out of the land. The Duke of Alva told them, that he would have it, though it did ruinate all the land; but, if he saw them to do their best to pay it, he would deal favourably with them. But he said, that it was against the King's honour, if they should not pay it, seeing it was his pleasure to require it. And now did the inquisition imprison and execute many of the richer sort, as well papists as of the reformed church; and, if they were rich, there was no escaping for them. And whosoever was found to have any hand in way of suit and petition to have the tenth penny to be remitted, they were adjudged to have com"mitted high treason against God and the King; and all these must forfeit life and goods to the King, and not any of their children to enjoy one penny-worth of the same, but (poor orphans) they must beg their bread. And some, that had been buried certain months, they caused to be digged up, and hanged on the gallows, and some to be burned, because they had not the sacrament and confessed before their death; but it was, because he would confiscate their goods to the King: Yea, when these insatiable gold-thirsty and blood-thirsty wretches wanted colour to cover their injustice and cruelty, they had their officious imps (false witnesses) suborned by Jezabel, to get Naboth's vineyard; witness Martin Hutton, who was one of the inquisitors clerks, and (being committed to prison) did acknowledge that he had made many false testimonies against sundry rich persons, some were of the reformed church. Here might fitly be brought in the hundred merchants of Granada, who were of the Roman religion, and were never other: What pretence had he to cause them to be murdered all in one night, and then presently to command all their goods to be brought to his treasury or exchequer, whose estate was worth more than twentyeight hundred thousand pounds sterling? Now, as this tyrant was a devourer and destroyer of the lives of men, so he did presume to usurp further, not only upon civil ordinances, but upon the things of God; so that those, that were married in the reformed church, he forced to be married again; and, if they were rich, he took them from their husbands, and gave them to his soldiers to make prizes of them: Those, that were baptised in the reformed church, he compelled to be baptised again, contrary to God's word, and to the decree of the ancient coun cils: So intolerable were the burdens that this cruel Pharaoh laid, so excessive was his cruelty, that he filled all places with blood, blood touching blood, as the prophet speaks. For in small towns he executed fifty, and in great towns two-hundred and three-hundred, or fourhundred. And in places, as men travelled from one town to another, they might see many that his soldiers had hung up on trees to death, and, some of them were worth eighty-thousand guldens, and some less: Yea, this tyrant did confiscate so much lands and goods, as, by his account sent into Spain, did amount to eight tons of money sterling, besides the many thousands that he and his soldiers had. All the money, that he did exact out of this land in six years, did amount to more than fifty millions of gold. And, if any were known to have any thing,' that did belong to any that were put to death, and had not brought it to the knowledge of the inquisition, they did lose both life and goods; yea, the sixteenth of February, 1566, he gave sentence, in his court at them. They said, All of them. So, the magistrates seeing them so earnest against the Spaniards, they jointly took their arms, and killed and took prisoners all them that were in the town, and with their ordnance they shot at his ships, where the Spaniards were, and they made away. And, of those that were taken, there were the names of about eighty, that they had in writing from Duke d'Alva, that dwelt in the Island, that they should put to death +. So those of the Brill sent their soldiers with speed to help them. And shortly the Prince of Orange came with forces, and defended them; and some other towns, seeing the cruelty of the Spaniards, forsook the Spaniard, and joined with them, and took the Prince of Orange to be their Protector; yet the states, notwithstanding, did remain in obedience to the king some seven years after. Again, it is further worthy to be noted, that these provinces did three times send to the king their noblemen, but could obtain no mercy; and many more times they went to the Princess of Parma, and made their humble petition for redress of their oppression, but could not obtain any favour; then they made friends to the renowned Queen of England, and to the Princes of Germany, and to the Emperor, who did earnestly intreat, by their ambassadors, for them. The King of Spain answered their ambassadors with these words; he bade them tell their masters, 'That they should meddle with their own subjects, and not with his, for he knew well enough how to rule his subjects, without their counsel.' Now, when our Queen's majesty found his unreasonableness and cruelty, then, and not before, she assisted them with arms. His own son, Prince Charles, did intreat for them, that he would please to let them have their laws and privileges, and that they might not be so oppressed; and, withal, he told his father, that those countries did belong to him, and that they were given him at his baptism; for the which, his father sent him to prison, and he never came out again. If the Lord would not have forgot what Amalek did, long after, for smiting the weakest and hindmost of his people, how may we, in equity, forget the infinite murders and spoils, this cruel tyrant hath executed, where ever he hath prevailed? And who can forget, in special, that bloody attempt against ourselves, in the year 1588. If I should trace this tyrant from place to place, I should run in infinitum, having made the name of Christianity hateful, by his cruelty, amongst the Heathens, that know not God further than the light of nature; for it is confessed by the Spaniards themselves, that some of the chief of the Indians, who were to be burnt to death, being told of heaven and hell, they asked, Whither the Spaniards went when they died? It was answered, To heaven: 'Oh, then,' said they, 6 we will never come, where the Spaniards are.' But, not to run so far, I will rest content to keep within the hounds I chiefly intended concerning these countries. When the citizens of Leyden were in great extremity, by reason of a long siege, the Spaniards proffering conditions of peace, if so be they would yield up the city and themselves to them, they re +He had appointed those to be executed, because they were the chief that stood against the payment of the tenth penny. + Anno 1575 Marplam, in his Chronicle, Anno 1567. turned answer, 'Nor while they had a right-hand to hold a sword, or a left to eat; but, if they should be driven to fall into their hands, they would rather burn the city, and drown themselves, than to submit to them, of whose perfidiousness they had had so lamentable experience: And, when some of the citizens pressed a yielding, in respect of the extremity of famine, a burgo-master, called Peter Adrianson, said, Loving friends, I confess the famine is great, and that some die for want of food; yet rather let us agree to eat up one another, as it shall fall by lot; begin with me first, and divide me amongst you,' At Antwerp, the Spaniards, by the appointment of their governor, did come into the city in battle order, and marched up and down their streets, and shot into their houses, and made a tumultuous noise, as if they had been so many devils, for one day and two nights, and took the keys from the magistrates, and set watch at the ports; whereby they put the citizens in so great fear, that many women with child fell in travel, and some died with fear: And they went, by twelve or twenty, into the best houses, and commanded them to prepare them the best chear, as boiled and rost, and other dainty dishes, as they list to call for; and, besides beer, they would have at least two sorts of wine. And all the chiefest citizens houses had at least ten of these guests, And they all cried out for money, and said, that they would have fifteen months pay, before they went out of the city, of them; and the magistrates told them, that they would procure them, in cloth, and apparel, and money, the sum; but they all cried out for money, and that money they would have, before they went away; so at the last the magistrates got the money, which did amount to four-hundred thousand guldens. And the charge they were at, which these companions did cost the citizens, was six-hundred pounds sterling the day: and thus they were oppressed with them twenty-eight days; in which time they had made them all rich sutes, some of sattin and velvet, and some of cloth of gold; and one of them had a cushion of velvet, with these words in letters of gold, 'I am the Dutchman's Bridewell-master.' And thus they got rid of them, for the present. And about two years after they came again, and then they used the citizens much more cruelly; for these devils did bring straw, and set it on fire, and put it into the houses; whereby they set nine rich streets on fire, and burnt them, with many rich and costly goods, and rifled the citizens of all their rich and costly jewels, and silverworks, with their money; and three days did they torment the inhabitants for money; and in this time there were murdered of the citizens above four thousand. The money they took at that time is reckoned for more than forty tons of gold, beside the jewels; and the loss they had by fire was as much as the rest. And thus was the best city of merchants in Europe ruinated. Divers things being manifested of the Spaniards cruelty, I will add one instance of their treachery, and that of a famous person to his nearest familiars, yea, when he pretended sweetest familiarity and friendship: Pope Alexander the Sixth, a Spaniard by birth, invited divers nobles and cardinals to a banquet, with a purpose to poison them all. The meetest instrument he made choice of, to effect this, The pope was a Spaniard, one Cæsar Borgia, his sworn servant. shewed himself wonderful pleasant, to avoid suspicion, and drank a carouse to them all, willing his trusty servant to fill from such a bottle he knew well; which he did very effectually to the pope himself, as well as to the rest. After the company was departed, the pope, perceiving an alteration in himself, what was done, and that he must die now also, said to Borgia, This is a right Spanish trick. It is written of them, that they are so expert in these exploits, that, if Judas himself were alive, he might go to them to school. THE STRANGLING AND DEATH OF THE GREAT TURK, AND HIS TWO SONS; With the strange Preservation and Deliverance of his Uncle Mustapha from perishing in prison, with hunger and thirst, the young Emperor, not three days before, having so commanded. A WONDERFUL STORY, And the like never heard of in our modern times; and yet all to manifest the glory and providence of God, IN THE PRESERVATION OF CHRISTENDOM IN THESE TROUBLESOME TIMES. Printed this Fifteenth of July. Printed at London, by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer, and are to be sold at their shops at the Exchange, and in Pope's-head palace. 1642. Octavo, containing seventeen pages. Haud sic magni conditor orbis, Quæ sint, Quæ fuerint, Veniantque, Uno mentis cernit in ictu, Quem, quia respicit omnia solus, Verum possis dicere solem. Boetius Metro. 3 Lib. 5. The Printer to the Reader. I am very loth to trouble you with a preface, yet, at this time, you must pardon me; for it is for God's cause, to exemplify his glory and providence, that hath put an hook in the nostrils of Leviathan, and kept him from devouring poor Christians, who yet are in arms to devour one another; that hath thrown a stone from heaven, to strike the golden image to powder, which was stretching itself to overlook and overtop the provinces of Europe; that hath put an ax to the great tree, and felled it at a blow, which was beginning to overspread the earth, and be a shadow for the beasts of the field. What, all Christendom almost in arms, and yet the Turk not to take the advantage, but to be pulled short by the hand of God, and thrown backward into a grave? Where are your dreaming gazettes and coranto's now, that talked of such formidable preparation, and so many hundred-thousand in an army? Where is the threatening of Poland, and terrifying the Cossacks with so many thousand Tartarians? Where is their coming into Hungary, to begin a new war there? What, all hushed, and quiet? Why, then, thine be the honour, O God, and all power, and Majesty, and goodness be attributed unto thee; for thou hast taken pity upon our afflictions, and wilt set upright thine own cause, when the children of Edom and inhabitants of Babylon, cry, 'Down with the walls of Jerusalem', and insult with clapping their hands, to see the enemies of the gospel thrive in their outrageousness. This, then, is all I would say unto you, by the way of introduction, to give God, the praise, that the great Turk is dead so opportunely, whereby there is hope, that Europe shall be preserved from their invasion, and those affrightings. And the same God, that hath compassionated the general distress of Christendom, take pity likewise on the particular passions of princes, that they rage not in their revenges, nor run too violently forward in their race of blood and destruction, but admit of peace and pacification to the eternal memory of their virtues and worthiness. THOUGH HOUGH I need not speak a word of former Emperors of Turkey, or their actions, or their lives, or their Alcoran; from whence the special impositions on their government are, first, to erect some famous monument toward the exaltation of their religion. Secondly, and perform some memorable enterprise for the enlarging their empire; yet must I name Mahomet the Third, to keep myself closer to the story, This Mahomet that you may know the several passages in the same. left two sons behind him, Achmet and Mustapha; Achmet, at fifteen years old, was chosen Emperor, and lived some fifteen years longer, or thereabouts; and although, by reason of the peace between the Emperor Rodolphus of Germany, and himself, as also the contract between the Polonians and himself, wherein those Antiqua Fadera were renewed, |
