As a farther indulgence to the King who was thus disciplined by proxy, and very likely also out of regard for the age in which the ceremony was performed, the two Gentlemen who represented him, were suffered to keep their coats on, during the operation; and the lashes seem moreover not to have been laid upon them, with any great degree of vigour. However, some persons at the Court of France, either out of envy against the two above Gentlemen, on account of the commission with which the King had honoured them, or with a view to divert themselves, had, it seems, circulated a report, that, on the day of the ceremony, the 17th of September 1595, they had been made actually to strip in the Church, and undergo a dreadful flagellation. This report M. D’Ossat contradicts in one of his Letters, the collection of which has been printed; and he says, that the discipline in question was performed to comply with the rules set down in the Pontifical, but that ‘they felt it no more than if it had been a fly that had passed over them, being so well coated as they were.’
Very express mention of the above discipline was nevertheless made, as hath been above observed, in the written process drawn on the occasion; though the French Ministers would not suffer it to be joined with the Bull of absolution which was sent to the King for his acceptation, and in which no such account was contained. This, another French Author observes, did not prevent the Italians from deriving triumph from the event, and saying that the King of France had been disciplined at Rome.
From the above two instances of Henry II. of England, and Henry IV. of France (the authenticity of which is beyond any doubt) we find that two crowned Heads, Kings of the two most powerful States in Europe, both of the name of Henry, have publicly submitted to the discipline of flagellation, either in their own person, or by proxy: the one, to preserve his Crown; and the other, in order to qualify himself for taking possession of it. I desire the judicious Reader to ponder well all these facts, and not to charge me with having chosen too unimportant a subject to treat in this Work.
It may be added, that an instance of a Sovereign submitting to a flagellation, may be seen in our days, at every vacancy of the See of Wurtzburgh; a sovereign Bishoprick in Germany. It is an antient custom in the Chapter of that Church, that the person who has been elected to fill the place of the late Bishop, must, before he can obtain his installation, run the gantlope, naked to the waist, between the Canons, who are formed in two rows, and supplied with rods. Some say this custom was established in order to discourage the German Princes from being Candidates for the above Bishoprick; but perhaps also the Canons who established the same, had no other design than procuring the pleasure to themselves and successors, when they should afterwards see their equal become their Sovereign, of remembering that they had cudgelled him.
Other facts, besides that of Henry the Second, shew that the power of the Clergy was carried as far, at least, in England, as in any other Country. Bishop Goodwin relates, that in the reign of Edward I. Sir Osborn Gifford, of Wiltshire, having assisted in the escape of two Nuns from the Convent of Wilton, John Peckham, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury, made him submit, before he absolved him of his excommunication, to be publicly whipped, on three successive Sundays, in the Parish Church of Wilton, and also in the Market and Church of Shaftsbury[97].
[97] See Dr. Berkenhout’s Biographia Litteraria, Art. John Peckham.
CHAP. XVIII.
The glory of flagellations completed: they are made use of for curing heresy.
AMONG all the instances contained in this Book, of the extensive advantages of flagellations, we certainly ought not to omit mentioning the application that has been made of them to the information of Heretics; the holy personages whose office it was to convert them, having frequently recurred to them as an excellent expedient, either for opening the eyes of such as absolutely refused to believe, or for confirming the faith of those who did as yet believe but imperfectly. As one instance of that use of flagellations we speak of, we may mention that of Bonner, Bishop of London, who, though he had, under the reign of Henry VIII. consented to the schism which then took place in the Church, made it his constant practice, under Queen Mary, to fustigate the Protestants with rods with his own hands, at least if we are to credit the account given by Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, in England[98].