Foxe - The Book of Martyrs

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
Three infant children of a Protestant, named Peter Fine, were covered with snow, and
stifled; an elderly widow, named Judith, was beheaded, and a beautiful young woman was
stripped naked, and had a stake driven through her body, of which she expired.
Lucy, the wife of Peter Besson, a woman far gone in her pregnancy, who lived in one of
the villages of the Piedmontese valleys, determined, if possible, to escape from such dreadful
scenes as everywhere surrounded her: she, accordingly took two young children, one in each
hand, and set off towards the Alps. But on the third day of the journey she was taken in
labour among the mountains, and delivered of an infant, who perished through the extreme
inclemency of the weather, as did the two other children; for all three were found dead by
her, and herself just expiring, by the person to whom she related the above particulars.
Francis Gros, the son of a clergyman, had his flesh slowly cut from his body into small
pieces, and put into a dish before him; two of his children were minced before his sight; and
his wife was fastened to a post, that she might behold all these cruelties practiced on her
husband and offspring. The tormentors at length being tired of exercising their cruelties, cut
off the heads of both husband and wife, and then gave the flesh of the whole family to the
dogs.
The sieur Thomas Margher fled to a cave, when the soldiers shut up the mouth, and he
perished with famine. Judith Revelin, and seven children, were barbarously murdered in their
beds; and a widow of near fourscore years of age, was hewn to pieces by soldiers.
Jacob Roseno was ordered to pray to the saints, which he absolutely refused to do: some
of the soldiers beat him violently with bludgeons to make him comply, but he still refusing,
several of them fired at him, and lodged a great many balls in his body. As he was almost
expiring, they cried to him, "Will you call upon the saints? Will you pray to the saints?" To
which he answered "No! No! No!" when one of the soldiers, with a broadsword, clove his
head asunder, and put an end to his sufferings in this world; for which undoubtedly, he is
gloriously rewarded in the next.
A soldier, attempting to ravish a young woman, named Susanna Gacquin, she made a
stout resistance, and in the struggle pushed him over a precipice, when he was dashed to
pieces by the fall. His comrades, instead of admiring the virtue of the young woman, and
applauding her for so nobly defending her chastity, fell upon her with their swords, and cut
her to pieces.
Giovanni Pulhus, a poor peasant of La Torre, being apprehended as a Protestant by the
soldiers, was ordered, by the marquis of Pianesta, to be executed in a place near the convent.
When he came to the gallows, several monks attended, and did all they could to persuade
him to renounce his religion. But he told them he never would embrace idolatry, and that he
was happy at being thought worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. They then put him in
mind of what his wife and children, who depended upon his labour, would suffer after his
decease; to which he replied, "I would have my wife and children, as well as myself, to
consider their souls more than their bodies, and the next world before this; and with respect
to the distress I may leave them in, God is merciful, and will provide for them while they are
worthy of his protection." Finding the inflexibility of this poor man, the monks cried, "Turn
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