United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ask you for the ultimate results of the abjuration of Henry IV., I point to the demolition of La Rochelle, under Richelieu, and the systematic humiliation of the Huguenots; I point to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., and the bitter and cruel and wholesale persecution which followed; I point to the atrocities of the dragonnades and the exile of the Huguenots to England and America and Holland; I point to the extinction of civil and religions liberty in France, to the restoration of the Jesuits, to the prevalence of religious indifference under the guise of Roman Catholicism, until at last it threw off the mask and defied all authority, both human and divine, and invoked all the maddening passions of Revolution itself.
A slight penance atoned for this profane dissimulation. * III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices.
In nine days the farce was completed, and the new Catholic turned out into the town, with about twenty francs of small change in his pocket, charitably contributed by the witnesses of the ceremony of his abjuration. It is needless to dwell on his adventures at this time. He was a servant in two different families.
Then they passed a bill, enacting, that the oath of abjuration should be tendered to all persons, and such as refused to take it should be in the condition of convicted recusants. By another, they suspended the habeas-corpus act till October, with relation to persons apprehended by the government on suspicion of treasonable practices.
The bishops, by this act, received arbitrary power to arrest and imprison on suspicion, without check or restraint of law, at their will and pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who persisted in heresy, or relapsed into it after abjuration, were sentenced to be burnt at the stake, a dreadful punishment, on the wickedness of which the world has long been happily agreed.
During the same month, "an act for the payment of certain sums of money" was amended by adding a clause, "restoring to the rights of citizenship, on taking the oath of abjuration and allegiance," all such persons as had been disfranchised by the third clause of the act entitled "An act to preserve the freedom and independence of this state," passed the 12th of May, 1784.
"On Friday last, amongst the hills betwixt Douglas and the Ploughlands, we pursued two fellows a great way through the mosses, and in end seized them. They had no arms about them, and denied they had any. But being asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the two, called John Brown, refused it; nor would he swear not to rise in arms against the King, but said he knew no king.
Neither the abjuration nor the elections were acted upon beforehand by the communities, the train-bands, or the guilds of the cities all represented, in fact, by the magistrates and councils of each; nor by the peasantry of the open country all supposed to be represented by the knights and nobles.
Biron himself proposed not to declare Henry king, but to recognize him merely as captain-general of the army pending his abjuration. Harlay de Sancy vigorously maintained the cause of the Salic law and the hereditary rights of monarchy. Biron took him aside and said, I had hitherto thought that you had sense; now I doubt it.
I promise to do my duty, with all my strength and skill, as God and my conscience are witnesses that I have done it hitherto." The negotiations pointed to a speedy abjuration of Philip; the Republic was contemplated by none; the Prince of Orange absolutely refused to stretch forth his own hand; who then was to receive the sceptre which was so soon to be bestowed?
Word Of The Day