Page:The History of the Bohemian Persecution (1650).djvu/125

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The Bohemian Perſecution.
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lixtines as Papiſts, might have the more liberty to vexe the Goſpellers with malice, calumnies, and injuries, and untill the yeare 1555 by the Kings command, the Miniſters that had received orders in Germany, and thoſe that were married in Cities and Townes were removed, one after another, and baniſhed the Kingdome, to the number (as ſome have affirmed) of neer upon 200. Theſe men being diſperſed through Miſnia and the Palatine Philip Malancthon greatly comforted with his letters.

For the King had promiſed that ſome of the chief of the Goſpellers, upon any pretence whatſoever ſhould bee proſcribed, and hurried to priſon, among whom was lohn prostiborski, Baron of Schanow, an eminent man, not ſo much for his wealth, as his learning and good experience. Hee, for a ſuſpition of a certaine plot againſt Ferdinand, and for that he had conſulted with the Saxons after an itterated verball diligent examination being laid on the rack, with an heroicall indignation, cut out his tongue and caſt it away, being demanded why hee did ſo, what hee could not with his tongue in thoſe tortures, very humbly with a quill ſet it downe on the wall) for that end (ſaid hee) I did it, becauſe I would not bee brought to it, by any tortures to ſay any thing that is falſe againſt himſelfe, or others. And here by a written parchment upbraiding the Tyrannicall proceedings againſt them, and other in-

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