With no small adoe, Boniface the third, obtained of Phocas the Emperour to be called universall Bishop: which was asisted afterward by Puppin the French King, and ratified by Paleologus, the father of Constantine who lost Constantinople: The Romish Church falls short of true antiquity, universality, and uniformity.And what long contraversies about this new power, was betweene your Popes, and the counsells of Carthage, Calcedon, Ephesus, Alexandria, and Nice. Uniformable no; some of your Priests give the Sacrament onely in Bread, for reall flesh and blood, some in Wine without Bread, and some in both.
The Bavarians in their owne language sing the Psalmes in prose at their Masses, and not else where done: The second Commandement goeth current amongst some of your Catholicks in France, yet not in Bretagne, nor Provance; so doth it in Austria and Bavaria, but not in Italy and Spaine.
It is most evident, what your former Popes have confirmed, the succeeding Popes have disanulled, and dayly doe, as their present lives, and your auncient Histories beare a true record.
And was there not at one time, three Popes in three severall places? and oftentimes two at once: One professing one Heresie, and another Atheisme: What mutinies and malice, are dayly among your Monasteries, each envying anothers priviledge, anothers preferment, anothers wealth: And your order (father) by all the other Monasticks, is hated and vilipended to death; besides diversities of Doctrine, betweene your professors and the Dominicans: [X. 475.]and hundreds of like disunities you have both in ceremony and order which now I suspend: So I pray you (father) where your uniformity, much lesse your universality, and worst of all your antiquity.
Having thus concluded, the fiery fac’d Jesuits, with boisterous menacings left mee; and the eight day thereafter, being the last day of their Inquisition, they returned againe, in a more milder disposition: where after divers arguments on both sides, the two Jesuits with teares distilling from their eyes, solidly protested, they were sorry from their heart, for that terrible death I was to undergo, and above all the loosing of my soule: The Jesuits last allurements for my conversion to their sect.And falling downe on their knees, cryed, convert, convert, O deare brother! for our blessed Ladies sake convert: To whom I replyed, that neither death nor fire I feared; for I was resolved for both, yet thinking my selfe unworthy to suffer for Christ and the Gospells sake, considering my vildnesse and my owne unworthinesse: yet the Spirit of God assureth my faith, it is his divine pleasure it should be so that I must suffer. Wherefore if I should divert, trust mee not, for I would but dissemble with you (through feare, flattery, or force) to shunne present death.
Whereupon they called the Governour, and after their privy consulting, hee thus spoke; Deare brother, my greatest desire is, to have thee a good Christian, a Romane Catholick, to which if thy conscience will yeeld, I will shew thee as great courtesie, as thou hast receaved cruelty: for pitty it were, that such an invincible spirit, and endued with so many good parts, should perish in both worlds for ever. Plucke up thy heart, and let the love of our blessed Lady enter in thy soule: Let not thy former sufferings dismay thee, (for thy sores being yet greene and curable) I shall transport thee to a fine Chamber, and there thou shalst have all needfull things for the recovery of [X. 476.]thy health and strength. Thy money and Patents shall be refounded, but thy hereticall Bookes are already burned: And lastly sayd he, I will send thee with my owne Servant to Court, Counsel, and King, with letters from the holy Inquisition, and from mee, faithfully promising thou shalt enjoy a Pension of three hundred Duccats a yeare.
But having satisfied his bewitching policy with a Christian constancy; they all three left mee in a thundering rage; vowing, I should that night have the first seale of my long sorrowes: And directing their course to the Bishop and Inquisitor (for the Governour had wrested the Inquisition upon mee, to free him of his former aspersion layd upon the English Fleet, and my tryall therefore, converting it all to matters of Religion) the Inquisition (I say) sat forthwith, A condemnatory sentence to death by the Inquisition.where first I was condemned to receave that night eleven strangling torments in my Dungeon: and then after Easter Holy dayes, I should be transported privatly to Grenada, and there about mid-night to be burnt body and bones into ashes, and my ashes to be flung into the ayre: Well, that same night the Scrivan, Sergeants, and the young English Priest entered my melancholly staunce: where the Priest in the English tongue urging mee all that he could (though little it was hee could doe) and unprevailing, I was disburdened of mine irones, unclothed to my skin, set on my knees and held up fast with their hands: where instantly setting my teeth asunder with iron Cadges, they filled my belly full of water, even gorgeing to my throat: Then with a garter they bound fast my throat, till the white of mine eye turned upward; and being laid on my side, I was by two Sergeants tumbled to and fro seven times through the roome; even till I was almost strangled: This done, they [X. 477.]fastned a small cord about each one of my great toes, and hoysing me therewith to the roofe of a high loft (for the cords runne on two rings of iron fastned above) they cut the garter, and there I hung, with my head downward, in my tormented weight, till all the gushing water dissolved: This done, I was let downe from the loft, quite senslesse, lying a long time cold dead among their hands: whereof the Governour being informed, came running up stayres, crying, Is he dead, O fie villanes goe fetch me Wine, which they powred in my mouth, regayning thereby a slender sparke of breath.
A Turkish slaves charity in the bowels of compassion.These strangling torments ended, and I reclothed, and fast bolted againe they left mee lying on the cold floore praysing my God, and singing of a Psalme. The next morning the pittifull Turke visiting mee with bread and water, brought me also secretly in his shirt sleeve, two handfull of Rasins and figges, laying them on the floore amongst the crawling vermine, for having no use of armes nor hands, I was constrayned by hunger and impotency of time, to licke one up with another with my tongue: This charity of figs the slave did once every weeke or fortnight, or else I had long or then famished.
After which sorrowfull distresse, and inhumane usage, the eye-melting Turke taking displeasure, fell five dayes sicke, and bedfast: but the house Spaniards understanding his disease made him beleeve I was a Divell, a Sorcerer, a Nigromancer, and a blasphemous miscreant, against their Pope, their Lady, and their Church; giving him such a distast, that for thirty dayes, he never durst looke me in the face, being affraid of witchcraft.
All this time of his absence, one Ellinor the Cooke, an Indian Negro woman, attended mee, for she being a [X. 478.]Christian drudge, had more liberty to visit mee, than the slavish Infidell: who certainly (under God) prolonged then my languishing life, conveighing me for foure weekes space, once a day some lesse or more nourishment, and in The deceitfulness of female inconstancies.her pocket a bottle glasse of Wine. Being no wayes semblable to the soule betraying teares of her Crocodilean sex which the Spanish Proverbe prettily avoucheth: las mugeres, engannan a los hombres, dellas lastimandoles, con sus lagrimas fingidas; dellas hallagandoles, con Palabras lesongeras: to wit, Women deceave men, some of them, grieving them with their fayned teares, and other fawning on them with flattering words. But;