Attempted Assassinations

Adventure, intrigue, close calls, providential deliverances, courage, mercy, persecution, martyrdom: these are some of the stories of attempted and successful assassinations of Reformed ministers and statesmen from the First and Second Reformation eras.

George Wishart (c. 1513-1546) -- The Reformer George Wishart was viewed as greatest threat of his day to the stranglehold of the Roman Catholic Church on Scotland. His arch-enemy, Cardinal David Beaton bribed a priest, Sir John Wighton (Wightman), to assassinate Wishart by mingling with the crowd attending upon his preaching in Dundee with a dagger hidden in his cloak, and lying in wait for the appropriate moment. As Wishart descended from the pulpit, he greeted his would-be assassin, "What would you do, my friend?" John Knox, Wishart's biographer, future bodyguard, and Reformer-successor, writes that Wishart's keen eye had noticed the movement of Wighton's hand for the dagger, and he clamped his own on it, apprehending the dagger himself. At this the priest fell down to his knees and confessed his murderous intention. An angry crowd converged and threatened to kill the priest. Knox related Wishart's response thus: "But Master George took him in his arms and said, 'Whosoever troubles him shall trouble me. He has hurt me in nothing, but has done great comfort both to you and me, he has let us understand what we may fear in times to come. We will watch better.' Thus he appeased both the one part and the other, and saved the life of him that sought his." Wishart was eventually arrested, and executed at the hands of Cardinal Beaton on March 1, 1546. Beaton himself was assassinated in reprisal by Wishart's supporters later that year.

William Farel (1489-1565) and Pierre Viret (1511-1571) -- William Farel, the Swiss Reformer who persuaded John Calvin to serve Geneva, and Pierre Viret, the French Reformer whose 500th birthday is this year, both survived multiple assassination attempts. Early in his career, Viret was badly wounded in Payerene when a band of Catholics attempted to kill him. A monk ran him through with a sword as Viret attempted to cross a field. His injury was severe but his body healed.

In 1535, an attempt was made to eliminate three Reformers at once: Farel, Viret and Antoine Froment (1508–1581). A servant girl, Antonia Vax, was persuaded by certain priests to poison a bowl of spinach soup. She was hired to work for Claude Bernard, at whose house all three Reformers were then lodged, in Geneva. On March 8, 1535, she placed poison in a small bone served to Viret within his soup. Farel's bowl of soup was clearer and she was afraid to place a poisoned bone in it (Émile Doumergue, Jean Calvin, Vol. 2, pp. 133-134); he apparently did not like the look of the soup in any event and requested another bowl. Froment was about to eat but was advised before partaking that his wife and children had just arrived in Geneva and so left the table with the food untouched. Viret became violently ill and suffered from the effects of the poison the rest of his life. Vax confessed after attempting to flee the city, and identified two co-conspirators but charges against the others were dropped. She was executed the following month for her crime.

At Corcelles, Farel was attacked by a group of monks, including the prior Rodolph de Benoit, who, it is reported, had a dagger in his hand. Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigné reports that "Farel escaped with difficulty."

On another occasion, Farel, Viret and John Calvin (1509-1564) were all traveling together to the famous October 1536 public disputation with Roman Catholic clergy in Lausanne, when a group of assassins laid in wait for them, but were discovered, and the plot was thwarted, all of these great Reformers were unharmed. Viret said at the closing of the debate, "We do not thirst for blood, like those who laid in wait to destroy us on our way thither. So far from seeking to punish them, we interceded on their behalf, and our only wish is that they may receive complete forgiveness."

Jean-Marc Berthoud, Pierre Viret: A Forgotten Giant of the Reformation, pp. 14-15, also writes that "in France when a Protestant mob was on the point of lynching a traitorous Roman Catholic priest Pierre Viret interposed his very life to save him from certain death."

Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622/1623) -- English Congregationalist, Biblical commentator, and the man behind the psalter of the Pilgrims, Henry Ainsworth was a man of peace, but became embroiled in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, which he viewed as Antichrist; the Church of England, from which he withdrew, Puritans like Richard Bernard; who opposed Separatism; as well as other Congregationalists like Francis Johnson, over the nature of the office of elder. Ultimately, he died suddenly and mysteriously, in Amsterdam, where he lived and worked in exile, in late 1622 or early 1623. The story that is told varies slightly but the suspicion is that he was poisoned. Historian Daniel Neal writes: "His death was sudden, and not without suspicion of violence; for it is reported that, having found a diamond of very great value in the streets of Amsterdam, he advertised it in print, and when the owner, who was a Jew, came to demand it, he offered him any acknowledgment he would desire; but Ainsworth, though poor, would accept of nothing but a conference with some of his [rabbis] upon the prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, which the other promised, but not having interest enough to obtain it, 'tis thought that he was poisoned." Historian Benjamin Brook writes that the conference indeed took place, and that he was poisoned by his defeated antagonists.

Matthew Poole (1624-1679) -- After having been ejected from his pulpit for nonconformity in 1662, English Puritan minister Matthew Poole devoted the rest of his life to Biblical studies, publishing the Latin Synopsis Criticorum (Synopsis of Interpreters) on the whole Bible and an English Annotations on the Bible through Isaiah 58 before his death. He was living in London when fear gripped the city after Titus Oakes proclaimed the existence of a Popish Plot to assassinate King Charles II in 1678. The following year a deposition by Oates identified a hit list of targets intended for assassination and Matthew Poole's name was on it, which was not a surprise given that he had written two notable books on Roman Catholic apologetics. Although the plot was later discredited and Oates was ultimately convicted of perjury, Poole himself gave credence to the plot after overhearing men plotting to kill him. George Godfrey Cunningham relates the account thus:

Soon after, he was spending an evening at Mr Alderman Ashurst's, and was returning home with a Mr Chorley, who had gone with him for the sake of company; when coming near the narrow passage which leads from Clerkenwell to St John's court, they saw two men standing at the entrance; one of whom, as Mr Poole approached, said to the other, "there he is;" upon which the other replied, "let him alone, there is somebody with him." As soon as they were passed, Mr Poole asked his friend if he had heard what passed between the two men; and, upon his answering that he had, "Well," replied Mr Poole, "I had been murdered tonight had you not been with me."

This event prompted him to relocate to Amsterdam where he in fact died soon after on October 12, 1679. The suddenness of his death led to the supposition, which has never been confirmed, that he was poisoned.

Samuel Maresius (1599-1673) -- French Huguenot theologian Samuel Des Marets (Maresius) would go on to become professor at the Academy of Sedan (1625), pastor at Maastricht (1632), pastor and professor at Bois-le-Duc (1636), and at Groningen (1643), but early in his career, soon after becoming pastor at Lyons in 1620, he wrote to lady who had apostatized from the faith, a letter which provoked a Jesuit priest to hire an assassin who stabbed him in the chest. His injury was severe but he went on to recover and become a major theologian of the post-Reformation era.

William of Orange (1533-1584) -- William I, the Silent, Prince of Orange, was the leader of the Dutch Revolt, a resistance movement opposed to the Spanish religious and political tyranny and oppression, a revolt which sparked the Eighty Years' War and led to Dutch Independence. William became a Calvinist in 1573. Soon after the July 22, 1581 Act of Abjuration, which was the Dutch Declaration of Independence, a Spanish Roman Catholic named Juan de Jáuregui responded to the call by King Philip II of Spain to assassinate William (the supposed reward was to be 80,000 ducats and the habit of the Order of Santiago) by shooting William in Antwerp on March 18, 1572. The pistol malfunctioned, but the bullet pierced William's neck, exiting near the left jaw bone. Jáuregui was killed on the spot, but William survived the serious injury thanks to the care of his wife Charlotte, who died herself less than two months later.

The second attempt on his life was successful. On July 10, 1584, the French Roman Catholic Balthasar Gérard (also in response to Philip's call) shot William fatally at close range at his home in Delft. Gérard was arrested, tried, convicted and executed for his crime. William's last reported words were: "Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de mon âme; mon Dieu, ayez pitié de ce pauvre peuple" ("My God, have pity on my soul; my God, have pity on this poor people").

Stephen Bocskay (1557-1606) -- Stephen Bocskay, Prince of Transylvania, was the Protestant Hungarian nobleman who led an anti-Hapsburg uprising in defense of the religious and constitutional liberties of Hungarians both in Transylvania and Royal Hungary. After concluding successful peace treaties, such as the Peace of Vienna (June 1606) and the Peace of Zsitvatorok (November 1606), Bocskay was poisoned on December 29, 1606, by his chancellor Mihály Káthay, who was then himself killed by an angry mob of Bocskay's supporters.

Half Christ

John Calvin, Commentary on Gal. 5.2:

And what else do our modern Papists but thrust upon us, in place of circumcision, trifles of their own invention? The tendency of their whole doctrine is to blend the grace of Christ with the merit of works, which is impossible. Whoever wishes to have the half of Christ, loses the whole.

John Calvin, Letter to William Farel (May 12, 1541), concerning his observations at the Colloquy of Regensburg, an attempt at rapprochement between Catholics and Protestants, at which he served as a junior member:

So far as I could understand, if we could be content with only a half Christ we might easily come to understand one another.

Jeremiah Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 8:

It was a notable speech of Calvin to those who were offended with troubles they met with in the work of Reformation, If wee could be content with halfe a Christ, (says he) our worke would more easily goe on, we could soone bring about what wee would have, we should not meet with so much opposition, but nothing but a whole Christ will serve our turne.

Great Lion of God

Pastor Jean Léger (1615-1670), Histoire générale des églises évangéliques des vallées de Piémont ou Vaudoises (1669):

...though [Joshua Gianavel] possessed the courage of a lion, he was as humble as a lamb, always giving to God the glory of his victories; well versed in Scripture, and understanding controversy, and of great natural talent.

Rora (2001) is a fictionalized account by James Byron Huggins of the remarkable true story of Joshua Gianavel (Giosuè Gianavello), a farmer-warrior who led the resistance to the famous 1655 Waldensian Massacre in the Valley of Piedmont at a little place called Rorà, Italy. I have enjoyed reading it and commend it highly.

Gianavel, whose story is told in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first spied soldiers attempting to attack his valley of Rorà as the Massacre was underway. Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, had given the order for a general massacre of Waldensians to begin at 4:00 am, April 24, 1655. It was an unprovoked attack, the culmination of centuries of hostilities by French Catholics against peaceful Waldensians.

The Waldensians had borne witness to the true gospel for hundreds of years, and when the Reformation began, they sent emissaries to meet with German Reformers in 1526 and 1530. On behalf of the Swiss and German Reformed Churches, William Farel attended the Waldensian Synod of Chanforan in 1532, at which time the Waldensians officially joined the Reformation. That same year, John Calvin's cousin, Pierre Robert Olivétan, was charged with writing a translating of the Bible to be used by the Waldensians, which was published in 1535 as the French Olivétan Bible. King Francis I soon exterminated the Waldensians of France in 1545, but in 1561, the Treaty of Cavour permitted religious liberty to the Waldensians of Piedmont.

A century later, as hatred of the Waldensian "heretics" mounted amongst the Catholics who surrounded their homeland in the Alps, the Duke of Savoy launched his attack on the Valley, intending to wipe them out once and for all. When Gianavel spied the soldiers coming towards his village, he gathered together six other men, and successfully employed guerrilla warfare tactics to repel the invaders. Increasing waves of soldiers attacked the vastly outnumbered men of Rora but were consistently thwarted in their efforts to subdue the inhabitants, often returning to their base with many casualties of their own and no dead Waldensians to show for it. Thousands of Waldensians were slaughtered in other parts of the Valley, to be sure, men, women and children, but Rora was defended by a militia captain who trusted not in weapons or numbers, but in the Lord God. After each victorious skirmish, Gianavel and his men would kneel and worship God, returning thanks to him in prayer and often singing the eleventh Psalm.

The general commanding the Duke's forces, the Marquis de Pianessa, was enraged that his tactics were being thwarted by a handful of farmer peasants.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs 6.3-4:

The marquis of Pianessa was greatly enraged at being so much baffled by the few inhabitants of Roras: he, therefore, determined to attempt their expulsion in such a manner as could hardly fail of success.

With this view he ordered all the Roman, catholic militia of Piedmont to be raised and disciplined. When these orders were completed, he joined to the militia eight thousand regular troops, and dividing the whole into three distinct bodies, he designed that three formidable attacks should be made at the same time, unless the people of Roras, to whom he sent an account of his great preparations, would comply with the following conditions:

1. To ask pardon for taking up arms. 2. To pay the expenses of all the expeditions sent against them. 3. To acknowledge the infallibility of the pope. 4. To go to mass. 5. To pray to the saints. 6. To wear beards. 7. To deliver up their ministers. 8. To deliver up their schoolmasters. 9. To go to confession. 10. To pay loans for the delivery of souls from purgatory. 11. To give up captain Gianavel at discretion. 12. To give up the elders of their church at discretion.

The inhabitants of Roras, on being acquainted with these conditions, were filled with aa honest indignation; and, in answer, sent word to the marquis, that sooner than comply with them they would suffer three things, which, of all others, were the most obnoxious to mankind, viz,

1. Their estates to be seized. 2. Their houses to be burnt.— 3. Themselves to be murdered.

Exasperated at this message, the marquis sent them this laconic epistle.

To the obstinate Heretics inhabiting Roras. You shall have your request, for the troops sent against you have strict injunctions to plunder, burn, and kill.

PIANESSA.

The three armies were then put in motion, and the attacks ordered to be made thus: the first by the rocks of Vilaro; the second by the pass of Bagnol; and the third by the defile of Lucerne.

The troops forced their way by the superiority of numbers, and having gained the rocks, pass, and defile, began to make the most horrid depredations and exercise the greatest cruelties. Men they hanged, burnt, racked to death. or cut to pieces; women they ripped open, crucified, drowned, or threw from the precipices; and children they tossed upon spears, minced, cut their throats, or dashed out their brains. One hundred and twenty-six suffered in this manner, on the first day of their gaining the town.

Agreeable to the marquis of Pianessa's orders, they likewise plundered the estates, and burnt the houses of the people. Several protestants, however, made their escape, under the conduct of Captain Gianavel, whose wife and children were unfortunately made prisoners, and sent under a strong guard to Turin.

The marquis of Pianessa wrote a letter to captain Gianavel, and released a protestant prisoner that he might carry it him. The contents were, that if the captain would embrace the Roman catholic religion, he should be indemnified for all his losses since the commencement of the war; his wife and children should be immediately released, and himself honourably promoted in the duke of Savoy's army; but if he refused to accede to the proposals made him, his wife and children should be to put death; and so large a reward should be given to take him, dead or alive, that even some of his own confidential friends should be tempted to betray him, from the greatness of the sum.

To this epistle, the brave Gianavel sent the following answer.

My Lord Marquis,

There is no torment so great or death so cruel, but what I would prefer to the abjuration of my religion: so that promises lose their effects, and menaces only strengthen me in my faith.

With respect to my wife and children, my lord, nothing can be more afflicting to me than the thoughts of their confinement, or more dreadful to my imagination, that their suffering a violent and cruel death. I keenly feel all the tender sensations of husband and parent; my heart is replete with every sentiment of humanity; I would suffer any torment to rescue them from danger; I would die to preserve them.

But having said thus much, my lord, I assure you that the purchase of their lives must not be the price of my salvation. You have them in your power it is true; but my consolation is, that your power is only a temporary authority over their bodies: you may destroy the mortal part, but their immortal souls are out of your reach, and will live hereafter to bear testimony against you for your cruelties. I therefore recommend them and myself to God, and pray for a reformation in your heart. Joshua Gianavel.

Gianavel was able to save his young son from the ruins of his village, and brought him north to be cared for by relatives, but in fact, his wife and three daughters were burned alive.

Oliver Cromwell and his diplomats, including John Milton, as well as other Protestant nations, pressured the French and Savoy governments to cease persecution of the Waldensians, but the war continued until relative peace was achieved by the Patente de Turin of 1664, which, however, excluded Gianavel from the terms of amnesty. He retired to Geneva, where he served the Waldensian cause in other indirect ways. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy was pressured into violating the peace terms and renewing the effort to exterminate the Waldensians of the Valley. When Waldensian refugees entered Geneva in 1686, the aged militia captain was there to greet them in a memorable, emotional embrace.

One of Milton's most famous sonnets was written in 1655 in response to the Massacre.

John Milton, Sonnet XVIII: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow

O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Mrs. Wright's Martin Luther

Over a century ago, a lady named Mrs. Julia McNair Wright published two sets of short children's biographies known as the True Story Library (this particular set was originally published in 1870). Now Master Poole Publishing is making one of those sets available again to 21st century readers. The first volume to be republished is Martin Luther, the story of the great reformer retold for young people.

As with each of these books, the story of a hero or heroine of faith is told simply and plainly with encouraging words directed to young readers. Two illustrations are included in each volume. The stories in this set include the following: 1. George Wishart; 2. John Knox; 3. Martin Luther; 4. Queen Margaret; 5. John Calvin; 6. William Farel; 7. Renee of Ferrara; 8. William Tyndale; 9. Richard Baxter; 10. John Huss; 11. Philip Melanchthon; and 12. Admiral Coligni.

Martin Luther's story is told with special emphasis on his childhood and youth, through his conversion, ministry and Reformation of the church, all the way to his last words on his deathbed.

The words written by Mrs. Wright certainly apply today as much as they did in the 19th century: "The world and the Church need a good shaking just now to wake them up to the work of the Lord, and where is the Luther strong in Jesus to do it? He may be some boy reading this book. God knows" (p. 14).

Truly, Martin Luther and the rest of this series will edify both young and old alike. My own children enjoyed reading and discussing Martin Luther's life as told by Mrs. Wright. It is a great family exercise to read these stories aloud. There is something for everyone in these precious Christian biographies that will reward all who read.

First Reformed Systematic Theology

Many, with good reason, look to John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) as the first and chief systematic treatment of Reformed theology. But it is important to realize that he drew upon earlier systematic theological works by other Reformers, which are not to be forgotten.

Philipp Melanchthon is credited with publishing the first Protestant systematic exposition of theology in 1521, Loci communes theologici.

In 1524-1525, while in Montbeliard, William Farel wrote and published the first Reformed systematic theology in French, Summaire briefue declaration daucuns lieux fort necessaires a ung chascun Chrestien pour mettre sa confiance en Dieu et ayder son prochain.

Also in 1525, Ulrich Zwingli published Commentarius de Vera et Falsa Religione.

And in 1529, François Lambert of Avignon, the author of the first commentary on Revelation by a Reformer (1528), published Somme chrestienne.

Geneva's Triple Light

In an elegaic poem about Jonathan Mitchell (1624 - 1668) written by one Francis Drake (fl. 1650 - 1668), he refers to "Geneva's Triple Light," meaning William Farel, Pierre Viret and John Calvin. They were the Genevan "Triumvirate" (again to use Drake's phrase) of the age.

Unlike Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, however, this triumvirate was an example not of rivalry and jealousy, but of brotherly love. Calvin's dedication to Farel and Viret prefacing his commentary on Titus is a true testimony to this brotherly love:

TO TWO EMINENT SERVANTS OF CHRIST,

WILLIAM FARELL AND PETER VIRET,

HIS DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN AND COLLEAGUES,

JOHN CALVIN

OFFERS HIS SALUTATIONS.

My Commentary-which now goes forth bearing the inscription of your name-is, indeed, a small gift; yet I fully believe that it will be acceptable to you, for this reason, that the subject of the Epistle induced me to make this Dedication. The task of putting the finishing hand to that building which Paul had begun in Crete, but left incomplete was undertaken by Titus. I occupy nearly the same position with regard to you.

When you had made some progress in rearing this church with vast exertions, and at great risk, after some time had elapsed I came, first as your assistant, and afterwards was left as your successor, that I might endeavor to carry forward, to the best of my ability, that work which you had so well and so successfully begun. This work, I and my colleagues are endeavoring to perform, if not with so great progress as might have been desired yet heartily and faithfully, according to our small ability.

To return to you, in consequence of holding the same relation to you which Paul assigned to Titus, I have been led to consider this similarity as a good reason for selecting you above all others, for dedicating to you this labor of mine. Meanwhile, to the present age, and perhaps to posterity, it will, at least, be some evidence of that holy union and friendship which exists between us. I think that there has never been, in ordinary life, a circle of friends so sincerely bound to each other as we have been in our ministry. With both of you I discharged here the office of pastor; and so far was there from being any appearance of envy, that you and I seemed to be one. We were afterwards separated by places; for you, Farell, were invited by the church of Neufchastel, which you had rescued from the tyranny of Popery, and brought into obedience to Christ; and you, Viret, are held in the same relation by the church of Lausanne.

While each of us occupies his own position, our union brings together the children of God into the fold of Christ, and even unites them in his body; while it scatters not only those outward enemies who openly carry on war with us, but those nearer and domestic enemies, by whom we are inwardly assailed. For I reckon this also to be one of the benefits resulting from being closely related, that filthy dogs, whose bites cannot succeed so far as to tear and rend the Church of Christ, do nothing more than bark against it with all their might. And, indeed, we cannot too thoroughly despise their insolence, since we can, with truth, glory before God, and have proved to men by the clearest evidence, that we cultivate no other society or friendship than that which has been consecrated to the name of Christ, which has hitherto been advantageous to his Church, and which has no other aim than that all may be at one with us in Him.

Farewell, my most excellent and most upright brethren. May the Lord Jesus continue to bless your pious labors!

Geneva, 29th November 1549.

Theodore Beza, Johannis Calvini Vita:

Calvin greatly delighted in that intimate friendship which he enjoyed with Farel and Viret, -- a friendship hateful to the evil-minded, but most gratifying to the good. And it was indeed a fair sight to contemplate these three extraordinary men, endowed with such various gifts, labouring in perfect union together to accomplish this heavenly design. Farel was conspicuous through greatness of soul, and a certain heroic nature; no one could remain unmoved by the thunder of his eloquence, or listen to his fervent prayers without feeling raised towards heaven. Viret, on the contrary, spoke with such exquisite sweetness, that his hearers hung irresistably on his lips. But as to Calvin, as many as were the words which he uttered, so many were the deep thoughts which filled the breasts of his hearers: so that it has often entered my mind, that in the union of the gifts enjoyed by these three, we see that which would constitute the highest perfection of an evangelical teacher.