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SECTION The History of the Waldenses, from the middle of the fourteenth, to the end of the fifteenth century.

A.D. 1350—1500 IT has been pertinently remarked by a late writer, that in reading the history of every country, there are certain periods at which the mind naturally pauses, to meditate upon and consider them, with reference, not only to their immediate effects, but to their more remote consequences. This remark is as applicable to the history of the Christian church, as it is to that of any particular country. I have endeavored to conduct the reader through the mazes and labyrinths of that history, during a period of nearly fourteen hundred years, in which time we have traversed a dreary wilderness, through a dark and benighted season, until we are at length brought to approach the confines of light—the morning of the Reformation. In entering upon the last chapter of this book, it may be no unprofitable employ, therefore, for us to pause, and take a review of the existing state of Europe, at this interesting period, in reference to the great concern of religion. The picture, indeed, has been already sketched by an able artist, and probably I cannot do better than present it to the reader. “The state of religion at this time was truly deplorable.

Ecclesiastical government, instead of that evangelical simplicity and fraternal freedom which Jesus Christ and his apostles had taught, was now become a spiritual domination under the form of a temporal empire. An innumerable multitude of dignities, titles, rights, honors, privileges, and pre-eminences belonged to it, and were all dependent on a sovereign priest, who, being an absolute monarch, required every thought to be in subjection to him. The chief ministers of religion were actually become temporal princes; and the high-priest, being absolute sovereign of the ecclesiastical state, had his court and his council, his ambassadors to negotiate, and his armies to murder—his flock. The clergy had acquired immense wealth; and, as their chief study was either to collect and to augment their revenues, or to prevent the alienation of their estates, they had constituted numberless spiritual corporations, with powers, rights, statutes, privileges, and officers. The functions of the ministry were generally neglected, and of consequence, gross ignorance prevailed. All ranks of men were extremely depraved in their morals, and the pope’s penitentiary had published the price of every crime, as it was rated in the taxbook of the Roman chancery. Marriages, which reason and scripture allowed, the pope prohibited, and for money dispensed with those which both forbad. Church-benefices were sold to children, and to laymen, who then let them to under tenants, none of whom performed the duty for which the profits were paid: but all having obtained them by simony, spent their lives in fleecing the flock to repay themselves. The power of the pontiff was so great, that he assumed, and what was more astonishing, he was suffered to exercise, a supremacy over many kingdoms. When monarchs gratified his will, he put on a triple crown, ascended a throne, suffered them to call him Holiness, and to kiss his feet. When they dis-obliged him, he suspended all religious worship in their dominions; published false and abusive libels, called bulls, which operated as laws, to injure their persons; discharged their subjects from obedience; and gave their crowns to any who would usurp them. He claimed an infallibility of knowledge, and an omnipotence of strength; and he forbad the world to examine his claim. He was addressed by titles of blasphemy, and though he owned no jurisdiction over himself, yet he affected to extend his authority over heaven and hell, as well as over a middle place called purgatory, of all which places he said he kept the keys. This irregular church-polity was attended with quarrels, intrigues, schisms, and wars. “Religion itself was made to consist of the performance of numerous ceremonies, of Pagan, Jewish, and Monkish extraction, all which might be performed without either faith in God, or love to mankind. The church ritual was an address, not to the reason, but to the senses of men; music stole the ear, and soothed the passions; statues, paintings, vestments, and various ornaments, beguiled the eye; while the pause which was produced by that sudden attack which a multitude of objects made on the senses, on entering a spacious decorated edifice, was enthusiastically taken for devotion.

Blind obedience was first allowed by courtesy, and then established by law. Public worship was performed in an unknown tongue, and the sacrament was adored as the body and blood of Christ. The credit of the ceremonial produced in the people a notion that the performance of it was the practice of piety, and religion degenerated into gross superstition. Vice, uncontrolled by reason or scripture, retained a Pagan rigor, and committed the most horrid crimes; and superstition atoned for them, by building and endowing religious houses, and by bestowing donations on the church. Human merit was introduced, saints were invoked, and the perfections of God were distributed by canonization, among the creatures of the pope. “The pillars, that supported this edifice, were immense riches, arising, by imposts, from the sins of mankind; idle distinctions between supreme and subordinate adoration; senseless axioms, called the divinity of the schools; preachments of buffoonery, or blasphemy, or both; cruel casuistry, consisting of a body of dangerous and scandalous morality; false miracles and midnight visions; spurious books and paltry relics; oaths, dungeons, inquisitions, and crusades. The whole was denominated The Holy Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and laid to the charge of Jesus Christ.” 2 These things premised, we now return to the history of the Waldenses.

About the year 1400, a violent outrage was committed upon the Waldenses who inhabited the valley of Pragela, in Piedmont, by the catholic party resident in that neighborhood. The attack, which seems to have been of the most furious kind, was made towards the end of the month of December, when the mountains were covered with snow, and thereby rendered so difficult of access, that the peaceable inhabitants of the valleys were wholly unapprised that any such attempt was meditated; and the persecutors were in actual possession of their caves, ere the former seem to have been apprised of any hostile designs against them. In this pitiable plight they had recourse to the only alternative which remained for saving their lives—they fled to one of the highest mountains of the Alps, with their wives and children, the unhappy mothers carrying the cradle in one hand, and in the other leading such of their offspring as were able to walk. Their inhuman invaders, whose feet were swift to shed blood, pursued them in their flight, until night came on, and slew great numbers of them, before they could reach the mountains. Those that escaped, were, however, reserved to experience a fate not more enviable. Overtaken by the shades of night, they wandered up and down the mountains, covered with snow, destitute of the means of shelter from the inclemencies of the weather, or of supporting themselves under it by any of the comforts which Providence has destined for that purpose; benumbed with cold, they fell an easy prey to the severity of the climate, and when the night had passed away, there were found in their cradles, or lying upon the snow, fourscore of their infants, deprived of life, many of the mothers also lying dead by their sides, and others just upon the point of expiring. During the night, their enemies were busily employed in plundering the houses of every thing that was valuable, which they conveyed away to Susa. A poor woman, belonging to the Waldenses, named Margaret Athode, was next morning found hanging upon a tree!

This seems to have been the first general attack that was made by the Catholics on the Waldenses of Piedmont; for though the former had repeatedly availed themselves of the edicts of emperors, the bulls of the popes, and the promptitude of inquisitorial zeal, to disturb their peace, and put many of them to death, during the three preceding centuries, yet such had been the protection afforded them by the Dukes of Savoy, that the rage of their adversaries was happily restricted to the occasional apprehension of a few solitary heretics, for whose good they never failed to light up the fires as often as opportunity was afforded them. But the outrageous attack that was now made upon them was a novelty, and it made a lasting impression on their minds. They had experienced nothing like it, say their own historians, either in their own time, or that of their forefathers; and for more than a century afterwards, they were wont to speak of it as of a dreadful scene which was still present to their view; and from generation to generation, they continued to relate, with deep impressions of horror, that sudden surprise which had occasioned so much affliction and calamity among them. From that period, until about the year 1487, the Waldenses of Piedmont appear to have remained, in a great measure, unmolested in the profession of their religion. But scenes of far more extensive cruelty were awaiting them, as will hereafter be shown; it is, however, necessary for us first to take a view of the proceedings against their brethren in other quarters.

The persecution which had so furiously raged against them in France, during the earlier part of the thirteenth century, as detailed in a former section, and which may be said to have deluged the earth with their blood, had not wholly succeeded in extirpating the Waldenses from that country.

The rallies of Fraissiniere, Argentiere, and Loyse, 4 seem to have abounded with them in the year 1450, at which time a Franciscan monk, armed with inquisitorial authority by the archbishop of Ambrun, was sent on a mission of persecution, and to drive them from the neighborhood. Such was the ardor with which this zealot proceeded in his measures, that scarcely any persons in those valleys escaped being apprehended either as heretics or as their abettors. Those of them who were not of the profession of the Waldenses, had recourse to the king of France, Louis XI beseeching him to interfere, and, by his authority, put a stop to the course of such persecutions. The monarch listened to their application, and issued his royal letters, in which he pointedly condemns the conduct of the inquisitors, who by measures the most vexatious had molested the persons, and possessed themselves of the property of innocent subjects, whom they had, with that intent, falsely accused of heresy, and annoyed with process upon process, both in the parliament of Dauphiny and of several other countries.

Perrin has preserved a copy of these royal letters, in his History of the Waldenses: and they are entitled to regard from the disclosure which they make of the scandalous procedure of those agents of the court of Rome. A short extract will show the complexion of the whole. Thus his majesty proceeds, “And, whereas, in order to obtain the confiscation of the goods of those whom they charge with the said crime [of heresy] several of the judges, and even of the inquisitors of the faith—are continuing to send out processes against several poor people, without any just or reasonable cause; and have put some upon the rack, calling them to answer without any previous informations lodged against them; and have condemned them for crimes of which they were not guilty, as hath afterwards been discovered; while from others they have exacted large sums of money to obtain their liberty, and molested and troubled them by divers unjust and illegal means, to the injury not only of the said supplicants, but also of us and the whole republic of our country of Dauphiny,” etc. etc.—the king, therefore, puts a stop to such disgraceful proceedings; orders that all suits commenced against such persons as can give proof of their innocence be dismissed, and that restitution be made for any injury they may have sustained. But the zeal or avarice of the archbishop of Ambrun, and his inquisitorial colleagues, was so far from being damped by his majesty’s letters, that they proceeded with more energy than ever. They dexterously contrived to convert a certain clause of the letters, into an authority for their cruel proceedings, and found in it an entire justification of all their conduct; in consequence of which they resisted every application for redress or remuneration. Attempts were repeatedly made by some of these oppressed people to regain the property of which they had been despoiled; but though their cause was patronized, both by this monarch and by his successor, Charles VIII they never could obtain a remedy. INNOCENT VIII was raised to the pontifical chair in the year 1414, and soon after invested Albert de Capitaneis, archdeacon of Cremona, with full powers to act as his legate and commissioner. According to the usual practice of the popes on their accession to office, this pontiff issued his bull for the extirpation of heresy, pointing it particularly against the Waldenses, and arming Albert with authority to carry his will into effect.

Having recounted, in a long preamble, the titles which belonged to himself and to his “beloved son Albert,” he thus proceeds: “Our hearty desires chiefly tend to this, that as touching those, for the gaining of whom to the church, the supreme Maker of all things was pleased to undergo human infirmities, we to whom he hath committed the care and government of his flock, may, with all watchful industry endeavor to withdraw them from the precipices of error, that providing for their salvation, as it shall please God to favor us with grace, we may continually labor, that the catholic faith may, in our times, be propagated, and the evil of heresy be rooted out from the borders of the faithful.” After this precious specimen of dissimulation, his holiness condescends to be a little more explicit. “We have heard,” says he, “and it is come to our knowledge, not without much displeasure, that certain sons of iniquity, followers of that abominable and pernicious sect of malignant men, called the Poor of Lyons, or Waldenses, who have long ago endeavored in Piedmont and other places, to ensnare the sheep belonging to God, to the perdition of their souls, having damnably risen up, under a feigned pretense of holiness — being given up to a reprobate sense, and made to err greatly from the way of truth— committing things contrary to the orthodox faith, offensive to the eyes of the Divine Majesty, and which occasion a great hazard of souls,” etc., etc. “We, therefore, having determined to use all our endeavors, and to employ all our care, as we are bound by the duty of our pastoral charge, to root up and extirpate such a detestable sect — that the hearts of believers may not be damnably perverted from the catholic church—have thought good to constitute you, at this time, for the cause of God and the faith, the Nuncio Commissioner of us and of the apostolic see, within the dominions of our beloved son Charles, Duke of Savoy — to the end that you should induce the followers of the most wicked sect of the Waldenses, and all others polluted with heretical pravity — to abjure their errors etc. And, calling to your assistance all archbishops and bishops, seated in the said duchy [of Savoy] whom the Most High hath called to share with us in our cares — with the inquisitor, the ordinaries of the place, their vicars, etc. — you proceed to the execution thereof against the aforenamed Waldenses, and all other heretics whatever, to rise up in arms against them, and by a joint communication of processes, to tread them under foot as venomous adders; diligently providing that the people committed to their charge do persevere in the profession of the true faith—bending all your endeavors, and bestowing all your care towards so holy and so necessary an extermination of the same heretics.” In this style the pontiff proceeds through several succeeding pages, giving directions for the raising of an army of crusaders, appointing generals and officers to command it— issuing instructions how to seize the effects of all heretics, and dispose of the booty, etc., etc. and at length he thus closes the address to Albert. “Thou, therefore, beloved son, taking upon thee with a devout mind the burden of so meritorious a work, show thyself, in the execution thereof, so careful in word and deed, and so diligent and studious, that the much wished-for fruits may, through the grace of God, redound unto thee from thy labors, and that thou mayest not only obtain the crown of glory which is bestowed as a reward on those that prosecute pious causes, but that thou mayest also ensure the approbation of us and of the apostolic see.” 6 —Given at Rome, at St. Peters, 27 April 1487, and the 3d of our popedom.

Albert was no sooner vested with his high commission, than he proceeded to the south of France, where he called to his aid the king’s lieutenant in the province of Dauphiny, who lost no time in levying troops for his service at the head of whom he himself marched, as directed by Albert, into the valley of Loyse. The inhabitants, apprised of their approach, fled into their caves at the tops of the mountains, carrying with them their children, and whatever valuables they had, as well as what was thought necessary for their support and nourishment. The lieutenant finding the inhabitants all fled, and that not an individual appeared with whom he could converse, at length discovered their retreats, and causing quantities of wood to be placed at their entrances, ordered it to be set on fire. The consequence was. that four hundred children were suffocated in their cradles, or in the arms of their dead mothers, while multitudes to avoid dying by suffocation, or being burnt to death, precipitated themselves headlong from their caverns upon the rocks below, where they were dashed in pieces; or if any escaped death by the fall, they were immediately slaughtered by the brutal soldiery. “It is held as unquestionably true,” says Perrin, “amongst the Waldenses dwelling in the adjacent valleys, that more than three thousand persons, men and women, belonging to the valley of Loyse, perished on this occasion. And, indeed, they were wholly exterminated, for that valley was afterwards peopled with new inhabitants, not one family of the Waldenses having subsequently resided in it; which proves beyond dispute, that all the inhabitants, and of both sexes, died at that time.” Having completed their work of extermination in the valley of Loyse, they next proceeded to that of Fraissiniere; but Albert’s presence and that of the army being found necessary in another quarter, he appointed as his substitute in these valleys a Franciscan monk, who, in the year 1489, began to exhibit fresh informations against the inhabitants of Fraissiniere.

He cited them to appear before him at Ambrun; but disregarding his citation, they were first excommunicated, then anathematized, and lastly, condemned as contumacious heretics, to be delivered over to the secular power, and their goods confiscated. A counselor, of the name of Ponce, attended on this occasion in behalf of the parliament of Dauphiny, the object of which was supposed to be that of precluding any appeal being made from this mixt judgment. The sentence was pronounced at the great church of Ambrun, and afterwards fixed upon the door of the church—to which were appended thirty-two articles of the faith of the Waldenses, chiefly relating to the mass, purgatory, the invocation of saints, pilgrimages, the observance of feasts, the distinction of meats on certain days, etc. on all which subjects they were regarded as heretical. To these, indeed, were added some detestable charges, concerning incest and uncleanness, but which, as they never had the semblance of probability to support, or even render them plausible, I deem it unnecessary to particularize.

The persecution which ensued, is said to have been extremely severe. For the Waldenses being condemned as heretics by the inquisitor; Ponce, the counselor, and Oronce, the judge, committed them to the flames, as fast as they were apprehended, without permitting them to make any appeal. The number of sufferers was also considerably augmented on another ground; for, whoever presumed to intercede in their behalf, though it were the child for the parent, or the parent for the child, he was instantly committed to prison, and himself prosecuted as a favorer of heretics. While these merciless proceedings were going on against the Waldenses in France, Albert de Capatineis had advanced in the year 1488, at the head of eighteen thousand soldiers, against the valleys of Piedmont. The invading army was also joined by many of the Piedmontese Catholics, who hastened to it from all parts, allured by the specious promise of obtaining the remission of their sins, and the hope of sharing in the sweets of plunder. The more effectually to get possession of the country, the enemy’s forces were divided into detachments, and marching in different directions against Angrogne, Lucerne, la Perouse, St. Martin, Praviglerm, and Biolet, which is in the marquisate of Saluces; thus, as it were, encompassing the whole of the valleys. They also raised troops in Dauphiny, to overrun the valley of Pragela. But the Waldenses, armed with wooden targets and cross bows, availing themselves of the advantages of their situation, everywhere defended the passes of their mountains, and repulsed their invaders—“the women and children on their knees, during the conflict, entreating the Lord to protect his people.”

When information of this affair was brought to the Duke of Savoy, his heart was touched with compassion towards his subjects. He was convinced they had always been a loyal and obedient people, and he candidly distinguished between the resistance which on this occasion, his subjects had made, and a spirit of sedition and turbulence. They sent a deputation to wait upon him, and explain the motives of their conduct; at the same time offering an apology for whatever might seem improper. The prince accepted their apology and forgave them what was passed. But having been informed that their young children were born with black throats—that they were hairy, and had four rows of teeth, with only one eye, and that placed in the middle of their forehead, he commanded some of them to be brought before him to Pignerol, where, being satisfied by ocular demonstration, that the Waldenses were not monsters, he blamed himself for being so easily imposed upon by the clergy of the catholic church, as to credit such idle reports; and, at the same time, declared his determination to protect them henceforward in the undisturbed possession of those privileges which had been allowed their ancestors, and which the rest of his subjects in Piedmont still enjoyed. But though this declaration sufficiently manifested the kind intentions of the prince towards his subjects, he seems to have wanted the power necessary for carrying them into effect. The inquisitors, who lay in ambush in a convent near Pignerol, issued their processes daily against the Waldenses, and as often as they could apprehend any of them they were delivered over for punishment to the secular power. In this way they continued to harass them in that quarter until the year 1532. And it appears from their history, that by these means a visible impression was made upon their public church-meetings. The fear of the inquisitors had imperceptibly led them to study to avoid publicity; and in process of time they assembled for worship wholly in private. In the year last mentioned, however, they seem to have been sensibly struck with the impropriety of this mode of procedure; for upon reviewing the existing state of matters among them, they came to the determination no longer to conceal their meetings for worship, but resolved that their elders should preach the gospel openly and boldly, unawed by the apprehension of danger from their adversaries.

The Duke of Savoy, instigated by the archbishop and the inquisitor of Turin, seems to have taken umbrage at this reappearance in public of the Waldenses; for, on being told of it, he so far yielded to the solicitations of the clergy, as to dispatch one of his officers at the head of five hundred men, horse and foot, who, before the inhabitants were apprised, entered the valleys, pillaging, plundering, and laying waste whatever came in their way. The unsuspecting people were, at the time the army approached, industriously employed about the cultivation of their lands. But recovering from the panic into which they had been thrown by this unexpected attack, they took courage, and every man quitting his plough and his agricultural pursuits, they fled to the passes of their mountains, which they secured; and then arming themselves with slings and stones, encountered their invaders so manfully that they compelled them to flee, leaving their booty behind, and many of their men dead upon the field.

When the news of this reached the Duke of Savoy, he remarked that experience had sufficiently shown it to be an improper plan to attempt to reclaim and subdue the inhabitants of Piedmont by military force; the strength of their country, and their intimate acquaintance with the defiles and passes of the mountains giving them an infinite advantage over their assailants; and, therefore, while the skin of one of the Waldenses was to be purchased at the expense of the lives of a dozen of his other subjects, it was foolish to proceed in that way. He consequently, declined employing his military force any more against them, and relinquished it to the inquisitors after heresy, to apprehend them two or three at a time, as they came in or went out of the valleys. I believe I must here interrupt the narrative, for the purpose of introducing a short extract from that lively French writer, Monsieur Voltaire, in which he furnishes us with an estimate of the character of the Waldenses in France, of whom we have been speaking. It is interesting to compare the opinions of different writers upon any particular subject; and the reader cannot be displeased at having the opportunity of seeing how nearly, on this topic, those of Voltaire, a man of no religion, coincided with the sentiments of the liberal Sleidan, and the incomparable Thuanus, to both of whom we have already had occasion to advert, and shall again in the sequel. “In the twelfth century,” says Voltaire, “there was one Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, whose piety and errors are said to have given rise to the Vaudois, (Waldenses.) This man having retired with several poor people, whom he maintained, to the desert valleys betwixt Provence and Dauphine, acted both as their high-priest and father, instructing them in his doctrine, in which he differed very little from the Albigenses, or from Wickliff, John Huss, Luther, and Zuinglius, in regard to several of the chief articles. These men lived a great while in obscurity, busied in the culture of barren lands, which, with indefatigable industry, they rendered fit for corn and pasture: a proof of our being greatly to blame, if through neglect, we suffer any part of France to be uncultivated. The neighboring grounds were let to them on leases; and they improved them by their labor, so as to maintain themselves, and to enrich their landlords, who never complained of their behavior. In the space of 250 years, their number increased to near 18,000, who were dispersed in thirty small towns, besides hamlets. All this was the fruit of their industry. There were no priests among them, no quarrels about religious worship, no lawsuits; they determined their differences among themselves. None but those who repaired to the neighboring cities knew that there existed any such things as mass or bishops. They prayed to God in their own jargon; 11 and, being continually employed, they had the happiness to know no vice. This peaceful state they enjoyed for above 200 years, since the wars against the Albigenses, with which the nation had been wearied. When mankind have long rioted in cruelty, their fury abates and sinks into languor and indifference; as we see constantly verified both in the case of individuals and whole nations. Such was the tranquillity which the Waldenses enjoyed, when the reformers of Germany and Geneva came to hear that there were others of the same persuasion as themselves.

Immediately they sent some of their ministers, a name given to the curates of the Protestant churches, to visit them; and since then, the Waldenses are but too well known.” So for Mons. Voltaire, whose narrative, considering the principles of the author, is as candid and correct as could reasonably be expected.

Of the number of persons who professed the faith of the Waldenses, both within and without the valleys of Piedmont, at the beginning of the sixteenth century—the period when Luther broke off from the church of Rome and began the Reformation in Germany, it would be impossible to attain any certainty. But it is presumed the reader will have seen enough in the preceding pages to satisfy him, that the opinion which has so currently prevailed among us, of the almost total extinction of the Christian profession, in its purity, at the time of, and for ages preceding, the Lutheran reformation, is altogether a popular error. There was a period, in the history of ancient Israel, when idolatry and profaneness appeared to have so wholly deluged the land, that the prophet Elijah was led to consider himself as a solitary worshipper of the true God, in the midst of the creation. Yet the Lord had reserved to himself seven thousand souls who had not bowed the knee to Baal, although unknown to the prophet. It appears from what Voltaire has just remarked, and, indeed, an attentive reader of the works of Luther and his associates will easily perceive, that their minds labored under a somewhat similar mistake as to their own case.

It was not without surprise they learnt, that there were numbers around them, in every country, opposed to the corruptions of the church of Rome, and sighing in secret for a reform. It may also be added, that Protestants in every succeeding age have but too implicitly imbibed their error. 13 The blessed God hath never left himself without witnesses in the world; and even during the reign of Antichrist—a period of the most general and awful defection from the purity of his worship, he had reserved to himself thousands and tens of thousands of such as kept his commandments and the faith of Jesus. Nor is there any thing in this to occasion our surprise. The real followers of Christ are subjects of a kingdom that is not of this world. And having no national establishment, nor aiming at worldly power, their principles and conduct have seldom been thought worthy of regard by the world, except in so far as their public testimony against it has subjected them to persecution. The true profession of Christianity leads its friends to cultivate peace and union among themselves, and, like its divine author, to avoid all turbulence and faction in the state.

But amidst the rubbish of error, as a late writer has justly remarked, which had accumulated century after century till the Reformation, God determined to erect the temple of Truth, and his providence cleared an ample space, chose a variety of workmen, and reared the admirable structure. And as in the erection of a building, it is necessary that there be different kinds of laborers, all cooperating together and all essential to complete the undertaking, so it was requisite, in erecting this great edifice, to prepare and to employ persons very differently constituted, but all capable of useful cooperation. If the Reformation claimed the steady efforts of true courage and inextinguishable zeal, it ought also to be remembered, that it no less required a proportion of nice discernment, elegant taste, and literary skill; — if a superstition which invested a mortal with the prerogative of infallibility, were to be attacked and leveled with the dust, the ignorance which, with its characteristic blindness supported that superstition, was at the same time to be dethroned and demolished; — if old abuses were to be removed, and a new order of things to be introduced and systematized, it was desirable to find not only a nervous, but a polished mind, at once to clear away the rubbish of error, and clothe unwelcome novelties with attractive beauty;—in a word, if existing circumstances called for aLUTHER, they also demanded aMELANCTHON. In the year 1530, George Morel, one of the pastors of a church of the Waldenses, published Memoirs of the History of their Churches, in which he states, that at the time he wrote, there were above eight hundred thousand persons professing the religion of the Waldenses; 15 nor will this appear an exaggerated statement, if we consider the view that was given, in the last section, of their dispersions throughout almost every country of Europe—the immense numbers that suffered martyrdom; and what was formerly mentioned, that in the year 1315, namely two centuries before this time, there were eighty thousand of them in the small kingdom of Bohemia.

It seems reasonable, however, to conclude, that the Waldenses must have beheld with infinite satisfaction, the schism which took place in the Roman church, when Luther and his associates withdrew from its communion.

For, independent of the labors of this intrepid reformer, the great cause for which the Waldenses were contending, viz. the purity of the doctrines of the gospel, and the simplicity of christian worship—was powerfully supported by a host of learned men, who rose up in rapid succession, and ranged themselves on the side of Luther. Among these were Philip Melancthon, John Ecolampadius, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, Theodore Beza; Zuinglius, Peter Martyr, Bullinger, and many others all advocates of reform, and men of eminent talents, who, by their various labors, both from the pulpit and the press, contributed greatly to disseminate the knowledge of divine truth, and free the minds of their contemporaries from the slavish shackles of ignorance and superstition.

But although we may readily conceive the pleasure which it must have yielded the Waldenses, to contemplate the labors of these great men in so glorious a cause, they do not appear to have acted precipitately in interfering with them, or soliciting an union of churches. The reformers, with all their zeal and learning, were babes in scriptural knowledge, when compared with the more illiterate Waldenses—particularly in regard to the nature of the kingdom of Christ, and its institutions, laws, and worship in general. Luther, for instance; besides that both he and Calvin always contended for a form of national Christianity—a principle which, the moment it is received into the mind, must necessarily darken it as to the nature of the kingdom of Christ; Luther, with all his zeal against popery, was never able to disentangle his own mind from the inexplicable doctrine of transubstantiation, which he had imbibed in the church of Rome. He, indeed, changed the name, but he retained all the absurdity of the thing. He rejected the word transubstantiation, but insisted strenuously on a consubstantiation — that is, the bread and wine were not changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, but the body and blood of Christ were really and actually present in the elements of bread and wine, and were therefore literally eaten and drank by the communicants! 16 And with respect to Calvin, it is manifest, that the leading, and to me at least, the most hateful feature in all the multiform character of popery adhered to him through life—I mean the spirit of persecution. Holding, as I do, many doctrinal sentiments in common with Calvin, I am prompted to speak my opinion of him with the less reserve. I regard him as a man whom the Creator had endowed with transcendent talents, and have no doubt that he knew what “flesh and blood could never reveal to him.” He seems to have been blessed with an extraordinary insight into the economy of human redemption, as revealed in the sacred writings; and his vast and capacious mind took a comprehensive grasp of a system which angels contemplate with wonder and amazement, and in which they study the manifold wisdom of God. No mere man, probably, ever surpassed Calvin, in his indefatigable labors, according to the measure of his bodily strength, in making known to others the unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus, both from the pulpit and the press; and his bitterest enemies cannot deny that the progress of the Reformation was wonderfully accelerated by his means.

Yet, with all these excellencies, Calvin was a persecutor! He had yet to learn, or at least how to practice, that simple lesson of the kingdom of heaven, “whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” Calvin could never comprehend, how another man could have as great a right to think wrong, as he himself had to think right! And that it is the sole prerogative of the King of Zion to punish his enemies and the corrupters of his truth. Upon this point his judgment was perverted by the principles of his education, and unhappily for his own character and the cause of truth, his conduct was founded upon this erroneous judgment.

His behavior throughout the whole affair of Servetus, is too well known to need any explanation in this place; but I conceive it to be the imperious duty of every friend to toleration and the rights of conscience, to express their marked abhorrence of this part of the character of Calvin. And more especially is it the duty of those, the similarity of whose theological creed to that which he contended for, hath subjected them to the imputation of being his followers. As an obscure, and humble individual of that class, I strenuously deprecate every attempt to palliate the enormity of Calvin’s conduct in the instance referred to, by pleading, as many have done, that Socinus was as bitter a persecutor as himself: for until it be made apparent to my understanding how two blacks constitute one white, I must regard such pleas as extremely ill-judged. The truth is, and it ought to be avowed, that the conduct of Calvin admits of no apology! It was a violent outrage upon the laws of humanity as well as upon the laws of God, and has fixed a stigma upon the character of that otherwise great man, which will never be obliterated. But let not the enemies of the truth, from this take occasion, as they too often have done, to identify the spirit of persecution with the doctrines which Calvin held. His conduct, in this particular, has drawn tears of lamentation and regret from the eyes of thousands, since his time, on account of the reproach it has brought upon the way of truth, “causing it to be evil spoken of,” and it will continue to suffuse with all the consciousness of shame, the cheeks of thousands yet unborn.

SECTION History of the Waldenses from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century; and more especially of the proceedings against them in the south of France.

A.D. 1500-1550 THE history of Modern Europe does not present us with a more interesting period than the commencement of the sixteenth century, the era at which we are now arrived. The sanguinary proceedings that had been carried on against the Waldenses in the southern provinces of France, towards the close of the former century, had apparently exhausted the malice of the court of Rome; the heretics, for the moment at least, were driven from public view; and the state of the catholic church was more than usually tranquil. The empire and the priesthood, which for several centuries had been constantly in arms against each other, had depopulated Italy, Germany, and almost every other country in Europe, but the contest ended in the triumph of the church. The Roman pontiffs, says a late writer, have always possessed an advantage over the other sovereigns of Europe, from the singular union of ecclesiastical and temporal power in the same person; two engines which long experience had taught them to use with a dexterity equal to that with which the heroes of antiquity availed themselves by turns of the shield and the spear. When schemes of ambition and aggrandizement were to be pursued; the pope, as a temporal prince, could enter into alliances, raise supplies, and furnish his contingent of troops, so as effectually to carry on an offensive war; but no sooner was he endangered by defeat, and alarmed for the safety of his own government, than he resorted for shelter to his pontifical robes, and loudly called upon all Christendom to defend from violation the head of the holy church. These characters were successively assumed with great address and advantage; and although some difficulties might occasionally arise in the exercise of them, yet the world has been sufficiently indulgent to their situation; nor has even the shedding of Christian blood been thought an invincible objection to the conferring on a deceased pontiff the honor of adoration, and placing him in the highest order of sainthood conferred by the church. At the opening of the sixteenth century the pontifical chair was filled by Alexander VI who died in 1508, after a reign of eleven years, leaving behind him a memory, says Voltaire, more odious than the Nero’s or Caligula’s, because a greater degree of guilt arose from the sanctity of his character. He was succeeded by Julius II who, after a military but successful reign of a few years, gave place to the celebrated Leo X in whose pontificate Luther commenced hostilities with the papacy, threw off his allegiance to the See of Rome, and entered upon his career of reform. A.D. 1517.

To enter upon any thing like a circumstantial detail of the History of the Reformation, would not only demand much more space than can be allotted to it in the present undertaking, but would also, in a great measure, be to depart from my leading object. Nor, indeed, is such a narrative called for by the public exigence. Any deficiency of that kind which may be experienced by the readers of the present work, may be readily supplied by consulting the authors mentioned below, 2 whose writings are in the hands of every scholar. Instead, therefore, of treading this beaten track over again, I shall only remark upon it, that the flame which was kindled throughout Europe, at this time, by the preaching and writings of Luther and his associates, so completely occupied the attention of the catholic party for about a dozen years, namely, from 1517 to 1530, that the Waldenses, both in France and Piedmont, were happily, in a great measure, overlooked. But as the conflagration excited by Luther’s hostility gradually subsided, they began again to attract the notice of their adversaries and to come in for an equal share of their malice and malignity; of the truth of which the reader will soon have before him abundant proof.

In the year 1530, the Waldenses seem to have been entirely employed in paving the way for a more unreserved intercourse between them and the German Reformers. Such of them as resided in the south of France, had, at this time, been sustaining the fire of papal persecution, and it would seem that they had not encountered it with their usual fortitude. Many amongst them had been induced to shrink from the cross; and to avoid its inconvenience, were fallen into the practice of feigning a complaisant kind of acquiescence with the national forms of worship. Some of the Waldensian churches of Provence appear to have been deeply affected at seeing this Laodicean conduct prevail; and to bring the matter to its proper bearing, they commissioned two of their pastors, viz. George Morel and Peter Burgoine, to confer with the other churches and with some of the Reformers upon that subject. They first visited their sister churches in the neighboring provinces of Dauphiny, and from thence proceeded on their journey towards Germany, to have a personal interview with John Ecolampadius, minister of Basle, in Switzerland; with Martin Bucer, at Strasburgh; and Richard Haller, at Berne. The churches sent letters by them explaining their situation, and asking their advice. The following is an extract of their letter to Ecolampadius. Health be to you, Mr. Ecolampadius, “Whereas several persons have given us to understand that He who is able to do all things hath replenished you with the blessings of his Holy Spirit, as conspicuously appear by its fruits, we have recourse to you from a far country under the firm hope and confidence, that by your means the Holy Spirit will enlighten our minds into the knowledge of several things, concerning which we, at present, stand in doubt.” They then proceed to explain the immediate occasion of their writing — “We, poor instructors of this small people,” say they, “have sustained, for above these four hundred years, most severe and cruel persecutions, not without signal marks of Christ’s favor, as all the faithful can testify; for he has often interposed for the deliverance of his people, when under the harrow of these cruel and severe persecutions; and we now come unto you for advice and consolation in this our state of distress,” etc., etc.

The particular subjects of difficulty and distress may be easily gathered from the letter which Ecolampadius wrote them in reply, and which is so excellent that I shall here insert it entire. Ecolampadius wishes the grace of God, through Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Spirit, to his well-beloved brethren in Christ, called WALDENSES. “We understand that the fear of persecution hath caused you to conceal and dissemble your faith. Now, with the heart we believe unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But those who are afraid to confess Christ before the world, shall find no acceptance with God the Father; for our God is truth without any dissimulation; and as he is a jealous God, he cannot endure that any of his servants should take upon them the yoke of antichrist. For there is no fellowship or communion between Christ and Belial; and if you communicate with infidels, by going to their abominable masses, you will there hear blasphemies against the death and sufferings of Christ. For when they boast, that by means of such sacrifices they make satisfaction to God for the sins of both the living and the dead, what naturally follows from thence, but that Christ by his death hath not made sufficient expiation and satisfaction, and consequently that Christ is not Jesus—that is, not a Savior, and that he died for us in vain?

That if we participate of that impure table, we thereby declare ourselves to be of one and the same body with the wicked, however contrary we may pretend it to be to our wills and inclinations. And when we say Amen to their prayers, do we not deny Christ? “What death ought we not rather to undergo; what torture and torment ought we not rather to endure—nay, into what abyss of woe and misery ought we not rather to plunge ourselves, than by our presence to testify our consent to, and approbation of, the blasphemies of the wicked? I know that your infirmity is great; but those who have been taught that they were redeemed by the blood of Christ, ought to be more courageous, and always to stand in awe of Him who can cast both body and soul into hell. And what! is it enough for us to have preserved this life alone? Shall this be more precious to us than that of Christ? And are we satisfied with having enjoyed the delights and pleasures of this world? Are there not crowns laid before us, and shall we flinch back and recoil? Who will believe that our faith was true and sincere, if it want zeal and ardor in the time of persecution? We beseech the Lord to increase your faith. But surely it is better for us to lose our lives than to be overcome by temptations. And, therefore, brethren, I beseech you thoroughly to consider this matter; for if it be lawful for us to conceal our faith under the tyranny of antichrist, it must be lawful so to do under that of the Turk, and, with Dioclesian, to worship a Jupiter or a Venus. It would then have been lawful for Tobit to worship the calf in Bethel—and what then will become of our faith towards God? If we do not pay to God that honor which is due to him, and if our lives be nothing else than hypocrisy and dissimulation, he will spue us out of his mouth, like base and lukewarm wretches. And how shall we glorify the Lord in the midst of sufferings and tribulations, if we deny him! We must not, brethren, look back, when once we have put our hand to the plough; nor must we yield to the dictates and instigations of our flesh, which by prompting us to sin, though it may endure many things that are distressing in this world— may, after all, suffer shipwreck in the haven.”

This excellent letter came very opportunely to the aid of the poor persecuted Waldenses, who were immediately called to carry its principles into effect. Peter Masson, one of their pastors, and messengers of the churches on this occasion, returning home, was seized at Dijon, and condemned to death as a Lutheran. George Morel narrowly escaped with his letters and papers, but arrived safe in Provence, where he labored assiduously and with much success in re-establishing the Waldensian churches. But the reader will best learn the state of affairs among the Waldensian brethren in the south of France, from the year 1540 to 1550, by my laying before him the following extracts from two eminent writers, who lived shortly after the events which they have recorded, and whose works are of unquestionable veracity; and I the rather do this, that I may not be suspected of any wish to exaggerate the sanguinary proceedings of the catholic party against the Waldenses. The following is Sleidan’s account.— “In Provence, in France, there are a people called Waldenses, who, by an ancient custom, acknowledge not the pope of Rome, having always professed a greater purity of doctrine; and, since Luther appeared, eagerly thirsted after knowledge. Many times had they been complained of to the king, as despisers of magistrates and fomenters of rebellion, which envious, rather than true accusation, is by most made use of at this day. They live together in some towns and villages, amongst which is Merindole. About five years since, sentence was pronounced against them in the parliament of Aix, the chief judicature of the province, That they shall all promiscuously be destroyed, that the houses shall be pulled down, the village leveled with the ground, all the trees also cut down, and the place rendered a desert. Now though this sentence was pronounced, yet it was not then put in execution, William de Bellay, of Langey, the king’s lieutenant in Piedmont, with some others, having represented the matter to the king, as a case that ought to be reviewed by himself. But, at length, this year, 1545, John Meinier, president of the parliament of Aix, having, April the 12th, called the parliament, read to them the king’s letters, which warranted him to put the sentence into execution. Now Meinier is said to have procured these letters by means of the Cardinal of Tournon, and the solicitation of Philip Cortine, a proper agent in the case. However, having received them in the month of January, he did not immediately produce them, but kept them till a season more proper for the exploit. The letters being read, some of the parliament were selected to see the matter put in execution, to whom Meinier offered himself as assistant, because that in the absence of Grignian, the governor of the province, he had the chief command. Before that time, he had by the king’s orders raised forces for the English war, and these he made use of for his purpose: besides these, he commanded all that were able to carry arms in Marseilles, Aix, Aries, and other populous places, to repair to him, under severe penalties, if they disobeyed, having assistance likewise sent him from the country of Avignon, under the dominion of the pope. The first attempt then was not made upon those of Merindole, but upon the country adjoining the town of Pertuse.

April the thirteenth, Meinier attended by a multitude of gentleman and officers, came to Cadenet. In the meantime some officers made an irruption into one or two villages upon the river of La Druance, and putting all to fire and sword, plundered and carried away a great many cattle. The same also was done in other places, whilst those of Merindole seeing all in a flame about them, left their habitations, flew into the woods, and in great consternation spent the night at the village of Sainfalaise. The inhabitants of that place were themselves preparing to fly; for the pope’s vice-legate had ordered some officers to fall upon them, and put them to the sword. Next day they advanced farther into the woods; for they were beset on all hands with danger, Meinier having made it death for any person to aid or assist them, and commanding them all, without respect, to be killed wherever they were found. The same edict was in force in the neighboring places of the pope’s jurisdiction, and some bishops of that country were reported to have maintained a great part of those forces. They had a tedious and uneasy journey of it then, marching with their children on their backs and in their arms, nay, and some in the cradle; poor women also big with child following them. When they were got to the appointed place, whither many in that forlorn condition had fled, they had intelligence not long after, that Meinier was mustering together all his forces, that he might fall upon them, and this news they learnt towards the evening. Wherefore, consulting together what was best to be done, they resolved upon the spot, because the ways were rough and difficult, to leave their wives, daughters, and little children there, with some few to bear them company, amongst whom was one of their ministers, and the rest betook themselves to the town of Mus: this they did in hope, that the enemy might show some compassion towards a helpless and comfortless multitude. But what wailing and lamentation, what sighing and embracing, there was at parting, any man may easily imagine. Having marched all night long, and passed the mountain De Leberon, they had the sad prospect of many villages and farms all in a flame. Meinier, in the meantime, having divided his forces, set about the work; and, because he had got intelligence of the place to which those of Merindole, had betaken themselves, he himself marched to Merindole and sent the rest of his men in search and pursuit of them. But, before these were come into the wood, one of the soldiers, moved with pity, ran before, and from the top of a rock, in the place where he judged the poor fugitives might have rested, he threw down two stones, calling to them by intervals, though he did not see them, that they should instantly fly for their lives. And at the same instant, two of those who had betaken themselves to Mus came; and having got notice of the enemy’s approach, advised the minister of the church, and the rest of those few guards that were left with the women, to be gone, having showed them a steep way through the wood, by which they might escape all danger in their flight. Hardly were these gone, when the raging soldiers came in shouting and making a frightful noise, and with drawn swords preparing for the butchery. However, at that time, they forbore to kill, but having committed many insolencies, and robbed the poor creatures of all their money and provisions, they carried them away prisoners. They had purposed to have used them more basely, but a captain of horse prevented it, who by chance coming in, threatened them, and commanded them to march straight to Meineir; so that they proceeded no farther, but leaving the women there, who were about five hundred in number, they carried off the cattle and booty. In the meantime Meinier came to Merindole, and finding it forsaken by the inhabitants, he plundered and set it on fire, which was ushered in by a very cruel action; for having found there one single youth, he commanded him to be tied to an olive tree, and there shot to death. He marched next to Cabriere, and began to batter the town; but, by the mediation of Captain Poulain, he persuaded the town’s people, upon promise of indemnity, to open the gates; which being done, and the soldiers let in, after a little pause, all were put to the sword, without respect to age or sex. Many fled to the church, others to other places, and some into the wine-cellar of the castle; but being dragged out into a meadow, and stripped naked, they were all put to the sword, not only the men, but also the women, and many of these with child too. Meinier also shut up about forty women in a barn full of hay and straw, and then set it on fire; and after that, the poor creatures having attempted, in vain, to smother the fire with their clothes, which for that end they had pulled off, betook themselves to the great window, at which the hay is commonly pitched up into the barn, with an intention to leap down from thence: but they were kept in with pikes and spears, so that all of them perished in the flames; and this happened on the twentieth of April. Meinier after this sent part of his forces to besiege the town of Coste; but when they were just upon their march, those were found, who, as we said a little before, had fled into the wine-cellar of the castle: a noise being thereupon raised, as if there had been some ambush laid, the soldiers were recalled, who put every man of them to the sword.

The number of the slain, as well in the town as abroad in the fields, amounted to eight hundred! The young infants, which survived the fury, were for the most re-baptized by the enemy. Affairs thus dispatched at Cabriere, the forces were sent to Coste: the lord of that town had beforehand agreed with the inhabitants, that they should carry their arms into the castle, and in four places make breaches in the walls; which if they did, he promised them that he would use his interest, which he knew could easily prevail with Meinier, that they should receive no damage. Being over persuaded, they obeyed; and he departed with a purpose seemingly to treat and intercede for them; but he was not gone far before the soldiers met him, who nevertheless proceeded in their march, and attacked the place. At the first onset they did but little, but next day they more briskly renewed the assault: and having burnt all the suburbs about, they easily became masters of the place, and the rather, that the night before, most had deserted the town and fled, having got down over the walls by ropes. After the victorious had put all that stood in their way to fire and sword, they ran into a garden adjoining the castle, and there satiated their lust upon the women and young girls promiscuously, who in great fear and consternation had fled thither, and for a day and night’s time, that they kept them shut up there, so inhumanely and barbarously did they use them, that the pregnant women and younger girls shortly after died of it.

In the meantime the Merindolians, and many others, who wandered with them over the woods and rocks, being taken, were either sent to the galleys, or put to death, and many also were starved. Not far also from the town of Mus, as we mentioned before, some fiveand- twenty men had got into a cave, and kept lurking there, but being betrayed, all of them were either smothered with smoke, or burnt: so that no kind of cruelty was omitted. Some, however, that had escaped this butchery, got to Geneva, and the places thereabouts. When the news of this was brought into Germany, many were highly offended thereat; and the Swiss, who are not of the popish religion, interceded with the French king, that he would be merciful to those who had fled their country. But the king answered them, that he had just cause for what he had done; and that what he did within his own territories, and how he punished the guilty, concerned them no more to know, than it did him what was done amongst them.” I cannot better close this section than by an extract from an eminent catholic writer, who was contemporary with the dreadful occurrences which he has so impartially recorded; and notwithstanding its length, and also that it touches upon some particulars already adverted to by Sleidan, I persuade myself that its importance and interesting nature will more than compensate for its prolixity. “When the inhabitants of Merindole and Cabriere, at the report of those things which were done in Germany, lifted up their crests, and hiring teachers out of Germany, discovered themselves more manifestly than they had done before, they were brought to judgment by the parliament of Aix, at the instance of the king’s procurator; but being admonished by their friends and deterred by the danger that undoubtedly attended their trial, they failed to appear. And having been summoned for three market-days together, they were condemned as contumacious, by a most horrible and immeasurably cruel sentence, on the eighteenth day of November, about the year 1540, Bartholomew la Chassagne, a lawyer of great reputation, being at that time president of the parliament. By that decree the fathers of families were condemned to the flames, and the estates, wives, children, and servants of the condemned parties confiscated to the use of the treasury. And because Merindole had hitherto been the usual den and receptacle of such sort of infected persons, it was ordered, that all the houses should be laid level with the ground, that the subterraneous caves and vaults, where they might be concealed, should be demolished and filled up; that the wood round about it should be cut down, and even the very trees of the gardens; that the possessions of those who dwelt at Merindole should not be so much as let for the future to any of the same family, or even of the same name with the former owners. The execution of this cruel decree was committed to the ordinary judges of Aix, Tournes, St. Maximim, and Apt; but it was thought by most people very proper to be suspended, until in process of time the sentence issued against the absent and contumacious, should pass by the laws and customs of the realm into a definite sentence. Others, on the contrary, judged it more fit to be precipitated, out of hatred to the crime, and regard to the danger which that contagion certainly threatened, if any delay were interposed. In the first place the bishops of Aix and Arles pressed Chassagne to proceed against the rebels with an armed force, promising, in their own and the name of the other ecclesiastics, a great sum of money towards the expenses of that war. Whilst they disputed on each side with great warmth, the matter was put off, by a method ridiculous enough in itself, but well accommodated to the person with whom it was used. There was at Aix, Nicolas Allens, a gentleman of Arles, of great respectability, and not unskilled in letters, an intimate friend of Chassagne’s, who shocked at the injustice of the decree, and greatly desiring to have it respited, at a private conference, addressed himself to the wavering president in the following speech. “You are not ignorant of the discourses which everywhere pass in relation to the sentence lately issued against the inhabitants of Merindole; nor is it my business or inclination to give my opinion of them, well knowing how important it is to a well ordered commonwealth, that judgments should be solemnly regarded and not rashly called in question. But if we consider the magnitude of the affair, it seems worthy of inquiry, whether the execution ought not to be deferred, and the bitterness of the sentence mitigated by the advantage of a delay. As various and very considerable reasons may be alleged for that delay, I have determined to treat familiarly with you, by the help of your own arguments, agreeably to that intimacy which subsists between us. Do you not remember, whilst you were yet sitting only on the lower bench of justice at Autun, what you formerly thought in the case of the mice? For you have even published a narrative of it; and such is your modesty and candor, that I have observed you to call to mind the transactions of those times with pleasure. This is the account you give. When, in the bailliage of Autun, a great multitude of mice had done much damage by eating the corn, the country people could think of no more immediate remedy for this new disaster, than that the bishop or his vicar should excommunicate the mice. The affair then being laid before the bishop’s vicar, he was of opinion, that the crier of the court should give them three citations; which done, he was still unwilling to pronounce sentence, till the mice had an advocate assigned them, who should plead for them in their absence. You, therefore, undertook the patronage of the mice, and in that ease, in pursuance of the character which you sustained, you by many arguments persuaded the judges, that the mice had not been regularly summoned; you obtained for them that a fresh day should be set them by the curates of the respective parishes, forasmuch as the lives of all the mice were concerned in the issue of that trial.

And when you had gained that point, you again showed, that too short a time had been given them, considering that the mice who were to appear were waylaid in every village by the cats. You then brought many things out of the Holy Scriptures in defense of your clients, and prevailed at length to have a longer time assigned them, in which proceeding you acquired great reputation for equity and knowledge of the law. I now call you to your own book, and your own arguments. For what can sound harsher in the ears of mankind, than that you, who in the case of mice thought the due course of judgment proper to be observed, should think it fit to be perverted in a cause wherein the life, safety, and fortunes of men are concerned. Beware, therefore, lest you incur the fault of those fencing masters, who, when they fight at blunts, observe the rules of the science, and often come off conquerors; but when they are to draw their sword against an enemy, are either so enraged or confounded, that they forget their art, and generally suffer themselves to be stabbed. What you observed in that ludicrous process, when you were yet but a youth, and little better than a private person, will you neglect in so serious an affair, at that age and in that station, wherein you have raised such an universal opinion of yourself? Are the lives of so many wretched men so cheap a thing, that they shall find a harder fate at your hands, now you are judge, than the mice formerly experienced under your patronage? I do not speak of their innocence. But you yourself know how many things they are maliciously and wrongfully charged with, and that in other respects they are diligent worshippers of God, and never refuse to pay their landlords their dues, nor to yield tribute or obedience to the prince or the magistrate. Therefore, by the friendship which is betwixt us, I conjure you again and again maturely to weigh these reasons, and to persuade yourself, that in a cause which respects the life and death and fortunes of men, no delay can be too long. “By this speech Aliens prevailed with Chassagne to respite the business, and to dismiss the troops which had already rendezvoused in great numbers, until he could know the mind of the king; who being informed of the decree by William du Bellay Sieur de Langey, lieutenant general in Piedmont, commanded the latter to inform himself of the case, and to transmit him an account of it. Accordingly, after due inquiry, he made this discovery, that the Vaudois, or Waldenses, were a people, who about three hundred years before had hired, of the owners, a rocky and uncultivated part of the country, which by dint of pains and constant tillage, they had rendered productive of fruits and fit for cattle; that they were extremely patient of labor and want; abhorring all contentions; kind to the poor; that they paid the prince’s taxes, and their lord’s dues with the greatest exactness and fidelity; that they kept up a show of divine worship by daily prayer and innocence of manners; but seldom came to the churches of the saints, unless by chance when they went to the neighboring towns for traffic or other business; and whenever they set their feet in them, they paid no adoration to the statues of God or the saints, nor brought them any tapers or other presents; nor ever entreated the priests to say mass for them, or the souls of their relations; nor crossed their foreheads, as is the manner of others; that when it thundered they never sprinkled themselves with holy water, but, lifting up their eyes to heaven, implored the assistance of God; that they never made religious pilgrimages, nor uncovered their heads in the public ways before the crucifixes: that they performed their worship in a strange manner, and in the vulgar tongue; and lastly, paid no honor to the Pope or the bishops, but esteemed some select persons of their own number as priests and doctors. When this report was made to Francis, on the eighth day of February, he dispatched an arret to the parliament of Aix, wherein, having pardoned all past crimes, he allowed the Waldenses the space of three months, within which time they were required publicly to revoke their opinions: and that it might be known who they were that were willing to reap the benefit of the amnesty, it was ordered that chosen persons out of the towns and villages should appear at Aix, in the name of the rest of the multitude, and publicly abjure their error: if they persisted in it, the parliament were empowered and commanded to punish them after the example of former ages, and if need were, to call in the military officers to their aid. The arret being read in the senate, Francis Chais and William Armand came to Aix, in the name of the people of Merindole, and presented a petition to the parliament, that the cause might be reheard and examined by a disputation of divines; contending that it was unjust, that, before they were convicted, they should confess themselves heretics, or be condemned unheard. La Chassagne, in whose breast his friend’s advice had made a deep impression, calling aside the deputies in the presence of the king’s advocates, admonished them to acknowledge their error, and not by their excessive obstinacy lay the judges under the necessity of dealing with them more harshly than agreed with their inclinations: But as they still continued to press La Chassagne to take cognizance of their opinions, he at length obtained of those stubborn people, that they should present the heads of their doctrine to the parliament, who would transmit them to his majesty. The townsmen of Cabrieres, in the county of Venaisoin, were attacked at the same time by those of Avignon; and, as they were all concerned in the common danger, they drew up a common profession of their religion, resembling Luther’s in the most points, and sent one copy to Francis, who put it into the hands of Castellain to be examined by him, and another to Cardinal James Sadolet, bishop of Carpentras; who, being of a pious and mild disposition, received the suppliants with great humanity, and ingenuously declared, that whatever else they were charged with, beyond what was contained in that book, were mere slanders invented to create them ill-will; for that after a thorough inquiry he had gained a perfect knowledge of that matter; but that in the book which was offered, there seemed to be many things which might be mended by a small alteration, and others reflecting upon the Pope and the prelates, which might be corrected by a more temperate style: that however he wished them well; and that it would never be with his good liking, if they were treated in an hostile manner; and that he would repair, by the first opportunity, to his seat at Cabrieres, and examine the whole affair upon the spot. Besides these expressions he showed them real marks of a favorable and sincere regard, by repressing the deputy of Avignon, who was advancing with an armed force, and admonishing him to retire. The confession of the people of Merindole being exhibited, by a decree of parliament, John Durandi and the bishop of Cavaillon with some other divines, went to Merindole, to convince the poor villagers of their error, and to grant a pardon to such as should, upon oath, renounce it: but although they continued in their obstinate spirit of opposition, yet, as long as Chassagne lived, no violence was employed against them, because the king had taken to himself the cognizance of the whole matter: but when he was carried off by a sudden death, and succeeded by John Meinier, baron Oppede, (a vehement man, and one, who for certain affronts received from the people of Cabrieres, to whom some of his farms were adjoining, was their bitter enemy) the hatred against the Waldenses was renewed. This nobleman, in the absence of Lewis des Emars, count of Grignan, who had been sent by the king to the diet of Worms, took upon himself the chief command in Provence, and assured Francis, by letters, that the Waldenses were met together to the number of sixteen thousand men, with a design to seize Marseilles, and to raise commotions in Provence. He also sent Philip Courtin, apparitor of the court, to demand, in the name of the king’s advocate, that the judgment given against the rebels might be put in execution. The king, exasperated by this information, and being further instigated by the Cardinal De Tournon, a kinsman to Grignan, and a bitter enemy to this sort of men, sent letters to the parliament, in the month of January, in the year 1545, whereby he permitted them to proceed against the Merindolians and the rest of the Waldenses, according to law: and when the states of the empire, by their letters from Ratisbon, and the protestant Swiss Cantons were urgent, that not only the penalty, but the condition of acknowledging their error might be remitted, because thereby force was offered to resolution and conscience, he constantly denied their request; and when afterwards he was pressed by them to be merciful to the dispersed remains of those people, he bluntly answered, that they ought not to trouble themselves with what he did in his own country, or how he punished delinquents, any more than he concerned himself with their affairs. Meinier, therefore, having received those orders, kept them by him for some time, in expectation of a fairer opportunity: for in the meanwhile levies were made everywhere under the pretense of the English war, and he would not suffer the secret to be divulged, that so he might fall upon them unawares. But when things were in readiness, and he had under severe penalties summoned all those who were capable of bearing arms at Aix, Aries, Marseilles, and other populous towns, to come into the field; and when six companies of foot, with a squadron of horse, commanded by Poulain, and other auxiliary troops from Piedmont and Avignon were already assembled, the royal letters which had been hitherto suppressed, were read in parliament: whereupon the senators, upon the 12th of April, decreed the execution of the sentence passed upon the people of Merindole; and the business was committed to the president, Francis de la Fons, with the counselors Honore de Tributiis, and Bernard de Badet, to whom was joined Nicholas Guerin the king’s advocate, and principal incendiary of the war. Oppede, the day following, accompanied with a great body of nobles, repaired to the army at Cadenet, bringing with him four hundred pioneers. The first attack was made upon the country adjoined to the town of Pertuys; the villages of Pupin, La Mote, and St. Martin, near the Durance; these were taken, pillaged, and set on fire. On the following day the little towns of Ville-Laure, Lourmarin, Gensson, Trezemines, and La Roque, from whence the multitude had fled, were cruelly burnt, and all the cattle driven away. Then Oppede consulted about attacking Merindole; but when the inhabitants saw the country round about in flames, they fled into the neighboring woods with their wives and children; which exhibited a most lamentable spectacle, for in those byways were to be seen marching, old men mixed with boys, and women carrying their crying infants in cradles, or in their arms or laps. They rested the first night at Sanfalaise, where also the inhabitants were preparing all things for a flight, because they knew that the Bishop of Cavaillon, the pope’s legate, had ordered his men to massacre them.

The next day they advanced further under the security of the thick woods, full of fears from every other quarter: for Oppede had outlawed the Waldenses, and had ordered, under pain of death, that none should give them any relief, but that wherever they were found, they should (without respect to age or sex) be all murdered.

And now after an excessively long journey, they had reached their appointed station, the women being hardly able to stand under the burden of their big bellies, or children; and many others, who had left their habitations, had flocked together at the same place, when towards night they were informed Meinier was at hand with all his forces. Hereupon they were obliged to take counsel on a sudden; and leaving there all the women and feeble part of their company, whom they imagined the enemy would spare, put themselves again on the way, whilst nothing could be heard but the most dismal groans, with the lamentations and screamings of the women, which were re-echoed by the mountains and woods, and all things were in the utmost hurry and confusion. When they had spent the whole night in traveling, at last climbing over Mount Lubieres, and seeing the villages every where in flames and the farms deserted, they proceeded to the town of Mus: here Oppede divided his troops into two parts, one of which he sent to pursue the fugitives, for he had been informed of their flight by certain spies, and the other he took with him to Merindole. At that juncture one of Oppede’s men, touched with compassion, ran before, and from the top of the rock, where he guessed the Merindolians were settled, flung down two stones, and in the interval called out with a miserable voice to them to save themselves by flight: immediately some persons went out of Mus, to order the pastor and the guides, who were left with the unarmed multitude, to escape, showing them a byway through the brambles; and not long after Oppede’s men appeared, and full of rage, with drawn swords, demanded the slaughter of the whole company; they were preparing to use the women in a still viler manner, but were hindered by a captain, who threatened them with death, if they did not forbear: so after they had stripped them and drove away their cattle, they departed. Oppede entered the town of Merindole, now destitute of inhabitants, and finding there only one youth, Maurice Blanc by name, wreaked upon him that fury which he could not vent upon the whole body of the people; and, tying him to an olive-tree, ordered him to be cruelly shot to death: then, burning and demolishing the town, he marched straightway to Cabrieres. When the townsmen, of whom no more than sixty, with about thirty women, were left in the place, had at first shut their gates against him, some great guns were brought down, upon which they surrendered on a promise, confirmed by Poulain and the lord of the place, of having their lives saved: but when the garrison was admitted they were all seized, even they who lay hid in the dungeon of the castle, or thought themselves secured by the sacredness of the church; and being dragged out from thence into a hollow meadow were put to death, without regard to age or the assurances given: the number of the slain, within and without the town, amounted to eight hundred: the women, by the command of Oppede, were thrust into a barn filled with straw, and fire being set to it, when they endeavored to leap out of the window, they were pushed back by poles and pikes, and miserably suffocated and consumed in the flames. Thence they proceeded to LaCoste, the lord of which place having passed his word to the townsmen for their safety, provided they carried their arms into the castle, and broke down their walls in four places, the credulous people did as they were commanded; notwithstanding which, on the arrival of Oppede, the suburbs being burnt and the town taken, all that were found left in the place were murdered to a man. The women who, to avoid the first fury of the soldiers, had retired into a garden near the castle, were deflowered, and, after the rage of lust was extinguished, handled in so cruel a manner, that most of those who were with child, and even the virgins, died either of grief, or by hunger and torments. The men, who sheltered themselves at Mus, being at length discovered, underwent the same fate with the others: the remainder of them, wandering here and there among the woods and solitary mountains, led a wretched life, deprived both of wives and children; some few escaped, partly to Geneva, and partly to the Swiss Cantons. In all there are twenty-two villages reckoned, which were punished with the last severity by Oppede; by whose authority judges were again selected, to make inquiry after the heretics; and these condemned the rest of those poor wretches either to the galleys, or to the payment of excessive fines.

Some, indeed, were absolved; and among these the tenants of Cental, who solemnly abjured their error. When these things were done, Oppede and the committee of judges, being terrified by their conscience, and justly apprehending that one time or other their heads might be endangered by those practices, deputed the president De la Fons to the king to load the slaughtered and harassed people with the most execrable crimes, and to make it appear that, considering the heinousness of their offense, they had been very gently treated. He accordingly, on the 18th day of August, By the suggestions (as it is thought) of the Cardinal De Tournon, obtained an instrument from the king, wherein he seemed to approve the punishment which was taken of those guilty persons; of which however he afterwards repented. Many writers, have reported, that, among the last commands which he gave to his son Henry, he added this expressly, that he should make inquisition into the injuries done in that cause by the parliament of Aix to the Provencals; and, even before he died, he caused John Romano, a monk, to be apprehended, and commanded the parliament of Aix to punish him; for he, in the examination of heretics, invented a new kind of torture, ordering the tortured parties to put on boots full of boiling tallow, and after laughing at them, and clapping on a pair of spurs, he would ask them, whether they were not finely equipt for a journey. But this man, being well informed of the decree of the parliament, fled to Avignon; where, though secured, as he imagined, from men, he did not escape the Divine vengeance, being robbed of all his effects by his servants, and reduced to extreme poverty, whilst his body was so overrun with filthy boils, that he wished for death, which yet he did not obtain until very late, and after the most horrible torments.

Upon the death, therefore, of Francis, when the Cardinal De Tournon and the Count De Grignan, who had long flourished in the king’s favor, were violently hated by those who were placed about the new king; the Merindolians and Waldenses, who knew of their disgrace, gathering together their remains into a body, formed a complaint of the injustice and cruelty of the parliament of Aix, and, out of spite to them, easily obtained to have their cause heard over again. The Duke of Guise was their principal encourager, who procured for himself the county of Grignan under the title of a gift or sale from Lewis des Emars, to exempt him from danger. For though all things had been acted in the count’s absence, as we mentioned, yet because they were said to be done by Oppede his lieutenant, and by his order, he also himself was brought into a share of peril. The matter was first debated in the great council, as it is called: afterwards when Oppede, De la Fons, De Tributiis, Badet, and Guerin, being called upon to answer, they defended themselves by the plea of a sentence past, against the execution whereof the royal advocate had not appealed; at length, by a new arret of the 17th day of March, the king took the cause into his own cognizance. And because the question concerned the force and authority of the supreme court of Aix, he committed the hearing both of the matter itself, and of the appeals, to the grand chamber of the parliament of Paris; where the cause was publicly managed, with great contention, and before a large concourse of people, for fifty days, by James Aubury on the part of the Merindolians, Peter Robert for the parliament of Aix, and Denys de Ryants for the king’s advocate. When upon the mention of so many horrid facts of which the defendants were accused, the minds of all men were, in the utmost attention and expectation of the issue, they were entirely disappointed of their hopes, Guerin alone, who happened to be destitute of friends at court, suffering the punishment of death. Oppede, who with Grignan, escaped by the intercession of the Duke of Guise, was restored to his former post, together with his colleagues: but, in a little time, being grievously afflicted with pains in the bowels, he breathed out his sanguinary soul in the midst of the most cruel torments, and paid the deserved penalty, which his judges had not exacted, late indeed, but therefore so much the heavier, to God.” Such is the relation of this dreadful scene of cruelty, oppression, and carnage — detailed not by the poor persecuted Waldenses themselves, but by a catholic historian, whose impartiality and rigid adherence to truth has never been questioned except by his own party.

SECTION A view of the conduct of the court of Rome, and the operation of its favorite instrument, the Inquisition, about the middle of the sixteenth century; including details of the horrid cruelties exercised towards the friends of reform, particularly in Spain and the Netherlands.

A.D. 1550-1557 HAVING devoted a former section to the purpose of tracing the rise, spirit, operation, and progress of that infernal instrument of cruelty, known by the name of the Inquisition; that we may not wholly lose sight of the influence of this engine of spiritual despotism, we shall, for a moment, suspend the immediate narrative of the Waldenses in France and Piedmont, in order that we may take a cursory view of the state of affairs, in reference to religion, in Spain and the Netherlands, at the period at which we are now arrived, namely, about twenty years after the Reformation by Luther.

It is scarcely necessary for me to state, that, in the succession of kings by whom Spain had been governed for about the space of three hundred years, the popes of Rome had generally found a race of obsequious princes, seldom reluctant to yield their concurrence with any measures that might be proposed for the destruction of heretics. But it was now the misfortune of that country to possess a monarch whose zeal for the extirpation of heretical pravity, surpassed even that of popes and cardinals. This monarch was Philip II son of the emperor Charles V and of Isbella, daughter of Immanuel the Great, king of Portugal. He was born on the 27th of May, 1527, and educated in Spain, under ecclesiastics noted for their bigotry, which may account for several of those features in his character that afterwards appeared so prominently in his conduct. He was the most powerful monarch of the age; for, besides the government of Spain, he possessed the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily; the duchy of Milan, Franche Compte and the Netherlands, or, as they were then generally termed, the Low Countries.

These provinces, which, on account of their situation, are called the Netherlands, had been long governed by their respective princes, under the titles of dukes, marquises, or counts; and under the administration of the princes of the house of Burgundy, they had flourished in trade, commerce, and manufactures, beyond any other European state. No city in those days, except Venice, possessed such extensive commerce as Antwerp. It was the great mart of all the northern nations. Bruges was little inferior; and in the city of Ghent there were many thousand artificers employed in the woolen manufacture, long before the art was known to the English, from whom the wool was purchased by the industrious Flemings.

In consequence of the constant intercourse which subsisted between Germany and the Netherlands, we may naturally suppose that the doctrines of the Reformers would be early propagated from the former to the latter country; and, accordingly in the month of May, 1521, even before the days of Philip, his father, the emperor Charles V had published an edict, in which all the penalties of high treason were pronounced against heretics. In the execution of this edict, which Charles from time to time renewed, all the fury of persecution was exercised; and it is affirmed by several contemporary historians, that, during his reign, fifty thousand of the inhabitants of the Netherlands were put to death on account of their religious principles. 1 Those principles, however, far from being extirpated became more generally propagated and diffused amidst the severities which were employed to suppress them.

Before the emperor Charles V had resigned the reins of government to his son Philip, great numbers of his subjects had begun to retire from the provinces of the Netherlands and to transport their families and effects to the neighboring states; and when he was informed of this, by the regent, who was his sister, and queen dowager of Hungary, his heart relented for the calamities of his people, and he dreaded the consequences of depopulating a country from which he had often received the most effectual assistance and support. But these considerations had no influence on his son Philip. He republished the edicts of his father, and ordered the governors and magistrates to carry them into rigorous execution.

In these edicts it was enacted, that all persons who held erroneous opinions in religion, should be deprived of their offices, and degraded from their rank. It was ordained, that whoever should be convicted of having taught heretical doctrines, or of having been present at the religious meetings of heretics, should, if they were men, be put to death by the sword; and, if women, be burned alive. Such were the punishments denounced even against those who repented of their errors and forsook them; while all who persisted in them were condemned to the flames. And even those who afforded shelter to heretics in their houses, or who omitted to give information against them, were subjected to the same penalties as heretics themselves.

But Philip could not content himself with publishing and executing these cruel edicts. He also established a particular tribunal for the extirpation of heresy, which, although it was not called by the name Inquisition, had all the essentials of that iniquitous institution. Persons were committed to prison upon bare suspicion, and put to the torture on the slightest evidence. The accused were not confronted with their accusers, or made acquainted with the crimes for which they suffered. The civil judges were not allowed to take any further concern in prosecutions for heresy, than to execute the sentences which the inquisitors pronounced. The possessions of the sufferers were confiscated; and informers were encouraged by an assurance of impunity in case they themselves were guilty, and by the promise of rewards. That the establishment of this arbitrary tribunal should have excited considerable commotion in the Netherlands, can occasion no surprise. It had created disturbances even in Spain and Italy, where civil liberty was not enjoyed in the measure that it was in the Netherlands. Among the Flemings, therefore, it excited the most terrible apprehensions; they considered it as utterly subversive of their liberty. But to the grievances already enumerated, the inhabitants of the Netherlands further complained that the provinces were filled with Spanish soldiers, whose insolent and rapacious behavior was intolerable. And to all these causes of discontent, Philip added another by increasing the number of bishoprics, from five to seventeen, which was the number of the provinces. These new bishops were regarded as so many new inquisitors; and their creation was considered as an encroachment on the privileges of the provinces, and a violation on the part of the king, of the oath which he had taken at his accession, to preserve the church in the condition in which he found it.

Such was the state of affairs, when Philip, who had for some time taken up his residence among his subjects in the Netherlands, proposed in the year 1559, to quit the country and fix the seat of his government in Spain.

During his absence the government of the Netherlands was conferred upon the Duchess of Parma, who was a natural daughter of the late emperor, and who sustained the title of regent.

As Philip did not intend to return speedily to the Netherlands, he thought proper, before his departure, to summon a convention of the states, which was accordingly held at Ghent. He himself was present, accompanied by the new regent, at the first opening of the assembly; but as he could not speak the language of the country, he employed the Bishop of Arras to address the deputies in his name. Among other things, the latter was instructed earnestly to exhort the states to study to preserve the public peace; and to this end he thought nothing could conduce so much as the extirpation of heresy, which, whilst it set men at variance with God, put arms into their hands against their civil sovereign. They were, therefore, strenuously exhorted to maintain the purity of their ancient faith; and for this purpose, to execute vigorously the several edicts published for the suppression of heresy.

The reply of the deputies of the states to this speech, contained the warmest sentiments of loyalty, but it was also accompanied with intimations, that they had expected the foreign troops would have been immediately transported to Spain, that they were unable to discover any reason for keeping them any longer in the Netherlands, but such as filled their minds with terror. Their suspicion that the Inquisition was about to be established in the Netherlands, excited the most disquieting apprehensions. Some of the deputies did not scruple to remonstrate openly, that the Netherlands had never been accustomed to an institution of so much rigor and severity; that the people trembled at the very name of the Inquisition, and would fly to the remotest corners of the earth rather than submit to it; that it was not by fire and the sword, but by the gentlest and softest remedies, that the evil complained of must be cured. Various representations of this kind were addressed to the king himself by some of the deputies, who endeavored to persuade him at least to moderate the edicts, if he would not entirely annul them; but on this head Philip was inexorable. And when one of his ministers reported, that, by persisting in the execution of those edicts, he might kindle the seeds of rebellion, and thereby lose the sovereignty of the provinces; he replied, “That he had much rather be no king at all, than have heretics for his subjects.” His religion was, of all superstitions, the most intolerant; his temper of mind, which was naturally haughty and severe; his pride which would have been wounded by yielding to what he had repeatedly declared he would never yield; his engagements with the pope, and an oath which he had taken to devote his reign to the defense of the popish faith and the extirpation of heresy; above all, his thirst for despotic power, with which he considered the liberties claimed in religious matters by the Protestants as utterly incompatible; all these united causes, rendered him deaf to the remonstrances which were made to him, and fixed him unalterably in his resolution to execute the edicts with the utmost rigor. He showed himself equally inflexible with regard to the new bishoprics: nor would he consent, at this time, to withdraw the Spanish soldiers. In order, however, to lessen the odium arising from his refusal, he offered the command of these troops to the Prince of Orange and Count Egmont, the two ablest and most popular noblemen in the Netherlands; the former of whom he had appointed governor of Holland, Zealand, and Utretch; and the latter of Artois and Flanders. Both of them declined accepting of the offer which was made to them and had the courage to declare, that they considered the continuance of the troops in the Low Countries, after peace had been established in France, as a violation of the fundamental laws of the constitution.

The Prince of Orange, so well known in history by the name of William the First, was the representative of the ancient and illustrious family of Nassau in Germany. From his ancestors, one of whom had been Emperor of Germany, he inherited several rich possessions in the Netherlands and he had succeeded to the principality of Orange by the will of Rene Nassau and Chalons, his cousin-german, in the year 1544. From that time the late emperor had kept him perpetually about his person, and had early discovered in him all those extraordinary talents which rendered him afterwards one of the most illustrious personages of the age.

It does not appear, that, before the assembly of the states, Philip had any just ground for his suspicions of William’s conduct; and there is only one circumstance recorded to which they can be ascribed. The prince having been sent to France as an hostage for the execution of some articles of the peace of Chateau-Cambresis, had, during his residence there, discovered a scheme formed by the French and Spanish monarchs for the extirpation of the Protestants. This scheme he had communicated to such of his friends in the Netherlands as had embraced the reformed religion, and from that time the king ceased to treat him with his wonted confidence. On the 20th of August, 1559, Philip set sail from the Netherlands with a fleet of seventy ships, and on the 29th arrived at Loredo, in the province of Biscay. He reached the port in safety; but no sooner had he landed than a dreadful storm arose, in which a part of his fleet was shipwrecked; above a thousand men perished, and a great number of capital paintings, statues, and other curious works of art were lost, which the late emperor, Charles, had been employed, during forty years, in collecting in Germany, Italy, and Flanders. Philip thought he could not, on this occasion, better express his gratitude for his own personal preservation, than by declaring his resolution to dedicate his life to the defense of the catholic faith and the extirpation of heresy; and such were the feelings with which he was animated when he entered Spain.

The Inquisition had been introduced into Spain about a century before this time, as hath already been noticed in a former section of this work; and it met with the entire approbation and countenance of Philip, who had imbibed, in all its virulence, that spirit of bigotry and persecution which gave it birth. He regarded heretics as the most odious of criminals; and considered a departure of his subjects from the Roman superstition, as the most dreadful calamity that could befall them. He was, therefore, determined to support the inquisitors with all his power; and he encouraged them to exert themselves in the exercise of their office with the utmost vigilance. The zeal and diligence of these men corresponded to the ardor with which their sovereign was inflamed; yet so irresistible was the spirit of inquiry and the force of truth, that the opinions of the Reformers had found their way into Spain, and were embraced openly by great numbers of both sexes, among whom were several priests and nuns.

Before Philip’s arrival in the city of Valladolid, an auto-da-fe had been celebrated, in which a great number of Protestants had been committed to the flames. There were still in the prisons of the Inquisition more than thirty persons, against whom the same dreadful punishment had been denounced. Philip, eager to give public proof as early as possible of his abhorrence of these innovators, desired the inquisitors to fix a day for their execution; and he resolved to witness it. The dreadful ceremony (more repugnant to humanity, as well as to the spirit of the Christian religion, than the most abominable sacrifices recorded in the annals of the Pagan world) was conducted with the greatest solemnity which the inquisitors could devise; and Philip, attended by his son Don Carlos, by his sister, and by his courtiers and guards, sat within sight of the unhappy victims. After hearing a sermon from the bishop of Zamora, he rose from his seat, and having drawn his sword, as a signal, that with it he would defend the holy faith, he took an oath administered to him by the inquisitor-general, to support the inquisition and its ministers against all heretics and apostates, and to compel his subjects every where to yield obedience to its decrees.

Among the Protestants condemned, there was a nobleman of the name of Don Carlos di Sessa, who, when the executioners were conducting him to the stake, called out to the king for mercy, saying, “And canst thou thus O king! witness the torments of thy subjects? Save us from this cruel death; we do not deserve it.” “No,” Philip sternly replied, “I would myself carry wood to burn my own son, were he such a wretch as thou.” After which he beheld the horrid spectacle that followed, with a composure and tranquillity that betokened the most unfeeling heart.

This dreadful severity, joined with certain rigid laws, enacted to prevent the importation of Lutheran books, soon produced the desired effect. After the celebration of another auto-da-fe, in which about fifty protestants suffered, all the rest, if there were any still remaining, either concealed their sentiments, or made their escape into foreign parts. But though Philip had, for a moment, banished the heretics from his Spanish dominions, he had the mortification to contemplate the rapid progress of heresy in almost every other state in Europe; and in order to obstruct it, he employed all his influence to procure the convocation of a general council of the church. For several centuries before the Reformation, and for some time after it had been set on foot, the bigotry of the Papists would not suffer them to think of any other means of extirpating the opinions of the Protestants, but persecution; which was exercised against them with the same unrelenting severity, as if they had been guilty of the most atrocious crimes. But it soon appeared how inadequate this barbarous procedure was to the purpose which the Romanists intended.

Those bloody edicts which were published, those fires which were lighted up, and that variety of torments which priests and inquisitors invented with ingenious cruelty, served in reality to propagate the doctrines against which they were employed, and contributed to inflame, rather than extinguish, that ardent zeal with which the Protestants were animated.

Being firmly persuaded, that the cause which they maintained, was the cause of God and truth, and that their perseverance would be rewarded with a happy immortality, they courted their punishments instead of avoiding them; and, in bearing them, displayed a degree of fortitude and patience, which, by exciting admiration in the beholders, produced innumerable proselytes to the faith for which they suffered.

Several princes had been converted to that faith. In some states the Protestants had become more numerous and powerful than their opponents; and in others, their opinions so generally prevailed, that the catholic princes found it no longer possible to extirpate them, without depriving themselves of great multitudes of their most industrious subjects, on whom the wealth and importance of their states depended.

The time when persecution might have proved effectual was past, and the princes came at length to perceive the necessity of having recourse to some more gentle means than had been hitherto employed. They were, at the same time, sensible, notwithstanding their prejudices against the Reformers, some reformation was extremely necessary; they had long borne with great impatience the numberless encroachments of the court of Rome; and were convinced, that if some abuses were removed, it would not be impracticable to persuade many of the Protestants to return into the bosom of the church.

A general council appeared to be the only expedient by which this important end could be obtained; and the late emperor Charles had taken infinite pains to procure the convocation of that assembly. In former times the councils of the church had been convened by the emperors themselves; but, in the time of Charles, the power of calling them was, by all true Catholics, considered as the peculiar prerogative of the popes; who dreaded that such assemblies might derogate from their usurped authority, and were therefore inclined, if possible, to prevent them from being held.

With the timid Clement, Charles employed all his art and influence to procure a council, but in vain. Paul the third was no less averse to this measure than Clement; but the emperor being seconded by almost all the catholic princes in Europe, Paul yielded to their importunities, and summoned a council to meet in Trent. From this place it was afterwards translated to Bologna. After the death of Paul it was again assembled in Trent, in 1551, and continued to be held there till the year following; when it was pro-rogued for two years, upon war being declared against the emperor by the Elector of Saxony.

In the sessions which were held under Paul, that fundamental tenet of the reformers, by which the writings of the evangelists and apostles are held to be the only rule of the Christian faith, was condemned; and equal authority was ascribed to the books termed Apocryphal, and to the oral traditions of the church. From the manner in which the deliberations of this assembly were conducted; from the nature of its decisions, and from the blind attachment of a great majority of its members to the court of Rome, there was little ground to hope for the attainment of those ends for which the calling of it had been so earnestly desired. But no other expedient could be devised, which the Catholics thought so likely to stop the progress of heresy; and, therefore, as soon as the war between France and Spain was concluded, the several Catholics began to think seriously of the restoration of the council.

The state of Europe at that time seemed, more than ever, to require the application of some immediate remedy, The power and the number of the Protestants were every day becoming more and more considerable. Both England and Scotland had disclaimed allegiance to the See of Rome, and new-modeled their religion. In the Netherlands the reformers had greatly multiplied of late, notwithstanding the most dreadful cruelties had been exercised against them; and in France, where every province was involved in the most terrible combustion, there was ground to apprehend, that they would soon become too powerful for the Catholics, and be able to wrest from them the reins of government. The new opinions had penetrated even into Italy, and had been embraced by a considerable number of persons both in Naples and Savoy. From the former of these states they were extirpated by the unrelenting severity of Philip; who issued orders to his viceroy to put all heretics to death without mercy, and even to pursue with fire and sword a remnant of them who had fled from Cosenza, and were living quietly among the mountains. But the Duke of Savoy, unwilling to deprive himself of so great a number of useful subjects as at that time professed the protestant faith, was inclined to attempt to enlighten and convince them; and with this view he desired the pope’s permission to hold a colloquy of the principal ecclesiastics in his dominions, on the subject of religion. Pius was about the same time informed, that in France a resolution had been embraced to have recourse to the same expedient. He believed that no measure could be devised more likely to prove fatal to that exclusive prerogative which he claimed of judging in matters of religion. He dreaded that the example of France and Savoy would be quickly followed by other states, and the decrees of provincial synods substituted in the place of those of the Holy See. It highly concerned him, therefore, to prevent this measure (so pernicious to his authority) from taking place. Nor did he find much difficulty in dissuading the Duke of Savoy from adopting it. “If the heretics,” said he to the duke’s ambassador, “stand in need of instruction, I will send divines and a legate, by whom they may be both instructed and absolved. But your master will find, that they will lend a deaf ear to all the instructions that can be given them, and will put no other interpretation upon his conduct, but that he wants power to compel them to submit. No good effect was ever produced by that lenity which he inclines to exercise; but from experience he may learn, that the sooner he shall execute justice on these men, and make use of force to reduce them, the more certain will be his success; and if he will comply with the counsel which I offer, he shall receive from me such assistance as will enable him to carry it into execution.” The Duke, who was sincerely attached to the Romish faith, and closely connected with Philip, unfortunately complied with this violent counsel, and engaged in a bloody war with his Protestant subjects, of which he had afterwards the greatest reason to repent.

But to return to the state of affairs in the Netherlands: the seeds of discord which were sown in that unhappy country, in the beginning of the reign of Philip II continued to approximate towards maturity. At his departure from among them he had given strict orders to the regent to enforce a rigorous execution of his edicts, and the persecutions were, accordingly, carried on as formerly. The council of Trent had published its decrees, and Philip resolved to have them obeyed throughout all his dominions. The disturbances which subsisted in the Low Countries, ought to have deterred him from adding fuel to a flame which already burnt with so much violence. But his bigotry, together with his arbitrary maxims of government, rendered him averse to every mild expedient, and determined him to enforce obedience to the decrees in the Netherlands, as well as in Spain and Italy. When the regent laid his instructions on this head before the council of state, she found the counselors much divided in their opinions. The Prince of Orange maintained, that the regent could not require the people of the Netherlands to receive the decrees, because several of them were contrary to the fundamental laws of the constitution.

He represented that some catholic princes had thought proper to reject them; and proposed that a remonstrance should be made to the king on the necessity of recalling his instructions. “Let us not, by our misrepresentations,” said he, “make him believe the number of heretics to be smaller than it is. Let us acquaint him, that every province, every town, every village, is full of them. Let us not conceal from him how much they despise the edicts, and how little they respect the magistrates; that he may see how impracticable it is to introduce the Inquisition, and be convinced that the remedy which be would have us to apply, would be infinitely worse than the disease.” He added, “That although he was a true Catholic, and a faithful subject of the king, yet he thought the calamities which had been lately experienced in France and Germany, afforded a sufficient proof that the consciences of men were not to be compelled; and that heresy was not to be extirpated by fire and sword, but by reasoning and persuasion; to which it was in vain to expect that men would be brought to listen, until the present practice of butchering them like beasts was wholly laid aside.” He represented likewise the absurdity of publishing, on this occasion, the decrees of the council of Trent, and proposed that Count Egmont should be instructed to request the king to suspend the publication of them till the present tumults were allayed.

Many of the other nobles set on foot, at this time, a confederacy by which they bound themselves to support one another, in preventing the Inquisition from being established in the Netherlands. The prime mover of this expedient was Philip de Marnix, Lord of St. Aldegonde, a nobleman highly distinguished for his eloquence, his address, and his political abilities, who had the merit of contributing more than any other person (the Prince of Orange alone excepted) towards accomplishing that happy revolution, by which the northern provinces were rescued from the Spanish yoke. By his advice, and according to his direction, a writing was drawn up, termed the Compromise, which is here inserted, as it marks strongly the spirit by which the people of the Netherlands were animated. “Whereas certain malicious persons, under the cloak of zeal for the catholic religion, but in reality prompted by ambition, pride, and avarice, have by their misrepresentations, persuaded our lord, the king, to introduce into these provinces that most pernicious tribunal the Inquisition, which is not only contrary to all human and divine laws, but exceeds in cruelty the most barbarous institutions of the most savage tyrants in the heathen world; which subjects all authority to that of the inquisitors, reduces all men to a perpetual state of miserable slavery, and by the visitations which it appoints, exposes the best men to continual apprehensions; so that if a priest, a Spaniard, or wicked minion of power, shall incline, he may, by means of this institution, accuse any man, however innocent, and cause him to be imprisoned, condemned, and put to death, without being confronted with his accusers, and without being allowed to bring evidence of his innocence, or to speak in his defense: for these reasons we whose names are hereto subscribed have resolved to provide for the security of our families, goods, and persons; and for this purpose we hereby enter into a sacred league with one another, promising with a solemn oath, to oppose with all our power, the introduction of the above-named Inquisition into these provinces; whether it shall be attempted openly or secretly, and by whatever name it shall be called, whether that of Inquisition, Visitation, Commission, or Edict: declaring at the same time, that we are far from entertaining the design of attempting anything prejudicial to the interest of our sovereign the king; but, on the contrary, that our fixed intention is, to support and defend his government, to maintain peace, and to prevent, to the utmost of our power, all seditions, tumults, and revolts. This agreement we have sworn; and we hereby promise and swear to maintain it for ever sacred; and we call Almighty God to witness, that neither in word or deed shall we ever weaken or counteract it. “We likewise promise and swear, mutually to defend one another, in all places and on all occasions, against every attack that shall be made, or prosecution that shall be raised, against any individual amongst us, on account of his concern in this confederacy. And we declare, that no pretense of the persecutors, who may allege rebellion, insurrection, or any other plea, shall exempt us from this our oath and promise. No action can deserve the name of rebellion, that proceeds from opposition to the iniquitous decrees of the Inquisition; and, therefore, whether any of us be attacked directly on account of opposing these decrees, or under pretense of punishing rebellion or insurrection, we hereby swear to endeavor, by all lawful means, to procure his deliverance. “In this and every part of our conduct regarding the inquisition, our meaning is, to submit to the general opinion of our confederates, or to that of those who shall be appointed by the rest to assist us with their counsel. “In witness of this our league, we invoke the holy name of the living God, as the searcher of our hearts; humbly beseeching him to grant us the grace of his Holy Spirit, and that all our enterprises may be attended with success, may promote the honor of his name, contribute to the welfare of our souls, and advance the peace and true interest of the Netherlands.”

Such were the terms of the Compromise, which was quickly circulated through the provinces, and subscribed by persons of all ranks, whether Catholics or Protestants. Books were, at the same time multiplied, in which liberty of conscience was pleaded, the absurdities in the popish doctrines and worship exposed, and hideous pictures drawn of the Inquisition.

The regent felt great anxiety with regard to the consequence with which so much ill-humor and discontent were likely to be attended. She had never fully credited the representations which the Prince of Orange and some of her other counselors had often made to her. And she now complained bitterly of the situation to which she was reduced by the orders sent from Spain. “For to what purpose was it,” she added, “to publish edicts, when I wanted power to enforce their execution! They have served only to increase the people’s audacity, and to bring my authority into contempt.”

The Prince of Orange, and the counts Horn and Egmont, had, ever since the last republication of the edicts, absented themselves from the council. The regent now wrote to them in the most urgent manner, requiring their attendance. They readily complied; and the regent, after having informed them of her design in calling them together, desired they would deliver their opinions without reserve. The Prince of Orange was among the last who rose, and he spoke as follows: — “Would to heaven, I had been so fortunate as to gain belief, when I ventured to foretell what has now happened. Desperate remedies would not, in that case, have been first applied, nor persons who had fallen into error been confirmed in it, by the means employed to reclaim them. We should not certainly think favorably of a physician’s prudence, who, in the beginning of a disease, when gentle remedies were likely to prove effectual, should propose the burning or cutting off the part infected. There are two species of inquisition. The one is exercised in the name of the pope, and the other has been long practiced by the bishops. To the latter men are, in some measure, reconciled by the power of custom; and considering how well we are now provided with bishops in all the provinces, it may reasonably be expected that this sort will alone be found sufficient. The former has been, and will for ever be, an object of abhorrence, and ought to be abolished without delay. “With respect to those edicts which have been so often published against the innovators in religion, hearken not to me, but to your own experience, which will inform you, that the persecutions to which they have given rise, have served only to increase and propagate the errors against which they have been exercised. The Netherlands have for several years been a school, in which, if we have not been extremely inattentive, we may have learned the folly of persecution. Men do not for nothing forego the advantages of life; much less do they expose themselves to torture and death for nothing. The contempt of death and pain, exhibited by heretics in suffering for their religion, is calculated to produce the most powerful effects upon the minds of spectators. It works on their compassion, it excites their admiration of the sufferers, and creates in them a suspicion that truth must certainly be found where they observe so much constancy and fortitude. Heretics have been treated with the same severity in France and England as in the Low Countries. But has it been attended there with better success! On the contrary, is there not reason, there as well as here, to say what was said of the Christians of old, that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The emperor Julian, the most formidable enemy that Christianity ever had, was fully sensible of the truth of this. Harassing and tormenting could only serve, he knew, to inflame that ardent zeal which he wanted to extinguish. He had recourse therefore to the expedient of ridicule and contempt; and this he found to be more effectual. The Grecian empire was, at different periods, infected with heresies of various kinds. AErius taught errors in the reign of Constance; Nestorius in that of Theodosius; Arius in that of Constantine. No such punishments were inflicted, either on the heresiarchs themselves or on their disciples, as are now practiced in the Netherlands; and yet where are all those false opinions now, which the first broachers were at so much pains to propagate? Such is the nature of heresy, if it rests, it rusts; but he who rubs it, whets it. Let it be neglected and overlooked, it will soon lose the charm of novelty; and with that, it will lose the greatest part of its attractive power. But they are not the examples only of heathen princes which I would recommend to the regent’s imitation. In complying with my advice, she will tread in the steps of our late glorious emperor, her father; who, from experience, was convinced, that gentle measures were more likely to prove effectual than severe ones; and therefore adopted the former, in preference to the latter, for several years before his resignation. “The king himself appeared, at a certain period, inclined to make trial of mild expedients. But, through the influence of the bishops and other ecclesiastics, he has changed his views. Let these men answer for their conduct if they can. For my own part, I am entirely satisfied that it is impossible to root out the present evils in the Netherlands by force, without shaking the state from its foundation. I conclude with reminding you of what we have all heard frequently, That the Protestants in the Low Countries have opened a correspondence with those in France. Let us beware of irritating them more than we have already done, lest, by imitating the French Catholics in their severity, we, like them, involve our country in the dreadful miseries of a civil war.”

The regent finding that her situation become every day more critical, informed the king of it, who immediately sent the Duke of Alva, a nobleman of the most imperious character, tyrannical and vindictive in the extreme, to execute his pleasure in the Netherlands, armed with full power to punish or to pardon crimes of every sort. He began his administration with publishing a declaration, that a month should be allowed to the reformers for preparing to leave the country, without receiving, during that space, any trouble or molestation, and at the same time he issued secret orders to the inquisitors to proceed immediately in the execution of their edicts with the utmost rigor. To assist and encourage these men in the exercise of their office, he instituted a new council, to which he gave the name of the Council of Tumults, which he appointed to take cognizance of the late disorders, and to search after and punish all those who had been concerned, directly or indirectly, in promoting them. This council consisted of twelve persons, the greatest part of whom were Spaniards.

The duke was the president himself, and in his absence Vargas, a Spanish lawyer, distinguished above all his countrymen by his avarice and cruelty.

One of the first deeds of this tribunal, which might well be called, as the Flemings termed it, the Council of Blood, was to declare, That to have presented or subscribed any petition against the late erection of bishoprics, or against the edicts or Inquisition, or to have permitted the exercise of the new religion under any pretense whatever; or to insinuate by word of mouth or writing, that the king has no right to abolish those pretended privileges which have been the source of so much impiety, is treason against the king, and justly merits the severest punishment he shall be pleased to inflict.

The governor had already stationed his army in such a manner as he thought would most effectually secure the execution of this cruel, undistinguishing resolution of the council. In Antwerp he built a citadel, and compelled the inhabitants to defray the expense which this instrument of their own slavery had cost him. He began to build citadels in other places: and, in the mean time, he spread his troops over the country in such formidable bodies, that the people, over whom they exercised the most oppressive tyranny, either forsook their habitations, or gave themselves up to despair. Above twenty thousand persons escaped, at this time, into France, England, and the Protestant provinces of Germany.

Great numbers were prevented from flying, and seized whilst they were meditating flight, by the cruel hand of the persecutor. The innocent were overwhelmed with horror at the sight of the dreadful punishments inflicted on the guilty; and lamented at this once flourishing country, so much distinguished for the mildness of its government and the happiness of its people, should now present no other object to view, but confiscations, imprisonments, and blood.

There was no distinction made of age, sex, or condition. Persons in their earliest youth; persons worn out, and ready to sink under the infirmities of age; persons of the highest rank, as well as the lowest of the people, on the slightest evidence, and sometimes even on bare suspicion, were alike sacrificed to the rapacity and cruelty of the governor and his associates.

Although in the space of a few months upwards of eighteen hundred persons suffered by the hand of the executioner; yet the Duke of Alva’s thirst of blood was not satiated. Prisoners were not brought in so fast, nor seized in such considerable numbers, as he desired. The time of Carnival was approaching, when he expected that he should find the reformers off their guard. They would then leave their skulking-places, he supposed, and visit their families, while the Catholics were immersed in mirth and dissipation. On this occasion his soldiers, accompanied by the inquisitors, like so many wolves, were let loose among the Protestants; who were seized in the middle of the night in their beds, and from thence dragged to prisons and dungeons.

Many who had been only once present at the protestant assemblies, even although they declared their faith in the catholic religion to be firm and unshaken, were hanged or drowned: while those who professed themselves to be Protestants, or refused to abjure their religion, were put to the rack, in order to make them discover their associates; they were then dragged by horses to the place of execution, and their bodies being committed to the flames, their sufferings were prolonged with ingenious cruelty.

To prevent them from bearing testimony, in the midst of their torments, to the truth of their profession, their executioners were not satisfied with barely confining their tongues; they first scorched them with a glowing iron, and then screwed them into a machine, contrived on purpose to produce the most excruciating pain.

It is shocking to recount the numberless instances of inhuman cruelty perpetrated by Alva and his associates, especially when we consider that the unhappy victims were not those hardened wretches, who, by daring and bloody deeds, are guilty of violating the laws of nature and humanity, but were generally persons of the most inoffensive characters; who, having imbibed the new opinions in religion, had too much probity to disguise their sentiments; or, at the worst, had been betrayed into indiscretions by their zeal for propagating truths, which they believed to be of the highest importance to the glory of God and the happiness of men.

Alva communicated a great share of his savage spirit to the inferior magistrates; who knew that they could not recommend themselves more effectually either to the king or to the governor, than by the exercise of rigor and severity. Several of them, however, whose humanity prevailed over the considerations of safety and interest, were induced to give the Protestants timely warning to withdraw. Even the members of the bloody council began to feel their hearts revolt against the reiterated instances of cruelty, to which their sanction was required. Some of them applied for dismission; others had the courage to absent themselves; and out of the twelve, of which the council was composed, there were seldom above three or four present.

About this time the magistrates of Antwerp, whose behavior, from the beginning of Alva’s administration, had been extremely obsequious, thought they might venture to interpose in favor of certain citizens whom the inquisitors had imprisoned. Their petition was conceived in the humblest terms; and they represented, that although the persons for whom they pleaded had been present two or three times in the Protestant assemblies, yet it was only curiosity that had led them thither; they were still true sons of the church, and faithful subjects to the king; and they had remained in the country till the time of their imprisonment, on the faith of the declaration which the governor had made, that they should not receive any disturbance on account of what had passed, till the expiration of a month after his arrival in the Netherlands.

To this petition Alva haughtily replied, That he was amazed at their folly in presuming to apply to him in behalf of heretics; and they should have reason, he added, to repent bitterly of their conduct, if they did not act more prudently in future; for they might rest assured, that he would hang them all, for an example to deter others from the like presumption.

Notwithstanding this, some of the catholic nobility, and Viglius, who had formerly concurred in all the arbitrary measures of Granvelle, but whose heart melted at the present misery of his countrymen, had the courage to remonstrate to the king against the governor’s barbarity. Even the pope exhorted him to greater moderation. Philip, however, refused to countermand the orders which he had given, till he should hear from Vargas; who advised him to persevere in the plan which he had adopted, assured him of its success, and at the same time flattered him with the hopes of an inexhaustible fund of wealth that would arise from confiscation. Vargas being seconded by the inquisitors at Madrid, Philip lent a deaf ear to the remonstrance which had been made to him, and the persecutions were continued with the same unrelenting fury as before.

The people of the Netherlands were confirmed in their despair of obtaining mercy from Philip, by the accounts transmitted to them at this time from Spain, of his cruel treatment of his son Don Carlos. Various relations are given of that tragical and mysterious affair by the contemporary historians; but the following appears the most consistent and probable. This young prince had from his earliest youth been noted for the impetuosity and violence of his temper; and though he never gave reason to think favorably of his understanding, or his capacity for government, he had discovered the most intemperate ambition to be admitted by his father to a share in the administration of his dominions. Philip, whether from jealousy, or a conviction of his son’s unfitness for any important trust, refused to gratify his ambition, he behaved towards him with distance and reserve, while he gave all his confidence to the Duke of Alva, Ruy Gomez de Sylva, and the president Spinosa; against whom Don Carlos, partly on this account, and partly because he considered them as spies upon his conduct, had conceived the most irreconcilable aversion. In this disposition he did not scruple, on different occasions, to censure the measures of his father’s government and particularly those which had been adopted in the Netherlands. He had sometimes expressed his compassion for the people there; had threatened the Duke of Alva, and even made an attempt upon his life, for accepting the government; had been suspected of holding secret interviews with the Marquis of Mons, and the Baron de Montigny; and had afterwards formed the design of retiring into the Netherlands, with an intention to put himself at the head of the malcontents.

Of this design intelligence was carried, by some of the courtiers, to the king; who after having consulted with the inquisitors, at Madrid, as he usually did in matters of great importance and difficulty, resolved to prevent the prince from putting his scheme into execution, by depriving him of his liberty. For this purpose he went into his chamber in the middle of the night, attended by some of his privy counselors and guards: and, after reproaching him with his undutiful behavior, told him that he had come to exercise his paternal correction and chastisement. Then having dismissed all his attendants, he commanded him to be clothed in a dark colored mourning dress, and appointed guards to watch over him, and to confine him to his chamber. The high spirited young prince was extremely shocked at such unworthy treatment, and prayed his father and his attendants to put an immediate end to his life. He threw himself headlong into the fire, and would have put an end to his life had he not been prevented by the guards. During his confinement, his despair and anguish rose to a degree of frenzy. He would fast sometimes for whole days together, then eat voraciously, and endeavor to choke himself by swallowing his victuals without chewing. Several princes interceded for his release, as did many of the principal Spanish nobles. But his father was relentless and inexorable. After six months’ imprisonment, he caused the Inquisition of Madrid to pass sentence against his son, and under the cover of that sentence, ordered poison to be given him, which in a few hours put a period to his miserable life, at the age of twenty-three.

Philip had, before this time, given a proof of the cruelty of his disposition; when, as above related, he chose to be present at the execution of his protestant subjects in Spain. His singular conduct on that occasion, and the composure with which he beheld the torments of the unhappy sufferers, were ascribed by some to the power of superstition: while they were regarded by others, as the most convincing evidence of the sincerity of his zeal for the true religion. But his severity towards his son did not admit of any such interpretation. It was considered by all the world as a proof that his heart was dead to the sentiments of natural affection and humanity; and his subjects were everywhere filled with astonishment. It struck terror in a particular manner, into the inhabitants of the Low Countries; who saw how vain it was to expect mercy from a prince, who had so obstinately refused to exercise it towards his own son; whose only crime, they believed, was his attachment to them, and his compassion of their calamities. 7 SECTION The history of the Waldenses continued, from the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century.

A.D. 1551-1600 AMONG the distinguished favors which it hath pleased the Father of Lights to confer upon mankind, the invention of the art of printing has been, in its consequences, none of the least beneficial. Before this discovery, learning was accessible to none but persons of princely fortunes; but by this means it was brought within the reach of almost everyone; and that information became generally diffused which was necessary to subvert the cause of tyranny and superstition; thus, through the over-ruling providence of God, the art of printing turned out to be one of the most important events that have happened since the first promulgation of the gospel. Knowledge; which had indeed been gaining ground for some centuries before, was now wonderfully accelerated in its progress. The light acquired by one, was quickly diffused abroad, and communicated to multitudes. The facility of communication brought learning within the reach of the middle ranks — the dead languages became a general object of study — the Scriptures began to be consulted, not only in the Latin Vulgate, but also in the Greek — reading produced reflection, and thus diffused a light which it was no longer possible to conceal under a bushel. It would have been strange indeed, had the advocates of a system which was founded in ignorance, expressed no apprehensions of alarm at the introduction of these novelties.

The faculty of Theology at Paris declared before the assembled parliament, that religion was undone, if the study of Greek and Hebrew was permitted.

But the language of the monks in those days is still more amusing. We are informed by Conrad of Heresbach, a very grave and respectable author of that period, that one of their number is said thus to have expressed himself — “They have invented a new language, which they call Greek; you must be carefully on your guard against it; it is the mother of all heresy. I observe in the hands of many persons a book written in that language, which they call the New Testament. It is a book full of daggers and poison.

As to the Hebrew, my dear brethren, it is certain that all those who learn it immediately become Jews.” The art of printing, which originated with John Guttenberg, a citizen of Mentz, was first attempted by him at Strasburg, from 1436 to 1440. His efforts which were, no doubt, at first very rude and indigested, had been greatly matured by skill and experience in the course of a century; and consequently, about the year 1535, we find the Waldenses of Piedmont anxious to avail themselves of it with a view to a more general circulation of the word of life. Hitherto they had been obliged to confine themselves to manuscripts; and, in the Waldensian tongue, they seem not to have generally possessed an entire version of the whole Bible, but the New Testament only, and some particular books of the Old. They now, however, contracted with a printer at Neufchatel, in Switzerland, for an entire impression of the whole Bible in French, for the sum of fifteen hundred crowns of gold. An elaborate preface, somewhat too declamatory for a publication of that kind, was prefixed by Robert Olivetan, who appears to have been one of their number, and who professes to have translated it for the use of the churches. Both Perrin and Sir Samuel Morland affirm this to have been the first French Bible that was printed and published; and on their authority I had so stated the fact in the first edition of this work. But on consulting Du Pin on the Canon, I am now convinced that this is a mistake. The words of the latter are, “The first edition of the French Bible, [printed] in the year 1530, is to be seen in the French king’s library; the second of the year 1534, is larger, and extant in the libraries of St. Germain de Prez, and of St. Geneviese. These two editions are prior to that of Robert Olivetan, [which was] the first done by the Protestants in the year 1535.” The works of Luther, of Calvin, and others of the reformers, beginning about this time to be in general use, they sent Martin Gonin, one of their number, to Geneva, to procure a supply of such books as he should think calculated to promote the instruction of the people. But on his journey he was unfortunately apprehended under suspicion of being a spy: and a discovery being made that he was a Waldensian, he was sent for safety to Grenoble, and there thrown into prison. The inquisitors having been made acquainted with the case, he was, by their advice, cast into the river Lyzere, during the night, for this important reason, as given by the inquisitor, that it was not expedient the world should hear him declare his faith, lest those who heard him should become worse than himself. It was formerly noticed, that in the year 1560, the Waldenses in Calabria formed a junction with Calvin’s church at Geneva. The consequence of this was, that several pastors or public teachers went from the neighborhood of Geneva to settle with the churches in Calabria. It seems probable that this circumstance had contributed to revive the profession in Calabria, or at least had brought the Waldenses more into public notice than they had hitherto been; and it spread an alarm among the Catholics, which reached the ears of pope Pius IV. Measures were, therefore, immediately taken for wholly exterminating the Waldenses in that quarter; and a scene of carnage ensued, which in enormity has seldom been exceeded. Two monks were first sent to the inhabitants of St. Xist, who assembled the people, and by a smooth harangue, endeavored to persuade them to desist from hearing these new teachers, whom they knew they had lately received from Geneva; promising them, in case of compliance, every advantage they could wish: but, on the other hand, plainly intimating that they would subject themselves to be condemned as heretics, and to forfeit their lives and fortunes, if they refused to return to the church of Rome. And at once to bring matters to the test, they caused a bell to be immediately tolled for mass, commanding the people to attend. Instead of complying, however, the Waldenses forsook their houses, and as many as were able fled to the woods, with their wives and children. Two companies of soldiers were instantly ordered out to pursue them, who hunted them like wild beasts, crying, Amassa, Amassa; that is, kill, kill! and numbers were put to death.

Such as reached the tops of the mountains, procured the privilege of being heard in their own defense. They stated, that they and their forefathers had now for several ages been residents of that country — that during all that period their lives and conversation had been irreproachable — that they ardently wished to remain there, if they should be allowed to continue unmolested in the profession of their faith, but that if this were denied them, they implored their pursuers to have pity on their wives and children, and to permit them to retire, under the providence of God, either by sea or land, wherever it should please the Lord to conduct them — that they would very cheerfully sacrifice all their worldly possessions rather than fall into idolatry. They therefore, entreated in the name of all that was sacred, that they might not be reduced to the necessity of defending themselves, which if they were compelled to do, must be at the peril of those who forced them to such extremities. This expostulation only exasperated the soldiers, who immediately rushing upon them in the most impetuous manner, a terrible affray ensued, in which several lives were lost, and the military at last put to flight.

The inquisitors, on this, wrote to the Viceroy of Naples, urging him to send them some companies of soldiers, to apprehend certain heretics of St.

Xist and de la Garde, who had fled into the woods; at the same time apprising him that by ridding the church of such a plague, he would perform what was acceptable to the pope and meritorious to himself. The viceroy cheerfully obeyed the summons, and marched at the head of his troops to the city of St. Xist, where, on his arrival, he caused it to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet, that the place was condemned to fire and sword. Proclamation was at the same time made throughout all the kingdom of Naples, inviting persons to come to the war against the heretics of St. Xist, and promising as a recompense the customary advantages. Numbers consequently flocked to his standard, and were conducted to the woods and mountains whither the Waldenses had sought an asylum. Here they chased them so furiously, that the greater part were slain by the sword, and the rest, wounded and destitute, retired into caverns upon the tops of the rocks, where they perished by famine.

Having accomplished their wishes on the fugitives from St. Xist, they next proceeded to la Garde, and apprehended seventy persons who were brought before the inquisitor Penza, at Montauld. This merciless bigot caused them to be stretched upon the rack, with the view of extorting from them a confession of adultery and other abominable practices too filthy to be mentioned; in no one instance of which did he succeed, though their tortures in many instances were so violent as to extinguish life. A person of the name of Marson was stripped naked and beat with rods, then drawn through the streets and burnt with fire-brands. One of his sons was assassinated, and another led to the top of a tower where a crucifix was presented to him, with a promise, that if he would salute it his life should be spared. The youth replied, that he would rather die than commit idolatry, and as to their threats of casting him headlong from the tower, he preferred that his body should be dashed in pieces on the earth, to having his soul cast into hell for denying Christ and his truth. The inquisitor, enraged at his answer, commanded him instantly to be precipitated, “that we may see,” said he, “whether his God will preserve him.”

Bernardine Conde was condemned to be burnt alive. As they led him to the stake, a crucifix was put into his hands, which he threw to the ground. The enraged inquisitor sent him back to prison, and to aggravate his torture he was first smeared over with pitch and then committed to the flames. The same inquisitor Penza caused the throats of eighty of them to be cut, just as butchers slaughter their sheep; their bodies were afterwards divided into four quarters, and the public way between Montauld and Castle Viller, for the space of thirty miles, was planted with stakes, and a quarter of the human frame stuck upon each of them. Four of the principal inhabitants of la Garde, viz. James Fermar, Anthony Palomb, Peter Jacio, and John Morglia were, by his order, hanged, in a place called Moran; but they met their deaths with surprising fortitude. A young man, of the name of Samson, defended himself dexterously for a length of time against those who came to apprehend him; but being wounded, he was seized and led to the top of a tower, where he was commanded to confess himself to a priest then present, before he was cast down. This, however, he refused, adding that he had already confessed himself to God, on which he was cast headlong from the tower. The following day the viceroy, walking at the foot of the tower, saw the unhappy youth still alive, but anguishing in tortures, having nearly all his bones broken. The monster kicked him on the head, and said, “Is the dog yet alive? give him to the hogs.”

This is only a specimen of the brutal outrages that were carried on at this time against the Waldenses in Calabria; but the reader will, probably, think it quite sufficient. Pope Pius IV was so resolutely bent upon ridding the country of them, that he afterwards sent the Marquis of Butiane to perfect what was left undone, with a promise that if he succeeded in clearing Calabria of the Waldenses, he would give his son a cardinal’s hat. He, indeed, found but little difficulty in effecting it; for the inquisitorial monks and Viceroy of Naples had already put to death so many, transporting others to the Spanish galleys, and banishing all fugitives, selling or slaying their wives and children, that not much remained for the marquis to accomplish.

Of their pastors, Stephen Megrin was imprisoned at Cossence, and literally starved to death. Lewis Pascal was conveyed to Rome, and there condemned to be burnt alive. As this man had been remarkable for his zeal, and the confidence with which he had maintained the Pope to be antichrist, he was reserved as a gratifying spectacle for his holiness and the conclave of cardinals, who were present at his death. But such was the address which Pascal delivered to the people, from the word of God, that the Pope would gladly have wished himself elsewhere, or that Pascal had been dumb and the people deaf! The account that is given us of his dying behavior, can scarcely fail to remind one of the case of the martyr Stephen; and his ardent zeal in the cause of Christ, added to his fervent supplications to the throne of grace, deeply affected the spectators, while the pope and cardinals gnashed their teeth through rage.

Such was the end of the Waldenses of Calabria, who were wholly exterminated: for if any of the fugitives returned, it was upon the express condition that they would in all things conform themselves to the laws of the church of Rome. About this time, Francis I king of France, obtained possession of the whole country of Piedmont by conquest, and regulated its affairs by means of its parliament at Turin. The Pontifical chair was then filled by Paul III who plied the parliament so sedulously to proceed against these pernicious heretics, the Waldenses, that the recent scenes of France were now re-acted in Piedmont; numbers of the Waldenses being committed to the flames.

Happily these things were, in a great measure, new among them. They, therefore, presented an address to the king, humbly supplicating that they might be indulged with the same privileges under his government, which they and their forefathers had so long enjoyed under the house of Savoy.

But Francis turned a deaf ear to their prayer, commanding them to be regulated in the concerns of religion by the laws of the Roman church, or they should be punished as heretics, adding, that he did not burn the followers of Luther in every part of France, to permit a nest of heretics, to rest secure in the bosom of the Alps. They were, therefore, commanded by the parliament to send away their pastors on pain of death; and in their room to receive priests belonging to the catholic church, to conduct their worship and sing masses for them. The Waldenses replied, that in what regarded their religious worship, they could obey no commands which interfered with the laws of God, to whom they rather chose to be obedient, in every thing that concerned his service, than to follow the fancies and inclinations of men. But the multiplicity of important concerns which, at that critical juncture, engaged the king’s attention, not permitting him to prosecute his measures against the Waldenses, the parliament relinquished the matter to the court of Inquisition, who committed to the flames as many as they could apprehend. In the year 1555, several were burnt, in the Castle Yard at Turin, and among others, Bartholomew Hector, a bookseller, who, by his admirable fortitude under his sufferings, his holy conversation, and fervent prayers to God, so deeply affected the spectators, that he drew tears from their eyes, and the language of compassionate sympathy from their lips.

Not long after this, the parliament of Turin, resolving to second, by every means in their power, the efforts of the inquisitors, appointed a person of the name of St. Julian, president, and sent him throughout the valleys, armed with the king’s authority, and accompanied by an assessor, to compel the Waldenses either to conform to the church of Rome or to put them to death; promising to render their agents every assistance they might require, either to reduce to obedience, or exterminate them.

On their arrival at Perouse they issued a proclamation in the name of the king, commanding every one of the inhabitants to attend mass on pain of death. From thence they proceeded to Pignerol, where they summoned several persons to appear before them, and drew up indictments, probably with the view of terrifying the Waldenses; but not finding these methods to succeed to their expectations, they next had recourse to a new and more alluring expedient. St. Julian had brought with him several monks from the valley of Angrogne, one of whom he caused to preach before a large concourse of people. The zealous ecclesiastic labored indefatigably to persuade them to return to the church of Rome, the praises of which he extolled to the skies. The people heard him patiently to the end of his harangue; and then rising up, requested that one of their pastors, who happened to be present, might be indulged with the privilege of making some remarks on the sermon, but the president very prudently declined the proposal. His refusal, however, occasioned such murmuring throughout the auditory, that the president and his monks were petrified with astonishment, and took the first opportunity that was afforded them of decently retiring and returning to Turin.

On their arrival they informed the parliament of their proceedings, intimating how difficult it would be to subdue these people by coercive measures; and giving it as their opinion, that, even if attempted, the country afforded such facilities of defending themselves, that, either to reduce them to the obedience of the church of Rome, or to rid the country of them, must be an Herculean task, and performed at the expense of so much blood, that to exterminate them must be the work of a king, and of a king of France too: they, therefore, submitted it to consideration, that it would be prudent to transmit a report of this matter to his majesty, and leave the further prosecution of the Waldenses to his own discretion. This advice was adopted, and a year elapsed before the parliament took any further measures relative to them.

His majesty, however, at length reported his pleasure upon the message of the parliament; and it was, that all his subjects in Piedmont should be compelled to attend mass on pain of corporal punishment and the confiscation of their goods; and St. Julian was again sent to Angrogne to enforce obedience; but the people were still as averse to compliance as ever they had been. They answered that they were not bound to obey such decrees as were inconsistent with their duty to God. He then commanded twelve of the principal persons among them, with all the pastors and all the schoolmasters in the valleys, to surrender themselves prisoners at Turin, there to receive such sentences as should be passed upon them.

They returned for answer, that such commands came from men only, and not from God, and that as they could not appear at Turin but at the risk of their lives and of being troubled on account of their religious profession, they declined compliance.

This contumacious behavior inflamed the parliament to the highest pitch.

They proceeded against them in the most summary manner, causing all that could be apprehended in Piedmont, and on the confines of the valleys, to be committed to the flames at Turin; and among others a Mr. Jeffrey Varnigle was burnt in the year 1557, in the Castle Yard. He was attended by an immense concourse of spectators, upon whom his death made a strong and lasting impression; his fervent piety and resignation to the will of God tending greatly to confirm and establish their own minds.

While these things were in progress, Francis was removed from the stage of life, and his son Henry II raised to the throne. The protestant princes of Germany, now moved with compassion for the poor persecuted Waldenses, interceded for them with Henry, entreating him to permit them the same religious privileges which their forefathers had enjoyed from generation to generation. And their application was not without success, for they continued unmolested until peace was concluded between France and Spain, in the year 1559, at which time Piedmont was again restored to the Duke of Savoy.

No sooner had the inhabitants of Piedmont become the subjects of Philbert Emanuel, than a most pressing application was made to him by the monks of Pignerol to prosecute the most sanguinary measures against the Waldenses; and the latter, to counteract it, presented a humble petition to their sovereign, in which they informed him they were not ignorant of the many accusations laid against them, nor of the various calumnies that were cast upon them, with the view of rendering them odious to all the princes and monarchs of the Christian world. They then make a bold avowal of their principles as these respected the Christian faith, their readiness to yield obedience to their civil rulers, in everything that did not infringe upon the rights of conscience — their anxious wish to live peaceably with their neighbors; boldly affirming, that though often provoked to it, they had done violence to no man; and in this respect, they challenged any complaint that could be brought against them. They appealed to their published confessions of faith that they were not obstinate in their opinions; but on the contrary ready to receive all holy and pious admonitions that were sanctioned by the word of God; and that they were so far from evading discussion, that, on the contrary, they anxiously desired it. They implore his highness to consider that their religious profession was not a thing of yesterday, as their adversaries falsely reported; but had been the profession of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers; yea, of their predecessors of still more ancient times, even of the martyrs, confessors, apostles, and prophets; and they called upon their adversaries to prove the contrary if they were able. Persuaded, therefore, as they were, that their religion was not a human invention, but founded upon the word of God, which shall remain for ever, they were confident that no human force should be able to extinguish it.

They call to the mind of their prince, the grievous persecutions that for many ages past had been carried on against their brethren, and which had been so far from destroying the sect, that their numbers were increasing daily — an argument, as they remarked, that the work and council was not of men but of God, and consequently not to be destroyed by violence.

They remind him, that it is no trifling thing to fight against God; and beseech him to consider well what he is about to undertake, before he embrues his hands in innocent blood. “We shall religiously obey all your highness’s edicts,” say they, “so far as conscience will permit — but\parJESUS IS OUR SAVIOR, and when conscience saysNAY, your highness knows that it is our duty to obey God rather than man. While we frankly acknowledge the right of Caesar to demand from us what belongs to Caesar, we must also render to God what is due toHIM.”

But whether this petition did not arrive in time, or that the duke actually turned a deaf ear to it, it seems that in the year 1561 the inhabitants of the valleys were considerably harassed by the military; in consequence of which they came to the resolution of sending deputies to Turin, to prevail upon the duchess, who was reported to be favorably disposed towards their cause, to intercede for them. In this instance they were more successful. An edict was issued in favor of the Waldenses, bearing date the 5th of June, 1561, granting them the privilege of holding their public assemblies in all the usual places, free from molestation; and that such of them as had been injured by the seizure and confiscation of their property, should have it restored, or receive a compensation for the same.

The following account of this matter, given by Sleidan’s Continuator, appears to me of too much importance to be omitted in this place. “There was in Piedmont,” says he, “a valley called by the name of Perouse, and St. Martin; inhabited by about fifteen thousand souls, whose ancestors about four hundred years since, had, upon the preaching of Waldo, Speronus, and Arnold, made a defection from the church of Rome, and had, at times, been severely treated for it, by the French, under whom they had been; but by the last treaty they were assigned to the Duke of Savoy. This people about the year 1555, had embraced the Reformation, and had suffered it to be publicly preached, though it was forbidden by the council at Turin, which, the year following, sent one of its own members to inquire after the offenders, and to punish them; to whom the inhabitants delivered the confession of their faith; ‘Declaring that they professed the doctrine contained in the Old and New Testaments, and comprehended in the Apostles’ Creed; and admitted the sacraments instituted by Christ, and the ten commandments, etc. That they believed the supreme civil magistrates were instituted by God, and they were to be obeyed, and that whosoever resisted them, fought against God. They said they had received this doctrine from their ancestors, and that if they were in any error they were ready to receive instruction from the word of God, and would presently renounce any heretical or erroneous doctrine which should be so shown to them.’ “On this a solemn disputation was appointed, concerning the sacrifice of the mass, auricular confession, tradition, prayers and oblations for the dead, and the ceremonies of the church and her censures: all which they rejected, alleging that they were human inventions, and contrary to the word of God. This confession was sent by the Duke of Savoy to the King of France, who about a year after returned an answer, That he had caused it to be examined by his learned divines; who had all condemned it as erroneous and contrary to true religion; and, therefore, the king commanded them to reject the confession and to submit to the holy church of Rome; and if they did not do so, their persons and estates should be confiscated. But they, on the contrary, were resolved to stand by their former confession. They were, therefore, commanded not to admit any teacher who was not sent by the Archbishop of Turin, or the council there; and that if any teachers came among them from Geneva, they should discover or apprehend them, upon pain of death, and loss of all they had. For three years after this, the Waldenses were let alone and no way molested; but this year; 1560, the Duke of Savoy, much against his will and inclination, was drawn by the pope to make war upon them. In the beginning of March, Jean de Carpuignan, and one Mathurim and his wife were apprehended and burnt, and several of the neighboring valleys were plundered, and many of the inhabitants put to death; about sixty were sent to the galleys, and some recanted and professed the Roman Catholic religion. After this, Thomas Jacomel, a Dominican, was sent with one Turbis for his assistant, who was a bloody man, to inquire diligently and severely into all that were suspected; but the nobility interposing, there was no great severity shown. The monks of the abbey of Pignerol, which was seated in the entrance of the valley, on the other side, kept a parcel of soldiers in pay, and entrapping as many of these poor people as they could, as they passed to and fro, they used them very cruelly; and some others of the nobility did the same thing; and a sedition following upon it, they fined the poor inhabitants one thousand six hundred crowns.

Upon this a sharp war ensued, which ended in the ruin of the aggressors of the church of Rome. “The pastor of Perouse was taken and burnt with a slow fire, together with many of his flock, and the inhabitants were despoiled of all they had, and forced to flee to the mountains. Being thus enraged with hard usage, in the month of July, fifty of them set upon one hundred and twenty soldiers belonging to the abbey of Pignerol, put them to flight, and slew the greatest part of them; and about four hundred more of their party coming up, they took the abbey of Pignerol, and delivered all their people which were imprisoned there. In October following, news being brought that the Duke of Savoy was sending an army to destroy them; they resolved, that it was not lawful to take arms against their prince, but that they would take what they could carry away, and betake themselves to the mountains, and there await the good pleasure of God, who never forsakes his own, and can turn the hearts of princes which way he pleaseth. There was not one man amongst them who repined against this decree. In aftertimes they had pastors who taught them otherwise, and told them it was not their prince, but the Pope that they resisted, and that they fought not for their religion, but for their wives and children. The 2d of November the forces of the Duke of Savoy entered their borders, and the soldiers attempting to get above them, they betook themselves to their slings, and maintained a fight against them (though they were but few in number) the space of a whole day, with no great loss. At last, the general finding they were not to be forced, gave them leave to petition the Duke of Savoy, ‘that they might live in peace, assuring him that nothing but utter ruin could have forced them to take arms against him: for which they humbly implored his highness’s pardon, and begging the liberty of their consciences, and that they might not be forced to submit to the traditions of the church of Rome; but might, with his leave, enjoy the religion they had learned from their ancestors.’ “This petition was seconded by the Duchess of Savoy, who was a merciful princess, and had great power over the affections of the Duke. It being ever her judgment that this people were not to be so severely used, who had not changed their religion a few days ago, but had been in possession of it from their ancestors so many ages.

Upon this they were to be received to mercy; but the soldiery fell upon them when they suspected nothing, and plundered them three days together. The general seemed to be much concerned at this breach of faith: yet after this they were fined eight thousand crowns, which they were forced to borrow on great usury, and they were also commanded to bring all their arms into the castles which the duke had garrisoned in their country. And at last they were commanded to eject all their pastors (which was submitted to with the tears of their people) that they might avoid the fury of the soldiers. The general pretended not to be satisfied that their pastors were in reality gone, and when they suffered them to search their houses, the soldiers plundered them again, and then burnt their town. There was one town called Angrogne, in a valley of the same name, where the general pretended to show them more favor, and agreed that they should have one pastor left them: but they forced him also to flee into the mountains afterwards, and plundered his house, and all his neighbors, and then enjoined the Sindicks (or chief magistrates) to bring in the pastor; threatening that otherwise they would burn and destroy the whole territory; and when they had so done they withdrew. “In the mean time their messengers were gone with their petition, mentioned above, to the Duke at Vercelli, where they attended forty days before they could get an audience, and then they were forced to promise they would admit the mass; and when the prince had, upon the seterms, forgiven their taking arms against him, they were commanded to ask pardon too of the Pope’s nuncio, which at last they did. During their absence, the inhabitants of Angrogne had permitted no sermons but in private, that they might not exasperate the prince, or make the affairs of their deputies more difficult. But they resolved when these were returned to exercise their religion openly, and not to give anything to the maintaining of the soldiers, whether their request was granted or denied. “In the beginning of January the deputies returned, and when their principals understood what had been done, they wrote to the rest of the valleys to give them an account of it; and desired a public consultation or diet; at which it was resolved that they should all join in a league to defend their religion, which they believed was agreeable to the word of God, professing in the mean time to obey their prince according to the command of God, and that they would, for the future, make no agreement or peace, but by common consent, in which the freedom of their religion should be saved.

Upon this they became more confident, refused the conditions offered by the Duke of Savoy, and the promises made by their deputies. And the next day they entered into the church of Bobbio, and broke down all the images and altars, and then marching to Villare, where they intended to do the like, they met the soldiers, who had heard what was done, going to plunder Bobbio, stopped them, and with their slings so pelted them, but they were glad to shift for their lives, and left these reformers to do the same thing at Villare. The captain of Turin attempting to quell this outrage was beaten, and the duke’s officers were glad to seek to their pastors for a passport. After this they beat the captain of Turin in a second fight. By this time the whole army drew into the field, and the inhabitants of these valleys not being able to resist them, the soldiers burnt all their towns and houses and destroyed all the people they took. In these broils Monteil, one of the Duke of Savoy’s chief officers, was slain by a lad of eighteen years of age; and Truchet, another of them, by a dwarf. The Duke of Savoy had sent seven thousand soldiers to destroy this handful of men; and yet such was the desperation, and the advantages of their country, that they beat his soldiers wheresoever they met them. And in all these fights their enemies observed that they had slain only fourteen of the inhabitants, and thence concluded that God fought for them. So the Savoyards began to treat for a peace, which at last was concluded to the advantage of these poor despicable people.

The duke remitted the eight thousand crowns they were to pay by the former treaty, and suffered them to enjoy their religious liberty: so that he got nothing by this war but loss and shame, the ruin of his people on both sides, and the desolating of his country.” This calm, however, only lasted about four years; for in 1565, at the importunate request of the catholic party, an Edict was issued, enjoining every subject throughout the dominions of the Duke of Savoy, not conforming to the church of Rome, to appear before the magistrates of their several districts, within ten days after its publication, and there either declared their readiness to go to mass, or quit the country in two months.

The magistrates were, at the same time, directed to take particular cognizance of such as refused compliance, and to transmit information thereof to his highness.

The protestant princes of Germany, having received information of this tremendous blow, which now threatened the Waldenses, very humanely interposed with the Duke, for the purpose of warding it off. The Elector Palatine of the Rhine, in particular, addressed a letter to him, which he transmitted by the hands of one of his counselors. I regret that its length, (for it occupies seven pages in folio) renders its entire insertion here impracticable; but some judgment may be formed of the noble sentiments that it breathes throughout from the following extracts: — “I plainly see,” says the Elector Palatine, “whither the designs of your highness’s counsels tend. It is to drag these poor people to prison, and there, by means of torment, to constrain them to confess some treason, that so a pretext may be afforded for destroying all the churches of the valleys, as seditious, and to condemn them as disturbers of the public peace. But let your highness recollect, that there is a God in heaven, who not only beholds the actions of men, but who also tries their hearts and reins, and to whom all things are naked and open. Let your highness beware of willfully fighting against God, and of persecuting Christ in his members; for though he may bear it for awhile, to try the patience of his saints; he will, nevertheless, in the end, chastise the persecutors of his churches and people with horrible punishments. Let not your highness suffer yourself to be abused by the persuasions of the Papists, who may possibly promise you the kingdom of heaven, and eternal life, as a reward, in case you banish, imprison, and exterminate your subjects. But the infliction of cruelties and inhuman actions, are not the highway to the kingdom of heaven — there must be some other found out.

Your highness may see what success has attended the last forty years of persecution. What advantage have those, who called themselves Catholics, derived from all the fires, swords, gibbets, prisons, tortures, and banishments which they have exercised in Germany, England, France, and Scotland! No; the history of both the Jews and the primitive Christians, abundantly shows that in the concerns of religion the power, authority, or severity of men availed nothing. Do we not find that those who have persecuted, banished, or delivered up unto death, the Christians, have been so far from gaining any thing thereby, that, on the contrary they have increased their number, inasmuch that it has become a proverb — ‘The ashes of the martyrs are the seed of the Christian church.’ In this respect the church resembles the palm tree, which the more it is weighed down, the loftier it rises. — Be assured, that true religion is nothing else than a firm and settled persuasion of the existence of God, and of his will, as revealed in his word, imprinted on the mind by the Holy Spirit, which having once taken root, cannot easily be eradicated by tortures and torments — for those who are the subjects of it, will sooner endure the worst that can befall them, than embrace any thing which appears to them contrary to religion and godliness. “By the grace of God, evangelical truth now shines in such splendor, that the errors and deceits of the Bishop of Rome and all his clergy, are sufficiently known in a manner by all men; nor must the Pope think, henceforward, to abuse the world as he has done in former times. I, therefore, beseech your highness, whom I understand to be of a sweet and gentle disposition, that you would lay these things to heart, and not further molest these poor people for the sake of their religion, nor refuse them the free exercise of it, but rather allow them the liberty of assembling in public for the worship and service of God; in doing which you will readily discover the falsehood of the charges brought against them by their adversaries, and have a proof of their loyalty and obedience. Your highness is not ignorant what evils were brought upon France by their violence, in banishing and persecuting [the Christians there,] what a flame was raised, which in a manner consumed the whole kingdom, and what ruin ensued, all which has been appeased by one single edict, granting liberty of conscience; the result of which is, that the most entire peace and tranquillity reigns among them, though they profess different forms of religion. And, indeed, the plain truth is, that if your highness, out of complaisance to the Bishop of Rome, the cardinals, prelates, and others who are interested in the Roman religion, are resolved still to continue to persecute these poor people, you will unquestionably experience the same evils that have come upon other kingdoms. Nothing that is violent is of long duration; and we must not always follow the wolf into the wood. Poverty and hunger are no inconsiderable torments, nor is it an easy thing to lead so long and miserable a life in exile, when deprived of one’s goods and estates. It is the height of injustice and misery to be compelled to submit to the tyrannical yoke of the Bishop of Rome, and to be prohibited worshipping God according to his word. And it is wholly intolerable for good and faithful subjects to be accused as rebels or seditious persons. “I learn, not without much grief, that scarcely any thing has yet been done in regard to the things which your highness promised my\parJUNIUS by word of mouth, 7 and that those poor wretches who are kept in the galleys on account of their religion, whose names he delivered in to your highness, are yet detained; from which I plainly perceive that these are the doings of your highness’s counselors, who are carried away with deadly hatred against our religion, of which I have proof, not merely by hearsay, but in the actual case of two who have been lately banished. But let me tell you in a word, that this severity is neither well-pleasing to God nor man, nor is it the way to bring men to the true knowledge of God, which must be done by persuasion and an appeal to the Scriptures — not by persecution. Your highness may probably tell me, that our religion has been long condemned — but I ask, by whom, and how? By him who has violated and corrupted all rights, human and divine, making himself both party and judge, and who has lately, at the Council of Trent, confirmed all his idolatries, and all the superstitions and abuses that have been introduced into the church.

Let your highness carefully examine the Holy Scriptures, and you will find this to be the case. Never suffer yourself to be deluded by those deceivers, who maintain their idolatries and superstitions merely to serve their own bellies, and that they may lead the lives of epicures. Let your highness well consider, that you must one day appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of the souls of your subjects, and where it will avail you nothing to say, “I thought so,” or, “I esteemed it to be so,” God has revealed his will in his word, and it is his pleasure that we should follow the same without turning either to the right hand or to the left. The word of God is also clear and plain; let your highness only hear and embrace it, and you will easily find out the truth. I say all this, as one who wishes well to your highness’s soul, as much so indeed as I do to that of my own, and I pray the Lord incessantly that it may please him to enlighten your understanding, and call you home to his true light, that you may discern truth from falsehood, and that thus having a knowledge of the horrible abuses of the church of Rome, you may serve God in sincerity and truth. “I therefore beseech your highness to give us a pledge of that esteem which you have for us, by delivering those poor people which are now in the galleys, and recalling those that have been recently banished by the senate of Savoy, as you promised my\parJUNIUS and myself, by your letters. Have compassion upon so many wandering exiles, deprived of all their property and effects.

Call them home, and restore them to their houses and habitations: and grant both to them, and to the other inhabitants of your highness’s country, the public exercise of their religious worship, which they esteem more necessary than their daily food. Absolve such of these poor people of the valleys as have been falsely accused, that so they may all live in peace and tranquillity under your highness’s government. Make such articles of peace with them as may be preserved inviolate — support them in the quiet exercise of that religion which you have permitted them, and defend them in the same, bridling and restraining the bitter hatred which their governor Castrocaro exercises towards them; and warn him to molest them no more for the future, as he has hitherto done; enjoin upon him that he refrain from falsely imputing to them crimes and accusations, by means of which he thinks to varnish over his tyranny; for such things are altogether unsuitable to the office of a magistrate and a governor, who ought to be a father to those that are committed to his charge. Do not render yourself an instrument to the Pope and his creatures, of gratifying their insatiable desires to spill the blood of Christians. Countenance not their cruelty and inhumanity against those who are in no wise perverse, but real Christians, and who have nothing more at heart than to serve God purely and uprightly under your highness’s government, to whom they are ready to yield all that obedience and fidelity which is your due, and to lay themselves out (their property, their persons, and their lives, if necessity calls for them) for your service. The great and all-powerful God guide and govern your highness by his Holy Spirit, and preserve and defend you long in health and safety.” This letter, which breathes throughout the spirit of genuine Christianity, will be found, by those who bestow proper attention upon it, to throw much light upon the state of the Waldenses in Piedmont, at the middle of the sixteenth century. For while it gives us the most favorable view of their peaceable, prudent, and exemplary conduct, it unmasks the perfidious and cruel proceedings of the catholic party towards them, and the distresses and afflictions with which they were perpetually harassed, on account of their profession. It appears to have had the happiest effects upon the Duke; and, supported as it was, by the personal application of the Duchess, who is said to have been “a pious and virtuous princess,” it bridled the fury of the governor Castrocaro, and averted the dreadful storm which hung over them. They appear to have enjoyed peace until the year 1571, at which time the rage of this inhuman governor again burst forth.

The Duke, at that instant, had been drawn in to join several of the princes of Europe, in a league offensive against the Protestants; which he had no sooner done, than he began to molest his protestant subjects in the valleys.

He first of all forbade them to hold any correspondence with the Waldenses of Dauphiny, on pain of death. And next they were forbidden to assemble in any synod or council, unless it were in the presence of the intolerant Castrocaro. These things sufficiently indicated the gathering of another storm; but the Duchess again humanely interposed, and with effect; for she procured the continuance of their privileges; and, indeed, during her life, she remained as it were a sanctuary and place of refuge for the members of the churches of Piedmont, whenever they found themselves assailed by their adversaries.

In the following year, 1572, the dreadful massacre of the Huguenots, on St.

Bartholomew’s day, took place at Paris, and several of the other cities of France. No sooner had the news of this reached Castrocaro, than he prepared himself for similar exploits in Piedmont: and so terrific was the attitude in which he placed himself, that the Waldensian brethren thought it necessary to retire, with their wives, and children, and moveable effects, to the tops of the mountains and other places of real or faneled security.

But God who has the hearts of all men in his hands, and who, at his pleasure, restrains the wrath of men, on this occasion disposed the heart of the Duke to befriend them. The massacres that had taken place in France filled him with disgust and horror; ‘and so far was he from allowing the governor to act a similar part towards his subjects, that he caused a proclamation to be issued, commanding those who had left their habitations to return to their own houses, promising that they should sustain neither danger nor injury thereby; and they found him true to his word, for, from that time to the death of the Duchess, which took place on the 19th of October, 1574, they suffered but little inconvenience.

After the death of this amiable lady, however, the Popish party came forth, like lions out of their dells, and sought, by all possible means to destroy the Waldenses; but the kind providence of God raised them up friends, from time to time, who interceded on their behalf with the Duke, whose heart seems to have been gradually and increasingly inclined towards them; for he continued to treat them with much gentleness and moderation from that time until the period of his own death, which happened on the 30th of August, 1580.

The late duke was succeeded in the government of the country by his son Charles Emanuel, upon whose accession to the throne a trifling contest about territory arose between him and a French prince, which was near involving the Waldenses in a dilemma. The young Duke had seized upon the marquisate of Saluces, on which Monsieur de l’Esdiguieres, by way of retaliation, marched his army, and seized the valleys of Piedmont. When the fracas was over, a rumor was spread abroad that the Waldenses had taken the oath of fidelity to the King of France, and that the Duke displeased with that part of their conduct, had formed the resolution of extirpating all the Protestant churches in his dominions. There does appear to have been some truth in the latter part of this representation; for, some members of the Duke’s council actually proposed the thing, but it was overruled by the wiser and greater part of the members, and it met with a stern repulse from the Duke himself. The Waldenses, however, thought it expedient to appoint their deputies to wait upon him, which they did at Villaro, assuring his highness of their loyalty and fidelity to his government, and supplicating a continuance of his favor and protection.

His answer, which was made in the presence of a great number of his lords and courtiers was calculated to revive their drooping spirits. “Only be faithful to me,” said the Duke, “and I shall not fail to be a good prince, nay, a father to you. And as to your liberty of conscience and the free exercise of your religion, I shall be so far from introducing any innovations into those liberties which you have enjoyed to the present time, that if any offer to molest you, have your recourse to myself, and I shall effectually relieve and protect you.” This certainly was a very remarkable declaration, especially when we consider that it came from one who professed himself a member of the church of Rome. But it was spoken in the presence of many persons of high consideration, and in the most condescending manner; and it proved eminently conducive to the interests of the Waldenses. It countervailed the threats of their implacable adversaries, and kept them in check; and such, with occasional interruptions indeed from the catholic party, sometimes by secret stratagems, and at others by open force, continued their condition until the end of the century. About that time the scene greatly changed, and the years 1601 and 1602 were prolific of mischief to the churches, both in the valley of Lucerne and the marquisate of Saluces, of which some mention will be made in the next section; I shall close the present with a short article of biography which may serve as all introduction to the history of the Waldenses during the seventeenth century.

In the year 1601, Bartholomew Copin, a Waldensian of the valley of Lucerne, had occasion to attend a public fair at Ast, a city in Piedmont, to which he had brought for sale some articles of merchandise. Sitting at table one evening in company with several other merchants, one of them started a discourse upon the subject of the diversity of religious professions, and took occasion to speak reproachfully of the Waldenses of Angrogne and the neighboring valleys. Copin undertook their defense; conceiving that if he permitted such calumnies to pass uncontradicted, he should appear to be acquiescing in their justice, and of course should partake in the guilt that attached to them. “And what,” said the stranger to Copin, “are you one of the Waldenses?” “Yes,” said he, “I am.” “And what, do you not believe the real presence of God in the host?” “No,” said Copin. “See,” replied the other, “what a false religion yours is.” “Of the truth of my religion,” said Copin, “I have no more doubt, than I have of the existence of God himself, or that I myself shall die.” On the following day, Copin was summoned to appear before the bishop of Ast, who told him that he had been informed of certain scandalous opinions and discourses which he had held the preceding evening at his lodgings; and that unless he confessed his fault, and asked pardon, he should certainly have him punished. Copin acknowledged that he had been stimulated to say what he did; but that, nevertheless, he had said nothing that was untrue, or which he would not maintain at the peril of his life. He owned that he had some property in the world, and a wife and children, but that his affections were not so riveted to those objects, as to prefer them to the testimony of a good conscience.

And as to his life and conversation, if the bishop thought proper to inquire of the merchants of Ast, all of whom knew him, he might be fully satisfied of his uprightness and integrity.

This, however, did not satisfy his lordship, who instantly sent him to prison; and on the following day, the bishop’s secretary paid Copin a visit, when he expressed great regard for him, but thought it necessary to apprize him that, unless he acknowledged his fault, he was in danger of losing his life. Copin replied, that his life was in the hands of God — that he had no wish to preserve it to the prejudice of his glory — and that as there were but two or three steps between him and heaven, he trusted he would support him by his grace, and not leave him to turn aside. He was next brought before the inquisitor, who examined him in the presence of the bishop; but Copin always repulsed them with the word of God, telling them that were he to be ashamed of and deny Christ, he would be ashamed of and deny him before his heavenly Father. The inquisitor, finding he was not to be moved by either his fair speeches or terrific frowns, then thus addressed him. “Out upon thee, thou cursed Lutheran; thou shalt go to the devils in hell, and when tormented by those foul spirits, thou wilt call to mind the holy instructions we have given thee, to bring thee to salvation — but thou choosest rather to go to hell, than reconcile thyself to thy holy mother, the church.” Copin only answered, that he had long been reconciled to the holy church.

Copin, foreseeing that his death was resolved on, and that his time here would probably be short, was one day greatly surprised by a visit from his wife and son, who seem to have been enticed to the prison by the catholic party for sinister purposes, and who were permitted to sup with him in the prison. He improved the time, however, in exhorting his wife to submission to the will of God: telling her she would soon be deprived of her husband, and the child of its father; he reminded her that it was not his duty to love wife or children more than Christ — that she ought to esteem him happy in that it pleased God to confer upon him the honor of bearing witness to his truth at the expense of his life; and that he hoped God would grant him grace to suffer any torments for his sake. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the parting scene, which the reader’s own reflections will enable him to realize. The affecting lamentations of the wife and child were sufficient to melt the most obdurate heart into pity and compassion, but having received his last benediction, they were dismissed the prison, and Copin was locked up as before. On the next day he wrote the following letter.

TO MY WELL-BELOVED CONSORT, SUSANNA COPIN “My dearest Consort! “I derived much consolation from your late visit — and indeed so much the more, by how much the less it was expected. I believe, also, it was no little satisfaction to yourself, to have the opportunity of supping with me, as it fell out on Saturday, the 15th of September, 1601. I know not how it came about that we were permitted so to do; but all things are in the hands of God, and be the cause what it may, I do not think we shall eat together any more. And, therefore, beseech God to be your comforter, and put your trust in him, who hath promised never to forsake those that depend upon him. You want not prudence, and therefore so manage and govern your house, that you may have Samuel and Martha in proper subjection to you, and I command them, by the authority that God hath given me, that they honor and obey you, and in so doing they will be blessed of God. As to the rest, be neither troubled nor concerned about me; for if divine Providence hath decreed to put a period to my life, and if it please him to demand a restitution of that soul which he hath a long time lent me, my confidence is in him, that out of his immense mercy and divine goodness, he will receive it into heaven, for the sake of his Son Christ Jesus, who, I believe, hath made expiation for our sins by his sufferings and death. Be constant in prayer to God, and serve him fully — for thus you will be happy. You need not send me any thing for three weeks to come; but at the expiration of that time you may, if you please, send me some money, to pay the gaoler and my own support, if I live so long. Recollect what I have often told you, that God added fifteen years to the life of king Hezekiah, but that he had prolonged my term much more, for you have seen me, as it were, dead a long time ago, and yet I still survive; and I hope and trust that he will preserve my life until my death be more for his glory and my own happiness, through his goodness and mercy towards me.”

From the prison of Ast, Sept. 16th, 1601.

Poor Copin was soon afterwards found dead in his cell, not without symptoms of having been strangled! After his death he was condemned to be burnt; and the body having been brought out of prison, sentence was read over it, and it was cast into the fire. 9 SECTION The history of the Waldenses during the former part of the seventeenth century.

A.D. 1600-1665 ON the southern side of the valleys of Piedmont lies a considerable tract of extremely fertile country, including. extensive valleys and plain lands, with several large cities, all passing under the general term ofTHE MARQUISATE OF SALUCES. 1 Its most northern valley is that of Po, so named from the river Po taking its rise there; and it is separated only by a single mountain on the north side from the valley of Lucerne, in Piedmont.

Previous to the year 1588, the marquisate of Saluces was subject to the jurisdiction of the kings of France; but at that period an exchange of territory was made between the French monarch and the Duke of Savoy — in consequence of which the latter gave up la Bresse to France, and the marquisate of Saluces was annexed to the dominions of the Duke of Savoy.

The contiguity of Saluces to the valleys of Piedmont, together with its great similarity in regard to territorial surface, had entitled it, for several centuries, to participate of the light of Divine truth, which shone in the neighboring valleys; and in the beginning of the seventeenth century there were eight flourishing churches in the marquisate, of which Pravillelm, Biolets, Bietone, and Dronier were the chief; but they had all maintained the purity of the Christian profession for ages, living in great harmony, and holding fellowship with the neighboring churches of the same faith and order. Their external peace had, indeed, been frequently invaded by the kings of France, and their constancy and patience under sufferings put severely to the test — but if the French monarchs had chastised them with whips, it was reserved for their new sovereign, Charles Emanuel, to do it with scorpions. In the year 1597, the Duke of Savoy made his pleasure known to his new subjects, by a letter issued from Turin, dated the 27th of March of that year, of which the following is a copy.

Well-beloved Friends, etc.

It being our desire that all our subjects in the marquisate of Saluces should live under obedience to our mother, the Catholic Apostolic Roman Church — and knowing how much our exhortations have prevailed upon others, hoping also that they will have the same effect upon you, and that you are willing to adhere to the truth — we have thought it proper, upon these grounds, to address you in this letter, to the end that, laying aside all heretical obstinacy, you may embrace the true religion, both out of respect to God’s glory and love to your own selves. In which religion we, for our parts, are resolved to live and die; which conduct of yours, on account of so good an example, will undoubtedly lead you to eternal life. Only dispose yourselves to do this, and we shall preserve the remembrance of it for your benefit, as the lord de la Monte will more particularly certify you on our part, to whom we refer ourselves in this regard, praying the Lord to assist you by his holy grace. The publication of this letter occasioned a general consultation among the churches of the marquisate, and they returned an answer to it, in the form of a petition to the Duke of Savoy, in which they first of all tender their thanks to his highness for having permitted them so long to enjoy their religious privileges free from molestation, in the same manner as he had found them when he took possession of the marquisate, in 1588. They then proceed humbly to entreat him that he will be pleased to indulge them with a continuance of the same privilege, inasmuch as they were persuaded that their religious profession was founded on the Holy Scriptures, by which standard they labored so to regulate their lives and conversations, as to give no just cause of offense to any one. And when they reflected that even the Jews and other enemies of Christ were there allowed to live in peace, and the enjoyment of their religious worship, they confidently hoped that those who were found to be Christians, and faithful to God and their prince, would not be debarred the same privilege.

This answer was not wholly without effect. They remained undisturbed until the year 1601, when, in the month of July, an edict was issued, commanding all the inhabitants of the marquisate of Saluces, who dissented from the church of Rome, to appear individually before the magistrates, within the space of fifteen days, and there declare whether or not they would renounce their religious profession and go to mass. In the former case, it was promised them that they should remain peaceably in their houses, and be entitled to peculiar advantages; while in the latter, they were peremptorily ordered to depart out of his highness’s dominions, within the space of two months, and never to return without permission, under pain of death and the confiscation of their property.

The Waldenses appear to have had considerable difficulty in persuading themselves that this was anything more than a threat; in which unfounded supposition they were encouraged by some persons of note among them.

They, therefore, made no preparation for a departure, by the settlement of their affairs; but appointed deputies to wait on the Duke, to obtain a revocation; or if that could not be effected, at any rate, a modification of this rigorous edict. But Clement VIII who was then pope, had got complete possession of the Duke’s ear, and rendered him deaf to every entreaty. To carry the edict into full effect, a great number of inquisitorial monks were dispatched into the marquisate, who on their arrival, went from house to house, examining the inhabitants concerning their religious profession — and just at the expiration of the term allowed by the edict, their deputies returned, but, to their surprise and amazement, informed them that every hope of redress had vanished. The consequence was, that more than five hundred families were driven into exile! “The world was all before them, where to choose “Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.” Some crossed the Alps, and retired into Dauphiny, in France; others to Geneva, and its neighborhood; while many sought refuge among their friends in the valleys of Piedmont; where, for awhile they remained undisturbed, notwithstanding the edict had expressly mentioned that they should depart out of the dominions of the Duke of Savoy. Whether their catholic persecutors, not content with this too gentle mode of punishment, endeavored, by loading them with reproaches and false accusations, to steel the hearts of the inhabitants of other countries against them, and thereby prevent their finding an asylum; or whatever was their particular inducement thereto, it is certain that they considered it necessary, in the year 1608, to publish a declaration explanatory of the cause of their banishment. Perrin has given us a copy of it, and the following is the substance:

It begins by stating, that from time immemorial, and, from generation to generation, the same doctrines and religious profession had been maintained by their predecessors in the marquisate of Saluces; and that, while under the jurisdiction of the kings of France, they had been permitted to profess their faith without molestation, just as their brethren of the valleys of Lucerne, la Perouse, etc. (in Piedmont) had done; but that his highness, instigated by the evil counsels of persons swayed by prejudice and passion rather than of his own free will, had issued an edict to disturb and molest them. “To the end, therefore,” say they, “that all men may know that it is not for any crime or misdemeanor, perpetrated against the person of our prince, or for rebellion, or opposition to his edicts, or for murder, or theft, that we are thus persecuted, and spoiled of our goods:WE PROTEST AND DECLARE, that the doctrine maintained by the reformed churches of France, Switzerland, Germany, Geneva, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and other kingdoms, is the only Christian doctrine approved of God, and which brings salvation to men.

We are, therefore, determined to adhere to it, to the end of our lives, and at the risk of every thing that is dear to us. If any presume to think us in an error, we desire to be shown wherein, promising to abjure and turn from it, and to follow the better way that shall be shown us; for we have nothing more at heart, than, with a good conscience, to worship God, agreeably to his own will, and attain the salvation of our souls. But as attempts have been made, by mere force, to compel us to forsake the way of salvation, and to follow after the erroneous doctrines and superstitions invented by men, we chose to lose our houses and properties, nay, and our very lives also, rather than comply.”

They, therefore, implore the reformed churches, in the midst of their exile and calamity, to receive them into their fellowship; being prepared, if it should please God so to order it, to seal their testimony with their blood.

They returned thanks to God, for the honor conferred upon them, by calling them to suffer afflictions and persecutions for his name’s sake, committing the issue of their affairs, and the righteousness of their cause, unto the divine Providence, trusting that he will effect their deliverance when and how he pleases. And they conclude with a prayer to God, that he who hath the hearts of kings and princes in his hand, would be graciously pleased to soften the heart of his highness, and incline him to pity those who never did, and who are resolved that they never will offend him; and that it may be given him, to perceive that they are more loyal and faithful to him than those are who have instigated him to such persecutions. And, finally, that the Lord will be pleased to support them in the midst of their trials, and to fortify them with patience and constancy, that they and their posterity may persevere in the profession of the truth to the end of their lives.

It does not appear that this affecting address produced any amelioration of the condition of the poor exiles. All the churches in the marquisate of Saluces were completely dispersed: and the pope, with the assistance of his inquisitorial band, took special care to keep the country clear of them, as they had formerly done that of Calabria. During the persecution, MONSIEUR VIGNAUX, pastor of the church of Villaro, in the valley of Lucerne, whose history of the Waldenses I have frequently adverted to, was indefatigable in his exertions to serve his afflicted brethren. He was then far advanced in life; his years had given him the advantage of much experience in the Christian profession; and he was remarkable for his gravity and other excellent qualities. Deeply feeling for their distresses, he employed himself in writing long letters to his poor persecuted brethren in every quarter, exhorting them to patience and perseverance, and encouraging them by all the consolatory considerations which the gospel affords, not to faint nor be discouraged, but to bear up under their troubles.

He also wrote to several of the nobility, to whom he was known, either personally or by report, particularly to the governor of the marquisate, with whom he was intimately acquainted, stating the injustice and cruelty that was done to his friends, and urging all the motives and reasons that he could devise, to induce him to mitigate their sufferings; but, so far as appears, without the least effect.

From this period, the Waldenses appear to have been tolerably free from very severe persecution for half a century. But, in the month of January, 1655, the tragedy of Saluces was reacted over almost all the valleys of Piedmont, and with tenfold cruelty. On the 25th of that month, a public document appeared, which has since been but too well known by the title of “the order of Gastaldo.” Thus runs the preamble: “ANDREW GASTALDO, Doctor of the Civil Law, Master Auditor Ordinary, sitting in the most illustrious chamber of accounts of his royal highness, and Conservator General of the holy faith, for the observation of the orders published against the pretended reformed religion of the valley of Lucerne, Perouse, and St. Martino, and upon this account especially deputed by his said royal highness.”

After stating the authority which had been vested in him by the duke, on the 13th of the same month, it proceeds “to command and enjoin every head of a family, with its members, of the reformed religion, of whatever rank, degree, or condition soever, without exception, inhabiting or possessing estates in the places of Lucerne, Lucernetta, S. Giovanni, La Torre, Bubbiana, and Fenile, Campiglione, Bricherassio, and S. Secondo, within three days after the publication of those presents, to withdraw and depart, and to be with their families withdrawn out of the said places, and transported into the places allowed by his royal highness, during his good pleasure, etc. under pain of death and confiscation of houses and goods — Provided always that they do not make it appear to us within twenty days following, that they are become Catholics, or that they have sold their goods to the Catholics. Furthermore, his royal highness intends and wills that in the places (to which they were to transport themselves) the holy mass shall be celebrated in every one of them, and that for any person of the said reformed religion to molest, either in deed or word, the missionary fathers and those that attend them, much less to divert or dissuade any one of the said religion from turning Catholic, he shall do it on pain of death,” etc.

It is not difficult to conjecture what must have been the distress and misery consequent upon a compliance with such an order as this, and more especially in such a country as Piedmont, at such a season of the year.

Thousands of families, comprehending the aged and infirm, the sick and afflicted, the mother advanced in pregnancy, and the one scarcely raised up from her confinement — the delicate female and the helpless infant — all compelled to abandon their homes in the very depth of winter, in a country where the snow is visible upon the tops of the mountains, throughout every month of the year. All this surely presents a picture of distress sufficient to rend the heart.

On the first issuing of the edict, the Waldenses sent deputies to the governor of the province, humbly representing to him the unreasonableness and the cruelty of this command. They stated the absolute impossibility of so many souls finding subsistence in the places to which they were ordered to transport themselves: the countries scarcely affording adequate supply for their present inhabitants. To which they added, that this command was expressly contrary to all their rights as the peaceable subjects of his highness, and the concessions which had been uniformly granted them, of maintaining without molestation their religious profession: but the inhuman governor refused to pay the least attention to their application. Disappointed in this, they next begged time to present their humble supplication to his royal highness. But even this boon was refused them unless they would allow him to draw up their petition and prescribe the form of it. Finding that what he proposed was equally inimical to their rights and consciences, they declined his proposal. They now found that the only alternative which remained for them was to abandon their houses and properties, and to retire with their families, their wives and children, aged parents, and helpless infants, the halt, the lame, and the blind, to traverse the country, through the rain, snow, and ice, encompassed with a thousand difficulties.

But these things were only the beginnings of sorrow to this afflicted people. For no sooner had they quitted their houses, than a banditti broke into them, pillaging and plundering whatever they had left behind. They next proceeded to raze their habitations to the ground, to cut down the trees and turn the neighborhood into a desolate wilderness; and all this without the least remonstrance or prohibition from Gastaldo. These things, however, where only a trifle in comparison of what followed. But the reader will best learn this sad story from the parties who were interested in this melancholy catastrophe; and the following is a copy of the letter which some of the survivors wrote to their Christian friends in distant countries, as soon as the tragedy was over.

A BRIEF NARRATIVE OF THOSE HORRIBLE CRUELTIES WHICH WERE EXERCISED TOWARDS THE WALDENSES IN THE LATE MASSACRE, IN APRIL, 1655.

BRETHREN AND FATHERS!

Our tears are no more tears of water but of blood, which not only obscure our sight, but oppress our very hearts. Our pen is guided by a trembling hand, and our minds distracted by such unexpected alarms, that we are incapable of framing a letter which shall correspond with our wishes, or the strangeness of our desolations.

In this respect, therefore, we plead your excuse, and that you would endeavor to collect our meaning from what we would impart to you.

Whatever reports may have been circulated concerning our obstinacy in refusing to have recourse to his royal highness for a redress of our heavy grievances and molestations, you cannot but know that we have never desisted from writing supplicatory letters, or presenting our humble requests, by the hands of our deputies, and that they were sent and referred, sometimes to the council de propaganda fide , 6 at other times to the Marquis of Pionessa, 7 and that the three last times they were positively rejected, and refused so much as an audience, under the pretext that they had no credentials nor instructions which should authorize them to promise or accept, on the behalf of their respective churches, whatever it might please his highness to grant or bestow upon them. And by the instigation and contrivance of the Roman clergy, there was secretly placed in ambush an army of six thousand men, who, animated and encouraged thereto by the personal presence and active exertions of the Marquis of Pionessa, fell suddenly and in the most violent manner, upon the inhabitants of S. Giovanni and La Torre.

This army having once entered and got a footing, was soon augmented by the addition of a multitude of the neighboring inhabitants throughout all Piedmont, who hearing that we were given up as a prey to the plunderers, fell upon the poor people with impetuous fury. To all those were added an incalculable number of persons that had been outlawed, prisoners, and other offenders, who expected thereby to have saved their souls and filled their purses. And the better to effect their purposes, the inhabitants were compelled to receive five or six regiments of the French army, besides some Irish, to whom, it is reported, our country was promised, with several troops of vagabond persons, under the pretext of coming into the valleys for fresh quarters.

This great multitude, by virtue of a license from the Marquis of Pionessa, instigated by the monks, and enticed and conducted by our wicked and unnatural neighbors, attacked us with such violence on every side, especially in Angrogne, Villaro, and Bobio; and in a manner so horribly treacherous, that in an instant all was one entire scene of confusion, and the inhabitants, after a fruitless skirmish to defend themselves, were compelled to flee for their lives, with their wives and children; and that not merely the inhabitants of the plain, but those of the mountains also. Nor was all their diligence sufficient to prevent the destruction of a very considerable number of them. For, in many places, such as Villaro and Bobio, they were so hemmed in on every side, the army having seized on the fort of Mareburg, and by that means blocked up the avenue, that there remained no possibility of escape, and nothing remained for them but to be massacred and put to death. In one place they mercilessly tortured not less than an hundred and fifty women and their children, chopping off the heads of some, and dashing the brains of others against the rocks. And in regard to those whom they took prisoners, from fifteen years old and upwards, who refused to go to mass, they hanged some, and nailed others to the trees by the feet, with their heads downward. It is reported that they carried some persons of note prisoners to Turin, viz. our poor brother and pastor, Mr. Gros, with some part of his family. In short, there is neither cattle nor provisions of any kind left in the valley of Lucerne; it is but too evident that all is lost, since there are some whole districts, especially S. Giovanni and La Torre, where the business of setting fire to our houses and churches was so dexterously managed, by a Franciscan friar, and a certain priest, that they left not so much as one of either unburnt. In these desolations, the mother has been bereft of her dear child — the husband of his affectionate wife! Those who were once the richest amongst us are reduced to the necessity of begging their bread, while others still remain weltering in their own blood, and deprived of all the comforts of life. And as to the churches in S. Martino and other places, who, on all former occasions, have been a sanctuary to the persecuted, they have themselves now been summoned to quit their dwellings, and every soul of them to depart, and that instantaneously and without respite, under pain of being put to death. Nor is there any mercy to be expected by any of them who are found within the dominions of his royal highness.

The pretext which is alleged for justifying these horrid proceedings is, that we are rebels against the orders of his highness, for not having brought the whole city of Geneva within the walls of Mary Magdalene church; or, in plainer terms, for not having performed an utter impossibility in departing, in a moment, from our houses and homes in Bubbiana, Lucerne, Fenile, Bricheras, La Torre, S.

Giovanni, and S. Secondo; and also, for having renewed our repeated supplications to his royal highness, to commiserate our situation, who, while on the one hand he promised us to make no innovations in our lot, on the other refused us permission to depart peaceably out of his dominions, for which we have often entreated him, in case he would not allow us to continue and enjoy the liberty of our consciences, as his predecessors had always done.

True it is, that the Marquis of Pionessa adduced another reason, and we have the original copy of his writing in our possession, which is, that it was his royal highness’s pleasure to abase us and humble our pride, for endeavoring to shroud ourselves, and take sanctuary, under the protection of foreign princes and states.

To conclude, our beautiful and flourishing churches are utterly lost, and that without remedy, unless our God work miracles for us.

Their time is come, and our measure is full! O have pity upon the desolations of Jerusalem, and be grieved for the afflictions of Joseph. Show forth your compassions, and let your bowels yearn in behalf of so many thousands of poor souls, who are reduced to a morsel of bread, for following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

We recommend our pastors, with their scattered and dispersed flocks, to your fervent christian prayers, and rest in haste, Your brethren in the Lord. April 27th 1655.

The reader may collect from this letter some general notion of the tenor of the proceedings that were at this time carried on against the Waldenses in Piedmont; and they appear to have been extended progressively throughout almost the whole country. But if credit is to be given to the statements of our countryman, Sir Samuel Morland, who in the very same year was sent by the English government to administer pecuniary assistance to these afflicted people, — if any regard is due to the attestations which he has produced from persons who were spectators of the dreadful work of carnage; it is but a faint impression of the scene which can be derived from that letter. The representation given us by Sir Samuel, and further corroborated by Leger, in his General History of the Churches of Piedmont, beggars all description for atrocity. Nor, if the infernal regions had been disemboweled of their inhabitants, and the whole let loose among the valleys of Piedmont, could we have expected the perpetration of greater enormities. The bare report of them spread amazement throughout all the protestant states of Europe, as we shall presently see; and the principal actors in this deep tragedy found it necessary to aim at extricating their characters from the odium which attached to it. In particular, the Marquis of Pionessa labored to cast the blame upon certain officers of his army, which induced one of them, not only to give up the command of the regiment, but actually to draw up an affidavit, which he attested with his own hand, and got it further corroborated by the testimony of two of his brother officers, in vindication of his conduct in that affair. Sir Samuel Morland obtained possession of the original document, which he deposited in the University of Cambridge, along with an infinite number of other interesting manuscripts relating to this subject, and it appears of sufficient importance to be submitted to the reader’s consideration. “I,SIEUR DU PETIT BOURG, first captain of the regiment of Groncy, who also commanded the same, having received direction from prince Thomas to join the Marquis of Pionessa, who was then at La Torre, and to receive his orders — when I was upon the eve of departure, the ambassador sent for me, and desired me to speak to M. de Pionessa, and to use my endeavors to accommodate the troubles which had happened among those of the religion [of the Waldenses] in the valleys of Piedmont. In order to which I addressed myself to the marquis, earnestly entreating him that he would give way, and allow me to undertake an accommodation, which I supposed I might have been able to effect. But he repeatedly refused my request, in defiance of all the endeavors I could possibly use to persuade him. And instead of the least mitigation of matters, which could be produced by any consideration that I could lay before him, I was witness to many acts of violence and extreme cruelties exercised by the banditti and soldiers of Piedmont, upon all sorts of persons, of every age, sex, and condition, whom I myself saw massacred, dismembered, hung up; females violated, and numerous other horrid atrocities committed. And so far is it from being true that the whole was done by virtue of the orders that were issued by me, as falsely stated in a certain Narrative, printed in French and Italian, that I beheld the same with horror and regret. And whereas it is said in the same Narrative, that the Marquis of Pionessa commanded me to treat them peaceably without hostility, and in the best manner I possibly could, the event clearly demonstrated that the orders he gave were altogether of a contrary tendency, since it is most certain that without distinction of those who resisted, from those who made no resistance, they were used with all sorts of inhumanity — their houses burnt, their goods plundered, and when prisoners were brought before the Marquis of Pionessa, I was a witness to his issuing orders to give them no quarter at all, assigning as a reason, that his highness was resolved to have none of that religion in any of his dominions.

And as to what he protests in the same declaration, namely, that no hurt was done to any, except during the fight, nor the least outrage committed upon any unoffending and helpless persons, I do assert; and will maintain that such is not the truth, having seen with my own eyes several men killed in cold blood, and also women, aged persons, and children, miserably murdered.

And with regard to the manner in which they put themselves in possession of the valley of Angrogne, to pillage and entirely burn the same, it was done with great ease. For, excepting six or seven persons, who, seeing there would be no mercy shown them, made some show of resistance, the rest were dispersed without difficulty, the peasants consulting how to flee, rather than how to fight the enemy. In short, I absolutely deny and protest, as in the presence of God, that none of those cruelties were executed by my order; but, on the contrary, seeing that I could not procure a remedy, I was constrained to retire and quit the command of the regiment, not liking to be present at such wicked transactions. Done at Pignerol, November 27th, 1655. DU PETIT BOURG.

Now, whatever may be thought of this defense, or upon whomsoever the onus of guilt may devolve, it seems a fair inference from these documents, that cruelties of the most enormous kind were at this time inflicted by the catholic party upon the Waldenses throughout the whole country of Piedmont, — upon a class of men whose sole crime was, that they dissented from the communion of the church of Rome, and refused to countenance her idolatry and superstition. And that their sufferings were of no ordinary cast, may be inferred from the single consideration, that they excited the commiseration of, and at the same time extorted remonstrances from, almost every protestant court in Europe, who raised large contributions to relieve their poverty, and sent their ministers to the court of Savoy, to intercede with the Duke for the amelioration of the condition of his subjects. In this benevolent work, it is a gratifying reflection, that our own country took the lead, as will more particularly be shown in the next section: I shall close the present with an article of no inconsiderable interest in the history of the churches of Piedmont.

While the fire of persecution was, as we have seen, so fiercely raging against the Waldenses, in the early part of the year 1655, two persons who sustained the pastoral office, in the valley of Lucerne, were seized and sent as prisoners to the city of Turin, probably with a multitude of others who escaped the edge of the enemy’s sword. It is but doing justice to the catholic party to say of them, that they seldom evinced their delight in human blood to such an excess as to prefer it to that of converting a heretic to their faith. In general, they only gave it the preference to the alternative of allowing persons to think differently from themselves. Nor would it be fair to accuse them of remissness in their expedients and exertions to recover back again to the true church such as they supposed were gone astray. In that respect they could always display the wisdom of the serpent, though seldom, alas! the harmlessness of the dove. On the present occasion, the two pastors above referred to, whose names werePETER GROS andFRANCIS AGUIT, were unhappily entrapped by the monks of the inquisition, and they fell from their profession. The renunciation of their principles would ensure their liberation from prison. The chains were taken from their bodies, and they recovered their liberty — but in a short time the burden was transferred from the body to the mind, and their own consciences rendered them miserable. In this state of things, they applied for re-admission into the churches, and the following declaration of the state of their minds was publicly made by them, before a full assembly of their brethren, convened at Pinache, in the valley of Perouse, on the 28th and 29th August, 1655, for the purpose of taking their case into consideration. Most honored Fathers and Brethren in the Lord.

We could have wished that a less mournful occasion had caused our present appearance in public, and that a more favorable opportunity had made us known to the world, by some notable action, the remembrance of which might have been as a blessing in the churches; but as our names can only be famous by the horrible scandal which we have brought upon the church of God, we now come forth out of the dark dungeons of our own shame and confusion, and present ourselves before men, to testify to all the world our conversion and repentance, and to give indubitable proofs of our grief, for that we have been so base as to forsake our former profession.

When we reflect upon those advantages with which, above others, the Lord was pleased to bless us, in granting us a religious education and the knowledge of his saving grace, thus teaching us where true happiness is to be found; and finally to have been called to the highest employment that men can have in this world, viz. to be the heralds of God’s justice, and the preachers of his truth, we cannot without horror speak of our offense, and are constrained to confess that our sin is rendered much more odious in that, having known our Master’s will, we nevertheless withdrew our shoulders from his service, and have acted in opposition to his command.

It was in these last calamities which have overrun our country, that we thus made shipwreck — after having lost: our liberty and our goods — when the enemies of the truth, having resolved upon extirpating our religion in the valleys of Piedmont, exercised the most barbarous cruelties upon our countrymen. And we, having fallen into their hands after they had showed us how far their inhumanity could reach; to give us a proof of the utmost degree of it, they caused us to be thrown into prison, when they proceeded against us, and sentenced us to death as guilty of high treason, and the ringleaders of rebellion, incessantly setting before our eyes the torments and punishments to which we were condemned; and, to render us more flexible to the enticements of the Jesuits, who, without ceasing, solicited us to accept of a pardon which they would obtain for us on our embracing Popery, and abjuring our religion.

At their first onsets, we were confident that, so far from yielding to them, we had strength and fortitude enough to despise whatever superstition could present before our eyes as terrible or dreadful — and that the dark and dismal shades of death itself, with which they threatened as, were insufficient to extinguish that heavenly light which then shined in our souls. But to our extreme grief, we have learned how frail our nature is, and how deceitful the wisdom of the flesh, which, for the enjoyment of a frail and transitory life, prevailed upon us to forego those unspeakably good things which God hath prepared for his children and that everlasting joy of which those are made partakers who endure to the end. It was this fleshly wisdom, which, from a desire to preserve this house of clay, this earthly tabernacle, and to avoid a shameful death, and a punishment ignominious in the eyes of the world, that induced us to a shameful falling away, turning our backs upon him who is the fountain of life. We have lent our cars to this deceitful Delilah, and although there were not offered to us any reasons so strong as in the least degree, to obscure the truth that we did profess, yet we freely acknowledge that the fear of death and the horror of torments, shook our courage, and beat down our strength; and we have decayed and dried up like water, not resisting to blood, as the profession, not only of Christians, but more especially of Christian ministers, obliged us to do.

Having been persuaded by deceitful reasoning, that life is preferable to death — that we might be further profitable to the church, to our country, and to our families — that there was no glory in dying as rebels, and that one day we might get out of captivity, and manifest to the world, that if the confession had been wanting in our mouths, yet the faith had not been wanting in our hearts Thus we accepted of pardon on these miserable conditions, and have not hesitated to enter into the temple of idols, and employ our mouths and tongues in uttering blasphemies against the truth of heaven, in denying and abjuring the same; and our sacrilegious hands also in subscribing the act and events of this infamous apostasy, which has drawn many others into the same perdition. Our light has become darkness, and our salt has lost its savor — we have fallen from heaven to the earth — from the spirit to the flesh — and from life to death. We have made ourselves obnoxious to the curse which the Lord hath pronounced on those; by whom offenses come. And having made light of the threatenings of the Son of God against those who shall deny him before men, we have deserved to be denied by him before his heavenly Father. Finally, we have rendered ourselves unworthy of divine favors and mercy, and have drawn upon our guilty heads whatever is most dreadful in the wrath of God and his indignations — and have deserved to be rejected of the church as stumbling-blocks or rocks of offense, and that the faithful should even abhor our company.

But as we have learned in the school of the prophets, that the mercies of God are infinite, and that the Lord hath no pleasure in the destruction of his poor creatures, but calleth the sinner to repentance, that he may give him life, we presume to appear before his face, to humble ourselves in his holy presence, to bewail the greatness of our sin, and to make before him a free confession of our iniquity. O that our heads might melt into waters of bitterness, and our eyes were turned into fountains of tears, to express the grief wherewith our souls are pressed down. As our sin is of no ordinary measure, so it calls for extraordinary repentance: and as we acknowledge it to be one of the greatest that can be committed, so do we wish that our repentance should reach the lowest degree of humiliation, and that the acts of our contrition may be known to the world. If David, for lighter faults, was willing that his complaints and his deep sorrow and repentance should be left, as it were for a memorial in the church, well may we not be ashamed to publish among men the inconsolable regret which we feel for having offended God, and giving an occasion of scandal to the assemblies of the saints; and we deserve to have imprinted upon our foreheads a mark of perpetual infamy for our miserable fall, to make the memory thereof continue for ever. And if we can make it apparent that the sorrow it hath begotten in us is extreme, and that we now disclaim whatever fear formerly forced us to do contrary to the dictates of our consciences; we trust that he who forgave Peter when he denied Christ in the court of Caiaphas, will grant us the same grace, since we are come to ask forgiveness in all humility, with tears in our eyes, confession in our mouths, and contrition in our hearts; and that, as there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, so there may be joy in the congregation of the faithful when they shall behold our conversion to the Lord. GREAT GOD!ALMIGHTY FATHER! dreadful in thine anger; in whose presence no sinner can subsist a moment; we prostrate ourselves at the feet of thy Majesty as poor miserable offenders, confessing that we have justly provoked thee to anger by our transgressions and iniquities, and drawn upon ourselves thy righteous judgments, in that we have forsaken thy heavenly truth, and bowed the knee before the idol! But how shall we now appear before thee, O thou Judge of the quick and dead, since by so doing, we have deserved to feel, not only in this life thy most severe rod and punishment, but that thou shouldest also cut us off from the number of the living, and cast us headlong into the lake of fire and brimstone, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. O God! rich in compassions and infinite in mercies! which thou multipliest even in judgment; turn us and we shall be turned! be merciful to us, forgive us our offense! blot out our iniquity! and impute not our sin unto us!

Open unto us the door of thy grace, that we may be partakers of this thy salvation. O Lord Jesus, Redeemer of souls, who camest into this world for the sake of poor sinners; look upon our affliction! Receive us to mercy! and grant that, our sins being washed away in thy most precious blood, we may draw near to the throne of thy grace with confidence to obtain mercy. Raise us up from our fall! strengthen us in our weakness! and although Satan hath sought to sift us, suffer not our faith [utterly] to fail! Work in us effectually both to will and to do according to thy good pleasure. It is thou who hast stretched out thine hand around us! It is thy strong hand which hath helped us! Thou hast taken us out of captivity both of body and soul, in which we lay languishing, and hast afforded us the liberty to call upon thy name! Thou hast heard our cries out of the deep, and hast given us fresh cause to rejoice in thy goodness, and to bless thy holy name; to whom be everlasting glory ascribed, at all times, and in all ages!AMEN.

And you faithful souls, who witness our contrite heart and broken spirit before the Lord; O commiserate our lamentable state! Learn by our example, how great is human frailty, and what a precipice we fall into whenever God withdraws his supporting hand from us!

Consider, that as it hath been to us an extreme infelicity to have fallen into so great a sin, so have you an argument to rejoice in God, through whose grace you have been given to stand! Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation! Hold fast that which you have, that no man take your crown! Be faithful to the Lord Jesus even unto death, that so ye may obtain the crown of life! And, be assured that, aside from the profession of his truth, which you make to the exclusion of all other sorts of religion whatsoever, there is nothing but death, horror, and astonishment. This is a thing which we are enabled to assure you of from our own experience, because from the very first moment that we gave our consent to this unhappy apostasy, our consciences have given us no rest at all; and through their continual harassings and agitations, they have not suffered us to enjoy any of that comfort which a Christian soul experiences in tribulation, until it pleased God to draw us out of the filthy quagmire of Babylon, and caused us to return to his ways. And do you, Christians, lend your helping hand; let your arms be opened to embrace us; do not count us unworthy of your holy communion, although we have been all occasion of offense.

Suffer us to pour into your bosom a torrent of tears, to deplore our condition, and to assure you, in the anguish of our souls, that our grief is greater than we can express. Help us by your holy prayers to the Lord, and publish our repentance in all places, where you conceive our sin has been or shall be known, that so it may be evident to all the world that, from the very bottom of our souls, we grieve and are full of sorrow for it; and that in the presence of God and of his holy angels, as well as of those who now witness our contrition, we do abjure and detest the pretended sacrifice of the mass, the authority of the pope, and, in general, all the worship that is dependent on them. We recant whatsoever we have pronounced to the prejudice of evangelical truth, and promise, for the future, through divine assistance, to persevere in the profession of the reformed religion to the last moment of our lives, and rather to suffer death and torments, than to renounce that holy doctrine which is taught in our churches, and which we believe to be agreeable to the word of God; all which we protest and promise with our bended knees upon the earth, and our hands lifted up to the Eternal, our Almighty God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and as we desire his aid, to enable us to do this, even so may he help us, even our God.AMEN.

SECTION History of the Waldenses continued during the seventeenth century; with an account of the humane interference and generous conduct of the English nation towards their persecuted brethren in Piedmont; including the interesting Letters of Milton in their behalf, addressed to the Protestant States of Europe. A.D. 1655. AMONGST those who have made a conspicuous figure on the theater of Europe, in modern times, there are few characters which historians have found it more difficult to delineate correctly than that of Oliver Cromwell.

This extraordinary person held the reins of the English government, at the time the Waldenses were experiencing, in the valleys of Piedmont, the complicated sufferings which have been detailed in the preceding section.

The strange combination of fraud and force, by means of which he grasped the supreme power of the state; the rigor, and, at times, the severity with which he exercised it; the facility with which he could violate, and even pour ridicule upon the constitutional principles of his country, trampling upon all the laws of the land, when they impeded his progress towards the attainment of any object on which he had set his mind, are certainly a tremendous weight to be placed in the scale against his inflexible opposition to popery, his exertions in reforming the ministry of the established church, and even his occasional ebullitions of zeal to promote the interests of the gospel. There is but too much reason to fear that with him, as with many other princes and statesmen, religion was made wholly subservient to his worldly interests.

And yet it would be difficult to fix upon a period when our country was more prosperous at home, or sustained a higher character abroad, than during his protectorate. For, not to speak of the number of able and upright judges whom he introduced into Westminster Hall; nor of the impartial administration of justice throughout the land; nor yet of the attention which he showed to reform the national religion, by advancing men of learning and piety in the churches and discountenancing those of an opposite character; he certainly contrived to support his reputation both among his own subjects and with foreign nations, in a very extraordinary manner, even compelling those to fear who did not love him. His name was terrible throughout Europe, and “it was hard to discover,” says Lord Clarendon, “which dreaded him most, France, Spain, or the Netherlands, in all which places his friendship was current at the value which he chose to set upon it. For, as they all sacrificed their honor and their interests to his pleasure, so there was nothing he could have demanded that either of them would have denied him.” 1 The truth of this representation, and, in some measure, the pertinency of these reflections, will appear from the history on which we are now about to enter.

The council of Zurich, in Switzerland, were, by reason of their proximity to the valleys of Piedmont, the first who received intimation of the horrid massacre which had recently taken place there. The news reached them on the Lord’s day, April 29; — and such was the impression which it made upon them, that the town council immediately assembled, and issued a proclamation for a day of fasting and humiliation throughout all their territories; at the same time recommending that collections should every where be made for relieving the wants of the poor sufferers. On the next day they drew up a letter addressed to the States General of Holland, of which the following is a copy.

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORDS, ETC.

Having this instant received the dismal news of the lamentable state of our brethren of the faith in Piedmont, as you may see by the copy of a letter now sent, we thought ourselves obliged by the sacred rights of faith, union, and communion, to acquaint you therewith; being fully assured that you will be pleased, according to your wonted piety and Christian charity, thoroughly to consider and lay to heart this “affliction of Joseph.” This persecution is smoothed over with a very fair pretext by the opposite party, but there is no one who loves the church of Christ, that will not easily be persuaded of the subtleties and treacheries to which their adversaries alternatively have recourse.

Moved by an ardent sympathy we earnestly beseech you, most mighty and illustrious lords, that you would lay to heart the case of these afflicted people and administer those means of relief which you may think conducive thereunto; not only by prayer to the Father of Mercies for them, and by granting them that pecuniary assistance which their miseries loudly called for, but also by pacifying their prince towards them; or at least, obtaining for them the liberty to emigrate, which we also shall, to the utmost of our power, endeavor to do. May the Sovereign Lord of all have mercy upon his church in every place; own their cause; and his Almighty arm avert their misery and adversities; to whose protection we heartily recommend you. Given, in haste, 30th April, 1655.

The Consuls and Senators of the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, viz. Zurich, Berne, Claris, Schaffhouse, and Appenzel.

About the 20th of May an account of the Duke of Savoy’s proceedings against the Waldenses reached England; and, to use the words of Sir Samuel Morland, it no sooner came to the ears of the Protector, than “he arose like a lion out of his place,” and by the most pathetic appeals to the protestant princes upon the continent, awoke the whole Christian world, exciting their hearts to pity and commiseration. The providence of God had so disposed events, that our great poetMILTON filled the office of Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell at this critical juncture. 2 Never was there a more decided enemy to persecution on account of religion than Milton. He appears to have been the first of our countrymen who understood the principles of toleration; and his prose writings abound with the most enlightened and liberal sentiments. The sufferings of the Waldenses touched his heart, and drew from his pen the following exquisite sonnet.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that roll’d Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moan The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow O’er all th’ Italian fields, where still doth sway The tripled tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who having learn’d thy way Early may fly the Babylonian woe. But this was a small portion of the interest which he took upon this affecting occasion. It devolved upon him by office to address the heads of the different protestant states in Europe, with the view of interesting them in the affairs of the Waldenses; and his letters deserve to be handed down to the remotest age of the world, as a noble instance of a benevolent and feeling mind, worthy of the author ofPARADISE LOST. I shall therefore, present the reader with the whole of them in this place, faithfully translated from the Latin originals. They are in themselves interesting; are intimately connected with the history of the Waldenses; and the Christian spirit that pervades them, redounds in the highest degree to the honor of the writer. Through what strange fatality it has come to pass, that an incident which reflects so much luster upon the character of Milton, as the writing of these state-papers certainly does, should have been allowed to pass into oblivion, while many things of minor importance find a place in every memoir of the poet, it would probably be difficult to give a more plausible reason for than the superior interest which most men take in the concerns of this present life, above those of the kingdom of heaven and of their immortal souls.

Before I introduce these interesting letters however to the reader’s notice, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of laying before him the character that has been given of them by two distinguished writers of modern date; both of them members of our Established Church, and consequently not to be suspected of any undue partiality for the character or principles of Milton.

The first to whom I refer, is Dr. Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol, who in his life of our great poet, prefixed to his edition of the Paradise Lost, tells us that “the blindness [of Milton] had not diminished, but rather increased the rigor of his mind; and his State-letters will remain as authentic memorials of those times, to be admired equally by critics and politicians; and those in particular about the sufferings of the poor Protestants [or Waldenses] in Piedmont, who can read without sensible emotion? This was a subject he had very much at heart, as he was an utter enemy to all sorts of persecution; and among his sonnets there is a most excellent one upon the same occasion.” Thus far bishop Newton — the other writer to whom I alluded is Dr. Charles Symmons, the poet’s last, and certainly ablest, biographer: who, referring to these letters, thus elegantly remarks: “The hand of the Latin Secretary most ably concurred with the spirit of the executive council; and during his continuance in office, which was prolonged to the Restoration, the State-papers in his department may be regarded as models in the class of diplomatic composition. They speak, indeed, the language of energy and wisdom; and are entitled equally to the applause of the scholar and the statesman. They must have impressed foreign states with a high opinion of that government for which they were written; and in the service of which so much ability was engaged. It may be observed, that the character of their immediate author is too great to be altogether lost in that of the ministerial organ; and that in many of them, Milton may be traced in distinct, though not in discordant existence from the power for whom he acts. The letters which he wrote in the protector’s name, to mediate for the oppressed Protestants of Piedmont, 4 whose sufferings had revived the horror of the catholic atrocities in Ireland, might be cited in testimony of what I affirm. These official instruments are faithful, no doubt, to the general purposes of him under whose authority they were produced; but they exhibit also much of the liberal and benevolent spirit of the Secretary: their mirror cannot be convicted of falsehood or perversion but with unquestionable flattery, it reflects the harsh features of the English usurper so softened into positive beauty as to conciliate our affection equally with our respect.”

One of the first of Cromwell’s measures was to appoint a day of fasting and prayer, to seek the Lord in behalf of the melancholy condition of this afflicted people; a public declaration of their state was also issued, calling upon the inhabitants throughout the land to join in free and liberal contributions towards their succor and support, in which the protector himself set them a noble example, by commencing the subscription with a donation ofTWO THOUSAND POUNDS from his own private purse. And that no time might be lost, in testifying his good will towards the Waldenses, on the 28d of May, Sir S. Morland received orders to prepare for setting off with a message from the English government to the Duke of Savoy, beseeching the latter to recall the merciless edict of Gastaldo, and to restore the remnant of his poor distressed subjects to their homes and the enjoyment of their ancient liberties.

On the 26th of May, Mr. Morland took his departure for the continent, being charged, on his way to Piedmont, with a letter from the protector to the French king, relating to the Waldenses, in whose recent murder, as the reader will have already noticed, some French troops had been employed.

The following is a copy of the letter which, on the first of June, the English envoy delivered at La Fere, where the king and court of France were then residing.

Most Serene King!

The lamentable complaints which have been conveyed to us from those poor and afflicted people, who profess the reformed religion, and inhabit the valleys within the dominions of the Duke of Savoy; and who have of late been most cruelly massacred; together with the melancholy tidings we have received concerning the plundering and banishing of others, have extorted from us these letters to your majesty; and the rather, as we have been informed, how truly we know not, that this massacre has been carried on, partly by some troops of yours, which had joined themselves to other forces belonging to the Duke of Savoy.

We were very unwilling to give any credit to these things, because it cannot be thought consonant to the purposes and proceedings either of good princes or of your majesty’s most prudent ancestors, who conceived it to be their interest, and not less conducive to the peace of Christendom, that their protestant subjects should live in safety, and enjoy protection under their government, for which they have always been grateful, and rendered eminent services to their sovereigns in times both of peace and war. Similar considerations have hitherto induced the Dukes of Savoy to treat their subjects with equal kindness. Now we doubt not but that your majesty has so much influence with the Duke of Savoy, that by your intercession, a peace may be procured for those poor people, with liberty to return to their native country.

The performance of this would be an act worthy of your majesty, and conformable to the example set you by your predecessors, while it would, at the same time, set the minds of your own subjects at rest, by assuring them that they need not fear a repetition of such evils among them; and also confirm your confederates and allies, who profess the same religion, in greater respect and affection for your majesty. With respect to ourselves, any favor of this kind which you shall grant to your own subjects, or which you may obtain for the subjects of others, will be not less acceptable to us; indeed it will be more so than any other profit or advantage, among the many which we promise ourselves from the friendship of your majesty. OLIVER P.

Westminster, May 25, 1655.

The king of France lost no time in returning a very complaisant and satisfactory answer to this letter, in which he assures the protector that the manner in which his troops had been employed by the Duke of Savoy or his ministers was very far from meeting with his approbation — that they had been sent by him into Italy, to assist the Duke of Modena against the invasion which the Spaniards had made upon his country — that he had already expostulated with the court of Savoy for having employed them in an affair of that nature without his authority or command — and that he had sent to the governor of his province of Dauphiny, requesting him to collect as many of the poor exiled Waldenses as he could, to treat them with gentleness, and afford them every protection they might stand in need of. He tells his highness that, knowing, as he now does, how much he is affected by the distress of these Waldenses, it gives him pleasure to think he has already anticipated his wishes, and that he shall continue to use his influence with the prince for their relief and comfort, and, indeed, that he had already proceeded so far as to pledge himself for their obedience and fidelity, in case the Duke of Savoy would re-establish them in his dominions, and that he had grounds to hope his mediation would not be rejected. “As to what remains,” continues his majesty, “you were perfectly right in believing that I had given no orders to my troops to execute such a business as this — nor was there the least ground to suppose that I should contribute to the chastisement of the subjects of the Duke of Savoy who professed the reformed religion, while I was giving so many proofs of my good will to those of my own subjects of the same profession, whose fidelity and zeal for my service I have great reason to applaud, since they omit no opportunity of evincing their loyalty, even beyond all that can be imagined, and in everything contributing to the prosperity and advantage of my affairs. So much in answer to your letter; but I cannot conclude without requesting you to be assured that, upon every occasion you shall find how much I esteem your person, and that, from the bottom of my heart, I pray the Divine Majesty that he would have you in his holy keeping,” Signed, LOUIS.

Having delivered the protector’s letter to the king of France, and received the preceding reply to it, Sir Samuel Morland proceeded on his journey towards Savoy, and upon the 21st of June arrived at Rivoli, a city about two miles from Turin, where the duke, who seems to have been a minor, then was with his royal mother and the court. Two days afterwards he obtained an audience, and introduced himself in an elaborate latin oration, which he delivered in the presence of the duke, Madame Royal, and all the court, and in which he painted in strong colors the accounts that had been received in England concerning the dreadful atrocities that had been recently perpetrated upon the Waldenses by means of the soldiery — describing “the houses on fire, which,” says he, “are yet smoking — the mangled carcasses, and ground defiled with blood — virgins violated, and, after being treated with brutal outrage, too indecent to be mentioned, left to breathe out their last — men an hundred years old, helpless through age and bed-ridden, burnt in their beds — infants dashed against the rocks,” etc., etc. “Were all the tyrants,” says he, “of all times and ages alive again, they might blush to find that, in comparison of these things, they had contrived nothing that deserved to be called barbarous and inhuman! The very angels are seized with horror at them! Men are amazed! Heaven itself seems to be astonished with the cries of dying men, and the very earth to blush, being discolored with the gore of so many innocent persons,” etc.

Having finished his harangue, Sir Samuel presented to the duke the following letter with which he had been charged by his master, the lord protector.

Most Serene Prince!

We have received letters from several places near your dominions, informing us that the subjects of your royal highness, professing the reformed religion, have of late, by your express order and command, been required, under pain of death and confiscation of their estates, to abandon their houses, possessions, and dwellings, within three days after the publication of that order, unless they would pledge themselves to relinquish their religious profession and become Catholics within twenty days. And that, when, with all becoming humility, they addressed themselves to your royal highness, petitioning for a revocation of that order, and a reception to former favor, with a continuance of such liberties as were granted them by your most serene predecessors, a part of your army fell upon them, most cruelly massacred many, imprisoned others, banishing the rest into desert places and mountains covered with snow, where some hundreds of families are reduced to such extremity, that it is to be feared they will all miserably perish in a short time with hunger and cold.

When intelligence was first brought us that a calamity so awful had befallen those most miserable people, it was impossible for us not to feel the deepest sorrow and compassion. For, as we are, not only by the ties of humanity, but also by religious fellowship and fraternal relation, united to them, we conceived we could neither satisfy our own minds, nor discharge our duty to God, nor the obligations of brotherly kindness and charity, as professors of the same faith, if, while deeply sympathizing with our afflicted brethren, we should fail to use every endeavor that was within our reach, to succor them under so many unexpected miseries.

We, in the first place, therefore, most earnestly desire and entreat your highness that you would reconsider the acts and ordinances of your most serene predecessors, and the indulgences which were by them granted from time immemorial, and ratified to their subjects of the valleys. In granting and confirming which, as, on the one hand, they unquestionably did that which in itself was well pleasing to God, who intends that the law and liberty of conscience shall remain wholly in his own power, so, on the other, it cannot be doubted but that they had a respect also to the merit of their subjects, whom they had always found faithful in war and obedient in time of peace. And as your serene highness has imitated the example of your predecessors, in all other things that have been so graciously and gloriously achieved by them, so we beseech you again and again hat you would abrogate this edict, and any other that has been issued for the disquieting of your subjects on account of their religion; that you would restore them to their native homes and the possession of their properties; that you would confirm to them their ancient rights and liberties, cause reparation to be made to them for the injuries they have sustained, and adopt such means as may put an effectual stop to these vexatious proceedings. In doing this, your royal highness will perform what is acceptable to God, comfort and revive those miserable and distressed people, and give satisfaction to all your neighbors professing the reformed religion, and especially to yourself; who shall regard your favor and clemency towards them as the effect and fruit of our mediation, which we shall consider ourselves bound to requite by a return of every good office, while it will also be the means of not only laying a foundation for our good correspondence and friendship, but also of increasing it between this commonwealth and your dominions.

And this we promise ourselves from your justice and clemency; whereunto we desire God to incline your heart and mind, and so we sincerely pray that he would confer on you and on your people peace and truth, and that he would prosper you in all your affairs. Given at our palace at Westminster, May 25, 1655. OLIVER P.

As soon as the duke and his mother had made themselves acquainted with the contents of this letter, Madame Royal addressed herself to the English minister, and told him that “as, on the one hand, she could not but extremely applaud the singular charity and goodness of his highness, the lord protector, towards their subjects, whose situation had been represented to him so exceedingly lamentable, as she perceived by his discourse had been done, so, on the other, she could not but extremely wonder that the malice of men should ever proceed so far as to clothe such paternal and tender chastisements of their most rebellious and insolent subjects, in characters so black and deformed, thereby to render them odious to all the neighboring princes and states, with whom they were so anxious to keep up a good understanding and friendship — especially with so great and powerful a prince as the lord protector.” She at the same time gave him to understand, that “she was persuaded, when he came to be more particularly informed of the truth of all that had passed, he would be so perfectly satisfied with the duke’s proceedings, that he would not give the least countenance to his disobedient subjects. However, for his highness’s sake, they would not only freely pardon their rebellious subjects for the very heinous crimes which they had committed, but would also grant them such privileges and favors as could not fail to give the protector full proof of the great respect which they entertained for his person and mediation.”

These plausible professions, while they no doubt display the usual finesse of politicians, yet certainly evince no ordinary measure of respect for the head of the English government, and are much more complaisant than was the style in which the same lady had previously addressed Major Weis, the deputy from the Swiss Cantons. For when this latter gentleman delivered to the duke a letter from the six protestant Cantons of Switzerland under the same melancholy occasion, Madame Royal promptly replied, that they were not obliged to give an account of their actions to any prince in the world; nevertheless, out of the respect which they bore to his masters of the Cantons, they had given orders to the Marquis of Pionessa to acquaint him with the truth of all these affairs.

The Marquis in consequence, waited upon Major Weis, and endeavored to justify all his proceedings, by casting the whole blame upon the Waldenses, repeatedly protesting that he never had the least design to force their consciences, and that all the reports which had been circulated respecting the massacre, and other cruelties were mere forgeries. To all which the major replied, that “with regard to the massacre, it was a thing so demonstrably evident, that it was impossible either to conceal or deny it. And as to the people’s right of habitation in the places from whence they were ordered to depart, it was founded upon justice and equity, inasmuch as it had not only been conceded to them by Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, but also purchased of his royal highness for six thousand ducatoons, which were actually paid by them on that very account.” The Marquis told him, that he did not at all deny the authenticity of the charters which the Waldenses held, but they were all conditional, and that the catholic religion ought to have been freely exercised in all those places, which they would never allow. In short, that their continual residence in all those places for the last ninety years, could be called no better than a ninety years’ rebellion and disobedience. Such were the miserable pleas of this intolerant and bloody-thirsty man.

It is obvious from all that can be collected of the temper and influence of the Marquis of Pionessa, the bigoted attachment of the duke and his mother to the court of Rome, and the firm hold which the catholic clergy had then got of their minds, that there was not the smallest disposition in the court of Savoy, to mitigate their sufferings, or abate the rigorous proceedings which had hitherto been going on against the Waldenses; and that had it not been for the seasonable interference of the English envoy, the Swiss deputy would have made no impression whatever upon them.

But let us now revert to the further proceedings in England. Besides the letter to the King of France and that to the Duke of Savoy, which I have already given, the following were transmitted on the same occasion.

THE LORD PROTECTOR TO THE KING OF SWEDEN Most Serene King, The report has, no doubt ere this, reached your dominions, of that most cruel edict which has been issued by the Duke of Savoy, by means of which he has utterly ruined his subjects of the Alps, professing the reformed religion; having given orders that they should be driven out of the places of their inheritance, unless, within twenty days, they relinquished their own and embraced the Roman religion. The consequence has been that, many have been slain, the remnant, plundered and exposed to certain destruction, are at this moment wandering up and down with their wives and little ones, through desolate mountains of never-wasting snow, ready to perish through hunger and cold — nor can we doubt that your majesty is greatly troubled at these things. For, though in lesser matters they differ among themselves, yet the hatred of our adversaries which is common to us all, sufficiently demonstrates that the protestant name and cause is one. Nor can any be ignorant, that your royal progenitors, the kings of Sweden, have always made common cause with those of the reformed religion bringing their armies into Germany to defend it, without regard to minute distinctions.

We have, therefore, thought it necessary to state to your majesty, what has come to our knowledge of the wretched and miserable condition of these poor distressed people, and to give you to understand the grief and sorrow with which we are afflicted on their behalf, as we have also done to our other friends and allies of the same profession; and that we have also conveyed our sentiments in the strongest manner we could to the Duke of Savoy, on the behalf of those poor innocent people. We are also persuaded that your majesty, detesting such inhuman and barbarous massacres, and in conformity to your well-known zeal and love of religion, has already, or immediately will, interpose your mediation, and intercede with the Duke of Savoy to revoke that cruel edict, and recall to their habitations and estates the little remnant of those poor men that are yet left unbutchered.

And, certainly, if there be any bond of union, if any love or fellowship in religion is to be either believed or cultivated, such a multitude of our guiltless brethren, members of the same body of Christ, cannot suffer without the whole body suffering, and having a mutual sympathy with them. And, indeed, it is unnecessary to remind your majesty, that the principles from whence these cruelties and massacres have proceeded, equally threaten us all. As your wisdom and zeal, therefore, will direct you to such counsels as shall be most conducive to the relief and comfort of those miserable and disconsolate men, we have not written this to admonish your majesty, but merely to convey to you the sense we entertain of their sufferings, and our readiness to communicate with you in whatever may tend to their succor, and for the support of the protestant interest in the world. In the mean time we heartily recommend your majesty unto God Almighty.

Your majesty’ good friend. OLIVER P.

Given at our palace at Westminster, May 25, 1655.

THE LORD PROTECTOR OF ENGLAND TO THE KING OF DENMARK.

Most Serene King, We presume your majesty must have heard, ere this, by how severe and merciless an edict, Emanuel, duke of Savoy, has, for the cause of religion, driven out of their native country his subjects who inhabited the valleys of the Alps — a harmless people, who for many ages have been retaining the purity of their religious profession; and that very many of them being slain, he has exposed the rest naked and destitute, to all kinds of mischiefs and miseries in desolate places; nor can we doubt that, as became so great a patron and defender of the reformed religion, you have been deeply affected with sorrow on this account. For certainly, agreeably to the laws of Christianity, if our brethren are suffering calamities and misery, we all ought to sympathize with them; and, indeed, if we have been correctly informed of your prudence and piety, no man can be more apprehensive than your majesty, of the danger which this example portends to the whole protestant profession.

We are, therefore, induced to write you freely, wishing you to understand that we entertain the same sorrow for the calamity of our most innocent brethren, and the same opinion and judgment concerning the whole of this matter, which we trust you do. We have also written letters to the Duke of Savoy, in which we have implored him to commiserate these unhappy people, by listening to their petitions, and not permitting that cruel edict to continue in force. And if your majesty and the other princes of the reformed religion will do the same, (which it is very probable you have already done) we may hope that the mind of the most serene duke may be softened, and, at any rate, that he will at the earnest solicitation of so many neighboring princes, lay aside his displeasure. But if, instead of doing that, he chooses rather to persist in his purpose, we declare that, assisted by your majesty, and the rest of our allies of the reformed religion, we are prepared to have recourse to such measures as may, to the utmost of our power, relieve the distress, and provide for the safety and the liberty of so many poor afflicted people. In the mean time we pray God to bless and prosper your majesty.

Your majesty’s good friend, OLIVER P.

Given at our palace at Westminster, the — day of May, Anno Dom. 1655.

TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY LORDS OF THE UNITED PROVINCES High and Mighty Lords!

You have, no doubt, ere this been apprised, by means of various expresses and advices from the neighboring states, of the recent edict of the Duke of Savoy against his subjects of the valleys of Lucerne, Angrogne, and other parts of his dominions, who have long professed the orthodox faith — by which edict, they were enjoined to quit their dwellings, stripped of all their possessions, unless in twenty days they embraced the Roman religion. You are not ignorant of the rigor with which, by virtue of that edict, they have proceeded against men both inoffensive and helpless, and (which most nearly touches us) those who are our brethren in Christ, multitudes of them having been murdered by a party of soldiers sent against them, the rest plundered and driven out of their houses, inasmuch that they are forced to wander about with their wives and children, in desolate mountains, exposed to the continual miseries of cold and hunger. Of your distress, and the sense you entertain of our brethren’s calamity, we can form some apprehension from our own feelings. For, united as we are by the bond of religious friendship, we cannot but be affected by so heavy an oppression of our brethren. Your lordships have given abundant proof of your kindness towards the professors of the reformed religion wherever scattered and oppressed, in the most difficult and adverse times of the churches; and for our own part, we had rather be found wanting in any thing, than in our zeal and affection towards our brethren who are suffering for the cause of religion, preferring, as we do, the peace and prosperity of the churches to our own ease and safety.

We have, on this account, written to the Duke of Savoy, entreating him to entertain a more favorable regard towards those harmless men, his suppliants and subjects; to restore to them their houses and property, and grant them their ancient religious liberties, as we have also done to the king of France, requesting him to intercede with the said duke in their behalf. We have also written to other princes and states of the protestant profession, as well as yourselves, conceiving this to be a common cause, that they would unite with us in this intercession. For if an example so evil as that is, should come to be followed, which seems to be the intention of those who contrive it, we need not apprise you of the danger to which the protestant faith must be thereby reduced. And if the duke can be persuaded and prevailed upon by our joint entreaties, it will surely be a happy and satisfactory remuneration of all the labor we have taken therein. But if, on the other hand, he shall continue firmly resolved utterly to destroy, and drive to a state of distraction, those men, among whom our religion was either planted by the first preachers of the gospel, and so maintained in its purity from age to age, or else reformed and restored to its primitive purity more early than among many other nations: we hereby declare ourselves ready to advise, in common with you, and the rest of our brethren and allies of the reformed religion, by what means we may most conveniently provide for the preservation and comfort of those distressed people. OLIVER P.

Palace of Westminster, May 25, 1655.

THE LORD PROTECTOR TO THE SWISS CANTONS Most Notable Lords!

The calamity which has lately befallen those people in the Alps, who are of the same religious profession as ourselves, must necessarily have come to your knowledge before it did to ours.

They were required by an edict of the Duke of Savoy, under whose dominion they were, to forsake their native country, unless they would in three days, give assurance that they would embrace the Roman religion. Nor was that all, for they were immediately afterwards assaulted by force of arms; numbers of them put to death, and others driven into banishment, who are now wandering in a state of wretchedness, with their wives and children, over desert mountains covered with snow, without house or shelter, in want and nakedness, ready to perish with cold and hunger. Nor can we doubt but that, as soon as the report of these things came to your ears, a calamity such as this must have affected you, as sensibly as it did ourselves; and perhaps more so, inasmuch as the proximity of your situation must have made your apprehensions of their misery more lively; for we very well know your singular zeal for the orthodox faith, as well as your great constancy in retaining, and your fortitude in defending the profession of it.

Seeing then that, by the endearing ties of religious fellowship, we are brethren, or rather one body with these afflicted men — of which body no one member call suffer, but all the fellow-members must suffer with it; we thought proper to write to you, and signify how much we considered it to be the common interest of us all to assist and comfort our exiled and disconsolate brethren, by such means as shall be thought proper and suitable, and thereby make provision both for removing the present evils, preventing their accumulation, and the danger to which we are exposed by the example and effects of this act. We have consequently written letters to the Duke of Savoy, entreating him to deal more gently with his faithful subjects, and restore them to their property and native countries. We trust that he will be prevailed upon by our, or rather by the joint entreaties of us all, and that he will cheerfully grant what we so anxiously desire. But should it turn out that he is differently minded, we are ready to advise with you about such means as may be most conducive to the redress and relief of these poor innocent men, our dear brethren in Christ, who groan under so many injuries and oppressions; and which may preserve them from a most certain and unmerited destruction, and whose safety and preservation, from your well known piety, we are persuaded, lies very near your hearts. OLIVER P.

Westminster, May 25, 1655.

OLIVER, PROTECTOR OF THE REPUBLIC OF ENGLAND, TO THE MOST SERENE PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA.

Most Serene Prince!

Your letters of the 16th November, 1654, have communicated to us the pleasing intelligence of the extraordinary good will and affection which you bear towards us; and your ambassador, who delivered those letters to us, has more fully declared the desire which you have to contract an alliance and friendship with us.

For our own part, we certainly do not a little rejoice in the opportunity which is now afforded us of publicly avowing the cordial esteem which we have for your highness, and how much we value your person. But after all that public rumor had conveyed to us of your meritorious exertions and indefatigable labors undertaken in behalf of the Christian republic; and learning, as we now do, by letters from yourself, imparting to us, in the most friendly manner, what you have further in contemplation to do for promoting the Christian interest, we could not but consider it as all abundant occasion of joy and satisfaction, to hear that God had raised up to himself, in those remote regions, so powerful and renowned a minister of his glory and providence: and that this great minister of heaven, so famed for his courage and success, should wish to be associated with us in the common defense of the Protestant religion, which is at this time so wickedly assailed in word