ww 170 THE CHRISTIAN MARTYROLOGY. 1547, ordered, that all the decrees of the { upon for their residence was uninhabited, council of Trent, against the protestants, should be put in force with the utmost rigor, in every part of his extensive dominions. and uncultivated, yet the bishop of that part of the country, who deemed it in his diocese, procured an order from the king to drive This severe order occasioned a most them thence. This mandate he executed dreadful persecution throughout the great-with rigor, and the poor protestants proest part of Europe; for, as the emperor's ceeded to ducal Prussia, where Albert, power was very extensive, so the cruelties { duke of Brandenburg, to whom that country practised were almost innumerable. None, belonged, appointed them a district to inhowever, suffered more than the protestants { habit in the diocese of a protestant bishop, of Bohemia; for the nobles had their estates sequestered; the rich merchants and traders were fined so heavily, that their ruin ensued; and the poor, who had noted lands for their. subsistence. money to pay by way of mitigation, for? thinking and acting right, were Racked, Burnt, Sawed asunder, Thrown from rocks, Torn by wild horses, Hanged, Drowned, Stabbed, Boiled in oil, Cut to pieces, Immured and starved, Beheaded, had boiling lead poured down their throats, were thrown on spears, hung up by the ribs, or crucified with their heads downward. The king of Bohemia, to complete what the emperor Charles V. had begun, issued a proclamation, containing four clauses, viz: named Paul Speratus, who very kindly received them, and assisted them till they had built houses for their residence, and cultiva Several protestants, however, still remained in the rocks, woods, and caves of Bohemia, which the king well knowing, ordered rewards to be set upon their heads, but more particularly for apprehending the clergy. But his endeavors were so little successful, that in the course of several months he could only procure three clergymen, and seven or eight of the laity, to be taken. One of the clergymen escaped, in a most singular manner, from a strong dungeon in the castle of Prague, and got safe to Prussia, where he joined the protestants who had emigrated to that country. Another was three times racked, and then having been imprisoned seventeen years, fell a martyr to the hardships of his confinement; and the third was burnt for refusing to recant. The baron of Scanaw was apprehend and with having a treasonable design to subvert the government. Being condemned to the rack, before the executioners had time to fasten the cords, he suddenly cut 1. To shut up all protestant churches; 2. To banish all protestant nobles; 3. To burn all protestant clergymen; 4. To hang all protestant schoolmasters. Upon this proclamation, several protestants, who had escaped the persecution byed, and charged with being a heretic, hiding themselves, determined to withdraw from Bohemia, and seek an asylum in some other country. An uninhabited part of Poland was fixed upon as the place of retreat, and they removed to it, with all possi-out his own tongue, and then wrote upon ble secrecy, in three bands; quitting the a piece of paper these words: "I did this place of their nativity to enjoy their reli- extraordinary action, because I would not, gion in quiet, and follow the dictates of their by means of any tortures, be brought to consciences without molestation. accuse myself, or others, as I might, through "But oh! when from our country we depart, The native fondness clings around the heart; the excruciating torments of the rack, be impelled to utter falsehoods." This singu lar occurrence surprised all present, but did not save the baron from the rack, who was tormented with such severity, that he soon expired. (See engraving.) That charm that seems where'er we drew our breath, And makes our birthplace haunt us e'en to death." But when these worthy wanderers arrived in Poland they were greatly disappointed; for though the spot they had fixed PERSECUTIONS IN BOHEMIA, AFTER THE INSTITUTION OF THE HIGH COURT OF REFORMERS. HE emperor Ferdinand, various parts of his body; when, to gain whose hatred to the Bo-a respite from his torments, he promised to hemian protestants was show them where the treasures were hid. without bounds, not think- The soldiers gave ear to this with pleasure, ing he had sufficiently and the schoolmaster led them to a ditch oppressed them, institu- full of stones, saying, "Beneath those stones ted a High Court of Reformers upon the are the riches ye seek for." Eager after plan of the inquisition, with this difference, money, they went to work, and soon rethat the reformers were to remove from moved those stones, but not finding what place to place, and always to be attended they sought after, beat the schoolmaster to by a body of troops. death, buried him in the ditch, and covered him with the very stones he had made them These reformers consisted chiefly of jesuits, and from their decisions there was no appeal, by which it may be easily conjectured, that it was a dreadful tribunal indeed. remove. Some of the soldiers ravished the daughters of a worthy protestant before his face, and then tortured him to death. A minister This bloody court, attended by a body of and his wife they tied back to back, and troops, made the tour of Bohemia, in which burnt. Another minister they hung upon they seldom examined or saw a prisoner, a cross beam, and making a fire under him, suffering the soldiers to murder the protes-broiled him to death. A gentleman they tants as they pleased, and then to make a hacked into small pieces; and they filled a report of the matter to them afterward. 1. They placed him amidst them, and made him the subject of their derision and young man's mouth with gunpowder, and The first victim of their cruelty was an setting fire to it, blew his head to pieces. aged minister, whom they killed as he lay As their principal rage was directed sick in bed; the next day they robbed and against the clergy, they took a pious protmurdered another, and soon after shot a estant minister, and tormented him daily third, as he was preaching in his pulpit. for a month together, in the following manA nobleman and a clergyman, who re-ner, making their cruelty regular, systematic, sided in a protestant village, hearing of the and progressive:approach of the high court of reformers and the troops, fled from the place, and secreted themselves. The soldiers, how-mockery, during a whole day's entertainever, on their arrival, seized upon a schoolmaste. and asked him where the lord of that place and the minister were concealed, and where they had hid their treasures. The schoolmaster plied, he could not answer either of the questions. They then stripped him naked, bound him with cords, and beat him most unmercifully with 4. They made him run the gantlope becudgels. This cruelty, not extorting any {tween two ranks of them, each striking him confession from him, they scorched him in with a twig. S ment, trying to exhaust his patience, but in vain, for he bore the whole with a true Christian fortitude. 2. They spit in his face, pulled his nose, and pinched him in most parts of his body. 3. He was hunted like a wild beast, till ready to expire with fatigue. 5. He was beat with their fists. 9. They tied him up by his heels with his head downward, till the blood started out of his nose, mouth, &c. 27. The same was repeated with his ? lower jaw. 28. Boiling lead was poured on his fingers. 29. The same repeated with his toes. 30. A knotted cord was twisted about his forehead in such a manner, as to force out his eyes. During the whole of these horrid cruel 10. They hung him up by the right arm till it was dislocated, and then had it set again. 11. The same was repeated with his {ties, particular care was taken that his left arm. wounds should not mortify, and not to injure him mortally till the last day, when the forcing out his eyes proved his death. 12. Burning papers, dipped in oil, were placed between his fingers and toes. 13. His flesh was torn with red hot pin cers. 14. He was put to the rack. Innumerable were the other murders and depredations committed by these unfeeling brutes, and shocking to humanity were the 15. They pulled off the nails of his cruelties which they inflicted on the poor right hand. 16. The same repeated with his left hand. Bohemian protestants. The winter being far advanced, however, the high court of reformers, with their infernal band of military ruffians, "thought proper to return to Prague; but on their way meeting with a protestant pastor, they could not resist the 21. They whipped him through the town temptation of feasting their barbarous eyes upon an ass. with a new kind of cruelty, which had just tion of one of the soldiers. This was to 22. They made several incisions in his suggested itself to the diabolical imaginaflesh. 23. They pulled off the toenails of his strip the minister naked, and alternately to right foot. 24. The same repeated with his left foot. 25. He was tied up by the loins, and suspended for a considerable time. cover him with ice and burning coals. This novel mode of tormenting a fellow-creature was immediately put in practice, and the unhappy victim expired beneath the tor 26. The teeth of his upper jaw were ments, which seemed to delight his inhupulled out. man persecutors. T GENERAL PERSECUTIONS IN GERMANY. HE general persecutions in { so terrified at the success of that courageous reformer, that he determined to engage the emperor, Charles the Fifth, at any rate, in the scheme to attempt their extirpation. To this end: : 1. He gave the emperor two hundred thousand crowns in ready money. 2. He promised to maintain twelve thousand foots, and five thousand horses, for the space of six months, or during a campaign. 3. He allowed the emperor to receive one half of the revenues of the clergy of the empire, during the war. 4. He permitted the emperor to pledge |