But all these persecutions were far exceeded in cru- elty hj' those which took place in the time of Louis XIV. It cannot be pleasant to any man's feelings, who has the least humanity, to recite these dreadful scenes of horror, cruelty, and devastation ; but to show what superstition, bigotry, and fanaticism are capable of pro- ducing, and for the purpose of holding up the spirit of persecution to contempt, we shall here give as con- cise a detail as possible. The troopers, soldiers, and dragoons went into the Protestants' houses, where they marred and defaced their household stuff"; broke their looking-glasses and other utensils; threw about their corn and wine; sold what they could not destroy; and thus, in four or live days, the Protestants were strijiped of above a million of money. But this was not the worst: they turned the dining-rooms of gentlemen into stables for horses, and treated the owners of the houses where they quartered with the greatest cruelty, lashing them about, not suffering them to eat or drink. When they saw the blood and sweat run down their faces they sluiced them with water, and, putting over their heads kettle-drums turned upside down, they made a continual din upon them, till these unhappy creatures lost their sense. At Negreplisse, a town near Montau- ban, they hung up Isaac Favin, a Protestant citizen of that place, h\ his arm-pits, and tormented him a whole night by pinching and tearing off his tlesh with pincers. They made a great fire round about a boy twelve years old, who, with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, cried out, "jNIy God, help me!'' and when they found the youth resolved to die rather than renounce his religion, they snatched him from the lire just as he was on the point of being burned. In several places the soldiers applied red-hot irons to the hands and feet of men and tlie breasts of women. At Nantes they hung up sev- eral women and maids by their feet, and others by their arm-pits, and thus exposed them to public view stark-naked. They bound suckling mothers to posts, and let their sucking infants lie languishing in their sight for several days and nights, crying and gasping for life. Some they bound before a great tire, and being half- roasted let them go — a punishment worse than death. Amid a thousand hideous cries, they hung up men and women by the hair, and some by their feet, on hooks in chimneys, and smoked them Avith wisps of wet hay fill they were suffocated. They tied some under the arms with ropes, and plunged them again and again into wells; they bound others, put them to the torture, and with a funnel tilled them with wine till the fumes of it took away their reason, when they made them say they consentetl to be Catholics. They stripped tliem naked, and, after a thousand indignities, stuck them with pins and needles from iicad to foot. In some places they tied fathers and husbands to bed-posts, and before their eyes ravished their wives and daughters with impunity. They blew up men and women with bellows till they
PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS 970 PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS
burst them. If aiij', to escape these barbarities, endeav- ored to save tlicmselves by flight, they pursued them into the iicUls and woods, where they shot at tliem like •wild beasts, and prohibited them from departing the kingdom (a iruclry never practiced by Nero or Diocle- tian) upon pain of conflscation of eft'ects, the galleys, the lash, and perpetual imprisonment. With these scenes of desolation and horror the popisli clergy feasted their eyes, and made only matter of laughter and sport of them.
3. Enfihind has also been the seat of much persecu- tion. Though Wickliffe, the first Reformer, died peace- fully in his bed, yet such was tlie malice and spirit of persecuting I!ome that his bones were ordered to be dug up and cast upon a dunghill. The remains of this ex- cellent man were accordingly dug out of the grave, where they had lain undisturbed forty-four years. His bones were l)urned, and the ashes cast into an adjoining brook. In the rciL'u of Henry VIII, liilney, Bayman, and many other Reformers, were burned : but when queen iSIary came to the throne the most severe perse- cutions took place. Hooper and Rogers were burned in a slow fire. Saunders was cruelly tormented a long time at the stake before he expired. Taylor was put into a barrel of pitch, and fire set to it. Eight illustri- ous persons, among whom was Ferrar, bishop of St. David's, were sought out, and burned by the infamous Bonner, in a few days. Sixty-seven persons were this year, A. D. looo, burned, among whom were the famous Protestants Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, and Philpot. In the following year, 155G, eighty-five persons were burned. Women suffered; and one, in the flames, which burst her womb, being near her time of delivery, a child fell from her into the fire, which being snatched out by some of the observers more humane than the rest, the magis- trate ordered the babe to be again thrown into the fire and burned. Tluis even the unborn child was burned for heresy ! O (jod, wliat is human nature when left to itself! Alas, dispositions ferocious as infernal then reign and usurp the heart of man ! The queen erected a commission court, v.hich was followed by the destruc- tion of near eighty more. Upon the whole, the number of those who suffered death for the reformed religion in this reign were no less than 277 persons; of whom were five bisliops, twenty-one clergymen, eiglit gentlemen, eiglity-four tradesmen, one hundred husljandmen, labor- ers, and servants, fifty-five women, and four children. Besides these, there were fifty-four more under prosecu- tion, seven of whom were whipped, and sixteen perished in prison.