naked, and after they had offered them a thousand Indignities, they stuck them with Pins from Head to Foot: They cut them with Penknifes, tear them by the Noses with red hot Pincers, and dragged them about the Rooms, 'till they promised to become Roman Catholicks, or that the dole∣ful outcries of these poor tormented Creatures, calling upon God for Mercy, constrained them to let them go. They beat them with Staves, and dragged them, all bruised, to the Popish Churches, where their en∣forced presence is reputed for an Abjuration. They keep them waking se∣ven or eight days together, relieving one another by turns, that they might not get a wink of sleep or rest. In case they began to nod, they threw Buckets of Water in their Faces, or holding Kettles over their Heads, they beat on them with such a continual noise, that those poor Wretches lost their Senses.
If they found any sick, who kept their Beds, Men or Women, be it of Feavers or other Diseases, they were so cruel, as to beat up an alarm with twelve Drums about their Beds, for a whole Week together without Inter∣mission, till they had promised to change.
In some places they tied Fathers and Husbands to the Bed-Posts, and ra∣vished their Wives and Daughters before their Eyes. And in another place Rapes were publickly and generally permitted for many hours toge∣ther.
From others they pluck off the Nails of their Hands and Toes, which must needs cause an intolerable pain. They burnt the Feet of others. They blew up Men and Women with Bellows, 'till they were ready to burst in pieces.
If these horrid usages could not prevail upon them to violate their Con∣sciences, and abandon their Religion, they did then Imprison them in close and noisome Dungeons, in which they exercised all kind of Inhumanities upon them. They demolish their Houses, desolate their Hereditary Lands, cut down their Woods, seize upon their Wives and Children, and mew them up in Monasteries.
When the Souldiers had devoured all the goods of a House, then the Farmers and Tenants of these poor persecuted Wretches must supply them with new Fewels for their Lusts, and bring in more subsistence to them; and that they might be reimbursed, they did, by Authority of Justice, sell unto them the Fee-simple Estate of their Landlords, and put them into pos∣session of it.
If any, to secure their Consciences, and to escape the Tyranny of these enraged Cannibals, endeavour'd to flee away, they were pursued and hun∣ted in the Fields and Woods, and shot at as so many wild Beasts.
The Provosts, with their Archers, course it up and down the high ways after these poor Fugitives; and Magistrates in all places have strict Orders to stop and detain them without exception; and being taken, they are brought back, like Prisoners of War, unto those places from whence they fled.