yea, hereby they bring so much innocent bloud on the Popes
head as is enough to drown him: Some therefore in this matter
know little, and dare speak lesse, for fear of afterclaps. Secondly,
some who suspect that one eye of the Church may be dimme;
yet hold that both the eyes, the Pope and generall Council to∣gether,
cannot be deceived.
Now the Council of Vienne countenanced the exstirpation
of the Templars, determined the dissolution of their Order, and
adjudged their lands to be conferred to the Knights-Hospital∣lers.
Men ought then to be well advised how they condemn a
generall Council to be accessorie post factum to the murder of so
many men.
For all this, those who dare not hollow, do whisper on the
other side, accounting the Templars not malefactours but
martyrs: First, because the witnesse was unsufficient, a malefa∣ctour
against his Judge; and secondly, they bring tortured men
against themselves. Yea, there want not those that maintain
that a confession extorted on the rack is of no validitie, If they
be weak men and unable to endure torment, they will speak
any thing; and in this case their words are endited not from
their heart but outward limbes that are in pain: and a poor
conquest it is, to make either the hand of a child to beate, or
the tongue of the tortured man to accuse himself. If they be
sturdie and stubborn, whose backs are paved against torments,
such as bring brasen sides against steely whips, they will con∣fesse
nothing. And though these Templars were stout and va∣liant
men, yet it is to be commended to ones consideration,
whether slavish and servile souls will not better bear torment,
then generous spirits, who are for the enduring of honourable
danger and speedie death, but not provided for torment, which
they are not acquainted with, neither is it the proper object
of valour.
Again, it is produced in their behalf, that being burned at the
stake, they denied it at their death, though formerly they had
confessed it; and whose charitie, if not stark-blind, will not
be so tender-eyed as to believe that they would not breath
out their soul with a lie, and wilfully contract a new guilt in
that very instant wherein they were to be arraigned before the
Judge of heaven? A Templar being to be burned at Burde∣aux,
and seeing the Pope and King Philip looking out at a
window, cried unto them, Clement thou cruell Tyrant, see∣ing
there is no higher amongst mortall men to whom I should
appeal for my unjust death, I cite thee together with King Phi∣lip
to the tribunall of Christ the just Judge who redeemed
me, there both to appear within one yeare and a day; where
I will lay open my cause, and justice shall be done without any