The story of our Christianity; an account of the struggles, persecutions, wars, and victories of Christians of all times

Front matter

GassBK I 5 & GoEyrigMU

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Copyi-ightEd 1893.

Preface

ROM one point of view it may be said that Christians have no business to be fighting ; from another, that they may expect to be occupied with it most of the time. Their Master was the Prince of Peace ; but He told them that He came not to bring peace on earthy but a sword. There was an "irrepressible conflict " between His ideas and those which then prevailed, and are still powerful, on earth ; and thus the battle of Armageddon, in one shape or another, will go on until the kingdoms of this world — and the republics no less — really and thoroughly become His.

On the part of His people this conflict, as employing the arm of flesh, has been both passive and active. Under their Pagan persecutors the early Christians were as sheep led to the slaughter, and yet they were no less contending for the faith, which thus, within three centuries, outwardly and nominally overcame the world. In later days it was often possible and right for the oppressed to gather together, and, opposing violence by violence, to win deliverance from oppression. In either case they stood for the most precious of human possessions, liberty of conscience, and vindicated the sacred right of thinking and acting, in the highest matters, according to what they believed to be God's will.

In this history of Persecutions and Religious Wars, it is intended to follow out the line of thought above indicated, and to acknowledge some of the greatest benefactions that have been bestowed, both in example and in accomplishment, by human beings upon their fellow-men.

The tale of the Maccabees furnishes a fit prelude to the long list of Christian conflicts. They were Jews, but in spirit and in life they were the ancestors of apostles and evangelists. With them, as afterwards, the Church was militant. Their story foreshadows that of any subsequent rising for religious freedom ; in doing and enduring they were the prototypes of those who since have stood and suffered for the faith of Christ.

6 PREFACE.

Acknowledgments of obligation are incidentally made in various parts of this volume, and may here be repeated more specifically. For Chapters I. and II. the apocryphal books of the Maccabees, and Dr. Raphall's "Post-Biblical History of the Jews," have been used. For Chapters II.-XL, the works of Neander, Milner, Milman, Gibbon, have been drawn upon. In the mediaeval portions, reference has been had to Mr. Lea's extremely valuable "History of the Inquisition," to Perrin's "History of the Albigenses," to Mr. E. H. Gillett's "Life and Times of Huss," and occasionally to Mr. Lecky and other writers. For those relating to England, Foxe, Green and Macaulay have been consulted. For the Huguenot wars, Dr. Hanna's pleasant volume has been chiefly followed, and that of Jonathan D^uncan in some cases. For the Netherlands, no other work, of course, can compete with Motley's immortal "Rise of the Dutch Republic." The history of persecutions and religious wars has hitherto been handled only in sections ; and while we do not pretend to have exhausted the subject — for which the labor of many }'ears and the compilation of many volumes would be required — it may be safely claimed that no previous volume in the English language has covered so many portions of this field, from the beginning of systematic persecution and resistance to the coming of a better day. May the lesson of so much bloodshed not be pointed in vain !

A MONOGRAPH

ON

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND CHARITY.

BY

BENJAMIN HARRISON.

"T IBERTY " has always been an enticing word — but a word of uncertain i— ' scope and the vaguest limitations. A great multitude of ever}' class and station has sung its praises ; but it has not been a full chorus, for one man's liberty is another man's limitation, and the latter drops out until the parts are changed. But the singers are more numerous, and the volume of song stronger and sweeter than ever before — they are catching the spirit of the Great Master; and, when the liberty to serve others has its proper esteem in our bills of right, the chorus will be full.

Men were not made to devour one another — the law of size and appetite regulates the intercourse of the jungle; but it is not the divine law of human intercourse. In one way or another, however, the law of strength and appetite has had a long day in human history. Men devoured each other; but they mostly selected, with epicurean relish, the things of a man that are finer than flesh.

We can understand the savage who kills to supply his table, and the king who kills to extend his dominions — but that one professed disciple of the gentle and loving Nazarene should slay or persecute another because he believed, or did not, that the Master gave the cup as well as the bread to all His followers, or that the bread was a symbol and not the actual body of the Lord, or received, or did not, any other of the articles of church or council, is to this generation, in America, the mystery of mysteries. We read the long gory story of religious intolerance and persecutions with amazed abhorrence — but we should not forget that even James and John, looking into the benign eyes of Jesus, asked, " Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them ? " If the Master had not been present, and James and John had been at the head of an established Church, it would have gone hard with the Samaritan villagers. The barbarians into whose hands Paul fell knew the uses of fire better. There is little wonder,

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but great shame, that when the Master was taken away and even His ^ord had gone into hiding, the professed disciples of Jesus should again need the rebuke, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." A propaganda by fire and sword is not the Lord's way of setting up a spiritual kingdom. Such a kingdom cannot hold a slave — free citizens only can enter it. There is a sense in which truth, both in the natural and spiritual world is intolerant. There is one God — there can be no compromise here ; but stripes and penalties are wholly irrelevant. Jeremy Taylor says : " Understanding being a thing wholly spiritual cannot be restrained, and, therefore, neither punished by corporal afflictions. It is in aliena Rcpublica — a matter of another world." The champion of error must not be denied his horse and lance if the champion of truth expects to be crowned or to receive the plaudits of the knightly company that surrounds the lists. It was not God's plan to catalogue for us every phase of doctrinal truth and error, and to mark them for our acceptance or rejection so plainly that we have only to read labels. In the spiritual world, as in the natural, there is much truth to be sought out — enough to give a life work to the undying.

" We limit not the truth of God,

To our poor reach of mind, By notions of our day and sect,

Crude, partial and confined ; No, let a new and better hope

Within our heart be stirred ; The Lord hath yet more light and truth

To break forth from His word."

Enough truth for right living and easy dying has been made plain — simple enough for the kindergartens. We do not disparage sects or creeds, but neither should be unduly multiplied, and the administration should not be with heat and rancor, but with humility and love. When the theologians, with flashing eyes and fierce gesticulations, cry "Away with Him !" there is great danger that the onlookers may conclude that the excised is in fellowship with the cross-bearer, though in fact it may be quite otherwise. Truth has been so much persecuted that people are quite apt to assume that what is persecuted is truth. A heresy trial ought not to be a hunt — the appetite for the chase should be indulged in the field, not in the council. The Tin Trumpet says :

B

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND CHARITY.

"The mutual rancor of conflicting sects is inversely as their distance from each other ; no one hating a Jew or a pagan half so much as a fellow-Christian who agrees with him in all but one unimportant point."

This was said long ago, and was then an exaggeration, but with more than a grain of truth. It has been less truly descriptive of the churches every decade since. The hard lines of intolerance and bigotry have given way, in the composite picture of the churches, to those of charity, and we are now in the dawn of the promised day when the picture shall no longer be composite, but single. Many now living can remember when a member of one denomination took great risk, if he worshipped with another, of hearing his own church arraigned. There is little risk now. He is likely to hear of truths of common acceptance — of the essentials of Christian doctrine, or of the rules of good living. There is not less love of the truth, but a more loving way of teaching it. " Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out ; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoria of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn." *

Men's hearts cannot be opened by a petard, nor the cloaks of error stripped from their shoulders by assault. A gentle knock at the postern is more likely to gain for truth admission and a domicile ; and the old fable should instruct us how to get the cloaks off. Heat and the hammer are not adapted to the crushing of error — they develop fibre. Living is much more persuasive than logic. Some people seem to think that religious truth is necessarily hard and angular — that no garment but a sheepskin is appropriate for it ; that it must be fired like a shell, and do its work by battering ; when, in fact, it is graceful, adaptable and attractive, worthy of crowns and purple robes, and does its work by transforming.

The World's Congress of Religions, now in session at Chicago, is a delightful expression of the tolerant spirit of the age. Jew and Moslem, Greek and Roman, the followers of Buddha and of Confucius, and the Protestant churches of every name, having first mostly abandoned the use of fire and the sword as church agencies, have now, in this land of free thought and free churches, assembled in convention upon a basis that promises harmony, viz , that each shall tell what he knows of his own church, of its doctrines and its work, and nothing of what he thinks he knows of other churches.

It is quite time that the strife as to which is the church should cease, while each approves itself to be a church of Jesus Christ by doing His work. None can be wholly proud of its history — neither its light nor its charity has been

* Burke. C

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full, but both are fuller than ever before in all the Christian churches. There has been an apostolic succession, and a Saint's family tree going back to the root of the stem of Jesse ; but only the Voice that called the twelve can call the roll .of their successors, and God only infallibly knows the names of the Saints. Reproaches for past lapses from Christian charity may well be forborne as to any church that has accepted in doctrine and in practice the full liberty of the individual to worship in the way of his choice, or not to worship at all, without burden or penalty ; provided that his teachings and practices do not invade his neighbor's liberty ; nor subvert morality, nor impair the security of life and property, nor disturb social order or the public peace. The question of the Pope's complicity in the assassination of Coligny, or of Calvin's in the burning of Servetus, ought not to limit our charity or respect for the followers of either. To imitate the faith and steadfastness of the martyrs, not to avenge them, is our work. God has wholly reserved to Himself the administration of that mysterious law that visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. Nor is it fair to judge men of the sixteenth century by the -light of the nineteenth. There has been but one man whose thoughts and life have not been outgrown.

Liberty, whether civil or religious, has necessary limitations — when it overruns it is license. The Supreme Court of the United States recently had under review an act of the Territory of Idaho, which provides that no polygamist, or < any person who teaches or encourages others to become such, or who is a member of any association that so teaches and counsels others, shall vote or hold office in the Territory. It was impeached upon the grounds that it prohibited the " free exercise" of religion, and that it established a religious test as a qualification for office. But the court unanimously sustained the law, holding that polygamy was a crime ; that " to call its advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind." The constitutions of many of the States contain the express provision that liberty of conscience shall not be construed to justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the State.

Nor should it be forgotten that any interference by the church with the civil rights or political opinions of its membership, otherwise than by argument or moral suasion, is a gross breach of the compact by which the church secures the protection of the State. No ecclesiastical threats, proscriptions or penalties can be allowed to affect or control the citizen in civil affairs. We have made these things secure in the United States. Popular government and an established

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND CHARITY.

church are incompatible ; and so when we broke from the crown, the church establishments were abandoned as of course, and a more helpful relation established between the churches and the State. This is a Christian nation not the less, but the more, that it has no church establishment.

No one thought of vindicating religion for the conscience of the individual till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity, by establishing a pure, spiritual and universal religion for all mankind, enjoined to render to Caesar only that which is Caesar's. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the Gospel for all men. No sooner was this religion adopted by the chief of the Roman Empire than it was shorn of its character of universality and enthralled by an unholy connection with the unholy state, and so it continued till the new nation — the least defiled with the barren scoffings of the eighteenth century ; the most general believer in Christianity of any people of that age ; the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest form — when it came to establish a government for the United States, refused to treat faith as a matter to be regulated by a corporate body, or having a headship in a monarch or a State

"Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained in Judea. It left the management of temporal things to the temporal power; but the American constitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal Government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul; and not from indifference btit that the infinite spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power." *

Of the happy results of this policy Mr. Bryce says :

"There are, moreover, other rancors besides those of social inequality whose absence from America brightens it to an European eye. There are no quarrels of churches and sects. Judah does not vex Ephraim, nor Ephraim envy Judah. No established Church looks down scornfully upon dissenters from the heights of its titles and endowments, and talks of them as hindrances in the way of its work. No dissenters pursue an established Church in a spirit of watchful jealousy, nor agitate for its overthrow. One is not offended by the contrast between the theory and the practice of a religion of peace, between professions of universal affection in pulpit addresses and forms of prayer, and the acrimony of clerical controversialists."

x Bancroft's History of the Constitution.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND CHARITY.

We have not attained, but we have progressed. In the year 1560 the Chancellor of France, in opening the States-General asked, "Cannot citizens of different beliefs live in harmony in the same State ? " Yes, at last. What Penn said of Holland is true of the Great Republic : "She cherished her people whatsoever were their opinions, as the reasonable stock of the country, the heads and hands of her trade and wealth, and making them easy on the main point, their conscience, she became great by them. This made her fill up with people and they filled her with riches and strength."

Indianapolis, Indiana, September, 1893.

ANTIOCHUS TAKING JERUSALEM.

.JP^QOOTEN TS.^5.4.

Preface,

Chapter I. Antiochus And The Jews

The Jews— Ptolemy Philopater— Judea Transferred to Syria — Heliodorus — Jason— Menelaus — Massacre in Jerusalem — The Temple Spoiled — Policy of the King— Popilius — Second Massacre : Cessation of Temple Worship — The Persecution— Eleazar— The Widow and her Seven Sons— The Revolt : Mattathias— Might Jews Fight on the Sabbath? .... 17-36

CHAPTER IL JUDAS, THE DELIVERER.

Apollonius and Seren Routed— Lysias Regent — Nicanor and Gorgias : Their Defeat— Timotheus and Bacchides Beaten : Battle of Bethsura : Recovery of Jerusalem — Fate of Antiochus — Activity of Judas — Folly of Joseph and Azariah— Defeat of Lysias : Peace — Campaigns of Judas— Siege of Acra — Another Invasion : The Elephants — Death of E'.eazar— Siege of Jerusalem — Judas Royal Governor — Death of Menelaus : Alcimus His Successor — Demetrius King — Bacchides— Alcimus and His Uncle : Nicanor: Peace and War — Nicanor's Blasphemy, Defeat, and Death— Embassy to Rome— Anger of the Jews— Judas' Last Battle : His Death, 37-63

Chapter III. The Age Of The Apostles

Non-resistance— Jewish Hostility — Causes of Persecution— Imperial and Popular Attacks — Nero: First Persecution — Deaths of St. Paul and St. Peter — St. James — Other Apostles — Domitian : Third Persecution, ......... 64-77

Chapter IV. Trajan And Ignatius

Ignatius : His Interview with Trajan — His Epistles : His Martyrdom— Pliny's Letter — Hadrian :

Chapter V. Harcus Aurelius, The Stoic

Character of the Emperor— Fourth Persecution — Polycarp : Letter of the Church at Smyrna —

Ptolemy and Lucius— Justin Martyr — Felicitas and Her Sons— The Thundering Legion, 93-106

Chapter VI. The Hartyrs Of Lyons

Letter of the Church at Lyons — Vettius— Blandina— Sanctus and Maturus — Biblias — Pothinus — Attalus— Alexander — Blandina and Ponticus— Humility of the Confessors— Symphorianus — Reign of Commodus, ........... 107-119

8 CONTENTS.

Chapter X. More Edicts Against The Truth: Diocletian

The Army: Maximian : Marcellus— Tenth Persecution: at Nicomedia — Churches and Books Destroyed— The Edict Torn Down— In the Palace : Through the World — Three More Edicts — Accounts of Phileas and Eusebius — Romanus and Others, ..... 157-174

CHAPTER XI. THE LAST PAGAN PERSECUTION: GALERIUS AND MAXiniN

Condition of the Empire — Boldness of Martyrs— Legend of St. Dorothea — Galerius Proclaims Toleration : His Death — New Measures of Oppression- Defeat and Death of Maximin, . 175-186

Chapter XII. The Ages Of Doctrine

Edicts Against Heresy— Pagan "Worship Suppressed— Theology : Arianism— Julian the Apostate — Feeling Against Executions for Heresy— Arian Cruelties — Athamasius— The Dark Ages — Abelard— Arnold of Buscia— The Waldenses, ....... 187-199

CHAPTER XIIT.

THE ALBIGENSES.

Origin, Beliefs, and Character of the Cathari- Their Persecutions— In Languedoc and Provence —

Raymond VI. — Crusade Preached, ......... 200-210

Chapter XIV. The Albigensian Wars

Sack of Beziers : " Kill Them All "— Montfort— Fate of Minerve— " Pilgrims : " Sheep and Wolves — First Siege of Toulouse — Pedro of Aragon— Battle of Muret — Raymond Deposed — Young Raymond: War Renewed -Second Siege of Toulouse— Death of Montfort— Massacre at Marmonde — Death of Raymond VI. — Crusade of Louis VIII. — Siege of Avignon — Submission of Raymond VII.— Speech of De Foix— Fate of Languedoc, ..... 211-232

Chapter XV. Wiclif And The Lollards

Teachings of Wiclif— Efforts Against Him— Boldness of His Disciples — Burning of Sawtrey and

Badby — Lord Cobham— His Trial— Rising of the Lollards — Cobham Burned, . . 233-242

CONTENTS. 9

Chapter XVI. Bohemia And John Huss

History of Bohemia— Early Reformers— Entrance of Wiclif's Doctrines — Huss— Wiclif's Books Burned— Huss Excommunicated— Council of Constance— The Safe-Conduct— Huss Goes to Constance : is Arrested, * . . . . . • . . . 243-254

Chapter XVII. The Itartyrs Of Constance

Charges Against Huss— His Trial — His Execution— Indignation in Bohemia— Jerome of Prague —

His Recantation — His Last Speech —His Death, ....... 255-268

Chapter XVIII. Troubles In Bohehia

Inquisitors Appointed — Calixtines and Taborites— Death of the King— Disturbances in Prague: Zisca— Sigismund Heir to the Throne— Crasa Executed — Crusade Proclaimed — Specimen Cruelties— Open Rebellion — First Invasion : Tabor Attacked— Horrors of the War — Siege of Prague— The Four Articles — Coronation and Retreat of Sigismund, .... 269-284

INQUISITION AND REFORMATION.

Rise of the Inquisition— In Spain — Tortures of the Victims — Suppression of Thought— Authority vs. Private Judgment— Toleration Among the Reformers— Luther — First Martyrs of the North— Tyndale, . .......... 309-320

Chapter XXII. Smithfield Fires

England and Henry VIII. — Cranmer— Edward VI. — Mary— Trial of the Bishops— Burning of Rogers, Sanders, Hooper, and Taylor— Of Ridley and Latimer— Of Cranmer— Effect on the People — The Roll of Martyrs — Queen Elizabeth— Scotland : Hamilton : Wishart : Knox : Queen Mary, • • . • . 321-3 6

Chapter XXIII. In France

Early Reformers: a Hard Soil— Francis L— The Estrapades— Massacres in Provence— Henry II. : New Edict— Arrest of Du Bourg— Bourbons, Guises, and Chatillons —Francis II.— Du Bourg Burned— Rising of Amboise — Executions— Castelnau, ...... 337-352

Chapter XXIV. Words And Blows

Assembly of Notables— Plots of the Cardinal— Conde Sentenced— Death of Francis II.— Catherine de Medicis— Colloquy of Poissy— Edict of Toleration— Conference at Saverne— Massacre of Vassy— Anarchy and Bloodshed — Montluc and Des Adrets - Battle of Dreux— Siege of Rouen —Siege of Orleans— Death of Guise, . . . • - • • • 353-373 io CONTENTS.

Chapter XXV. The Queen Of Navarre

Jeanne D'Albret— Henry— Second War: Battle of St. Denis -Third War: Battle of Jarnac : Death of Conde— Battle of Moncontour: of Auray-le-Duc,— Peace of St. Germain— Two Parties — Death of Jeanne, ....... - 374-333

Chapter XXVI

ST. BARTHOLOHEW.

Marriage of Henry— Charles IX. and Coligny— Coligny Wounded— The Plot— Murder of Coligny : The Massacre— In the Provinces— The News Abroad— Fourth War : Sieges of Rochelle and Sancerre— The "Politicals"— D'Alen^on's Plot— Death of Charles IX., . . . 386-404

Chapter XXVII. The Three Henries

Condition of France— Henry III. — Fifth War : The League -Sixth and Seventh Wars — Taking of Cahors— Death of D'Alencon— Treaty of Nemours — Preparation for War — Navarre Excommunicated — Eighth War : Battle of Coutras — Aggressions of the League : Guise in Paris : Flight of the King — Second States of Blois— Assassination of Guise— Death of Catherine- Alliance of Henry and Navarre — Murder of Henry III , ..... 405-428

Chapter XXVIII. The Fourth Henry

Weakness of the King — Battle of Arques— Battle of Ivry— Siege of Paris — Parma's Strategy —

Siege of Rouen— Skirmish at Aumale, ... .... 429-44">

Chapter XXIX. Abjuration

The Estates at Paris— Henry, Reconciled to the Church— Opposition of the Jesuits : The Pope's Absolution Refused— Coronation — The King Enters Paris : His Clemency— Trial of the Jesuits : Attempt on Henry's Life— War with Spain : Battle of Fontaine— The Pope Absolves Henry— Poverty and Financial Reforms— Amiens Lost and Retaken— Edict of Nantes— Peace ofVervins, ............ 444-4G0

Chapter XXX. In The Low Countries

Charles V.— The Dutch Reformation— 50,000 Martyrs— The Emperor Abdicates— Philip II.—

William of Orange— Sack of St. Quentin— Philip Departs— Autos da-fe in Spain, . . 461-473

Chapter XXXI. On The Way To War

Granvelle : The Inquisition— Plain Words from Orange— General Excitement— The "Compromise:" The "Request:" The "Beggars"— Field-Preachings— Image-Breaking— The "Accord"— The Regents Slanders— Orange Alone— Affairs of Lannoy, Watrelots and Ostrawell— Tumult at Antwerp— The New Oath— Siege of Valenciennes : Its Punishment- Emigration, . ....'. . . . . . . . . . 474-495

Chapter XXXII. Alva And The Blood=council

Arrival of the Spaniards— Egmont and Horn Arrested— The New Council— Alva Viceroy — Orange Indicted: His Son Kidnapped— Murderous Decree of the Inquisition— Apology of Orange— The War Begins— Victory of the Holy Lion— Egmont and Horn Beheaded, . 496-508

CONTENTS. ii

Chapter XXXIII. Uphill Work

Slaughter at Jemmingen— More Outrages— Campaign of Orange— Disaster at the Geta— Alva's Statue : His New Taxes— The "Act of Pardon "—Murder of Montigny -Exploit of De Ruyter — Activity of Orange — A Desperate Situation, ....... 5C9-521

CHAPTER XXXIV. REBELLION AND ITS PUNISHriENT

The Sea Beggars— They Take Brill— Outrages at Rotterdam— Revolt of Flushing— Risings in the North— The New Government -Capture of Mons : Its Siege— Estates of Holland Meet— Dsfeat of Genlis— Orange Takes Roermonde— His Progress Stopped by St. Bartholomew — His Narrow Escape— Surrender of Mons— Blood-Council at Mons— Sack of Mechlin— Horrors at Zutphen— Relief of Tergoes— Defections in the North— Destruction of Naarden - Siege of Harlem— Defeats of La Marck and Batenburg— Heroism of the Besieged— The Last Hope Fails— Fate of Harlem, . . ........ 522-5 f 5

Chapter XXXV. Alkmaar, Hook And Leyden

Siege of Alkmaar — Victory on the Zuyder Zee— Departure of Alva — Naval Victory at Bergen — Taking of Middleburg — Battle of Mook : Death of Louis— Mutiny of Spanish Troops— Naval Victory Near Antwerp— Siege of Leyden : Its Relief, .... . 5i6-5£9

Chapter XXXVI. Mutiny And Massacre

Negotiations and a Wedding— Seizure of Schouwen — Death of Requesens— Death of Boisot: Fall of Zierickzee— Edict Against Mutineers — Confusion— Defense of Antwerp — The Spanish Fury— Its Effects: Treaty of Ghent, . . . . . . . . 560-570

Chapter XXXVII. Don John

Demands of the Estates— The Governor Consents — His Efforts to Win Orange— The Spaniards Go — Seizure of Namur— Attempt on Antwerp Citadel : Its Destruction — Orange at Brussels — The Nobles : Archduke Matthias— Rising at Ghent— Preparations for War— Disaster at Gemblours — Amsterdam Won and Purged— A Barren Campaign — Death of Don John, . . 571-586

Chapter Xxxviii. Hard Times

The Prince of Parma — General Confusion — Bribery : Loss of the South — Treason of Egmont — Siege of Maestricht : Its Heroic Defense : The Massacre— Slanders on Orange — Troubles at Ghent— Great Offers to the Prince— Congress at Cologne— Treason of De Bours and Renneberg— Siege of Groningen — Defeat of Coewerden — Departure of Count John — Orange Under the Ban— Siege and Relief of Steenwyk — Death of Renneberg, .... 587-603

Chapter XXXIX. Independence

Romish Worship Suppressed — Act of Abjuration— A Man Who Would not be King — Alengon as a Candidate : as Sovereign — Orange Dangerously Wounded by an Assassin — Death of the Princess— Parma's Activity, ...... ... 604-613

Chapter XL. A Knave And A Martyr

Alencon's Plot — French Fury at Antwerp — An Awkward Situation— Orange Refuses the Throne — Successes of Parma— Intrigues at Ghent — Murder of Orange— His Character — The Later Wars, ............. 611-625

12 CONTENTS.

Chapter XLI. The Invincible Arhada

England and Spain — Preparations for Invasion — The Fight in the Channel : Off the Flemish

Coast— The Storm— The Results, . . . . . . . . 626-635

Chapter XLII. The Puritans

Under Elizabeth— James I. — Theory of Divine Right— Charles I. — Land and Wentworth— A Persecuting Church — In Scotland : " The Bishops' War " — The Long Parliament, . . 636-648

Chapter XLIII. The Revolution

Cavaliers and Roundheads — Attempt to Arrest the Five Members — A View of Both Sides— Civil War— England Adopts the Covenant— Cromwell and the Ironsides— Marston Moor — The Self-denying Ordinance — Naseby — Execution of the King— Cromwell as Protector — The Restoration — The Covenanters —James II. : His Tyranny and Expulsion, . . . 649-664