his Majesty's heart, to make such a conclusion of this tragedy to the traytors, but tragi-comedy to the King, and all his true subjects, as, thereby, the glory of God, and his true religion, may be advanced, the future security of the King, and his estate, procured and provided for, all hollow and dishonest hearts discovered and prevented, and this horrible attempt, lacking due epithets, to be so justly avenged; that whereas they thought, by one catholick indeed, and universal blow, to accomplish the wish of that Roman tyrant, who wished all the bodies, in Rome, to have but one neck, and so, by the violent force of powder, to break up, as with a petard, our triple-locked peaceful gates of Janus, which, God be thanked, they could not compass by any other means; they may justly be so recompensed, for their truly viperous intended parricide, as the shame and infamy that, otherwise, would light upon this whole nation, for having unfortunately hatched such cockatriceeggs, may be repaired, by the execution of famous and honourable justice upon the offenders, and so the kingdom purged of them may, hereafter, perpetually flourish in peace and prosperity, by the happy conjunction of the hearts of all honest and true subjects, with their just and religious sovereign.

And thus, whereas they thought to have effaced our memories, the memory of them shall remain, but to their perpetual infamy; and we, as I said in the beginning, shall, with all thankfulness, eternally preserve the memory of so great a benefit. To which let every good subject say Amen.

JOHN REYNARD'S DELIVERANCE

FROM

THE CAPTIVITY OF THE TURKS,

And his setting free of

TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX CHRISTIANS,

THAT WERE GALLEY SLAVES.

OF such honour (amongst all nations) hath the trade of merchan

dizing been ever accounted, that commerce (ever in the hottest flames of war against one another) could find no better, or fairer means to unite them in amity, and to join them, as it were in wedlock, than by commerce and negotiation. This is that chain which binds king

As Eneas Sylvius doth notably write concerning the murder of King James the First of Scotland, and the following punishment of the traytors, whereof himself was an eye witness: Europa, cap. xlvi.

doms in leagues, begets love between princes far removed asunder, and teacheth nations, different in quality, in colour, in religion, to deal faithfully together as brethren. Traffick (to speak of our own country) hath increased and strengthened our navy, which is a second wall (besides that girdle of the sea that encompasseth her body) to defend our island. It is the breeder, and only bringer-up of good mariners, skilful pilots, and cunning navigators, who, to a state, are as necessary in peace, as husbandmen for the tillage; and in war, as serviceable as so many captains in the field. Traffick is the carrier abroad of our own home-spun commodities, and a bringer in of the fruits of foreign kingdoms, by which means the merchant and citizen grow up to wealth, and the tradesman, that lives by the hardness of his hand, is still kept and maintained in good doings. There is no coast, be it never so dangerous, left unsought; no language, be it never so barbarous, or hard to learn, left unstudied; no people, never so wild, left unventured upon, nor any treasure of the earth, or curious work of man, left unpurchased, only for this end, to do honour to our country, and to heap riches to ourselves; both which benefits do only spring out of our trading to foreign shores.

For this cause, therefore (a peace being concluded between the two great and opulent kingdoms of England and Spain) an English ship, called the Three Half Moons, being manned with thirty-eight mariners, and bravely armed with ammunition, was rigged, victualled, and ready furnished to take her voyage to Spain. The gods of the sea, the winds, knowing her intent, prepared themselves to go along with her, and making the waves ready, it became this ship to hoist up sails and come on; so that with a merry gale she took her leave at Portsmouth, bending her course towards Sevil, the greatest city in Spain. Gallantly did she, for many days, hold up her head, and danced even on the top of the. billows; her masts stood up stifly, and went away like so many trees moved by enchantment, whilst the big-bellied sails made haste to fly after, blustering and puffing either in storm, or in anger, yet could never overtake them; or rather, as lovers roaming after young damsels at Barlibreak*, they took delight to see them make away before, and of purpose suffered them to use that advantage. But, alas! how soon does the happiness of this world alter? In this bravery she had not carried herself long, but, entering into the Straights, Neptune 4 grew angry with her, or else, envying her glory, sent eight gallies of the Turks to beset her round. Now, or never, was both the courage, and the cunning of the mariner to be shewed; for either he must, by the wings of his sails, fly away, and so save himself, or manfully stand to it, and preserve all from danger, or gloriously to suffer all to perish. Of flight was there was no hope, for the winds and waves, that before were their friends, and tempted them to set forth, grew now treacherous, and conspired their destruction. Nothing, therefore, but the miraculous power of heaven, and their own resolutions, is on their side; every man hereupon calls up his spirits, and, as the suddenness of the deadly storm would allow them, did comfort one another. It was a goodly sight to

* A sort of play used by young people in the country,

+ The poetical god of the sea.

behold, how, to the very face of danger, they did defy danger; and how in the midst of an overthrow, which had round beset them, they wisely and stoutly laboured to work out safety; nothing could be heard but noise and confusion, and yet even in that wild disorder was there to be seen an excellent method of policy. Their roaming up and down shewed as if they had been all frantick, yet, like so many dancers, that sometimes are here, and anon antickly leap thither, fetching turnings and windings, with strange and busy action, they closed up every work with a sweet and musical preparation.

For after the close fights were made ready above, and that the devilish mouths of their ordnance were opening to spit hell-fire out of the belly of the ship: Up comes the master, whose name was Grove, armed with sword and target, waving his bright blade about his head in defiance of his barbarous and bloody enemies; his very looks were able to fright death from his company; and so well did his courage become him, that it served better than all their warlike musick to hearten up the rest: Close by his side, as avowed partners in all fortune, good or bad, whatsoever, stood the owner, the master's mate, boatswain, purser, and the rest of the mariners. All of them armed. all of them full of valour, all of them full of bravery; they shewed on the top of the hatches, like so many well-guarded battlements on the walls of a besieged city, every man encouraging his next neighbour, to fight valiantly, because they were Englishmen; and to die honourably, because they were Christians; rather than stoop to the base captivity of those that were Christ's professed and open enemies.

As the Englishmen were thus busy to defend themselves, on the one side, so were the Turks active in their gallies, on the other side; their scymeters glittered in the sun, their steel targets received the fire of his beams upon them, and beat it back to dazzle the eyes of them whom they assailed: Showers of musquets, with bullets charged, stood ready to be poured down; some were preparing to toss balls of wild fire, as if the sea had been their tennis-court; others, with bull's pizzles in their hands, walk up and down between the rowers, sometimes encouraging, sometimes threatening, sometimes striking the miserable galley-slaves, because they should be nimble at the oar, who, for fear of blows, more than of present death, tugged with their arms, till the sinews of them were ready to crack with swelling, and till their eye-balls, instead of bullets, did almost fly out of their heads.

At length, the drums, trumpets, and fifes, struck up their deadly concert on either side; presently does the demy cannon, and culverin, strive to drown that noise, whilst the sea roars on purpose, to drown the noise of both. In this conflict of three elements, air, water, and fire, John Reynard, the gunner, so lively, and so stoutly behaved himself, in discharging his ordnance of their great bellies, that, at length, fire seemed to have the mastery; for so thickly did his bullets fly abroad, and were wrapped up in such clouds of lightning, that the sea shewed as if it had been all in flames, whilst the gallies of the Turks, as well as the English ship, could hardly, but by the groans and shouts of men, be found out whereabout in the sea they hovered. Many Turks and many galley-slaves did, in this battle, lose their lives, and end their captivity;

but those who survived, doubling their spirits at the horror of the danger, with which they were environed, fell upon the English ship in such storms of hail-shot, which still (like hammers on an anvil) lay beating on the ribs of it, that, at length, the sea offered, in many places, to break into her and to get the conquest, of which glory the Turks being envious, came flying with the force of all those wooden wings that bore them up, and on purpose to board her. But, at this stirring feast, Neptune was made drunk with the blood, both of Christians and Turks, mingled together. Here came the gallies, and the ship, to grappling: Look, how a company of hounds hang upon a goodly stag, when, with their noise, they ring out his death, so hung these gallies upon the body of her; nothing of her could be seen for sinoke and fire; she was half choaked with the flames, and half stifled in the waters. Yet, as you shall often see a bull, when his strength seemeth to be all spent, and that he is ready to faint, and fall on his knees, casts up on a sudden his surly head, and bravely renews a fresh and more fierce encounter: So did this ship break from the gallies, like a lusty bear from so many dogs, or rather like an invincible lion from so many bears. The Turks leaped out of their vessels, and, like rats, nimbly climbed up to the tacklings of the ship. But the English mariners so laid about them with swords, brown bills, halberts, and morrice-pikes, that, in so tragical an act, it was half a comedy, to behold what tumbling tricks the Turks made into the sea, backwards. Some of them, catching hold of the upper decks, had their hands struck off, and so for ever lost their feeling; others, clasping their arms about a cable, to fling their bodies into the ship, lost their heads, and so knew not which way to go, though it lay before them. In this terrible insurrection in Neptune's kingdom, it was hard to tell, for a great while, who should be the winners, albeit, howsoever they sped, both were certain to be losers; for the Turks would not give over, and the English scorned to yield; the owner, master, and boatswain cried out bravely, and with loud lusty spirits, Let us all resolve to die, but not a man be so base as to yield to a Turk; especially did the boatswain shew the noble courage of a mariner, both in directing without fear, and in bestowing blows in scorn of danger; which hard alms, whilst he was dealing amongst the miscreants, a shot was sent from a galley as a messenger of his death, and thereby a spoiler, though not a conqueror, of his valour, for it brake, with the violent stroke it gave, his whistle in sunder, and left him on the hatches with these last words in his mouth, Fight it out, as you are Christians, and win honour by death.

His fall did not abate, but whetted their stomachs to a sharper revenge; only the master's mate shewed himself not worthy of that name, or to be mate to so noble a master as he was, for, cowardly, he cried, Yield, yield, pulling in his arm from striking in the hottest of the skirmish,

What city is not ove come by the tyranny of time, or the oppression of assaults? What shores, though never so high, can beat back the sea, when he swells up in fury? What castles of flint or marble are not

• Viz. The seas,

shaken with the continual thunder of the cannon; So was this poor English ship; whilst her ribs held out, and were unbroken, her mariners held out, and had their hearts sound: But when they felt her shrink under them, that should bear them up in all storms, and that such numbers of Turks did so oppress them with thronging in, and with beating them down, when they had scarce feet able to stand, then, even then, did they not yield, but yet then were they taken.

Glad was the Turk that (though in this storm it rained down blood so fast) he was wet no farther; he looked upon this ill-gotten commodity, with a dull and heavy eye, for the foot of his account shewed him, that his gains of this voyage would not answer the treble part of his losses: Enraged at which, emptying the weater-beaten and the mangled ship, both of men, and of such things as were worth the carriage: the one he took home with him, to inrich the number of his spoils, the other were condemned to the gallies.

Near to the city of Alexandria, (being a haven-town and under the Turk's dominion) is a road, defended by strong walls, where the gallies are drawn up on shore, every year, in the winter season, and are there trimmed and laid up against the spring. In this road stands a prison, where all those that serve in those gallies of Alexandria, are kept as captives, so long as the seas be rough, and not passable for their Turkish vessels: Hither were these Christians brought; the first villainy and indignity that was done unto them, was the shaving off all the hair both head and beard, thereby to rob them of those ornaments which all Christians make much of, because they best become them.

It is well known to all nations in Christendom (by the woful experience of those wretches that have felt it) what misery men endure in this thraldom under the Turk. Their lodging is the cold earth; their diet, coarse bread, and (sometimes) stinking water; for, if they should taste of the clear spring, their drink were as good as the Turks, who never taste wine; their apparel, thin and coarse canvas; their stockings and shoes, heavy bolts and cold irons; the exercise, to put life into them, or to catch them a heat, is at the pleasure of a proud and dogged Turk, for the least fault, nay, for none at all, but only to feed his humour, to receive a hundred bastinadoes, on the rim of the belly, with a bull's dried pizzle, at one time, and within a day after, two hundred stripes on the back.

In this most lamentable estate did these Christians continue, but it was not long before the master and owner, by the good means of friends, were redeemed from this slavery; the rest, lying by it, soon were starved to death; others with cold and blows, breathed out their last.

But John Reynard, the gunner, being enabled, by the providence and will of God, to endure this affliction with a stronger heart than others could, outlived most of his fellows, only to be, as it after fell out, a preservation of his own life, with many other Christians. For having Bome skill in the trade of a barber, he did by that means, shift now and then for victuals, and mended his hard diet; whereupon growing (after a long imprisonment) into favour with the keeper of the Christians, that were galley-slaves, he so behaved himself, that, at length, he got liberty to go in and out to the road, at his pleasure, paying a certain stipend to