https://www.biblestudytools.com/history/foxs-book-of-martyrs/ Edited by William Byron Forbush This is a book that will never die -- one of the great English classics. . . . Reprinted here in its most complete form, it brings to life the…
Edited by William Byron Forbush This is a book that will never die -- one of the great English classics. . . . Reprinted here in its most complete form, it brings to life the days when "a noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid," "climbed the steep ascent of heaven, 'mid peril, toil, and pain." "After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the Book of Martyrs. Even in our time, it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification."
From the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the French Revolution, in 1789 Part 3 They hanged both men and women by their hair or their feet, and smoked them with hay until they were nearly dead; and if they still refused to sign a recantation, they hung them up again and repeated their barbarities, until, wearied out with torments without death, they forced many to yield to them. Others they plucked all the hair off their heads and beards with pincers. Others they threw on great fires, and pulled them out again, repeating it until they extorted a promise to recant. Some they stripped naked, and after offering them the most infamous insults, they stuck them with pins from head to foot, and lanced them with penknives; and sometimes with red-hot pincers, they dragged them by the nose until they promised to turn. Sometimes they tied fathers and husbands, while they ravished their wives and daughters before their eyes. Multitudes they imprisoned in the most noisome dungeons, where they practiced all sorts of torments in secret. Their wives and children they shut up in monasteries. Such as endeavored to escape by flight were pursued in the woods, hunted in the fields, and shot at like wild beasts; nor did any condition or quality screen them from the ferocity of these infernal dragoons: even the members of parliament and military officers, though on actual service, were ordered to quit their posts, and repair directly to their houses to suffer the like storm. Such as complaints to the king were sent to the Bastile, where they drank the same cup. The bishops and the intendants marched at the head of the dragoons, with a troop of missionaries, monks, and other ecclesiastics to animate the soldiers to an execution so agreeable to their Holy Church, and so glorious to their demon god and their tyrant king. In forming the edict to repeal the edict of Nantes, the council was divided; some would have all the ministers detained and forced into popery as well as the laity; others were for banishing them because their presence would strengthen the Protestants in perseverance: and if they were forced to turn, they would ever be secret and powerful enemies in the bosom of the Church, by their great knowledge and experience in controversial matters. This reason prevailed, they were sentenced to banishment, and only fifteen days allowed them to depart the kingdom.
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