Fox's Book of Martyrs Part 26

2. If they speak against Mahomet, they must either turn Mahometan, or be impaled alive.

3. If they turn christians again, after having changed to the Mahometan persuasion, they are roasted alive, or thrown from the city walls, and caught upon large sharp hooks, where they hang in a miserable manner several days, and expire in the most exquisite tortures.

4. If they kill a Turk, they are burnt.

5. Those christians who attempt to escape from slavery, and are retaken, suffer death in the following manner, which is equally singular and brutal: the criminal is hung naked on a high gallows, by two hooks, the one fastened quite through the palm of one hand, and the other through the sole of the opposite foot, where he is left till death relieves him from his cruel sufferings.

Other punishments, for trifling crimes committed by the christians, are left to the discretion of the respective judges, who being usually of malicious and vindictive dispositions, decree them in the most inhuman manner.

In Tunis, if a christian slave is caught in attempting to escape, his limbs are all broken, and if he murders his master, he is fastened to the tail of a horse, and dragged about the streets till he expires.

Morocco and Fez conjointly form an empire, and are together the most considerable of the Barbary states. In this empire christian slaves are treated with the greatest cruelty: the rich have exorbitant ransoms fixed upon them; the poor are hard worked, and half starved sometimes murdered by the emperor, or their masters, for mere amus.e.m.e.nt.

_An Account of the Persecutions in Spanish America._

The b.l.o.o.d.y tenets of the Roman catholic persuasion, and the cruel disposition of the votaries of that church, cannot be more amply displayed or truly depicted, than by giving an authentic and simple narrative of the horrid barbarities exercised by the Spaniards on the innocent and unoffending natives of America. Indeed, the barbarities were such, that they would scarce seen credible from their enormity, and the victims so many, that they would startle belief by their numbers, if the facts were not indisputably ascertained, and the circ.u.mstances admitted by their own writers, some of whom have even gloried in their inhumanity, and, as Roman catholics, deemed these atrocious actions meritorious, which would make a protestant shudder to relate.

The West Indies, and the vast continent of America, were discovered by that celebrated navigator, Christopher Columbus, in 1492. This distinguished commander landed first in the large island of St. Domingo, or Hispaniola, which was at that time exceedingly populous, but this population was of very little consequence, the inoffensive inhabitants being murdered by mult.i.tudes, as soon as the Spaniards gained a permanent footing on the island. Blind superst.i.tion, b.l.o.o.d.y bigotry, and craving avarice, rendered that, in the course of years, a dismal desert, which, at the arrival of the Spaniards, seemed to appear as an earthly paradise; so that at present there is scarce a remnant of the ancient natives remaining.

The natives of Guatemala, a country of America, were used with great barbarity. They were formerly active and valiant, but from ill usage and oppression, grew slothful, and so dispirited, that they not only trembled at the sight of fire-arms, but even at the very looks of a Spaniard. Some were so plunged into despair, that after returning home from labouring hard for their cruel taskmasters, and receiving only contemptuous language and stripes for their pains, they have sunk down in their cabins, with a full resolution to prefer death to such slavery; and, in the bitterness of their anguish, have refused all sustenance till they perished.

By repeated barbarities, and the most execrable cruelties, the vindictive and merciless Spaniards not only depopulated Hispaniola, Porto-Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Bahama islands, but destroyed above 12,000,000 of souls upon the continent of America, in the s.p.a.ce of forty years.

The cruel methods by which they ma.s.sacred and butchered the poor natives, were innumerable, and of the most diabolical nature.

The Spaniards stripped a large and very populous town of all its inhabitants, whom they drove to the mines, leaving all the children behind them, without the least idea of providing for their subsistence, by which inhuman proceeding six thousand helpless infants perished.

Whenever the people of any town had the reputation of being rich, an order was immediately sent that every person in it should turn Roman catholics: if this was not directly complied with, the town was instantly plundered, and the inhabitants murdered; and if it was complied with, a pretence was soon after made to strip the inhabitants of their wealth.

One of the Spanish governors seized upon a very worthy and amiable Indian prince, and in order to extort from him where his treasures were concealed, caused his feet to be burnt till the marrow dropped from his bones, and he expired through the extremity of the torments he underwent.

In the interval, between the years 1514 and 1522, the governor of Terra Firma put to death, and destroyed, 800,000 of the inhabitants of that country.

Between the years 1523 and 1533, five hundred thousand natives of Nicaragua were transported to Peru, where they all perished by incessant labour in the mines.

In the s.p.a.ce of twelve years, from the first landing of Cortez on the continent of America, to the entire reduction of the populous empire of Mexico, the amazing number of 4,000,000 of Mexicans perished, through the unparalleled barbarity of the Spaniards. To come to particulars, the city of Cholula, consisted of 30,000 houses, by which its great population may be imagined. The Spaniards seized on all the inhabitants, who refusing to turn Roman catholics, as they did not know the meaning of the religion they were ordered to embrace, the Spaniards put them all to death, cutting to pieces the lower sort of people, and burning those of distinction.

CHAPTER XI.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND PRIOR TO THE REIGN OF QUEEN MARY I.

Gildas, the most ancient British writer extant, who lived about the time that the Saxons left the island of Great Britain, has drawn a most shocking instance of the barbarity of those people.

The Saxons, on their arrival, being heathens like the Scots and Picts, destroyed the churches and murdered the clergy wherever they came: but they could not destroy christianity, for those who would not submit to the Saxon yoke, went and resided beyond the Severn. Neither have we the names of those christian sufferers transmitted to us, especially those of the clergy.

The most dreadful instance of barbarity under the Saxon government, was the ma.s.sacre of the monks of Bangor, A. D. 586. These monks were in all respects different from those men who bear the same name at present.

In the eighth century, the Danes, a roving crew of barbarians, landed in different parts of Britain, both in England and Scotland.

At first they were repulsed, but in A. D. 857, a party of them landed somewhere near Southampton, and not only robbed the people, but burnt down the churches, and murdered the clergy.

In A. D. 868, these barbarians penetrated into the centre of England, and took up their quarters at Nottingham; but the English, under their king Ethelfrid, drove them from their posts, and obliged them to retire to Northumberland.

In 870, another body of these barbarians landed at Norfolk, and engaged in battle with the English at Hertford. Victory declared in favour of the pagans, who took Edmund, king of the East Angles, prisoner, and after treating him with a thousand indignities, transfixed his body with arrows, and then beheaded him.

In Fifes.h.i.+re, in Scotland, they burnt many of the churches, and among the rest that belonging to the Culdees, at St. Andrews. The piety of these men made them objects of abhorrence to the Danes, who, wherever they went singled out the christian priests for destruction, of whom no less than 200 were ma.s.sacred in Scotland.

It was much the same in that part of Ireland now called Leinster, there the Danes murdered and burnt the priests alive in their own churches; they carried destruction along with them wherever they went, sparing neither age nor s.e.x, but the clergy were the most obnoxious to them, because they ridiculed their idolatry, and persuaded their people to have nothing to do with them.

In the reign of Edward III. the church of England was extremely corrupted with errors and superst.i.tion; and the light of the gospel of Christ was greatly eclipsed and darkened with human inventions, burthensome ceremonies, and gross idolatry.

The followers of Wickliffe, then called Lollards, were become extremely numerous, and the clergy were so vexed to see them increase whatever power or influence they might have to molest them in an underhand manner, they had no authority by law to put them to death. However, the clergy embraced the favourable opportunity, and prevailed upon the king to suffer a bill to be brought into parliament, by which all Lollards who remained obstinate, should be delivered over to the secular power, and burnt as heretics. This act was the first in Britain for the burning of people for their religious sentiments; it pa.s.sed in the year 1401, and was soon after put into execution.

The first person who suffered in consequence of this cruel act was William Santree, or Sawtree, a priest, who was burnt to death in Smithfield.

Soon after this, lord Cobham, in consequence of his attachment to the doctrines of Wickliffe, was accused of heresy, and being condemned to be hanged and burnt, was accordingly executed in Loncoln's-Inn Fields, A.

D. 1419.

The next man who suffered under this b.l.o.o.d.y statute was Thomas Bradley, a tailor, and a layman; and a letter having been tendered him, which he refused, he was declared an obstinate heretic, and tied to the stake in Smithfield; where he was burnt alive, rejoicing in the Lord his G.o.d.

The next person we read of who was tried upon this abominable statute, was William Thorpe, a man of some knowledge, who adhered to all the doctrines taught by Wickliffe. He was brought many times before archbishop Arundel, and at last committed a close prisoner, where he died, but in what manner cannot now be ascertained.

About this time 36 persons, denominated Lollards, suffered death in St.

Giles', for no other reason than professing their attachment to the doctrines of Wickliffe. They were hung on gibbets, and f.a.gots being placed under them, as soon as they were suspended, fire was set to them, so that they were burnt while hanging. Only one of their names has been transmitted to us, which is that of Sir Roger Archer whom they distinguished from the rest by stripping him stark naked, and executing him in that indecent manner.

Much about the same time one Richard Turning was burnt alive in Smithfield, and suffered with all that constancy, fort.i.tude, and resignation, which have so much distinguished the primitive christians.

In 1428, Abraham, a monk of Colchester, Milburn White, a priest and John Wade, a priest, were all three apprehended on a charge of heresy.

Soon after, father Abraham suffered at Colchester, and with him John Whaddon; both of whom died in a constant adherence to the truth of the gospel. Milburn White and John Wade suffered also about the same time in London.

In the year 1431, Richard Ilvedon, a wool-comber, and a citizen of London, was brought before the archbishop, and being declared an obstinate heretic, was burnt alive on Tower-hill, for no other reason than that he embraced and professed the doctrines of Wickliffe.

In the year 1431, Thomas Bagley, a priest, who had a living near Malden, in Ess.e.x, was brought before the bishop of London, and being declared an obstinate heretic, was condemned and burnt alive in Smithfield.

In the year 1430, Richard Wick, a priest, was burnt alive on Tower-hill, for preaching the doctrines of Wickliffe.

In 1440, some of the greatest persons in the kingdom were condemned to perpetual imprisonment for heresy, as being Lollards;--among whom was the dutchess of Gloucester, who had long been a follower of Wickliffe.

It was otherwise, however, with Roger Only, a priest, who being condemned as an obstinate heretic, was burnt alive in Smithfield.

In August, 1473, one Thomas Granter was apprehended to London; he was accused of professing the doctrines of Wickliffe, for which he was condemned as an obstinate heretic. This pious man being brought to the sheriff's house, on the morning of the day appointed for his execution, desired a little refreshment, and having ate some, he said to the people present, "I eat now a very good meal, for I have a strange conflict to engage with before I go to supper;" and having eaten, he returned thanks to G.o.d for the bounties of his all-gracious providence, requesting that he might be instantly led to the place of execution, to bear testimony to the truth of those principles which he had professed. Accordingly he was chained to a stake on Tower-hill, where he was burnt alive, professing the truth with his last breath.

April 28th, 1494, Joan Boughton, a lady of considerable rank, was burnt in Smithfield for professing the doctrines of Wickliffe. This lady was a widow, and no less than 80 years of age.