ; but, 
 unprovided with arms, they were soon compelled to 
 submit. By this equally barbarous and impolitic 
 measure, Spain lost about a million of her most in- 
 dustrious inhabitants. It is universally admitted 
 that the expulsion of the Jews, whose commercial 
 activity brought great wealth into the country, and 
 of the Moors, whose agricultural skill and industry 
 were a still more important source of prosperity, 
 was the main cause of the subsequent rapid decline 
 of Spain from the most powerful state in Europe to 
 comparative insignificance. 
 
 Such were the deplorable effects of that spirit of 
 immitigable intolerance, praised, preached, and im- 
 peratively enjoined, as one of the highest of Christian 
 virtues, by the antichristian See of Rome ! 
 
 The possession of powers so extensive and so 
 uncontrolled as those of the Inquisitor-general, natu- 
 rally generated an arrogance unmatched save by that 
 which the wearers of the tiara themselves exhibited. 
 I shall quote one or two instances. 
 
 Among the reports circulated respecting the abdi- 
 cation of the emperor Charles V., the most extra- 
 ordinary was that the intercourse which he had had 
 with the German Protestants had given him some 
 inclination for their opinions, and that he had gone 
 into retirement, that he might have liberty to end 
 his days in exercises of piety conformable with his 
 disposition. It was alleged that he could not for- 
 give himself for the manner in which he had treated 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 125 
 
 the brave princes of that party, whom the fortune of 
 arms had thrown into his power; and that their 
 virtue, which in their adversity shamed his success, 
 had insensibly excited in his heart a sort of esteem 
 for their opinions. This esteem was manifested in 
 the choice which he made of persons, all suspected 
 of heresy, for his spiritual guides — Dr. Caculla, his 
 preacher, the archbishop of Toledo, and, above all, 
 Ponce, bishop of Dresse, his confessor. 
 
 It is further related that a singular circumstance 
 contributed to this change in Charles’s sentiments. 
 Among the occupations with which he beguiled the 
 solitary hours of his retirement was the making of 
 wooden clocks. Finding that it was impossible to 
 make two of them to go exactly alike, he is said 
 to have been deeply struck with the folly of his own 
 former efforts to force millions of men to square their 
 opinions according to one standard. 
 
 Such an acknowledgment, if it really was made, 
 w r as well worthy of the monarch, who, when urged 
 to take Luther into custody, in violation of his letter 
 of safe-conduct, when the Reformer appeared before 
 the diet of Worms, on the ground that, according to 
 the orthodox Popish maxim, faith ought not to be 
 kept with heretics, made this noble reply : “ I will 
 not, like Sigismund, my predecessor, have cause to 
 blush.” In this answer, Charles alluded to the case 
 of the intrepid Huss, who, being sentenced to the 
 flames, insisted on the performance of the pledge 
 
126 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 given by the emperor for his safety, and as he spoke 
 fixed his eyes on Sigismund. The appeal brought 
 a deep blush into the face of the false-hearted 
 prince. 
 
 Soon after the decease of Charles, it became known 
 that, in the cell in which was his abode in the con- 
 vent of St. Just, near Placencia, in Estremadura, 
 there had been found many papers written by him 
 on religious subjects, which deviated but little from 
 the doctrines of the Protestants. But nothing tended 
 to confirm the notion of a leaning to their opinions 
 so much as his last will. He had left no legacies to 
 the Church, or to found masses for the good of his 
 soul ; and the document differed so much in lan- 
 guage from the testamentary papers of zealous Ca- 
 tholics, that the Inquisition of Castile deemed itself 
 authorized to institute proceedings against it. 
 
 The Inquisitors durst not, however, make any stir 
 till the arrival of his son, Philip II., not knowing his 
 sentiments and how he might take the matter. But 
 this prince, having marked his arrival in Spain by 
 the execution of all the partisans of the new opi- 
 nions, the Inquisition, emboldened by his example, 
 first attacked the archbishop of Toledo, primate of 
 Spain, next Caculla, and lastly Ponce, the late em- 
 peror’s confessor. 
 
 The king having suffered all three to be impri- 
 soned, the people regarded this permission as an 
 evidence of his zeal for religion : but the rest of the 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 W 
 
 world beheld with horror the man in whose arms 
 the emperor had expired consigned, with the consent 
 of his own son, to the most cruel and ignominious of 
 all punishments. In fact, the Inquisition not only 
 accused those three persons of having had a share 
 in the emperor’s will, but had the hardihood to con- 
 demn them, along with that document and many of 
 the monks of St. Just, to the flames. 
 
 Philip, whose inhuman soul was jealous of his 
 father’s glory, at first felt some pleasure at seeing 
 his memory exposed to this insult ; but, roused by 
 the noise which this sentence made in the world, he 
 prevented the complete execution of it, by the gen- 
 tlest and most secret means that he could devise, so 
 as not to irritate the Inquisitors or to lower the au- 
 thority of their tribunal. Caculla was burned alive, 
 together with the effigy of Ponce, who had died in 
 prison a few days before. The archbishop of Toledo 
 appealed to Rome ; it was only by the influence of 
 friends and money that he extricated himself from 
 the danger ; and nothing further was said about the 
 will of the emperor. 
 
 Another instance of the daring presumption of 
 those priests was exhibited in the time of Philip III. 
 That king, being present at an auto-da-fe, at which 
 two monks were burned for holding some new opi- 
 nions in religion, expressed some pity for the suf- 
 ferers. The Grand Inquisitor, when informed of the 
 circumstance, openly quarrelled with the king, and 
 would not be reconciled till he had received a cupful 
 
128 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 of his most Catholic majesty’s blood, which he then 
 caused to be burnt by the executioner. 
 
 Indeed, it was not always that royal spectators 
 deigned to bestow so much as pity on the agonized 
 sufferers. In a letter to bishop Burnet, written at 
 Lisbon, in 1706, by Mr. Wilcox, afterwards bishop of 
 Gloucester, he describes the execution of a man and 
 a woman. The practice there was to set up so many 
 stakes as there were prisoners to be burned. These 
 stakes were about four yards high, and within half 
 a yard of the top was attached a small board, on 
 which the prisoner was seated when chained to the 
 stake. Round the foot was piled a considerable 
 quantity of dry furze. The flame, however, seldom 
 reached higher than the seat, and, if there happened 
 to be a wind, it seldom reached so high as the knees of 
 the sufferer ; who, if it was calm, might expire in half 
 an hour, but, if windy, might survive an hour and a 
 half or two hours, till really roasted, not burnt, to 
 death. In the case mentioned by Wilcox, the woman 
 was alive in the flames half an hour, the man about 
 an hour. The king and his brother were seated at 
 a window so near, that the latter, while burning, 
 addressed them for a considerable time in the most 
 moving terms. The only favour he implored w r as a 
 few more faggots, but even this he could not obtain. 
 The wind being a little fresh, his hinder parts w 7 ere 
 absolutely roasted ; and, as he turned himself round, 
 his ribs opened before he left off speaking, the fire 
 being recruited as it wasted, to keep him just in the 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 129 
 
 same degree of heat; nor could all his entreaties 
 procure a larger allowance of wood to despatch him 
 more speedily. 
 
 Grievously as the national character of the Spa- 
 niards, once so generous, noble, frank, and light- 
 hearted, was debased by the influence of this tribunal 
 of blood, so deeply did the ancient glory of Spain 
 decline under that change. It was not till the eigh- 
 teenth century that, though the Inquisition retained 
 its original constitution almost unaltered, yet the 
 horrors of that dark tribunal began gradually to 
 abate. The awful spectacle of an auto-da-fe was 
 more rarely exhibited. If we consider the most re- 
 markable demonstrations of its activity during that 
 period, we shall nevertheless find that this institu- 
 tion, in spite of the restrictive vigilance exercised by 
 a more enlightened policy, continued to be a tool 
 which, under more favourable circumstances, was 
 capable of producing revolting effects. If, in 1 71 4, 
 it condemned several monks to death on account of 
 their infamous lives, and, in 1784 and 1804, doomed 
 several persons to imprisonment and penance for 
 making philtres and telling fortunes, or imposed re- 
 cantation and ecclesiastical chastisement on many 
 more for indiscreet expressions, no one could dis- 
 cover in such circumstances cause for alarm. So much 
 the more strongly must it have been excited, when, 
 in 1763, several heretics were consigned to the flames 
 at an auto-da-fe at Llerena ; when, even in 1777, the 
 Inquisition armed itself with all its terrors against 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Olavides, for his patriotic attempt to bring the wastes 
 of the Sierra Morena into cultivation by the labour 
 of foreign colonists; and when, in 1780, an old 
 woman at Seville was sentenced by this tribunal to 
 be burned alive as convicted of witchcraft. 
 
 Such was the barbarous spirit of the Inquisition 
 till it was suppressed by Napoleon, in 1808. After 
 its restoration by Ferdinand VII., many enlightened 
 men strove to destroy the superannuated tool of a 
 gloomy policy, but without success ; till it was totally 
 abolished by the constitution of the Cortes, in 1820, 
 and, on the recommendation of the principal European 
 powers, in 1823, not again restored. 
 
 Llorente, in his History of the Spanish Inquisition, 
 compiled from its own records, calculates that, from 
 the year 1481 to 1808, this tribunal condemned, in 
 Spain alone, 341,021 persons. Of these 31,912 were 
 burned in person, 1 7,659 in effigy, and severe penances 
 were imposed on 291,456. 
 
 I shall not dilate further on the horrors practised 
 under the pretext of religious zeal by this most atro- 
 cious institution than to extract some interesting 
 particulars, not so generally known, respecting the 
 state of the prisons of the Inquisition at Toledo, on 
 the arrival of the French in that city. The narrative 
 is furnished by a French officer, who served in the 
 corps under general Lasalle. After describing the 
 manner in which an entrance was forced by cannon, 
 and the liberation of the prisoners, many of whom 
 were butchered by the populace, he thus proceeds : 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 131 
 
 “ Graves seemed to open, and pale figures, like 
 ghosts, issued from the dungeons, which emitted a 
 sepulchral odour. Bushy beards, hanging down over 
 the breast, nails grown to the length of birds’ claws, 
 disfigured the skeletons, who, with labouring bosom, 
 inhaled, for the first time during a long series of 
 years, the reviving breath of beneficent Nature. 
 Many of them were reduced to cripples, the back 
 arched, the head inclined forward on one side, and 
 arms and hands hanging down, rigid and helpless. 
 On closer examination, it was found that these poor 
 wretches had been confined in dens so low, that they 
 could not rise up in them, and hence their bodies had, 
 during a long imprisonment, naturally contracted this 
 distorted form. In spite of all the care of the regi- 
 mental surgeons, several of them expired the same 
 day. The light of the sun made a particularly pain- 
 ful impression on the optic nerves. From this por- 
 traiture of these unfortunate creatures, the state of 
 the prison may be so accurately inferred, that it is 
 unnecessary to give a more particular description of it. 
 
 “ On the following day, general Lasalle minutely 
 inspected the whole place, attended by several officers 
 of his staff*. The number of machines for torture, 
 especially the rack for stretching limbs, and the drop- 
 baths, producing one of the most lingering of deaths, 
 which are already well known, thrilled even men 
 inured to the battle-field with horror. Only one of 
 these implements, unique in- its kind for refined cru- 
 elty, and disgraceful to reason and religion for the 
 
 R 2 
 
132 
 
 PERMANENT PERSECUTION OF 
 
 choice of its object, seems deserving of more parti- 
 cular notice. 
 
 “ In a recess in a subterraneous vault, contiguous 
 to the private hall for examinations, stood a wooden 
 figure, made by the hands of monks, and represent- 
 ing the Virgin Mary. A gilded glory encompassed 
 her head, and in her right hand she held a banner. 
 It struck us all, at first sight, that, notwithstanding 
 the silken robe, descending on each side in ample 
 folds from her shoulders, she should wear a sort of 
 cuirass. On closer scrutiny, it appeared that the 
 forepart of the body was stuck full of extremely sharp 
 nails and small narrow knife-blades, with the points 
 of both turned towards the spectator. The arms and 
 hands were jointed ; and machinery behind the par- 
 tition set the figure in motion. One of the servants 
 of the Inquisition was compelled, by command of 
 the general, to work the machine , as he termed it. 
 When the figure extended her arms, as though to 
 press some one most lovingly to her heart, the well- 
 filled knapsack of a Polish grenadier was made to 
 supply the place of a living victim. The statue hug- 
 ged it closer and closer; and, when the attendant, 
 agreeably to orders, made the figure unclasp her arms 
 and return to her former position, the knapsack was 
 perforated to the depth of two or three inches, and 
 remained hanging on the points of the nails and knife- 
 blades. To such an infernal purpose, and in a build- 
 ing erected in honour of the true faith, was the Ma- 
 donna rendered subservient ! — she, the immaculate 
 
THE INQUISITION. 
 
 133 
 
 and the blessed, who transfused celestial grace into 
 the pencils of the greatest painters, and the highest 
 charm of which art is susceptible, into the works of 
 the most eminent sculptors ! 
 
 “ One of the familiars, as they are called, of the 
 Inquisition gave us an account of the customary mode 
 of proceeding on using this machine. The substance 
 of his report was as follows : 
 
 “ Persons accused of heresy, or of blaspheming God 
 or the saints, and obstinately refusing to confess their 
 guilt, were conducted into this cellar, at the further 
 end of which numerous lamps, placed round a recess, 
 threw a variegated light on the gilded glory, and on 
 the head of the figure and the flag in her right hand. 
 At a little altar, standing opposite to her, and hung 
 with black, the prisoner received the sacrament ; and 
 two ecclesiastics earnestly admonished him, in the 
 presence of the mother of God, to make a confession. 
 ‘ See,’ said they, ‘ how lovingly the blessed Virgin 
 opens her arms to thee ! on her bosom thy hardened 
 heart will be melted ; there thou wilt confess.’ All 
 at once, the figure began to raise her extended arms : 
 the prisoner, overwhelmed with astonishment, was led 
 to her embraces ; she drew him nearer and nearer, 
 pressed him almost imperceptibly closer and closer, 
 till the spikes and knives pierced his breast. Either 
 agony and terror extorted a confession from the 
 writhing wretch ; or, if he still withheld it, he re- 
 mained insensible in the arms of the figure, while the 
 blood trickled from a hundred small but not mortal. 
 
134 PERSECUTION OF THE INQUISITION. 
 
 wounds. Oil and healing balsam were applied to 
 them ; and on a carpet, spread at the feet of the 
 figure, in the vault now brilliantly lighted up, he was 
 left to come to himself. If this experiment failed, 
 he was remanded to his dungeon, there probably to 
 await fresh torments. 
 
 “It deserves remark, that the barbarians, by a 
 perversion of language worthy of Satan himself, gave 
 this machine of torture the appellation of Madre 
 dolorosa — not the afflicted, but the afflicting mo- 
 ther.” * 
 
 The World in Miniature — Spain and Portugal, i. 171-180. 
 
PERSECUTION OF THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 135 
 
 IV. PERSECUTION OF THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 The firmness of the first Norman sovereigns of 
 England saved this country from being absorbed into 
 that universal monarchy which Pope Gregory VII. 
 and his successors were exerting all their influence 
 and authority, temporal and spiritual, to establish. 
 The progress of usurpation was for a time averted, 
 till the struggle between Henry II. and the inflexible 
 spirit of Becket occasioned the first collision between 
 the royal and the papal power. The original subject 
 of dispute, the exemption of ecclesiastics from 
 secular jurisdiction, resolved itself at last into the 
 question, whether the authority of the State should 
 bow to that of the Church. The contest terminated 
 triumphantly for the latter, and brought the king, a 
 naked penitent, to receive personal chastisement at 
 the tomb of the presumptuous prelate. The next 
 century witnessed a still more ignominious degrada- 
 dation — a king of England receiving his surrendered 
 crown from the hands of the papal legate, and bind- 
 ing himself, as a vassal of the Holy See, to the pay- 
 ment of a yearly tribute ! 
 
 It was during the inglorious reign of this sovereign 
 
J 36 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 and his successor that the inhuman crusade against the 
 Albigenses seemed to have consolidated the fabric of 
 papal power too firmly to be shaken. Though the 
 destruction appeared to be complete, yet many a 
 remnant of the innocent victims of bigotry and ra- 
 pacity was scattered over Europe, to spread their 
 doctrines and their hatred of the inhuman persecu- 
 tors. There is every reason to believe that the 
 sympathy excited by the sufferings of these people 
 extended to England, where, it is certain, a spirit of 
 indignant resistance to the Catholic hierarchy began 
 to manifest itself about the time of those execrable 
 massacres. The voice of parliament began to remon- 
 strate against the rapacity and insolence of the 
 pontiffs, and murmurs of discontent were sometimes 
 wrung from the clergy themselves, by the shameless 
 extortions of their spiritual chief. By none was the 
 spirit of religious freedom displayed with greater 
 energy than by Grostete, bishop of Lincoln. By 
 his opposition to the exactions and usurpations of 
 Innocent IV., he incurred excommunication ; and, 
 though the thunderbolt fell harmless at his feet, we 
 may thence infer how far both the Church and the 
 sovereign of England maintained their independence 
 of the papal power. It was not, however, till the 
 days of Edward III. that the degrading tribute im- 
 posed upon John was formally shaken off, and legis- 
 lative provision made against the systematic en- 
 croachments of Popery. 
 
 Meanwhile, England was, for several centuries, 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 137 
 
 peculiarly distinguished for the purity of its faith. 
 It is true that, in the reign of Henry II., a party of 
 foreigners not exceeding thirty settled in the coun- 
 try, bringing with them, according to the representa- 
 tions of their enemies, various extravagant doctrines, 
 such as the rejection of the sacraments and of mar- 
 riage — charges, by the by, which the Church of 
 Rome never failed to allege against all those whom 
 it chose to brand as heretics. They are conjectured 
 to have belonged to the sect called Cathari, then 
 both numerous and active in the north of Italy and 
 Germany. Their demeanour was inoffensive, and 
 their lives were blameless ; but their opinions, differ- 
 ing from those authorised by the Church, drew upon 
 them the severity of ecclesiastical discipline. Sum- 
 moned, by royal authority, before a synod of bishops, 
 to arguments they answered that their duty was to 
 believe, not to dispute ; to threats, that Christ said, 
 “ Blessed are they which are persecuted for righte- 
 ousness’ sake.” The judges, wearied out by their 
 “ obstinacy,” says Lingard, the popish historian of 
 England, “ consigned them to the secular arm, by 
 which they were branded on the forehead, stripped 
 to the waist, and whipped through the city of Oxford,” 
 where the synod was held. According to one ac- 
 count, they were turned out, utterly destitute of food, 
 raiment, and shelter, to perish miserably. Another 
 party of sectarians, supposed to have been fugitive 
 Albigenses, who arrived in the country during the 
 
138 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 reign of John, experienced a similar fate, some of 
 them, as Knighton tells us, being burned alive. 
 
 Notwithstanding their submission to the doctrines 
 and discipline of the Romish Church, the kings and 
 people of England could not endure contentedly the 
 exactions of the pontiffs. Though the galling 
 formality of homage first imposed upon John was 
 universally evaded, and, from the time of Henry III., 
 the odious tribute of a thousand marks was frequently 
 suspended, still the Popes took good care to reap 
 their reward for the generosity of Innocent III. in 
 restoring his own crown to the English sovereign. 
 Their extortionate rapacity during the 13th century, 
 and the amount of wealth, of which England was 
 incessantly drained by them, almost surpass belief : 
 but their insatiable thirst of money and power re- 
 ceived many a check, even in those early times, from 
 discourteous parliaments and sturdy barons. 
 
 Soon after the accession of Henry III., the court 
 of Rome transmitted a demand that the revenues of 
 two prebendaries in every cathedral, and of two 
 monks in every monastery in the kingdom, should be 
 granted to the Pope, for the better support of his 
 dignity ; and this modest demand was extended to 
 the whole Christian world. When this project was 
 laid before the parliament in 1226, they returned the 
 evasive answer that “ this affair concerned all 
 Christendom, and that they would conform to the 
 resolutions of the other Christian countries.” 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 139 
 
 Two years afterwards, however, the Pope had his 
 revenge. On the death of the primate, cardinal 
 Langton, in 1228, the monks of Canterbury claimed 
 the right of electing his successor, but were opposed 
 by the king, who not only had the weakness to refer 
 the matter in dispute to Rome, but to purchase a 
 decision in his favour by a promise of a tenth of all 
 the moveable property, both of the clergy and laity 
 of England. A legate was sent to collect the pro- 
 duce of this royal robbery. The parliament, and 
 especially the lay barons, stoutly resisted the de- 
 mand, but were at length obliged to submit to the 
 united force of the papal and regal authority. 
 Matthew Paris relates that the legate, to shorten his 
 own work, obliged the bishops to pay for the inferior 
 clergy ; and, when any of them complained that they 
 had not the money, he introduced to them Italian 
 usurers, whom he had brought with him, and who 
 lent them the sums required at exorbitant interest. 
 
 By successive invasions of the rights not only of 
 the Crown, but also of private patrons, the Popes had 
 contrived to get into their hands the disposal of most 
 of the higher stations in the Church, and of the 
 valuable livings in the kingdom ; and these were 
 generally bestowed upon Italians. This abuse became 
 so intolerable, that, in 1232, a great number of per- 
 sons of rank associated for the express purpose of 
 driving those foreigners out of the country, insulting 
 their persons, and plundering their houses, to the 
 delight of the whole nation. 
 
140 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 The spirit of the barons was still more decidedly 
 manifested a few years later, when nuncios and 
 legates relieved one another in the work of fleecing 
 this unhappy country. Weary of the plunder of the 
 Romish harpies, the great barons sent orders in 1245 
 to the wardens of the seaports to seize all persons 
 bringing bulls or mandates from Rome. It was not 
 long before a messenger was apprehended with a 
 fresh cargo of bulls, addressed to Martin, the papal 
 legate in England, empowering him to exact more 
 money from the clergy on various pretences. The 
 bulls were seized. The legate complained bitterly of 
 this dariim insult to the kino*, who ordered the bulls to 
 be delivered to Martin. The barons, in order to open 
 the eyes of the infatuated monarch, laid before him an 
 account of the prodigious sums extracted from England 
 by the court of Rome ; from one of the articles of 
 *which it appeared that the Church preferments held 
 by Italians in England amounted to 60,000 marks 
 per annum — a sum exceeding the ordinary revenues 
 of the Crown. Henry, though amazed, had not the 
 spirit to put a stop to those grievances. Not so the 
 barons. Determined to go through with the work 
 which they had begun, they held another meeting 
 at Dunstable, under pretence of a tournament, and 
 despatched a bold knight to command the legate, in 
 the name of the barons of England, to leave the 
 kingdom immediately. The order was duly delivered ; 
 and the bearer assured Martin that, if he was not out 
 of the country in three days, he would infallibly be 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 141 
 
 cut in pieces. The threat was too serious to be 
 slighted ; and, perceiving that it was no longer in the 
 king’s power to protect him, the legate made a pre- 
 cipitate retreat. 
 
 The barons, to prevent if possible the recurrence 
 of the oppressions which the kingdom had long 
 suffered from the See of Rome, sent a deputation to 
 lay their grievances before a general, council as- 
 sembled at Lyons, at which the Pope presided in 
 person. A letter from the barons, presented to the 
 council by these ambassadors, contained a full and 
 free enumeration of the oppressions of the court of 
 Rome, and concluded with this bold declaration : 
 “ We can no longer, with any patience, bear the 
 aforesaid oppressions, which, as they are detestable 
 to God and man, are intolerable to us ; neither, by 
 the grace of God, will we any longer endure them.” 
 One of the envoys, who presented this letter, ad- 
 dressed the council in a spirited speech, setting forth 
 the numberless frauds and insatiable avarice of the 
 court of Rome in such strong colours that a blush 
 was seen to tinge the face of infallibility. This 
 silent testimony of shame was all the satisfaction ob- 
 tained by the nation from Innocent IV. and the 
 council, who deferred the consideration of the affair 
 so long, that the envoys, seeing no prospect of re- 
 dress, returned to England. 
 
 “ The unnatural fit of modesty with which his 
 holiness had been seized at the council of Lyons,” 
 
142 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 says Dr. Henry,* “ was not of long duration ; for in 
 the very next year we find his agents in England as 
 violent as ever in their extortions. These drew fresh 
 remonstrances, not from the barons alone, but also 
 from the king and clergy. The letters of the latter 
 were humble and timid ; while the barons boldly 
 threatened that, if their grievances were not imme- 
 diately redressed by the pontiff, they would do them- 
 selves justice. Not only were these letters treated 
 with scorn, but Innocent obliged the English prelates 
 to subscribe the sentence of deposition of the em- 
 peror Frederick II., and to furnish troops to fight 
 against him, though the brother-in-law of their own 
 sovereign. Nay, more ; he demanded, in the same 
 year, 1246, one-half of the revenues of the non- 
 resident, and a third of those of the resident clergy. 
 Encouraged by the king and the barons, they opposed 
 the insolent demand, from which his holiness then 
 thought it prudent to desist.” 
 
 To the shameless invasions and exactions of the Holy 
 See, none made a more courageous opposition than 
 Robert Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, a prelate of ex- 
 traordinary learning and exemplary piety. When 
 bulls were transmitted to him from Rome, he care- 
 fully examined them ; and if he found that they 
 enjoined any thing contrary to the precepts of the 
 gospel and the interests of religion, which was very 
 often the case, he tore them in pieces instead of 
 putting them in execution. When Innocent IV. in 
 
 * Hist, of Great Britain, viii. 9. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 143 
 
 one of these bulls required the bishop to bestow a 
 considerable benefice in his gift upon his nephew, 
 who was an infant, he indignantly replied : “ Next 
 to the sins of Lucifer and Antichrist, there cannot 
 be a greater defection or which carries a more direct 
 opposition to the doctrine of our Saviour and his 
 apostles than to destroy people’s souls by depriving 
 them of the benefits of the pastoral office ; and yet 
 those persons are guilty of this sin who undertake 
 the sacerdotal function, and receive the profits 
 without performing the duty. Hence it is evident 
 that those who bring such unqualified persons into 
 the Church and debauch the hierarchy are much to 
 blame; and that their crimes rise in proportion to 
 the height of their station.” 
 
 These were truths to which the papal ears were 
 unaccustomed. Innocent, furious with passion, 
 swore by St. Peter and St. Paul that he would utterly 
 confound that old, insolent, deaf dotard, and make 
 him an example, a talk, an astonishment, to the 
 world. “What !” cried he, “ is not his master, the 
 king of England, our vassal, or rather our slave ? and 
 will he not at the least sign from us cast him into 
 prison ?” When his fury had somewhat cooled, the 
 cardinals represented to him that the world began to 
 discover the truth of many things contained in the 
 bishop’s letter ; and that the persecution of a prelate 
 so renowned for piety and learning would only serve 
 to make the court of Rome a great many enemies. 
 They advised him therefore to let the matter drop, 
 
144 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 and to act as though he had never seen the provoking 
 letter. 
 
 The tyranny of the court of Rome had at this 
 time reached its highest pitch in England. Among 
 the principal of the oppressions to which our fore- 
 fathers were subject, they complained that the Pope, 
 not content with the annual payment of peter-pence, 
 exacted heavy contributions from the clergy without 
 the king’s consent, and against the customs, rights, 
 and liberties of the realm — that the patrons of 
 churches could not present fit persons to vacant 
 livings, because the Pope generally conferred them 
 on Italians ignorant of the language, and who car- 
 ried out of the kingdom the money derived from 
 their benefices — that the Pope oppressed the churches 
 by demanding pensions from them — that Italians 
 succeeded Italians, contrary to the decree of the 
 council of Lyons, and that these Italians were in- 
 vested in their livings without trouble or charge ; 
 whereas, the English were obliged to prosecute their 
 rights in Rome at a great expense — that in the 
 churches held by Italians there were neither alms 
 nor hospitality, nor any preaching, and the care of 
 souls was totally neglected — that the clause of Non 
 obstante , generally inserted in the Pope’s bulls, ab- 
 solutely destroyed all laws, customs, statutes, and 
 privileges of the Church and kingdom. Many other 
 of their grievances were not less oppressive, such as 
 the right assumed by the Pope to appoint to the 
 highest dignities in the Church ; and his drawing 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 145 
 
 all causes of any importance to Rome, and keeping 
 the parties long- waiting for their determination at a 
 ruinous expense. Add to all these the great sums 
 of which the kingdom was annually drained for par- 
 dons, dispensations, indulgences, and we shall be 
 surprised that its resources were not completely ex- 
 hausted by them. By such means it was calculated 
 that in the middle of the thirteenth century the 
 country was robbed in a few years only of 950,000 
 marks — a sum equivalent to twelve millions sterling 
 at the present day. 
 
 If the whole nation shared this curse of papal 
 exaction, the laity were bowed down by a double 
 yoke, the one scarcely less galling than the other ; 
 because, riveted about their necks by domestic task- 
 masters — their own hierarchy — its effects were more 
 constantly felt. The clergy claimed many privileges 
 quite inconsistent with the peace and prosperity of 
 the kingdom, such as an exemption from all civil 
 authority and jurisdiction ; so that they could com- 
 mit the most heinous crimes almost with impunity. 
 The ecclesiastical courts encroached greatly on the 
 jurisdiction of the civil authority, and insisted on 
 the sole right to judge all causes relating to tithes, 
 marriages, wills, and many other matters, under the 
 pretext that they had some connection with spiri- 
 tuals. The possessions of the clergy, too, threatened 
 by their daily increase to swallow up the whole of 
 the lands in the kingdom. 
 
 It required a prince with the spirit of our first 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Edward to remedy some of these crying abuses. A 
 statute of 1275 enacted that, when a clerk was in- 
 dicted in the king’s court for felony, he should not 
 be delivered to his ordinary before he had undergone 
 a trial by lawful men ; and the statute of mortmain 
 in 1279 put a stop to the increase of the overgrown 
 possessions of the Church by decreeing that , thence- 
 forth none should give, sell, bequeath, or in any way 
 assign lands, tenements, or rents, to any religious 
 body, without license from the king. Edward also 
 made frequent demands upon the clergy for prose- 
 cuting the wars in which he was engaged. In 1294, 
 he required of them one half of all their revenues, 
 both spiritual and temporal. The prelates com- 
 plained loudly to the Pope of this grievous encroach- 
 ment on the immunities of the Church, and obtained 
 from Boniface VIII. a bull forbidding princes to levy 
 any taxes on the clergy in their dominions, and the 
 clergy to pay them, threatening excommunication 
 against both in case of disobedience. Fortified with 
 this instrument, the clergy refused compliance with 
 the king’s demand. Edward, impressed with the 
 importance of the point for which he was contending, 
 and sensible that he must now establish the right of 
 taxing the possessions of the clergy in his dominions 
 without the consent of the Pope, or abandon it' for 
 ever, informed the clergy that, since they would 
 not contribute to the support of his government, 
 they should not receive protection from it. Accord- 
 ingly, he ordered all his judges to do every man- 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 147 
 
 justice against the clergy, but to do them justice 
 against no man ; and sent writs to all the sheriffs of 
 counties, commanding them to seize all the lay fees 
 of the clergy, as well secular as regular, together 
 with their goods and chattels, and to keep them in 
 their possession till they received his further orders. 
 Such were the injuries and distresses brought upon 
 the clergy by these measures, that they were very 
 soon obliged to comply with the king’s demand, in 
 order to obtain the protection of the government 
 and restitution of their estates. 
 
 During the 13 th century, not a few changes took 
 place in the worship and discipline of the Church. 
 The number of festivals was considerably increased. 
 Bells were tolled at the elevation of the host, to give 
 notice to persons who were not in the Church to 
 join in the devotions. In the administration of the 
 eucharist, the cup was sometimes given to the laity, 
 though it was declared to be no part of the sacra- 
 ment, in order that the priest might spare himself 
 the cost of wine ; at others, they were put off with 
 the washings of his fingers. Confession was more 
 generally and more strictly enjoined, and those only 
 who produced evidence of their having confessed 
 were permitted to communicate. It was at this 
 period also that general excommunications came into 
 use. By these all who were guilty of certain vices 
 and crimes, though known only to God and their 
 own consciences, were declared to be excommuni- 
 cated. They were at first denounced chiefly against 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 such as injured the clergy, by detaining their tithes, 
 defrauding them of their dues, or stealing any thing 
 belonging to the Church ; and published in the 
 mother tongue, by every parish priest, in the sacred 
 vestments, with bells tolling and candles lighted, be- 
 fore the whole congregation, at Christmas, Easter, 
 Pentecost, and All-hallows day. 
 
 In order to strike the greater terror into timid 
 minds by these excommunications, they were com- 
 pounded of the most horrible curses that could be 
 devised. “Let them be accursed, eating and drink- 
 ing, walking and sitting, speaking and holding their 
 peace, waking and sleeping, rowing and riding, laugh- 
 ing and weeping, in house and in field, on water and 
 on land, in all places. Cursed be their head and 
 their thoughts, their eyes and their ears, their tongues 
 and their lips, their teeth and their throats, their 
 shoulders and their breasts, their feet and their legs, 
 their thighs and their inward parts. Let them re- 
 main accursed, from the sole of the foot to the crown 
 of the head, unless they bethink themselves and give 
 satisfaction. And, just as this candle is deprived of 
 its present light, so let them be deprived of their 
 souls in hell.” Such are the truly pious and Christian 
 denunciations, which still continue to be pronounced 
 every year at Easter against heretics by the Pope 
 himself at St. Peter’s in Rome ! 
 
 Notwithstanding the impatience with which the 
 English parliament and sovereigns opposed the haras- 
 sing exactions of the Holy See, the pontiffs, so far 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 149 
 
 from abandoning them, were ever intent on devising 
 new ones. They had lately adopted a method of 
 securing the disposal of all ecclesiastical preferments, 
 by making reversionary grants of benefices before 
 they became vacant : the legal patrons were thus 
 robbed of the right of presentation. These grants 
 were called provisions, because they provided suc- 
 cessors to incumbents while they were yet living. 
 About the same time, too, the Pope laid claim to 
 the first fruits of vacant bishoprics, whicji had for- 
 merly belonged to the king. For these new acts of 
 extortion, and some others, the Papal nuncio was 
 summoned before the parliament, and ordered to 
 desist from them ; and the inferior agents of Rome 
 were ordered to be prosecuted with the utmost seve- 
 rity>; but though these spirited proceedings gave 
 a temporary check to the papal extortions, they 
 brought no effectual remedy. 
 
 If the Popes assumed unlimited authority to them- 
 selves, a curious instance proves with what liberality 
 they could confer extraordinary powers on others, 
 when the grant cost them no more than the parchment 
 on which it was engrossed. Clement V., who in the 
 plenitude of his power promoted Reynolds, bishop of 
 Worcester, to the primacy, in 1313, gave him autho- 
 rity by one of his bulls to visit the diocese of his pro- 
 vince by proxy; by another he authorised him to 
 absolve one hundred persons under excommunication 
 and interdict ; and by others he empowered him to 
 release all who heard him preach or say mass from 
 
J 50 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 one hundred days’ penances ; to bestow holy orders 
 on one hundred bastards; to allow twelve clerks 
 under age to hold benefices with cure of souls ; and 
 to dispense with the canons of the Church against 
 pluralities in favour of forty clergymen. 
 
 In spite of the dissatisfaction excited in the whole 
 English nation, the Popes obstinately pursued the 
 system of provisions and reservations ; by the latter 
 of which they reserved to themselves the next pre- 
 sentation to any benefices they pleased. On these 
 grievances Edward III. addressed a strong remon- 
 strance to Pope Clement VI., concluding with a de- 
 claration that they were now become intolerable, and 
 that his subjects in parliament had earnestly requested 
 him to put a stop to them by some speedy and effec- 
 tual remedy. As, however, these representations 
 failed to make any impression, the parliament, in 
 1350, enacted a statute, declaring that all persons 
 procuring reservations or provisions from the Pope, 
 in disturbance of free elections or the presentations 
 of the rightful patrons, should be brought to answer 
 for the same, and, if convicted, kept in prison till 
 they had made fine and ransom to the king at his will, 
 and satisfied the party aggrieved by paying his da- 
 mages. Another statute, that of premunire, was di- 
 rected against the practice of carrying appeals to the 
 court of Rome, and decreed that offenders should be 
 put out of the king’s protection ; that their lands, 
 goods, and chattels should be forfeited to the king, 
 and their bodies imprisoned and ransomed at his will. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 151 
 
 All applications to the court of Rome and all the 
 laws enacted against its usurpations had no more 
 effect than if they had never been made. In order 
 to ascertain the full extent of the grievance of provi- 
 sions and reservations, the king, in 1374, sent writs to 
 all the bishops, requiring them to return certificates 
 into Chancery of all the benefices in their respective 
 dioceses that were in the possession of foreigners. It 
 was probably upon the information derived from the 
 return to these writs that, in 1376, the Commons in 
 parliament presented to the king an urgent remon- 
 strance, affirming, what appears almost incredible, 
 that “ the taxes paid to the Pope yearly amounted 
 to five times as much as the taxes paid to the 
 king.” 
 
 Such is a rapid sketch of the arrogance, usurpa- 
 tions, extortions, and encroachments, the errors, cor- 
 ruptions, and abuses, which called forth the patriotic 
 energies of the first .English apostle of Reform, whose 
 labours paved the way to the emancipation of his 
 country from the degrading yoke of Roman bondage. 
 
 John Wicklif, surnamed after his birthplace, a 
 village in the North Riding of Yorkshire, was edu- 
 cated at the University of Oxford, and there derived 
 from profound study of the Bible and of the works of 
 the Fathers those principles of which in maturer age 
 he became so bold and zealous a champion. His at- 
 tention was directed to the corrupt means employed 
 by the clergy to obtain dignities and benefices. 
 These he took up the pen to expose in 1356, and, 
 
152 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 four years afterwards, lie defended the rights of the 
 University against the pretensions and encroachments 
 of the Mendicant orders. The principal of these, the 
 Dominicans and the Franciscans, were named after 
 their founders, Dominic de Gusman, a Spaniard, and 
 Francis of Assisi, who from a reckless debauchee be- 
 came an insane fanatic. Their origin dates from the 
 early part of the thirteenth century, and they in- 
 creased so rapidly that, as early as 1327, the Council 
 of Lyons deemed it necessary to decree that no more 
 orders of this kind should be established. According 
 to their primitive rules, they were to possess no pro- 
 perty, and to live entirely upon alms. As a compen- 
 sation for this self-denial, they were endowed by the 
 Popes with important privileges. They were ex- 
 empt from all temporal and episcopal jurisdiction ; 
 they were authorised to beg, to preach any where 
 without regard to the parochial clergy, to sell masses 
 and papal indulgences ; and in return these Mendicant 
 monks were the most zealous champions of the Ro* 
 mish See, on which alone they were dependent. 
 
 The learned Henry Wharton, who had closely 
 studied the character of these Mendicant orders, 
 gives the following striking portraiture of those im- 
 postors, of whose ambitious encroachments, immo- 
 ralities, and hypocrisy, the ecclesiastical history of 
 these times is full : — “ They pretended an extraor- 
 dinary call from God to reform the world and correct 
 the faults of the secular clergy. To this end, they 
 put on a mighty show of zeal for the good of men’s 
 
THE LOLLARDS; 
 
 153 
 
 souls and of contempt for the world ; accused the 
 secular clergy of famishing the souls of men, called 
 them dumb dogs and cursed hirelings; maintained 
 that evangelical poverty became the ministers of the 
 gospel ; that it was unlawful for them to possess any 
 thing, or to retain property in any worldly goods. 
 As for the public orders of the Church, they would 
 not be tied to them, alleging that themselves, being 
 wholly spiritual, could not be obliged to any carnal 
 ordinances. They broke in every where upon the 
 parochial clergy ; usurped their office ; in all popu- 
 lous and rich places set up altars of their own ; 
 withdrew the people from the communion of the 
 parish priest ; would scarce allow the hopes of sal- 
 vation to any but their own disciples, whom they 
 bewitched with great pretences of sanctity and assi- 
 duity in preaching. These artifices had raised their 
 reputation and interest so high, in a few years, that 
 they wanted very little- to ruin the secular clergy 
 and therewith the Church. But, in less than an age, 
 the cheat of these impostors became manifest to all 
 men. They procured to their societies incredible 
 riches ; built to themselves stately palaces ; infinitely 
 surpassed that viciousness of which themselves had 
 (perhaps unjustly) accused the secular clergy ; and, 
 long before the Reformation, became the most in- 
 famous and contemptible part of the Church of 
 Rome.” 
 
 These vermin had insinuated themselves into the 
 University of Oxford, and aspired to nothing less 
 
154 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 than a monopoly of academical dignities and appoint- 
 ments. The castigation bestowed on them by Wicklif, 
 though it gained him warm friends in the University, 
 yet made the monks his implacable foes; and they 
 did not rest till they had effected his removal in 1365 
 from the mastership of Canterbury Hall, founded by 
 archbishop Islip. His appeal to the Pope obtained 
 him, of course, no redress. 
 
 Thirty-three years had now elapsed since the last 
 payment of the degrading tribute imposed on king 
 John, when, in 1365, Pope Urban V. took it into his 
 head to demand the arrears and the performance of 
 feudal homage ; informing the king, Edward III., the 
 conqueror of France, that, on failure to comply, he 
 would be cited by process to appear at the papal 
 court, to answer for the default to his civil and spi- 
 ritual sovereign. These insolent requisitions the 
 king submitted to the parliament, and desired their 
 advice. The answer of the lords and commons, even 
 now, after the lapse of nearly five centuries, must 
 make the heart of every Englishman worthy of the 
 name swell within him : — “ Forasmuch as neither 
 king John, nor any other king, could bring this king- 
 dom in such thraldom and subjection but by common 
 consent of parliament, the which was not done; 
 therefore that which he did was against his oath at 
 his coronation. If, therefore, the Pope should attempt 
 any thing against the king by process or other matters 
 in deed, the king, with all his subjects, should, with 
 all their force and power, resist the same.” 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 155 
 
 Such was the solemn legislative renunciation of 
 national vassalage to the See of Rome. Its advocates 
 were astounded and enraged. One of these, an ano- 
 nymous monk, published in the following year a vin- 
 dication of the papal claims, and challenged Wicklif, 
 by name, to refute his arguments, and to maintain the 
 decision of the legislature : we may of course infer 
 that Wicklif must have been at this time publicly 
 known as a determined adversary of papal encroach- 
 ments. He was not backward at taking up the 
 gauntlet ; and he replied in a work vindicating the 
 independence of the sovereign and nation on any fo- 
 reign authority, and striking at the very foundations 
 of the papal power, in a manner so bold and so w^ell 
 calculated to produce the desired impression, as to be 
 equally honourable to his loyalty and to his address. 
 
 This performance of Wicklif’s gained him the favour- 
 able notice of the court, and especially the powerful 
 protection of king Edward’s son, John of Gaunt, duke 
 of Lancaster, who, towards the conclusion of his 
 father’s life, had great influence over public affairs. 
 The appointment to the Divinity chair afforded him 
 free scope for declaring and propagating his opinions 
 concerning the corruptions of the Church of Rome. 
 The rapacity of the Popes, who, as we have seen, 
 claimed the right of nominating to all benefices, and 
 made the exercise of it a source of prodigious wealth, 
 had for many years excited violent murmurs, not in 
 England only but throughout all Christendom. By 
 such means, Pope John XXII. was enabled to leave at 
 
156 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 his death twenty-two millions of florins in his coffers. 
 “ This prodigious treasure,” says Fleury, “ was 
 amassed by the industry of his holiness, who reserved 
 for himself the reversion of the benefices of all the 
 collegiate churches in Christendom, alleging that he 
 did so to prevent simony. Moreover, by virtue of 
 this reservation, he never directly confirmed the elec- 
 tion of any prelate ; but promoted a bishop to an 
 archbishopric, and put an inferior bishop in his place : 
 hence it frequently happened that the vacancy of an 
 archbishopric or a patriarchate occasioned six pro- 
 motions or more, producing large sums of money to 
 the apostolic chamber.” 
 
 When Innocent YI. sent Philip de Cabassole to 
 Germany to levy the tenth of all the ecclesiastical 
 revenues, the prelates of that country loudly com- 
 plained of this new exaction. “The Romans,” said 
 one of them, exhorting his brethren to oppose it, 
 “ have always looked upon Germany as a gold mine, 
 and invented divers means of exhausting it. What 
 doth the Pope give to this kingdom but letters and 
 words ! Let him dispose of all benefices, as far as 
 the collation goes; but let him leave the revenues 
 to those who perform the duties. We send money 
 enough to Italy for divers merchandizes, and to 
 Avignon [where the papal court was then residing], 
 for our sons who are studying there, or soliciting, we 
 will not say buying, benefices. All of you well know 
 that large sums of money are every year carried from 
 Germany to the court of the Pope, for the confirma- 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 157 
 
 tion of prelates, for the grant of benefices, for the 
 prosecution of suits and appeals to the Holy See ; for 
 dispensations, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, and 
 other favours. In all times, the archbishops confirmed 
 the elections of the bishops, their suffragans : it was 
 Pope John XXII. who in our time wrested this right 
 from them by violence. And now the Pope is again 
 demanding from the clergy a new and unheard-of 
 subsidy, threatening with censures such as will not 
 give it, or as shall oppose it. Stop the beginning of 
 the evil, and suffer not this disgraceful servitude to 
 be established.” 
 
 The French, who, in the 14th century, were better 
 Christians than the people of Italy and Germany, 
 shewed, for this very reason, more zeal in repressing 
 the disorders and the excesses of the clergy. When, 
 before the conclusion of that century, the Church was 
 scandalized by the proceedings of two rival pretenders 
 to infallibility and the papal crown, king Charles VI. 
 formally renounced obedience to both. “ We,” said 
 he, “ assisted by the princes of our blood, and several 
 others, and with the Church of our kingdom, both the 
 clergy and the people, withdraw ourselves entirely 
 from obedience to Pope Benedict XIII., and also to 
 his adversary. We will that henceforth no person 
 shall pay to Benedict, to his collectors, or other offi- 
 cers, any part of the ecclesiastical revenues or emolu- 
 ments, and we strictly forbid all our subjects to obey 
 him or his officers in any manner whatever.” Villaret 
 adds that Benedict, having circulated a report that 
 
158 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Charles had adopted this measure with the intention 
 of setting up a Pope of his own nation in his stead, 
 the king, in order to extinguish such a suspicion, de- 
 clared in his letters that “ any Pope would be agree- 
 able to him, were he African, Arab, or Indian, pro- 
 vided that he did not dishonour by his passions the 
 chair of the apostles.” 
 
 The French availed themselves of these circum- 
 stances to curb the exactions of the pontifical court. 
 The right of freely electing prelates was restored to 
 the churches, and the disposal of the other benefices 
 to the collators. The art of enriching the Holy See 
 was brought to perfection by Boniface IX. Let the 
 reader, who is curious to pursue this subject further, 
 turn to Fleury : * he will there find how the clergy, 
 who possessed benefices at Rome, paid for the favour 
 of being examined ; how the Pope, in the second and 
 third years of his pontificate, dated bulls of benefices 
 from the first year, and demanded the price of this 
 antedate ; how he extended to prelacies the right of 
 annats, that is, the reservation of the first year’s 
 revenue of every benefice ; how he kept couriers all 
 over Italy, in order to be speedily informed of the 
 illness or death of prelates and dignitaries, that he 
 might sell the same abbey, the same church, twice or 
 three times ; and how these and other frauds, equally 
 disgraceful, combined with the effects of the plague, 
 and the increased mortality of the incumbents, drew 
 
 Hist, eccles. 1. xcix, n. *26. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 159 
 
 into the coffers of his holiness innumerable contribu- 
 tions from all who obtained, hoped for, or coveted an 
 ecclesiastical benefice, whether more or less lucrative. 
 
 These scandalous abuses, which had been accumu- 
 lating and increasing ever since the time of Hilde- 
 brand, could not fail to excite the indignation of all 
 upright minds in England, as well as in other coun- 
 tries. The Popes still insisted on their right to 
 nominate to benefices, and exercised it in favour of 
 persons wholly unqualified and unworthy. Many of 
 these were foreigners, often worthless creatures of the 
 Popes’, men and even boys not acquainted with the 
 English language, nor residing in the country, who 
 drew large sums of money out of the kingdom, and 
 spent their revenues abroad. To remedy this crying 
 evil, against which several statutes had been passed, 
 the king, in 1374, sent an embassy, at the head of 
 which were the bishop of Bangor and Wicklif, to 
 Bruges, to treat with the envoys of the Pope. After 
 a negociation of nearly two years, all they could 
 obtain was a vague promise that his holiness would 
 desist from presenting to English benefices — no men- 
 tion was made of bishoprics — and this., of course, was 
 never meant to be fulfilled. 
 
 If no immediate result was obtained by this mission, 
 still the opportunities which it afforded Wicklif for 
 observation convinced him that the system of the 
 papal court and its doctrines were equally corrupt. 
 These convictions he did not fail to express on his 
 return, in the boldest manner. He insisted that the 
 
160 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Scriptures contain all truths necessary to salvation, 
 and that in them only is to be found the perfect rule 
 of Christian practice ; he denied the authority of the 
 Pope in temporal matters ; proclaimed that he was the 
 man of sin, the son of perdition, described by St. Paul, 
 “ sitting as God in the temple of God, shewing himself 
 that he is God,” and denounced him as Antichrist. 
 These doctrines Wicklif openly taught and maintained. 
 And well he might, for at this period the Popes them- 
 selves, their court, and the clergy in general, pam- 
 pered by the wealth which their rapacious arts were 
 incessantly supplying, exhibited a corruption of morals, 
 a depravity, a licentiousness, scarcely to be conceived, 
 much less described. In assuming the sacerdotal 
 office, they seemed to have vowed utterly to discard 
 all that mankind had been accustomed to call virtue. 
 It is impossible to read without profound horror the 
 description given by Petrarch, himself a churchman, 
 of the dissoluteness of the papal court in the four- 
 teenth century, while resident at Avignon : and all 
 contemporary accounts prove that he is not charge- 
 able with having recurred in his picture to the poet’s 
 license. “ You imagine,” he writes, in a letter to a 
 friend, “ that the city of Avignon is the same now 
 that it was when you resided in it. No — it is very 
 different. It was then, it is true, the worst and vilest 
 place on earth ; now it is become a terrestrial hell, 
 an abode of fiends and devils, a receptacle of all that 
 is most wicked and abominable. What I tell you is 
 not from hearsay, but from my own knowledge and 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 .161 
 
 experience. In this city there is no piety, no reve- 
 rence or fear of God, no faith or charity, nothing that 
 is holy, just, equitable, or humane. Why should I 
 speak of truth, where not only the houses, palaces, 
 courts, churches, and the thrones of Popes and car- 
 dinals, but the very earth and air, seem to teem with 
 lies ! A future state, heaven, hell, and judgment, are 
 openly turned into ridicule, as childish fables. Good 
 men have, of late, been treated with so much scorn 
 and contempt, that there is not one left among them 
 to be an object of their laughter.” In the same letter, 
 he declares that the more profligate a man was, the 
 more certain he was of preferment in the Church. 
 
 It is no wonder that, amidst so deep a corruption 
 of manners in those whose lives should be patterns to 
 the other classes of society, the vices of the clergy 
 were standing subjects of satire in every country of 
 Europe, and especially in England, in the 14th cen- 
 tury. The poems of Chaucer abound in passages of 
 this kind, and the Plowman’s Tale is one continued 
 satire upon the clergy for their gross ignorance, cru- 
 elty, covetousness, simony, vanity, pride, ambition, 
 drunkenness, gluttony, lechery, and other vices. This 
 profligacy gave rise to an opinion, which universally 
 prevailed, that the coming of Antichrist was at hand. 
 We are told indeed that, in 1364, Dr. Nicholas Orem, 
 a celebrated preacher, in a sermon before the Pope 
 and cardinals, undertook to demonstrate this proposi- 
 tion, from the enormous corruption and the intolerable 
 abuses of the Church. Even Petrarch, though not 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 scrupulous in regard to doctrines and ceremonies, was 
 so shocked at the gross depravity of the papal court, 
 that he applied that passage in the book of Revela- 
 tions concerning Babylon, the mother of harlots and 
 of all abominations, to the city of Avignon, where, as 
 it has been observed, the Pope then resided. 
 
 The bold impugner of papal supremacy, meanwhile 
 presented by the king to a canonry in the collegiate 
 church of Westbury, and the living of Lutterworth in 
 Leicestershire, could not hope long to escape the ven- 
 geance of those whose interest it was to support the 
 prevailing errors. The clergy, alarmed at the diffu- 
 sion of his principles, which threatened the overthrow 
 of the Church of Rome, transmitted to Pope Gregory 
 XI. eighteen propositions maintained by him as he- 
 retical. A bull, addressed to Sudbury, the primate 
 of England, and Courtenay, bishop of London, com- 
 manded them to have him apprehended and kept in 
 close custody till they should receive further instruc- 
 tions. A messenger was accordingly sent to Oxford, 
 requiring the University, upon pain of the severest 
 penalties, to deliver him up for justice. These threats 
 were disregarded. The prelates, finding that they 
 could not proceed against Wicklif in the summary 
 manner directed by the Pope, summoned him to 
 appear at St. Paul’s, London, before a convocation, 
 assembled to sit in judgment on himself and his doc- 
 trines. 
 
 Confident in his cause and his protectors, the in- 
 trepid reformer hesitated not to obey. Accompanied 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 163 
 
 by the duke of Lancaster and lord Percy, marshal of 
 England, Wicklif repaired to St. Paul’s ; and, when 
 ushered before the assembly, at which' Courtenay pre- 
 sided, the duke desired him to be seated. The ortho- 
 dox bishop would not allow that courtesy to a heretic. 
 An altercation ensued, and the jluke, who might be 
 said to govern the kingdom, owing to the incapacity 
 of his father, in the consciousness of his power, threat- 
 ened to throw the bishop and his haughty colleagues 
 out of the church. The people, taking the part of 
 the prelates, rushed upon Lancaster and Percy, who 
 narrowly escaped from their fury, and the meeting 
 was broken up. The mansions of the duke and Percy 
 were afterwards attacked and plundered by the po- 
 pulace. 
 
 With the report of this disappointment, the exas- 
 perated agents of the court of Rome transmitted fresh 
 complaints to the pontiff. Gregory, in his alarm, 
 issued, on the 22nd of May, 1377, no fewer than five 
 bulls, three addressed to Sudbury and Courtenay, one 
 to the University of Oxford, and another to the king 
 himself, who were enjoined, by their hopes of salva- 
 tion, to crush the daring innovator. A statement of 
 his heretical doctrines was annexed. The prelates 
 were commanded to examine Wicklif upon thesb arti- 
 cles, and, in case he should avow them, he was either 
 to be apprehended, or they were to notify to him that 
 he must appear at Rome within three months. The 
 University deliberated long whether it should comply 
 with the orders of the Pope, in expectation probably 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 that time might produce a fit opportunity for shewing 
 its real sentiments : while the court took no notice 
 of his exhortation to favour the proceedings against 
 Wicklif. 
 
 In the following month, the death of Edward III. 
 transferred the cro\^n to his young grandson, Richard. 
 The truce with France had expired, and Charles VI. 
 was making serious preparations for recovering the 
 provinces conquered by the late king. It now 7 became 
 a question with the government “ wdiether.the king- 
 dom of England, on an imminent necessity of its 
 own defence, might not lawfully detain the treasure 
 of the kingdom, that it be not carried out of the 
 land, although the Lord Pope required it, on pain of 
 censure and by virtue of the obedience due to him.” 
 So high was the estimation in which Wicklif w 7 as 
 still held, notwithstanding the influence of his ene- 
 mies, that this question was referred to his decision. 
 In his answer, he contended that it would be down- 
 right madness to w T aste the resources of the country 
 upon foreigners, while the nation w 7 as sinking under 
 the burdens.of domestic taxation. Thus did Wicklif 
 stand fonvard a second time as. the public advocate 
 of his sovereign and country. 
 
 Thh intrepidity with which he performed this office 
 of course drew down upon him the indignation of the 
 clergy. The archbishop sent him the propositions 
 transmitted by the Pope, and cited him to appear 
 at Lambeth palace early in 1378, to answer to the 
 charge of heresy founded upon them. Wicklif 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 165 
 
 obeyed this mandate ; but a message from the mother 
 of the young king, forbidding any definite sentence 
 to be passed, led to his dismissal, with a strict in- 
 junction to abstain from repeating the heretical 
 doctrines imputed to him, which, however, he de- 
 fended in writing. 
 
 The most meritorious service rendered by Wicklif 
 to his country was the production of a complete 
 version of the Bible in the English language. It 
 was made entirely from the Latin text ; and it is 
 admitted that, aiming at scrupulous fidelity, his 
 translation is so literal as to be sometimes obscure 
 and even unintelligible. With what activity it was 
 circulated may be inferred from the numerous manu- 
 script copies which have survived the exterminating 
 zeal of papal inquisitors. The appearance of such a 
 work excited the deepest alarm and the fiercest in- 
 dignation of the popish hierarchy. It w T as denounced 
 and proscribed as little less than sacrilege, and the 
 translator, as a profaner of the sanctity of truth, who 
 with impious hand had dared to withdraw the veil 
 which had for ages screened it from the gaze of the 
 multitude. “ In proof of his doctrines,” says Lin- 
 gard, the modern popish historian, in a tone of 
 unusual moderation, “ he appealed to the Scriptures, 
 and thus made his disciples judges between him and 
 the bishops. Men were flattered with the appeal to 
 their private judgment : the new doctrines insensibly 
 acquired protectors and partisans in the higher 
 classes, who alone were acquainted with the use of 
 
1 66 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 letters ; a spirit of inquiry was generated ; and the 
 seeds were sown of that religious revolution, which, 
 in little more than a century, astonished and con- 
 vulsed the nations of Europe.’’ 
 
 Undaunted by the fiery zeal of his enemies, Wicklif 
 continued to expose with energy the errors and cor- 
 ruptions of Popery. In 1381, he produced an 
 exposition of the intent and purpose of the Lord’s 
 Supper, as instituted by its founder, and, of course, 
 demolished the doctrine of transubstantiation, which 
 the papists had made the grand touchstone of their 
 faith. The most active measures were immediately 
 taken for punishing so dire an offence. Barton, vice- 
 chancellor of the university of Oxford, a sworn foe 
 to all innovation, insisted on his abjuring this and 
 other heretical opinions on pain of imprisonment and 
 excommunication. Relying on the support of Lan- 
 caster, he appealed direct to the king himself. The 
 duke, however, whose former patronage appears to 
 have been afforded from political motives alone, re- 
 garded the point in dispute as of too critical a 
 nature, and declined to interfere. 
 
 Courtenay, who had succeeded Sudbury in the 
 primacy, and was inflamed by a fiercer spirit of per- 
 secution than his predecessor, was no sooner invested 
 with his new dignity than he summoned Wicklif to 
 appear before him on the 17th of May, 1382. The 
 ♦ reformer refused obedience to this mandate, alleging 
 that he was not amenable to any other jurisdiction 
 than the University. The archbishop then convoked 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 167 
 
 his diocesans to pronounce upon the blasphemous 
 and pernicious doctrines imputed to Wicklif and his 
 followers. Scarcely had they commenced their 
 proceedings, when a violent earthquake shook the 
 Dominican convent in which they had met to its very 
 foundations. Inexpressible consternation seized the 
 assembly, most of the members interpreting the 
 event into a token of the displeasure of Heaven 
 with the object of their meeting. Courtenay gra- 
 dually mustered courage, his detestation of heresy 
 getting the better of his fears, and assured his timid 
 brethren that the earthquake was certainly an ex- 
 pression of the Divine wrath, not against that holy 
 assembly which was engaged in the cause of God, 
 but against the heretics, on whom they were sitting 
 in judgment. He then laid before them the twenty- 
 four propositions, alleged to have been publicly pro- 
 pounded by Wicklif, which were condemned partly as 
 heretical, partly as erroneous. Instructions were in- 
 stantly despatched to the bishops of London and 
 Lincoln, enjoining them to prevent the dissemination 
 of those doctrines by all the means in their power. 
 
 The measures of the primate were seconded by 
 the spiritual lords in parliament, who united in a 
 petition that a remedy might be provided against 
 the innumerable errors and impieties of the Lol- 
 lards, as the followers of Wicklif were denominated. 
 A royal ordinance was in consequence issued, autho- 
 rising sheriffs to apprehend persons preaching with- 
 out the license of the ordinary, and to detain them 
 
168 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 in prison till they should justify themselves according 
 to law and reason of Holy Church. This first penal 
 enactment in our statute book was entered in the 
 Roil of Parliament, though it had not the assent of 
 either lords or commons. In the next session, the 
 commons complained to the king that it had been 
 passed without their concurrence, and prayed that it 
 might be annulled, as it was not their intention to 
 bind themselves to the bishops more than their 
 ancestors had been bound in times past. Though 
 the king assented with apparent willingness to the 
 petition, this spurious statute was hot erased, but 
 “ still remains among our laws,” says Hallam, “ unre- 
 pealed, except by desuetude and by inference from 
 acts of- much later times.” Unfortunately, it had, 
 in a great measure, done its office, and given a 
 powerful impulse to the work of religious persecu- 
 tion.* 
 
 Wicklif’s judges, aware of his popularity and 
 fearful of exciting commotion, were content with 
 obtaining from the king an order for his banishment 
 from the University of Oxford. He likewise com- 
 manded diligent search to be made for his writings, 
 and all persons in whose possession any of them should 
 be found to be expelled from the city. The Reformer 
 was consequently obliged to quit the most illustrious 
 scene of his warfare, and retired to his living at 
 Lutterworth, where he completed his translation of 
 
 * Lc Bas, Life of Wicklif. 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 169 
 
 the Bible, and performed, in the most exemplary 
 manner, the duties of a parish priest so long as his 
 health permitted. 
 
 But, if the English persecutors of Wicklif suffered 
 him to terminate his career in peace, the Romish 
 Church had not forgotten the rude shock which it 
 had received from this humble but formidable adver- 
 sary. Exasperated also, no doubt, by the eagerness 
 with which, in spite of prohibitions and penalties, 
 the books of the Reformer were sought after, Pope 
 Urban YI. transmitted to him a summons to appear 
 before him at Rome, to defend himself against the 
 charge of heretical doctrines. Disabled in body for 
 such a journey, his reply, containing a brief exposi- 
 tion of the chief articles of his faith, and an excuse 
 for not complying with the papal mandate, showed 
 that his mind retained its wonted energy. A second 
 attack, while attending mass in his own church, 
 proved fatal; and, on the 31st of December, 1384, a 
 peaceful death removed him in his 61st year from 
 all further persecution. In the popish clergy, his 
 disease and death produced the most indecent exult- 
 ation : they were ascribed to the immediate vengeance 
 of Heaven for his heresy. “ On the day of St. 
 Thomas the Martyr, archbishop of Canterbury,” 
 says Walsingham, “ that limb of the devil, enemy of 
 the Church, deceiver of the people, idol of heretics, 
 mirror of hypocrites, author of schism, sower of 
 hatred, and inventor of lies, John Wickliff, was, by 
 the immediate judgment of God, suddenly struck 
 
170 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 with a palsy, which seized all the members of his 
 body, when he was ready (as they say) to vomit 
 forth his blasphemies against the blessed St. Thomas 
 in a sermon which he had prepared to preach that 
 day.” 
 
 In 1415, thirty years after the decease of Wick- 
 lif, the council of Constance, which doomed itself to 
 everlasting infamy by the murder of John Huss, in 
 violation of the imperial promise of safety, vented its 
 impotent rage on the memory of our first English 
 Reformer; by branding his writings with the mark of 
 heresy. An order was at the same time issued, that 
 “ his body and bones, if they might be discerned 
 and known from the bodies of other faithful people, 
 should be taken from the ground and thrown far 
 away from the burial of any church, according to 
 the canon laws and decrees.” In pursuance of this 
 mandate, but not till thirteen years after it was pro- 
 nounced, the grave was opened, under the direction 
 of Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, who from a zealous 
 adherent of Wicklifs had become a merciless perse- 
 cutor of his doctrines. The remains of the Reformer 
 were disinterred and burned, and his ashes thrown 
 into the adjoining rivulet, called the Swift. 
 
 The joy of the clergy on the death of their formi- 
 dable adversary was not of long duration. They 
 soon perceived with alarm that his doctrines had not 
 died with him. Taking example from the Mendicant 
 orders, whose zeal had tended to strengthen the 
 papal power so materially, Wicklif had encouraged 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 171 
 
 preachers, called in his later writings Poor Priests, 
 to disseminate his doctrines throughout the whole 
 kingdom. They resembled the friars, excepting in 
 one point — they did not beg — though it is to be 
 presumed that they must have depended for subsist- 
 ence on the contributions of their hearers. Travel- 
 ling about on foot, in plain frieze gowns, they de- 
 claimed with great vehemence against the corruptions 
 of the Church and the vices of the clergy, . and were 
 admired and followed not only by the common peo- 
 ple, but by several persons of high rank and great 
 -Npower. It was undoubtedly these humble apostles 
 of Reformation, who were aimed at in the preamble 
 to the ordinance of 1382, under the description of 
 persons affecting peculiar sanctity and simplicity of 
 manners, and exercising their irregular ministration 
 in the fairs and markets, as well as in the churches 
 and churchyards throughout the kingdom. 
 
 Knyghton, a contemporary historian of the best 
 credit, but a stanch papist, acknowledges that, as 
 Wicklif excelled all the learned men of his age in 
 disputation, so his followers in a very short time 
 became eloquent preachers and powerful disputants ; 
 and, with genuine Catholic candour, he ascribes their 
 talents to supernatural agency, alleging that they 
 were acquired by the assistance of the Devil, who 
 took possession of them when they became Lollards. 
 Be this as it may, through the zeal, activity, and elo- 
 quence of these preachers, the new doctrines, as they 
 were called, gained ground so fast that, according to 
 
172 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 the writer just quoted, •“ more than one half of the 
 people of England in a few years became Lollards.” 
 
 While these missionaries were proclaiming to the 
 lowly the doctrines of the Reformer, Wicklif s wri- 
 tings and his character were gaining access for them 
 among the very highest classes. We have seen that 
 in John of Gaunt, he had a stanch protector, whether 
 from political or religious motives it is impossible to 
 decide, till his dispute with the Church began to 
 assume a theological character; and the important 
 affairs in which he was employed by Edward III. 
 attest that he enjoyed the personal favour of that 
 sovereign. We have seen the mother of Richard II. 
 interesting herself for his safety, when the arm of 
 ecclesiastical power was raised to crush him : and as 
 for his queen, daughter of the emperor Charles IV., 
 who for many years after her death was called “ the 
 good queen Anne,” her whole life and habits were 
 such as to afford effective sanction to the labours of 
 Wicklif. Her diligent study of the Scriptures was 
 a principal theme of commendation in the sermon 
 delivered at her funeral by archbishop Arundel. 
 “ Although a stranger,” he said, “ yet she constantly 
 studied the four Gospels in English, with the expo- 
 sitions of the doctors ; and in the study of these and 
 the perusal of godly books, she displayed more dili- 
 gence than the prelates themselves, although it was 
 required of them by their office and calling.” Among 
 the nobility and gentry also, Wicklif and his fol- 
 lowers found many steady supporters, among whom 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 173 
 
 the most conspicuous was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord 
 Cobham, who by his cruel death at the stake attested 
 his unflinching* adherence to the doctrines of the 
 Reformer. 
 
 It was not in England alone that those doctrines 
 were eagerly and extensively embraced by persons 
 of all ranks. On the continent, and especially in 
 Bohemia, they were widely disseminated. It is pro- 
 bable that the attendants of the queen of Richard II., 
 on their return after her decease, carried back with 
 them many portions of Wicklif’s writings to their 
 own country, where their effects were indeed more 
 rapid and striking than at home. It is related that, 
 on their condemnation as heretical, no fewer than 
 two hundred of his books, many of them, finely 
 written and richly bound and adorned, were com- 
 mitted to the flames by the bishop of Prague ; and 
 it was for their profession of the doctrines contained 
 in them that John Huss and Jerome of Prague were 
 consigned at Constance to the like fate. 
 
 Rejecting the fanciful derivations ascribed by 
 Southey and other writers to the name assigned to 
 the English followers of Wicklif’s principles, I have 
 no hesitation to adopt the origin attributed to that 
 appellation by the spiritual head of the Yaudois 
 Church, who positively asserted, as I shall hereafter 
 have occasion to show, that it was borrowed from 
 Lollard, one of the missionaries of the ancient Wal- 
 denses, who, according to their records, travelled to 
 various parts of Europe, is said to have visited Eng- 
 
174 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 land, and was burned in 1350 at Cologne, of course 
 for heresy. The close resemblance of their doctrines 
 to those taught by Wicklif and his disciples is indis- 
 putable ; and it is equally certain that there were 
 religious societies in the north of Germany and the 
 Netherlands, who bore the designation of Lollards, 
 before Wicklif began to promulgate his opinions in 
 this country. 
 
 It was not long after the decease of the English 
 Reformer that the Popish hierarchy, alarmed at the 
 dangers with which the rapid dissemination of his 
 principles threatened their Church, exerted their 
 utmost efforts to suppress them. At their instigation, 
 a commission was issued in 1387, for the seizure of all 
 the “ little books” written by him and his followers. 
 It was empowered to forbid all persons of whatever 
 degree to read those pernicious writings, or to sup- 
 port the scandalous doctrines contained in them, on 
 pain of forfeiture and imprisonment ; and letters 
 patent to the same, effect were despatched to com- 
 missioners in most of the counties of England. 
 
 The contests between the king and parliament of 
 England and the court of Rome still continued, and 
 led to the enactment, in 1392, of a very severe law 
 for the punishment of persons who should solicit or 
 bring into the kingdom any papal bulls of excommu- 
 nication, translation, or other thing against the rights 
 and dignity of the Crown. Emboldened by mea- 
 sures of such decisive character, and probably by 
 their increasing numbers also, the Lollards presented 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 175 
 
 to a parliament, held in 1394, at Westminster, by the 
 duke of York — the king being then absent in Ire- 
 land — a remonstrance, containing twelve articles 
 against the Church and the clergy. They com- 
 plained chiefly of the exorbitant power, excessive 
 wealth, and profligate lives of the clergy,, ascribing 
 the latter chiefly to their vows of celibacy ; of trail- 
 substantiation and the superstitious practices arising 
 from the belief of it ; of prayers for the dead ; of 
 the worship of images ; of pilgrimages ; of auri- 
 cular confession and its consequences ; and of seve- 
 ral other points on which the present Protestants 
 differ from the Romish Church. What reception 
 this remonstrance met with we are not informed. 
 
 About the same time, the Lollards published seve- 
 ral satirical papers, painting the deceitful arts, abo- 
 minable vices, and absurd opinions of the clergy, in 
 very strong colours, which excited both the contempt 
 and the hatred of the people against them. Some 
 of these papers, written with great asperity and con- 
 siderable wit, were pasted up in most of the public 
 places in London and Westminster. At these bold 
 proceedings, the prelates felt, or affected to feel, 
 extreme alarm. The archbishop of York and the 
 bishop of London were despatched with other mes- 
 sengers to the king, to beseech him to hasten his 
 return, and save the Church and Catholic faith from 
 the dangers with which it was threatened. Richard 
 accordingly repaired to London. Summoning before 
 him several persons of distinction who were known 
 
176 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 to favour the Lollards, he commanded them, on pain 
 of his severest displeasure, to withdraw their pro- 
 tection from those seditious sectaries. One of them, 
 Sir Robert Stury, who was a particular object of his 
 indignation, he compelled to abjure the tenets of the 
 Lollards, and swore that, if he failed to keep his oath, 
 he should suffer an ignominious death. The zeal of 
 the king and the prelates was further inflamed by an 
 epistle from Pope Boniface IX., urging the latter to 
 exterminate the professors of doctrines subversive of 
 the State, both civil and ecclesiastical, and exhorting 
 Richard to strengthen the hands of the clergy with 
 all the aids of the secular power. 
 
 Even Protestant writers have ventured to assert 
 that the clergy had considerable ground for complaint. 
 “ The abuse heaped upon them by the Lollards,” says 
 Le Bas, “ was not only furious but indiscriminate : and, 
 besides, the Reformers would probably have suffered 
 little to remain untouched if they had been left en- 
 tirely to their own impulses. Cathedrals, abbeys, 
 and monasteries might have -fallen before them : all 
 endowments might have been swept away : and there 
 was no inconsiderable danger lest piety itself should 
 have been rendered almost hateful by the unsocial 
 austerity which was beginning to furrow the coun- 
 tenance and to cloud the brow of their religion. In 
 addition to this, it can scarcely be denied that the 
 whole fabric of society was in some danger from 
 their principles. There is reason to believe that by 
 many of them the reign of the saints upon earth was 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 177 
 
 eagerly anticipated ; and that their impatience, if not 
 effectively curbed, might have broken out into wild 
 and fearful commotion.”* 
 
 All these surmises, for they are nothing more, are 
 evidently founded on the representations of these 
 early Reformers given us by advocates of unmiti- 
 gated popery ; and lead to the conclusion that they 
 should rather have been repressed as traitors or in- 
 cendiaries, than persecuted as heretics. “ The hier- 
 archy, however,” continues the writer just quoted, 
 “ preferred the latter course, and fixed upon the 
 most absurd of all the Romish dogmas as the test of 
 heresy. The murderous question by which they 
 brought their inquisitions to an issue was always, 
 ‘ Do you or do you not believe that material bread 
 remains in the sacrament, after the words of conse- 
 cration have been uttered V and, if the answer was in 
 the affirmative, nothing remained for the delinquent 
 but a death of excruciating anguish. The immediate 
 effect of such proceedings was that the Lollards were 
 regarded not as suffering the penalty due to revolu- 
 tionary opinions and practices, but as martyrs in the 
 cause of scriptural truth ; and a sentiment of ab- 
 horrence was gradually excited against the clergy as 
 monsters of inhumanity and injustice.” 
 
 The odious distinction of being the first English 
 monarch to countenance these barbarities was re- 
 served for Henry IV., son of John of Gaunt, who, 
 before he wrested the crown from the head of his 
 
 * Le Bas, Life of Wicklif, p. 413. 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 cousin Richard, appeared disposed to favour the opi- 
 nions of the Lollards. On ascending the throne, 
 sensible of the defectiveness of his title, he deemed it 
 good policy to strengthen his authority by securing 
 the support of a body possessing such power and 
 influence as the clergy. * He had no scruple, there- 
 fore, to assist the prelates in kindling the flames of 
 religious persecution. 
 
 He had scarcely ascended the throne, when, with 
 this view, he sent the earl of Northumberland to a 
 convocation of the province of Canterbury, assembled 
 in October, 1399, in the Chapter-house of St. Paul’s, 
 with a message well adapted to attach the prelates to 
 his interest. “ I come not,” said the earl, “ like the 
 commissioners of former kings, to demand your 
 money, hut to assure you that my royal master will 
 never demand money from his clergy but in cases of 
 extreme necessity. I come most earnestly to beg the 
 prayers of the Church for the king and kingdom, and 
 to promise that he will protect the clergy in all their 
 liberties and immunities, and assist them with all his 
 power in exterminating heretics.” The first of these 
 promises was soon forgotten ; for no king of England 
 ever made such frequent demands of money from his 
 clergy as Henry IV., when once firmly established on 
 the throne ; the second was but too faithfully per- 
 formed. 
 
 Arundel, the primate, who, while archbishop of 
 York, had been a cruel persecutor of the Lollards, 
 finding himself now not only possessed of extended 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 179 
 
 power, but supported by that of the crown, deter- 
 mined to show them no mercy. He and his clergy, 
 therefore, applied to the parliament, which met at 
 Westminster in 1400, representing that persons who 
 had no authority from any bishop preached heretical 
 doctrines, published heretical books, and taught he- 
 resies and errors in the schools, and praying the 
 parliament to provide a remedy against these inno- 
 vations. So strenuously was this application seconded 
 by Henry and the peers, that a law was passed, autho- 
 rising the bishop to imprison all persons suspected of 
 heresy, to try them in the spiritual court, and, if they 
 were convicted of being either obstinate or relapsed 
 heretics, they were, after condemnation, to be deli- 
 vered over to the secular power, to be publicly burned 
 in some elevated place, to strike terror into others. 
 
 The first victim of this inhuman law, which for two 
 centuries and a half disgraced our statute book, was 
 William Sautre, parish priest of St. Osyth’s in the 
 city of London, and formerly of St. Margaret’s at 
 Lynn, Norfolk. While residing at the latter place, 
 he had been summoned before the bishop of Norwich 
 to answer for his religious opinions ; and, shrinking 
 from the prospect of a cruel death, lie had endea- 
 voured to explain away his supposed errors. The 
 bishop insisted that he had formally abjured. On 
 the 24th of May, 1400, he was brought before the 
 convocation assembled at the Chapter-house of St. 
 Paul’s, charged with eight articles of heresy, and with 
 having maintained them subsequently to his abjura- 
 
180 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 tion before the bishop of Norwich. The first question 
 on which he was examined by Arundel related to 
 the popish doctrine of the real presence in the eucha- 
 rist. Persisting in the denial of his belief in it, he 
 was pronounced by the archbishop an incorrigible 
 heretic. This being the first sacrifice offered on the 
 altar of the mass, it was conducted with scrupulous 
 formality, as a precedent in future cases. The 
 offender was degraded from all his functions in suc- 
 cession, from the order of priest to that of sexton. 
 The cap of a layman was then placed on his head, 
 and he was delivered up to the secular power, with 
 the hypocritical injunction to deal kindly with him, 
 and at the same time with a perfect knowledge that 
 all the kindness they could show was to commit him 
 to the flames. He was burned in Smithfield, “ and, 
 for the first time in England,” concludes Le Bas, 
 “ did the flame of persecution ascend towards heaven, 
 to outrage the God of love and mercy.” 
 
 The barbarous sacrifice of so respectable a clergy- 
 man produced indeed the intended effect : it struck 
 terror into the followers of Wicklif, and caused many 
 of them to conceal their opinions in order to pre- 
 serve their lives. Others, when brought to trial, 
 shrunk from the prospect of the most horrible of 
 deaths, and pretended to renounce their opinions : 
 hence it was several years before another was found 
 with fortitude sufficient to endure the fiery ordeal. 
 In secret, however, great multitudes in all parts of 
 England, particularly in London, Oxford, Shrews- 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 181 
 
 bury, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, continued to adhere 
 to the doctrines of the Reformer. 
 
 Meanwhile, Arundel, as superstitious as he was 
 cruel, increased the number of holidays, and ap- 
 pointed additional devotions to be paid to the Virgin 
 Mary, to whose especial patronage he ascribed the 
 national prosperity, and especially that revolution 
 which had restored him to his See. One long-pre- 
 vailing abuse also, it is true, he attempted to correct, 
 by prohibiting the practice of holding fairs and mar- 
 kets in churchyards on Sundays, except in harvest- 
 time, when it was thought to be necessary. 
 
 In 1407, William Thorpe, a clergyman of extra- 
 ordinary learning for that age, a disciple ofWicklif’s, 
 who had preached his doctrine, in spite of imprison- 
 ment, in different parts of England, was apprehended 
 by the magistrates of Shrewsbury, and sent to arch- 
 bishop Arundel. Before him and three of the most 
 learned of his clergy, Thorpe underwent a long exa- 
 mination, of which he wrote a detailed account. His 
 antagonists, finding him an over-match for them at 
 disputation, strove to shake his constancy by pro- 
 mises, and, these failing, by threats. The primate, 
 who was much addicted to profane swearing, declared 
 in his rage, with many terrible oaths, that “ he would 
 pursue him and all his sect so closely as not to leave 
 one slip in the land.” One of the assistant priests 
 charitably told him that, unless he recanted, he should 
 be cursed, degraded, burnt, and damned ; and an- 
 other proposed to throw him into the sea. A course 
 
182 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 milder in appearance was adopted by the archbishop, 
 who consigned him to a loathsome prison, the horrors 
 of which had conquered the fortitude of several other 
 Lollards, and here probably Thorpe died, as history 
 makes no farther mention of him. 
 
 In 1403, the king being straitened for money to 
 prosecute his expedition into Wales, some of the 
 barons proposed to him to seize the money and plate 
 of certain rich prelates who were in the army, in 
 order to supply his necessities. The primate, who 
 was present, denounced such threats against all who 
 should presume to invade the property of the Church, 
 that the scheme was not adopted. In the following 
 year, when the parliament met at Coventry, a supply 
 was demanded from the commons. They represented 
 to the king, by their speaker, that they were reduced 
 by frequent taxes and personal service to great po- 
 verty, and could not afford a supply, while the clergy 
 wallowed in wealth ; and it was therefore but reason- 
 able that some of their riches should be taken to 
 relieve the necessities of the State. Alarmed at this 
 suggestion, the primate fell upon his knees before the 
 king, and conjured him to remember his coronation 
 oath, by which he engaged to protect the Church in 
 all her privileges and immunities. The king desired 
 him to rise, and go to his place, assuring him that he 
 would defend the Church in all her possessions, and 
 leave her richer than he found her. The peers fell in 
 with the king’s sentiments, and the commons were not 
 only obliged to abandon their proposal, but to beg 
 pardon for their presumption. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 183 
 
 Several laws were, however, enacted in this reign 
 against the oppressive exactions in which the court 
 of Rome still persevered ; but they proved as ineffi- 
 cacious as those formerly made against that enormous 
 evil. 
 
 In January, 1409, Arundel held, at St. Paul’s, a 
 convention of the prelates of his province, in which 
 thirteen canons, or constitutions, were made. In the 
 preamble to these canons, it was declared to be the 
 most horrible of all crimes to dispute any of the doc- 
 trines, or to disobey any of the decrees, promulgated 
 by the Pope, “ who carried the keys of eternal life 
 and eternal death, who was the vicegerent, not of a 
 mere man, but of the true God on earth ; and to 
 whom God had committed the government of the 
 kingdom of heaven.” “ This,” observes Henry,* 
 “ was rather strong language, especially at a time 
 when there were two Popes who had sent one another 
 to the devil, and were both declared contumacious 
 heretics by the council of Pisa, in that same year.” 
 The object of Arundel’s constitutions was to extirpate 
 Lollardry, as the doctrines of Wicklif were then 
 called. 
 
 Soon after the publication of these canons, another 
 example of severity was exhibited. This second 
 victim was Thomas Badby, a tailor in the diocese of 
 Worcester. In January, 1410, having been tried 
 and convicted of heresy by the bishop of that see, he 
 was sent, with a copy of his trial and sentence, to the 
 * Hist, of Great Brit. x. 8. 
 
184 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 primate. Ilis crime was refusal to believe in the 
 doctrine of the real presence in the eucharist. The 
 primate pressed him earnestly to believe as the Church 
 did, declaring that, if he complied, “ he would gage 
 his soul for him at the day of judgment.” Ad- 
 hering stedfastly to his faith, Badby was pronounced 
 an obstinate heretic, and the archbishop delivered 
 him to the secular magistrates, with the mock-ex- 
 hortation “ not to put him to death.” In the after- 
 noon of the same day he was taken to Smithfield, 
 placed on a large tun, and chained to a stake, with 
 faggots piled around him. Before the fire was 
 kindled, the prince of Wales rode up to the pile, and 
 earnestly entreated Badby to save his life, promising 
 him a provision for his future support, if he would 
 renounce his opinions. The poor man, with many 
 expressions of the warmest gratitude to the prince, 
 declared that he firmly believed his opinions to be 
 true, and that he could not renounce them, even to 
 escape so terrible a death. The prior of St. Bartho- 
 lomew’s then came forth, bringing the host, before 
 which were borne twelve burning tapers. It was 
 presented to the offender, and he was asked what he 
 believed it to be; he replied, that it was hallowed 
 bread, not God’s body. The pile was then fired. 
 Affected by his piteous cries for mercy, whether ad- 
 dressed to God or man, the prince, under the idea 
 that the pain had overcome his fortitude, ordered 
 the flames to be quenched, and renewed his intreaties 
 to him to recant. This humble confessor was not to 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 185 
 
 be shaken ; lie refused to deny the convictions of his 
 conscience ; the five was rekindled ; and he expired, 
 calling upon Christ to receive his soul. 
 
 Ever since the death of Wicklif, his doctrines had 
 continued to prevail in the University where they 
 were first promulgated, more than in any other part 
 of England. This was a frequent subject of com- 
 plaint to archbishop Arundel, who alleged that “ Ox- 
 ford was as a vine that brought forth wild and sour 
 grapes, which being eaten by the fathers, the teeth of 
 the children were set on edge ; so that the whole 
 province of Canterbury was tainted with novel and 
 damnable Lollardism, to the intolerable and notorious 
 scandal of the University.” He says, on another 
 occasion, “ She who was formerly the mother of 
 virtues, the prop of the Catholic faith, the singular 
 pattern of obedience, now brings forth only abortive 
 or degenerate children, who encourage contumacy 
 and rebellion, and sow tares among the pure wheat.” 
 
 Bent on the extermination of the obnoxious doc- 
 trines, the primate, in 1411, set out with a numerous 
 retinue for Oxford. On his approach, however, he 
 was met by the chancellor and the proctors, who inti- 
 mated that, if he came only to take a view of their 
 colleges, he should be received and entertained with 
 all the respect due to his high dignity ; but, if he 
 came on a visitation, as they were exempted from 
 that by several papal bulls, he could not be ad- 
 mitted. Incensed at this repulse, Arundel appealed 
 to the king, who, after hearing both parties, pro- 
 
186 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 nounced a definitive sentence in favour of the arch- 
 bishop. He now commanded the University to ap- 
 point twelve of its most learned and orthodox mem- 
 bers to examine the writings of Wicklif, and to ex- 
 tract such opinions as appeared to them heretical or 
 erroneous. The mandate was obeyed, and the ex- 
 aminers found no fewer than 267 conclusions, which 
 they declared to be partly heretical, partly erroneous. 
 These were transmitted to the primate, who sent 
 them to the Pope, urging him to condemn them, and 
 to grant him authority to take the body of their 
 author out of the grave, and throw it on a dunghill, 
 that it might be trampled on by all Christians. The 
 Pope condemned Wicklif ’s opinions, but refused to 
 sanction the disturbance of his remains. 
 
 The appetite for blood, once excited, began to long 
 for nobler victims. In 1413, Arundel convened a 
 synod of all the bishops and clergy of England at 
 St. Paul’s, at which twelve inquisitors, appointed in 
 the preceding year at Oxford to search out heretics, 
 heresy, and Wicklif’s books, presented the conclu- 
 sions collected from those books as heretical. They 
 alleged, that Christ’s vesture without seam could not 
 be made whole again, unless certain great men who 
 protected the disciples of Wicklif were removed, and 
 particularly specified Sir John Oldcastle, who, in 
 right of his wife, was Lord Cobham. Distinguished 
 on many occasions by valour and military talents, he 
 had won the esteem both of the late king, and of 
 Henry V., who had just succeeded his father. His 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 187 
 
 high rank and character, his zeal for the detested 
 doctrines of Wicklif, and his patronage of the 
 preachers of them, pointed him out to Arundel as a 
 fit object of ecclesiastical vengeance. 
 
 As Cobham was known to be in favour with the 
 king, it was thought prudent to learn his sentiments 
 before any proceedings were commenced. Accord- 
 ingly, the primate, accompanied by the bishops, 
 repaired to Kennington, where the king was then 
 residing, and accused Cobham of holding heretical 
 opinions concerning the sacrament, penance, pil- 
 grimages, the adoration of images, and the authority 
 of the Romish church ; and they declared their in- 
 tention of proceeding against him as a pestilent 
 heretic. Henry, a prince of noble but implacable 
 nature, who knew and admired the high qualities of 
 Cobham, recommended gentle measures, and promised 
 the prelates to commune himself with him on the 
 subject of their charges. 
 
 The king, having summoned him into his presence, 
 exhorted him to submit to his mother, the holy 
 Church, and to acknowledge his errors. Cobham 
 professed the most dutiful obedience to his sovereign, 
 but declared that he neither owed suit, service, nor 
 allegiance to the Pope : on which Henry authorised 
 the prelates to proceed against him in their own 
 way. 
 
 On the same day that Cobham appeared before the 
 king at Kennington, a great number of books written 
 by Wicklif and others of his sect were burned at St 
 
188 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Paul’s Cross, the archbishop preaching to the people, 
 and stating the reasons for the conflagration. Among 
 these volumes was one containing several small tracts, 
 tending, as Arundel’s Register relates, to the subver- 
 sion of the faith and of holy Church, which had been 
 lying at a limner’s in Paternoster Row, for the pur- 
 pose of being illuminated. The artist, being appre- 
 hended, confessed that the book was lord Cobham’s. 
 The meeting at Kennington was, it seems, a very full 
 one ; almost all the prelates and nobles of England 
 being present. Certain extracts made by the clergy 
 from lord Cobham’s volume were read aloud. The 
 king manifested great abhorrence of them ; he asked 
 the owner why he kept and read a book of that kind ; 
 and Cobham replied that, so far from having been in 
 the habit of making use of it, he had not read more 
 than two or three leaves. 
 
 Cobham, confiding probably in his popularity, rank, 
 and strength, retired to his favourite residence, 
 Cowling Castle, near Rochester. Thither the bishops 
 despatched a citation requiring his appearance before 
 them. As it was understood that any attempt to 
 serve this process personally would be made at the 
 risk of life, the sumner was afraid to perform his 
 errand. Letters citatory were therefore twice posted 
 on the great gates of Rochester cathedral, and twice 
 torn down and destroyed. Arundel excommunicated 
 the contumacious offender ; cited him afresh, threat- 
 ening in case of further disobedience to proceed to 
 extremities ; and called upon the secular power, on 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 189 
 
 pain of the censures of the Church, to aid it against 
 this seditious apostate, schismatic, heretic, and dis- 
 turber of the peace of the realm. 
 
 Relying on the righteousness of his cause, Cobham 
 now drew up a paper, entitled “ The Christian Be- 
 lief of the lord Cobham,” which he presented to the 
 king, in expectation, it is said, of finding mercy and 
 favour at his hand. It commenced with the apostles’ 
 creed, to which was added a fuller exposition of his 
 faith. He begged the king to submit this confession 
 to the wisest and most learned men of the realm, 
 that, in case it should be found in all points agree- 
 able to the truth, he might be held for a true Chris- 
 tian ; or, if otherwise, that it might be utterly con- 
 demned, provided that he were taught a better belief 
 by the Word of God, which word he would always 
 most reverently obey. Henry refused to receive this 
 paper, and directed him to deliver it to those who 
 were to be his judges. 
 
 Cobham then desired to be allowed to clear him- 
 self from the imputation of heresy, according to the 
 ancient principle of law, by the oath of a hundred 
 knights and squires, who would come forward in his 
 behalf. The new ecclesiastical law having super- 
 seded all feudal forms, this application was of course 
 disregarded ; and with as little success did the high- 
 spirited noble, in accordance with the laws and 
 manners of that age, offer to fight for life or death, 
 in defence of his faith, with any man living, Chris- 
 tian or heathen, the king and the lords of his 
 
190 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 council alone excepted. When, however, Henry 
 suffered him to he personally cited in his presence, 
 Cobham, perceiving that he had no support to ex- 
 pect from the king, refused to acknowledge the 
 archbishop as his judge, and appealed from him to 
 the Pope. This appeal, evidently made for the pur- 
 pose of gaining time, was disallowed ; and he was 
 committed to the Tower till the day fixed for his 
 examination. 
 
 This examination took place in the Chapter House 
 of St. Paul’s. The only persons present besides the 
 primate were the bishops of London and Winchester, 
 and the lieutenant of the Tower. Arundel informed 
 the. prisoner that, having in the last general convo- 
 cation been found guilty of various heresies, and 
 cited for his rebellious contumacy in not appearing, 
 he had been both privately and publicly excommu- 
 nicated. Still, if he would meekly ask for absolution, 
 it would not be denied. Cobham, drawing a paper 
 from his bosom, replied that, with the permission of 
 the assembly, he would read to them a declaration 
 of the faith which he held, and to which he was de- 
 termined to adhere. It contained his profession on 
 the four points on which the charges against him 
 were chiefly founded. Being urged for further ex- 
 planation, he declined to say any thing in addition 
 to what was expressed in that paper, and was in con- 
 sequence remanded to the Tower. 
 
 One day only, being Sunday, was suffered to inter- 
 vene, before he was again brought up, but this time 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 191 
 
 before a numerous assembly, including the heads and 
 leading persons of the various orders of friars, con- 
 vened to sit in judgment on him at the Dominican 
 convent within Ludgate. A multitude of priests, 
 monks, and underlings, collected as spectators, in- 
 sulted him as he came for an execrable heretic and a 
 man accursed before God. The taunts of the brutal 
 audience, exulting in the anticipation of the inhuman 
 catastrophe, disturbed the equanimity which he had 
 hitherto maintained, and produced in him “ an emo- 
 tion, than which,” says Southey, in his abridgment 
 of Fox’s prolix narrative, “ nothing nobler in its 
 kind hath been imagined in fiction or recorded in 
 history.” When Arundel opened the tragedy by 
 offering absolution and mercy, if he would humbly 
 desire it in due form and manner ordained by the 
 Church, he replied, “Nay, forsooth, will I not, for I 
 never yet trespassed against you, and therefore I will 
 not do it.” Then, falling upon his knees on the floor, 
 and raising his folded hands toward heaven, he burst 
 forth into this impassioned exclamation : “ I shrive 
 me here unto Thee, my eternal, living God, that in 
 my youth I offended Thee, 0 Lord, most grievously, 
 in pride, wrath, and gluttony, in covetousness and 
 in lechery ! Many men have I hurt in mine anger, 
 and done many other horrible sins. Good Lord, I 
 ask Thee mercy !” He wept while uttering this pas- 
 sionate prayer ; then, rising, said with a mighty 
 voice, “ Lo ! good people, lo ! for the breaking of 
 God’s law and his commandments they never yet 
 
192 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 cursed me ! But for their own law T s and traditions, 
 most cruelly do they handle both me and other men. 
 And, therefore, both they and their laws, by the pro- 
 mise of God, shall be utterly destroyed.” 
 
 When the assembly had somewhat recovered from 
 the surprise excited by this awful appeal, Arundel 
 began to examine him concerning his belief. With 
 the same undaunted spirit as ever, he replied, “ I 
 believe fully and faithfully in the universal laws of 
 God. I believe all that is contained in the sacred 
 Scriptures of the Bible to be true. Finally, I be- 
 lieve all that my Lord God would that I should 
 believe.” Whatever might be the effect of this faith 
 for the salvation of the soul, it was not sufficient, 
 under Popish domination, to save the body of him 
 who professed it from the flames. The prisoner 
 was then urged to declare his belief respecting the 
 eucharist; and, on his refusal to deviate from his 
 recorded opinions on that and other points, the arch- 
 bishop “ modestly, mildly, and sweetly,” as he says 
 himself, pronounced sentence, and committed him 
 as a pernicious and detestable heretic to the secular 
 power, to do him thereupon to death. 
 
 The victim was again remanded to the Tower ; and 
 it is related that a respite of fifty days was granted 
 at Arundel’s desire. During this interval, a fabri- 
 cated abjuration was put forth in his name. With 
 the aid of his friends, Cobham exposed this artifice, 
 declaring, in bills which were posted in different parts 
 of the metropolis, that he had never varied from the 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 193 
 
 confession made by him before the clergy, and which 
 he had taken care to get published at the time. 
 Before the respite expired, the prisoner contrived, 
 by what means we know not, to escape from the 
 Tower. 
 
 All writers agree that the subsequent transac- 
 tions are inexplicably mysterious. To me, I must 
 confess, they wear all the appearance of a scheme 
 devised by the clergy and their partisans to force the 
 government into more active measures for crushing 
 the detested Lollards. It was alleged that these 
 heretics had formed a plot for murdering the king 
 and his brothers at Eltham. Henry immediately re- 
 turned to Westminster, and was then told that they 
 were assembling from all quarters in the fields behind 
 St. Giles’s, whence they were to start at a certain 
 hour under lord Cobham, to burn the Abbey, St. 
 Paul’s, St. Alban’s, and all the friaries in London. 
 The king, to anticipate their designs, ordered his 
 friends to arm, and proceeded in the middle of a 
 December night to the place mentioned, where he 
 found only a few persons, who, being asked what 
 they wanted there, answered, the lord Cobham. It 
 was further asserted that, had not precaution been 
 taken to guard the city gates, these people were to 
 have been joined by 50,000 servants and apprentices. 
 On behalf of the persons found in the fields, it is 
 asserted that they had met for the purpose of reli- 
 gious worship, because they could not assemble with- 
 out danger by day : but, as Southey observes, “ con- 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 sidering the season of the year, this tale is as little 
 credible as the other.” That writer seems disposed 
 to believe that a conspiracy might have been formed 
 for raising the rightful family to the throne, and that 
 the Lollards had embarked in it as a party, in the 
 hope of obtaining toleration at least, if not the 
 triumph of their doctrines ; but he has the candour 
 to admit that “ on these points there is no evidence 
 whatever.” 
 
 Walsingham, a furious partisan of Popery, be it 
 remembered, indeed relates that the Lollards fixed 
 placards to the doors of the Churches in London, 
 declaring that a hundred thousand strong arms were 
 ready to enforce their opinions, adding that they 
 were instigated to these proceedings by lord Cob- 
 ham : but it is justly remarked by Sharon Turner, 
 in reference to the statements of this chronicler, that 
 “it is all a series of surmise and rumour, of alarm 
 and anticipation. That any plot was formed there 
 is no evidence ; and the probability is that artful 
 measures were taken to alarm the mind of the king 
 into anger and cruelty, by charges of treason and 
 rebellion, and meditated assassination.”* 
 
 The placards mentioned by Walsingham may pro- 
 bably have been nothing more than the declaration 
 which lord Cobham had caused to be published, mag- 
 nified by the chronicler into seditious manifestoes. 
 At any rate, the circumstances of that nobleman at 
 
 * Hist. Engl. pt. iii. c. vii. p. 308. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 195 
 
 fhe time, and his known loyalty and honour, are suf- 
 ficient to absolve him from all participation in an 
 insurrectionary movement. 
 
 If this affair really was, as I conjecture, an artful 
 contrivance of the Romanists to sharpen the perse- 
 cution of their religious adversaries, it produced the 
 effect. Universal alarm was excited. The prisons 
 of London were filled ; and thirty-nine persons, the 
 principal of whom was Sir Roger Acton, who is 
 described as a man of superior abilities and large 
 possessions, were suspended by chains erected in 
 Ficket Field, St. Giles’s, and burned alive for heresy 
 and treason. By royal proclamation, a large sum 
 was offered to any one who should take lord Cobham, 
 alive or dead ; and the triumph of the clergy was 
 crowned in 1415, by the passing of a statute, at the 
 instigation of Chicheley, who had succeeded Arundel, 
 in the primacy by which all persons holding civil 
 offices, from the chancellor downward, were re- 
 quired to take an oath for the suppression of Lol- 
 lardy. The preamble alleges that great rumours, 
 congregations, and insurrections had been raised in 
 the realm of England by divers liege subjects of the 
 king, as well by those who belonged to the heretical 
 sect called Lollardie, as by others of their confe- 
 deracy, excitation, and abetment, with a view to 
 annul and subvert the Christian faith and the law of 
 God in this kingdom ; also to destroy our sovereign 
 lord the king himself, and all manner of estates of 
 this realm, as well spiritual as temporal, and more- 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 over all manner of policy, and finally all the laws of 
 the land. 
 
 Chiclieley, whose words these virtually were, “ must 
 have been conscious,” says Le Bas, that he was put- 
 ting a gross and cruel falsehood into the mouth of 
 parliament, for the purpose of heaping infamy on 
 Lollardism and on the memory of Wicklif. The 
 records of their persecution are wholly silent on the 
 subject of sedition or conspiracy. Religious heresy 
 is the crime for which they suffered, not political 
 incendiarism. They were not gibbeted for compas- 
 sing the king’s death, or contriving the destruction 
 of the civil institutions of the kingdom ; they were 
 burned alive for refusing to affirm that no material 
 bread remains in the Eucharist after certain syllables 
 have been pronounced over it by the priest.”* 
 
 In the same year, 1415, the University of Oxford 
 drew up, at the king’s command, a statement of 
 abuses in the Church that needed reformation, to be 
 laid before the council of Constance. It compre- 
 hends forty-six articles, and, though composed by 
 clergymen, gives a most odious picture of the eccle- 
 siastics of that time, particularly in regard to their 
 avarice and debauchery. “ It is notorious,” says 
 Article 27, “ that when a Pagan or a Jew, abandon- 
 ing his former errors, desires to be purified in the 
 holy fount of baptism, all his temporal goods are 
 confiscated to the Church ; which, it is believed, pre- 
 
 Life of Wicklif, 418. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 197 
 
 vents many Jews from being baptised. It would be 
 pious and meritorious in the council to remedy this 
 abuse. For when Philip baptized the eunuch, he 
 did not seize his chariot or the other goods he had 
 about him at his baptism.” Article 37 alleges that 
 “ the carnal and debauched lives of the clergy in our 
 days, and their public fornications, which are never 
 punished (except perhaps by a small fine in private) 
 set an evil example before others : it would therefore 
 be a holy thing and contribute to the reformation of 
 the Church, if priests of every rank and order who 
 were public fornicators were obliged to abstain from 
 celebrating mass for a limited time.” 
 
 In the eyes of the rulers of the Church, these 
 were venial peccadilloes in comparison with the mor- 
 tal crime of heresy : the extirpation of Lollard i'sm con- 
 tinued, therefore, to be the grand object of their efforts. 
 In August, 1415, John Claydon, a furrier in London, 
 was brought as a relapsed heretic, together with 
 some English books found in his house, before several 
 bishops and doctors. He acknowledged that he had 
 been long suspected of Lollardry, imprisoned for it 
 two years in Conway Castle, and three years in the 
 Fleet, and that he had abjured it before the primate. 
 The mayor, who produced the books that had been 
 found in Claydon’s possession, described one of them, 
 The Lantern of Light, as the vilest and most per- 
 verse book he had ever seen. Three of the prisoner’s 
 own servants, brought forward to give evidence 
 against him, deposed that they had often heard peo- 
 
198 
 
 PERSECUTION OE 
 
 pie read that and other books to their master, for he 
 could not read himself, and that he seemed to be 
 highly delighted with what he heard. The doctors 
 appointed to examine these books reported that they 
 were full of heresies, and that the Lantern of Light 
 contained no fewer than fifteen. The archbishop 
 condemned the books to be burned ; their owner 
 was pronounced a relapsed heretic, and doomed to 
 the same fate. 
 
 The measure of these iniquities was filled up by 
 the following constitution made by archbishop Chi- 
 cheley in 1416. It enjoined “ all suffragans and 
 archdeacons, with their officials and commissaries, 
 to make inquisition twice in every year, after persons 
 suspected of heresy. Wherever reputed heretics 
 were reported to dwell, three or more of the most 
 respectable inhabitants of the parish were compelled 
 to take an oath that they would certify in writing to 
 the suffragans, or their officers, twice every year, 
 what persons were heretics, who kept private con- 
 venticles, who differed in life and manners from the 
 common conversation of the faithful, who had sus- 
 pected books in the vulgar tongue, or were conver- 
 sant with persons suspected of error. On such 
 information, process was to issue against the accused, 
 who were to be delivered over to the secular court, 
 or to be imprisoned till the next convocation.” 
 
 By this infernal ordinance, the horrors of the 
 writ for burning heretics were completed. It set 
 up an inquisition in every parish. It spread terror 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 199 
 
 and distrust in every family. Every dwelling 
 was haunted by discord and suspicion, so that a 
 man’s bitterest foes were often of his own household 
 and blood ; and the fruits of this flagitious system 
 were that multitudes were consigned to the dungeon 
 or the stake by the treachery or the weakness of 
 their nearest kindred or their dearest connections. 
 Lord Cobham, after his escape from the Tower, con- 
 trived to elude his persecutors for four years, though 
 all who harboured him became liable to the same 
 penalties as himself. At length, Lord Powis, whether 
 from love of gain, says Fox, or hatred to the re- 
 formed doctrine, affecting great friendship for lord 
 Cobham, seized an opportunity to secure him. He 
 defended himself resolutely, and probably would not 
 have been taken alive, had not a woman broken both 
 his legs with a stool. In this condition he was car- 
 ried to London in a horse-litter, and once more sent 
 to the Tower in December, 1417. Parliament was 
 then sitting; and its records say that on Tuesday, 
 13th of December, Sir John Oldcastle, of Cowling, 
 in the county of Kent, knight, being outlawed in 
 the King’s Bench, and excommunicated before by 
 the archbishop of Canterbury for heresy, was brought 
 before the Lords, and, having heard his said con- 
 victions, answered not thereto in his excuse. Upon 
 which record and process it was adjudged that he 
 should be taken as a traitor to the king and the 
 realm ; that he should be carried to the Tower of 
 London, and thence drawn through the city to the 
 
200 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 new gallows in St. Giles, without Temple Bar, there 
 to be hanged and burned hanging. 
 
 “And on the day appointed,” says Bale, “he was 
 brought out of the Tower with his arms bound be- 
 hind him, having a very cheerful countenance. Then 
 he was laid upon a hurdle, as though he had been a 
 most heinous traitor to the crown, and so drawn forth 
 into St. Giles’s Field, where they had set up a new 
 pair of gallows. When he was come to the place 
 of execution, and taken from the hurdle, he fell down 
 devoutly upon his knees, and prayed to God to for- 
 give his enemies. Then he stood up and beheld 
 the multitude, exhorting them in most godly manner 
 to follow the laws of God written in the Scriptures, 
 and in any wise to beware of such teachers as they 
 see contrary to Christ in their conversation and 
 living, with many other special counsels. Then was 
 he hanged up there by the middle in chains of iron, 
 and so consumed alive in the fire, praising the name 
 of God so long as life lasted. In the end, he com- 
 mended Iris soul into the hands of God, and so 
 departed hence most christianly, his body being 
 resolved into ashes. And this was done in the year 
 of our Lord, 1418, which was the sixth year of the 
 reign of king Henry V., the people there present 
 showing great dolour.” 
 
 The persecution continued to be carried on with 
 unabated violence. William Taylor, a clergyman, 
 was condemned by Chicheley, for maintaining that 
 “ prayers for spiritual gifts were to be made to God 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 201 
 
 alone, and that to pray to creatures was idolatry.” 
 Though, in the hope of saving his life, he qualified 
 this proposition by admitting that “ an inferior kind 
 of worship might, indeed, be paid to saints, and 
 that their merits and intercessions were profitable 
 both to the dead and living” — even this was not 
 satisfactory : he was condemned to the stake and 
 burned in Smithfield in 1423. Father Abraham, 
 of Colchester, John White and John Waddon, priests, 
 were also consigned to the flames for the crime of 
 holding Lollard opinions. Many were doomed to 
 perpetual imprisonment, severe flagellations, and 
 various other punishments. 
 
 Of Chicheley, who died in 1443, it is never- 
 theless related that, though a cruel persecutor of 
 the Lollards, he was not so fond of burning them as 
 his predecessor ; not, however, out of any tenderness 
 for the wretched victims, but because he had ob- 
 served that those scenes of horror excited compas- 
 sion for the victims and indignation against their 
 butchers. 
 
 The Popes at this period considered all the clergy 
 of Christendom as their immediate subjects, on whom 
 they might impose what taxes they pleased. “ But,” 
 observes Henry, “ though the clergy had a great 
 veneration for the Pope, many of them had a greater 
 veneration for their money, which obliged the court 
 of Rome to call upon kings and princes to compel 
 these refractory ecclesiastics to pay their taxes.” 
 Pope Eugenius IV., having demanded of the clergy 
 
202 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 of England one tenth of the revenues of all their 
 benefices, and apprehending that they would not 
 very willingly submit to this imposition, sent to 
 Henry VI., by his collector, a consecrated rose of 
 gold, with a bull magnifying the honour which he 
 had done the king by so precious a present, and ex- 
 plaining the mystical meanings of the rose. He 
 omitted not, at the same time, to exhort the king to 
 use all his authority over the clergy to induce them 
 to pay the tax pleasantly, which, said his holi- 
 ness, would be a great advantage to him and his sub- 
 jects. The weak and bigoted monarch received the 
 present with great ceremony ; and Stafford, then 
 primate and also chancellor, descanted in a long and 
 eloquent speech to the papal collector on the beauties 
 and virtues of the rose : but respecting the tax he 
 was rather short, merely intimating that the king 
 would send persons to converse on that subject with 
 the Pope, and forbidding him to collect any money 
 in England till they returned. 
 
 If the clergy displayed some spirit in defence of 
 their own interests, they still tyrannized with undi- 
 minished cruelty over the property and lives of the 
 unhappy Lollards. It is not to be supposed that their 
 imbecile sovereign could resist any prejudices which 
 the clergy might seek to instil into his mind against 
 the professors of the reformed doctrine. There are 
 letters from Henry to the aldermen and bailiffs of 
 St. Edrnondsbury, which prove his conviction that 
 a spirit of sedition and rebellion was inherent in the 
 
TIIE LOLLARDS. 
 
 203 
 
 Lollards, and that they were not less hostile to the 
 royal authority than to the corruptions of the Romish 
 Church. In one of these, without date of the year, 
 he adverts to riotous gatherings of the “ misgoverned 
 men of divers shires, and in especial of the shire of 
 Kent, as well Lollardes as other robbers and pillers 
 [plunderers] of our people, with intent to have sub- 
 verted all the political rule of this our land, of the 
 which men, Sir Nichol Conway, knight, the which is 
 now taken and set fast, should [is said to] have been 
 a captain, and of the which misgoverned men there 
 be taken and in prison a great number.” Having 
 been informed, he says, that there is likely to be a 
 similar gathering in Cambridge town, he charges the 
 magistrates of Bury to do all the diligence they can 
 to the good rule of the said shire of Cambridge, and 
 especially to prevent any gathering of those misguided 
 men, and with all the might and power they can 
 get to resist their malicious purposes. 
 
 In another of these letters, addressed to the same 
 magistrates, apparently about a month after the 
 former, the king, in still stronger language, speaks 
 of “ God’s traitors and ours, heretics in this our 
 realm, commonly called Lollardes, the which now 
 lately setting up and otherwise traitorously exhorted, 
 stirred, and moved the people of our land to assem- 
 ble, gather, and arise against God’s peace and ours 
 
 purposing, no doubt, the subversion of the 
 
 Christian faith and belief, of us also, and of all 
 estates and gentlemen, and generally of all true 
 
204 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 Christian men and women that will not follow them 
 and assist them in their damnable errors and pur- 
 poses, and would destroy all political rule and 
 government, spiritual and temporal.” He exhorts 
 them, therefore, “ to withstand and chastise the dam- 
 nable malice of God’s said traitors and ours charges 
 them especially to inquire which of the inhabitants 
 of the surrounding country have lately been absent 
 from their homes, “ where they have been, and of 
 all the days, times, and places of their absence ; and 
 strictly to examine all new comers, and not to “ suffer 
 privy gatherings and conventicles to be had or made 
 by night or by day.” 
 
 Whether it was the malice of their priestly perse- 
 cutors which caused the stigma of disloyalty and re- 
 bellion to be attached to the character of the Lollards 
 or not, we have no means of deciding : but the expe- 
 dient is known to have been adopted by the Papists 
 on so many similar occasions, that we may fairly pre- 
 sume it was resorted to on this. 
 
 The fate of Dr. Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chi- 
 chester, proved with what severity the Church was 
 disposed to punish even in her own children any taint 
 of what she called heresy. He commenced his career 
 as the champion of abuses keenly censured by Wicklif ; 
 was translated, in 1450, from the see of St. Asaph 
 to that of Chichester; and soon afterwards wrote a 
 “ Treatise of Faith,” which proved^fche source of all 
 his subsequent afflictions. In this work he attacked 
 the Mendicant friars as unmercifully as Wicklif him- 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 205 
 
 self had done. He reproached them with substituting 
 fable and romance for the truths of the Gospel ; ac- 
 cused them of heresy and superstition ; and gave them 
 the name of pulpit-bawlers. As the Mendicants had, 
 by their shameless impudence, made many enemies, 
 both among the secular and the monastic clergy, these 
 censures might have passed unrebuked, had the 
 bishop not had the courage, surprising for one in his 
 position, to grapple and shake the two main pillars 
 of the Romish Church ; insisting that the Scriptures 
 are the substantial foundation, and the only rule of 
 our faith ; and that it was a hopeless thing to attempt 
 to crush the Lollards by so questionable a principle 
 as the infallibility of the priesthood. 
 
 The natural consequence of these doctrines was the 
 persecution of their professor. An outcry of blas- 
 phemy was raised ; the temporal lords joined in it, 
 and, in 1457, he was expelled the house of peers, and 
 forbidden the king’s presence. At length, he was 
 cited before Bourchier, the primate, convicted of 
 heresy, and had no alternative but abjuration or the 
 stake. He chose the former, probably dreading the 
 idea of rebelliously setting his judgment in opposition 
 to the Church not less than that of death itself. The 
 ceremony was rendered as bitter as humiliation could 
 make it. Brought to St. Paul’s Cross in his episco- 
 pal habit, and placed at the feet of the archbishop, he 
 was obliged to deliver his books with his own hand to 
 the officer appointed to throw them into the flames. 
 He read his abjuration in the presence of twenty thou- 
 
206 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 sand people ; confessing himself a miserable sinner, 
 who, by God’s mercy, was brought hack from dark- 
 ness to the right way ; and exhorted all men, in the 
 name of Almighty God, to give no faith to his perni- 
 cious doctrines. 
 
 If the Church, in her tender mercy, did not burn 
 him alive, it is almost literally true, observes Le Bas, 
 that she buried him alive. Stripped of his bishopric, 
 he was confined for life at Thorney Abbey, in Cam- 
 bridgeshire, in a secret chamber, which he was not to 
 leave on any account. He was forbidden the use of 
 pen, ink, and paper, and the only books allowed him 
 were a mass-book, a psalter, a legendary, and the 
 Bible. His diet was to be the same as the daily 
 allowance of the convent, afterwards that of a sick or 
 aged brother, with such further indulgence as health 
 and age might require. How long he needed these 
 considerate indulgences of his persecutors is not 
 known. 
 
 The wars of the Roses, and the reigns of Edward 
 IV. and his brother Richard, suspended the persecu- 
 tion of the Lollards. It was revived by Henry VII., 
 who, says Fuller, “ was more cruel to them than his 
 predecessors.” Fox relates a revolting instance of 
 his wanton inhumanity. In the city of Canterbury 
 there was an aged priest, who adhered so stedfastly 
 to the doctrines of Wicklif, that all the arguments of 
 the ablest divines could not shake him. Henry, hear- 
 ing of his obstinacy, took it into his head to try his 
 powers of persuasion, “ though,” observes Fuller, “ we 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 207 
 
 never read before of liis majesty’s disputing, save when 
 lie disputed Bosworth Field with Richard the Third.” 
 His logic, however, proved as irresistible in this case 
 as his sword had been in the other : but the conqueror 
 made an inhuman use of his victory, for no sooner had 
 the unhappy convert abjured his alleged errors than 
 he sent him to the stake. 
 
 ■It was also during the reign of this cold-blooded 
 monarch that Joanna Baugliton, a venerable matron, 
 upwards of fourscore, was doomed to suffer for her 
 adherence to the opinions of Wicklif, whom she ho- 
 noured as a saint. Though warned that the stake 
 would be her portion if she persisted in her heretical 
 opinions, she remained unshaken, and resigned her 
 soul amidst the flames with heroic firmness. Such 
 was the reverence paid to her virtues, that, in the 
 following night, her ashes were collected as precious 
 memorials of her martyrdom. Her daughter, the 
 lady Young, afterwards suffered the same cruel death 
 with the like constancy. 
 
 At Amersworth, a heretic, named Tylsworth, was 
 condemned to the flames, and, by a refinement in 
 barbarity, his only daughter, who had fallen under 
 suspicion, was compelled to fire the pile prepared to 
 consume him. Some indeed there were who delighted 
 in adding vulgar insult to inhumanity. Nix, bishop 
 of Norwich, infamous for his zeal in persecution, was 
 accustomed to speak of persons supposed to be tainted 
 with heresy as men who savoured of the frying-pan. 
 
 In spite of persecutions, however, the professors of 
 
208 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 the reformed doctrines continued to increase. In the 
 time of Henry VIII., Longland, bishop of Lincoln, 
 was so seriously alarmed by the augmentation of their 
 numbers in his diocese, that Re complained on the 
 subject to the king, and besought his aid for suppres- 
 sing the heretics. Henry accordingly addressed 
 letters to all mayors, sheriffs, and other officers, com- 
 manding them to assist the bishop in bringing the 
 said heretics to justice. Armed with this authority, 
 he lost no time in exercising it upon all who were 
 suspected of inclining to the obnoxious opinions, 
 imposing upon such as abjured them a rigorous 
 penance, and sending without mercy those who 
 adhered to them, or could be convicted of relapse, 
 to the stake. 
 
 “ The fervent zeal of those Christian days,” says 
 Fox, “ seemed much superior to our days and times ; 
 as manifestly may appear by their sitting up all night 
 in reading and hearing, also by their expenses and 
 charges in buying of books in English ; of whom some 
 gave five marks, some more, some less, for a book. 
 Some gave a load of hay for a few chapters of St. 
 James or St. Paul in English. In which rarity of 
 books and want of teachers, this one thing I greatly 
 marvel and muse at, to note in the registers, and to 
 consider how the word of truth notwithstanding did 
 multiply so exceedingly as it did among them. For 
 I find and observe how one neighbour resorting to and 
 conferring with another, eftsoones with a few words 
 of their first or second talk, did win and turn their 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 209 
 
 minds to that wherein they desired to persuade them 
 touching the truth of God’s word.” 
 
 These retired and domestic interviews of indivi- 
 duals, often the most lowly and humble, produced 
 some of the most affecting situations that occurred 
 during the whole progress of the Reformation. Fox 
 says, of one whose only offence consisted in having 
 been present at such meetings, wffiich took place more 
 frequently because reading was then a rare accom- 
 plishment, “ The crimes whereupon he was examined 
 and confessed were these : that he had been five times 
 with William Sweeting in the fields keeping beasts, 
 hearing him read many good things out of a certain 
 book. At which reading also were present at one 
 time Woodroffe, a net-maker, with his wife ; also a 
 brother-in-law of William Sweeting ; and another time 
 Thomas Goodrea, who heard likewise the said Thomas 
 Sweeting read.” 
 
 The same writer relates that, “in 1532, Thomas 
 Harding, about Easter holidays, when the other people 
 went to the church, took his way into the woods, there 
 solitarily to worship the living God in spirit and in 
 truth. Where, as he was occupied in a book of Eng- 
 lish prayers, leaning or sitting upon a stile by the 
 wood side, it chanced that one did espy him where 
 he was, and came in great haste to the officers of the 
 town, declaring that he had seen Harding in the woods 
 looking on a book. Whereupon, immediately a rude 
 rabble of them, like madmen, ran desperately to his 
 house to search for books ; and, in searching, went so 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 nigh that, under the boards of his floor, they found 
 certain English hooks of holy Scripture. Where- 
 upon this godly father, with his hooks, was brought 
 before John Longland, bishop of Lincoln.”* The 
 upshot was, that he was burned as a relapsed heretic. 
 
 There was no artifice to which the popish clergy 
 did not resort, in order to entrap these simple people, 
 causing the wife to detect the husband, the husband 
 the wife ; the father the daughter, the daughter the 
 father; the brother to discover the brother, and 
 neighbour the neighbour. Neither were there any 
 assemblies or readings held, but both the persons 
 and the books were known ; nor was any word so 
 secretly spoken, or article mentioned, but it was dis- 
 closed : with such subtlety did the Catholic prelates 
 prosecute their inquisitions and examinations, that 
 nothing was done or said so covertly but it was at 
 length brought to their knowledge. 
 
 When any of the victims of this horrible inquisi- 
 tion died in prison, “ they were wont,” says Fox, 
 “ to be thrown out to dogs and birds as unworthy of 
 Christian burial. Notwithstanding this merciless 
 commandment, there were some good men who se- 
 cretly buried at night those who were thrown out in 
 this manner ; and many times the archers standing 
 by, and singing together psalms at their burial.” 
 
 The zeal of the bishops to suppress Wicklif ’s Bible 
 only made it the more sought after. They who were 
 able among the Reformers purchased copies; they 
 
 * Fox’s Acts, p. 896. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 <21 L 
 
 who were not able procured at least transcripts of 
 particular gospels or epistles ; and when the flames 
 were kindled, it was a common practice to fasten 
 about the neck of the condemned heretic such of the 
 scraps of Scripture as were found in his possession, 
 that they might share his fate. 
 
 If, overpowered by the fear of death in so cruel a 
 shape, any of these unfortunate victims of persecution 
 purchased their lives by a recantation of their reli- 
 gious opinions, these abjure rs, being tied fast with 
 towels to a post, and their hands held so that they 
 could not stir, were branded by the application of a 
 hot iron to the cheek. On the sleeve, or upper 
 part of their outer garment, they were obliged to 
 wear a piece of coloured cloth to represent a faggot. 
 To put off this badge was deemed a heinous offence ; 
 and particular care was taken to prevent them from 
 hiding the mark of the brand. They were sent for 
 life to various monasteries, and limited to the same 
 fare that was given for alms. On certain market- 
 days, and at different processions, they were obliged 
 to appear in public with a faggot on their shoulders, 
 and to bear the same token of their apostacy once 
 at the burning of a heretic, when they should be re- 
 quired. 
 
 Relics of the barbarous persecution to which arch- 
 bishops Arundel, Courtenay, and Chicheley, so zea- 
 lously lent their aid, are to this day to be seen in the 
 official residence of the English primates at Lambeth, 
 
212 
 
 PERSECUTION OF 
 
 where the Lollards’ Tower is thus named from con- 
 taining the prison in which members of that obnoxious 
 sect were confined. That prison, a room entered by 
 a small pointed doorway, barely large enough to 
 admit one person at a time, and provided with an 
 inner and outer door of strong oak, thickly studded 
 with iron, exhibits eight large iron rings, still firmly 
 fixed, about breast high, in the wainscot that lines 
 the walls. On these are rudely carved, with a knife 
 or some sharp instrument, parts of sentences, names, 
 initials, crucifixes — the work, no doubt, of some of the 
 wretched prisoners who were confined there. 
 
 As each of the prelates had his prison for heretics, 
 so one of the bell-towers at the west end of the old 
 cathedral of St. Paul, which was destroyed by the 
 great conflagration in 1666, was devoted to that 
 purpose, and likewise called the Lollards’ Tower. 
 How many victims of ecclesiastical persecution lan- 
 guished within its walls history has not recorded ; 
 but we learn from Fox that at least one foul and 
 midnight murder was here perpetrated in December, 
 1514. Richard Hunne, a respectable citizen, having 
 dared to bring an action of premunire against a priest, 
 was accused of heresy, and imprisoned in this tower, 
 where he was found hanging. The coroner’s inquest 
 returned a verdict of wilful murder against the per- 
 sons who had charge of the prison ; and it was after- 
 wards discovered that Dr. Horsey, chancellor of the 
 diocese, assisted by the bell-ringer, had first mur- 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 213 
 
 dered the prisoner, and then hung his body against 
 the wall in his own silken girdle, to induce a belief 
 that he had committed suicide. 
 
 With a view to stifle the violent clamours excited 
 by this event, and to withdraw the matter from the 
 cognizance of the civil authority, Fitz-James, bishop 
 of London, by the advice of some of his brother pre- 
 lates, held a court at St. Paul’s, in which Hunne, 
 who had been ten days in the grave, was condemned 
 as a heretic, because a Wicklif Bible had been found 
 in his house ; and his body was ordered to be taken 
 up, and burned in Smithfleld. This base evasion of 
 justice increased the resentment of the laity ; but, 
 though the Commons passed a bill for bringing the 
 murderers of Hunne to punishment, the influence of 
 the clergy caused it to be thrown out by the Lords: 
 and, after a long series of conferences, disputes, and 
 bickerings, the business ended in a compromise. The 
 prelacy agreed to drop all proceedings against their 
 opponents, on condition that Horsey’s plea of Not 
 Guilty in the Court of King’s Bench should be ad- 
 mitted by the Attorney-general as a sufficient answer 
 to the crime of which he was accused. 
 
 Imperfectly as the ends of justice were fulfilled by 
 this decision, it was one of those steps which led by 
 slow but sure progression to the downfall of the 
 Catholic hierarchy. In that age, to bring a church- 
 man to the bar of a civil court was to triumph over 
 the whole body of the priesthood, who thus made at 
 least a virtual acknowledgment of the king’s su- 
 
214 
 
 PERSECUTION OE 
 
 premacy ; and Henry VIII. ordered them to pay 
 .£1500 to the children of the deceased, in com- 
 pensation for what he himself styles “ the cruel 
 murder.”* 
 
 I cannot quit this subject without adverting to the 
 just tribute which Dr. Wordsworth has paid in the 
 Preface to his Ecclesiastical Biography, to the 
 veracity of honest John Fox, whose testimony I have 
 had frequent occasion to quote in the preceding pages. 
 “ Dr. John Milner,” (vicar apostolic of the midland 
 district of England, and of course a zealous champion 
 of popery) says Wordsworth, “ speaks of the fre- 
 quent republications of Fox’s lying Book of Martyrs, 
 with prints of men, women, and children expiring in 
 flames ; the nonsense, inconsistency, and falsehood 
 of which he had, he said, in part exposed in his 
 
 letters to a prebendary These writings have 
 
 not proved, and it never will be proved, that John 
 Fox is not the most faithful and authentic of all his- 
 torians : . . . . The many researches and discoveries 
 of later times in regard to historical documents, have 
 only contributed to place the general fidelity and 
 truth of Fox’s melancholy Narrative on a rock which 
 cannot be shaken.” 
 
 The reign of religious persecution, it is well known, 
 was not ended by the bold and decisive resolution of 
 Henry VIII. to emancipate himself and his kingdom 
 from the influence of the Romish See. If that arbi- 
 trary prince quarrelled with the Pope, he held fast 
 * Fox’s Acts, ii. 8-14. 
 
THE LOLLARDS. 
 
 215 
 
 to popery — a system which furnishes much too con- 
 venient a salve for the consciences of wicked and 
 unprincipled men to be lightly cast off. It was not 
 before the young and truly pious Edward VI. ascend- 
 ed the throne, that the professors of the Reformed 
 doctines obtained a relief from the temporary horrors 
 of popish domination, till fires were again kindled and 
 victims again offered to the Moloch of Rome by his 
 successor, whom posterity has justly branded with 
 the epithet of bloody Mary. 
 
 Of the numbers who perished by this persecution, 
 which lasted for above a century, we find no record : 
 but some idea may be formed of the multitude of the 
 sacrifices to the infatuation of the clergy and their 
 sovereigns, from the hyperbolic declaration of a cor- 
 respondent of Erasmus, that the frequency of execu- 
 tions at Smithfield had advanced the price of fire- 
 wood in the neighbourhood of London. 
 
216 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 V. PERSECUTIONS OF THE VAUDOIS, OR 
 WALDENSES. 
 
 A Christian community, whose origin is buried in 
 the obscurity of the early ages, whose doctrines ap- 
 pear to have been transmitted to them from the pri- 
 mitive apostolic times, and to have been preserved 
 untainted from the successive corruptions engrafted 
 on the mild precepts of the Gospel by the Church of 
 Rome — a community which consequently never 
 needed reformation — is a phenomenon that must 
 excite peculiar interest in the mind of the philosophic 
 as well as the religious reader. Such a phenomenon 
 is presented by the Vaudois, or Waldenses, the very 
 purity of whose doctrines has gained them a place in 
 the calendar of Popish persecutions. 
 
 Cooped up in secluded valleys at the foot of the 
 Alps, in the north-west corner of Piedmont, these 
 people are conjectured by some to have been descen- 
 dants of Christians who sought shelter there from 
 the fury of the barbarian hordes by which Italy was 
 invaded during the decline of the Roman empire. 
 Neither the Vaudois nor their advocates, however, 
 have thought it necessary to trace their origin higher 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 217 
 
 than to the period when they constituted part of the 
 primitive flock so vigilantly and boldly guarded by 
 the apostolic Claude, bishop of Turin, at the com- 
 mencement of the ninth century. 
 
 It was about this time that the worship of images, 
 that relic of paganism, was first decreed as an article 
 of Romish faith by the council of Nice. In vain was 
 this idolatry opposed by the council of Frankfurt, 
 the authority of Charlemagne, and the indignation 
 of the British and German Churches. The Popes 
 were daily extending their authority, spiritual and 
 temporal; the belief of the real presence in the 
 sacrament was defended ; the doctrine of purgatory 
 was introduced, and simony was almost universal. 
 
 Among the opponents of these corruptions Claude 
 stood pre-eminent. Born in Spain, and famous for 
 his talents, he was appointed to the see of Turin by 
 Louis le Debonnaire, who was himself alarmed at the 
 progress of image-worship. Claude wrote commen- 
 taries on several parts of Scripture; of these his 
 commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is the only 
 one printed. In his works, he asserts the equality of 
 all the apostles to Peter, and maintains that Christ 
 is the only head of the Church. He overthrows the 
 doctrine of merits, anathematizes traditions, main- 
 tains that faith alone can save us, holds the Church 
 liable to error, denies the efficacy of prayer for the 
 dead ; and, besides opposing these particular errors 
 of the Church of Rome, severely reproaches her 
 general superstition and idolatry, lie pointedly 
 
218 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 condemns the adoration of saints, images, and relics, 
 and impugns the notion of the supremacy of the 
 Pope.* 
 
 Precisely these opinions, maintained by the bishop 
 of Turin in the beginning of the ninth century, are 
 proved to have been held three hundred years later 
 by the Vaudois. A document of unquestioned 
 authenticity affords evidence on this point. It is an 
 ancient poem, entitled La Nobla Leqon, containing a 
 metrical abridgment of the history and doctrine of the 
 Old and New Testament, in the original language of 
 the country, and manifestly compiled for the purpose 
 of perpetuating the principles of sound belief among 
 the people. The exact date of this highly curious 
 and valuable relic cannot be determined : from the 
 opening lines it has been conjectured that it was 
 composed in the year 1100, but the expressions are 
 so vague as to be applicable to various periods within 
 the succeeding century. Be this as it may, so much 
 is certain that the essential doctrines and principles 
 of the Reformation are to be found in this religious 
 formulary, which concludes with an exposure of the 
 gross errors of the Papacy, the simony of the priest- 
 hood, masses and prayers for the dead, and the abuses 
 of the power of the keys. 
 
 Some writers, misled by the name, have most 
 erroneously attributed the foundation of the Wal- 
 densian Church to Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant 
 
 * Acland’s compendious History of the Vaudois, prefixed to Glo- 
 rious Recovery of their Valleys. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 219 
 
 of Lyons, who flourished about the year 1160; 
 though Beza expressly asserts that, so far from the 
 Vaudois of the valleys having taken their name from 
 him, he was himself named Valdo because he adopted 
 the doctrine of the Vaudois, or inhabitants of the 
 valleys, called in the old language vauw. It is related 
 that, while Waldo and some of the principal citizens 
 of Lyons were one day conversing together, one of 
 them was struck with death before their eyes ; 
 and that, deeply impressed by this circumstance 
 with the sense of human frailty, he renounced 
 the world, and gave himself up entirely to meditation 
 and to the propagation of piety. He first began 
 with his own family, and then, as his fame increased, 
 admitted and instructed others, and also translated 
 portions of the Scriptures, or caused them to be trans- 
 lated, into the vernacular language of Gaul. The 
 clergy of Lyons, when these proceedings came to their 
 knowledge, prohibited his domestic instructions ; but 
 so far was this from deterring him, that he inquired 
 the more diligently into the opinions of the clergy, 
 and into religious rites and customs, and opposed them 
 the more openly and ardently. After teaching for 
 four or five years at Lyons, and gaining many dis- 
 ciples, Waldo drew upon himself the persecution of 
 the archbishop, who, in 1172, anathematized and 
 excommunicated him and his followers. For three 
 years, he remained concealed in the city or its environs, 
 till Pope Alexander III. launched his fulminations 
 against all who should dare to hold communication 
 
220 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 with the reformer. Waldo, for the sake of his 
 friends, then fled from Lyons, and became a wan- 
 derer for the rest of his life. At first he took refuge 
 in Dauphine, probably with the intention of retiring 
 to the secluded valleys of the Yaudois in Piedmont ; 
 but the persecution was too fierce in this part of 
 France, and he was obliged to direct his course to the 
 western provinces, and thence to Picardy, where he 
 made many converts. Finding no asylum in the 
 French dominions, he went to Germany, and settled 
 in 1184 in Bohemia, whither the doctrines of the 
 Vaudois had already penetrated. By the persecution 
 of these early reformers and the zeal of the Wal- 
 densian preachers, their doctrines were circulated 
 through France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and even 
 reached England, where they strewed the seed of that 
 reform commenced by Wicklif. 
 
 The name of Walter Lollard is inserted by Leger 
 and others in the list of Yaudois pastors. It is 
 related of him that, after preaching in Languedoc, 
 Guienne, and Germany, he extended his labours to 
 England, to be preserved here for ever through 
 Wicklif and his followers. The Yallensian origin of 
 their doctrine is attested not only by the denomina- 
 tion of our early reformers, but by Walden, Bellar- 
 min, and other Catholic writers. Popeliniere traces 
 it from the valleys of Piedmont, through Languedoc 
 (the country of the Albigenses) to the neighbouring 
 province of Guienne, at that time in the possession of 
 the English, among whom it was transferred, he says, 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 22 L 
 
 from hand to hand to Wicklif. With this account 
 the information possessed by the Vaudois pastors 
 themselves exactly agrees. On this subject, the Rev. 
 Mr. Gilly, in his instructive account of these people, 
 gives a report of a conversation which he had at the 
 time of his visit in 1823 with M. Peyrani, the mode- 
 rator, or bishop, of their Church, which is particularly 
 interesting. 
 
 “ I must not omit,” he says, “ to notice the evident 
 satisfaction M. Peyrani felt in explaining how closely 
 the doctrines of the Vaudois Church assimilate to 
 
 those' of the Church of England 4 But, 
 
 remember,’ said the old man, with conscious and 
 becoming pride, 4 that you are indebted to us for your 
 emancipation from papal thraldom. We led the way. 
 We stood in the front rank, and against us the first 
 thunderbolts of Rome were fulminated. The baying 
 of the bloodhounds of the Inquisition was heard in 
 our valleys before you knew its name. They hunted 
 down some of our ancestors, and pursued others from 
 glen to glen, and over rock and mountain, till they 
 obliged them to take refuge in foreign countries. A 
 few of these wanderers penetrated as far as Provence 
 and Languedoc, and from them were derived the Albi- 
 genses or heretics of Albi. The province of Guienne 
 afforded shelter to the persecuted Albigenses. Gui- 
 enne was then in your possession. From an English 
 province our doctrines found their way into England 
 itself, and your Wicklif preached nothing more than 
 what had been advanced by the ministers of our 
 valleys four hundred years before his time. 
 
222 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 “ ‘ Whence,’ continued m y aged informant, with 
 increased animation, 4 came your term Lollards, but 
 from a Waldensian pastor, Walter Lollard, who flou- 
 rished about the middle of the thirteenth century? 
 and the Walloons of the Low Countries were nothing 
 more than a sect whose name is a corruption of our 
 own. As for us, we have been called heretics, and 
 
 Arians but we are, like yourselves, a 
 
 church built up in Christ, a church with the disci- 
 pline and regular administration of divine service 
 which constitute a church. We have adhered to the 
 pure tenets of the apostolic age, and the Roman 
 Catholics have separated from us. Ours is the apos- 
 tolical succession, from which the Roman hierarchy 
 has departed, rather than we. We are not only a 
 church by name and outward forms, but a church 
 actually interested by faith in Jesus Christ, the 
 corner-stone.’ ”* 
 
 So long as all the efforts of the papal See were 
 engaged by the struggle with powerful bishops and 
 still more powerful sovereigns, this remnant of 
 genuine Christians was left in the enjoyment of com- 
 parative peace. But no sooner had the Roman pontiffs 
 acquired a spiritual and temporal supremacy, than it 
 was directed against those who had dared to con- 
 demn their usurpations and the errors upheld by 
 them. Alexander III., presiding over a synod held 
 at Tours in 1167, pronounced the doctrine of the 
 
 Gilly’s Visit to the Valleys, 4to. p. 79-81. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 223 
 
 Vaudois to be a damnable heresy of long standing. 
 Another synod, held at La Vaux, urged the Pope 
 to exterminate “ an heretical pest, generated in olden 
 times, of enormous growth and great antiquity.” 
 Still the papists themselves were obliged to bear 
 witness to the irreproachable doctrines and lives of 
 the professors of this “ damnable heresy.” 
 
 An Italian inquisitor, named Reinerus Sacco, ex- 
 pressing his alarm at the danger which threatened 
 his church from the heresy of the Vaudois, because 
 it was more ancient than any other, as well as more 
 general, and because those who professed it were 
 both pious and moral, adds : — “ While all other sects 
 disgust the public by their gross blasphemies against 
 God, this, on the other hand, has a great appearance 
 of piety. For those who belong to it live justly 
 among men, have a sound doctrine in all points 
 respecting God, and believe in all the articles of the 
 Apostles’ creed : but they blaspheme the Romish 
 Church.” Cassini, a Franciscan, writing in the 
 16 th century against the Vaudois, expresses himself 
 nearly to the same effect. “ The errors of the Vau- 
 dois,” he says, “ consist in their denial that the 
 Romish is the holy mother church, and in their re- 
 fusal to obey her traditions. In other points, they 
 recognise the Church of Christ ; and, for my part, 
 I cannot deny that they have always been members 
 of his church.” 
 
 Thus exemplary and unoffending, these people 
 were nevertheless marked out for papal vengeance. 
 
224 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 Bulls were issued against them by John XXII. and 
 his successor Clement VII., but for a considerable 
 time the attention of the Popes was diverted from 
 the chastisement of the Vaudois to the subjugation of 
 princes. The uncertain tenure by which the house 
 of Savoy held the country which they occupied con- 
 tributed also to save them from the rigorous execu- 
 tion of the papal mandates. 
 
 The district inhabited by them is situated in the heart 
 of the valleys which extend along the eastern foot of 
 the Cottian Alps, from Mount Viso to the Col de Ses- 
 trieres, amidst the wildest and most secluded of those 
 fastnesses which lie between the Clusone and the 
 Pelice, two mountain torrents that fall into the river 
 Po. This district originally formed part of the 
 marquisate of Susa, or of the duchy of Turin, both 
 fiefs of the empire, which were granted in the 13th 
 century by William count of Holland to the counts 
 of Savoy. About this time occurred the first per- 
 secution of the Vaudois recorded by historians. In 
 the depth of winter, the inhabitants of the valley of 
 Prajelas were furiously attacked. Those who escaped 
 the general slaughter perished from the severity of 
 the weather on the lofty mountains to which they 
 fied : and Morland relates that, in one morning, 
 eighty mothers with their children were found frozen 
 to death on the snow. 
 
 Recourse was had, during the following centuries, 
 to a system of partial persecution. Persons pre- 
 eminent for virtue or talents, and for that reason 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 225 
 
 obnoxious to the inquisitors of Turin, were seized 
 and doomed to imprisonment for life or the stake. 
 Their sufferings, and the fortitude with which they 
 were endured, seemed rather to produce emulation 
 than terror. Innocent VIII., therefore, issued a bull 
 in 1487, denouncing the Vaudois as heretics, calling 
 upon all the authorities, spiritual and temporal, to 
 join in their extermination, threatening with ex- 
 treme vengeance such as should refuse to take part 
 in the crusade ; promising remission of sins to those 
 who engaged in it, and dissolving all contracts made 
 with the offenders.* Even the inquisitors and monks 
 were exhorted in this bull to take arms unanimously 
 against those heretics, to crush them like poisonous 
 adders, and to make all possible efforts for their 
 holy extermination. It granted also to each true 
 believer a right to seize the property, moveable or 
 immoveable, of the victims without form of process. 
 Albert de Capitaneis, archdeacon of Cremona, was 
 sent as papal legate into Piedmont, to preach the 
 crusade. 
 
 By means of such incitements, an army of 18,000 
 regular troops was collected, and, with a host of 
 undisciplined followers, burst on every side into the 
 valleys. For several months, the work of carnage 
 and devastation was prosecuted ; till Philip VII., 
 
 •* Acland informs us that the original bull was preserved, among 
 the manuscripts collected by Sir Samuel Morland, in the library of 
 the University of Cambridge, from which the volume containing it 
 was stolen. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 visited by some feelings of compunction for the 
 slaughter of his most industrious subjects, not un- 
 mingled with alarm at some symptoms of well- 
 organized resistance, offered to receive the Yaudois 
 into his favour, provided that they would make cer- 
 tain submissions to his temporal authority ; and 
 these, with that affectionate loyalty to their sove- 
 reign for which they have in all cases been distin- 
 guished, they readily conceded. 
 
 As a curious instance of the absurd stories cir- 
 culated respecting these simple people, it is related 
 that, when their deputies appeared before Philip to 
 renew the oath of allegiance, he desired to see some 
 of their children, in order to ascertain the truth of 
 a report that they were born with only one eye in 
 the centre of the forehead. 
 
 The inhabitants of these valleys were now per- 
 mitted to enjoy a short interval of repose, which 
 enabled them to offer an asylum to their brethren in 
 the neighbouring marquisate of Saluzzo, then subject 
 to France, who had been ordered, on pain of death, 
 either to renounce their faith, or at a moment’s 
 warning to abandon their possessions. 
 
 Louis XII., predecessor of Francis, by whom this 
 cruel decree was issued, proved himself to be a 
 prince above the bigoted spirit of his age, and truly 
 deserving of the title of Father of his Country. When 
 Innocent VIII., through his legate Julien, after 
 accusing the Yaudois of many crimes, urged Louis 
 to extirpate them from his dominions without grant- 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 557 
 
 ing an audience to their deputies, “ Though I were 
 at war with the Turk or the devil,” replied the 
 king, “ I would hear what he had to say for himself.” 
 The Vaudois, having made their defence, Louis sent 
 two commissioners — one of them a Dominican and 
 the royal confessor — to the country inhabited by 
 the accused. Their report, upon oath, was to this 
 effect : “ Having visited the parishes and churches of 
 the Vaudois, we find no images, no trace of the ser- 
 vice of the mass, nor any paraphernalia used in the 
 ceremonies observed by Catholics. But, having also 
 made a strict inquiry into their manner of living, 
 we cannot discover the least shadow of the crimes 
 imputed to them. On the contrary, it appears that 
 they piously observe the sabbath, baptize their chil- 
 dren after the manner of the primitive Church, and 
 are thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of the 
 Apostles’ Creed and in the law of God.” The king, 
 on hearing this report, indignantly exclaimed, “ By 
 the holy mother of God, these heretics whom you 
 urge me to destroy are better men than you or my- 
 self, or any of my subjects !” and disbanded the 
 army prepared for their destruction. So little did 
 this excellent monarch dread the thunders of the 
 Vatican, that he had a medal struck with the in- 
 scription : — Perdam Babylonis nomen — “ I will blot 
 out the name of Babylon !” Well had it been for 
 France if his immediate successors had possessed a 
 spirit equally independent. 
 
 The first edict of Francis was not indeed carried 
 
 Q 5 
 
228 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 into execution. When the governor of the province 
 of Saluzzo communicated the orders which he had 
 received to his council, a Catholic archdeacon rose 
 and made the following bold and honest remon- 
 strance in behalf of these proscribed victims — “ As- 
 suredly the king of France must have received some 
 very false and malicious information concerning these 
 poor people. We must delay the execution of his 
 edict, until his majesty can be made acquainted with 
 the real character of this portion of his Italian sub- 
 jects, who are good and honourable men, well dis- 
 posed and faithful to his service, and live peaceably 
 with their Catholic neighbours.” This manly testi- 
 mony, equally honourable to the Protestants and 
 their amiable advocate, was the means of saving their 
 lives, for that time at least. The murderous inten- 
 tion was at first suspended, and afterwards abandoned 
 till another opportunity. 
 
 In 1534, the Yaudois of Piedmont were again un- 
 expectedly attacked by order of Charles, then duke of 
 Savoy ; but, owing to the small force of the assailants 
 and the resolute defence opposed to them, the 
 slaughter was confined to such only of the intended 
 victims as were treacherously surprised. Another 
 expedient was then tried, less formidable in appear- 
 ance, but more mischievous in the result. Small 
 parties, stationed at all the outlets of the district, 
 seized every person who approached ; and fortunate 
 was he who escaped lingering torture by a speedy 
 death. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 229 
 
 In 1536, the chances of war having placed the Vau- 
 dois in subjection to France, they presented an humble 
 supplication to Francis I. for toleration. The king 
 replied, in the ferocious spirit of an inquisitor, that 
 “ he was not burning heretics in France to foster them 
 among the Alps.” Francis, however, still hesitated 
 to issue orders for their persecution. 
 
 Great was the astonishment of these peasants when 
 they learned, soon afterwards, that similar opinions 
 to their own, to which their ancestors had been mar- 
 tyrs, and of which they looked upon themselves as the 
 last depositaries, had found powerful protectors in 
 Germany and some partisans in France. They re- 
 joiced without pride : their pastors complied with the 
 wishes of the Protestant ministers of Switzerland, who 
 were desirous of forming a union with them, not so 
 much to increase the force of the reformed religion, 
 as to give it a more ancient origin. This act was 
 denounced to Francis I. ; but that monarch, though 
 resolved to uphold the Catholic system, could not 
 determine to punish these industrious peasants as 
 rebels. 
 
 In 1540, however, the parliament of Aix, withheld 
 by no such scruples, resolved upon decisive measures 
 against the descendants of a little colony of the Wal- 
 denses, who had settled in the mountains of Dauphine. 
 Summoned before it on account of their religion, they 
 were deterred from appearing by the danger that must 
 have attended compliance. A decree was therefore 
 issued, enacting that every dissentient from the holy 
 
230 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 mother church should acknowledge his errors, and 
 obtain reconciliation within a stated period, under the 
 severest penalties in case of disobedience ; and, be- 
 cause Merindol was considered as the principal seat 
 of the heresy, that devoted town was ordered to be 
 razed to the ground. With a spirit of the most re- 
 fined cruelty, the edict added that all the caverns, 
 hiding-places, cellars, and vaults, in the vicinity of 
 the town should be carefully examined and destroyed ; 
 that the woods should be cut down, and all the gar- 
 dens and orchards laid waste ; and that none who had 
 ever possessed a house or property in the town, or 
 within a certain distance, should ever occupy it again, 
 either in his own person, or in that of any of his name 
 or family, in order that the memory of the excommu- 
 nicated sect might be utterly wiped away from the 
 province, and the place be made a desert. 
 
 De Thou relates that, before the king would permit 
 the execution of this barbarous ordinance, he ordered 
 William du Bellay, count of Langeau, to inquire into 
 the doctrines and morals of these people. Two Romish 
 priests were accordingly despatched for this purpose, 
 and returned the following account : These Waldenses 
 had been a very suffering people ; they originally came 
 from Piedmont, and employed themselves as shepherds 
 and husbandmen ; had rebuilt some villages destroyed 
 in the w T ars, and restored to cultivation many barren 
 places. They were a peaceable people, it was stated, 
 and beloved of their neighbours; men of good and 
 godly conversation, careful to perform their promises 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 231 
 
 and pay their debts, suffering none of their own people 
 to be in want or beggary, and, to the utmost of their 
 means, liberal to strangers and poor travellers ; and, 
 moreover, they were noted among the other inhabi- 
 tants of the district for their total abstinence from 
 blasphemy or swearing of any sort, unless when re- 
 quired by law, and for withdrawing from all company 
 indulging in wanton and profane discourse. It was 
 admitted, on the other hand, that they held in abhor- 
 rence the superstitions of the Church of Rome — the 
 most unpardonable offence of which they could be 
 guilty. Of course, notwithstanding their piety and 
 their blameless lives, the only indulgence granted to 
 them was a respite of three months, with the threat 
 that, if after that they still persisted in their errors 
 of faith, they should be punished with the utmost 
 severity. 
 
 Lacretelle, in his History of the Wars of Religion 
 in France, seems to insinuate that the king never 
 assented to the execution of the barbarous decree of 
 the parliament of Aix, which was kept in abeyance 
 for five years. Violent persons, says that writer, 
 strove to hurry Francis into measures suggested by a 
 barbarous zeal. At their head was Jean Meynier, 
 baron d’Oppede, who, uniting, by a most dangerous 
 abuse, the functions of first president of the parlia- 
 ment of Aix and military lieutenant of the province, 
 displayed the spirit of an executioner, whether he 
 pronounced decrees or carried them into execution. 
 He had sought the hand of a wealthy widow, who 
 
232 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 combined personal charms with the purest virtues. 
 The countess of Cental owed the rapid augmentation 
 of her fortune to the pains she had taken to draw the 
 Yaudois, who left not a foot of ground around them 
 untilled, to her possessions. Respected at court, she 
 lent her support to these peasants, the only heretics 
 that were no innovators. 
 
 What this lady could learn concerning the charac- 
 ter of the baron d’Oppede made her tremble for her 
 vassals. She refused his hand. He swore to be 
 revenged, and a horrible massacre was the means to 
 which he resorted. To imputations which he revived 
 against the Yaudois, he added new ones, contrived 
 with consummate art. He reported to the govern- 
 ment that the Yaudois designed to form themselves 
 into republican cantons, like those of Switzerland, 
 whose errors they shared, and with which they kept 
 up a guilty correspondence ; that they were forming 
 assemblages, training the young men to arms, and 
 ripe for rebellion. Fanatic or perverse magistrates 
 confirmed the testimony of the impostor. Francis 
 was undetermined ; the cardinal de Tournon was 
 alarmed ; the court of Rome threatened its old ene- 
 mies. The king had not yet come to any decision. 
 “Let us anticipate the orders of the court,” said 
 Oppede to the parliament of Aix : “ we possess the 
 power, and it is our duty, since religion enjoins it.” 
 A levy of men, directed by the king in Provence, and 
 destined to serve against the enemies of the state, 
 was employed against the Yaudois. The commander 
 
THE VAUD01S, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 ' 233 
 
 of these new troops placed them at the disposal of 
 d’Oppede, and resolved to preside himself over this 
 barbarous expedition. 
 
 D’Oppede was accompanied by some magistrates, 
 in whom he had kindled a rage equal to his own. 
 Those men who were alleged to be in training for 
 rebellion fled before a handful of soldiers. Women, 
 children, and aged people, sought to save themselves 
 by flight from the general massacre. At length, they 
 reached the foot of the mountains of Piedmont. 
 While ascending laboriously the rocks that were to 
 separate them from France, fires kindled on the 
 summit filled them with dread of fresh enemies. A 
 Piedmontese soldier, from an impulse of pity, shouted 
 to them from a distance, “ Come no further, or you 
 are undone ! ” They turned back : the men dispersed ; 
 the women had scarcely strength to crawl after them. 
 D’Oppede’s troops advanced on all sides : rape was 
 the first act by which these defenders of the faith 
 displayed their zeal. Houses, barns, orchards, were 
 all consigned to the flames. Not one of the inhabi- 
 tants was spared : almost all those who had fled were 
 taken and reserved for the degrading punishment of 
 the galleys. Not a vestige was left of the flourishing 
 village of Merindol. D’Oppede then proceeded to 
 Cabrieres. Thirty men and sixty women, who had 
 not quitted the place, refused to open the gates : too 
 weak to make a long resistance, they strove at least 
 to obtain a capitulation, and to save their lives. They 
 did obtain it, and a promise of liberty, but no sooner 
 
234 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 were they out of the town, than they were surrounded 
 and butchered. Twenty-eight villages were consigned 
 to the flames ; more than four thousand Yaudois 
 perished ; the entire population was swept away. 
 
 Anquetil, a Catholic writer, as well as Lacretelle, 
 expressly asserts that, at the solicitation of the san- 
 guinary d’Oppede, the king did grant permission for 
 the employment of arms against the Waldenses inha- 
 biting the Alps nearest to Provence. As the picture 
 which he draws of the horrors inflicted by popish 
 intolerance on the most innocent and unoffending of 
 men furnishes some additional traits, I shall not hesi- 
 tate to introduce it. 
 
 “ Twenty-two towns or villages were burned or pil- 
 laged with an inhumanity of which the history of the 
 most barbarous nations scarcely affords an example. 
 The wretched inhabitants, surprised in the night, and 
 hunted from rock to rock by the light of the flames 
 which were consuming their habitations, frequently 
 escaped one snare only to fall into another. The 
 pitiful cries of the aged, the women, and the children, 
 instead of softening the hearts of the soldiers, mad- 
 dened with rage, like their leaders, only served to 
 guide them in the pursuit of the fugitives, and to in- 
 dicate the points against which to direct their fury. 
 Voluntary surrender did not exempt the men from 
 slaughter, nor the women from brutal outrages at 
 which nature revolts. It was forbidden, under pain 
 of death, to afford them harbour or succour. At 
 Cabrieres, one of the principal towns of that district, 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 235 
 
 more than seven hundred men were butchered in cold 
 blood; and the women, who had remained in their 
 houses, were shut up in a barn containing a great 
 quantity of straw, which was set on fire, and those 
 who endeavoured to escape by the windows were 
 driven back with swords and pikes. According to 
 the tenor of the sentence, the houses were demolished, 
 the woods cut down, and the fruit-trees uprooted ; 
 and in a short time this tract, previously so fertile 
 and populous, became an uninhabited waste.” 
 
 D’Oppede gloried in this expedition; he expected 
 applause for his barbarities, but the recital produced 
 nothing but horror. The king refused to see him, and, 
 in his last moments, enjoined his successor to punish 
 the massacre of the Vaudois. The parliament of Paris, 
 which was directed to try the principal actors, shewed 
 the greatest weakness and partiality. D’Oppede 
 dared almost to urge his judges to imitate his exam- 
 ple, and to shew no more mercy to heretics than he 
 had done. After fifty solemn sittings, he was acquit- 
 ted, together with the accomplices of his cruelty. 
 Guerin, the advocate-general, alone was hanged, not 
 as a murderer, but for forgery. De Thou alleges 
 that the principal cause of his condemnation was the 
 want of a protector at court ; but what probably 
 occasioned his ruin was his having taken part against 
 d’Oppede on the trial. This man had displayed an 
 atrocious alacrity in the slaughter of the Vaudois, 
 urging on the soldiers by horrible shouts of Tolle ! 
 tolle! Kill! kill! 
 
236 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 The enormities practised on this occasion in Pro- 
 vence were extended to Daupliine and Languedoc : 
 few were the Protestants spared, and still fewer those 
 who had the courage to acknowledge that they be- 
 longed to the proscribed party. But when did reli- 
 gious persecution, however fierce, fail to produce 
 examples of the sublimest heroism ! One of these is 
 cited by Gilly in the person of Aymond de la Voye, 
 who boldly went from village to village, to confirm 
 the wavering and to cheer the desponding, till, 
 having incurred suspicion, he was seized and carried 
 before the tribunal of the Inquisition. The first 
 question put to him, with a design to draw forth a 
 disclosure which might lead to the apprehension of 
 others, was, “ Who are your associates ?” “ My asso- 
 ciates,” he answered, “ are those who know and do 
 the will of my heavenly Father, whether they be 
 nobles, merchants, peasants, or men of any other 
 condition.” 
 
 He was asked, Who is the head of the Church ? — 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Is not the Pope the head of the Church? — No, if 
 he is a good man, he is the minister and primate of 
 the Roman Church, but nothing more. 
 
 Is not the Pope the successor of St. Peter? — Yes, 
 if he be like St. Peter, but not else. 
 
 His persecutors, finding that he was not to be moved, 
 ordered him to be led to execution. As he passed 
 an image of the Virgin Mary, he refused to bow 
 to it ; and the execrations of an infuriated mob had 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 237 
 
 no other effect than to make him pray aloud, “ 0 
 Lord, I beseech thee to make it known to these de- 
 luded creatures that to thee only they ought to bow 
 the head and offer supplications !” As he ascended 
 the scaffold, he cried out with a firm voice, “ Be it 
 known that I die not a heretic, but a Christian !” 
 The clamorous multitude insisted that his mouth 
 should be stopped ; and, before the executioner had 
 inflicted the tortures usual on such occasions, he was 
 ordered to despatch him, because there was no other 
 way of silencing the undaunted Aymond de la Voye, 
 whom protracted sufferings could not intimidate. 
 
 While the Provencal Waldenses were exposed to 
 enormities like these, which were meant to extin- 
 guish the light of the Protestant faith on the western 
 side of the Alps, a fresh storm was ready to burst 
 over their brethren, the Yaudois of Piedmont. 
 
 In 1560, after the restoration of that province to 
 Emanuel Philibert, this prince, who was favourably 
 disposed towards his Protestant subjects, and long 
 resisted all the importunities of the Pope and the 
 bigoted Philip II., of Spain, to prove his zeal for 
 the Catholic faith by the extermination of heresy, 
 yielded at length to their solicitations. A strong 
 army was assembled under the Count de la Trinite. 
 The Yaudois, taught by experience that by success- 
 ful resistance alone they could escape the threatened 
 destruction, concealed the helpless in caverns, while 
 the young and able barricaded themselves in spots 
 which Nature had rendered most defensible. The 
 
238 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 count found every wood an ambush, every rock a 
 fort, and all his movements were discovered by spies 
 stationed on the heights. Mortified by repeated fai- 
 lures, he applied for reinforcements : but every fresh 
 combat served only to increase his disgrace and the 
 confidence of the Vaudois, till winter compelled a 
 suspension of hostilities. 
 
 The reader will not be displeased to find here a 
 more explicit account of these proceedings, extracted 
 from a letter, written by Scipio Lentulus, a Neapo- 
 litan, who appears to have joined the Vaudois, in- 
 serted in Morland’s History of those people, and 
 thence copied in Gilly’s Appendix. 
 
 “ There is a certain valley in the county of Pie- 
 mont, within five or six miles of Mount Vesulo, 
 which from the town of Lucerna is called the valley 
 of Lucerna ; and in it there is a little valley, which 
 from Angrogna, a small river running through it, is 
 called the valley of Angrogna. Next adjoining to 
 this are two other valleys ; that is to say, the valley 
 of Perosa, so called from the town of that name, and 
 the valley of S. Martino. In these there lie divers little 
 towns and villages, whose inhabitants, assisted by 
 the ministers of God’s word, do make open profes- 
 sion of the Gospel. 
 
 “ Moreover, I suppose that there are near 8,000 
 faithful souls inhabiting in this place. But among 
 the men, who are bred up to endure labour, seeing 
 they have from their childhood been inured to hus- 
 bandry, you will find very few that know how to 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 239 
 
 engage in combat. From hence it comes to pass 
 that very few of them are ready upon any urgent oc- 
 casion to defend themselves against public injuries. 
 Yea, and the valleys themselves lie so remote from 
 each other, that they cannot help one another till it 
 be too late. And although these towns and villages 
 have their counts or lords, yet the duke of Savoy is 
 lord over them all. 
 
 “ This duke, before he came from Nice into Pie- 
 mont, diligently took order with those counts and 
 lords of places, that they should admonish the inha- 
 bitants to submit to him and the Pope ; that is, that, 
 casting off their ministers, they should admit Popish 
 preachers and the abominable mass. Whereupon our 
 people sent petitions unto the prince, beseeching him 
 that he would take it in good part if they were 
 resolved rather to die than to lose the true religion 
 of Jesus Christ. . . .but they shall be ready to amend 
 their errors, if any there were, in case it should be 
 manifested to them out of the word of God, to which 
 alone they are to submit in this business : and as 
 to what concernetli them in matters of behaviour 
 and tributes and other things due both to him and 
 their other lords, that he would send and make dili- 
 gent inquiry whether they have at any time com- 
 mitted any offence, that so due punishment may be 
 inflicted on them, because he should assuredly know 
 they are willing to approve themselves with due 
 reverence most obedient to him in all things. 
 
 “ These petitions came to the hand of the prince, 
 
240 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 but availed nothing with him, who was become a 
 sworn enemy with Antichrist against Christ. There- 
 upon he sent forth edicts, declaring that those who 
 should be present at the sermons of the ministers of 
 the valleys, if but once, should be fined at one hun- 
 dred crowns, and if a second time, then they should 
 be condemned to the galleys for ever. Orders also 
 were given to a certain judge to ride circuit up and 
 down to put the penalties in execution, and to bind 
 Christians and imprison them. The lords also and 
 magistrates of places had the same power given 
 them, and at length the godly were by this most 
 impotent prince utterly given up to be plundered 
 by all sorts of villains and afflicted with most 
 grievous calamities. 
 
 “ He sent also a certain collateral judge of his 
 own first to Carignan, there to act inhuman butchery 
 upon the faithful ones of Christ; whereupon he 
 caused one Marcellinus and Joan his wife, he being 
 a Frenchman, but she a woman of Carignan, to be 
 burnt alive with fire four days after they had been 
 apprehended. But in this woman God was pleased 
 to manifest an admirable example of constancy : for, 
 as she was led to execution, she exhorted her hus- 
 band, saying, 4 Well done, my brother, be of good 
 courage ; this day doubtless we shall enter together 
 into the joys of heaven.’ Some few days after this, 
 there was apprehended also one John Carthignan, 
 an honest plain man and truly religious, who, after 
 three days of imprisonment, endured the torments of 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 241 
 
 fire with very great constancy. Who is able to 
 reckon up the several incursions, slaughters, plun- 
 ders and innumerable miseries, wherewith this most 
 savage generation of men did daily afflict all pious 
 men, because, being exhorted by their ministers to 
 patience, they took no course to defend themselves 
 against injuries ! Not long after also they appre- 
 hended one John, a Frenchman, and a minister, at 
 a town called St. Germano, and, carrying him to a 
 certain abbey near Pinerolo, there burnt him alive, 
 who left a noble example of Christian constancy* 
 The like w 7 as done also to the minister of the town 
 of Maine, who was put to death at Susa by a slow 
 fire, while he in the mean time stood as it were., im- 
 moveable, and, not being touched with any sense of 
 so incredible a cruelty, having his eyes fixed upon 
 heaven, breathed out his happy soul. 
 
 “ Therefore, when things were come to this pass, 
 and these miseries were increased every day more 
 and more, and seeing that the patience and extreme 
 misery of our people could not in any measure allay 
 the fury and rage of these most merciless brutes, they 
 at length resolved by force, as well as they could, to 
 free themselves and their wives and children from 
 that barbarous usage. And although some of our 
 ministers declared it was not well done, yet no ad- 
 monitions could keep the people from resolving to 
 defend themselves by arms. Hereupon it came to 
 pass that, several encounters falling out, there fell 
 within a few days about sixty of the plunderers. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 When news hereof was brought to the tyrant, he 
 commanded his men to forbear, and sent two of his 
 noblemen that so they might bring matters to an 
 accommodation with our people : but when it was 
 perceived that all their drift was that our ministers 
 might be cast out and the Pope received, the people 
 would by no means yield to it. Wherefore, when the 
 prince came into Piemont, and resided at Versello, 
 about the kalends of November, 1560, with intent 
 to destroy all in the valleys by fire and sword, he 
 sent an army of about 4,000 foot and 200 horse, 
 under the command of the duke [count] de la 
 Trinite.” 
 
 The writer then relates the submissions made by 
 certain deputies whom the Vaudois sent to the duke. 
 “ These false brethren, in design to serve their own 
 private ends, persuaded the people, though almost all 
 the ministers cried out against it, that too easily 
 giving credit to the most false promises of their 
 enemies, laying down their arms, and sending deputies 
 to the prince to promise obedience, they might, for 
 16,000 crowns, redeem both themselves and their 
 religion. As soon as all these things were yielded to 
 and promised by the too credulous people, through a 
 vain hope of obtaining peace and religion, and when 
 our deputies arrived at Versello, they were thence 
 carried by the Lord de la Trinite to a certain cloister, 
 there to abide for two months’ space (to the end there 
 might be time for collecting the moneys), and at 
 length, casting themselves down at the feet of the 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 243 
 
 prince and of the Pope’s legate, (who were both 
 there, attended by a great number of the nobility, 
 and men of inferior rank) they were constrained to 
 supplicate the prince first, then the Pope’s legate, 
 that they would take pity on the people from whom 
 they were sent, and to promise them, by an oath, that 
 they would be ready to do all things that should be 
 commanded by them. 
 
 “ The prince therefore growing confident upon this 
 most solemn promise, immediately sent persons to 
 command our people to receive and embrace that 
 horrid idol of the mass ; whereupon, considering the 
 inconstancy of their deputies, and the deceit or 
 rather extreme perfidiousness of the tyrants being 
 discovered, they plainly refused to yield that those 
 things should be ratified which their deputies had 
 unadvisedly transacted, through their own levity, not 
 
 with the consent of the people Then 
 
 the tyrant, as soon as he came to understand this, 
 was much more inflamed than ever before with anger, 
 or rather outrageous fury, against our people ; and, 
 collecting a rabble of an army, he gave command to 
 the Lord de la Trinite to waste and destroy all by 
 fire and sword, without any regard of sex or age. 
 Hereupon houses were everywhere set on fire, nor is 
 there any kind of mischief which was not acted by 
 those most wretched villains : by which means they 
 forced our people, with their wives and children, to 
 have recourse to the more craggy places of the moun- 
 tains : a thing very lamentable to be seen. For, at 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 the very first assault, they were in a manner as- 
 tonished, because, being spoiled both of their arms and 
 goods, living in extreme want of all things, they did 
 not see by what means they might be able to undergo 
 so great and troublesome a war. 
 
 “ But at length, taking heart and trusting in the 
 mercy and help of God, of the goodness of their 
 cause, and being confident, because of the impiety 
 and treachery of their adversaries, they resolved once 
 again to defend themselves. To this end they ap- 
 pointed their guards and garrisons, fortified several 
 places, blocked up passages, and were wholly resolute 
 upon this point, to die rather than they would in any 
 measure obey a perfidious and wicked prince in so 
 abominable a matter. But what need many words ? 
 Things were come to such a pass that in several 
 fights above 900 of the enemy were slain, whereas, on 
 our side, hardly fifteen were wanting.” 
 
 No sooner had winter withdrawn its protection 
 from the devoted inhabitants of the valleys, than the 
 Savoyard general, strengthened by a body of French 
 veteran troops, resumed operations. Before the face 
 of his army, the Yaudois stormed a fort recently 
 erected at Villaro. Concentrating his force, in 
 order to revenge this insult, the count marched 
 with 8,000 picked men to the valley of Angrogna, 
 with the determination to drive his adversaries from 
 the Pra del Tor, a small circular plain in the heart 
 of the mountains, from which they had never yet 
 been dislodged. For four successive days, assault 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 245 
 
 followed assault, as quickly as the baffled columns 
 could be relieved by fresh troops ; and such was the 
 heroic defence made by the Vaudois, that Trinite was 
 obliged to fall back on La Torre, leaving more than 
 400 men on the field, in addition to the wounded 
 and those who had been previously interred. 
 
 Bent on accomplishing his purpose, the count re- 
 solved to make a second attempt, in which he em- 
 ployed Spanish troops. These, finding the contest as 
 fruitless and destructive as the former, concluded 
 that some fatality was attached to the scene of action. 
 Seized by a superstitious panic, they proceeded to 
 open mutiny. The Vaudois, taking advantage of the 
 consequent confusion, became in their turn the as- 
 sailants. The rout of the enemy was immediate and 
 complete. The victors pursued the fugitives through 
 the rude and narrow valley of Angrogna, where the 
 torrent and the precipices proved almost as fatal to 
 them as the sword. 
 
 During these operations, a striking proof was ex- 
 hibited of the high estimation in which the moral 
 character of the Vaudois was held even by those who 
 would have rejoiced in their extermination. When 
 compelled by the invading force to abandon the low 
 country, and to seek refuge among the mountains, 
 their enemies took possession of the small towns. 
 The Roman Catholic families would have remained, 
 but so licentious was the conduct of the soldiery 
 that all the young females of La Torre, the principal 
 place, retired and put themselves under the protec- 
 
246 
 
 PE11SF.CUT10NS OF 
 
 tion of the Vaudois, who had retired behind the fast- 
 nesses of Angrogna, rather than be exposed to the 
 brutality of men who came to extirpate heresy, and 
 to vindicate the honour of the Catholic religion. 
 The duke of Savoy, weary of this disastrous warfare, 
 and of sacrificing his troops and his treasure for the 
 gratification of the Pope and the Inquisition, caused 
 such conditions of peace to be proposed to the 
 Yaudois as were gladly accepted. By this treaty he 
 granted to the Protestants the free exercise of their 
 religion in their own valleys, and threatened to punish 
 all who should dare to give them any molestation. It 
 allowed them also unrestricted communication with 
 the rest of his dominions and liberty to reside in 
 any part of them. 
 
 As, however, the Romish Church dispenses papist 
 princes from the necessity of keeping their engage- 
 ments with heretics longer than suits their interest, 
 scarcely four years had elapsed from the con- 
 clusion of this treaty, solemnly ratified with all 
 the usual formalities, when an edict, issued by the 
 same prince, ordered that all who should not, within 
 ten days, pledge themselves before a magistrate to 
 attend mass, must leave the country within two 
 months. Fortunately for the Yaudois, the spirited 
 interference of some of the Protestant German princes 
 prevented the execution of this iniquitous decree. 
 
 Scarcely a year now passed without exhibiting 
 proofs of the hatred borne to the Yaudois by their 
 popish rulers. The limits within which they had 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 247 
 
 liberty to dwell were continually more and more cir- 
 cumscribed ; sudden attacks by their neighbours, for 
 the sake of plunder, were authorised ; great numbers 
 were thrown into prison, and their property confis- 
 cated. On the exchange with France of the districts of 
 Gex and la Bresse for the marquisate of Saluzzo, the 
 Vaudois were extirpated, root and branch, from this 
 newly acquired territory by Charles Emanuel, the 
 reigning duke of Savoy. 
 
 About this time, the Protestant schools and col- 
 leges were suppressed, and Popish convents esta- 
 blished in the valleys. The inhabitants were for- 
 bidden under severe penalties to send their children 
 to foreign countries for education ; and the abduc- 
 tion of males under twelve and females under four- 
 teen years of age, for the purpose of converting them 
 to the Romish faith, was sanctioned by law. 
 
 At length, after repeated violations and retrench- 
 ments of the immunities guaranteed to them by 
 solemn treaty, “ the bloody ordinance of Gastaldo,” 
 so named from its consequences, was issued in the 
 beginning of the year 1655. It decreed that such of 
 the Vaudois as would not embrace the Catholic faith, 
 or sell their possessions to those who professed it, 
 must within a few days quit their native valleys. In 
 spite of the humble supplications presented by the 
 Vaudois to the different members of the government 
 in the hope of averting the storm, upwards of a 
 thousand families were driven from their homes and 
 
248 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 properties, in the depth of winter, to the shelterless 
 recesses of Alpine heights. The marquis de Pianezza 
 entered the valleys with an army of 15,000 men. 
 Aware of the desperate resistance which he should 
 haye to encounter, if the Vaudois should flee to the 
 mountains and concentrate themselves there, he af- 
 fected a desire for an amicable arrangement, and 
 invited them to send deputies to confer on the terms. 
 These he treated with great apparent kindness, and 
 promised to defer hostilities, if, in token of their 
 pacific disposition, they would receive a few com- 
 panies of soldiers into the different villages. Sus- 
 pecting no treachery, the simple people complied, 
 and the massacre which ensued filled all Protestant 
 Europe with horror. Indeed, the enormities com- 
 mitted were such as to extort unqualified reprobation 
 from Catholics themselves, as may be seen by the 
 following extracts quoted by Acland, from a work 
 entitled Abrege de VHistoire de ce Siecle de Fer , 
 published at Brussels in 1660, and written, as Leger 
 informs us, by a Papist. 
 
 “ I hold in abhorrence,” says this Romish writer, 
 “ all enmities on account of difference in religion, and 
 all those who by the violence of their prejudices 
 disturb the public repose. Those who love God with 
 all their souls do not foment hatreds or delight in 
 carnage. The persecutions of the Irish * and the 
 
 * The massacre of the Protestants in Ireland, in 1641. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 249 
 
 Vaudois, wlio inhabit some valleys under the duke 
 of Savoy, appear to result from the hatred I have 
 mentioned” 
 
 After adverting to the ordinance of 1655, the 
 writer proceeds : “ This order compelled a journey 
 in the depth of winter over high mountains and 
 through deep snow, the hardships of which might 
 have moved the rocks to compassion — a feeling 
 foreign to the hearts of those who were to enforce 
 the order. 
 
 “ Robbers, secretly instigated, plundered the 
 houses, and thus compelled the exiles to return and 
 defend their property, while awaiting the effect of 
 their remonstrances. Those who returned were 
 termed rebellious, and were surprised by a Pied- 
 montese army, commanded by the marquis of Pia- 
 nessa and five French regiments under the count de 
 Quinsey. Four thousand victims suffered death 
 under cruelties too horrible to be related. Ah ! 
 great God ! if thy justice were not checked by 
 mercy, this age would not have run half its career ! 
 The eye could see in these valleys nothing but 
 flames ; the ear heard only pitiable cries and their 
 lamentable echoes. The Vaudois being driven in 
 this manner from the valleys of Lucerna and An- 
 grogna, the horrible process was repeated in that of 
 St. Martin. This carnage drove to arms those who 
 found no refuge in humility or supplications. De- 
 spair provides weapons in abundance. Four hundred 
 
250 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 Vaudois descended to St. Secondo, cut in pieces 
 150 soldiers, burnt several places. 
 
 “ The news of these commotions alarmed all the 
 neighbouring Protestants, who wrote to the Pro- 
 tector and the States General. The English, when 
 informed of these massacres, were so moved with 
 compassion for their elder brethren, that they im- 
 plored the Protector seriously to interfere. In the 
 mean time, the Vaudois were in constant conflict 
 with the Savoyards, burning their towns as their 
 own had been burnt, and giving as little quarter as 
 they had received. 
 
 “ All Protestants had at heart the peaceful re- 
 establishment of the Vaudois : for when they want 
 to prove the antiquity of their doctrine, they refer 
 to that of the Vaudois, in the pure preservation of 
 which their own is necessarily involved.” 
 
 It would appear that the duke of Savoy himself 
 was ashamed of the inhumanities perpetrated in his 
 name on the wretched Protestants of the valleys ; 
 for a state paper, under the title of a Factum or 
 Narrative of Transactions in the valley of Lucerna, 
 in 1655, was published for the purpose of contra- 
 dicting the reports circulated concerning the bar- 
 barity of the troops ; and, for a confirmation of this 
 contradiction, an appeal was made in that paper to 
 the testimony of an officer, belonging to them. “ He 
 who commanded the said regiment,” says the Fac- 
 tum, “ was the Signor du Petit Bourg, a professor 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 251 
 
 of the pretended reformed religion, as was the adju- 
 tant, who caused all the orders that were given to be 
 put in execution. Now the marquis gave command 
 to him, and recommended to his especial care to see 
 that the people of Angrogna should be treated in 
 the mildest manner possible. This Signor du Petit 
 Bourg hath the reputation of being a person of so 
 much honour that there is no doubt he will speedily 
 attest the truth hereof, and that he will never say 
 he received any order to the contrary.” Du Petit 
 Bourg, however, made a very different attestation 
 from that which was expected of him. 
 
 “ I, the Signor du Petit Bourg, first captain of the 
 regiment of Granse and commander of the same, 
 having received instructions from Prince Thomas to 
 join the marquis de Pianezza, who w T as then at La 
 Torre, just as I was ready to set out, the ambassador 
 sent for me, and desired me to speak to M. de Pia- 
 nezza, and to use my efforts to accommodate the 
 troubles then existing in the Protestant valleys of 
 Piemont : in order whereunto I did then address 
 myself to the said marquis, and entreated him with 
 great earnestness that he would permit me to under- 
 take the said accommodation ; which I supposed that 
 I should be able to effect. But he refused this my 
 request, notwithstanding the endeavours I used to 
 persuade him, and, instead of the least mitigation 
 of affairs that this or any other consideration was 
 likely to produce, I was witness to many great 
 violences and cruelties exercised by the banditti and 
 
252 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 soldiers of Piemont, upon all of every age, sex, and 
 condition, whom I myself saw massacred, dismem- 
 bered, hung up, and ravished, with many horrid cir- 
 cumstances of barbarity. And so far is it from truth 
 that this was done by virtue of orders issued by me, 
 (as it is falsely alleged in a certain relation printed 
 in French and Italian) that I beheld the same with 
 horror and regret. And whereas it is said in the 
 same relation that the marquis de Pianezza com- 
 manded me to treat them leniently and in the best 
 manner I could, the event clearly demonstrated that 
 the orders he gave were quite contrary : and it is 
 certain that, without any distinction of those who 
 did or did not resist, they were treated with every 
 kind of inhumanity ; their houses were burnt, their 
 goods were plundered, and, when prisoners were 
 brought before the marquis, I saw him give orders to 
 grant them no quarter at all, ‘ because,’ said he, ‘ his 
 highness is resolved to have none of this religion in 
 any of his dominions.’ 
 
 “ And as for what he protests in the same declara- 
 tion, namely, that there was no injury done to any, 
 except during the fight, nor the least outrage com- 
 mitted upon any lunatic or idiot, I will assert and do 
 maintain that it was not so, having seen with mine 
 own eyes several men killed in cold blood, and even 
 women, aged persons, and young children miserably 
 murdered. 
 
 “ With regard to the manner in which they made 
 themselves masters of Angrogna, to pillage and burn 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 253 
 
 the same, they did it easily enough ; for, excepting 
 six or seven who made opposition, seeing there could 
 be no mercy shown, the peasants thought more of 
 flying than fighting the enemy. 
 
 “ In short, I absolutely affirm and protest before 
 God that none of those cruelties before mentioned 
 were executed by my order, but, on the contrary, 
 seeing that I could effect no mitigation, I was obliged 
 to retire and quit the command of the regiment, for 
 fear of being present at more such iniquitous actions. 
 
 (Signed) “ Du Petit Bourg. 
 
 “ Done at Pinerolo, Nov. 25, 1655.” 
 
 All Protestant Europe was fired with indignation 
 on hearing of the sufferings of the inhabitants of the 
 valleys of Piedmont, and by none of the legitimate 
 princes was that feeling expressed with greater 
 energy than by the Protector Cromwell and his Latin 
 secretary, the inspired bard of Paradise Lost, whose 
 impassioned apostrophe, written on this occasion, 
 beginning: 
 
 © o 
 
 “ Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones 
 Lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold,” 
 
 is well known to every lover of poetry. Cromwell, 
 as soon as he was informed of the proceedings in the 
 valleys, not only addressed remonstrances to the king 
 of France, and despatched envoys or letters to all the 
 Protestant sovereigns and States, urging them to 
 come forward in support of their persecuted brethren ; 
 
254 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 but ordered a narrative representing the state of the 
 Waldensian Church to be printed and distributed 
 throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and recom- 
 mended a general subscription for its relief. He set 
 the example by contributing himself £2000 from the 
 privy purse ; and a sum exceeding ^638,000 was soon 
 collected. 
 
 In a second letter to Louis XIV., the Protector 
 intimated that he expected him not only to exert his 
 influence with the duke of Savoy on behalf of the 
 Vaudois, but to afford shelter and protection to such of 
 them as might seek refuge in his dominions. The man 
 who, on demanding redress for the seizure of a British 
 consul by the Inquisition, and being answered by the 
 king of Spain that he had no authority over that 
 tribunal, instantly replied “ Then I will declare war 
 against it,” was not to be lightly provoked or trifled 
 with. This Louis well knew ; and, probably under 
 the direction of the wily Mazarin, he assumed towards 
 Cromwell a tone of extraordinary moderation. “ I 
 am very glad, Monsieur le Protecteur,” he wrote, 
 “ that you are touched with the calamities of these 
 poor people, and I have anticipated your wishes by 
 continuing my intercessions with the duke of Savoy for 
 their comfort and relief, and for their establishment 
 in the respective places of his dominions, which they 
 enjoyed by concession from the dukes, his predeces- 
 sors. For the rest, you have judged rightly in not 
 believing that I had given any orders to my troops to 
 do such execution among them : in fact, there could 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 25 5 
 
 be no suspicion that I had contributed to the chas- 
 tisement of any of the duke of Savoy’s subjects of the 
 so-called reformed religion, at the same time that I 
 was giving so many marks of my good-will to those 
 of my own subjects of the same profession, having 
 had cause to applaud their fidelity and zeal for my 
 service, since they have not omitted any opportunity 
 of giving me proof thereof, even beyond all that can 
 be imagined, and have contributed in all things to the 
 welfare and advantage of my affairs.” 
 
 These preliminary steps the Protector followed up 
 by sending Mr. (afterwards Sir) Samuel Morland on 
 a special mission to the court of Turin. He was 
 charged with strong letters of remonstrance addressed 
 to the duke himself, and ordered to demand an audi- 
 ence for the purpose of expressing the indignation 
 which his treatment of the Yaudois had excited in 
 England. A fitter person for such an embassy than 
 Morland, young, ardent, bold, and conscious of the 
 dignity of the character which he had to sustain as the 
 representative of the Commonwealth, could not have 
 been selected. He obtained an audience at Rivoli, 
 where the duke was then residing, and, in presence of 
 his mother, Madame Royale (daughter of Henry IV.), 
 and the whole court, he addressed him in a Latin 
 speech containing truths which none but a stern 
 republican would have ventured to pour into royal 
 ears — for Cromwell would not consent to hold diplo- 
 matic intercourse in any but his own language or that 
 
256 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 of ancient Rome.* After a few preliminary expres- 
 sions of courtesy, he proceeded to notice the deplor- 
 able condition of the persecuted Yaudois. The 
 following passage, given in the words of his own 
 quaint translation, serves not only to show the tone 
 of this extraordinary address, but also to confirm the 
 facts previously related. 
 
 “ In behalf of these poor people, the most serene 
 Protector of England is also become an intercessor ; 
 and he most earnestly entreatetli and beseecheth your 
 royal highness, that you would be pleased to extend 
 your mercy to these your very poor subjects and most 
 disconsolate outcasts : I mean those who, inhabiting 
 beneath the Alps, and certain valleys under your 
 dominion, are professors of the Protestant religion. 
 For he hath been informed (which no man can say 
 was done by the will of your royal highness,) that 
 part of these most miserable people have been cruelly 
 massacred by your forces, part driven out by violence, 
 and forced to leave their native habitations; and so 
 without house or shelter, poor and destitute of all 
 relief, do wander up and down with their wives and 
 children, in craggy and uninhabitable places and 
 mountains covered with snow. Oh ! the fired houses, 
 which are yet smoking, the torn limbs, and ground 
 defiled with blood ! Virgines , post stupra, differto 
 lapillis et ruderibus utero , misere efflarunt animas. 
 
 * In the Appendix to his work, Gilly has given all the letters 
 written in behalf of the Vandois, and proceeding from the classic pen 
 of Milton. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 257 
 
 “ Some men, a hundred years old, decrepit with age 
 and bed-rid, have been burnt in tlieir beds. Some 
 infants have been dashed against the rocks, others have 
 had their throats cut, whose brains have, with more 
 than Cyclopean cruelty, been boiled and eaten by the 
 murderers. What need I mention more, although I 
 could reckon up very many cruelties of the same 
 kind, if I were not astonished at the very thought of 
 them. If all the tyrants of all times and all ages 
 were alive again (which I would speak without offence 
 to your highness, seeing we believe none of these 
 things were done through any default of yours) cer- 
 tainly they would be ashamed when they should find 
 that they had contrived nothing in comparison with 
 these things that might be reputed barbarous and 
 inhuman. 
 
 “ In the mean time, the angels are surprised with 
 horror ; men are amazed ; Heaven itself seems to be 
 astonished with the cries of dying men ; and the 
 very earth to blush, being discoloured with the gore- 
 blood of so many innocent persons. Do not thou, 
 0 thou most high God, do not thou take that revenge 
 which is due to so great wickedness and horrible 
 villanies ! Let thy blood, 0 Christ, wash away this 
 blood !” 
 
 These earnest remonstrances, probably reinforced 
 by the destructive partisan warfare which was thin- 
 ning his troops, induced the duke of Savoy to pro- 
 mise that he would proclaim a general act of indem- 
 nity, and restore to the Vaudois their possessions 
 
 VOL. i. s 
 
258 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 and the privileges granted by his predecessors. Four 
 ambassadors of the Protestant cantons of Switzer- 
 land offered to be the mediators on this occasion ; 
 but the only person whom the duke would accept in 
 that character was Louis XIV., as represented by 
 Servient, his ambassador. The Protestant powers, 
 thrown off their guard by the duke’s promises, made 
 no objection to this arrangement. The Swiss envoys 
 were invited to meet the deputies of both parties and 
 Servient at Pignerol; and the French diplomatist 
 and his assistants, who had a secret understanding 
 with the duke, contrived so well to mask the 
 nature of his designs, that a treaty was concluded, 
 which Cromwell, in a letter addressed in 1 658 to Louis 
 XIV., justly described as “ a more concealed course 
 of hostility under the name of peace.” The Vau- 
 dois and their defenders were led to expect that the 
 fort of La Torre would be demolished : and so it was, 
 but only to be succeeded by another of greater 
 strength and in a more advantageous situation. 
 
 Of the state of the Vaudois after this persecution, 
 an affecting picture is drawn by Morland. 
 
 “ It is my unhappiness,” he says, “ to leave them 
 where I found them, among the potsherds, with 
 sackcloth and ashes spread under them. To this 
 very day, they labour under most heavy burdens, 
 which are laid on their shoulders by those rigid task- 
 masters of the Church of Rome. To this very day, 
 do the enemies of the truth plough and make long 
 furrows upon their backs, by robbing them of their 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 259 
 
 goods and estates ; by banishing their ministers, who 
 are the shepherds of the flock, that the wolves may 
 the better come in and devour them ; by ravishing 
 their young women and maidens ; by murdering 
 many innocent souls; by cruel mockings and re- 
 vilings ; by continual menaces of another massacre. 
 What shall I say? Those very valleys which they 
 inhabit are no other than a prison or dungeon, to 
 which the fort of La Tour serves as door. To all 
 this I must add that, notwithstanding those large 
 supplies which have been sent them from England or 
 foreign states, yet so great is the number of hungry 
 creatures, and so grievous the oppressions of their 
 popish enemies, who lie in wait to bereave them of 
 whatsoever is given them, and snatch at every morsel 
 of meat that goes into their mouths, that verily, ever 
 and anon, they are ready to eat their flesh for want 
 of bread. The tongue of the suckling cleaves to the 
 roof of his mouth, and the young children ask for 
 bread, and no man gives it to them. The young and 
 the old lie on the ground in the streets. Their 
 miseries are more sad and grievous than words can 
 express — they are in a manner dying while they yet 
 live : no grapes in their vineyards, no herds in their 
 stalls, no corn in their garners, no meal in their 
 barrel, no oil in their cruse.” 
 
 The intention of the new fort at La Torre soon 
 became evident. A strong garrison stationed there 
 commanded all the valleys, and indulged in the most 
 barbarous excesses. The flight of the Vaudois from 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 so dangerous a neighbourhood was made a fresh 
 handle for oppression. The fugitives were ordered 
 to return within three days to their dwellings, and 
 to enrol their names at the fort : as well might they 
 have been required to cast themselves into a den of 
 ravenous beasts. Some, who did return to their 
 houses in the vain hope of saving a remnant of their 
 property, were seized and imprisoned in the castle ; 
 while the goods of the others, who would not leave 
 their hiding-places, were confiscated. Their appli- 
 cations to the throne were declared inadmissible, if 
 they made any allusions to religion and trade : and 
 when, under the pressure of extreme misery, they 
 framed such a petition as was unobjectionable, it was 
 used, in answer to the interference of the envoy of 
 Berne, to prove that the Vaudois had no longer any 
 complaint to make on the score of religion. 
 
 The persecuted Vaudois justly considered the king 
 of France, whose agents had patched up the perfidious 
 treaty of Pignerol as the author of their grievances. 
 To him, therefore, they addressed a petition, humbly 
 imploring his interposition, and beseeching him to 
 see justice done to them. Angry letters from the 
 French ambassador, who had assisted in framing that 
 treaty, were the only reply. He sharply rebuked 
 them for their presumption and discontent, and even 
 reproached them for accepting money and supplies 
 from foreigners — alluding to the contributions trans- 
 mitted from England. “ Alas !” said the ivretched 
 sufferers, “ was it ever known before that miserable 
 
THE VAUHOIS, OR WALDENSES. 261 
 
 men, after losing all they possessed, after having had 
 their houses burnt and their goods plundered, should 
 have it objected to them that they had received the 
 charity of those who had pity on them, to prevent 
 their perishing of hunger !” 
 
 Cromwell was enraged on learning how completely 
 the Protestant states had been overreached in their 
 negociation with the duke of Savoy, and in the con- 
 fidence which they had reposed in the mediation 
 of Louis XIY. He wrote to the king in a high tone 
 of indignant remonstrance, and directed Lockhart, 
 his ambassador in Paris, to urge the expediency of 
 an exchange of territory between Louis XIY. and the 
 duke of Savoy, in order that the Yaudois might be 
 placed for ever beyond the iron rule of the latter. 
 The barbarous intolerance of the French monarch, 
 who, during the latter portion of his life, under the 
 sway of popes, priests, and confessors, revoked the 
 edict of Nantes, and in 1686 urged Victor Amedeus 
 to repeat the enormities of his predecessor, renders 
 it doubtful whether this scheme would have proved 
 a relief to those for whose benefit it was designed. 
 
 o 
 
 In a letter to the Swiss cantons, Cromwell also sig- 
 nified to them his readiness to go all lengths in con- 
 junction with them for the benefit of the Protestants 
 of Piedmont ; urging that they were bound by in- 
 terest as well as sympathy to prevent, by all the 
 means in their power, the most ancient stock of the 
 reformed religion from being destroyed in the re- 
 mains of its old and faithful professors, lest the next 
 
262 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 blow should fall upon themselves. Unfortunately 
 for the Yaudois, in the same year that these letters 
 were written, death deprived them of their most 
 zealous and powerful protector. 
 
 It was not to be expected that a licentious profligate 
 like Charles II., who had meanly withheld from the 
 Vaudois the annual pension arising from part of the 
 collection made in England, which Cromwell put out 
 to interest, would exert himself with the spirit and 
 earnestness of the puritanic republican to rescue them 
 from the continued persecution of their sovereign. 
 Even this prince, however, attached as he was to the 
 Romish faith, could not entirely forget what was due 
 from the king of a Protestant nation to the oppressed 
 Waldenses. The copy of a letter still exists, written 
 by him to the Swiss cantons in July, 1662, in which 
 he promises to comply with their request to employ 
 his intercession in behalf of their brethren in the 
 valleys. 
 
 The council for the Propagation of the Faith at 
 Turin, the chief cause of the cruelties practised against 
 the Yaudois, were so well satisfied with the effect of 
 the fort of La Torre, that they prevailed on the duke 
 of Savoy to strengthen the garrison and to augment 
 the stores in that of Mirebouc, at the opposite ex- 
 tremity of the valley of Lucerna. The Yaudois were 
 required to transport thither the instruments pro- 
 vided for their own destruction ; and the principal 
 persons were at the same time invited to different 
 places to discuss the justice of their complaints. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 263 
 
 During the absence of those from whom resistance 
 was most dreaded, the valleys were suddenly inun- 
 dated, in the beginning of 1663, by a numerous army, 
 under the command of the marquis de Fleuri. The 
 war of fourteen months which ensued was marked, as 
 usual, by treachery and atrocity on the one side, and 
 heroic firmness and perseverance on the other. Never 
 was a fiercer effort made to crush the Vaudois. Fresh 
 troops kept pouring into the country ; generals suc- 
 ceeded generals ; and treaty after treaty was offered, 
 but in vain, with a view to beguile into a false secu- 
 rity men who were not to be conquered by arms. In 
 1664, the duke of Savoy was glad to avail himself of 
 the pretext of yielding to the remonstrances of the 
 Protestant princes to grant peace to those whom he 
 could not destroy. 
 
 In the archives of the State at Turin are preserved 
 copies of no fewer than ten edicts, issued between 
 1561 and 1686, granting concessions to the Protes- 
 tant subjects of the house of Savoy, and confirming 
 the free exercise of their religion. One of these con- 
 cessions, in 1620, was purchased by the poor inhabi- 
 tants of the valleys, at an expense of 6000 crowns. 
 In spite of these solemn immunities, Victor Amedeus 
 published, on the 3Jst of January, 1686, a decree, 
 commanding every Protestant church and chapel to 
 be demolished, and every professor of that faith to 
 make a public renunciation of it, within fifteen days 
 from the date of the proclamation, upon penalty of 
 banishment. All remonstrances made against this 
 
264 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 cruel decree by the Vaudois themselves, and in the 
 name of the Protestant States, were alike ineffectual. 
 
 The whole population of the Protestant valleys at 
 this time did not exceed 1 5,000 persons ; of these 
 only 2500 were capable of bearing arms : taken un- 
 prepared, and but scantily provided with resources of 
 any kind for resisting an attack, they were driven to 
 desperation. “ Death rather than the mass ! ” was 
 shouted from mountain to mountain ; the vales re- 
 echoed with the cry ; and they determined to defy 
 the threats of their persecutors. The king of France, 
 who had urged on the duke of Savoy to carry fire 
 and sword into the Protestant villages, assailed those 
 poor people with his troops from the French frontier, 
 while an armed force marched against them from 
 Turin. Hostilities commenced in April, 1686, and 
 enemies from all quarters poured in upon their prey. 
 The French general, Catinat, wrote to the duke of 
 Savoy that he would have “ the honour of striking the 
 first blow at the heretics.” He did so ; “ but,” says 
 Henri Arnaud, one of the ministers, and the military 
 leader of the Vaudois, who has written a history of 
 this sanguinary invasion, “ he had the honour of being 
 well beat.” The Vaudois gallantly withstood the first 
 shock of war ; and for three days were victorious in 
 every engagement. At length, they were compelled, 
 by the overwhelming number of their invaders, to 
 submit ; but not before such horrible devastation had 
 been carried into every hamlet, and such unheard-of 
 barbarities committed upon all ages, even upon women 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 265 
 
 and infants, that it would be outraging human nature 
 to recount them. 
 
 The survivors were given to understand that they 
 should experience the clemency of the sovereign if 
 they would submit unconditionally. They did sub- 
 mit ; and Victor Amedeus, in his mercy, commanded 
 their lands, houses, and property to be seized and 
 divided among his troops and the most zealous of 
 their Catholic persecutors. He then consigned the 
 whole of the Protestant population to prison. The 
 jails in his dominions were in consequence so crowded 
 with these wretched people, that they perished by 
 hundreds of hunger, thirst, and infectious diseases. 
 It would be difficult to describe all the miseries and 
 calamities which these prisoners suffered during their 
 captivity ; and they were more or less ill treated, 
 according to the humours of those who had the com- 
 mand of their prisons. They had nothing but bread 
 and water for their ordinary food ; the one without 
 substance, and the other from the kennels in the 
 streets. In some places, they were supplied with 
 water only at certain times, and that in such small 
 quantity that many perished. They slept on the 
 bare bricks, or, if they were allowed straw, it was 
 rotten and full of vermin : and the dungeons were 
 thronged almost to suffocation. The numbers who 
 died every day were replaced by fresh prisoners ; and 
 the intense heat of the summer, and the corruption 
 with which the rooms were infected, owing to the 
 
266 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 great number of the sick, engendered diseases too 
 horrible for recital.* 
 
 In six months, 3000 only of the sufferers were 
 alive; and for these the Protestant ambassadors at 
 the court of Turin made such urgent intercession, 
 that the duke of Savoy was again constrained to ex- 
 ercise his clemency. He was pleased to pardon and 
 release them, on condition that they should banish 
 themselves for ever from their homes and country. 
 
 The wretched exiles set out destitute upon their 
 melancholy journey, after having, in many instances, 
 their children forcibly taken from them for the pur- 
 pose of being brought up in the Catholic religion. 
 Their pastors were separated from the people, and in 
 this condition they were obliged to make their way 
 across the mountains, and direct their steps towards 
 Switzerland. The weather was unusually severe, and 
 hundreds perished on the road of cold and hunger. 
 A remnant providentially escaped. Some continued 
 their pilgrimage to more distant countries, and joined 
 the French Protestant churches in London, Berlin, 
 and the United Provinces. About 2000 remained in 
 Switzerland ; and, three years afterwards, an intrepid 
 band of 800 of these exiles put themselves under the 
 command of Arnaud, determined to regain their val- 
 leys at the point of the sword, or to perish upon their 
 native soil. The manner in which this enterprise was 
 
 Hist, of Vaudois, by Peter Boyer. London, 1692. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, Oil WALDENSES. 
 
 267 
 
 successfully accomplished, in spite of difficulties and 
 dangers apparently insuperable, the leader himself 
 relates in the “ Glorieuse Rentree des Vaudois dans 
 leurs Vallees.” * They reached the fastnesses of the 
 dreary district which had once been their home, and 
 there maintained themselves until the dissolution of 
 the alliance between Louis XIV. and the duke of 
 Savoy. The latter then consented to recall their 
 brethren in exile, and to reinstate them all in their 
 former possessions, upon condition of their serving 
 under his banners against France. This condition 
 was gladly accepted. When he received the first 
 deputation of the Vaudois after this reconciliation, he 
 observed: “We have hitherto been enemies; let us 
 henceforth be good friends. Others were the occa- 
 sion of your misfortunes.” 
 
 The duke indeed had on this occasion been but the 
 simple tool of that ambitious and sanguinary bigot, 
 Louis XIV. Arnaud himself admits as much. “ The 
 French,” says he, “ artfully insinuated that the duke 
 of Savoy ought to imitate the zeal of Louis XIV. in 
 destroying the churches of the Vaudois and forcing 
 them to embrace the Catholic religion.” The author 
 of Novum Thesaurum Pedemontii distinctly asserts 
 that Louis, aware of the loyalty of the Vaudois to 
 their sovereign, instigated the persecution, lest they 
 
 * A translation of Arnaud’s history, with a compendious History 
 of the Vaudois, by Hugh Dyke Acland, was published in 1827. 
 
268 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 should endanger his rear while prosecuting his designs 
 on Piedmont from Pignerol, his point d’appui. 
 
 The conduct of these Vaudois troops in the war 
 which ensued with France commanded the applause 
 of all who witnessed it. Formed into a distinct regi- 
 ment under officers of their own faith and country, 
 they contributed greatly to several important vic- 
 tories. 
 
 In 1706, when Victor Amedeus became a fugitive 
 from his capital, which was invested by a French 
 army, whither did he flee for refuge? To the valleys 
 of the Vaudois. The relentless persecutor found, at 
 the village of Rora, a safe asylum among the very 
 people whom he had formerly hunted down, robbed 
 of their all, consigned to death in loathsome dun- 
 geons, and expelled from their country, for no other 
 crime than refusing to abandon the religious faith of 
 their forefathers. And what was the reward of their 
 loyalty and fidelity ? One writer * tells us that 
 to the family in whose house he had found shelter, he 
 granted the invaluable privilege of having an inclosed 
 burial-place ; and another f relates that “ the family 
 of Durand Canton of Rora,” possibly the same that 
 has just been alluded to, “ preserves to this day a 
 silver goblet left by his highness as a token of their 
 forefathers’ loyalty and he adds that, “ throughout 
 
 * Gilly’s Narrative, 4to. p. 58. 
 
 f H.D. Acland, Glorious Recovery by the Vaudois of their Valleys, 
 p. 209. 
 
THE YAUDOIS, OK WALDENSES. 
 
 269 
 
 his protracted conflicts, the duke continued his appro- 
 bation of their conduct and his protestations of inte- 
 rest in their welfare.” Such was the extent of popish 
 gratitude for the most important services rendered 
 by heretics ! 
 
 About the year 1726 this same prince, now become 
 king of Sardinia, directed the governor of Pignerol to 
 receive an oath of allegiance from this well-tried 
 portion of his subjects, and to promise them on his 
 part security in their valleys. But he sent also an 
 order diminishing the extent of their country, and 
 banishing those not born within the new limits — no 
 inconsiderable number, as many foreign Protestants 
 had upon his invitation united themselves with the 
 Vaudois, after their recovery of the valleys. The 
 exiles proceeded through Savoy to Switzerland, with 
 an order on the commissariat for bread, which was 
 taken from them on Mount Cenis by couriers whom 
 the king sent for that purpose. The Vallenses of 
 Wirtemberg are the* descendants of these victims of 
 treacherous ingratitude. 
 
 From that time, these unoffending people have been, 
 as ever, distinguished by unimpeachable loyalty to 
 their sovereigns, exemplary resignation under heavy 
 oppression, and stedfast adherence to their faith and 
 to the practices which it inculcates. 
 
 When the events of the Revolution led to the incor- 
 poration of Piedmont with France, the Vaudois were 
 for the first time put into possession of their birth- 
 right, and placed on an equal footing with the Catho- 
 
270 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 lies. A gleam of prosperity passed over the valleys ; 
 and Napoleon granted a provision of 1200 francs per 
 annum to each of their pastors. Of these substantial 
 benefits pastors and people were deprived by the re- 
 storation of the legitimate sovereign, the king of Sar- 
 dinia, in 1814, when they were again subjected to the 
 same oppressive restrictions under which they had 
 formerly languished. The government allowance to 
 the pastors was cut off, and the families of these faith- 
 ful servants of God were reduced for some time to 
 such extreme necessity as to depend for subsistence on 
 the charity of their neighbours. At the urgent remon- 
 strance of the Prussian and Belgian ministers, Victor 
 Amedeus deigned to bestow a pension of 500 francs 
 on each ; but, says Gilly, a sum exceeding this income 
 is levied by an extraordinary tax on the Vaudois. 
 
 Since Cromwell’s time, British beneficence has been 
 more than once extended to the poor population of the 
 Valleys. In compensation for the cruel seizure by 
 Charles II. of a portion of the fund raised for them by 
 the Protector, his niece Mary, consort of William III., 
 granted them a yearly pension of i£425 ; the payment 
 of which, soon afterwards interrupted, was renewed, 
 and the amount increased to £5 00, by queen Anne, at 
 the instance of archbishop Sharpe. This sum was 
 regularly issued from the Exchequer till 1807, under 
 the name of the royal bounty ; but it had not been 
 actually received by the Vaudois, for some years pre- 
 viously to that period, owing to the difficulties of 
 transmission and other causes. 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 271 
 
 In 1768, George III., by letters patent, empowered 
 the Vaudois to solicit contributions in aid of their 
 ministers, churches, schools, and poor; and his Ma- 
 jesty directed the amount of this collection to be paid 
 into the hands of the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel, and by them invested in government secu- 
 rities, the interest of which should be appropriated 
 to the religious uses of the Protestant inhabitants 
 of the valleys of Piedmont. This sum has been 
 since raised to £l 0,000, 3 per cent. Bank Annuities, 
 out of which regular stipends are paid to the thirteen 
 pastors of those valleys, besides small allowances to 
 the widows of deceased ministers. 
 
 Including these and similar aids from England and 
 Holland, the highest fixed and certain income on 
 which any of these ministers can depend falls short 
 of £45 per year. 
 
 By another public collection, made for the benefit 
 of the Vaudois, in 1824 and the following years, 
 several thousand pounds were raised in this country, 
 and vested in our funds. The interest is applied, 
 half-yearly, to specific purposes, chiefly to the main- 
 tenance of an hospital in the valley of La Tour, to 
 the establishment of new schools, and to the assis- 
 tance of young persons intended for the ministry. 
 To the same objects is devoted the produce of con- 
 tributions from Prussia, Holland, and Switzerland. 
 
 This Italian Protestant church, seated in the three 
 valleys of Lucerna, Perusa, and St. Martin, compre- 
 hends about 20,000 souls, in thirteen parishes, with 
 
272 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 the same number of ministers. For a picture of the 
 deplorable state of bondage to which these patient 
 sufferers are again reduced by popish intolerance, I 
 shall have recourse to a writer whose testimony will 
 have the more weight, when it is known that he is 
 not only a native of Piedmont, but also a Roman 
 Catholic, Count dal Pozzo, whose intimate practical 
 knowledge of facts was acquired in the various high 
 offices which he successively held in his own country. 
 
 “ The Protestant inhabitants of the valleys of 
 Piedmont,” says this writer, “ even since the sangui- 
 nary persecutions ceased, have always lived under 
 restrictions, and been subjected to incapacities, that 
 can scarcely be conceived. They were obliged to 
 abide strictly in their valleys ; they could not dwell 
 or acquire property but within certain limits : they 
 were forbidden to have more than a certain number 
 of schools, and churches, and enclosed cemeteries. 
 A Protestant minister could not visit a sick person 
 beyond the fixed limits, unless he were accompanied 
 by a secular Catholic, nor stay there more than 
 twenty-four hours. In the parish of St. John, though 
 it contained a great number of Protestants, they 
 were not permitted to have either church or school, 
 and the Protestant minister was not allowed to pass 
 the night there : mixed marriages were strictly for- 
 bidden. If they went to fairs or markets in the 
 neighbouring districts, they could not have either 
 houses, shops, or rooms in those places. Whatever 
 might be the disproportion between the Protestant 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 273 
 
 and Catholic population of a commune, (and in several 
 communes the former were beyond comparison the 
 more numerous) the communal administration was 
 always to comprehend more Catholics than Pro- 
 testants ; so that very often Catholics, who were 
 utter strangers to the commune, were hunted up — 
 wretches for whom it was afterwards necessary to 
 provide decent clothing at the expense of the com- 
 mune. 
 
 “ By the union of Piedmont with France, the 
 Vaudois were completely emancipated . Here the 
 word is much more apposite than when applied to 
 the Irish Catholics : for this was a real state of servi- 
 tude, or nearly approaching to it, since so many civil 
 rights were wholly or partially withheld from them. 
 On the restoration of the Sardinian government, 
 though the treaty of Paris of the 31st of May, 1814, 
 had declared that, 6 in the countries restored or 
 ceded by this treaty’ — and the valleys of the Pro- 
 testant Vaudois were in this predicament — ‘ no 
 individual, of whatever class or condition he might 
 be, should be persecuted, annoyed, or disturbed, in 
 person or property,’ which provision appeared to 
 guarantee all existing rights — the Vaudois were 
 nevertheless confined within their ancient limits, and 
 reduced to their former state of servitude, not only 
 within sight of the Congress of Vienna, which paid 
 little regard to the welfare of individuals and small 
 populations, and, what is still more astonishing, within 
 sight of England, who always proved herself, espe- 
 
 T 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
274 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 cially in Cromwell’s time, the protectress of the 
 Vaudois, and who had so fair an occasion to insist 
 that the king of Sardinia, whose restoration and 
 aggrandizement (by the incorporation of Genoa) 
 were principally owing to her intervention, should 
 leave them in possession of the rights which they 
 had enjoyed for more than fifteen years, without 
 their having attempted to spread their doctrines, or 
 to make proselytes, without their having in any way 
 annoyed either the Catholic religion or the state. It 
 was a great neglect in Lord Castlereagh, that he did 
 not insist on the introduction of one little article 
 into the treaty of Paris, or- into the acts of the 
 congress of Vienna, in behalf of these poor Vaudois. 
 
 “ It is true that the king of Sardinia, by letters 
 patent of the 27th February, 1826, in which he 
 professed his ‘ wish to moderate the rigour of the 
 measures adopted in former times in regard to them,’ 
 granted merely the following mitigations : — 1 . That 
 they should be permitted to retain the possessions 
 which they had acquired during the time of the 
 French domination, beyond the limits fixed in the 
 ancient edicts ; 2dly, that they should be allowed to 
 carry on any art or trade they pleased, as also the 
 professions of surgeon, apothecary, architect, land- 
 surveyor, or any other that does not require the 
 degree of doctor : so that they cannot be either 
 advocates or physicians, or — as the ancient regu- 
 lations remain in force, or rather have been revived, 
 in regard to every thing not mentioned in these 
 
THE VAUDOIS, OR WALDENSES. 
 
 275 
 
 letters patent — attain a higher rank in the army 
 than that of sergeant. 
 
 “ There is, methinks, a great difference between 
 the truly miserable condition of these Yaudois, and 
 that of the Irish, which many Catholics of the con- 
 tinent would deem enviable ; a difference which must 
 convince those who fancy that an equal freedom of 
 religion is established every where but in the British 
 dominions, that they are egregiously mistaken.”* 
 
 On this subject, Gilly most justly remarks, in his 
 interesting work, that the barbarous edicts in force 
 against the Vaudois are a disgrace to the nineteenth 
 century, and well may he add that, if the following 
 grievances could not be authenticated by indisput- 
 able evidence, their existence, at the present day, 
 would appear incredible. At the risk of some 
 repetitions, I subjoin his statement, because it serves 
 to confirm and complete that of the count Dal 
 Pozzo. 
 
 No Protestant can inherit or purchase land beyond 
 
 * I beg the reader to recollect that this was written before the 
 admission of papists to seats in the legislature. It is not a little 
 gratifying to have so decided a declaration of an honest Catholic, to 
 place against the insidious insinuation of the Protestant, Raumer, 
 who, after bestowing a few lines on the oppressive restrictions still 
 imposed on the Waldenses, exclaims, “Let us remember Ireland!” 
 as if to intimate that, in 1840 , the Irish Catholics were liable to the 
 same or worse hardships than the Protestant inhabitants of the 
 valleys of Piedmont. Surely, Raumer must have learned this 
 candour from the papists themselves, or from their allies of the 
 Whig-Radical school ! See Raumer’s Italy, i., 222. 
 
276 
 
 PERSECUTIONS OF 
 
 the limitations of the Clusone and Pelice. No books 
 of instruction or devotion, for the use of Protestants, 
 may be printed in Piedmont, and an enormous duty 
 is imposed upon their importation. No Yaudois may 
 practise as a physician, surgeon, apothecary, attorney, 
 or advocate, .unless among his own community, and 
 within the limits. 
 
 Even in the communes of the three valleys there 
 may not be a majority of Protestants : for example, 
 three of the five syndics must be Catholics. This is 
 a crying evil in such places as Bobbio and San 
 Giovanni, where the Protestants are as 1,700 to 40, 
 and the Catholic population of the lowest order, so 
 that the very refuse of the people must sometimes 
 be nominated, to keep within the letter of the law. 
 The Protestants are obliged to observe the Catholic 
 festivals, and to abstain from work on those days. 
 It is easy to conceive how excessive must be this 
 hardship, when it is known that there is one holiday 
 at least in every week, sometimes two or three ; so 
 that the Protestant peasant has never more than five 
 days in the week for labour, and sometimes only 
 three. The sabbath he keeps with scrupulous obser- 
 vance, while the Catholic cares not for violating it. 
 Take into account, too, that fifteen sous a day in the 
 winter, and twenty in the summer, is the utmost that 
 a peasant can earn. While the Catholics pay a land- 
 tax of 13 per cent., the Protestants have to pay 
 20-jL per cent. 
 
 Gilly further informs us that none of the Yaudois 
 
THE VAUDOIS, Oil WALDENSES. 2? 7 
 
 are exempt from the military conscription, and that 
 all of them, not excepting their pastors, are liable to 
 serve as common soldiers. He cites the case of 
 M. Peyrot, the pastor of Rora, who was drawn in 
 the conscription of 1821 ; in vain he urged his 
 sacred character and pastoral duties ; his remon- 
 strances were of no avail; he was too poor to pay a 
 substitute, and a peremptory order arrived, com- 
 manding him to join his regiment immediately. The 
 interposition of the Prussian ambassador, general count 
 Truchsess, was solicited and obtained. M. Peyrot 
 was released, not as a clergyman, but with a pre- 
 tended understanding, on the part of the war-office, 
 that he was beyond the age prescribed for military 
 service. 
 
 “Are we now to assume,” concludes Dal Pozzo, 
 “ that this intolerance towards the Yaudois is the 
 effect of a malevolent disposition of the Sardinian 
 government itself? By no means. Never was there a 
 milder or more benevolent sovereign than Victor 
 Emanuel, under whom this system of intolerance 
 .and severity resumed its ancient course. The Sar- 
 dinian government, guided, or rather impelled, into 
 this course, by the court of Rome, and by the 
 Jesuits, regards intolerance as a duty ; and, since 
 the influence of the latter has gained greater ascend- 
 ency in Piedmont, this intolerance, instead of being 
 abated, as it has been alleged, by the march of 
 civilization and the spirit of the times — in spite of 
 the intercession of different Protestant courts, which 
 
278 PERSECUTIONS OF THE VAUDOIS. 
 
 interest themselves in favour of the Vaudois, an 
 intercession which formerly saved them from com- 
 plete extermination — this intolerance, I say, is greatly 
 aggravated. It is not long since eight Protestants 
 of the valleys, settled in Turin, were ordered to 
 retire to their valleys, by virtue of an edict of 1622, 
 which had fallen into desuetude, but is again put in 
 force. This rigorous measure of the Sardinian 
 government is alleged to have been adopted at the 
 express requisition of the court of Rome, made at 
 the instigation of the bishop of Pignerol.” 
 
PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. 
 
 279 
 
 VI. PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 1560—1572, 
 
 PRIOR TO THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 
 
 The doctrines of the Reformation preached by 
 Luther, found, on their first promulgation, illustrious 
 patronage in France. Renee, duchess of Ferrara, 
 daughter of Louis XII., a princess of strong mind, 
 listened with attention to the preachers of the new 
 doctrines; but, as the proximity of her husband’s 
 dominions to Rome made him fearful of exciting the 
 temporal as well as spiritual wrath of his neighbour, 
 the duchess was obliged to conceal her sentiments 
 during his life. On becoming a widow, she re- 
 turned to France, residing at the castle of Mont- 
 argis, near Paris, where, in times of persecution, she 
 constantly afforded an asylum to the Protestants, 
 who are said by Pasquier to have been denominated 
 Hugonots, from their having first met at Hugon’s 
 Tower, in Tours. A second derivation from the 
 German word Eidgenossen appears to me too far- 
 fetched. . , 
 
 Another eminent patroness of the new opinions 
 was the queen of Navarre, sister of Francis L, who, 
 
280 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 without herself adopting those opinions, screened 
 their professors in her dominions from the cruel 
 death which awaited them in France. Her senti- 
 ments, however, gradually underwent so great a 
 change, that the constable Montmorency, conversing 
 with the king on the means of extirpating heresy, 
 declared that, if he wished to put it down in France, 
 he must begin with the court and his relatives, par- 
 ticularly naming the queen his sister. “ Say no 
 more of that,” replied Francis; “ she loves me too 
 well to think otherwise than I approve of.” 
 
 In 1520, Olevitane, one of the people called Wal- 
 denses, published a translation of the Bible into 
 French. Bucer and Melanchthon had previously 
 visited France, where the reformed doctrines made 
 such progress that a congregation was formed at 
 Meaux, and the Popish clergy, in alarm, urgently 
 remonstrated with the king and so successfully, that, 
 from being favourably disposed towards the Refor- 
 mation, he became its zealous persecutor. In 1523, 
 an edict was published against the heretics, and the 
 congregation at Meaux was dispersed. Its minister, 
 Jean Leclerc, after suffering horrible tortures, was 
 burned alive. Many others were put to the same 
 cruel death; and when Dymond Levoy, with five 
 others, was burned in 1528, Francis I., accompa- 
 nied by a procession of priests and monks, went 
 bareheaded to witness the execution. Exulting in 
 the success of this murderous zeal of the priests, 
 seconded by the royal authority, they instituted a 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 281 
 
 yearly procession, to give thanks to the Almighty 
 for having enabled them to get rid of the heretics. 
 
 Jean Cauvin, or Calvin, a native of Picardy, who 
 had received his religions instruction from his kins- 
 man, Olivetane, was meanwhile preaching about 
 Bourges and Ligneres ; but, to save his life, he re- 
 tired from France, and became the head of the Pro- 
 testant Church at Geneva. There he wrote his 
 Christian Institutes, which he dedicated to Francis I., 
 imploring his compassion for the reformers. Car- 
 dinal Tournon represented to the king that the dedi- 
 cation of such a work was an insult to royalty and 
 to the religion of his ancestors. The book served 
 rather to inflame than to damp the ardour of perse- 
 cution in the breast of the king ; and, at the cruel 
 suggestion of the clergy, he issued fresh orders for 
 punishing the Hugonots wherever they were to be 
 found. People were employed to hunt them out. 
 It was declared to be a crime to pray in French; 
 numbers of pious persons of both sexes were burned 
 alive ; and, as the speeches of these martyrs at the 
 stake proved powerful means of conversion, care 
 was taken to prevent them from addressing the 
 spectators. 
 
 Such was the state of the French Frostestants on 
 the accession of Henry II., in 1547. The system of 
 persecution continued to be vigorously followed up. 
 The Hugonots were not to be deterred even by the 
 certainty of martyrdom from following the dictates 
 of their consciences. To no purpose were fires kin- 
 
282 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 died in every town in France ; the Protestants per- 
 sisted in holding their religious meetings and in 
 professing their doctrines. To give greater import- 
 ance to these executions, the young king attended 
 several of them in person. At his return to Paris, 
 fires were blazing in different parts of the city ; *and, 
 as he passed one of these piles, he beheld an old 
 servant of his expiring in the flames. Filled with 
 horror, he retired immediately to his palace, to con- 
 ceal his agitation and remorse. 
 
 The court and nobility of France were at this 
 time divided into four great parties, the heads of 
 which were the constable de Montmorency, the house 
 of Guise, the king’s mistress Diane de Poiotiers 
 duchess of Yalentinois, and Catherine de Medicis, 
 the queen-mother. These were all intent on extend- 
 ing their influence and enriching themselves and 
 their connexions, for which purpose they employed 
 every kind of manoeuvre to deceive the king, whose 
 authority was in a great measure laid aside during 
 the struggle. It was the mutual opposition and jea- 
 lousy of these parties that produced the long series 
 of wars by which France was torn during the re- 
 mainder of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The family of Guise, consisting of the six sons of 
 the first duke of that name, a younger branch of the 
 house of Lorraine, had attained in a few years to 
 a height of fortune and pow T er, and manifested an 
 ambition, which caused Francis I. to view their con- 
 duct with a jealous eye. It possessed in its head 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 283 
 
 one of the greatest military captains of the age; 
 another of its members was the cardinal of Lorraine, 
 archbishop of Rheims and metropolitan of France, 
 and a third the cardinal of Guise. The insatiable 
 avidity with which this family strove to monopolize 
 all the high offices in church and state, was comme- 
 morated in a quatrain at that time very common in 
 France, purporting that king Francis was right 
 enough when he foretold that the Guises would 
 strip his sons to their doublets and his subjects to 
 their shirts. It, therefore, behoved Henry to keep 
 them as much as possible out of power. As the 
 plea for every act of this party was the defence of 
 the Catholic religion, it had of course all the clergy 
 for its supporters. 
 
 At length it suited the political views of the car- 
 dinal of Lorraine to suspend the horrible persecu- 
 tion of the Protestants, because he was desirous of 
 engaging the king in a war with the emperor, 
 Charles Y. An edict was therefore published, in 
 1551, which, by placing the Calvinists under the 
 secular jurisdiction, abated the violence of the pro- 
 ceedings against them : this was called the edict of 
 Chateaubriant. 
 
 No sooner was the charge of heresy submitted by 
 this decree to the cognizance of the parliament of 
 Paris than the Protestants experienced a great im- 
 provement in their condition. The inutility of exe- 
 cutions was so evident to this court, that the rigour 
 of the law was suspended. Taking advantage of 
 
284 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 this period of indulgence, the Calvinists erected a 
 church ; and the enemies of toleration had recourse 
 to every artifice they could devise to excite the 
 hatred of the populace and the vengeance of the 
 government against the followers of the reformed 
 religion. Through the influence of the cardinal of 
 Lorraine, they obtained an edict, which again ena- 
 bled them to wreak their fury upon the Protestants. 
 
 One expedient for depriving them of the indul- 
 gent interpretation of the edict of Chateaubriant 
 was the appointment of an Inquisitor of the Faith in 
 France. To that office the Pope appointed Matthew 
 Orri, a Dominican monk. He was authorized to 
 cite before him all heretics, to interrogate, and to 
 condemn them. By means of a secret police, he 
 was enabled to penetrate into the privacy of families, 
 and by a numerous band of spies to ascertain the 
 religious opinions of every individual. The bishops 
 themselves were disgusted with the grant of such au- 
 thority, and remonstrated against it ; but the king’s 
 council approved the plan, and it was very soon pre- 
 sented to the parliament in the form of an edict. 
 
 The odious tendency of the proceeding excited the 
 indignation of the parliament; and Seguier, one of its 
 presidents, was directed to remonstrate against it 
 before the king in council. This he did in a speech 
 which made so deep an impression that Henry de- 
 ferred the affair to a further examination. Though 
 the government persisted in the measure and the 
 Inquisitor was appointed, the Reformation continued 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 285 
 
 to make astonishing progress, not entirely owing to 
 the greater purity of its doctrines, but partly from 
 a political motive. The government had manifested 
 a determination to support the Catholic religion in 
 every possible way : in consequence, all who felt dis- 
 satisfied with the ministers were tempted, out of spite, 
 to join the ranks of its professed enemies. On the 
 other hand, a very considerable number of the nobility 
 actually belonging to the court of Henry II., induced 
 by curiosity to attend the reformed service, princi- 
 pally because it was forbidden, were seriously affected 
 by what they heard, and some openly professed them- 
 selves Protestants. Thus, notwithstanding Henry’s 
 zeal for Popery, he was surrounded by Calvinists. 
 
 A riot, which took place in May, 1557, plainly 
 proclaimed the hostile disposition of the Catholics. 
 Four hundred Protestants had met one evening to 
 partake of the Lord’s Supper, at a house in the Rue 
 St. Jacques, opposite to the College Plessis.^ A mob 
 of their enemies, collected about the house, made no 
 attempt to interrupt the service ; but, when the con- 
 gregation prepared to leave the place and return 
 home, they were assailed with such abuse and threats 
 as to be convinced that their lives were in danger. 
 The darkness of the night would have favoured the 
 escape of most of them, had not lanterns been placed 
 in the windows of the neighbouring houses. Many 
 were murdered : some few, who were armed, suc- 
 ceeded in cutting their way through the crowd ; but 
 there were still left some old people and women, who 
 
286 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 must have been slaughtered, but for the appearance 
 of a magistrate and a party of soldiers, who took 
 them into custody to the number of two hundred. 
 The mob then dispersed. 
 
 Proceedings were immediately commenced against 
 the prisoners, some of whom were persons of high 
 family connexions. The cardinal of Lorraine in- 
 sisted on the condemnation of them all ; but the par- 
 liament was less bloodthirsty : after a long process 
 and considerable delay, five of the number were con- 
 demned and burned on the 13th of September. The 
 Elector Palatine solicited the release of the other 
 prisoners; and Henry, who needed the assistance of 
 that prince, ordered them to be treated with mode- 
 ration, to the infinite regret of Pope Paul IV., who 
 loudly complained on the subject in the Consistory. 
 
 The cardinal of Lorraine, faking*advantage of the 
 increased influence which his brother had acquired 
 by his military successes, now persuaded the king to 
 establish the Inquisition by edict. Three Inquisitors 
 General were appointed : these were the cardinal of 
 Lorraine, the cardinal of Bourbon, brother of the 
 king of Navarre, and the cardinal of Chatillon, who 
 were empowered to inflict capital punishment on all 
 persons found guilty of heresy. As this edict pro- 
 ceeded from the king himself in ajbed of justice, the 
 parliament could not well refuse to register it ; but 
 they mitigated its severity by allowing all laymen an 
 appeal from such a tribunal. The power of life and 
 death was thus once more snatched from the clergy, 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 287 
 
 although at the States-general they had given a mil- 
 lion crowns to induce the king to grant their wishes. 
 On the other hand, an edict was issued, forbidding 
 the judges to commute sentence of death and confis- 
 cation of property passed upon any person con- 
 victed either of heresy, or of having brought into 
 France books against the Catholic religion printed 
 at Geneva. 
 
 But neither ordinances nor prohibitions could 
 check the extension of the Protestant opinions ; and, 
 as numbers impart confidence, many, who had 
 hitherto been restrained by their rank, now declared 
 themselves Hugonots. Among these the most emi- 
 nent was Antoine de Bourbon, first prince of the 
 blood, and king of Navarre, in right of his wife 
 Jeanne d’Albret, who had early imbibed the doc- 
 trines of the Reformation from her mother Mar- 
 garet, sister of Francis I. His brother, the prince 
 of Conde, likewise joined the Protestant party ; both 
 being probably influenced to this step by their 
 enmity to the Guises. Converts were made among 
 all classes, in the capital and in the provinces, at 
 court, in the army, and even in the tribunals, 
 hitherto inaccessible to heresy. The Popish clergy 
 thought it high time to bestir themselves ; and the 
 cardinal of Lorraine prevailed upon the king to 
 hold a bed of justice, when he might appear to 
 consult the counsellors of the parliament on the 
 measures expedient to be taken with the heretics, 
 and thus draw from them, if possible, such indi- 
 
288 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 cations of their secret sentiments as might serve to 
 prove their own apostacy from the Catholic faith. 
 
 In pursuance of this perfidious advice, Henry 
 repaired unexpectedly to the parliament, and, in his 
 address, couched in mild and courteous language, 
 declared himself free from all angry feelings towards 
 those of its members who had adopted the reformed 
 opinions ; begging them all to speak out freely, and 
 to recommend what each thought best for the pacifi- 
 cation of the kingdom. The counsellors fell into 
 the snare. Many of them advocated the cause of 
 justice and humanity ; and, pointing out the danger 
 of continuing a useless rigour towards a party which 
 had become so numerous, they urged the policy of 
 adopting milder measures. Dubourg, Faur, and two 
 or three others, expressed themselves with such 
 frankness, that, on leaving the hall, the king ordered 
 the captain of his guards to seize and conduct them 
 to prison. He likewise directed that these coun- 
 sellors should be brought to trial immediately, especi- 
 ally Dubourg, whom he was desirous to see burnt 
 with his own eyes. 
 
 The arrest of the counsellors was followed by the 
 apprehension of all known Protestants, and the pri- 
 sons were filled with persons accused of heresy. The 
 destruction of the reformed religion was resolved 
 upon ; and the remonstrances of the ambassadors of 
 several Protestant princes of Germany were treated 
 with supreme contempt. Nothing but the death of 
 the king, from a w^ound received at a tournament 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 289 
 
 held in honour of his daughter’s marriage with Philip 
 II. of Spain, saved the Hugonots from the impending 
 storm. lie was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis 
 II., then no more than sixteen years of age. 
 
 The young king, feeble in mind and constitution, 
 was entirely governed by his wife, Mary queen of 
 Scots, niece to the Guises, through whose means that 
 ambitious family was restored to power, while the 
 constable de Montmorency, who had possessed para- 
 mount influence over Henry II., was exiled from the 
 court. The two Chatillons, better known by their 
 seignorial appellations of Coligny and Andelot, were 
 nephews of Montmorency. The former, a man of 
 consummate valour and prudence, had, through the 
 interest of his uncle, been appointed Admiral of 
 France, a distinction conferred in those days on 
 military commanders. At the beginning of the new 
 reign, the admiral Coligny and his brother openly 
 joined the Protestants, and induced many other per- 
 sons of distinction to do the same. The king of 
 Navarre became the head of the party, which re- 
 solved to resist the tyranny of the Guises by force. 
 
 A few days after the death of Henry II., the un- 
 fortunate Dubourg was declared a heretic, con- 
 demned to be hanged, and his body burnt. He was 
 executed on the 23rd of December, 1559. His firm- 
 ness excited great sympathy in the spectators, whom 
 he was prevented from addressing ; for the execu- 
 tioner had orders to gag him if he attempted to 
 speak. At the foot of the gibbet he refused to kiss 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 a crucifix which was presented to him, and was im- 
 mediately pulled up and strangled, amidst shouts 
 from the mob of “ Jesu Maria.” 
 
 Francis II. was king only in name, the royal au- 
 thority being in the hands of the cardinal of Lorraine, 
 and his brother, the duke of Guise. The most active 
 measures were adopted for the extermination of 
 heretics. The cardinal instituted a commission for 
 trying and condemning them, while a legion of spies, 
 dispersed through Paris, daily swelled the number of 
 the victims. The cruel spirit of the bigoted and 
 ambitious churchman produced a general feeling of 
 horror, and the Protestants had no resource left but 
 resistance. A plan for seizing the Guises at Blois, in 
 which none of the principal leaders of the Protestants 
 were concerned, only served by its total failure to 
 injure their cause, and to afford a pretext to their 
 enemies to charge them with a conspiracy against 
 the life of the king. The most sanguinary vengeance 
 was wreaked on all those of the discomfited party 
 who fell into the hands of their adversaries, and who 
 were forthwith hanged, “ booted and spurred,” says 
 one of the historians of these deplorable times. 
 
 Through the influence of the new chancellor, 
 Michael de THopital, an enlightened advocate of 
 toleration, the States-general were summoned to 
 meet at Orleans in 1560; and it was resolved that a 
 national council should be held, to discuss the great 
 question of liberty of conscience, and to settle the 
 religious disputes by which the kingdom was dis- 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 291 
 
 tracted. The Bourbon princes were ordered to attend 
 the States-general, upon pain of being treated as 
 criminals. No sooner had the prince of Conde ar- 
 rived at Orleans, than he was apprehended, and 
 charged with having been concerned in the con- 
 spiracy of Amboise. At the same time, the king of 
 Navarre and the Chatillons were so closely watched, 
 that they could scarcely be said to be at liberty. The 
 prince was brought to trial before the parliament of 
 Paris and the peers, and condemned to be beheaded. 
 The king of Navarre made great efforts to save his 
 brother’s life, not aware that his own was in, perhaps, 
 still more imminent danger. The duke of Guise had 
 formed a plan for murdering him in the chamber of 
 the king, and even obtained the consent of Francis to 
 its execution. Warned of his danger, Navarre, when 
 summoned to the king’s presence, at first refused to 
 go ; having been told that, on a sign from the king, 
 the assassins would fall upon him. Not till a third 
 summons did he comply. “ I will go,” said he to one 
 of his gentlemen, “ and I will fight as long as I have 
 breath. If I fall, take my shirt stained with my 
 blood ; carry it to my son, and tell him to give up 
 his life rather than the desire of avenging me.” 
 Francis durst not commit so foul a crime; the signal 
 was not given, and Navarre retired unharmed ; while 
 Guise, mortified to see him escape, exclaimed with 
 rage, when he found that the king would not consent 
 to the murder, “ 0 le laclie ! 0 le poltron.” 
 
 No intreaties could move the king to pardon his 
 
 U 2 
 
292 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. 
 
 kinsman. The Guises urged his execution, and Conde 
 would infallibly have been brought to the block, but 
 for the illness which terminated the life of Francis 
 II. in December, 1560. The queen-mother, Catherine 
 de Medicis, assumed the Regency during the minority 
 of his successor, Charles IX., a child only ten years 
 old. That wily princess, deeming it prudent to con- 
 ciliate the Bourbon princes, as a counterpoise to the 
 overweening ambition of the Guises, released Conde, 
 who was declared innocent of the charges on which 
 he had been condemned. The king of Navarre was 
 appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom ; but, to 
 the astonishment of his fellow-protestants, he was 
 persuaded to desert them, and to join the Romish 
 communion. 
 
 The protection extended by the queen to the Pro- 
 testants enabled them to propagate their doctrines 
 with success. According to Maimbourg, (Hist, de 
 Calvinisme, liv. 3) Catherine extended this protec- 
 tion so far as to permit ministers of the reformed 
 religion to preach in the prince’s apartments, and 
 even in her own, (as we are told by Madame de 
 Mornai) when she was at dinner ; while a Jacobin, 
 who preached the Lent sermons at Fontainebleau, had 
 no congregation. Meat was eaten at table every 
 day all through Lent, and the whole court appeared 
 to have turned Calvinist. The Catholics loudly 
 exclaimed against the authorities for permitting the 
 meetings of the Hugonots, and even proceeded, where 
 they were superior in number, to acts of violence : 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 293 
 
 the Protestants made reprisals, and the whole king- 
 dom appeared to be rent by one extensive feud. On 
 the joint solicitation of the admiral and the chan- 
 cellor, the queen summoned a meeting of deputies 
 from all the parliaments of France, to be held at St. 
 Germain ; and it was there decreed that the Pro- 
 testants should restore all the Catholic churches 
 which they had seized ; submit to the payment of 
 tithes and other ecclesiastical impositions ; have a 
 right to meet unarmed outside the towns, for the 
 exercise of their religion ; gentlemen alone being- 
 allowed to go armed. Their ministers were forbidden 
 to make disparaging remarks on the Catholic religion 
 and ceremonies, to hold any synod without permis- 
 sion from the court, to travel from town to town to 
 preach, and required to confine themselves to one 
 church. It was understood that these privileges were 
 only granted provisionally, until the decision of a 
 general council. 
 
 The passing of this edict was a triumph to the 
 Calvinists, while the Papists received it in gloomy 
 silence. Most of the parliaments registered it with- 
 out difficulty, but that of Paris yielded only after two 
 * formal commands from the court. The prince of 
 Conde now made a public profession of Protestantism ; 
 many people of rank followed his example ; and the 
 number of persons who resorted to the religious 
 service of the Calvinists soon amounted to fifty 
 thousand. 
 
 The rage of the popish party, inflamed by the 
 
294 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 spread of Hugonot principles, was not long to be re- 
 pressed. Maledictions and menaces were launched 
 from their pulpits, and exhortations to destroy the 
 objects of their curse speedily followed. Wherever 
 the Catholics were in sufficient force, and not re- 
 strained by the authorities, many Protestants were 
 sacrificed by them. Those of Paris wrote to the 
 duke of Guise, who had retired to Lorraine, begging 
 him to come to their assistance, as the queen seemed 
 to have allied herself more closely with the Hugonots. 
 In compliance with the summons, he set out with a 
 numerous suite, which, as he proceeded, increased to 
 a little army. 
 
 Arriving at Yassy, a small town in Champagne, 
 just at the time when the Hugonots were attending 
 divine service, he expressed great indignation, and 
 went to church to hear mass. A small party fol- 
 lowed him ; the rest, hastening to the place where 
 the Protestants had assembled, commenced an attack 
 upon them by gross insults and abusive language, 
 which soon led to blows. The strife was bloody : 
 Guise’s people, rushing into the meeting-house sword 
 in hand, fell upon the congregation. Women, chil- 
 dren, and aged persons, were their first victims.' 
 The duke, being apprized of the tumult, left the 
 church for the purpose of appeasing it ; but was un- 
 fortunately struck on the cheek by a stone. The 
 sight of his blood increased the rage of his followers ; 
 and, while he retired to a little distance to have his 
 slight wound dressed, they renewed the slaughter, 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 295 
 
 sparing neither age nor sex, destroying the pulpit, 
 and burning the books. It is related that more than 
 eighty persons were killed on this occasion ; indeed, 
 Anquetil states that 4 4 the carnage ceased only on 
 account of the multitude of the killed and wounded.” 
 
 Most Catholic writers, with that bold defiance of 
 truth which Papists never scruple to show wherever 
 the interest of their religion is involved, are anxious 
 to represent the Protestants as the aggressors. Ta- 
 vannes, however, is an exception : in his Memoirs 
 (p. 247) he relates that “ Guise arrived at Vassy 
 while they were at preaching, seized the minister, 
 and killed several of the congregation, and his sol- 
 diers plundered the rest.” The king himself was 
 made an instrument for bringing odium upon the 
 suffering party ; he was actually persuaded to issue 
 letters patent, dated April 30, 1562, for “an inquiry 
 into the violences, aggressions, and excesses com- 
 mitted at Vassy by some of the new religion against 
 the person of the duke of Guise /” The public 
 voice, however, proved more impartial, when it after- 
 wards gave to Guise, who seems to have taken no 
 pains to prevent this atrocious massacre, the title of 
 “ the Butcher of Vassy.” 
 
 Similar atrocities were committed at Cahors, Tou- 
 louse, Sens, Amiens, and Tours. In the latter town, 
 three hundred Protestants were shut up without food 
 for three days, then bound together two and two, 
 and led to a slaughter-house, where they were put to 
 death in different ways. At Sens, the bells of the 
 
2,06 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 cathedral for three successive days summoned the 
 inhabitants to murder the Hugonots. The bodies of 
 the victims, floating down the Seine, seemed, as 
 they passed the royal residence, to demand justice on 
 their persecutors; one party called for justice, the 
 other clamoured for the extermination of the 
 heretics. 
 
 The news of these massacres excited general indig- 
 nation. The Protestants complained loudly of the 
 infringement of the edict in their favour, and deputed 
 Conde to present their remonstrances to the king. 
 Catherine promised them full satisfaction, without 
 any intention of affording it. Perceiving that their 
 destruction would be gradually effected by their 
 enemies, in spite of edicts, they justly concluded that 
 open war would be preferable to such a state of 
 things. It is probable, however, that they might 
 have deferred for some time longer the final resort 
 to arms, had not the queen written to Conde and 
 Coligny, soliciting the assistance of the Protestants 
 against the Guises. Numbers of Hugonots assembled 
 from all parts of France, but, before they were ready 
 to act, their enemies had seized Catherine and her 
 son, and carried them to Paris. This success was 
 followed by fresh persecutions of the Hugonots in 
 the capital. They were driven out of their meeting- 
 houses ; and Montmorency, the governor, went with 
 troops to the suburbs, broke open their places of 
 worship, and destroyed and burned the pulpits and 
 benches. He then returned to the city, amidst the 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 297 
 
 acclamations of the populace, who hailed him with 
 the title of Captain Brulebancs . 
 
 The queen, very soon after her arrival at Paris, 
 renewed her solicitations for succour to the Pro- 
 testants, assuring their leader, the prince of Conde, 
 that upon him and his followers rested her only hope 
 of preventing her enemies from depriving her of the 
 government. They were not backward in answering 
 this appeal ; and in a short time gained possession of 
 Orleans, Lyons, Bourges, Vienne, Valence, Nismes, 
 Montauban, Rouen, and many other towns. They were 
 masters of the whole of the Orleannois, and all Nor- 
 mandy declared in their favour : numbers of gentlemen 
 with their dependents joined their standard, and Conde 
 was soon at the head of an army of six thousand 
 men. Meanwhile, the king in council confirmed the 
 edict of January, 1562, which allowed the Protestants 
 the free exercise of their religion throughout France, 
 excepting Paris and the court. The mask, however, 
 was soon thrown off ; for when, at a conference held 
 in June, at a small town in the Orleannois, between 
 the queen and the Protestant chiefs, the latter wished 
 to ascertain Catherine’s real intentions in regard to 
 them, she declared without disguise that, considering 
 the constitution of the kingdom, no solid peace could 
 be expected so long as attempts should be made to 
 establish any other religion than the Romish ; that 
 the edict of January had been the signal for all the 
 disturbances, and therefore that edict must be re- 
 scinded, and the llugonots be content with the pri- 
 
298 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 vate performance of divine worship — this unreserved 
 profession of hostility to the object which they had 
 nearest at heart, from a princess for whose assistance 
 and defence they had taken arms, excited not less 
 surprise than resentment. 
 
 The events of the war which followed between the 
 Protestants and the Catholics fall not within the 
 scope of this work. The picture of France, during 
 this period, was more deplorable than can be con- 
 ceived. Carnage and conflagrations marked the 
 successes of both the contending parties. “ There was 
 no security,” says Browning,” * “ no asylum against 
 violence : the faith of treaties and the sanctity of 
 oaths were both set at nought. Tortures, contrived 
 with care for delaying death and prolonging the dura- 
 tion of pain, were inflicted on persons who had surren- 
 dered upon capitulation. Husbands and fathers were 
 stabbed in the arms of their wives and daughters, 
 who were then violated in sight of the dying men. 
 Women and children were treated with a brutality that 
 defies description. Aged magistrates, the victims of 
 unbridled rage, were exposed after death to every 
 possible indignity : the populace dragged their yet 
 palpitating entrails through the streets, and even ate 
 of their flesh.” Anquetil, a Catholic writer, from 
 whom this account is borrowed, asserts that “ these 
 excesses originated in the disrespect manifested by 
 the Calvinists for the images, relics, and other 
 
 * Hist, of the Hugonots, i. 135. 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 299 
 
 objects of the Catholic worship, which caused the 
 priests from their pulpits to hurl their thunderbolts 
 against the offenders. The zeal of the priests in- 
 flamed the people to madness ; and the leaders 
 lamented the atrocious outrages which were com- 
 mitted without being able to put a stop to them.” 
 
 It is well known, however, that some of the leaders 
 and even Catholic churchmen not only instigated but 
 took an active part in those horrors. Montluc, 
 bishop of Valence, very coolly relates in his Memoirs 
 the cruelties which he practised on the heretics. 
 “ I procured,” he tells us, “ two executioners, who 
 were called my lacqueys, because they were so much 
 with me.” He frankly acknowledges that his chief 
 object was to injure the sectarians, whom he would 
 have destroyed to a man ; and that he felt such 
 hatred and rage against them as hurried him away, 
 and caused him to exercise not only severity but 
 cruelty. 
 
 After the treaty was actually concluded, the Pope 
 wrote to the cardinals of Lorraine and Bourbon, ex- 
 pressing his extreme concern for the misfortune 
 which had befallen the country. “ It is especially 
 to be feared,” he says, “ that God will inflict a judg- 
 ment on the king himself, and on all those who have 
 had a hand in this negociation.” He called upon 
 them to do their duty and to defend the Church, em- 
 ploying all sorts of arguments, and sparing neither 
 threats, promises, nor appeals to their pride and 
 honour. All at once, the letters of the pontiff ceased 
 
300 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 to breathe the same holy zeal for the extermination 
 of the heretics, to whom no further allusion was 
 made in them; so that he had no doubt received 
 some intimation of the queen’s treacherous designs, 
 since his correspondence displays the same anxiety 
 for upholding the interests of the Catholic religion. 
 
 In November, 1562, the king of Navarre, com- 
 manding the royal army besieging Rouen, fell in the 
 storming of that city ; and, early in the following- 
 year, the Catholic cause lost its most formidable 
 champion, the duke of Guise. While besieging 
 Orleans, he was assassinated by Poltrot, a Hugonot 
 gentleman, and a gloomy fanatic, who, pretending 
 to change his religion, repaired to the duke’s camp, 
 and was received by him with great kindness. An 
 opportunity soon presented itself for the execution 
 of his bloody design. At dusk, in the evening of the 
 I6tli of February, the murderer, lurking behind a 
 hedge, fired a pistol at the duke as he passed, and 
 lodged three balls in his left shoulder. At first, 
 Guise made light of the wound, but it was soon 
 evident that it must prove mortal. On his death- 
 bed, he accused himself of being the cause of the 
 bloodshed which had attended the civil war, but 
 repeatedly declared that the massacre at Vassy was 
 purely accidental. Ilis sentiments in regard to 
 heretics were changed ; and in his dying advice to 
 the queen he recommended mild and tolerant 
 measures. He expired on the eighth day from that 
 on which he was wounded ; and the popish party 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 301 
 
 took great pains to persuade the world that the 
 generous and chivalrous Coligny had instigated the 
 murderer to the commission of the crime. 
 
 The death of the duke of Guise by the hand of an 
 assassin deprived the royal army of its commander, 
 for whom a competent successor was not to be found. 
 It had the effect also of restoring the supreme autho- 
 rity to the queen-mother. The affairs of the Hu- 
 gonots were so flourishing that no doubt they would 
 soon be able to dictate their own terms : Catherine, 
 therefore, became desirous of an accommodation ; and 
 the result was the edict of Amboise, dated March 
 19, 1563, by which the privileges granted in the 
 edict of January, 1562, were curtailed; but the 
 Protestants were allowed the free exercise of their 
 religion in all the towns in their possession. The 
 prince of Conde, by whom this treaty was negociated, 
 incurred severe censure from his party for having 
 agreed to terms so unfavourable : but it was too 
 late to retract. Prisoners were set at liberty, the 
 towns given up, and the troops disbanded. 
 
 The peace was not of long duration. Rumours of 
 plans formed by the court, in secret association with 
 the Pope and Philip II. of Spain, for the total sup- 
 pression of the Protestant faith in France, excited 
 general alarm ; and, in 1567, the entrance on one 
 side of a Spanish army destined for the Netherlands, 
 under the bloody-minded duke of Alva, and on ano- 
 ther of Swiss mercenaries hired by the court, seemed 
 to confirm those rumours, and to indicate that the 
 
302 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 plan in question was about to be carried into imme- 
 diate execution. 
 
 In the Spanish Netherlands, the prince of Conde, 
 the great leader of the Protestants, was at this time 
 furiously denounced from the Catholic pulpits. Here 
 is a choice specimen of the eloquence of Adriansen, 
 a Cordelier, of Brussels. “Ah! look at that cursed 
 
 Conde, the leader of the Hugonots of France! 
 
 Oh, false traitor, infamous scoundrel, double villain ! 
 He insists on being entitled Ludovicus XIII., pri- 
 mus Rex Christianus'. Dost thou then fancy thyself 
 the first king of the Christians ? Now, must not 
 this Conde and his Hugonots have, every one of them, 
 
 at least a hundred thousand devils in his belly ? 
 
 Alas, alas ! why did not Monseigneur de Guise, that 
 holy martyr of blessed memory, cause to be hung up 
 on a gibbet, when he had taken him five years ago, 
 this bandit, this raging bedevilled madman !” The 
 sermon of this meek Franciscan was delivered in 
 1567. 
 
 The liberty granted to the Hugonots by different 
 edicts was continually infringed, so that it was re- 
 duced to almost nothing ; they were attacked and 
 slaughtered with impunity, and they could not obtain 
 redress either from the parliaments or from the king’s 
 council : no resource was, therefore, left them but 
 another appeal to arms. In the struggle which en- 
 sued, they again made themselves masters of Orleans, 
 of many towns in the southern provinces, and of 
 La Rochelle, which was long the asylum of Pro- 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 303 
 
 testantism in France. The wily Catherine de 
 Medicis once more had recourse to negociation ; and 
 a treaty, signed at Longjumeau in March, 1568, 
 guaranteed to the insurgents all the privileges 
 granted to them by that of Amboise. La Rochelle 
 and some other towns, nevertheless, refused to sub- 
 mit to the king. 
 
 The short cessation of hostilities, for peace it 
 could not be called, which followed only served to 
 convince the Hugonots that no reliance was to be 
 placed on the most solemn engagements of their 
 Catholic rulers. In the large towns, the popu- 
 lace, inflamed by furious pYeachers, committed the 
 greatest outrages upon the Protestants. Their re- 
 presentations to the government were unheeded. 
 From the pulpits was inculcated the horrible maxim 
 that no faith w T as to be kept with heretics, and that 
 to slaughter them was just, pious, and useful for 
 salvation. Tumults and murders w 7 ere the conse- 
 quence ; these passed without inquiry : and the 
 dungeon, poison, and the dagger awaited not the 
 Hugonots only, but all who were connected with them. 
 In the space of three months, upwards of two thou- 
 sand of them were thus sacrificed. 
 
 Treacherous attempts were made to entrap and 
 secure the prince ofConde, Coligny, and other leaders 
 of the Protestants, but, being discovered, they all 
 failed, and the predestined victims escaped to La 
 Rochelle. About the same time, a bull, sent by the 
 Pope, authorised the king to alienate church pro- 
 
304 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 perty to the value of 100,000 crowns, on condition 
 that he should make war upon the heretics, and 
 utterly destroy or bring them back to the Church. 
 The chancellor de PHopital, the consistent advocate 
 of toleration, opposed the reception of this bull ; and 
 entreated the queen to abstain from a measure which 
 would again deluge the kingdom with blood. His 
 opposition delayed its adoption, but led to his dis- 
 missal from office. 
 
 Catherine betook herself to stratagem, on receiving 
 intelligence of the vigorous preparations making by 
 the Protestants for resistance. She promulgated an 
 'edict, promising them justice for the past and pro- 
 tection for the future : but, so completely was it at 
 variance with her late conduct, that it produced no 
 effect on the minds of those to whom it was ad- 
 dressed. She then gave the command of the army 
 to her second son, the duke of Anjou, and issued 
 several fresh edicts against the Hugonots. These 
 revoked all existing ordinances in their favour, for- 
 bade upon pain of death the exercise of any religion 
 but the popish, and dismissed all who professed the 
 new faith from their offices. We cannot wonder if 
 the first outburst of the vengeance of the Protestants 
 fell upon the monasteries and the Romish eccle- 
 siastics ; for the priests had uniformly been the 
 approvers and instigators of their sufferings, and the 
 authority of the Church had always been invoked to 
 sanction the butchery and the burnings of their re- 
 latives and friends. 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 305 
 
 Pope Pius V. sent to Charles IX. 10,000 pieces 
 of gold towards defraying the expences of the war. 
 This pontiff had, by his severity to heretics, obtained 
 the rank of cardinal and the office of Grand Inquisitor, 
 and, after his elevation to the papal chair, he was 
 incessantly engaged in fomenting persecutions on 
 account of religion. Letters written by him in 1569 
 seemed to prove that he had then, conceived the idea 
 of some sweeping measure, like that of the massacre 
 of St. Bartholomew, for exterminating heresy in 
 France. After informing the cardinal of Bourbon 
 that he w r as ready to face death in the cause of God, 
 he says, “ This gives us a right to exhort you ear- 
 nestly, by our letters, and to excite you to make 
 every effort, to employ all your influence, for pro- 
 curing a definitive and serious adoption of a measure 
 for bringing about the destruction of the implacable 
 enemies of God and the king : a measure without 
 which it will always be impossible to prosecute vigo- 
 rously the operations of the war, and to bring it to 
 a happy issue.” To the king he writes : “ When 
 God, as we trust, shall have given us the victory, it 
 will then be for you to punish, with the utmost 
 rigour, the heretics and their leaders, because they 
 are the enemies of God ; and you must avenge upon 
 them not only your own injuries, but those of Al- 
 mighty God.” It is evident from these passages 
 that the contemplated measure was not connected 
 with military operations. 
 
 ’ In this same year (1569) a price having been set 
 
 x 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
306 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 on Coligni’s head, Maurevert, a gentleman who had 
 been page to the Guises, undertook and received 
 payment beforehand to assassinate the Admiral. The 
 latter had, just before, suddenly left Mouy, a young 
 and valiant officer in command at Niort, and proceeded 
 himself to La Rochelle. The hired murderer, too 
 conscientious to receive wages and not do something 
 to earn them, spized a favourable opportunity to 
 shoot Mouy in the back : he died in a few days, 
 and the garrison in consequence surrendered to the 
 duke of Anjou, who was besieging the town. No 
 doubt was ever expressed that this prince was the 
 instigator of the base assassin, who immediately took 
 refuge in his camp. From this execrable deed he 
 received the appellation of the king’s assassin- — “ le 
 tueur du Roy, ou le tueur aux gages du Roy,” says 
 Bran tome. 
 
 The first battle, fought at Jarnac in March, 1569, 
 deprived the Protestants of their illustrious leader, 
 the prince of Conde, who had the misfortune to be 
 taken prisoner, and was afterwards shot in cold blood 
 by an officer of the duke of Anjou’s. Indeed, it was 
 generally believed that orders had been issued to 
 spare no Hugonot of distinction who might be taken. 
 This unfortunate event brought forward his nephew, 
 the Prince of Bearn, son of the late king of Navarre, 
 then only in his sixteenth year, as the nominal com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Protestant army, the actual 
 direction of which, however, was vested in the Ad- 
 miral de Coligny. 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 307 
 
 After the battle of Jarnac, the Pope renewed his 
 sanguinary exhortations. To the king he expatiated 
 on the necessity of destroying all his enemies and 
 4 ‘tearing up the roots, nay, the very smallest fibres of 
 the roots, of so terrible and confirmed an evil : for, 
 unless they are radically extirpated, they will be 
 found to shoot out again. You will bring this about, 
 if no consideration for persons or worldly things in- 
 duces you to spare the enemies of God.” He then 
 quotes the example of Saul, who is said to have been 
 deposed from the sovereignty for sparing the Ama- 
 lekites, for the purpose of extinguishing any spark of 
 humanity which might lurk in the breast of the king. 
 He employed the same argument with Catherine, and 
 assures her that the assistance of God will not be 
 wanting, if she pursues the enemies of the Catholic 
 religion until they are all massacred , for it is only by 
 the entire extermination of the heretics that the 
 Catholic worship can be restored.” In complimenting 
 the duke of Anjou on his victory, he enjoins him to 
 reject every intercession in favour of the heretics. 
 44 It is your duty,” he says, 4 4 to show yourself justly 
 inexorable to all.” He repeats the same advice in 
 nearly the same words to Charles, and cautions him 
 against 44 listening to any entreaties, or yielding to 
 friendship or blood.” 
 
 The cardinal of Lorraine was exhorted at the 
 same time to spare no efforts to make the Catholic 
 religion alone be observed by all, not only publicly, 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 but also in the interior of the conscience. The Pope 
 then desires him “ to convince the king of the noto- 
 rious truth, that he could never satisfy the Redeemer 
 nor obey his laws, unless he showed himself inexo- 
 rable to all who should dare to intercede for those 
 abominable men.” 
 
 Hostilities were continued till midsummer, 1 570, 
 with various success, but generally to the disadvantage 
 of the Protestants in regular engagements. They were 
 approaching Paris, when the king, who had himself 
 taken the field, the queen, the duke of Anjou, and the 
 cardinal of Lorraine held a consultation, at which they 
 unanimously resolved to offer terms of peace, as the 
 only expedient for ridding the kingdom of foreign 
 troops, and to await a favourable opportunity for 
 effecting their grand object — the overthrow of the 
 Protestant religion. 
 
 Though the Hugonot leaders were equally tired of 
 the war, and the Admiral in particular was anxious 
 to put an end to the calamities which it inflicted on 
 his country, he would listen to nothing short of a 
 guarantee of absolute liberty of conscience to the 
 professors of the reformed religion. In spite of the 
 strenuous efforts of the Pope and the king of Spain 
 to prevent an accommodation, peace was signed in 
 August, at St. Germain. 
 
 The bases of this treaty were a general amnesty ; 
 the free exercise of the reformed religion in the 
 suburbs of two towns in each province ; the restora- 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 309 
 
 tion of confiscated property ; and admissibility to 
 most offices in the state ; and, as security for its full 
 observance, the Protestants were allowed to bold 
 the towns of La Rochelle, Montauban, Cognac, and 
 La Charite, but engaged by oath to surrender them 
 in two years. 
 
 The joy which this pacification excited in France 
 was equalled only by the chagrin of the Pope, who 
 had made strenuous efforts to prevent an accommo- 
 dation. After the defeat of the Protestants at Mont- 
 contour, Pius had urged the king to follow up his 
 success and to stifle every feeling of clemency, as 
 sinful and rebellious against the Almighty. After 
 holding out once more the fate of Saul, he adds : 
 “ In short, what else would it be but frustrating the 
 goodness of God in this victory over the heretics ? 
 The fruits which it ought to produce are the exter- 
 mination of those infamous heretics, our common 
 enemies, on account of the deserved hatred which 
 they inspire, and the restoration of the ancient 
 peace and tranquillity of the kingdom. Suffer not 
 yourself to be deluded with vain sentiments of pity, 
 and seek not the false glory of a pretended clemency 
 in pardoning injuries done to God himself : for nothing 
 is more cruel than mercy towards wretches who have 
 merited the worst punishments. If your majesty 
 wishes to restore the ancient splendour, power, and 
 dignity of France, you must strive most especially 
 to make all who are subject to your dominion pro- 
 fess the Catholic faith alone — that faith which, from 
 
310 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 the first origin of Christianity, has remained uncon- 
 taminated to this day.” The pious writer concludes 
 with recommending the execution of all who had 
 borne arms against the government, and the esta- 
 blishment of inquisitors in every town throughout 
 the kingdom. 
 
 With this sanguinary advice his own conduct per- 
 fectly tallied. Such was his fondness for the office 
 of Grand Inquisitor, that he continued to perform 
 its functions even after his elevation to the papal 
 chair ; and no pontiff ever caused so many heretics 
 or persons suspected of heresy to be burned in 
 Rome, as he did. Among the victims of his zeal 
 were several scholars, especially Aonius Palearius, 
 who had compared the Inquisition to a dagger held 
 to the throat of literary men. In 1570, Pius, after 
 extorting from this unfortunate scholar a declaration, 
 by which he acknowledged the right of the sove- 
 reign pontiff to order heretics to be executed, and 
 even to kill them with his own hand, consigned him 
 to the flames. This declaration, in Latin, written 
 by the hand of Palearius himself, is preserved in the 
 archives of France. 
 
 Paul III., who reigned from 1534 to 1549, was 
 the author of the bull In Ccena Domini. By this 
 bull, all who appeal from the Popes to a general 
 council, who favour the appellants, who assert that 
 the general council is superior to the sovereign pon- 
 tiff ; those who, without the consent of Rome, de- 
 mand of the clergy contributions for the necessities 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 311 
 
 of the State; the lay tribunals which dare to try 
 bishops, priests, or monks ; the chancellors, vice- 
 chancellors, presidents, counsellors, procureurs-gene- 
 raux, who pronounce upon ecclesiastical causes ; in 
 short, all who contravene the omnipotence of the 
 Holy See, and the absolute independence of the 
 clergy, are anathematised. Promulgated for the first 
 time on Maundy Thursday, in the year 1536, this 
 bull was ordered to be published every year on the 
 same day. Hence it is called In Ccena Domini , for 
 the practice of publishing it every year at Rome 
 was established, in spite of the just remonstrances 
 of sovereigns, and even of certain cardinals and 
 prelates. 
 
 Pius V., who revived and amplified this arrogant 
 and offensive act, ordered it to be published every 
 Maundy Thursday in all the churches : till then it 
 had been fulminated in Rome alone. It seemed, in- 
 deed, as if Pius was determined to excite all the 
 Catholic princes left against the Holy See, and to 
 force them either to renounce the independence of 
 their crowns or the faith of their forefathers. There 
 was no end to remonstrances. Philip II., the most 
 bigoted monarch of the age, forbade the publication 
 of that bull in his dominions. By another bull, 
 Pius excommunicated queen Elizabeth ■ — a super- 
 fluous anathema, at least, and which produced no 
 other effect than the execution of John Felton, who 
 had dared to post it up in London. 
 
 This Pope, in quality, as he alleged, of pastor 
 
312 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 charged to examine who had deserved extraordinary 
 honours by great zeal for the Holy See, conferred 
 the title of grand-duke of Tuscany on Cosmo de 
 Medicis. The emperor complained to no purpose : 
 Cosmo, with his new title, went to Rome to be 
 crowned, and took an oath to the Pope. The 
 motives alleged by cardinal Commendon to Maxi- 
 milian, in justification of this pontifical act, are well 
 worthy of remark. The Pope, he said, had deposed 
 Childeric, installed Pepin, transferred the empire 
 from the East to the West, instituted the electors, 
 confirmed and crowned the emperors; whence he 
 concluded that the Pope was the distributor of 
 thrones and titles, and in some measure the name- 
 giver of princes, as Adam was of the animals. Weak 
 princes indeed encouraged the ambition of Pius by 
 hinging themselves at his feet. Catherine de Medicis 
 boasted to him of the devoted attachment of her son, 
 Charles IX., to holy Church, and applied to him for 
 money, a great deal of money, because without 
 money it was not in her power to make war upon 
 heresy. Alphonso d’Est called himself his servant 
 and vassal, and begged his forgiveness for a request 
 which he had presumed to address to the emperor. 
 
 At the same time that this Pope was arming 
 Christians against Christians, to avenge certain arti- 
 cles of the Catholic faith, he was writing to the 
 Persians and the Arabs, that, notwithstanding the 
 difference of their creeds, a common interest ought 
 to rally Asia to Europe to fight the Ottomans ! 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 313 
 
 Before I proceed to relate the circumstances of 
 the sanguinary tragedy that was preparing, it may 
 be proper to collect a few scattered traits illustrative 
 of the state of France, and to portray some of the lead- 
 ing actors, in order to convey some idea of the pro- 
 found depravity through which it became possible to 
 consummate so prodigious a catastrophe. 
 
 At the head of the government we find an in- 
 carnate fury, a monster of depravity, perfidy, and 
 cruelty, the regent, Catherine de Medicis. Sprung 
 from a family of Popes, Catherine was the only 
 daughter of the Second Lorenzo de Medicis, duke of 
 Urbino. On the expulsion from Florence of his suc- 
 cessor by the republican party, she was left behind 
 in that city; and it is related to have been a subject 
 of serious deliberation with the leaders of that party, 
 whether Catherine should be consigned to a convent 
 or a brothel, either of which might have been as 
 suitable to her genius and character as the other. 
 Providence, however, in its inscrutable wisdom, re- 
 served her for a different destiny. When, through 
 the influence of her uncle, Pope Clement VII., and 
 the armed interference of Charles V., her family 
 was reinstated in the sovereign power at Florence, 
 her hand was obtained, in 1533, for Henry, son of 
 Francis I., of France. 
 
 Catherine came to her new country, nurtured in 
 the school of Alexander VI., the Borgias, and all 
 those petty tyrants of Italy, whose lessons she im- 
 bibed from the works of Macliiavel, who dedicated 
 
314 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 to her kinsman Lorenzo his most famous but most 
 mischievous composition, because perhaps its. real 
 drift was not understood. His maxims, however, 
 literally construed, were adopted as principles of 
 state. “ The Prince” became the fashionable book 
 at the court of France ; Catherine studied it ; and 
 there she found the models which she held forth 
 to the imitation of her sons. It was the favourite 
 reading of Charles IX. Henry III. shut himself up 
 every day in his cabinet with Gondi de Retz, d’El- 
 benne, and Corbinelli, Florentines, to read and to 
 comment upon their countryman Machiavel : and 
 there he learned, like his brother, to become a bigot, 
 a hypocrite, perfidious, and sanguinary. 
 
 Catherine offered to them both precept and ex- 
 ample ; her ultramontane policy never walked but in 
 crooked ways. For the rule of her conduct, says 
 Mezerai, she had taken this maxim of her house, 
 that “ in order to reign you must divide in conse- 
 quence, she favoured the Protestants, whenever she 
 wished to humble the Guises. She permitted them, 
 underhand, to hold meetings, and openly affected to 
 complain of them for doing so. Madame Duplessis 
 Mornay relates in her Memoirs that her first husband, 
 M. Feuqueres, who, after so arduous a struggle with 
 his convictions as to produce illness, had abandoned 
 Catholicism, without leaving the court, “ in concert 
 with other zealous persons, frequently caused preach- 
 ing to be held in the chamber of the queen-mother 
 during her dinner, being assisted to do so by some 
 
IN TIIE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 315 
 
 of her femmes de chambre, who were of the reli- 
 gion.” 
 
 It was Catherine who first issued edicts in favour of 
 the Protestants, while, at the same time, she was 
 meditating their ruin. When she saw the Lorraine 
 princes gaining the ascendency, she wrote to Conde, 
 begging him to take up “ the defence of the State, 
 and to save the mother and her infant;” and this 
 letter produced the first civil war. When news of 
 the battle of Dreux, reported at first to have been 
 lost by the Catholics, reached the court, “ Well,” said 
 she drily, “ then we shall have to say our prayers in 
 French,” and she fell to caressing the Protestants : 
 but, on the following day, when authentic intelligence 
 proclaimed the victory of the Catholics, she ordered 
 bonfires to be made, and sent to the duke of Guise, 
 whom she hated, the appointment of commander 
 of the armies. Jealous of both parties, she sought 
 among the Protestants a counterpoise to the ascend- 
 ency of the Guises, and in the Guises a bulwark 
 against the Protestants; fully resolved to abandon 
 her faith, but not the sceptre, to the chance of battles : 
 Catholic or Calvinist, no matter ; all she wanted was 
 but to quell and to reign over both parties. 
 
 For the rest, she was of that cold-blooded nature 
 which left her mind in perfect freedom to combine at 
 leisure the plans of her atrocities. She liked there- 
 fore to give them the disguise of festivities ; and she 
 was never so entirely engrossed as when she appeared 
 to be engaged in frivolous pursuits, court diversions, 
 
316 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 and dissipations. Thus, at Bayonne, she passed the 
 days in devising ballets and the nights in conferring 
 with Alba. The magnificence, the taste, the gallantry, 
 which reigned in these fetes surpassed all that had 
 ever been seen ; “ and note,” says Brantome, “ that 
 all these«inventions came from no other shop, no other 
 mind, but the queen’s;” and it was then that she 
 planned the proscription of 200,000 Frenchmen. 
 
 To this queen all ways were good for gratifying 
 her vengeance and attaining her ends. History is full 
 of scandalous details of the snares which she laid for 
 the leaders of the Protestants, by means of the 
 females whom she kept in her train. “ Wherever she 
 went,” says Mezerai, “ she took with her the appa- 
 ratus for the most voluptuous diversions, and two or 
 three hundred [Brantome tells us that there were at 
 least three hundred dames ou demoiselles in her re- 
 tinue] of the handsomest females of her court, who 
 led in leash twice as many courtiers. Let war or 
 public affairs create what embarrassments they would, 
 balls must be kept up : the tones of violins were 
 never drowned by the clang of trumpets ; the same 
 carriage bore the machinery of ballets and the nja- 
 chines of war ; and in the same lists were to be seen 
 Frenchmen butchering each other, and carrousels at 
 which ladies were taking their pleasure.” 
 
 The same writer mentions “ an entertainment 
 given by Catherine, at which females, habited as men 
 and dressed in green, waited at table and another, 
 which she gave to Monsieur at Chenonceaux, and on 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 317 
 
 which, to shew that it was of her he had learned pro- 
 digality, she expended more than 100,000 livres;. 
 and “ the most beautiful women of the court were 
 employed to wait at table, with bosoms bare, and 
 hair floating loose like that of brides.” 
 
 These females Catherine took into her service at 
 the age of fourteen ; personal charms were a title to 
 preference, and she trained them according to her 
 views : hence almost all of them became celebrated 
 for their gallantries ; and though the queen appeared 
 at times to affect severity when they carried matters 
 too far, this was only a trick of her policy, and pri- 
 vately she always manifested extreme indulgence for 
 their indiscretions, as she had done towards her hus- 
 band’s mistresses, when they were serviceable to her 
 designs.* This harem, kept under the name of ladies 
 of honour, proved fatal to more than one warrior. 
 They gained the chiefs by their blandishments, wormed 
 from them their secrets, and instantly revealed them 
 to their mistress : in this way, the young Beraudiere 
 drew Antoine de Bourbon from the Protestant in- 
 terest, and it was in the arms of this lady of honour 
 that he became a good Catholic. Bayle relates with 
 what art the beautiful Limeuil, by command of the 
 queen, to whom she was related, contrived to entangle 
 the prince of Conde ; how Catherine favoured their 
 
 * Miss Leviston, a Scotchwoman, who made no secret of her in- 
 trigues, and who became mother by Henry II. of the duke d’Angou- 
 leme, was lady of honour to Catherine. This queen was also the 
 confidante and friend of her rival, Diane de Poitiers. 
 
318 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 amours, and their scandalous result. The proud 
 .Chateauneuf was at the same time the declared mis- 
 tress of the duke of Anjou and his mother’s lady of 
 honour. In spite of her adventures, she afterwards 
 married Antinotti, an Italian, whom she murdered 
 with her own hand. It was with Catherine’s consent 
 that half a dozen of these ladies disputed, not unsuc- 
 cessfully, for the heart of her younger son, the duke 
 of Anjou, the king of Navarre, and the first men of 
 the court. It is even alleged that she received into 
 her retinue Marie Touchet, the public mistress of 
 Charles IX., in order that she might be better able to 
 chain that furious lion. But the person who served 
 most to promote her designs was the beautiful Sauves, 
 so celebrated in the annals of those times. She was 
 dame d’atours to Catherine. Her wit, her beauty, 
 her graces, her experience in the arts of seduction, 
 rendered her particularly dangerous to young hearts. 
 She was justly called the Circe of the court. This 
 enchantress bound Henry IV. and many others by her 
 spells. 
 
 Catherine reigned over this troop of licentious 
 females ; it was she who presided over the employ- 
 ment of their charms ; she directed their shafts, and 
 marked their victims. In this school were trained 
 Diane and Gabrielle d’Estrees, as well as Catherine’s 
 own daughter Margaret, who was but too apt a 
 scholar. All these rival beauties sowed dissensions 
 and jealousies among the chiefs. Few were proof 
 against their seductions ; they omitted nothing to 
 
IN T1IE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 319 
 
 make proselytes and to effect conversions. Hence 
 Jeanne d’Albret, on her arrival at Blois, was so 
 shocked by the corruption which pervaded the court 
 of the Valois, that, in writing to her son, she observed, 
 “ Though I believed it to be very great, I find it still 
 greater : here it is not the men who solicit the women, 
 but the women who solicit the men.” Bran tome, 
 who personally knew most of these females, adds 
 that “ the time when they were single was their best 
 time ; for they had their free choice to be priestesses 
 either of Venus or Diana: they had prudence, skill, 
 and knowledge 'pour se garder de Venflure .” Need 
 we further proofs that the vices introduced by Cathe- 
 rine and her Italians into the court of the Valois 
 rendered it perhaps the most corrupt that ever ex- 
 isted ? 
 
 Upon this corruption, which was her work, Cathe- 
 rine grounded her successes. Virtue was hateful to 
 her. She persecuted it in PHopital and in Coligni ;* 
 she feared it in her own children, She gave lessons 
 in intrigue to her own daughter, and offered, if she 
 would make certain confessions, to annul her marri- 
 age with the king of Navarre. Dreading lest the 
 beauty joined with the virtue of the consort of 
 
 * When in 1569 Maurevert had most basely assassinated Mouy, 
 his benefactor and a friend of Coligni’ s, the queen settled upon him 
 an annuity upon the Hotel de Ville. It was the same man who, after 
 this encouragement, and after secret interviews with Anjou, the 
 Guises, and Gondi, Catherine’s favourite, wounded the admiral with an 
 arquebuse, a few days before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
 
320 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 Henry III. should give her too much empire over her 
 husband and too much influence with the. Guises, she 
 employed the confessor of that queen to prejudice her 
 mind against Henry, and some of her husband’s mi- 
 nions to prepossess him against the queen. 
 
 It was by such detestable arts that Catherine 
 filled her court with dissensions, tears, and terrors ; 
 that she there naturalized Italian cunning and du- 
 plicity ; and these she employed more especially 
 against the princes of the blood, whom she consi- 
 dered as her enemies. As long as she lived, she 
 persecuted the Bourbons. Antoine of Bourbon was 
 ever an object of her injustice or her contempt; she 
 strove to bring the brave Conde to the block ; and 
 when that unfortunate prince was murdered, she con- 
 centrated all her hatred upon Henry IV. She had 
 persecuted him from his cradle ; and, dogging him 
 with the perseverance of a fury, she never left him 
 till she sunk herself into the tomb.* She had pre- 
 vented Henry III. from marrying Catherine, sister of 
 the king of Navarre, dreading to see her on the 
 throne of France ; but she gave him her daughter, 
 and we shall see how she celebrated their nuptials. 
 After the massacre, she kept him in abasement, 
 caused him to be examined like a criminal, subjected 
 him to a thousand annoyances, and for four years 
 held him in close captivity, either at Vincennes or at 
 
 * It is said that one grand cause of the hatred of Catherine to 
 Henry IV. was, that her Italian astrologers had foretold that he % 
 should succeed her sons on the throne of France. 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 321 
 
 her court, merely allowing him, by a perfidy worthy 
 of herself alone, free access to the apartments of her 
 maids of honour. She hoped in this manner to ex- 
 tinguish his generous courage, as she had done that 
 of her sons : again he escaped her toils. But it was 
 more especially after the death of the duke of Alemjon 
 that, seeing her only surviving son Henry III. with- 
 out issue, and incapable of having any, she em- 
 ployed all her batteries to keep her son-in-law, 
 Henry IV., aloof from the throne to which he was 
 called by his birth. She encouraged the preten- 
 sions of all the foreigners to the crown : she strove 
 to transfer it to the children of her daughter, the 
 duchess of Lorraine ; she made every possible effort 
 to sap the foundations of the Salic law, to prevent 
 the Bourbons from reigning. 
 
 If Catherine hated Henry IV. thus mortally, it 
 was because she could not corrupt him, because his 
 noble qualities threw her into the shade. To the 
 last, she prevented her unfortunate son from joining 
 that hero, 'who alone could deliver him from the 
 oppression of foreigners. At length, this queen, 
 known and despised too late, abhorred by her own 
 son, died of chagrin, because she was reduced to a 
 cipher. Henry afterwards acknowdedged that she 
 was the only woman he* had ever hated. Many 
 years subsequently, when Mary de Medicis was pro- 
 posed to him for a consort, he acknowledged to 
 Sully his repugnance to the match, because she was 
 of the same family as Catherine, who, he said, had 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 Y 
 
322 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 done so much mischief to France, and to him in 
 particular. “ I dread that alliance, lest it should 
 also turn out ill for myself, for mine, and for the 
 state.” His fears were hut too fully justified by 
 the event. 
 
 Born of an Italian mother, suckled by an Italian 
 nurse, surrounded from their cradle by Italians, 
 the last scions of the house of Valois resembled their 
 mother much more than their father in disposition : 
 they were more Italians than French. 
 
 Charles IX. was but ten years old when he came 
 to the crown. At this tender age, the juvenile 
 sovereign was wholly left to the lessons of his mo- 
 ther. Gifted by nature with a good understanding 
 and a kindly disposition, he had even virtues that 
 might have rendered him a good king. But, in- 
 cessantly beset by Catherine, surrounded by tools 
 placed about him by her to corrupt him, filled with 
 her pernicious maxims, his young mind readily re- 
 ceived the impressions which great pains were taken 
 to produce. His mother familiarised him early with 
 blood ; she accustomed him to spill that of animals ; 
 she infused into him the inclinations of a butcher, 
 in order that he might in time contract those of an 
 executioner. One of his pleasures was to strike off 
 at one blow the heads of* the animals that fell in his 
 way ; in this manner, he prepared himself to wreak 
 his cruelty upon his subjects. There was not an 
 execution of note at the Greve to which this unworthy 
 mother did not take her sons : and, while she thus 
 
323 
 
 IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 instilled cruelty into their dispositions, she took pains 
 to corrupt their morals, to render them effeminate, 
 and to encourage a fondness for sensual pleasures ; in 
 short, her perfidious indulgence gave them up, with- 
 out defence, to every species of seduction. All that 
 afterwards happened was but the necessary conse- 
 quence of this perverse education. Of the art of 
 reigning, she taught Charles nothing hut dissimula- 
 tion. During the fourteen years that he was upon 
 the throne, she held him under her tutelage ; she 
 prolonged his childhood ; she kept him in subjection 
 to her will ; it was she who reigned in his name ; so 
 that to her, rather than to the unfortunate prince, 
 ought the horrors of this horrible reign to be attri- 
 buted. 
 
 That honest historian, de Thou, ascribes the cor- 
 ruption of Charles, his habit of profane swearing, his 
 tastes, his mistresses, the outrages against nature 
 committed in his own court, to the pernicious lessons 
 of his mother, and the governors whom she placed 
 about him. “ He was so fettered by his mother,” 
 observes the Chancellor l’Hopital, “ that he durst not 
 even say what he thought.” 
 
 She would not initiate him at first into her fatal 
 secret. She knew him to be violent, impetuous, and 
 incapable of combining and relishing a tardy ven- 
 geance ; at the same time, she took care to inspire him 
 with a bitter hatred against the Protestants. In his 
 gusts of passion, he talked of nothing but making 
 war upon them ; she diverted him from that idea ; 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 she curbed him, and at length revealed to him the 
 secret ways which she designed to employ for the 
 destruction of the rebels. But she had already taken 
 her measures for their execution. 
 
 Charles was so passionately fond of the chace, that 
 he would give up eating, drinking, and very often 
 sleep, for that amusement. He was equally fond of 
 the mechanical art of the locksmith. “ As to making 
 the lock of an arquebuse or pistol, a door-key or 
 lock, nay, even a horse-shoe, he equalled, if not sur- 
 passed, the best workmen in that craft. In the palace 
 of the Louvre, he had caused a forge to he constructed 
 under his apartments, and there he worked every 
 day, putting on a black holland frock over his clothes, 
 and very often stripping to his shirt, so hard did he 
 labour.* While the king was engaged in these 
 favourite pursuits, Catherine held frequent com- 
 mittees with her confidants. When at Blois, in 1571, 
 she held one of these councils, to which were sum- 
 moned the dnke of Anjou, the cardinal of Lorraine, 
 his brother the duke of Aumale, the duke of Guise, 
 Birague, the three brothers Gondi, and Gonzaga, 
 duke of Nevers: and it has been remarked that, in 
 the same room, seventeen years afterwards, the same 
 
 * On Saturday, August 23, 1572, after supper, about eleven o’clock, 
 the king, having taken the king of Navarre, the prince of Conde, 
 &c. went down to his forge, and fell to work in his usual manner, 
 making the princes and lords of his train hammer, and do other jobs 
 for him. Meanwhile, between one and two o’clock on the morning 
 of Sunday, St. Bartholomew’s day .... the alarm-bell rang .... 
 (Favyn, Hist, de Navarre, fol. 86G, 867.) 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 325 
 
 duke of Guise was assassinated by the same duke of 
 Anjou, who had become king. In this council it was 
 that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was deter- 
 mined upon. De Thou says, “ Many believed that 
 the king was never consulted upon it ; and that he 
 was absolutely ignorant of the plan formed by his 
 mother, his brother, and their accomplices.” 
 
 Six months afterwards, whether the king was still 
 blit the passive instrument of his mother’s ven- 
 geance, or whether the monster was by this time 
 perfected, he dared boast to Coligni of his frankness 
 and his sincerity. “ As for me,” said he, “ I am a 
 Frenchman ; but my brother, the duke of Anjou, 
 scarcely ever talks but with his head, his eyes, and 
 his shoulders ; he is an Italian.” 
 
 When dying, Charles learned to know his mother, 
 then, alas ! too late. It was not in her power to 
 deliver him from remorse, the last virtue of the 
 guilty. From the day of the massacre his mind was 
 deranged. He was incessantly haunted by bloody 
 spectres and phantoms. For two years he was tor- 
 mented by the furies, and died in despair. 
 
 What has been said concerning Charles applies 
 still more strongly to his brother Anjou. The treat- 
 ment and education of both were alike. The latter 
 was born with promising qualities : with as good an 
 understanding, he was milder and better tempered 
 than his brother. He was but eight years old when 
 left to the sole guidance of his mother, so that she 
 had abundant time to mould the soft and ductile 
 
326 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 wax ; and, as he had a more docile disposition for 
 her lessons, she always had a marked predilection for 
 him ; he was her favourite child. He even excited 
 more than once the jealousy of Charles, and was 
 probably initiated earlier than the king into the 
 secret of the massacre, and some days before he had 
 private conferences with the assassin of Coligni. 
 
 The queen rendered him odious ; before she had 
 done, she rendered him contemptible. She extin- 
 guished the fair hopes that his youth had held out ; 
 she enervated his courage, made his manners effemi- 
 nate, applauded the scandal of his minions. She 
 filled him with prejudices and superstition. If he 
 left the arms of voluptuous indulgence, it was to give 
 himself up to all the minutiae of monkish devotion, 
 and yet he relinquished to her the reins of govern- 
 ment. This was precisely what she wished, what 
 she asked for ; and while Henry, with his fantastic 
 tastes, his meannesses, his oddities, his pious mas- 
 querades, his unworthy disguises, sometimes in female 
 attire, sometimes in a monk’s frock, presented to 
 the French a picture of royal degradation, Catherine 
 put the crown upon her own head. It was not till 
 her death that, excited by Henry IV., he seemed dis- 
 posed for a moment to rouse himself from his stupor ; 
 hut he perished a few months afterwards, the victim 
 of his false policy, by a crime of which he had set 
 an example, derived from the detestable lessons of 
 his mother. 
 
 Albert de Gondi, duke de Retz, the favourite and 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 327 
 
 confidant of the queen -mother, the adviser and one 
 of the principal actors in the tragedy of the 24th of 
 August, proved one of the most mischievous of her 
 instruments to France, from the ascendency which 
 he gained over the mind of Charles IX. and the in- 
 fluence which he had on all the events of that 
 deplorable time. He was the son of a gentleman of 
 Florence, and banker at Lyons. His wife, also an 
 Italian, “ had found means to get into the service of 
 Catherine as wet-nurse to her children, and had even, 
 as it is said, assisted that princess to have issue after 
 being married ten years without any; for which 
 reason, on becoming queen and regent of the king- 
 dom, she advanced all the Gondis so much in estates 
 and dignities.”* 
 
 Suckled at the same breast as the royal children, 
 Gondi beset his unhappy foster-brother Charles IX. 
 from the moment of his birth till he expired. He 
 acquired immense possessions ; had a brother, who 
 was made bishop of Paris in 1570; and there were 
 twenty others of his family who held the highest 
 offices. He was called the queen’s minion — for she 
 too had her minions — and was an object of public 
 indignation for his vices and cruelties. 
 
 It was this Florentine, marshal of France, though 
 he had never seen an army, and the most depraved 
 of mankind, who was selected by Catherine for go- 
 vernor to Charles IX. and his brothers. He was the 
 first foreigner appointed in France to an office, on 
 
 * Journal de Henri III., i. 304. 
 
328 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 which, under despotic governments, the welfare of 
 States essentially depends. It was not till this fatal 
 epoch that all the laws of the nation were daringly 
 violated. It was he who taught the prince to vent 
 his rage in the most horrible oaths, execrations, and 
 blasphemies ; it was he who opened his soul to every 
 baneful passion, who encouraged his fondness for 
 cruel sights and violent exercises : “ in short,” says 
 Brantome, “ it was he who perverted him in every 
 possible way, and made him forget and forsake the 
 wholesome instructions imparted by the excellent 
 de Cipierre,” his first governor. It was in his house 
 that the massacre, for which his detestable lessons 
 had prepared his pupil, was decided upon ; it was he 
 who harassed and tormented the young king till he 
 had wrung from him the fatal order : he disputed 
 with Catherine the fatal honour of consigning him to 
 remorse, and that arquebuse — who knows what hand 
 put it into his ! Narcissus of old was not more suc- 
 cessful in transforming Nero into a monster than 
 Gondi, the Florentine, in depraving Charles IX. 
 
 Birague, a native of Milan, who came young to 
 France, successively soldier, lawyer, courtier, mar- 
 ried, priest, chancellor, cardinal, possessed all the 
 qualities requisite to advance himself in such a court 
 as Catherine’s — great audacity, and still greater 
 suppleness, ambition and no scruples, talent for 
 business and particularly for intrigue, some under- 
 standing and plenty of ignorance. “ Italian by nation 
 and religion,” says l’Etoile, “for the rest, liberal, 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 329 
 
 voluptuous, time-serving, a mere tool of the king’s 
 will to which Mezerai adds, “ a magistrate with- 
 out learning and without study, who bent like a reed 
 to all the winds of the court, paying more deference 
 to a valet in favour than to all the laws of the king- 
 dom — such was the successor of l’Hopital, the most 
 learned of Frenchmen, the most ardent lover of his 
 country.” 
 
 De Thou is of opinion that Birague was the first, 
 and for some time the only one besides Gondi that 
 was entrusted with the secret of the massacre. It 
 was this triumvirate of Italians w T ho conducted the 
 whole plot, and drew up the proscription list of one 
 hundred thousand Frenchmen. He held the seals 
 from 1570, but it was not till the death of l’Hopital, 
 in 1573, that he had the title of Chancellor, as a re- 
 ward for the services which he had rendered in the 
 preceding year. 
 
 Gonzaga, duke of Nevers, of the house of the 
 princes of Mantua, was a member of all the secret 
 councils which preceded and prepared the massacre, 
 in the execution of which, sorely against his will, he 
 was prevented from taking an active part. He had 
 great influence on public affairs, which were then all 
 discussed in the queen’s committees. 
 
 The duke of Guise was one of the principal mem- 
 bers of the council, at which the massacre was deter- 
 mined upon ; and he was also one of the most active 
 instruments in its execution. It was he who gave 
 directions to the Prevot des Marchands for arming 
 
330 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 his partisans, and for the marks by which they were 
 to be distinguished. As Grand Master of France, he 
 commanded at the Louvre : he assembled there the 
 officers of the five Catholic cantons and several 
 colonels of the French army, to whom lie imparted 
 the secret orders of the king; and spoke to them 
 of the massacre as of a glorious action. He distri- 
 buted the troops in the different quarters of the 
 city, and particularly in the environs of the Louvre ; 
 and posted them in such a manner that none of the 
 retinue of Navarre and Conde should escape. He 
 surrounded in like manner the house of the Admiral ; 
 and, having made all his arrangements, he returned 
 to the king, to await the hour that was to be the 
 last of so many victims. There, closeted with Ca- 
 therine, Birague, Nevers, and Gondi, these five 
 foreigners, by dint of importunities, wrung a consent 
 from the unfortunate prince. 
 
 The cardinal of Lorraine, brother of the first and 
 uncle of the second duke of Guise, laboured with 
 more perseverance and success than any other mem- 
 ber of the family for its aggrandizement. He set out 
 with insinuating himself by mean complaisance into 
 the good graces of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of 
 Henry II. , who ruled that monarch and through him 
 the whole kingdom. Under Francis II., as we have 
 seen, he reigned despotically, and his government was 
 terrible. 
 
 He was the first who made the Bastille an instru- 
 ment of ministerial vengeance. To be suspected by 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 331 
 
 him was sufficient to cause the noblest personages 
 to be plunged into this tomb of the living, there to 
 perish in tortures or in the anguish of despair. He 
 invented lettres de cachet , and multiplied those com- 
 missions where the judges were publicly paid for 
 convicting all who dared to censure his tyranny. All 
 means were right that could further his designs. 
 The acceptance of the decrees of the council of 
 Trent seemed calculated to consolidate his power 
 and the influence of his family ; and he teased the 
 French, and the magistrates in particular, to assent 
 to their adoption. He considered the Inquisition 
 as a still surer instrument of his secret vengeance, 
 and he made the utmost efforts to introduce it into 
 France. 
 
 The cardinal was at one and the same time arch- 
 bishop of Lyons, of Rheims, of Sens, and of Nar- 
 bonne ; bishop of Metz, of Toul, of Verdun, of 
 Terouenne, of Luqon, of Alby, and of Valence ; 
 abbot of Fecamp, of Gorze, of Clugny, of Marmou- 
 tier, &c., dispenser of all the benefices in the kingdom, 
 which gave him such influence over the clergy of 
 France, that the very Italians called him “ the Pope 
 beyond the Mountains.” To all these means of cor- 
 ruption, he added the administration of the finances ; 
 and this man, groaning under the weight of dignities 
 and mitres, and of the treasures of the kingdom, had 
 the audacity to order a gibbet to be set up in the 
 courts of Fontainebleau, to hang the first French 
 officer who should dare to solicit the payment for 
 
332 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 his services, the moderate price of his blood spilt 
 for the country, or the first creditor of the state that 
 ventured to claim his legitimate debt. It must, at 
 this day, excite unbounded astonishment that the 
 whole nation did not unite to shake off the yoke 
 of this insolent priest, and to deliver its king from 
 the disgraceful chains imposed upon him by these 
 foreigners. 
 
 Such was the object of what is called the con- 
 spiracy of Amboise : it only served to whet the 
 appetite of the cardinal for persecution. He kindled 
 its fires, and sacrificed thousands of victims to his 
 ambition ; he appointed commissions for trying 
 princes of the blood ; he purposed sending the king 
 of Navarre to the scaffold, and his widow and chil- 
 dren to the dungeons of the Inquisition; he insti- 
 gated the massacre of the Protestants at Sens, more 
 odious even than that which his brother was at the 
 same time perpetrating at Vassy. He devised plans 
 for their entire proscription ; his persecuting spirit 
 extended to England and Scotland ; he founded at 
 Rheims an English seminary, whence issued colonies 
 and priests, to preach fanaticism and rebellion in the 
 kingdoms of Britain ; and, to enforce the universal 
 adoption of his intolerance, he caused both the 
 Protestants and those who were advocates for in- 
 dulgence towards them to be punished with the same 
 severity. 
 
 The author of great part of the calamities of 
 France was Philip II : his gold was almost as bane- 
 
IN TIIE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 333 
 
 fill as the rapacity of the Italians and the ambition 
 of the Guises. He made common cause with them, 
 nay, he was more constantly than they the enemy of 
 France. 
 
 It was interest alone, under the mask of religion, 
 that actuated this royal hypocrite. By virtue of a 
 papal bull excommunicating Jean d’Albret, for having 
 taken part with Louis XII., and giving his kingdom 
 to Ferdinand, Philip’s grandfather, of perfidious me- 
 mory, Navarre had been usurped by the Spanish 
 monarch. Charles V., when dying, ordered it to be 
 restored. Philip, to evade this injunction and set 
 his conscience at ease, thought it better to cite 
 Jeanne d’Albret to Rome as a heretic ; and it was 
 on this occasion that he obtained from the Pope that 
 odious bull, consigning the queen and her children 
 in the cradle to the Inquisition, that he might with 
 a safe conscience appropriate their possessions to 
 himself. This scheme having but partially succeeded, 
 he still feared that the house of Bourbon would esta- 
 blish the validity of the rights which it derived from 
 the d’Albrets. Philip accordingly swore the destruc- 
 tion of the Bourbons ; and, for this reason, he was the 
 steady persecutor of Henry IV. Pie had cheated 
 his father, proscribed his mother, calumniated his 
 uncle Conde, persecuted himself from his cradle; 
 and wished to deprive him of the crown of France, 
 that he might not be obliged to restore to him that 
 of Navarre. 
 
 He availed himself of his quality of brother-in- 
 
334 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 law of the French kings, and of their minority, to 
 intermeddle in the affairs of France, and to foment 
 troubles, in that country: he swayed the regent, 
 urged her to war with the Ilugonots, sent her troops 
 and money. The succours and the dread of Spain, 
 of Philip, of Alba, of Granvella, and, above all, of the 
 Inquisition, produced the first civil war. When peace 
 and liberty of conscience were mentioned, Philip 
 threatened. He obtained a promise from Catherine 
 that she would not do any thing till he had assented 
 to it. He had pensioners in the council; he was 
 informed of all that passed in it, frequently even 
 before the princes, which led Mezerai to affirm that 
 “ half the council was Spanish.” It is almost 
 impossible that Philip should have been unac- 
 quainted with the plan of the massacre. Besides, 
 it is well known what an intimate connexion was 
 always kept up by Catherine and the cardinal of 
 Lorraine with Philip and his worthy minister, the 
 duke of Alba, that ferocious monster, who boasted 
 that, in order to establish the Inquisition, he had 
 confiscated to the amount of eight millions of gold 
 per annum, and exterminated eighteen thousand men 
 by the hand of the executioner. 
 
 It is likewise known that, in the conferences at 
 Bayonne, the Spaniard and the Italian queen com- 
 municated together every night by means of an open 
 gallery. It is even asserted to have been at these 
 secret interviews that they settled the first measures 
 for exterminating the Protestant party, and that 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 385 
 
 Alba dropped these indiscreet words that “ the 
 head of a salmon was worth more than all the frogs 
 of a marsh.” 
 
 During the reigns of the Valois, and especially 
 under Henry III., the rage for games of chance, like- 
 wise imported from Italy, became universal, being 
 communicated by court to city, and by the city to 
 the provinces. They proved the ruin of numberless 
 families, and led to quarrels not to be extinguished 
 but by rivers of blood. It was then, too, that the 
 stiletto and the poniard first came into use. The 
 French, after the example of the Spaniards and the 
 Italians, adopted the savage practice of carrying a 
 dagger at the belt or passed through the hilt of the 
 sword. In vain PHopital inveighed against this 
 murderous innovation ; in vain he reminded his coun- 
 trymen that their ancestors, not less brave than they, 
 carried arms only in war and against the enemies of 
 the State. 
 
 It is obvious what baneful effects this barbarous 
 custom must produce in those days of animosity and 
 revenge. Duels, which in the age of chivalry re- 
 tained at least the appearance of valour and honour, 
 degenerated into downright murders: and from the 
 licence of the civil wars dated the practice of wear- 
 ing the sword in time of profound peace, in all com- 
 panies, even in the bosom of family and friends. 
 
 Another not less fertile source of abuses and cor- 
 ruption in the political system was still more parti- 
 cularly the work of Catherine. She boasted that 
 
336 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 there was not a gentleman in the kingdom with an 
 income of ten thousand livres, about whom she had 
 not a spy. This Charles IX. himself one day told 
 Chavigny, one who, amidst a court where depravity 
 of heart and character appeared general, retained the 
 candour and frankness of an upright man. “ Sire,” 
 he replied, “ I know not if spies make tyrants, or 
 tyrants spies, but I think them of no use, except 
 in war.” 
 
 We read with astonishment that Catherine’s three 
 sons, dressed as women, ran at the ring, with rouge, 
 patches, and all the adornments requisite for a 
 coquette. At the tournament held in the Place du 
 Louvre, on the Thursday before St. Bartholomew’s 
 day, that is, three days before the massacre, the 
 king, his brothers, Guise, and Aumale were habited 
 as Amazons. There are still extant engraved por- 
 traits of Henry III. in that dress, so unworthy of a 
 king, and even of a man. He relinquished entirely 
 the use of hats for the Italian cap, which gave him a 
 more effeminate look ; and passed whole days in de- 
 vising fashions, in dressing the hair of his wife or his 
 mistress, or in the adornment of his own person. 
 “ Worshipping his own beauty, like a woman, he 
 slept in gloves to preserve the whiteness of his deli- 
 cate hands, and had upon his face a prepared paste, 
 with a mask over that.”* 
 
 But nothing served to incense the French, and 
 
 * Journal de Henri III., ii. 282 . 
 
IN TIIE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 337 
 
 especially all virtuous minds against him, so much 
 as his fondness for minions ; the bare suspicion of 
 which had scarcely defiled France before this era of 
 inexpressible depravity. Nothing created him more 
 enemies, and added more partisans to the League 
 than this odious propensity. What inflamed indig- 
 nation to the highest degree was the alliance of such 
 shameless depravity with the external show of devo- 
 tion, or rather with superstitious practices and Italian 
 mummeries. The same person who overnight had 
 disguised himself as a woman appeared the next day 
 in the habit of a penitent, girt with a cord, covered 
 with a hair-shirt, a cowl, and a kerchief sprinkled 
 with death’s-heads ; and in this plight made himself 
 a gazing-stock to the capital. He would then hasten 
 to bury himself among the Feuillans, the Capuchins, 
 the Hieroniinites, in the solitude of Neigeon, or in 
 the wood of Vincennes. Monks became courtiers, 
 courtiers monks ; and, under these deceptive masks, 
 all abandoned themselves without scruple to licen- 
 tiousness and debauchery. 
 
 It was to please the superstitious that he thus de- 
 graded himself, and adopted all these pious masque- 
 rades, for which he found a pattern and imbibed a 
 fondness at Avignon and in the manners of Italy. 
 In thus assuming an hypocritical mask, according to 
 the lessons of his mother, Henry imagined that he 
 was acting the clever politician : he wished to appear 
 more devout than the Guises, who were regarded as 
 the pillars of religion ; but, the more he strove to 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 regain the esteem of his subjects, the deeper he sunk 
 into the mire of opprobrium and contempt. 
 
 An odd medley of devotion and of that licentious- 
 ness which the French call galantry was the spirit 
 of the age. Catherine was above both these weak- 
 nesses of her sex, but gave way alike to both, 
 according to her views and interests ; and she, who 
 was not galant or devout any further than her 
 policy prompted, understood the art of turning this 
 disposition in others to good account. We have seen 
 how she allowed the numerous beauties of her court 
 to get lovers, provided they made proselytes, at what 
 price they purchased this double triumph, and that 
 very often each conversion cost them a weakness. 
 The queen herself, in the midst of a ball, or just 
 risen from the arms of the Yidame de Chartres or of 
 Troylus de Mesgouez, would draw up a profession of 
 faith, which the ladies of her retinue were to get 
 signed ; and these at night made their lovers sign it, 
 as a preliminary without which they could never 
 hope for their favours. 
 
 Her daughter Margaret mingled with the perfor- 
 mance of the minutest practices of devotion the pur- 
 suits of the most decided galantry ; passed from the 
 foot of the altar to the boudoirs of voluptuousness, 
 heard regularly three masses a day, and listened 
 willingly to three lovers ; and, divided between the 
 objects of her tenderness, made, under the direction 
 of her confessor, almost as frequent retreats as under 
 that of the “ handsome Chanvallon.” 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 339 
 
 The faith of Catherine in astrology and her de- 
 cided taste for what was then called magic are 
 attested by all historians. This was another of the 
 productions of the climate of Italy, which she trans- 
 planted into France, where her example, a fondness 
 for novelty, a restless ignorance, and an ambitious 
 curiosity, caused them speedily to bear fruit. Never 
 was woman more superstitious. At the birth of a 
 child she never failed to consult some astrologer 
 about its destiny. That famous dreamer, Nostra- 
 damus, was held by her in the highest estimation ; 
 but Master Bernard Abatio added to the title of 
 physician that of “ astrologer to the most Christian 
 king of France, Charles IX.,” and prefixed it to his 
 “ Prognostication” relative to the fatal marriage, 
 dated from his “ encyclopedic study,” and printed in 
 1572. In this production he examines whether the 
 king of Navarre and his wife will love one another, 
 whether they will live long, whether they will have 
 children, and so forth. He does not fail to deduce the 
 most auspicious forebodings, and eight days after- 
 wards — we shall see what happened. But, while Cathe- 
 rine was commanding a public prediction respecting 
 the marriage of her daughter with the king of Na- 
 varre, she was secretly consulting Ruggieri, to know 
 whether she ought to put to death this same king of 
 Navarre, her son-in-law, and his cousin the prince of 
 Conde, amidst the festivities for the nuptials : this 
 Ruggieri subsequently confessed in his judicial exa- 
 minations. 
 
340 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 This man was another of the Florentines who came 
 to France in Catherine’s train. A priest, astrologer, 
 magician, and, above all, a great impostor, lie drew 
 the horoscope of all the young gentlemen of the court, 
 and made charms to procure them handsome mis- 
 tresses. He was in high favour with the ladies. Few 
 men had more friends and more influence at that 
 superstitious court ; and Catherine frequently con- 
 sulted him, and employed him for more than one 
 purpose. She placed him about her youngest son, 
 the duke of Alen^on, upon pretext of his teaching 
 him Italian, but in reality to serve her for a spy, and 
 he gave her an account of all his movements. Being 
 accused of having conspired against the life of 
 Charles IX., and having at least been imprudent 
 enough to talk to la Mole and Coconas about his 
 fooleries, he had persuaded the latter that he could 
 make images of wax, some to soften the hearts of 
 fair ladies, others to make any person he pleased die 
 a lingering death. He got quit with condemnation 
 to the galleys. The queen obtained his liberation to 
 make use of him, and gave him an abbey. 
 
 Thirteen years afterwards, he was again charged 
 with attempting to take the life of Henry IV., by 
 magical practices, “ having made a waxen figure re- 
 sembling the king, which he pierced every day, pro- 
 nouncing certain barbarous words, to make him 
 languish and die.* From this scrape he extricated 
 
 Brantome, tome viii., 18 L 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 341 
 
 himself by his suppleness, intrigues, and the favour of 
 the ladies. He had even the hardihood to maintain 
 that he was not the same person who had been 
 accused in the time of Charles IX. De Thou, one of 
 his judges, astonished at his villany, calls him “ the 
 most impudent and the most abandoned of men.” 
 His reputation declined ; and for a subsistence he 
 practised fortune-telling, and published a yearly 
 almanac. He survived all Catherine’s Italian cour- 
 tiers, dying in 1615 at the age of fourscore; and, as 
 he had declared publicly and insolently, says Bayle, 
 that he should die an atheist, his body was dragged 
 to the laystall. 
 
 Such were the persons who enjoyed the confidence 
 and favour of Catherine. That weak and cruel 
 woman was credulous to excess. It is asserted that 
 the deaths of her husband, herself, and her children, 
 were all foretold to her; but to no purpose. This 
 restlessness, this anxiety to dive into the future, was 
 her torment, and, throughout her whole life, she was 
 the dupe or the accomplice of these impostors. This 
 mania became general : the whole nation was infa- 
 tuated with it. Nothing was talked of but charms 
 and talismans, hieroglyphics, mysterious medals, con- 
 stellated rings, enchanted images. But very fre- 
 quently these extravagances served as a cloak for 
 criminal designs : and all the pretended sorcerers did 
 not get off so easily as lluggieri. L’Etoile relates 
 that in 1587 an Italian seventy years of age was 
 hanged for magic and sorcery ; that he was the head 
 
342 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE. 
 
 of a numerous band ; and that it was alleged there 
 were thirty thousand of them, “ astrologers, sorcerers, 
 and philosophers ” — these terms being then syno- 
 nymous. These wretches corrupted the mind of the 
 multitude, eager after the marvellous, filled it with 
 fears, suspicions, prejudices, superstitions, and gave 
 rise to accusations and too often to crimes. 
 
 Bianchi, perfumer to Catherine, was accused by 
 public report of having poisoned the queen of Na- 
 varre by means of a pair of scented gloves. However 
 innocent he might be of this charge, supported by no 
 evidence, he showed by his conduct that he was ca- 
 pable of that or any other crime. Hear the testimony 
 of an eye-witness. “ Master Rene, an Italian, was 
 one of the butchers of St. Bartholomew, a man 
 steeped in all sorts of cruelties and atrocities ; who 
 went to the prisons to stab the Hugonots, and lived 
 entirely by murder, robbery, and poisoning. The 
 day after the massacre, he enticed to his house his 
 best friend, a rich jeweller, upon pretence of offer- 
 ing him an asylum ; and, violating all the sacred 
 rights of nature, friendship, and hospitality, he mur- 
 dered him with his own hands, and dragged his 
 corpse to the river.”* He died upon a dunghill, his 
 wife in an infamous house, and his two sons on the 
 wheel in 1586. 
 
 It were an endless task to reveal all the secrets of 
 the corruption which marked the entry of Catherine 
 
 Journal cle ITenri III., i. 24, 25. 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 343 
 
 de Medicis into France, which was the fruit of her 
 policy, or the work of her countrymen. She might 
 boast that for them she had levelled the Alps, as 
 Louis XIV. afterwards did, when he observed, but in 
 a more honourable sense, “ There are now no Pyre- 
 nees.” No wonder that, from the moment of her 
 arrival, throngs of Italians kept following her, in order 
 to make their fortunes. They crossed the mountains 
 in torrents, and inundated the kingdom, like a river 
 overflowing its banks. It was to them a conquered coun- 
 try, and they came to share the spoils. They filled the 
 court, the council-chamber, the Church, and the 
 army ; they reined in the finance-department, in 
 which they committed their ravages. They brought 
 with them their tastes, their passions, their preju- 
 dices; they changed and corrupted the manners of 
 the nation. 
 
 During the reigns of the last three Valois, all the 
 southern provinces of France were filled with Italian 
 bishops and archbishops. A French writer enu- 
 merates ten of the former and seven of the latter, 
 with an et cetera at the end of each class. They 
 brought the inquisitorial spirit along with them from 
 Italy : they showed themselves the most fiery perse- 
 cutors of the Protestants, that is to say, of all French- 
 men who did not think as they did. Several of them, 
 not content with spiritual arms, buckled on the cui- 
 rass, and resorted to bayonets and cannon for the 
 conversion of those who had gone asti’ay. 
 
 In the time of Henry II. and Charles IX., the court 
 
344 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 numbered so many as twelve cardinals at once, a cir- 
 cumstance unparalleled since the origin of the mo- 
 narchy. All these churchmen were the vassals of a 
 foreign prince ; the Pope was their immediate sove- 
 reign ; and they did not consider themselves as sub- 
 jects of the State. Such too was the opinion of the 
 Popes. Sixtus V. went still further : he insisted 
 that the cardinal de Guise had ceased to be a subject 
 of Henry the Third’s at the moment when he received 
 holy orders. 
 
 This dignity being the premium reserved for such 
 as served the Popes at the expense of France, those 
 who aspired to it spared no efforts to deserve this 
 foreign decoration ; and perhaps this prospect, 
 opened to all ambitious minds, contributed more than 
 any other cause to extinguish every spark of patriot- 
 ism in too many of the high Catholic clergy. 
 
 After the death of Leo X., his successors felt the 
 necessity of checking for their own security the pro- 
 gress of knowledge. Accordingly, they gave new 
 activity in Italy to the Inquisition, and strove to 
 gain admittance for it into all the countries dependent 
 on them. The French cardinals under Francis I. and 
 Henry II. were sensible of the advantage to be de- 
 rived from such an institution for strengthening their 
 power and the supremacy of the Popes, and united 
 their efforts with those of the Guises, Alba, and 
 Philip II., to introduce the Inquisition into France. 
 They regarded that tribunal as the most efficient 
 remedy for heresy, that is to say, the best adapted to 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 345 
 
 terrify into submission all who might be tempted to 
 prove refractory to their commands ; and they pur- 
 posed to surround it with dungeons, chains, instru- 
 ments of torture, faggots, and fires. 
 
 The atrocious spirit of persecution which charac- 
 terises that tribunal had already crossed the moun- 
 tains. It was in fact the inquisitorial spirit that had 
 kindled the flames which consumed the entire popu- 
 lation of Cabrieres and Merindol, in the sacred pro- 
 scription of whom a monk commissioned by the Pope 
 performed the functions of Inquisitor; it was this 
 that brought the unfortunate and virtuous Anne du 
 Bourg to the scaffold ; it was this that burned Vassi, 
 that lighted up fires from one end of France to the 
 other: and for what purpose? — to propagate the 
 opinions and to extend the empire of Rome. 
 
 We even find that the title of Inquisitor of the 
 Faith was revived in France in the time of Francis I. 
 During the reign of that prince and his son were to 
 be seen in Paris real auto-da-fes ; for what other 
 name can be given to those horrible festivals, at 
 which human victims were sacrificed with due solem- 
 nities? In that capital, several Calvinists were burned 
 in this manner in 1547 and 1549. Three ruthless 
 Italian Cordeliers were already invested with the 
 title of Inquisitors in France. The cardinal of Lor- 
 raine coveted the office of Grand Inquisitor, of which 
 his inflexibility rendered him truly worthy. In Pro- 
 vence, under the auspices of the vice-legate, a severe 
 Inquisitor spread terror; while, in Languedoc, these 
 
346 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 emissaries of Popery revived the fanaticism and 
 horrors of the crusades against the Albigenses. 
 
 In 1547, a brief of the Pope to the cardinal of 
 Lorraine and two other cardinals authorised them to 
 exercise the functions of Inquisitors ; and, in the 
 following year, a Jacobin Inquisitor of the Faith at 
 Toulouse dedicated to Henry II. a work written to 
 prove that the Bible ought not to be translated into 
 French. 
 
 At length, in 1568, a real crusade was published 
 at Toulouse against those of the new religion, by 
 virtue of a bull of Pope Pius V. This is a curious 
 document for the history of fanaticism. The Pro- 
 testants are there called “ Atheists, men living with- 
 out God, without faith or law. It is Jesus Christ 
 himself,” it asserts, “ who inspires good Catholics 
 with the idea of assuming the cross, of taking up 
 arms, of fighting like Mattatliias and the other Mac- 
 cabees.” It refers to the Albigenses, destroyed in the 
 same country, to the number of sixty thousand 
 heretics ; it exhorts the true believers to persecute 
 with the same zeal the new “ enemies of God,” and 
 to show them no mercy. It assures the crusaders who 
 die in this expedition that “ their blood will be to 
 them a second baptism, which will wash away all 
 their sins ; and they will go, with the other martyrs, 
 direct to Paradise.” The condition for taking the 
 cross in this holy war was to confess, to arm them- 
 selves with the body and blood of our Lord ; “ and if,” 
 it is added, “ the capitouls [chief magistrates of 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 347 
 
 Toulouse] will be pleased to lend us some pieces of 
 cannon, things will go on all the better. Concluded 
 at Toulouse, the 21st of September, 1568. All the 
 above is done by authority of our holy Father 
 the Pope.” Priests were the captains of the holy 
 “ army of the Faith,” whose motto was, “ Eamus 
 nos ; moriamur cum Christo — Let us go ; let us die 
 with Christ.” The Pope, in consequence, remitted 
 the sins of all who armed in “ so sacred a cause,” and 
 who, alike free from scruple and pity, should have 
 the felicity to slaughter heretics.* 
 
 Attacked on all sides, France was on the point of 
 submitting to this odious yoke, and receiving the 
 monster into her bosom, when the nobie chancellor 
 l’Hopital saved her from its fangs. He became of 
 course an object of the hatred and persecution of the 
 court of Rome and of all its partisans. The Pope 
 designed to cite him before his tribunal as suspected 
 of the crime of tolerance, and made great efforts 
 and sacrifices to accomplish his purpose, that he 
 might enjoy the soothing satisfaction of seeing one 
 more great man in the dungeons of the Inquisition : 
 and, if he was disappointed, he at least found means 
 to obtain from a depraved court his dismissal and 
 exile. 
 
 “ L’Hopital,” says an eloquent anonymous French 
 author, in a spirited Eloge on the illustrious chancellor, 
 “ long struggled against the cardinal of Lorraine, Me- 
 
 * Hist, de Languedoc, fol. v. 216, where this document is given 
 entire. 
 
348 
 
 PERSECUTIONS IN FRANCE, 
 
 clicis, Rome, the Council of Spain, and the foreigners, 
 in behalf of the liberty of the nation : he was single- 
 handed against them all, but, zealous for the welfare 
 of the State, he was not to be daunted. He dared 
 to give pacific counsels ; he extinguished the flaming- 
 piles ; he proclaimed tolerance and humanity amidst 
 the cries of fanaticism. Charles IX. himself began 
 to listen to his voice. He paid deference and 
 respect to the advice of this great man : that was 
 quite sufficient : Catherine determined upon his dis- 
 grace. He was prepared for it. Long before, his friend 
 Olivier had written to him, “ You have the talents 
 that call men to high offices, but the virtues with 
 which they cannot hold them long.” The joy of the 
 wicked honoured his retirement perhaps even more 
 than the regret of the good. 
 
 “ A few days after the massacre of St. Bartho- 
 lomew, some one came to inform him that a party of 
 armed men was approaching Yignay. His vassals 
 and household would have put themselves in a pos- 
 ture of defence. “ No,” said he, “ let it be as it shall 
 please God : if the small door is not wide enough to 
 admit them, let the great one be thrown open.” These 
 men came with the message that the king forgave 
 and took him under his protection. “ I knew not,” 
 replied l’Hopital, “ that I had ever deserved either 
 death or forgiveness.” 
 
 The exile of l’Hopital was indeed a public ca- 
 lamity, and a triumph for the enemies of France. 
 Popes, cardinals, legates, foreigners, rejoiced at this 
 
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 349 
 
 victory : but bow must the regret of every virtuous 
 mind be embittered by the conviction that, had the 
 chancellor continued two years longer in his high 
 office, History would have been spared the pain of 
 recording the Massacre of St. Bartholomew ! 
 
 THE END OF VOL. I. 
 
 FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR, 
 PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, 
 51 , RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET.