Fox's Book of Martyrs

Notwithstanding every effort was used, Mr. Lithgow could never obtain any part of his money or effects, though his majesty and the ministers of state, interested themselves in his behalf. Gondamore, the Spanish ambassador, indeed, promised that all his effects should be restored, with the addition of L1000 English money, as some atonement for the tortures he had undergone, which last was to be paid him by the governor of Malaga. These engagements, however, were but mere promises; and though the king was a kind of guarantee for the well performance of them, the cunning Spaniard found means to elude the same. He had, indeed, too great a share of influence in the English council during the time of that pacific reign, when England suffered herself to be bullied into slavish compliance by most of the states and kings in Europe.

_Croly on the Inquisition._

We shall conclude this chapter with the subjoined extract from the New Interpretation of the Apocalypse by the Rev. George Croly.

In our fortunate country, the power of the Romish church has so long perished, that we find some difficulty in conceiving the nature, and still more in believing the tyranny of its dominion. The influence of the monks and the murders of the inquisition have passed into a nursery tale; and we turn with a generous, yet rash and most unjustifiable scepticism from the history of Romish authority.

Through almost the entire of Italy, through the Flemish dominions of Germany, through a large portion of France, and through the entire of Spain, a great monastic body was established, which, professing a secondary and trivial obedience to the sovereign, gave its first and real obedience to the pope. The name of spiritual homage cloaked the high treason of an oath of allegiance to a foreign monarch; and whoever might be king of France, or Spain, the pope was king of the Dominicans. All the other monastic orders were so many papal outposts. But the great Dominican order, immensely opulent in its pretended poverty; formidably powerful in its hypocritical disdain of earthly influence; and remorselessly ambitious, turbulent, and cruel in its primitive zeal; was an actual lodgment and province of the papacy, an inferior Rome, in the chief European kingdoms.

In the closest imitation of Rome, this spiritual power had fiercely assumed the temporal sword; the inquisition was army, revenues, and throne in one. With the racks and fires of a tribunal worthy of the gulf of darkness and guilt from which it rose, the Dominicans bore popery in triumph through christendom, crushing every vestige of religion under the wheels of its colossal idol. The subjugation of the Albigenses in 1229 had scattered the church; the shock of the great military masses was past; a subtler and more active force was required to destroy the wandering people of God; and the inquisition multiplied itself for the work of death. This terrible tribunal set every principle, and even every form of justice at defiance. Secrecy, that confounds innocence with guilt, was the spirit of its whole proceeding. All its steps were in darkness. The suspected revolter from popery was seized in secret, tried in secret, never suffered to see the face of accuser, witness, advocate, or friend, was kept unacquainted with the charge, was urged to criminate himself; if tardy, was compelled to this self-murder by the rack; if terrified, was only the more speedily murdered for the sport of the multitude. From the hour of his seizure he never saw the face of day, until he was brought out as a public show, a loyal and festal sacrifice, to do honor to the entrance of some travelling viceroy, some new married princess, or, on more fortunate occasions, to the presence of the sovereign. The dungeons were then drained, the human wreck of the torture and scourge were gathered out of darkness, groups of misery and exhaustion with wasted forms and broken limbs, and countenances subdued by pain and famine into idiotism, and despair, and madness; to feed the fires round which the Dominicans were chanting the glories of popery, and exulting in the destruction of the body for the good of the soul!

In the original establishment of the inquisition in 1198, it had raged against the Vaudois and their converts. But the victims were exhausted; or not worth the pursuit of a tribunal which looked to the wealth as keenly as to the faith of the persecuted. Opulence and heresy were at length to be found only to Spain, and there the inquisition turned with a gigantic step. In the early disturbances of the Peninsula, the Jews, by those habits of trade, and mutual communion, which still make them the lords of commerce, had acquired the chief wealth of the country. The close of the Moorish war in the 15th century had left the Spanish monarch at leisure for extortion; and he grasped at the Jewish gains in the spirit of a robber, as he pursued his plunder with the cruelty of a barbarian. The inquisition was the great machine, the comprehensive torturer, ready to squeeze out alike the heart and the gold. In 1481, an edict was issued against the Jews; before the end of the year, in the single diocess of Cadiz, two thousand Jews were burnt alive! The fall of the kingdom of Grenada, in 1492, threw the whole of the Spanish Moors into the hands of the king. They were cast into the same furnace of plunder and torture. Desperate rebellions followed; they were defeated and, in 1609, were finally exiled. "In the space of one hundred and twenty nine years, the inquisition deprived Spain of three millions of inhabitants."

On the death of Leo X. in 1521, Adrian, the inquisitor general was elected pope. He had laid the foundation of his papal celebrity in Spain. "It appears, according to the most moderate calculation, that during the five years of the ministry of Adrian, 24,025 persons were condemned by the inquisition, of whom one thousand six hundred and twenty were burned alive."

It is the constant sophism of those who would cast christianity bound hand and foot at the mercy of her enemies, that the pope desires to exercise no interference in the internal concerns of kingdoms; that, if he had the desire, he has not the power; and that, if he possessed the power, he would be resisted by the whole body of the national clergy. For the exposure of this traitorous delusion, we are to look to the times, when it was the will of popery to put forth its strength; not to the present, when it is its will to lull us into a belief of its consistency with the constitution, in defiance of common sense, common experience, the spirit of British law, and the loud warnings of insulted and hazarded religion.

Of the multitudes who perished by the inquisition throughout the world, no authentic record is now discoverable. But wherever popery had power, there was the tribunal. It had been planted even in the east, and the Portuguese inquisition of Goa was, till within these few years, fed with many an agony. South America was partitioned into provinces of the inquisition; and with a ghastly mimickry of the crimes of the mother state, the arrivals of viceroys, and the other popular celebrations were thought imperfect without an auto de fe. The Netherlands were one scene of slaughter from the time of the decree which planted the inquisition among them. In Spain the calculation is more attainable. Each of the _seventeen_ tribunals during a long period burned annually on an average ten miserable beings! We are to recollect that this number was in a country where persecution had for ages abolished all religious differences, and where the difficulty was not to find the stake, but the offering. Yet, even in Spain, thus gleaned of all heresy, the inquisition could still swell its list of murders to thirty-two thousand! The numbers burned in effigy, or condemned to penance, punishments generally equivalent to exile, confiscation, and taint of blood, to all ruin but the mere loss of worthless life amounted to three hundred and nine thousand. But the crowds who perished in dungeons, of the torture, of confinement, and of broken hearts, the millions of dependent lives made utterly helpless, or hurried to the grave by the death of the victims, are beyond all register; or recorded only before HIM, who has sworn that "He who leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: and he that killeth with the sword shall be killed by the sword."

Such was the inquisition, declared by the Spirit of God to be at once the offspring and the _image_ of the popedom. To feel the force of the parentage, we must look to the time. In the thirteenth century, the popedom was at the summit of mortal dominion; it was independent of all kingdoms; it ruled with a rank of influence never before or since possessed by a human sceptre; it was the acknowledged sovereign of body and soul; to all earthly intents its power was immeasurable for good or evil. It might have spread literature, peace, freedom, and christianity to the ends of Europe, or the world. But its nature was hostile; its fuller triumph only disclosed its fuller evil; and, to the shame of human reason, and the terror and suffering of human virtue, Rome, in the hour of its consummate grandeur, teemed with the monstrous and horrid birth of the INQUISITION!

CHAPTER VI.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTION IN ITALY, UNDER THE PAPACY.

We shall now enter on an account of the persecutions in Italy, a country which has been, and still is,

1. The centre of popery.

2. The seat of the pontiff.

3. The source of the various errors which have spread themselves over other countries, deluded the minds of thousands, and diffused the clouds of superstition and bigotry over the human understanding.

In pursuing our narrative we shall include the most remarkable persecutions which have happened, and the cruelties which have been practised,

1. By the immediate power of the pope.

2. Through the power of the inquisition.

3. At the instigation of particular orders of the clergy.

4. By the bigotry of the Italian princes.

In the 12th century, the first persecutions under the papacy began in Italy, at the time that Adrian, an Englishman, was pope, being occasioned by the following circumstances:

A learned man, and an excellent orator of Brixia, named Arnold came to Rome, and boldly preached against the corruptions and innovations which had crept into the church. His discourses were so clear, consistent, and breathed forth such a pure spirit of piety, that the senators, and many of the people, highly approved of, and admired his doctrines.

This so greatly enraged Adrian, that he commanded Arnold instantly to leave the city, as a heretic. Arnold, however, did not comply, for the senators, and some of the principal people, took his part, and resisted the authority of the pope.

Adrian now laid the city of Rome under an interdict, which caused the whole body of clergy to interpose; and, at length, persuaded the senators and people to give up the point, and suffer Arnold to be banished. This being agreed to, he received the sentence of exile, and retired to Germany, where he continued to preach against the pope, and to expose the gross errors of the church of Rome.

Adrian, on this account, thirsted for his blood, and made several attempts to get him into his hands; but Arnold, for a long time, avoided every snare laid for him. At length, Frederic Barbarossa arriving at the imperial dignity, requested that the pope would crown him with his own hand. This Adrian complied with, and at the same time asked a favour of the emperor, which was, to put Arnold into his hands. The emperor very readily delivered up the unfortunate preacher, who soon fell a martyr to Adrian's vengeance, being hanged, and his body burnt to ashes, at Apulia. The same fate attended several of his old friends and companions.

Encenas, a Spaniard, was sent to Rome, to be brought up in the Roman catholic faith; but having conversed with some of the reformed, and read several treatises which they had put into his hands, he became a protestant. This, at length, being known, one of his own relations informed against him, when he was burnt by order of the pope, and a conclave of cardinals. The brother of Encenas had been taken up much about the same time, for having a New Testament, in the Spanish language, in his possession; but before the time appointed for his execution, he found means to escape out of prison, and retired to Germany.

Faninus, a learned layman, by reading controversial books, became of the reformed religion. An information being exhibited against him to the pope, he was apprehended, and cast into prison. His wife, children, relations and friends, visited him in his confinement, and so far wrought upon his mind, that he renounced his faith, and obtained his release. But he was no sooner free from confinement, than his mind felt the heaviest of chains; the weight of a guilty conscience. His horrors were so great, that he found them insupportable, till he had returned from his apostacy, and declared himself fully convinced of the errors of the church of Rome. To make amends for his falling off, he now openly and strenuously did all he could to make converts to protestantism, and was pretty successful in his endeavours. These proceedings occasioned his second imprisonment, but he had his life offered him if he would recant again. This proposal he rejected with disdain, saying, that he scorned life upon such terms. Being asked why he would obstinately persist in his opinions and leave his wife and children in distress, he replied, I shall not leave them in distress; I have recommended them to the care of an excellent trustee. What trustee? said the person who had asked the question, with some surprise: to which Faninus answered, Jesus Christ is the trustee I mean, and I think I could not commit them to the care of a better. On the day of execution he appeared remarkably cheerful, which one observing, said, it is strange you should appear so merry upon such an occasion, when Jesus Christ himself, just before his death, was in such agonies, that he sweated blood and water. To which Faninus replied; Christ sustained all manner of pangs and conflicts, with hell and death, on our accounts; and thus, by his sufferings, freed those who really believe in him from the fear of them. He was then strangled, and his body being burnt to ashes, they were scattered about by the wind.

Dominicus, a learned soldier, having read several controversial writings, became a zealous protestant, and retiring to Placentia, he preached the gospel in its utmost purity, to a very considerable congregation. At the conclusion of his sermon one day, he said, "If the congregation will attend to-morrow, I will give them a description of Anti-christ, and paint him out in his proper colours."

A vast concourse of people attended the next day, but just as Dominicus was beginning his sermon, a civil magistrate went up to the pulpit, and took him into custody. He readily submitted; but as he went along with the magistrate, made use of this expression: I wonder the devil hath let me alone so long. When he was brought to examination, this question was put to him: Will you renounce your doctrines? To which he replied: My doctrines! I maintain no doctrines of my own; what I preach are the doctrines of Christ, and for those I will forfeit my blood, and even think myself happy to suffer for the sake of my Redeemer. Every method was taken to make him recant from his faith, and embrace the errors of the church of Rome; but when persuasions and menaces were found ineffectual, he was sentenced to death, and hanged in the market-place.

Galeacius, a protestant gentleman, who resided near the castle of St. Angelo, was apprehended on account of his faith. Great endeavours being used by his friends he recanted, and subscribed to several of the superstitious doctrines propagated by the church of Rome. Becoming, however, sensible of his error, he publicly renounced his recantation. Being apprehended for this, he was condemned to be burnt, and agreeable to the order, was chained to a stake, where he was left several hours before the fire was put to the faggots, in order that his wife, relations, and friends, who surrounded him, might induce him to give up his opinions. Galeacius, however, retained his constancy of mind, and entreated the executioner to put fire to the wood that was to burn him. This at length he did, and Galeacius was soon consumed in the flames, which burnt with amazing rapidity and deprived him of sensation in a few minutes.

Soon after this gentleman's death, a great number of protestants were put to death in various parts of Italy, on account of their faith, giving a sure proof of their sincerity in their martyrdoms.

_An account of the Persecutions of Calabria._

In the 14th century, many of the Waldenses of Pragela and Dauphiny, emigrated to Calabria, and settling some waste lands, by the permission of the nobles of that country, they soon, by the most industrious cultivation, made several wild and barren spots appear with all the beauties of verdure and fertility.

The Calabrian lords were highly pleased with their new subjects and tenants, as they were honest, quiet, and industrious; but the priests of the country exhibited several negative complaints against them; for not being able to accuse them of anything bad which they did do, they founded accusations on what they did not do, and charged them,

With not being Roman catholics.

With not making any of their boys priests.

With not making any of their girls nuns.

With not going to mass.

With not giving wax tapers to their priests as offerings.

With not going on pilgrimages.

With not bowing to images.

The Calabrian lords, however, quieted the priests, by telling them that these people were extremely harmless; that they gave no offence to the Roman catholics, and cheerfully paid the tithes to the priests, whose revenues were considerably increased by their coming into the country, and who, of consequence, ought to be the last persons to complain of them.

Things went on tolerably well after this for a few years, during which the Waldenses formed themselves into two corporate towns, annexing several villages to the jurisdiction of them. At length, they sent to Geneva for two clergymen; one to preach in each town, as they determined to make a public profession of their faith. Intelligence of this affair being carried to the pope, Pius the Fourth, he determined to exterminate them from Calabria.

To this end he sent cardinal Alexandrino, a man of very violent temper and a furious bigot, together with two monks, to Calabria, where they were to act as inquisitors. These authorized persons came to St. Xist, one of the towns built by the Waldenses, and having assembled the people told them, that they should receive no injury or violence, if they would accept of preachers appointed by the pope; but if they would not, they should be deprived both of their properties and lives; and that their intentions might be known, mass should be publicly said that afternoon, at which they were ordered to attend.

The people of St. Xist, instead of attending mass, fled into the woods, with their families, and thus disappointed the cardinal and his coadjutors. The cardinal then proceeded to La Garde, the other town belonging to the Waldenses, where, not to be served as he had been at St. Xist, he ordered the gates to be locked, and all avenues guarded. The same proposals were then made to the inhabitants of La Garde, as had previously been offered to those of St. Xist, but with this additional piece of artifice: the cardinal assured them that the inhabitants of St. Xist had immediately come into his proposals, and agreed that the pope should appoint them preachers. This falsehood succeeded; for the people of La Garde, thinking what the cardinal had told them to be the truth, said they would exactly follow the example of their brethren at St. Xist.

The cardinal having gained his point by deluding the people of one town, sent for troops of soldiers, with a view to murder those of the other. He, accordingly, despatched the soldiers into the woods, to hunt down the inhabitants of St. Xist like wild beasts, and gave them strict orders to spare neither age nor sex, but to kill all they came near. The troops entered the woods, and many fell a prey to their ferocity, before the Waldenses were properly apprised of their design. At length, however, they determined to sell their lives as dear as possible, when several conflicts happened, in which the half-armed Waldenses performed prodigies of valour, and many were slain on both sides. The greatest part of the troops being killed in the different rencontres, the rest were compelled to retreat, which so enraged the cardinal, that he wrote to the viceroy of Naples for reinforcements.

The viceroy immediately ordered a proclamation to be made throughout all the Neapolitan territories, that all outlaws, deserters, and other proscribed persons should be surely pardoned for their respective offences, on condition of making a campaign against the inhabitants of St. Xist, and continuing under arms till those people were exterminated.

Many persons of desperate fortunes, came in upon this proclamation, and being formed into light companies, were sent to scour the woods, and put to death all they could meet with of the reformed religion. The viceroy himself likewise joined the cardinal, at the head of a body of regular forces; and, in conjunction, they did all they could to harass the poor people in the woods. Some they caught and hanged up upon trees, cut down boughs and burnt them, or ripped them open and left their bodies to be devoured by wild beasts, or birds of prey. Many they shot at a distance, but the greatest number they hunted down by way of sport. A few hid themselves in caves, but famine destroyed them in their retreat; and thus all these poor people perished, by various means, to glut the bigoted malice of their merciless persecutors.

The inhabitants of St. Xist were no sooner exterminated, than those of La Garde engaged the attention of the cardinal and viceroy.

It was offered, that if they should embrace the Roman catholic persuasion, themselves and families should not be injured, but their houses and properties should be restored, and none would be permitted to molest them; but, on the contrary, if they refused this mercy, (as it was termed) the utmost extremities would be used, and the most cruel deaths the certain consequence of their non-compliance.

Notwithstanding the promises on one side, and menaces on the other, these worthy people unanimously refused to renounce their religion, or embrace the errors of popery. This exasperated the cardinal and viceroy so much, that 30 of them were ordered to be put immediately to the rack, as a terror to the rest.

Those who were put to the rack were treated with such severity, that several died under the tortures; one Charlin, in particular, was so cruelly used, that his belly burst, his bowels came out, and he expired in the greatest agonies. These barbarities, however, did not answer the purposes for which they were intended; for those who remained alive after the rack, and those who had not felt the rack, remained equally constant in their faith, and boldly declared, that no tortures of body, or terrors of mind, should ever induce them to renounce their God, or worship images.

Several were then, by the cardinal's order, stripped stark naked, and whipped to death with iron rods; and some were hacked to pieces with large knives; others were thrown down from the top of a large tower, and many were covered over with pitch, and burnt alive.

One of the monks who attended the cardinal, being naturally of a savage and cruel disposition, requested of him that he might shed some of the blood of these poor people with his own hands; when his request being granted, the barbarous man took a large sharp knife, and cut the throats of fourscore men, women, and children, with as little remorse as a butcher would have killed so many sheep. Every one of these bodies were then ordered to be quartered, the quarters placed upon stakes, and then fixed in different parts of the country, within a circuit of 30 miles.

The four principal men of La Garde were hanged, and the clergyman was thrown from the top of his church steeple. He was terribly mangled, but not quite killed by the fall; at which time the viceroy passing by, said, is the dog yet living? Take him up, and give him to the hogs, when, brutal as this sentence may appear, it was executed accordingly.

Sixty women were racked so violently, that the cords pierced their arms and legs quite to the bone; when, being remanded to prison, their wounds mortified, and they died in the most miserable manner. Many others were put to death by various cruel means; and if any Roman catholic, more compassionate than the rest, interceded for any of the reformed, he was immediately apprehended, and shared the same fate as a favourer of heretics.

The viceroy being obliged to march back to Naples, on some affairs of moment which required his presence, and the cardinal being recalled to Rome, the marquis of Butane was ordered to put the finishing stroke to what they had begun; which he at length effected, by acting with such barbarous rigour, that there was not a single person of the reformed religion left living in all Calabria.

Thus were a great number of inoffensive and harmless people deprived of their possessions, robbed of their property, driven from their homes, and, at length, murdered by various means, only because they would not sacrifice their consciences to the superstitions of others, embrace idolatrous doctrines which they abhorred, and accept of teachers whom they could not believe. Tyranny is of three kinds, viz., that which enslaves the person, that which seizes the property, and that which prescribes and dictates to the mind. The two first sorts may be termed civil tyranny, and have been practised by arbitrary sovereigns in all ages, who have delighted in tormenting the persons, and stealing the properties of their unhappy subjects. But the third sort, viz. prescribing and dictating to the mind, may be called ecclesiastical tyranny: and this is the worst kind of tyranny, as it includes the other two sorts; for the Romish clergy not only do torture the bodies and seize the effects of those they persecute, but take the lives, torment the minds, and, if possible, would tyrannize over the souls of the unhappy victims.

_Account of the Persecutions in the Valleys of Piedmont._

Many of the Waldenses, to avoid the persecutions to which they were continually subjected in France, went and settled in the valleys of Piedmont, where they increased exceedingly, and flourished very much for a considerable time.

Though they were harmless in their behaviour, inoffensive in their conversation, and paid tithes to the Roman clergy, yet the latter could not be contented, but wished to give them some disturbance; they, accordingly, complained to the archbishop of Turin, that the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont were heretics, for these reasons:

1. That they did not believe in the doctrines of the church of Rome.

2. That they made no offerings or prayers for the dead.

3. That they did not go to mass.

4. That they did not confess, and receive absolution.

5. That they did not believe in purgatory, or pay money to get the souls of their friends out of it.

Upon these charges the archbishop ordered a persecution to be commenced, and many fell martyrs to the superstitious rage of the priests and monks.

At Turin, one of the reformed had his bowels torn out, and put in a basin before his face, where they remained in his view till he expired. At Revel, Catelin Girard being at the stake, desired the executioner to give him a stone; which he refused, thinking that he meant to throw it at somebody; but Girard assuring him that he had no such design, the executioner complied; when Girard, looking earnestly at the stone, said, When it is in the power of a man to eat and digest this solid stone, the religion for which I am about to suffer shall have an end, and not before. He then threw the stone on the ground, and submitted cheerfully to the flames. A great many more of the reformed were oppressed, or put to death, by various means, till the patience of the Waldenses being tired out, they flew to arms in their own defence, and formed themselves into regular bodies.

Exasperated at this, the bishop of Turin procured a number of troops and sent against them; but in most of the skirmishes and engagements the Waldenses were successful, which partly arose from their being better acquainted with the passes of the valleys of Piedmont than their adversaries, and partly from the desperation with which they fought; for they well knew, if they were taken, they should not be considered as prisoners of war, but tortured to death as heretics.

At length, Philip the seventh, duke of Savoy, and supreme lord of Piedmont, determined to interpose his authority, and stop these bloody wars, which so greatly disturbed his dominions. He was not willing to disoblige the pope, or affront the archbishop of Turin; nevertheless, he sent them both messages, importing, that he could not any longer tamely see his dominions overrun with troops, who were directed by priests instead of officers, and commanded by prelates instead of generals; nor would he suffer his country to be depopulated, while he himself had not been even consulted upon the occasion.

The priests, finding the resolution of the duke, did all they could to prejudice his mind against the Waldenses; but the duke told them, that though he was unacquainted with the religious tenets of these people, yet he had always found them quiet, faithful, and obedient, and therefore he determined they should be no longer persecuted.

The priests now had recourse to the most palpable and absurd falsehoods: they assured the duke that he was mistaken in the Waldenses for they were a wicked set of people, and highly addicted to intemperance, uncleanness, blasphemy, adultery, incest, and many other abominable crimes; and that they were even monsters in nature, for their children were born with black throats, with four rows of teeth, an bodies all over hairy.

The duke was not so devoid of common sense as to give credit to what the priests said, though they affirmed in the most solemn manner the truth of their assertions. He, however, sent twelve very learned and sensible gentlemen into the Piedmontese valleys, to examine into the real characters of the inhabitants.

These gentlemen, after travelling through all their towns and villages, and conversing with people of every rank among the Waldenses returned to the duke, and gave him the most favourable account of those people; affirming, before the faces of the priests who villified them, that they were harmless, inoffensive, loyal, friendly, industrious, and pious: that they abhorred the crimes of which they were accused; and that, should an individual, through his depravity, fall into any of those crimes, he would, by their laws, be punished in the most exemplary manner. With respect to the children, the gentlemen said, the priests had told the most gross and ridiculous falsities, for they were neither born with black throats, teeth in their mouths, nor hair on their bodies, but were as fine children as could be seen. "And to convince your highness of what we have said, (continued one of the gentlemen), we have brought twelve of the principal male inhabitants, who are come to ask pardon in the name of the rest, for having taken up arms without your leave, though even in their own defence, and to preserve their lives from their merciless enemies. And we have likewise brought several women, with children of various ages, that your highness may have an opportunity of personally examining them as much as you please."

The duke, after accepting the apology of the twelve delegates, conversing with the women, and examining the children, graciously dismissed them. He then commanded the priests, who had attempted to mislead him, immediately to leave the court; and gave strict orders, that the persecution should cease throughout his dominions.

The Waldenses had enjoyed peace many years, when Philip, the seventh duke of Savoy, died, and his successor happened to be a very bigoted papist. About the same time, some of the principal Waldenses proposed, that their clergy should preach in public, that every one might know the purity of their doctrines: for hitherto they had preached only in private, and to such congregations as they well knew to consist of none but persons of the reformed religion.

On hearing these proceedings, the new duke was greatly exasperated, and sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were with him; that they had secured all the passes, were well armed, and resolutely determined to defend themselves; and, with respect to flaying them alive, he said, that every skin belonging to those people would cost him the lives of a dozen of his subjects.

Terrified at this information, the duke withdrew the troops, determining to act not by force, but by stratagem. He, therefore, ordered rewards for the taking of any of the Waldenses, who might be found straying from their places of security; and these, when taken, were either flayed alive, or burnt.

The Waldenses had hitherto only had the new Testament and a few books of the Old, in the Waldensian tongue; but they determined now to have the sacred writings complete in their own language. They, therefore, employed a Swiss printer to furnish them with a complete edition of the Old and New Testaments in the Waldensian tongue, which he did for the consideration of fifteen hundred crowns of gold, paid him by those pious people.

Pope Paul the third, a bigoted papist, ascending the pontifical chair, immediately solicited the parliament of Turin to persecute the Waldenses, as the most pernicious of all heretics.

The parliament readily agreed, when several were suddenly apprehended and burnt by their order. Among these was Bartholomew Hector, a bookseller and stationer of Turin, who was brought up a Roman catholic, but having read some treatises written by the reformed clergy, he was fully convinced of the errors of the church of Rome; yet his mind was, for some time, wavering, and he hardly knew what persuasion to embrace.

At length, however, he fully embraced the reformed religion, and was apprehended, as we have already mentioned, and burnt by order of the parliament of Turin.

A consultation was now held by the parliament of Turin, in which it was agreed to send deputies to the valleys of Piedmont, with the following propositions:

1. That if the Waldenses would come to the bosom of the church of Rome, and embrace the Roman catholic religion, they should enjoy their houses, properties and lands, and live with their families, without the least molestation.

2. That to prove their obedience, they should send twelve of their principal persons, with all their ministers and schoolmasters, to Turin, to be dealt with at discretion.

3. That the pope, the king of France, and the duke of Savoy, approved of, and authorized the proceedings of the parliament of Turin, upon this occasion.

4. That if the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont, refused to comply with these propositions, persecution should ensue, and certain death be their portion.

To each of these propositions the Waldenses nobly replied in the following manner, answering them respectively:

1. That no considerations whatever should make them renounce their religion.

2. That they would never consent to commit their best and most respectable friends, to the custody and discretion of their worst and most inveterate enemies.

3. That they valued the approbation of the King of kings, who reigns in heaven, more than any temporal authority.

4. That their souls were more precious than their bodies.

These pointed and spirited replies greatly exasperated the parliament of Turin; they continued, with more avidity than ever, to kidnap such Waldenses as did not act with proper precaution, who were sure to suffer the most cruel deaths. Among these, it unfortunately happened, that they got hold of Jeffery Varnagle, minister of Angrogne, whom they committed to the flames as a heretic.

They then solicited a considerable body of troops of the king of France, in order to exterminate the reformed entirely from the valleys of Piedmont; but just as the troops were going to march, the protestant princes of Germany interposed, and threatened to send troops to assist the Waldenses, if they should be attacked. The king of France, not caring to enter into a war, remanded the troops, and sent word to the parliament of Turin, that he could not spare any troops at present to act in Piedmont. The members of the parliament were greatly vexed at this disappointment, and the persecution gradually ceased, for as they could only put to death such of the reformed as they caught by chance, and as the Waldenses daily grew more cautious, their cruelty was obliged to subside, for want of objects on whom to exercise it.

After the Waldenses had enjoyed a few years tranquility, they were again disturbed by the following means: the pope's nuncio coming to Turin to the duke of Savoy upon business, told that prince, he was astonished he had not yet either rooted out the Waldenses from the valleys of Piedmont entirely, or compelled them to enter into the bosom of the church of Rome. That he could not help looking upon such conduct with a suspicious eye, and that he really thought him a favourer of those heretics, and should report the affair accordingly to his holiness the pope.

Stung by this reflection, and unwilling to be misrepresented to the pope, the duke determined to act with the greatest severity, in order to show his zeal, and to make amends for former neglect by future cruelty. He, accordingly, issued express orders for all the Waldenses to attend mass regularly on pain of death. This they absolutely refused to do, on which he entered the Piedmontese valleys, with a formidable body of troops, and began a most furious persecution, in which great numbers were hanged, drowned, ripped open, tied to trees, and pierced with prongs, thrown from precipices, burnt, stabbed, racked to death, crucified with their heads downwards, worried by dogs, &c.

These who fled had their goods plundered, and their houses burnt to the ground: they were particularly cruel when they caught a minister or a schoolmaster, whom they put to such exquisite tortures, as are almost incredible to conceive. If any whom they took seemed wavering in their faith, they did not put them to death, but sent them to the galleys, to be made converts by dint of hardships.