It is 1555.
The place: Piedmont, in the Italian Alps.
This year, the Waldenses will suffer greatly due to Gastaldo’s Order, which demands that they move from their homes in three days’ time and resettle in another area. The order further maintains that the Vadois must sell their property to Roman Catholics within twenty days. Failure to do so may result in death. In his History of the Waldenses, J. A. Wylie writes:
“Anything more inhuman and barbarous under the circumstances than this edict it would not be easy to imagine. It was the depth of winter, and an Alpine winter has terrors unknown to the winters of even more northern regions. How ever could a population like that on which the decree fell, including young children and old men, the sick and bed-ridden, the blind and the lame, undertake a journey across swollen rivers, through valleys buried in snow, and over mountains covered with ice? They must inevitably perish, and the edict that cast them out was but another form of condemning them to die of cold and hunger.”[1]
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Wylie continues, explaining their plight: |
The Waldenses removed themselves and sent representatives to the Court of Turin to entreat the House of Savoy to uphold treaties to which they had pledged their word. While these Waldensian representatives were there, on April 17th, 1655, Wylie, relates, the Marquis de Pianeza “departed secretly at midnight from Turin, and appeared before the Valleys at the head of an army of 15,000 men. Waldensian deputies were by appointment knocking at the door of the marquis in Turin, while he himself was on the road to La Torre.”
And yet, the Waldenses overcame the armed opposition! They knew well the mountains upon which the fighting occurred. But then, on April 21, a sly maneuver tricked the Vadois. The Marquis de Pianeza
“announced, by sound of trumpet at the various Vaudois entrenchments, his willingness to receive their deputies and treat for peace. Delegates set out for his camp, and on their arrival at headquarters were received with the utmost urbanity, and sumptuously entertained. Pianeza expressed the utmost regret for the excesses his soldiers had committed, and which had been done, he said, contrary to orders. He protested that he had come into their valleys only to track a few fugitives who had disobeyed Gastaldo's order, that the higher communes had nothing to fear, and that if they would admit a single regiment each for a few days, in token of their loyalty, all would be amicably ended.”[4]
Could Pianeza be trusted? Pastor Leger warned against believing Pianaza, but believing Pianeza’s words, the Vaudois
“received under their roof the murderers of themselves and their families. The first two days, the 22nd and 23rd of April, were passed in comparative peace, the soldiers eating at the same table, sleeping under the same roof, and conversing freely with their destined victims. This interval was needed to allow every preparation to be made for what was to follow. The enemy now occupied the towns, the villages, the cottages, and the roads throughout the valleys. They hung upon the heights. . . The Vaudois were enclosed as in a net — shut in as in a prison. At last the blow fell with the sudden crash of the thunderbolt.”[5]
Pastor Leger received multiple eyewitness accounts of the torture endured by these Waldenses: beheadings, burnings, flayings, and dozens of atrocities were committed against these dear brethren.
When word of these heinous acts reached England, Oliver Cromwell sent money to help the poor Waldensian brethren who mourned the death of their loved ones. The East Shilton Baptist Church (and presumably other Baptist congregations) likewise sent monetary assistance to the ailing brethren.
John Milton, who served as Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State under Cromwell, was a friend to Baptists. He believed his political writings could help others understand the issues of the day. True to form, Milton wrote a sonnet on behalf of the atrocities committed that fateful day.
In “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont," Milton cries to God to see the plight of these dear Vaudois. In an agonizing tone, he pleads . . .
“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
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 Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe."[6]
Powerfully, Milton took up his pen to portray what persecutions God's people had endured. His sonnet lives on as a testament to thousands who lost their lives in this act of cruel religious intolerance.
May those of us who enjoy religious freedom today thank God for this tremendous privilege! Many throughout history never tasted such liberty. May we savor it well!
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