Kenneth, King of Scotland, after murdering his nephew Malcolm, King Duff’s son and Prince of Cumberland, concealed the matter for a long time with false tears and solemn declarations. At last his conscience accused him. His troubled soul could find no rest by day or night; terrifying dreams and visions frightened him, and he was miserably tormented throughout his life.

It is extraordinary to read what Commynes writes of Louis XI, that French king; of Charles VIII; and of Alfonso, King of Naples—how, in the frenzy of his passion, he came to Sicily, and what wild acts he committed.

Guicciardini, a man very unlikely to believe falsehoods, relates how the ghost of his father Ferdinand, who had earlier died of grief, came and told him that he could not resist the French king. He thought everyone was crying, France, France!

The reason, says Commynes, was that he was a vile tyrant, a murderer and an oppressor of his subjects. He bought up all goods and sold them at prices he set himself; he sold abbeys to Jews and falconers. Neither his father Ferdinand nor he himself ever felt any scruple about a sin they committed. In conclusion, he says, it was impossible to act worse than they did.

Why were Pausanias, the Spartan tyrant, Nero, Otho and Galba so pursued by spirits in every house they entered, if not because of the murders they had committed? Why does the devil haunt many people’s houses after their deaths, appear to them while they are alive and seem to take possession of their homes and palaces, if not because of their various crimes?

Why did Richard III have such terrifying dreams, asks Polydore, if not because of his many murders? Why was Herod so tormented in mind? Because he had killed his wife Mariamne. Why was Theodoric, King of the Goths, so suspicious and so frightened by a mere fish’s head, if not because he had murdered those worthy Romans, Symmachus and his son-in-law Boethius? Caelius, book 27, chapter 22.

See further examples in Plutarch’s treatise On Those Who Are Punished Late by Divine Power, and in his book On Tranquillity of Mind, and so on. Indeed, sometimes God himself has a hand in it: to show his power, humble and discipline them, test their faith—Perkins calls it divine testing in his Cases of Conscience, book 1, chapter 8, section 1—and punish them for their sins.

God the avenger, as David calls him—God pursuing from behind in vengeance: a guilty soul feels his wrath, as Saul and Judas did. The poets expressed this through Adrastia, or Nemesis:

Nemesis follows and watches people’s footsteps, So that you do no wrong. ———

As Ammianus describes her in book 14, she is the queen of causes and the governor of events: now she pulls down the proud, now she raises and encourages the good. He gives Eusebius as an example; Nicephorus, in his Ecclesiastical History, book 10, chapter 35, gives Maximinus and Julian.

Terrifying examples of God’s just judgement, wrath and vengeance appear throughout histories: some people were eaten alive by rats and mice, such as Popiel II, King of Poland, in the year 830, with his wife and children. A similar story is told of Hatto, Archbishop of Mainz, in 969, likewise devoured by these vermin,

a story which, although the Jesuit Serarius disputes it with twenty-two arguments in his History of Mainz, book 4, chapter 5, Trithemius, Münster, the Magdeburg historians and many others report as true. I find another such example in Gerald of Wales’s Journey through Wales, book 2, chapter 2—and where does one not?

Yet despite all these terrors of conscience, these frequent and frightening punishments, or whatever else may cause or worsen this dreadful affliction in other religions, I see no reason at all why a Papist should ever despair or be troubled by his sins. However dissolute a wretch, notorious a villain or monstrous a sinner he may be, he can receive free pardon and complete remission of all his sins from that treasury of indulgences and merits which the pope administers.

There are so many general pardons for ages to come—for forty thousand years to come—so many jubilees, such frequent releases from the prison of purgatory for all souls, whether now living or after the body’s dissolution, so many particular Masses said daily in different churches, and so many altars consecrated for this purpose,

that if a man has money or friends, or will make the effort to visit such an altar, hear a Mass, say a prescribed number of Our Fathers and perform such and such a penance, he cannot go wrong. It is impossible for his mind to be troubled or for any scruple to disturb him.

Besides, the Schedule of Fees of the Apostolic Chamber, first published to raise money in the days of Leo X, that grasping pope, and since circulated for the same purpose, sets such low rates and grants dispensations for every offence—perjury, murder, incest, adultery and so on—for so many grossi or dollars. It seems to me enough to invite anyone to sin and provoke someone to offend who otherwise would not.

Such comforting remission, so lenient and easily obtained a pardon, so ready to hand and secured at such little expense and effort—I cannot see how anyone with friends among them, as I say, or money in his purse, or at least the will to seek relief, can come to harm or become distressed; how he can despair, be in danger of damnation or be troubled in mind.

Their spiritual fathers can apply remedies so readily, so skilfully tighten and loosen the strings of their devotions, wind and unwind them, play upon their consciences with persuasive speeches and terrifying threats, settle and unsettle them to their own best advantage, raise and cast them down so easily, let them in and out, that I cannot see how anyone among them should suffer greatly or often from this disease, or finally come to ruin. The causes named above must therefore take hold more frequently in others.