Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
any thing against the Protestants for the sake of the reward, and then fly to their own priests
for absolution from their false oaths. If any Roman Catholic, of more conscience than the
rest, blamed these fellows for their atrocious crimes, they themselves were in danger of being
informed against and punished as favourers of heretics.
The missionaries did all they could to get the books of the Protestants into their hands,
in order to burn them; when the Protestants doing their utmost endeavors to conceal their
books, the missionaries wrote to the duke of Savoy, who, for the heinous crime of not
surrendering their Bibles, prayer books, and religious treatises, sent a number of troops to be
quartered on them. These military gentry did great mischief in the houses of the Protestants,
and destroyed such quantities of provisions, that many families were thereby ruined.
To encourage, as much as possible, the apostasy of the Protestants, the duke of Savoy
published a proclamation wherein he said, "To encourage the heretics to turn Catholics, it is
our will and pleasure, and we do hereby expressly command, that all such as shall embrace
the holy Roman Catholic faith, shall enjoy an exemption, from all and every tax for the space
of five years, commencing from the day of their conversion." The duke of Savoy, likewise
established a court, called the council for extirpating the heretics. This court was to enter
into inquiries concerning the ancient privileges of the Protestant churches, and the decrees
which had been, from time to time, made in favour of the Protestants. But the investigation
of these things was carried on with the most manifest partiality; old charters were wrested to
a wrong sense, and sophistry was used to pervert the meaning of everything, which tended
to favour the reformed.
As if these severities were not sufficient, the duke, soon after, published another edict,
in which he strictly commanded, that no Protestant should act as a schoolmaster, or tutor,
either in public or private, or dare to teach any art, science, or language, directly or indirectly,
to persons of any persuasion whatever.
This edict was immediately followed by another, which decreed that no Protestant
should hold any place of profit, trust, or honor; and to wind up the whole, the certain token
of an approaching persecution came forth in a final edict, by which it was positively ordered,
that all Protestants should diligently attend Mass.
The publication of an edict, containing such an injunction, may be compared to unfurling
the bloody flag; for murder and rapine were sure to follow. One of the first objects that
attracted the notice of the papists was Mr. Sebastian Basan, a zealous Protestant, who was
seized by the missionaries, confined, tormented for fifteen months, and then burnt.
Previous to the persecution, the missionaries employed kidnappers to steal away the
Protestants' children, that they might privately be brought up Roman Catholics; but now they
took away the children by open force, and if they met with any resistance, they murdered the
parents.
To give greater vigor to the persecution, the duke of Savoy called a general assembly of
the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry when a solemn edict was published against the
reformed, containing many heads, and including several reasons for extirpating the
Protestants, among which were the following:
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