per illud Christianissimi tituli decus sanctissimum, fieri ne siveris: nec tantam sæviendi licentiam, non dico Principi cuiquam (neque enim in ullum Principem, multò minus in ætatem illius Principis teneram, aut in muliebrem Matris animum, tanta sævitia cadere potest), sed sacerrimis illis Sicariis, ne permiseris. Qui cum Christi Servatoris nostri servos atque imitatores sese profiteantur, qui venit in hunc mundum ut peccatores servaret, Ejus mitissimi Nomine atque Institutis ad innocentium crudelissimas cædes abutuntur. Eripe qui potes, quique in tanto fastigio dignus es posse, tot supplices tuos homicidarum ex manibus, qui cruore nuper ebrii sanguinem rursùs sitiunt, suæque invidiam crudelitatis in Principes derivare consultissimum sibi ducunt. Tu verò nec Titulos tuos aut Regni fines istá invidiâ, nec Evangelium Christi pacatissimum istá crudelitate fœdari, te regnante patiaris, Memineris hos ipsos Avi tui Henrici Protestantibus amicissimi Dedititios fuisse; cùm Diguierius per ea Loca, quà etiam commodissimus in Italiam transitus est, Sabaudum trans Alpes cedentem victor est insecutus. Deditionis illius Instrumentum in Actis Regni vestri Publicis etiamnum extat: in quo exceptum atque cautum inter alia est, ne cui posteà Convallenses traderentur, nisi iisdem conditionibus quibus eos Avus tuus invictissimus in fidem recepit. Hanc fidem nunc implorant, avitam abs te Nepote supplices requirunt. Tui esse quàm cujus nunc sunt, vel permutatione aliquâ si fieri possit, malint atque optârint: id si non licet, patrocinio saltem, miseratione atque perfugio.

'Sunt et rationes regni quæ hortari possint ut Convallenses ad te confugientes ne rejicias: sed nolim te, Rex tantus cum sis, aliis rationibus ad defensionem calamitosorum quàm fide à Majoribus datâ, pietate, regiâque animi benignitate ac magnitudine permoveri. Ita pulcherrimi facti laus atque gloria illibata atque integra tua erit, et ipse Patrem Misericordiæ ejusque Filium Christum Regem, cujus Nomen atque Doctrinam ab immanitate nefariâ vindicaveris, eò magis faventem tibi et propitium per omnem vitam experieris.

'Deus Opt. Max. ad gloriam suam, tot innocentissimorum

hominum Christianorum tutandam salutem, Vestrumque verum decus, Majestati Vestræ hanc mentem injiciat. Majestatis Vestræ Studiosissimus

66

“OLIVERIUS PROTECTOR REIP. ANGLIÆ," ETC.

'Westmonasterio, Maii "26° die," anno 1658.'1

Of which here is a Version the most literal we can make :

'TO THE MOST SERENE AND POTENT PRINCE, LOUIS,
KING OF FRANCE'

'MOST SERENE AND POTENT KING, MOST CLOSE FRIEND AND ALLY, Your Majesty may recollect that during the negotiation between us for the renewing of our League (which many advantages to both Nations, and much damage to their common Enemies, resulting therefrom, now testify to have been very wisely done),-there fell out that miserable Slaughter of the People of the Valleys; whose cause, on all sides deserted and trodden down, we, with the utmost earnestness and pity, recommended to your mercy and protection. Nor do we think your Majesty, for your own part, has been wanting in an office so pious and indeed so human, in so far as either by authority or favour you might have influence with the Duke of Savoy: we certainly, and many other Princes and States, by embassies, by letters, by entreaties directed thither, have not been wanting.

'After that most sanguinary Massacre, which spared no age nor either sex, there was at last a Peace given; or rather, under the specious name of Peace, a certain more disguised hostility. The terms of the Peace were settled in your Town of Pignerol: hard terms; but such as those poor People, indigent and wretched, after suffering all manner of cruelties and atrocities, might gladly acquiesce in; if only, hard and unjust as the bargain is, it were adhered to. It is not

1 The Prose Works of John Milton (London, 1833). p. 815.

2 June 1655 antea, vol. iii. p. 205.

adhered to: those terms are broken; the purport of every one of them is, by false interpretation and various subterfuges, eluded and violated. Many of these People are ejected from their old Habitations; their Native Religion is prohibited to many new Taxes are exacted; a new Fortress has been built over them, out of which soldiers frequently sallying plunder or kill whomsoever they meet. Moreover, new Forces have of late been privily got ready against them; and such as follow the Romish Religion are directed to withdraw from among them within a limited time: so that everything seems now again to point towards the extermination of all among those unhappy People, whom the former Massacre had left.

'Which now, O Most Christian King, I beseech and obtest thee, by thy right-hand which pledged a League and Friendship with us, by the sacred honour of that Title of Most Christian, permit not to be done: nor let such license of savagery, I do not say to any Prince (for indeed no cruelty like this could come into the mind of any Prince, much less into the tender years of that young Prince, or into the woman's heart of his Mother), but to those most accursed Assassins, be given. Who while they profess themselves the servants and imitators of Christ our Saviour, who came into this world that He might save sinners, abuse His most merciful Name and Commandments to the cruelest slaughterings. Snatch, thou who art able, and who in such an elevation art worthy to be able, those poor Suppliants of thine from the hands of Murderers, who, lately drunk with blood, are again athirst for it, and think convenient to turn the discredit of their own cruelty upon their Prince's score. Suffer not either thy Titles and the Environs of thy Kingdom to be soiled with that discredit, or the peaceable Gospel of Christ by that cruelty, in thy Reign. Remember that these very People became subjects of thy Ancestor, Henry, most friendly to Protestants; when Lesdiguières victoriously pursued him of Savoy across the Alps, through those same Valleys,' where indeed the most 1 In 1592; Hénault, Abrégé Chronologique (Paris, 1774), ii. 597.

commodious pass to Italy is. The Instrument of that their Paction and Surrender is yet extant in the Public Acts of your Kingdom in which this among other things is specified and provided against, That these People of the Valleys should not thereafter be delivered over to any one except on the same conditions under which thy invincible Ancestor had received them into fealty. This promised protection they now implore; promise of thy Ancestor they now, from thee the Grandson, suppliantly demand. To be thine rather than his whose they now are, if by any means of exchange it could be done, they would wish and prefer: if that may not be, thine at least by succour, by commiseration and deliverance.

"There are likewise reasons of state which might give inducement not to reject these People of the Valleys flying for shelter to thee: but I would not have thee, so great a King as thou art, be moved to the defence of the unfortunate by other reasons than the promise of thy Ancestors, and thy own piety and royal benignity and greatness of mind. So shall the praise and fame of this most worthy action be unmixed and clear; and thyself shalt find the Father of Mercy, and His Son Christ the King, whose Name and Doctrine thou shalt have vindicated, the more favourable to thee, and propitious through the course of life.

'May the Almighty, for His own glory, for the safety of so many most innocent Christian men, and for your true honour, dispose Your Majesty to this determination. Your Majesty's most friendly

'OLIVER PROTECTOR OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND.

'Westminster, 26th May 1658.'

66

'TO SIR WILLIAM LOCKHART, OUR AMBASSADOR AT THE FRENCH

Sir,-The continual troubles and vexations of the poor

People of Piedmont professing the Reformed Religion,—and

that after so many serious instances of yours in the Court of France in their behalf, and after such hearty recommendations of their most deplorable condition to his Majesty in our name, who also has been pleased upon all such occasions to profess very deep resentments of their miseries, and to give us no small hopes of interposing his power and interest with the Duke of Savoy for the accommodating of those affairs, and for the restoring those poor distressed creatures to their ancient privileges and habitations, are matter of so much grief to us, and lie so near our heart, that, notwithstanding we are abundantly satisfied with those many signal marks you have always hitherto given of your truly Christian zeal and tenderness on their regard, yet the present conjuncture of their affairs, and the misery that is daily added to their affliction begetting in us fresh arguments of pity towards them, not only as men, but as the poor distressed Members of Christ, do really move us at present to recommend their sad condition to your special care. Desiring you to redouble your instances with the King, in such pathetic and affectionate expressions as may be in some measure suitable to the greatness of their present sufferings and grievances. Which, the truth is, are almost inexpressible. For so restless and implacable is the malice and fury of their Popish Adversaries, that, as though they esteemed it but a light matter to have formerly shed the innocent blood of so many hundreds of souls, to have burned their houses, to have rased their churches, to have plundered their goods, and to have driven out the Inhabitants beyond the River Pelice, out of those their ancient Possessions which they had quietly enjoyed for so many ages and generations together, they are now resolved to fill their cup of affliction up to the brim, and to heat the furnace yet seven times hotter than before. Amongst other things:

First, They forcibly prohibit all manner of Public Exercises1 at San Giovanni, which, notwithstanding, the Inhabitants have enjoyed time out of mind. and in case they yield not ready obedience to such most unrighteous orders, they are immediately Means Public Worship.'